Sigma Lithium Corporation (SGML) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good afternoon, and good morning, everyone. I Ana Cabral Gardner. I'm the co-CEO and Co-Chairperson of Sigma Lithium. And I am delighted to present you with our third quarter results for 2022. In this quarter, we announced significant progress on construction where we completed 94% of civil construction and 76% of the steel construction for our Greentech plant, which you see on my background and at the cover of the presentation. And as a result, we are very much on time and on schedule to start commissioning this plan by December 2022. So the next slides have 2 disclaimers. And the disclaimers are related to the fact that we're going to make quite a lot of forward-looking statements in this call. And we shall not be held responsible for the forward-looking statements in this call that we're going to make. So without further ado, I'll go straight into where we are on this construction. Well, as you can see, the main highlight of the quarter was the substantial leapfrogging we've achieved on construction in the quarter. In other words, as we discussed before, construction curve looks like a statistical normal distribution or statistical distribution where you got a lot of concentration of progress happening within a shorter period of time once construction is no longer linear when it starts progressing on multiple fronts. So we entered that period by mid-September. And ever since, we've been staying on track by basically following what we call multipronged approach to construction. In other words, once we finish civil engineering and civil construction, we are now looking at basically 4 key fronts of assembly and equipment construction taking place at this site. And we call them by areas, meaning Area 200 is the crushing module of the Greentech plant. Area 300 is the DMS module of the Greentech plant. Area 600 is the substation. And then Area 100 is the overall construction completion. Well, that's for the plant. But then we got another key part of the businesses, which is our very own competitive advantage because we are seeing this Greentech plant, state-of-the-art, the best plant in the world from environmental sustainability perspective with a very high-quality spodumene ore that belongs to Sigma. So we are fully integrated as we have access to today, 33 million tonnes of reserves, 86 million tonnes of mineral resources that will feed our industrial plant. So in summary, we are on track to initiate commissioning of the crushing module of the Greentech Plant by year-end December. And then shortly thereafter in January, we are going to start crushing material. Then shortly thereafter, in February, we are going to start processing material in the DMS plant. And remember, this is a quite sophisticated DMS. There are 6 DMS, there are 2 ultrafine DMSs which is what allows us to achieve very high recoveries. So that's February. And then we gave ourselves 2 months of lag so that we are indicating to customers that we're going to have production, meaning product on the ground, first shipment happening in April 23. So this is not near-term lithium. This is lithium for right now. On the mine that's going to feed this operation, the pre-stripping of the Phase 1 North Pit has already been completed. We are -- this is mining activities, meaning with pre-strip and now we're getting to the actual pegmatite to the ore body. And then we start to build the ramps and we start to build the access to the plant. And we're starting to build, what we call, the tables of the mine, meaning ramps and the access areas of that mine. So overall, and the technical name of the table, right, the stairs is what we call -- it's what we call benches, right? So when you see a mine with all these little stairs, this is what we call mine benches. And they are dictated by inclination by geotechnical results so that we end up with a very safe mine operationally. The blasting has started. And as we announced earlier, we put quite a lot of technology on the blasting activities in order to make them environmentally friendly. So we're saving about 50% of the CO2 that [indiscernible], which is the emitter of the blasting would emit by basically conducting computer simulations and controlled blasting. You don't see fireworks blasting that decrease noise, decrease dust for the communities, but more importantly, uses live explosives and therefore emits less CO2. So there's technology in the mine as well, green technology and that. So overall, on the Greentech plant, we completed 94% of the concrete civil works, 76% of the steel construction. The workforce on site concomitantly as we are like at the peak of this curve of construction is expected to increase to [indiscernible] activity now accelerates from the phase so that we can make our deadlines. So that's construction. We're going to spend quite a lot of time on this presentation just talking about that. How ready to go we are to deliver 270,000 tonnes of high-purity battery-grade lithium straight into battery producers in one of the tightest lithium markets in history. Corporate positioning, we have, as a result of the significant growth strengthened substantially the governance of this company. We brought Dana Perlman, who is a seasoned executive. She is on the Board of O'Reilly Auto Parts, which is a decade-long traditional auto parts company in the United States, is a $50 billion U.S. listed company. And Dana had a few committees at the company, and her role is to bring added governance to Sigma. More importantly, she's a female professional of the highest caliber. So we hired the best person for the job. It turns out she's a female, which puts Sigma way ahead of the Nasdaq diversity goals where 50% of our Board is now comprised of the minorities, meaning non-male. Another important corporate development was that we terminated the obligations that we undertook under the HOA with Mitsui back in March 2019. We adore Mitsui. They've been incredible partners, and our relationship with them by no mean ends. It's just going to evolve into something else. That original HOA is being terminated, which means we freed up more material. Specifically, we freed up 80,000 tonnes of high purity battery grade concentrate a year for 11 years. So we now have more material, more commercial flexibility to think through strategically where we want to take this company. And lastly, and very proudly, and this warrants the whole call on its own, it became pretty clear to us in Egypt at COP-27 where we participated with our full ESG team that Sigma has been and will always be at the forefront of environmental and social sustainability in the entire battery material supply chain. We've been leading roundtables, leading dialogues being constructive like in the spirit of COP, we're sharing our framework. I mean we shared with the world sponsored by the UN, how we actually got to this point, how we use United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which were the only metrics available 6 years ago when we started to metrify every accomplishment on both E and S. And I would like to kind of steal the thunder here for Jamie and James and ask you to save the date on the week of December 7, where we're going to host the joint event with NASDAQ in New York to talk about [indiscernible] because this was the COP of implementation where now moving from talk to action, not we, all companies. So all these conversations about net zero now need to become action if the world plans to actually heat at back at the track of 1% a year for industrial levels. So we're going to have quite a lot to share on that regard very shortly. This presentation isn't going to be discussing COP. But what I want to say is our collective team of ESG in Egypt [indiscernible] participated in 26 events, I keynoted 3 events. We were the case study with the United Nations DESA on utilization of sustainable development goals for the entire mining industry to track social and environmental achievements. We were -- we prepared a workshop, and we were the workshop for the auto industry for the battery material supply chain and the investment COP track where we again shared with the world our framework. Our framework is like Java coding. We make it available -- we want everyone to use it because, again, there's no point in us winning this. There's no winners and losers. There's only 1looser, which is our planet. So ideally, everyone should be doing the same exact thing, right? Tracking, metrifying, pushing management teams and achieving goals. Without further ado, I go straight into the [ meats ] of construction. Next slide. The next page shows the upcoming catalysts. So what are we going to be doing next? Well, commissioning. That's the big catalyst. By December, we are going to be starting finishing of this entire plant, and we start by the crushing module of the Greentech plant. The crushing module is the first module, You see in the back, you see the pictures, it's pretty much almost assembled, and that circuit gets tested by the beginning of December. We're planning to have crush material on the ground in January. That is followed by the DMS plant module of the Greentech plant, again, the water pumps, the pump water 6 kilometers away from Jequitinhonha, meaning sewage water into our own sewage treatment station, where the water is removed of solid fecal residues to get into our plant that gets commissioned in December. And then the DMS plant is ready to run. So crushing plant commission or on the ground this in February, commission December or on the ground February, then that ore gets to test the DMS circuit and the DMS circuit basically -- we gave ourselves 2 months to test it to adjust it. There are 6 DMSs. There are 2 ultrafine DMSs. That's what allows for our superior recoveries. I mean, remember, we're achieving 66% of lithium recovery in advanced media separation plant. That is spectacular. And environmentally sustainable. So ultimately, that requires about 6 weeks. So