Sigma Lithium Corporation ($SGML)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Sigma Lithium's 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded.[Operator Instructions] There will be a replay for this call on the company's website. After the prepared remarks there would be a question and answers session for participants at that time further instructions will be provided. I would now like to turn the conference over to Anna Hartley, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Anna.

I'd like to welcome you to our first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today is Ana Cabral, Co-Chair and CEO of Sigma Lithium. Our earnings press release and presentation are available on our website. I'd like to remind you that some of the statements made during this call, including any production guidance, expected company performance, update on mining operations, the timing of our projects and market conditions may be considered forward-looking statements. Please note the cautionary language about forward-looking statements in our presentation and press release. I will now be turning the call to Anna Cabral.

Thank you, Ana. And with that, I commence Sigma's first quarter 2026 earnings presentation. Please notice the forward-looking statements that we're going to make in this presentation. We're going to talk quite a lot about our predictions and expectations. And with that, I would very much like to present the Sigma Lithium 2026 version. We are at our most efficient, most competitive. We became a financially resilient, low cost, and we're very well prepared to deliver on our high growth this year. Well, first, we'll talk about our enhanced operational efficiency. We have upgraded our mining in record timetable. We primarized our operations, and we brought in a larger fleet that has the capacity to match our Greentech 3.0 plant. At that plant, we have been achieving record recoveries in Cleantech industrial processing. We have the most advanced DMS plant in the world. Our lithium is a 100% sustainable. We have reached the Quintuple Zero Lithium a few years ago, Zero Tailings Dams, Zero Hazardous Chemicals, 0 accidents for 1,010 days. We use 100% renewable electricity and 100% of the water is reused and recycled. We do not use potable water. There's nothing like Sigma. We have reached our most profitable quarter since production started 3 years ago. On margins, we have reached the highest profitability in our history. We're very, very proud to present 61% gross margins, 39% EBITDA margins unadjusted as posted published in our financial statements and 26% profit margins. At the same time, our debt and cash positions has strengthened our balance sheet. We have significantly decreased total debt, 32% in 2 years, 21% in 1 year, total debt. Our cash increased to $28 million as of May 15, 2026, today. So that's financial resilience achieved throughout the down cycle. Production has resumed cadence of high sales of high-purity lithium hydroxide. We are on track to deliver 240,000 tonnes of lithium oxide within the next 12 months. That positions us to deliver on our growth. We are executing significant near-term growth. We're going to resume construction of Plant 2 that will allow us to double production during 2027. Meanwhile, our commercial team has outstandingly delivered to the company. In addition to opening up a whole new business selling low-grade high-purity lithium oxide, we have achieved a record lithium price equivalent to $2,150 this quarter on the high-growth materials sold. We're very, very proud to show that Sigma has one of the best safety records in the industry. We reached 1,010 days with 0 accidents, and we've never had a fatality in our 14-year history. That's a result of our rigorous safety protocols that begins with employee engagement in very strict processes, a direct connection to the factory floor, which actually is responsible to help us deliver this enhanced performance. Our TRFIR was 0, which is an incredible source of proud to all of our team. Now I'll start with the financial highlights of the quarter. First, I want to talk about the financial resilience and debt repayment we were able to achieve as a result of our robust margins. Profitability for the first quarter '26 clearly demonstrated that numerically. We achieved 61% gross margins and 26% net profit margin. On our EBITDA and operating margins, which are a proxy to cash flow generation, we delivered 39% EBITDA margins in the quarter, unadjusted as published and 33% operating margin in the quarter. In the meanwhile, we've delivered a total debt repayment of 33% over 2 years. That's a significant deleverage. Over the last year, we've delivered a total debt repayment of 21%. Our revenues are also up 48% quarter-on-quarter. And here, we compare with the third quarter of 2025, which is the most comparable quarter as we were ramping down our mining operations in order to execute the upgrade. If we compare with the previous quarter, our revenues are up 150%. Our cash is $28 million as of today, May 15, which demonstrates that we're actually very profitable in delivering on these numbers. Cash is cash. That positions us very well to execute