Nordic Mining ASA ($NOM)

Hello, and thank you for tuning into this session today. My name is Finn Marum. I'm the CEO of Nordic Mining. Purpose of this session is twofold. First of all, to give you an update as to what's going on at Engebo, and secondly, to introduce our new Managing Director here, Andrew Templeman. Before I leave the word to Andrew, I just briefly want to remind everyone why we're here today. First of all, we've invested almost NOK 4 billion into a world-class facility to produce rutile and garnet, a strategic location to supply critical raw materials into Europe. And we're entering now the ramp-up phase, the final stages of the ramp-up phase, and that is what Andrew will talk to us in greater details about. Andrew, it's quiet here today. Why is that?

That's because we're in the middle of a maintenance -- scheduled maintenance shutdown. So we've got a lot of work going on up here in the crushing chamber and also down in the processing plant.

Before we get into all the details, tell me you're not Norwegian. Why did you come to Engebo?

So, definitely picked up in my accent. I'm an Australian. I've been in the mining and processing industry, and construction industry for the last 35 years, and predominantly in the last 30 years in mineral processing. My previous employment was with Doral Mineral Sands, who is heavily associated with one of our end users, and hence, that's how I got to meet you. My previous employment has been involved in 2 mine operational startups, and also the acquisition of another project that was in care and maintenance that has managed to be turned around into a profitable business.

And even though Australia is on the other side of the globe, the operations are quite similar, aren't they?

Yes, yes, certainly. Not the front end. The front end here is obviously a bit more crushing and grinding and materials handling. But my understanding is this part of the business is quite successful and as many, its design, that's more of the back-end part which is a processing plant, which is very similar to what we see in the Australian projects.

That's where we've had our issues as well. Before we get into all that, the coming to Norway from, I don't know, 40 degrees in Perth. Besides that, what's the biggest change for you?

Yes, certainly, the cold weather is taking a little bit to adapt to, but the actual scenery and the different culture here was a lot different to what I see in Australia. So adapting to that has been another challenge. But it's been very pleasant.

Good. Glad to hear. All right. So we're about 200 meters into the mountain in the tunnel and what do we have here?

This is the first stage of the mining operation where we have an ore pass right at the back here that feeds down into the primary dual crusher, down on to the main conveyor feeding down into the processing plant.

Yes. So the actual mining operation is now about 250 meters above us.

That's correct.

And the rock is thrown into the ore shafts, 80 centimeters diameter and it hits the crusher, and we get down to 10 centimeters, and then to the plant?

Yes.

All right, Andrew, we move down to the plant. What happens in this building?

This is a comminition building. This is where the final stage crushing happens and then we move into here into the milling section.

And this is basically where the rock goes from those 10, 15 centimeters down to sand?

Yes.

Okay. In January, we raised additional capital. We've had Systemex on site. You've been here now since the 19th of January. What are your impressions so far?

Look, it's -- it's got its operational challenges, but the operation's got a lot of, lot of opportunity in front of it. A couple of key issues is sort of water quality and some mechanical issues, but they're all resolvable. There's a good opportunity to move this business forward.

Yeah. And from an operational point of view, first mine in forty years?

Absolutely. That's -- that's a real challenge here for Norway. Being the first mine in forty years and then trying to find a workforce that's got experience does have its challenges. So, you know, you talk about Systemex that have been here. We need to find support to help and coach this team forward.

Yeah. But the team has potential?

Absolutely.

And they're motivated?

Very motivated.

Perfect. So we've moved from the crushing building into the wet plant. And the -- basically sand and water is pumped into this building and then what happens?

Well, there's, there's a number of stages here, but where we are standing right now is where the winds are, the wet magnetic separators, which is a key part of the rutile circuit.

And what is the challenge here?

The challenges here is the actual efficiency of the machines. So what's driving the efficiency is the water quality.

So water management is a big issue for this plant?

Absolutely. So water management, we're seeing a lot of the dirtier water being used in this part of the facility and not in others. So a simple solution has been to swap that water around, which has been completed recently. So once we go back through and clean up these machines, we'll start to see the impact of that.

And these changes have already been implemented. So we're starting to see the effects of it?

Yes, we're starting to see, but we still need to come through and clean up these machines. So it'll probably take another week and then we should start to see the impact of that change.

So we've been through the plant now, and we talked along the way about the various stages and some of the challenges. But if you want to summarize what are the key technical challenges that we faced with at present?

So the key technical challenge is water quality, number one. And we've instigated a couple of changes, and we're starting to see some improvement there. But there is a longer-term plan, which will take maybe another month or 2 to get resolved. The second challenge is our rutile circuit, which is -- hasn't been proven up yet. We're running the dryer up and there's still the dry plant to be run through. So we need to get stable production to be able to run that through. And the third problem is the wind circuit, and that's as a result of the clean water. So we're going through a process of cleaning them, testing them and then putting them back into operation.

You've had on site Australia's best expert on rutile production. What's his verdict?

It's challenging, but he believes it can be done. So he's been through and tested a few things. It doesn't behave the same ways back in Australia, but he believes there are methods to get there.

So we're going to release our first quarter production numbers at the beginning of April. How is that going to look?

Q1 is going to look ordinary but the process here is the picture. We're going to be making changes and seeing a ramp-up in Q2 with the ultimate target of reaching the results in Q3 and Q4.

So you expect the changes to take place in Q2?

Yes, that's when we should see a change in the operation, in Q2.

Okay. So we've been through the operation now, and it's about 300 meters from where we started to where we're at, and this is where the product gets exported. So we have a compact footprint and a highly efficient operation.

Yes, absolutely. And the final part is the final end product, which is the rutile, which is a world-class product. Very low radioactivity and well looked after, or well sorted for.

That wraps up our operational update. Thanks for tuning in, and I look forward to addressing you again during our Q1 presentation at the beginning of May.