we are giving ourselves signaling for clients that production will commence in April 2023. That's Catalyst number one, production. We are going to have revenues, EBITDA and massive cash flow generation in about a couple of weeks, right? Then we have Phase 2 and 3 expansion We are going to be hosting separate investor call later this month, most likely after Thanksgiving. We're going to be talking in detail on how we're planning to expand the operations. We told you gentlemen on our Investor Day in the NASDAQ on September 13 that we were no longer going to just double that we plan to triple. Why is that? Because it is inexpensive. In other words, to double production as our feasibility states, it would cost us $75 million, and we would get to 531,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium concentrate. It would take about 8, 9 months to construct that expansion by 2024, April, we would be at that range. So from 270,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium concentrate to 531,000. Now given the extraordinary market environment for lithium and we're going to post on our website a participation have been honored to be invited to by this Financial Times with Trafigura and the lead analyst at Goldman Sachs, when we talked about the lithium environment, we all agree that this is an exceptional lithium market where the lag in investments have caused significant tightness and supply and demand are meeting at a very high end of the cost curve. So we, at Sigma are fortunate to have been ready because we never stopped investing. We never stopped working in '18, '19, '20 and '21. So we didn't suffer from the lag, hence, we're ready. And as a result, we're going to not double but triple. In other words, we're going to combine Phases 2 and 3. We already announced the scale of the ore body in Phase 3. It has 23 million tonnes of measured indicated material, and that will be the main [indiscernible] [ going concern ] for an expanded operation. What does that mean? It means that we initiate at 270,000 tonnes of battery-grade material. In April, we start constructing. We're going to stop earthworks as soon as rainy season ends February, March. In April, we start constructing an expanded Model 2, which is a line train for double capacity in throughput. And that would, in itself, potentially get up to 500,000 tonnes additional of battery-grade lithium concentrate. There's a separate study being conducted on that end, and we're going to be publicizing that study, most likely after Thanksgiving. So big Catalyst #2. There's a lot of room to grow here. There's a lot of lithium to be delivered here. In addition, we went back and resumed Phase 4, which is an ore body that all ready in our Ni 43-101 [indiscernible]. We initially thought it was small, turned out as we continue drilling activities, emerges with Phase 2 ore body, and it's not that small. And we're going to be talking about the scale of that which means that gives us longevity, continuity at that rate of 750,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium concentrate. And this -- all of this will be the object of a separate investor call. The next slide is the timetable. So where are we? Well, we're done, right? We, as we said, are about to commission, and we are about commission. In other words, long lead items because of our strategy of equity funding this operation, long lead items, everyone suffered with inflation, cost of equipment [indiscernible] that everybody did. I can say Sigma suffered a little worse. Why was it? One, 70% of our equipment was procured in Brazil. Why Brazil? Like Australia, like Canada, it is one of the largest mining countries in the world. This plant you see in the back is [indiscernible] is manufactured here. So no issues with shortages of equipment, one. Inflation? Well, how did we tackle it? Like the major global mining companies do. As you recall, we equity funded our operation. And therefore, we repurchased prepaid, pre-deposited all of our long lead items and medium lead items way back in the first quarter and in the second quarter, so that we would have certainty of delivery and some certainty of price and no surprises. So as a result, as we go to our [indiscernible] curve of construction in October, November, the critical key periods, remember, we entered this with 300 people. We went to 400 people. We're now at 750 people on site. We're going to hit 1,000 by year month -- by the end of the month. So this is it. Equipment has been arriving beautifully. And when they're delays, we, again, equity funded, we throw money at the problem. Also, we have [ prices ]. So we make whole on any delays. Usually, for the 30% of the equipment that is not procured in country by airfreighting it from all parts of the world when it's being manufactured. The cost about $2 million. Well, what is the cost of not having them here. If you look at our mathematical free cash flow generation numbers, at an average price of $2,500 per tonne of concentrate, which, as you know, is 1/3 of the market price, it's about $50 million a month in cash flow lost. So $2 million for airfreight to ensure timeliness is the right strategic managerial decision to make. So hence, we are on time. So when you look at this page here, you can see the crushing module of the Greentech Plant pretty much done. And you see the pictures of [ Barreiro ] views. And then we got the [ West plant ], which keeps on going. Those are the things you see on the aerial models and the part of the back of it. So that's -- there's work to do there. And then the infrastructure, which is basically civil and steel and rebars and all of that, but it's kind of going quite well following the build of the plant. And then we have, what we call, mechanical completion, which is -- these are LEGOs, right? So we've got all these LEGO areas. How does this plant work as a whole? Well, you got to connect the LEGO pieces once assembled with piping and with wire. Why? This plant is automated, and it is digitalized. So the very last bit of construction, it's actually wiring, panels and automation. So that's what -- that's why we're giving ourselves 6 to 8 weeks for the DMS plant because we're planning to run it through the automated/digitalized industrial digitalization strategy with an algorithm that we prepared proprietarily to ensure consistency of recoveries regardless who is running each specific shift. The next slide is mining. So a bit more on the plant. So let's just go on the construction update of the plant. The next slide. So this is in numbers all that I talked about, right. And again, facts only, no opinions. You can see by the numbers of each one of the sub construction areas. I mean, and I try to keep it very summarized and very easily visually for you to follow. Concrete works, steel reinforcement, steel structure assembly. Again, these numbers are way past 70% the numbers, right? And then the conveyor belt assembly. This is a conveyor belt that links the crushing plant with the DMS, Greentech plant. I mean the whole is the Greentech plant. It has 2 modules. The crossing that crosses material, that's kind of basic mining. But then it goes into the DMS, dense media separation plant, which works the magic of getting that crushed material into a product that is at 100x more valuable. So that is where it goes from x to 100x. 100x based on this week's auctions in Australia were $8,400 a tonne. That's the size of the value creation technological transformation happening right there at Rio Jequitinhonha. Then you've got place work assembly, equipment assembly. So this is -- this is a crushing circuit happening. As you can see, leaps and bounds, the numbers we showed you guys in September, look nothing like that. So 2.5 months in, you had a whole leap because we're going into that exponential curve of construction. The next page shows the same for the dense media separation plan. So please turn the page, yes. So this is where you see the mixers, the concrete. So again, concrete done, steel enforcement done. And then we have the end of the conveyor assembly and the end of this 2 structure assembly. So this is the second plant that gets built once the crushing is done. And again, don't be, let's say, concerned about the low numbers. It's exactly the same process we went through on the dry plant. Equipment arrives, it gets assembled by the manufacturers team, happens in parallel and in weeks, these things are up, again, LEGOs, right? So it's about putting LEGOs together, no more than that. The next page. We have -- so the long lead -- the long -- let's say, the long elements here are basically concrete and steel. Everything else is just LEGO building essentially. It's basically getting the pieces of equipment assembled like a little LEGO. So detail engineering. Detail engineering, as you know, it's ongoing all the way to the end. What has Sigma done, and we keep on reminding you on the right. And now you're kind of can see how this feeds into speed, right? We have adopted a global large mining company approach. In other words, typically juniors they want to show when in construction, share price movements, what have you, and they start building on basic engineering. For us, private equity investors with quite a lot of our own capital under guardianship here that was completely not a viable strategy. We execute that. Why because we needed to have a certainty before we started to fill. Certainty of what? Of the equipment to be used, quotes, availability, geographical sourcing learning whether the geographical sourcing could become a scarcity issue, which is what's going on in Australia, for example, and a little less in Canada, learning about whether we could get from quotes. And once we got them quotes, could we deposit money towards it. Could we get certainty of delivery? Could you be sure about timetable so that we could plan how much money would we need to raise in order to withstand the period of construction. So for us, certainty, was a necessity and this is why we chose