the significant new growth opportunities that we have ahead of us. First, we're going to resume construction of Plant 2. That will enable us to double production capacity during 2027 and triple production capacity by the end of next year with Plant 3. Over the last 2 years, we have significantly increased our margins. They are the highest in our history. In the first quarter of '26, this quarter, we have posted 61% gross margins. That compares to 23% in the first quarter 2024. On EBITDA, our EBITDA margin was 39% this quarter. That compares to 9% in the first quarter '24. Our operating margin had the same behavior, 23% in our first quarter compared to minus 1% in the first quarter 2024. And then net profit. We had a 26% net profit margin compared to minus 19% in the first quarter '24 when we were just starting our operations. So this demonstrates how Sigma has been thriving through the down cycle, and we are extremely well positioned to now enjoy our first bull market since we began our operations. Everything from here will be excess returns. This slide demonstrates our disciplined financial execution. We have repaid 75% of our short-term bank trade debt in the last year. Those were the trade finance lines that we used to finance our operations throughout the last 2 years. They've gone from $90 million down to $13 million only. That is a staggering 75% reduction. Not just that, in the last quarter alone, we managed to decrease these lines in 46%. That's a quantification of our ability to generate cash. As we generated cash, we paid down short-term expensive debt. This slide is another demonstration of our disciplined financial execution. Over the last 2 years, we repaid 33% of our total debt and 21% of our total debt was repaid over the last year. Our debt went from $201 million in the first quarter 2024 to $134 in the first quarter 2026. This is significant deleveraging. The total debt is essentially the short-term bank trade finance debt that we discussed in the previous slide, plus the shareholder and development bank debt that sits in our balance sheet now as short-term debt because it's due in December of this year. $134 million is an amount that's easily obtained by Sigma through cash flow generation and through the monetization of its future production through prepayment of offtakes. The point I made in the previous slide is demonstrated on this page. Our offtake agreements enable our debt repayment and help us fund growth CapEx. Last year, we signed and closed a $96 million prepayment on a 70,500 tonne offtake agreement for 1 year. That prepayment has been paid to us in installments and the purpose of it is to fund working capital. In fact, that offtake helped us deliver the upgrade of our mining operations. Last quarter, we also announced and signed a $50 million conventional offtake with prepayment. The purpose of that offtake is to help us repay the total debt that we've shown in the previous page. Half of our total debt approximately that sits in the short term and is due in December will be repaid with the proceeds of this offtake with prepayment. We're also working in a few contract negotiations for a similar transaction for another $50 million that will basically tie up 50,000 tonnes for 2026 and 70,000 tonnes for 2027 in offtakes. Again, those are going to be conventional offtakes with prepayments that will have proceeds directed to complete the repayment of the total debt we've shown in the previous page. We're also in contract negotiations for $100 million of prepayments for our production starting into 2027. And that will happen throughout -- that will be delivered throughout the 5 years or the 7 years onwards from 2027. The use of proceeds of that contract will be for growth CapEx, meaning building our next plants, Plant 1 and perhaps Plant 3 as we could double down on this prepayment for $100 million given the scale of our current production with just one plant, meaning with the current production forecast for the next 12 months, we could actually honor all of these offtakes from '26, '27, '28 and beyond and with those proceeds fund the debt repayment and also our growth CapEx. This slide illustrates our cash position for the first quarter of 2026 and a bit beyond. Here, I illustrate how we have actually built up our current cash position of $28 million as of today, May 15, 2026. We started with $6 million at the end of the first quarter. And then we've had net inflows of $34 million. Receivables from materials sold and delivered and prepayment installments from that $96 million offtake and additionally, prepayment installments from low-grade sales, meaning the sales of our tailing fines. We've had $19 million of operating costs. So that all in, that represents net inflows of $34 million. Then we've had $3 million of CapEx and then we had $11 million of interest and debt repayment, as we've discussed in previous slides. So that led us to a cash at the end of first quarter of $4 million plus $22 million of receivables for materials delivered to the clients. Due to cutoff, those receivables came to our balance sheet in the days following the 30th of March. So today, we've had $28 million in cash in our bank as