to spend $22 million in total of detailed engineering. It's not cheap, but it pays back in [indiscernible] considering where we are now on time, on schedule, on budget, no surprises, right? And so the result of it is what you got on the left. We've done we basically entered detailed engineering 4 months before completion of construction, which ends with first shipment of product on the ground, which kind of demonstrates with numbers with fact how obsessive we were about precision, about data, about detailed designs about what kind of parts we need to procure, where, from home, how much can we say, can we deposit? Will they deliver. Can we send inspectors. Our inspectors were sent to sites of all of our suppliers in order to make sure they're actually building our material on time, as promised as contractually scheduled. So we built this like a major mining company because back in December 2021, all of you, gentlemen, our investors entrusted us with your equity funding, and we made that decision to equity fund construction, and we felt it was the wisest decision we ever made in this company because having equity funded gave us the flexibility to run, derisk and ensure equipment delivery and equipment guidance. This is a construction update video, and I'm hoping we can play it, let me [ tune ] my image. Can we play it? Or is it on site? So you can see the ROM pad, which is the ROM pad wall that has been in construction for some time. That's kind of a holds the ore, right? Ore gets piled up there to be fed into the crushing. You see here in the 3D renderings. So that's ore. And then you have the crushing sector. Look how beautiful this is. Every video, you see this more and more advanced so then the crushing gets that ore like the ROM ore. This crushing circuit was built to specificities. I mean we purchased this because the primary jaw crusher was increased from 800 millimeters, which is 80 centimeters to 1,200 millimeters, which is 1.2 meters to minimize fines. Then once -- so we lose a lot less ore and a lot less material in the crossing. So once that material gets crushed and it gets crushed to particles, you don't crush it micron. That's a huge competitive advantage of the product. So it goes into the DMS plant. The DMS plant here, you see the tanks and the DMS is the one that's currently being assembled equipment is arriving. On mining, see this is the first testing of mining. This is what you're going to see now is the perfect controlled blasting, perfect. You see very little dust mostly on the ground. So they got it right. How did they get it right, computer simulation. Now they already got to rock. So they already got to fresh rock. They finished pre-stripping. So you see them starting to build, what they call, the tables, right, which is the ramps and the stair -- kind of the mining stairs, the mining tables. And there's about 250 workers just here. We're using a mining commissioner. It's called [indiscernible]. They are very experienced, one of the best in Brazil. So this video is available on our site as a beautiful song. It's called carol of the bell. We put it in to kind of keep us on track to Christmas, right? And so as the video is available. So you can click on our site, on our first home page, and you can watch it. There's quite a lot of images. Here's the general view. You can see the crushing pretty much done, right through the back, it's going to feed into the DMS plant. There's a kilometer of construction here. It's significant. In the previous photo, go back to the previous photo. It's actually a lovely photo, [Audio Gap] the briefing. Next, next, 2 pages out. They do the morning security, the briefing where the construction companies gather the personnel on site and they do the security, the briefing so that they are mindful of personal security and no accidents. We've had an extremely low ratio of accidents. Know that, everybody healthy, everybody is safe because we call it the safety ring. They hold the hands every morning, and they go through the main key points on safety and personal health and safety and only then they say prayer in their own religions, everybody has a religion. And then once they do that, then they move into their daily activities. With 1,000 people on the ground, we have to go about it that way. I mean we have to get personal safety being part of the soul of the worker. He needs to be committed to his own safety and to the safety of his colleagues so that we can continue to maintain our super low safety record, a super low, meaning spectacular safety records, right? Next. Next page, we've got -- so this is another picture, another angle of the cluster. So you can see the conveyor belt, it's almost complete. And then you've got the conveyor belt moving towards the DMS plant now and crusher being assembled. This is where we start commissioning in -- well, in 6 weeks. So there's going to be crushed ore on the ground. I mean we are [ full selling ] DSO. So crushed ore, could be selling crushed ore, but we're not going to do any of that, right? We're going to be selling this $8,000 plus beautiful, high-purity battery-grade material straight into battery makers. It's an enabler product, gentlemen. It's so pure, It's so devoid of potassium, sodium and iron oxide that it enables other [ tollers ], other refiners to achieve the super high levels of certification, meaning 56.5, 57%, over 98%, 99.9% purity of lithium required by the high-end nickel rich manufacturers, right? So I'm back into video. Next page. More pictures of the plant. Next page. This is a quick [indiscernible]. You see it arrives in LEGOs, right? These things arrive, some of them be airfreighted, small. I mean the international equipment being airfreighted, it's not a big deal. The big step was done domestically in Brazil. So that was the perfect strategy devised by my partner, the co-CEO, Calvyn Gardner; and his COO, Brian Talbot to expedite our time table. Both gentlemen live in [indiscernible], boots on the ground. I mean this is a very hands-on management team, just to put it mildly, right? So the next page. Next page, you see kind of a different view like how -- yes, so you see how this crusher connects on the other side to the DMS. So different angles from sort of similar parts of the plant. There's a lot of health and safety [ boards ], huge focus on health and safety. That's why we got the stellar record, right? We're making it come from the soul of the person. It has to come from a DNA, meaning the DNA is like when you climb the mountain you need to be safe. Otherwise, the guy down the rope is not going to be safe. If you lose your catch, you're going to lose your entire rope. So you're going to kill 7 people on the mountain. So that's kind of the mindset we try to instill in the people. It's the mountaineer mindset on health and safety. It's not just about you, it's about everybody else who's on you on that bit of construction. So the next slide, you've got the -- okay, this is the back, right? And you see that equipment was just being impacted. You can see the conveyor belts, yes, and then you can see the construction kind of stretching into, what would be, the DMS, the dense media separation plant, and you can see how advanced this is on both fronts, right? For those who've been on site here is that DMS wall, you see here the DMS wall contains all these earth because this is where the ore, the mined ore will be deposited. And because we now have bigger drop pressures, these are big blocks of ore, it's 1.2 meters of blocks. We're not exploding to small because it's our own proprietary custom-made equipment. So the DMS wall had to be some massive 14-meter tall wall, reinforced with concrete and steel to hold back the ore that gets thrown into this primary drop pressure into secondary, tertiary so that it gets then delivered to the DMS plant, which is kind of down there to the left. Next page, and again, all of you invited to go to visit this because it's a wonder. It's really a wonder that we're building this in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it's in the middle of everywhere because it's the second richest phase in a federation. But if you can look on nowhere, it's a region, where 94% of the people live of government welfare before Sigma. Now 3,000 people directly and indirectly are employed and have decent levels of income as a result of Sigma. So we're lifting this whole place, is like development from the ashes. This is a dry area. It's plagued by drought. It's in risk of desertification because it has no water. So we're just lifting an entire region with it. Here on top, you see the conveyor belt, the one that is at 15% connecting that dry plant into the wet plant into the DMS plant, which is there, like you see the concrete finished in the back. Next page. Here. So the crushed ore bin construction. So that -- the crushed ore, it goes into these bins. So you see primary crushers, secondary crusher, tertiary crusher, and then you got the bins. So this is the construction of the bins that is going to store the ore. And you see from down now that you see in the back there, the ROM pad, the ROM wall. So you're seeing from the bottom, the conveyor belts on top. Next page. Here, and that's, again, crushed ore bins, more crushed ore bins. So again, conveyor belts. This is getting assembled, so you see the equipment being assembled. And that's going to be feeding into the DMS, the dense separation circuit of the Greentech Plant. Next page. On the back there on the side, you can see the substation 2. This kind of an area view of the DMS plant construction. This is the ultimate LEGO. This is a 30% of the equipment that's all imported. We're bringing technology to Brazil, technology that we help develop perfect, automate and digitalize. So this is industrial transformation at best. At COP in Egypt, I was a keynote on the panel sponsored -- hosted by McKinsey with the Chief Sustainability Officer, Global of Microsoft. And we were tag teaming on how this is it, how by digitalizing and