of May 15. Now in this quarter, we are also expecting inflows already signed of approximately $40 million, again, related to the $96 million prepayment for 70,000 tonnes we discussed earlier. In addition, we expect the signed prepayment for the offtake for 40,000 tonnes to close, and that will bring inflows of an additional $50 million. This page summarizes our published first quarter financial statements. But more importantly, it demonstrates how our low-cost position underpins Sigma Lithium's financial resilience. We sit at the very low end of the cost curve for hard rock lithium material industrial manufacturers. And as a result, we have been very well positioned to enjoy excess returns entering into the secular cycle for lithium. More importantly, as we went through the last 2 years of down cycle, we have increased our efficiency and increased our discipline, and we have maintained that discipline entering into this bull cycle. And that is why we have this entrenched competitive advantage. We have always been to the left of some of the African country producers, which just demonstrates how well positioned we are as far as the global lithium industry. This next section talks about the operating highlights for the first quarter of 2026 and our outlook. This slide outlines the production volumes delivered by Sigma Lithium every quarter, and it demonstrates how we resumed sales cadence of our primary product, the high-grade lithium oxide. We go through all the stages of our outlook. In other words, how we have upgraded our industrial plant from first quarter '24 all the way through the fourth quarter '24. Then we have reached and maintained the industrial cadence throughout 2025. And then it shows how in the third quarter '25, we have demobilized the mining contractor. And then it also shows how in the first quarter '26, we have managed to primarize and upgrade our mining operations in record time. We have mobilized our fleet on schedule, combining sales of low-grade and high-grade product, basically the low grade funding the upgrade of the mine. Then we have ramped up our mine tracking to 33,000 tonne plan on schedule. This quarter, we have already achieved 20,000 tonnes as of now, May 2026. So the outlook of 33,000 tonnes for the second quarter is perfectly reachable and perfectly achievable. Entering into the next quarter, we have larger fleet fully mobilizing. In fact, the 60-tonne trucks are fully mobilized, and then we have the 75-tonne excavators fully mobilized. That increased our haulage capacity significantly. We came from 40 tonne trucks into 60 tonne trucks. That's a 50% overall increase in haulage capacity. Going into the next quarter, we're going to have an additional fleet continuing to mobilize, additional large fleet continuing to mobilize trucks and compatible excavators. All in all, the geometry optimization and the stripping have gone as planned. Our ongoing mine developed has unlocked very large mine blocks, which then have been transformed into lithium oxide into our upgraded 3.0 Greentech plant. The next step up in the third quarter will be to maintain that pace and maintain that cadence. Hence, we are guiding to 240,000 tonnes for the next 12 months, but then we're maintaining our guidance of 200,000 tonnes for the year 2026. This slide makes it quite simple for our shareholders. We're forecasting the cash flows, and we here demonstrate our robust cash flow generation forecasted for 2026 and beyond. We have actually created a forecast for three different price scenarios, $1,500 per tonne, $2,000 per tonne and $2,500 per tonne. It's important to remind that the current prices sit around $2,900 to $3,000 per tonne. Now -- as far as production guidance and volumes, we simply condensed the quarterly forecast and the quarterly historical production demonstrated in the previous slide. Again, what we are guiding is not different than what we have achieved over 3 years sequentially cadently because we are an established producer. So the historical production for 2024 was 240,000 tonnes. And then in 2025, we delivered 180,000 tonnes as a result of the upgrade on the mine that we decided to promote precisely for this moment. So that in the next 12 months, we're very well positioned to deliver approximately the same 240,000 tonnes or 270,000 tonnes that we have been historically delivering over the last 3 years. For this year, we will be delivering 200,000 tonnes. So that translates into the numbers for cash flow we are forecasting here. So again, at $1,500 per tonne with just one plant, we are planning to produce a $130 million of cash flow. That's just one plant at 240,000 tonnes estimated to be achieved in the next 12 months. That is a quite conservative cash flow forecast. Again, at the top end of our forecast, we are still 20% below the current prices. And with just one plant, we are forecasting to achieve $330 million for the next 12 months. And again, using just 240,000 tonnes of production forecasts, which, as you can see, is very much in line with the levels of production forecast we've been achieving over the last 3 years of operation. Now near-term growth. Once we complete the second plant at 520,000 tonnes