increasing efficiencies, one can contribute to climate action. Also, Well, this plant is basically 0 carbon. Why? Not because of one big invention because of a series of little things that we put together that contributed to this transformational change in the plants. So this is basically the reason why this plant is essentially 0 carbon. This is a series of little things that get to contribute to this plant eventually becoming 0 carbon. The next page, and you can see the state of that, how it's -- so concrete mostly done steel. So again, on track on schedule for February, February initiation of commissioning, ore on the ground in April. And they're going flat out. The equipment has flown in, assembled like LEGOs. Our CEO, Brian Talbot, is the most experienced professional in the world running dense media separation plant. We've been doing that for 10 years. In the lithium industry, there's no one like him. He's also South African. So we got a plants being built in Brazil by 2 South Africans, Calvin-Gardner and Brian Talbot. So those are South African Brazilian flag kind of hanging in there. The next page. You got -- the next page, you've got, again, you see the control room, how the equipment arrives, right? So a bunch of legos arrived. They put together very quickly. So it's a very rapid turnaround in assembly. The teams involved in assembly are our own proprietary team meaning people that we have brought ourselves. They're part of Brian's team and it's important because ultimately, what we got here is the experience of the teams that have worked through here. So again, something that a key profession, our Chief Operating Officer, has been doing for 10 years. very straightforward, equipment jets in, its labeled, gets assembled and then we got the LEGOs assembled, less pieces to pipe them together and then to connect them with the electrics. The next page electrical substation. So this is a key part of the whole thing. I mean without electricity, there's no plant. So we're going for -- this is called Area 600. And again, we're working with Promon and with [indiscernible] in order to accelerate this, we've been encountering great partnership from the state of Minas Gerais in the process of building this. So [indiscernible], the state -- it's a private company, but it's the state concessionaire of distribution and transmission has been instrumental in helping on the connectivity of this into the transmission line. I mean, remember, if you can see on the picture, it's hard to draw, but I'll show you here, this is the main transmission line it's there. We don't need to build anything. It's essentially connecting a substation to an existing transmission line that's already here. right? So that's when we say all infrastructure is on the ground, I mean, again, because it's there. We don't have to build transmission lines from the generation assets into the company into the block. Next. This is a water piping. And I want to say something about the water. That was a big topic when I presented a COP because I presented on gender Day and on Water Day and on Investment Day. On Water Day, we made it very clear that we are not -- our water score in the LCA is the maximum. Why? We use sewage water. Sewage meaning raw sewage. It's unbelievable. And as Brazilian, I'm actually [indiscernible] in other words, this is Rio Jequitinhonha, which is a permanent river, it runs year out. We decided to build a 5-kilometer pipe from Rio Jequitinhonha, all the way up to the plant so that we would not cannibalize the water of our communities. The water of our community is that little stream of water that runs between Pit 1 and Pit 2. So [indiscernible] anyone, if you have a picture of that, 2 caves in the pit, you'll be nice to show it. We didn't touch it. We preserved it. We went through an enormous [ pretzel like exercise to build 2 deep pits for the first mine in order to preserve the creek that runs for 5 months of the year and it is dry for the rest. But that little Creek is the only source of drinking water for that community. So then what. How do we see our operations. These operations are water intensive. So we went to the Jequitinhonha, and we've built a very efficient water circuit, meaning we recycle 100% of this water. So the water comes in, we lose about 10% on every batch and we keep on recycling throughout the dense media separation plan, aka, the wet plant. So that was the plan. So that really drops our water usage to nothing to like the water balance is like 20-something cubic meters an hour is kind of for you -- for those of you who know water balance, 20 cubic meters an hour is very low. So then as we started to test the plant, we learned that the water was so contaminated with raw sewage, meaning fecal solid residues that when we went into the dense media sensors, it jeopardized the [indiscernible] physical chemical mechanism through which the dense media separation occurs. In other words, lithium is the third largest -- third lowest metal in the periodic table. The third lowest, third lightest, it is light, right? So lithium flows. And so through micro density, we would keep the lithium floating on the dense media of magnetite and ferrosilicon. So lithium floating. What else flows? Fecal solid residues coming from this river, which turns out to be open sewage by the time it gets to our farm. So we have to build a sewage treatment station for inbound water so that we could clean out the solid fecal residues to make it suitable for the use in the Greentech Plant, the optical sensors of the automated digitalized Greentech Plant. So we ended up with a maximum [ score ] on water because we're using sewage water. It's just a side note. In the water piping system, as you can see from the release, is extremely advanced. I mean 97% of pipe distribution has been completed. 75% of the welding has been completed, 58% of pipe excavation has been completed. So again, significant advancements on that bit of the construction. Next step. Again, more on the water piping. So more pictures, I mean and you see Rio Jequitinhonha. So now we're talking about the mining and then there's a timetable and there. Next slide calories. Next slide. Here's the timetable. We're here, we're done. We finished prestripping, we are mining. The run of mine is going to go straight to the back of the run of mine pad and is going to be accumulated there until the crusher starts commissioning by the end of December. So throughout the end of November and December, we're going to accumulate about, what, 1.5 month of production with these big blocks of ores, and they will sit there and they'll be running through the crusher. So done. And again, done in the most sustainable way possible. 15%, 1-5, of the fuel utilized in our mine is biofuels. We're planning to take it up to 50%. The explosives we cut emissions in half by utilizing technology to simulate loads and, therefore, conduct controlled explosion. We show that as a keynote safe study at the investment track of COP in Egypt. And we were congratulated by one of the largest OEMs in the world by saying we have never seen anything like this from a mining company. There's you guys, and there's everyone else. Why? Because we put this into our DNA. For us, it was a matter of purpose to basically lower the hard-to-abate portion of our entire operation. Remember, we got a plant, we got a mine, the plus 0 carbon, but what about the mine? so McKinsey in one other key notes we did, now we decided the lexicon is not going to be hard to abate. It's going to be [indiscernible] to abate, but it's abatable. If you put in the effort, if you put in the focus, it doesn't cost a lot more. It's just a matter of thinking out of the box. I mean I'm not using electric trucks. I'm using regular trucks, I'm working with the truck suppliers who are working with me on the data. My truck suppliers want to wear and tear data on the parts that increases as I increase the amount of biofuels on these trucks. So this is probably going to be one of the most environmentally sustainable mines in the world. Why? First, because we've [ forsaken ] a 1/4 of its value at a price tag of $0.5 billion. That's how much it costs, $0.5 billion is a 1/4 of the NPV of this Phase 1 in order to make it sustainable. That's putting your money behind your conviction, right? Two, we're not using any water from the community period. We don't even reach the water tables. Three, we're using biofuels in the lot-to-abate portion, which is the diesel of the mining trucks. Four, we're using technology to conduct controlled explosion so that there's less CO2 resulting from the explosion, which is something I can't live without. So that's mining. And we're done. And we got here, on time, on budget, being sustainable, didn't become a roadblock to us doing what we need to do, which is deliver the lithium, right? Next page, so here are a few aerial pictures of the mine. You can see this is a good one, stay on this one. To the right, you see the waste piles, and there's more. The waste piles are going to be repurposed, meaning -- we're planning to use them to backfill the mine if the community wants. If it doesn't want, we're going to use it to pave roads because some of these areas, most of the down are rural areas, and they need road-paving so that these rural areas don't get completely isolated during the monsoon season. So that's another use for repurposing and upcycling of the waste pile. So there are a few ideas being discussed with the communities. But more importantly, you see the beauty of this mine, right? You can see here us getting to the pegmatite rock of Phase 1. This is the north pit. And you can also see here the waste pile being placed in an area where there was no vegetation. We purchased faster areas to place our waste files and it was done on purpose so that we wouldn't have to suppress vegetation in order to select dry-stacking waste piles. Next page. Again, a more in-depth portion of the construction of the mine. Now they're going to start building, right? They're going to start building the tables, the ramps, the inclinations, the design of the mine now is going to start taking quite a lot of shape as they finish the pre-stripping and got to the ore. The next page. A bit -- see they doing the tabling, right? It's going to take more safety. You're going to start seeing kind of the levers of the table builds, they call the [mine malls], right? Next page again, you see the ramps, but these are not the final ramp this is ran for prestripping. Next page. This is the river that we preserved. This is[indiscernible] So again, as a result, we had to build a bridge to connect the 2 pits so that we could actually preserve this. As you can see, this is not really a river. Is it creek. We call it as kind of a foot washer, meaning it barely has water because it's seasonal. And now at the end of the dry season, it has nothing, but it's the only source of water for that community. And during the wet season, they actually store the water from here in systems in order to have water for bathing and toiletry and health throughout the rest of the year. So we didn't touch this. And we use -- and we actually audited and captured the carbon credits of the vegetation and the water preservation as infecting, part about infecting calculation. The next page. A bit of the commercial strategy update, and we felt that we had to be more forthcoming about what we're going to do with all this lithium. So next page. Well, as you can see, we've been very much on the tranches of the lithium markets since before it was fashionable. During 2018 and '19, when the market was an all-time low, I personally spent weeks and weeks and weeks in China. In parts of China, they are not the fashionable part of China. Jiangsu, Chengdu, areas around Chengdu, essentially to try to learn from the experts -- I mean, the Chinese are the experts on lithium processing and lithium markets. And what we learned was the dynamics of the market kind of being formed. In other words, there's been quite a lot of investments on downstream processing and refining. There were a lot of investments in automakers and battery makers to support the automaker plant, but we didn't see where the upstream was coming from. I mean, we just didn't see it. We saw the big workhorse assets struggling to get licensing in time, get environmental licensing in time. And we realized that at 1 point, there would be a disconnect. So what we've done, we did not sign fixed price offtake agreements, none with no one, and it was pretty fashionable to do it. And we got quite a lot of flack from the market for not doing it. But we held back, we stuck to floating price agreements. The result is that now our lithium is basically commercialized with large players, but on a floating price basis, which utilizes London Metals Exchange priced as a base. And we've done that for transparency because as an ESG company, G is transparency. And we believe that we have a role as a very large workhorse supplier to present and to provide our end user, the automaker and the battery maker with an indexable price. So we agreed to peg our price to an LME chemical price. So the current percentage is being discussed go from 8.7 -- 8.25% to 11% of London Metals Exchange lithium hydroxide quotable prices. So that's been our strategy, and we're going to stick to it. We have a few clients which we think are instrumental to provide the visibility of the market. LG Energy Services being 1 of them. So we're going to continue to work with them to further develop our activities, and that gives us a good view on the North American markets where LG Energy Services has 2 battery plants under construction, 1 in a joint venture with GM, CAM Ultium supported by $2.5 billion of U.S. federal funding and another in a joint venture with our neighbors. Stellantis is our neighbor here in Minas Gerais. We have a great relationship with them, and they're building their battery factory in Canada, and we're here to support them through LG and we're here to support Canada, our host country through our association with LG. So we're quite strategic. We are agnostic. We sell to U.S., Canada, we plan to sell to Europe. We plan to sell to China, we sell lithium to everywhere just like the other workhorses. Greenbushes, the same. It sells called sells to all the main markets. Atacama, both sides sells to all the main markets. In a way, these things a bit like iron ore, the workhorses have an obligation to provide lithium to everyone so that the carbonization of the fleet can actually take place. So our view of price, well, I don't have a price view. All I can say is there has been a 3-year hiatus. And these hiatus can't be closed and my favorite sentence is, at the time, there were no women to make baby. And now the market to try to get 9 women to make a baby in a month that doesn't happen. So you're going to need a certain time between -- before you have 9 babies. Now you've got 9 women or more with babies and they're going to be a lot of babies, but -- so then basically, it's a matter of time. And while that doesn't happen, we've got a 3-year hiatus that we're going to have to deal with and the markets tie. Commodities means there's no shortage, nothing -- there's no shortage in commodities. What is the tight commodities market is basic economics, supply and demand. Can you guys switch to the next page, let's go back then, go back. Supply and demand. We have a curve of demand. The curve of demand has shifted once and twice. One, because of European increase in demand for EVs that happened during the pandemic. That was a surprise. Markets weren't ready for it. The market originally was just shy. Then the second shift was the curve going post IRA with very rapid but nascent U.S. demand. So we have a demand curve that shifted twice. Supply curve hasn't moved. So the modest meeting supply and setting prices, that's economics, right? So where is the -- the new demand curve meeting supply at the very high end of the cost curve because there's very few products coming up at the low end of the cost curve. Where is it going to come from the low end of the cost curve? Well, the workhorses, Sigma, Talison, Atacama and Pilbara. So these 4 workhorses are actually -- we have to do -- to deliver because we kind of shift back the price curve a bit to the middle so that prices somewhat normalize. When is it going to happen? Well, you have to watch the news from the workhorses because we're the ones that can bring in meaningful volumes at mid- to low cost. So only news from our camp from the Workhorse Assets are the news they are going to have any impact on prices really. The next page, ESG update. Well, I'm not going to spend too long here because I plan to have an investor call just to talk about because it was phenomenal, and I really would like to have you all engaging in all with call. Here are just the highlights. On the left, we launched the largest program in Brazil for climate mitigation for small holder phones. It's just like the program launch in Egypt. It was a technology we learned about in the previous COP from Australians actually, where we build the systems, this reservoirs that don't cost a lot, they cost $500 each, and they capture the water from the monsoon period. Remember, the rainy system here is very It rains a lot go back there. Yes, it rains a lot during a very -- to the next 1 -- yes, perfect. It rains a lot doing in a very concentrated period of time. And then that's about 3 to 4 months and then it stops. There is a draught. Go to the next slide so that you guys can see in the next slide. So this is it. So this is a little thing here, and it gets bigger, right? And you see the landscape. It's like desert -- semi-desert -- so then by doing that, we actually preserve the water from the monsoon season, which is about stop so that these small farms can feed their cattle, deep drinking water to their cattle, have milk, some of them produce cheese or have some crops so that they can eat. These are subsistence crops, meaning people who do crops for food. And during the dry season, they were eating cactus. They were easing this big -- we call the big rats, right, is the name of that a which is a big rat of the semi area. This is how despite this region is, right? And we're building the systems. We're building so many of them around the area that some of our climate consultants, the scientists behind us are saying that we could even potentially change a bit the mini climate that exist here and increase humidity and perhaps gain another month of rain season, which is amazing because as is -- as the planet heats the drought is now longer and longer and longer. And the rainy season is more and more and more condensed and it just washes away all the nutrients of the soil. The next thing at COP that we've done, so we launched through the COP. Go back to that slide, it was great. We launched with the Secretary of State of environment for state of Minas Gerais this is the government has just been reelected so there's continuity that's here in the center. We launched with the town. It was an idea that was not ours. We don't have ideas on sustainability. The town tell us what they need. So this is the leader of the women's group in town[indiscernible] , And here is[indiscernible] who is now nominated the international Ambassador of for all global initiatives that we're planning to make here attracting more and more initiatives to the region, right? Here is the state secretary of agriculture. And then here is our Director of Environmental activities at Sigma. And here is my partner, Maria Jose Salum Chief Sustainability Officer. So we did it right Sharm El Sheikh. It was fantastic. Another very important thing we did, I was keynoting at investment COP the presentation about ZERO TAILINGS. Think about that. When we made the investment, we set out to demonstrate that mining integrated with value-added creation, metallurgy and the kind of value-added creation we have here like $100 mined product, $8,000 technological