of production, we are estimating forecasts at these three different price scenarios that range from $320 million to $760 million approximately, which are very robust numbers. This slide in summary demonstrates the Sigma because of our cost discipline, because of our operational efficiency is a cash flow machine. That is essentially what we are. We are wired and structured as a company to deliver cash flow to our shareholders, organic cash flow in any market scenario, beginning with $1,500 per tonne. This slide basically recaps how we are going to execute the near-term growth, is a recap slide, but it ties well with the previous slide. It's just to remind everyone that we have actually initiated the construction of Plant 2, and we advanced quite a lot on it. But more importantly, we have been benefiting in the construction process from a streamlined timetable because the infrastructure has been already built way back in order to support Plant 1. So as you can see in the schedule, we are at civil foundations over halfway through them because, again, most of the long-term duration items in the construction schedule have already been built or have already been executed such as Earthworks and Foundations, Water Drainage and the Recycling recirculation Systems. So we're mostly with the construction in place. Where are we in construction? We needed to order and assemble machinery, which is the expensive part of construction, which we do plan to resume in the second half of the year. So as a continuing, again, what is our production profile going to look like for '26, 200,000 tonnes; for the next 12 months, 240,000 tonnes. And then once we complete Plant 2, 520,000 tonnes, that's fully funded. And then once we complete Plant 3, 770,000 tonnes of lithium oxide, reminding everyone that Plant 3 is not yet funded. However, each one of these new plants cost just USD 100 million. If you compare that with the cash flows we've shown that we expect to generate, one can see that these numbers are actually quite low in a big picture for Sigma today, given our robust margins and our ability to generate cash flow and to access cash flow with our clients through prepayments of our future production and of our current production. We're very proud of these pictures, and we have a video that we posted on our website that we encourage everyone to see. These pictures were taken last week, and they demonstrate the upgrade, the modernization and the significant capacity increase of our mining fleet. What you see here are trucks, which have a 50% higher haulage capacity than the previous fleet we have, 50%. So here is our mine. This slide is a picture that I particularly like very much because it emerges 2 concepts that are very dear to us, operational efficiency with these very large haulage trucks, but more importantly, they are pausing there on a brief Sunday shift change against the backdrop of our rock piles. These rock piles are just material taken from the pit, and we actually actively regenerate them by planting them with grass. So the rock piles become incorporated to the landscape. So all these conversations about our piles are just much they do about nothing because there are two kinds of piles. Rock piles are going to look like this, Hills incorporated to the landscape. And our tailings are actually being sold. So very soon this year, we're going to be 0 tailings. Why? Because we dry stack them, reprocess them. So we are actually able to sell them as high purity, low-grade lithium oxide. We're very, very proud of continuing on this trajectory of becoming or being one of the most sustainable lithium operations in the world. This is another picture of our upgraded, modernized and increased capacity. So we have all these trucks lined up so that we demonstrate our haulage is actually much higher, much more efficient and much more modern than what we had before. So our mine now honors our state-of-the-art 3.0 Greentech lithium oxide plant. So wrapping up our quarterly presentation, we're going to talk about what we expect regarding shareholder returns for the rest of the year. This slide just quantifies why we believe Sigma is very well positioned for a re-rate for our shareholders. On the page, we show that our production cadence for high growth being reached now in addition to our growth plans in execution for the second plant basically demonstrate that Sigma is not rated to its cash flow generation capabilities and current delivery. So at 40,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, we are valued at USD 2.3 billion, which is a significant discount to some of our peers in other parts of the world. And more importantly, even to some of our peers that do not even produce, they have a similar valuation to the company. So it's basically the re-rate quantified and demonstrated in numbers. And now I open for Q&A from the current shareholders and the current audience to this quarterly presentation. Thank you very much for listening to us.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Joel Jackson with BMO. It seems you expect production to be 13 kt in June than 24 kt in July. How do you get such a large jump in production month-over-month?