product, right? So $8,000, $100. This technological creation could be done without paying them. What we've done here by creating a dry stacking circuit, by investing over $30 million in technology for water sewer station, dry stacking, water recirculation was to then build a little dry stack tailing pile that I talked was just going to be there fertilizing the soil because it got felspar. We had a really nice surprise commercially this year. And again, when you do good things for a good reason, great things happen. We have bids commercial bids to purchase our tailings for over $1,400 a ton, which means the tailings will be shipped to China, together with the product, and we're going to be ZERO TAILINGS. Is the first ZERO TAILINGS operation in the world in the battery materials supply chain. And as a result, I noted the investment COP on circular economy. What does that mean? More royalties collection, more jobs, more development. Because I have an ancillary product that has value, a lot of value added, meaning 14x more value than the actual ore. So ore $100, tailing $1,400. So even the tailings have value added. Here at the bottom, the United Nations honored us to invite us to host a workshop at the pavilion -- at the United Nations pavilion where we share with the world our framework on how did we get to sustainable mining? How did we use sustainable development goals? This is a very body, the very department of the United Nations there that created those beautiful colorful sustainable development goals, and they invited us to show how we use them to metrify and guide all of our actions because what we wanted and what the UN want is to keep it simple. So any company, any mining company, any metallurgy company, any battery company can track their goals in a very simple way without having to resort to very cryptic ratings that are hard to track from investors, and we got full support from our largest investors, both in Brazil and internationally. And then lastly, this is the panel that I was honored to participate with the head of sustainability at BIS, which is KSA, Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth plan. The Chief Sustainability Officer of Microsoft Global right here. And then the President of this organization in the U.K. that tracks and measures sustainability for the battery protocols in Europe, which are the border adjustment mechanism. Where it all is going to boil down to. If you are not sustainable, you don't get to sell into Europe. So it was moderated by McKinsey by Tolga Oguz and we were very, very proud to be able to give our contribution on how to tackle -- this is where we coined the term lots to abate. From hard to abate to lots to abate means it's abatable. It just takes effort. So we're going to expand on that throughout our social networks throughout our videos -- and we want to again invite you for post COP wrap-up conversation together with the NASDAQ is going to be very effective. It's going to be most likely on the week of December 7 in New York and NASDAQ and we look forward to seeing you all there to celebrate commissioning, getting there the way we said we would, setting an example in environmental and social sustainability. Achieving milestones, being fortunate to deliver lithium in this very tight market environment and make your own little contribution to change the dialogue in this entire industry to essentially make it a full-fledged participant as a solution to the carbonization. We do believe battery materials are a key part of the solution. And as such, we need to lead by example. The next slide. And lastly, I mean we have another key pillar of our program, which we had already launched which is the microcredit -- 2 key pillars on social sustainability, microcredit and the climate mitigation rainwater capture systems. Again, we're starting to reach same thousand entrepreneurs and again it accounts a regionally with 60,000 women. So we're basically capturing most of the economically active female population that wants to be Dona Gene we call it owner of herself. We want to give these women dignity, financial independence, the tools to become an entrepreneur. So -- we're now making money available, making funds available faster than the women can So there's been 730 entrepreneurs already empowered running their businesses. We work with what they got. I mean we're not reskilling, retraining. What can you do? What do you learn to do? Is it arts and craft? Is it cooking? Is it cheese? What do you do? Whatever it is the skill you do, whatever it is the skill you got to support your family you use, we empower you. We'll fund you to make it happen, and we're going to give you coaching, guidance, training to make it successful. Now the next page has how we kind of concatenated it all into a pillar strategy, meaning this doesn't go on its own. It's a pillar with 2 things, domestic violence and family planning. Because it's extremely hard to be empowered if you have a partner that's being physically abusive towards you, taking your money away, stealing your profit. So together with the state of Minas Gerais with the state general attorney of the state, we created this domestic violence program where we provide these women a safe haven from domestic violence, the women in our program. So that they can have room to flourish away from abusive partners. The next leg here is perfect is the child care. They have children. They need a place to send their children prior to kindergarten. So we helped the 2 child cares in the region to stay open right after the pandemic and just to continue to be open with whatever support they need is a key pillar. And then the last piece is family planning. We, again, we didn't event any of this. These programs are from economic development science. They exist. Microcredit comes from Grameen Bank from Muhammad Yunus who was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics on microcredit as a tool for development. The protection from domestic violence came from the state general attorney that developed the nationwide program, which is basic, it's human rights for women. And then family planning, we borrowed straight from Melinda Gates a program to create in Gates foundation where in Africa, using the tools available in the national health system, which in Brazil is free contraceptives, condoms, whatever, the women are able to plan space out children. And the ideal space 4 years so that they can actually have room to become entrepreneurs. And again, we're not trying to create the next billionaire here. We're trying to create enough wealth for a woman to go from subsistence or below subsistence, $15 a month, which basically was putting her in hunger territory to BRL 900, which is about $180 a month, which is kind of minimum wage in Brazil. So we're just trying to get women from poverty to minimum wage through Microcredit, which is the ambition Bangladesh had with Grameen Bank and it works. And then for demand, not for the women, this program for demand, for demand is to help them survive the drought. I mean when you look at climate change, the most heavily impacted part of the population are the vulnerable. The people that do not have the money to do irrigation, to do climate mitigation. So we are actually building climate litigation for them using nature, meaning using the very water that falls down a monsoon, storing them in systems for the year, 2,000 of them -- it's so many for the territory that again, we might affect the micro climate and get a lot of gain a few weeks, if not a month of extra rain and essentially somewhat shield the small-scale subsistence agriculture from the nastiest effects of client change and allow these families to eat because this is agriculture for subsistence. Next page I think that's it. Well, with that, I thank you all for your attention. I ran a bit over time. It's just so much to talk about, and we're open for questions. You can take the presentation down. Q&A.

So some couldn't hear see anything. The host is muted. Can you hear now? I hope you had, right? So let me get another question. What percentage of Phase 1 CapEx has been spent today? I see 84% committed, but only $57 million spent reflected on the financial statement. There's a slide here that I'd like to put in. Victor, can you put that slide on CapEx because it becomes really easy with a slide illustrating the question. And I think the main rationale behind your question, and it is quite infusing is the following. Remember, we prepaid some of that material. In other words, we deploy capital here. We deployed capital to prepay. So that's considered deployed. Committed means we'll pay if it delivers. So when deliveries happen, that CapEx gets actually accounted for as paid. For now, they sit on this place where we committed CapEx, but it's not an irrevocable commitment. Why? Well, the guy -- the equipment supplier doesn't deliver, we're not going to pay the debt, right? So this is sort of how we plan the CapEx disbursement. So the total here is -- the CapEx for preconstruction is about $111 million, $112 million, right, the number on the feed. The committed -- the current committed number is $103 million, and then what has to be committed, right, is another $11.6 million. So there's a deviation from the feed CapEx here. If you add the numbers, were up 3.1%, meaning we overspent $3 million, which is totally manageable, is within our cushion, right? I'm not sure if I answered your question. And we actually broken down for transparency. Victor -- I'm not sure if the gentleman can see it. So we broke it down for transparency on mine plant, environmental, EPC engineering and substation and all that, right? So -- and then you can see the deviations basically. And where do we gain, where we lose in terms of the CapEx that we plan to spend, which came from and the CapEx that deviated from that. So let's see if I have another question. No, I don't have another question. So any more questions? And look, the Investor Relations team in Canada led by Jamie Flag, supported by the VP, James so my Chief Development Officer, Jamie Flag, sits in Toronto he is always available to all of you. And then James Ellis is sitting in Toronto with him, always available to all of you and he is ready to answer any questions you might have. We are possibly going to be participating in 2 very key events in the industry upcoming. The first is the Deutsche Bank Lithium Conference on December and the track in New York live, and the second is the Bank of America Lithium Conference on December 8 live. So we very much look forward to seeing you all there. Let me see more questions. Oh, there are more questions. Okay, more questions. Yes. Yes. Goldman Sachs has published their view on that lithium prices will fall significantly next year due to supply growth exceeding demand growth. Do you have a view on GS who said much the same back early summer? Well, I don't have opinions. I run an Astec listed company. I have facts. So I was honored to be invited by the Financial Times in a closed fashion within their commodities conference in mining together with the Head of Lithium of Trafigura Claire and the Minister of Mines of Argentina in a session that we got permission to make available to all of you. And another guest on that session -- on that panel was Nick Noden, the gentleman from Goldman Sachs, that wrote the report. And we had a very open discussion with Nick Noden about where do we see the lithium market's going. We agree on certain things, and we do not agree on other things. So I'll make that data available to you on our website. And therefore, it's quite interesting. It's really worth watching. It's half an hour, but it's very technical, very calm and polite. Three women calm, polite, diplomatic, data full, no opinion. And in summary, what is our view? One, lithium is not scarce. There's lithium everywhere, right, like iron ore. What is scarce, large deposits of very high purity lithium one; and two, companies, they are willing to do something with it, meaning this deposit, for example. It was becoming green, ceramics, glass for 30 years created no value for the community, community with starving. We came in with Clean Tech, Green Tech technology should make it into something. This very, very high purity pre chemical, enable our products that gets sold to battery makers. Now carmakers want it. Why? Because it's the enabler. With it, into a refinery, you get certification of ultra-high pure certification. So what it took was investing in the clean capture process to lithium. Now that investment had stopped for 3 years, '18, '19, '20, 0. We were doing this because we are a private equity fund, impact funds, and we have the long view. So we're putting our own money and we're putting our own quota holders, investors money while everybody was going bankrupt or in maintenance. So we got a 3-year leg up on the sector. 2021, the capita -- like just tonalite sector. First quarter '21, the sector rate raised like, what, $3 billion worth of capital. That's fine. But again, the women got pregnant, it takes a certain amount of time. And in the case of lithium, it takes 5 years for mine 3 years for a refinery depending on where you are. If you're brownfield or not. So a lot of that capital went to SQM, is it guys were brownfield. So they're going to be fast. They are being faster. Some of that capital went to kind of development project is going to be slow. Those folks are going to be producing past '26. So this is the issue. There's a hiatus built into the supply curve and was exactly where you need low-cost lithium the most because demand for EVs skyrocketed. So the result is that the prices are actually meeting -- supply meets demand at the very high end of the curve. and the brine from, we call Shanghai. I visited the bride in Shanghai. I visited Jiangsu I have been there a few times. Only the prowess of the Chinese can make it possible. They're amazing, but only then. I tell you why the lepidolite grades of 0.4% -- because it's lepidolite. 0.4% is below the 43-101 cutoff grades of Sigma. So I don't even know how much 0.4% mineral resource I have because I'm not allowed to publish. That's the rule of 43-101. So it means that this is very low quality, lots of waste lithium. That is not the lithium that's going to solve the issue here. So facts only, what does this industry need? It needs more low-cost supply. We're coming in with relief. That's why we're tripling. We got ample back into triple. When we announced the tripling most likely, we're going to announce the funding concomitant as well. ALD, SQM, Pilbara the workhorse is all out on increasing production. It's going to take a bit of time. And there's nothing we can do about it because -- these are not vivid is these are natural resources. So I think this is the part where we disagree. In other words, there's a lag. It's a count, you can count it 1, 2, 3, '18, '19, '20, investment in lithium 0. How many bankruptcies? Four, a large players and that punished investors more and made them even more adverse to the sector. So it was a cover downwards spiral. And we're here in '23 with a very tight market. So it isn't about cost. It is about a lack of investment. And now the investments are back. Well, interestingly enough, and I said at the -- when you look at the faults who are not reducers, and that's 1 thing that we said that I disagree, there are 2 categories of locum players today. You got producers and you got non producers. Sigma is a non producer. The non producers with what happened with the federal reserve in January, the interest rates increase have been further bifurcated into 2 who are they fully funded near-term producers, three, Sigma Core, Lithium Americas and the others who are not fully in -- but because if vision is going to be the target people are talking about in 2030, this whole theater should be getting equity capital. We should be getting lots of capital. They're getting 0 right now. I mean, at least of the NASDAQ, there hasn't been an IPO since January. So we're back to where we were in 2018, again, where we're going to build a new shortage for the next cycle. When is that well 2025, 2026. So it's interesting how this industry needs to be perceived as a key part of the battery material growth and a key part of energy transition to receive the kind of steady flow of funds, the nickel and copper receipt because without that, there won't be enough materials when the industry needs then we undue kind of cyclothymic lithium prices, which the Trafigura at the panel says really well. The Cyclothymia of the prices scares away a key piece of capital needed for the industry, which is long-term project finance. They can't get accustomed to a situation where you have the fluctuation implies. So the result is that only the folks who are low-cost producers, again, we undertake all Sigma, Greenwood Talison, Atacama, Pilbara get funded because you don't have certainty of whether in a down cycle, the high end players on the high end of the cost curve actually will exist because you don't know how low cyclothymia will go. So it's a very interesting panel. We'll make it available because in the current environment, I think that's the only thing I can say. Any more questions? Thank you, John. No, it's -- and I try to be coming and transparent. I hate when people say items scarce because it's a pallet and even disservice to the industry. What happens is that lithium is this opaque little thing that needs to grow up. So we say in the lithium groups that lithium needs to grow from being palladium, which was a mined metal into becoming cobalt, nickel, which were the -- let's go for cobalt, which was a major metal. Nickel got other industrial applications and so is copper, but cobalt is traded, cobalt got stability, cobalt has inventory trading activity. So we need to start thinking about trial has grown up now. And I think price transparency is important and information transparency is important. And this is what I've always done. I've always been saying as it is because I think it's a service we give to capital I allocate my own capital, so I'm really putting my money behind my mouth here. And I think it's awareness. I mean, we're building a product, and I'll tell you 1 more thing, and I'm glad for asking something else. When does this scarcity end, when will prices normalize. Again, fact only easy to track. How do we track? Well, -- at which point in time, we still find OEMs, battery makers willing to pay to secure supply. Just recently, we saw GM paying $200 million to secure supply in 2025. That's a data point. What does that mean? Well, it's not going to be product around in '25 available to the point where a fast-growing successful OEM like GM our indirect client, by the way, through LG is willing to prepaid products. And that's happening across the supply chain. So when you want to see the duration of the cycle, it's a good way to track what end users are doing about securing their own supply because it's a good indicator of where they are reading their own demand and their own growth curves versus what's being made available on the supply side for the near term and the short term and the medium term. Trees, AMG -- oh yes, we love AMG. AMG is investing in downstream refining by themselves in Germany and later on in Brazil. Is there any planning by refining yourself? No. I'll tell you what we do. We do what we are best at. We do what we're excellent at. So are we refining? Let me be clear. We're refine. Yes, we're planning to refine. What are we going to refine, lithium sulfate. That's been the plan. We've been talking about this for a year, it's not like I'm announcing it now. I'm not going up script is the next logical step. We're building a house by the foundation. We've got the very best battery grade high purity. We call a particulate, meaning not micronized, particular a material is costly material, right? That's the very best one. This beauty is an enabler. Low levels of low levels of sodium, low levels of iron oxide, medium