Thank you for the question. Well, essentially, we haven't given monthly guidance. But as you can see in one of the slides, we significantly increased the haulage capacity of the fleet, and we have even larger fleet being fully mobilized. In other words, as we commenced mobilization in February and we continue on with mobilization, we increased the number of shifts continuously with the mobilization. In other words, it wasn't just about getting the equipment to site. It was about getting the equipment to basically be available to us for four shifts. So we've gone from getting the equipment available, large-scale equipment to commencing it with one shift, then moving from one shift to two shifts. And then as personnel went through basic security training, we've gone from two shifts to four shifts. Why so? That's the night shift. So we commenced personnel on the day shift and that split into two shifts. And then we just moved into the night shift at once they received a very detailed protocols for night operations. So again, without giving guidance per month, this is sort of how we have actually a very beautiful mobilization curve throughout this quarter as we try to give as much detail as possible to everyone in a very specific slide, where we end up with 33,000 tonnes of material on the quarter.

Our next question comes from David Feng with CICC -- regarding Phase 2 and 3 expansion, may we have more color on a detailed time line for Phase 2 and Phase 3 construction commissioning ramp-up period?

Thank you very much for the question. We've given quite a lot of detail on Phase 2. In other words, we are planning to -- there's a timetable what we've done so far on Phase 2, and we basically paused in civil works and just sort of the last layer of civil works. We are planning to resume that in the second half of the year. As we have discussed Financing is quite available given where the industry is, given obviously, the fact we've been fully funded by the Development Bank. And given the progress we've delivered so far on resuming our operations in full -- at full capacity. So once we resume construction at that stage, what needs to happen. We need to order equipment and receive equipment. So we're giving ourselves a quite conservative timetable for that to take place. So even if we put in a 12-month basically equipment assembly, commissioning arc, that would basically get Phase 2 fully running within just sort of midyear next year. Phase 3 could happen in parallel or could happen sequentially. And as we made it clear in the slide, Phase 3 isn't funded. But again, for the same reasons, we don't see funding Phase 3, again, just another $100 million as an issue. Therefore, we're quite confident that we will be able to either sequentially continue on Phase 3 or funding available, we could actually engage in two constructions at once. One key point about both phases is they're both supported by existing infrastructure in place. In 2022, as we built our first plant, we built infrastructure to support 3 lines, 3 industrial plants. And as we pause short of two lines. In other words, as we just built 1 plant, the infrastructure is there. So what we call Phase 2 and 3 is simply industrial lines, and that's it. So these actually have quite a reduced timetable, and we can build them quite expeditiously.

Our next question comes from Joel Jackson with BMO. Back on Slide 16 and providing 200 kt production guidance for the year, are we wrong in assuming you expect Q3 at 72 Kt?

You're not wrong. We're just trying to be conservative, but that could happen. I mean, again, why? Because we've done it before. So what we try to do is to anchor our forecast into very achievable numbers. And that's why we've kind of given investors as much as we could as far as building blocks for forecasted production. But thank you for the question, Joel.

Next question from [ Eileen Chen with H ]. Many Australian lithium producers have recently signed offtake agreements that include floor price mechanism to provide downside protection during periods of lithium price weakness. As Sigma Lithium continues negotiation with existing and potential offtake partners, could management comment on whether future contracts may also include floor price provisions? In addition, could you provide an update on the current status of Sigma's ongoing offtake negotiations, including how much future production is currently under discussion, the level of interest from customers and whether the company expects to finalize any new agreements in the near term?

It's a great question. Thank you for the question. Let me unpack your question. The first thing, it's commendable what the Australian producers have done in getting forward prices. Could we get them? Absolutely. Do we need them? No, we don't. Given that our production costs are so low, as we've shown in one of the slides, we don't really focus on floor prices. What we focused on was to commit as little production as possible so that we can maximize the amount of prepayments obtained from our customers. So as we talk through our offtake strategy, given that we do not need floor prices, and it does carry a price in terms of amount of product being made available to the customer to actually bring a floor price mechanism into the contract, we're just for taking them because we're solving for another objective, which is to commit as little product as possible. And we've shown that in the two offtakes already signed and that have already been ongoing here at Sigma. For example, the first offtake for $96 million basically ties up only 70,500 tonnes of product for just 1 year. So if one divides one amount for another, you get to an implied what we call premium price or offtake rights price of about $1,300. And that's a very good monetization of future production. The second, we've initiated discussions about it last year when the lithium price curves were slightly different. But again, it carries an implied monetization price of $416, which it's actually higher than some of these announcements with full prices we've seen. So it's essentially a commercial discussion is not a one size fits all, but I really want to highlight the fact that given that there are agreements being signed with floor prices, we've seen -- we've got a demonstration right there of how robust is the interest from clients to secure the right to purchase production. And again, I must highlight that we're not locking future prices. These are in derivative agreements. These aren't for sales. These are just clients paying producers in advance for the security of having the product made available to them as they deliver on their own growth. Why is that? Because we are in a very robust environment for demand growth. We are delivering manufacturing -- advanced manufactured products into advanced manufacturing industries. And they now run the gamut from EVs to data center, battery storage materials to defense to a whole array of advanced manufacturing industries to transportation, electrification of what we call larger and larger haulage transport vehicles, beginning with large-scale trucks now going into what we call barges. So it is actually fascinating what is happening with the diversification of the demand for our products and how rapidly the demand grows in the current scenario for energy security and energy transition worldwide.