low, less than 0.7% of iron oxide, less than 0.55% of potassium oxide, less than 0.5% of sodium oxide. So my alkalines are below 0.5%, below 0.6%, super low. Those are the impediments to high-purity hydroxide. On the iron oxide, beautiful, right, less than 0.7%. And then obviously, a high lithia contract and low micro, market is below 5%. So then -- and then as a result, we don't use locations. So we have this little particles, which is stunning. put on the screen, the little -- it's a beauty. It's a little beautiful product, green, wonderful. With that, we can actually enable our own success because when we put a lithium sulfate plant on top, what is the lithium sulfur plan? Well, chemical refining has 4 key components, 2 of them are really hard to achieve. And look, kudos to the Chinese because they are amazing about. Case in point, the 2 American companies, that leases, Livent and Albermarle refined in China, their decor, okay? Then you've got the 2 other pieces, which can be done more simply. What are these 2 other pieces? Calcination, litigation and then this gives you the lithium sulfate, which is an intermediate chemical. And then you've got iron exchange and crystallization. So with these first 2 pieces here, you can reduce a lot of problems involved in permitting this chemical plant in the global North. This is a cop name that came from COP, Global North, Global South. So in the global north. So what are the issues? Waste? Why? Because the way that comes out of a chemical plant is to the tune of 12 tons was per ton of chemicals. And there's no plan for waste up north. There's no location for waste at north China has a plan for waste. What has it done with this waste? It's highly toxic. It's got sulfuric acid. So nobody in that none my backyard movement wants sulfuric acid waste in their backyards. So what's the idea? We're going to take the waste and we're going to up cycle into the construction industry, in the cement making in Brazil. We presented a case study of COP as well. This is a slide here on that, which means that was a 0 full circular economy of waste. In other words, that's done in China. We're not inventing this. What is the requirement? You need a strong, large construction industry, and that's something Brazil has. It's 1 of the top cloud construction industries in the whole of Latin America, exports cement all around the -- so perfect place to upcycle the waste. And it's beautiful for the client because his Scope 3 decreases because he's using recycled raw material it's a bit like you're now buying cement made with plastic bottles is my point, that's all my point, but -- what I'm saying is like, "Oh, this amount is more sustainable because I'm using reused material or tailings or waste from another operation and I'm helping clean up waste from elsewhere. Cement construction is one of the highest polluter industries in the world. It's actually almost as high as transportation sell when you look at the global biosolutions. So you create a positivity here. So that's our plan. And by doing sulfate, we stick to what we know. In other words, this doesn't travel that much. We sell it here -- and then the sulfate, which is now a chemical particle with even less volume can get shipped anywhere. And we could make sulfate 0 carbon if it's priced. So in a situation where there is a border adjustment mechanism in Europe, and other clients willing pay for 0 carbon sulfite. And I'm already inside supply chain. Remember, my client is a battery maker. I can price it accordingly. It's lots to abate, but I can update it. We have ways to abate it ultimately and not lastly, with carbon credits in a bill that's signing. It's kind of less than $2 million a year because we abated everything, and then we have a little balance lab, which is impossible to abate with technology and that goes for carbon credits. So Again, that's kind of our global plan. And I really respect AMG for what they're doing because it's the same idea like there in Brazil, they're real, they're producing their great company. and they try to figure out a way, again, with Germany on how to deliver to Germany materials that can be used in line with the European border adjustment mechanisms of minimizing the carbon footprint. I think it's a great strategy, and we're doing something similar, but in a different way, essentially. And we have huge admiration for them. Basically, Brazil, lithium is AMG and Sigma. In fact, we're both being here for over 10 years when none of this was fashionable. When it was hard, when it was really hard. Any more questions? Congratulations on a great update, amazing results. It's always a refreshing to see -- no look, guys, it's so -- it's so nice to get this note. I mean it because we work tirelessly here with We've been working on a gazillion time zone. And I think I want to say something about my team. I recorded a video from the Istanbul airport, where I was connecting from Egypt into home on my way through Europe to talk to clients. And I was putting this review in the press release together. And I can say how proud we are of all of our team, Calvyn Gardner, Brian Talbot their 750 strong people doing this amazing work in Jacutinga. In parallel, we had 14 people in the whole ESG team shining across 26 events, most of them formulas all of them equipped to deliver the same message quick to deliver key notes. I was going from high-level meeting to key nets to high-level meeting to all sorts of interaction I mean, literally, this is a company fire on all cylinders because we really committed to make this happen in Brazil. And we do believe that Brazil irrespectively of the politics because again, this has nothing to do with politics. This has got to do with the planet, right? We saw China, U.S. collaborating on climate in COP. So this is where we also collaborate. In other words, both sides of the aisle have to be light on this and any happens a copy I mean, I was invited to a meeting on the other side where I showed my ideas and it were very well received, and we built this women in sustainability in Brazil, which has women from all sorts of the aisles because the purpose is to take advantage for this country of this opportunity to build this green powerhouse that the country can become. Our Scope 2 is Bureau. We have the highest rate of renewables adoption in any country on the globe is 85%. Is she is available, it's there. We have natural gas. So Brazil could be one of the cornerstones of the global energy transition by supplying low carbon, low water low impact, meaning environmentally sustainable materials to the world and more importantly, socially sustainable. Because there's so much to alleviate in these regions where the natural resources are, which can easily be achievable with a modicum of focus. I mean, you saw our numbers. We don't spend a lot of money on sustainability. We spend a lot of time that will cost, it's time because our actions that have to be can catenate or deploy, deliver in scale. I mean the scale of these things are big company scale, the scale of these numbers, a big company scale -- the scale of the numbers we were taking a company scale. I have a screen that I would wanted to share with you guys because it's a key screen on our -- I'll close with that on our bill, right? We call on our -- we call the cost of sustainability basically, right? How much does this cost to be sustainable? And it's actually scary because when you think about it, the big number is not as much what you -- where you spend, the big number is what you forsake. Here it is, can you see my screen all of you right? I just get the questions, Q&A. Nashua take the Q&A out of here. Yes, I can't take the Q&A. This is the big numbers. So when you think about the cost of sustainability, this is the cost of sustainability. In other words, the states are supposed to be in Chinese, I guess. So I'm just going to cover them for now. But basically, when you look at this, the big cost, the hard 1 is when you start to build it right, meaning the amount of money you forsake at the beginning when you have to make these decisions, and you're starting, we left 1/4 of the value of the company in that creek that we preserved. We created a massive technical challenge for Calvin and team and it was hard. I mean we will work like what, $100 million and we had to foresake half of it was really hard, and we did it on purpose. Then we had the investment, that was the cost of the Green Tech plant to build it with the state-of-the-art environmental circuits. We tested circuits. There was no dry stacking, we were giving peak for a lot of this. That's investment. And then you've got a lot more what we call voluntary commitments, meaning we have decided voluntarily to pay, and these numbers are in your models already. The 2% royalties you calculate in your model over our gross revenues could be a lot lower because by law, I can only pay them over the ore but I pay them over the process material. Why? Because annually, it costs me BRL 200 million, which is annual. In revenues are going to be in this market, over $1 billion is rounding error for me, for Sigma, for our investors, but for the community BRL 200 million extra instead of the BRL 17 million I'll be paying if we're sticky to the rule of and paying just an ore can make those municipalities and transform them completely because I'm creating government spend. I'm giving filters of the government to create sustainability funds to build schools to create initiatives that I as a company could run for them. So these are growing up numbers, right? And we're very proud of them because we made these decisions because, G, was behind it. So I think with that, I'll close because if it wasn't for the kinds of investors who had in this company so far, we wouldn't get here because of this because when we made the decision at the beginning, all of you kind of stayed with us and stuck by us knowing that this is going to pay off and pay off it did. So thank you, and have a great afternoon, gentlemen.