Next question from [ Eileen Chen with H. ] Sigma currently has approximately 300,000 tonnes lithium oxide intermediate products inventory. Could management provide an update on the current commercialization and sales progress of this material? Specifically, how much of the existing inventory has already been sold or committed? What is the current market pricing for Sigma's lithium oxide intermediate products? Is pricing linked to lithium concentrate benchmarks, fixed price agreements or negotiated on a spot basis? And how should investors think about the potential cash flow contribution from this inventory?

That's a great question. Yes, we do have 300,000 tonnes of lithium oxide, low-grade products available. They are currently commanding a price of about $77 to $80 [indiscernible] works at plant in the market. We price these products of DSO as per Shanghai metals market. Therefore, if one looks at these benchmarks, they are updated daily, sometimes weekly, but not more often than daily. And it's quite straightforward to calculate how valuable these products are for our clients because these are not DSO. These are process low-grade high-purity materials at about 1% and 1.1% of lithium oxide content, which are pre-crushed in a way and pre-separated. So they're bringing a 30% savings for our customers, hence, the heightened demand. So again, unpacking your question, we are in a wait-and-see strategy to decide what to do with these products given that the prices are now settling around these levels of $80 per tonne ex works. However, as we are still finalizing deliveries on the previous sale of 400,000 tonnes announced last quarter, we would just commence deliveries of these products somewhere in beginning of third quarter. And so most likely, we will wait until then to decide what to do with those materials as prices continue to be quite robust and demand is very much there. One point I want to highlight about your question is on an ongoing basis, we will continue to generate that kind of inventory given that we are back at full processing lithium oxide from fresh rock. On a 12-month basis, we generate about 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes of what we call the lithium fines, the lithium low-grade materials. And therefore, this could become an ongoing business if prices remain at the current levels. And so one could forecast the extra cash flow coming from these businesses on whichever basis one uses for lithium oxide pricing. It's roughly [ 1/10 ] of the pricing. These markets are becoming more and more mainstream. I highlight the sale that one of our peers in Australia has to one of our European trading companies recently at about $290 per tonne CIF. Transportation costs vary, but I just gave you my cost Ex works, which is cost at plant. So assuming lithium prices remain robust as they are, these markets for low-grade materials do continue. The contribution to cash flow is essentially the 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes of material times. I mean, currently, that would be $80 per tonne. On an ongoing basis, it would vary based on the lithium oxide price forecast for each one particular analyst.

We are showing no further questions. I am returning to our CEO, Ana Cabral, for her final remarks.

I want to thank all of you for your participation on this call. I want to thank our incredible team for having gone through last year and coming out stronger, fitter, more resilient and ready for our first bull market. As you may recall, Sigma initiated production at -- in the middle of '23, we barely caught a bull market. So the best is yet to come, given that whatever comes our way now as far as prices is excess returns given our very -- extremely low-cost position always to the left of most African -- all African producing nations. So we're very excited and very enthusiastic about the near-term future, the short-term future, the midterm and the long term because we were built to withstand any moment or any point in the lithium cycle.

Thus, we conclude the first quarter of 2026 Conference Call of Sigma Lithium. For further information and details of the company, please visit the company's website, www.sigmalithiumresources.com. You can disconnect now.