Standard Lithium Ltd. (SLI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

For our next fireside chat, we have the pleasure of hosting a lithium panel with Lithium Royalty Corp. CEO, Ernie Ortiz; and Standard Lithium's CEO, David Park. So just a brief background. Lithium Royalty Corp. looks to invest in the battery materials space with a focus on lithium companies. Now has 37 royalties in its portfolio. It's had its IPO back in March 2023 and now has, I believe, 4 cash-flowing royalties. And Ernie was previously an investment analyst at a hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, a Senior Associate at Credit Suisse in New York as part of chemicals team, where he led the bank's primer on lithium in 2014. Briefly on Standard Lithium, near commercial lithium company focused on the sustainable development of a portfolio of high-grade lithium-ion properties in the U.S. and in partnership with Equinor, the company is advancing its Southwest Arkansas project and prospects in East Texas. So David joined Standard Lithium last year. He's been working closely as a senior adviser to the company. It was critical in securing the partnership with Equinor. He brings decades of energy and industrial experience from his time at various Koch entities, most recently the President of KSP. So maybe I'll just leave it to you guys just to give any further introduction to the company and what it is that you do?

Sure. So by way of background, for Lithium Royalty Corp, we started Lithium Royalty Corp. in 2018 as a private enterprise. We raised $50 million through a private vehicle. Our first royalty was actually over the Mt. Cattlin project that was operated by Galaxy at the time. And now it's owned by Rio Tinto. We then IPO-ed, as Patrick said, in 2023. We raised $150 million of capital. It was actually the only IPO on the TSX that year. It was good times and the bad times in the sense that we got the IPO done, we got the growth capital to continue to foster our strategy for growth. But as you've seen, it's been a downturn since early 2023. In fact, fourth quarter of this year is probably going to be the first year -- our first quarter of year-over-year pricing growth. So we're looking forward to tailwinds going forward. As Patrick mentioned, we now have 37 royalties diversified globally. Our key projects in operation right now are Sigma Lithium in Brazil, the largest hard rock producer in the Americas. We also have Zijin Mining's Tres Quebradas project, which is in Argentina and that started production in the third quarter of this year and aiming to ramp up further in 2026, and other ones will also be Ganfeng Lithium's Mariana project in Salta, Argentina. And we are actively looking at additional opportunities. We have a healthy balance sheet, no debt, $27.5 million in cash.

Great. So I'm David Park, CEO of Standard Lithium. Standard was formed in 2017 by Andy Robinson and Robert Mintak to develop a resource, a portfolio of projects throughout the Smackover basin in Southern Arkansas and East Texas. We have a large land base around the region. We're a first-mover in the area, and we're able to secure attractive land packages we continue to build on. I became familiar with the story approximately 4.5 years ago when I was running an investment group for Koch Industries, and we made $100 million investment in Standard Lithium. That investment helped Standard work closely with Koch to build a demonstration unit in Southern Arkansas, and for the last 4-plus years, have worked to derisk and optimize our direct lithium extraction technology. Where we are now is, we're working to develop a 22,500-tonne lithium carbonate project, the Southwest Arkansas project together with our partner, Equinor. It is a $1.5 billion project approximately. We see that being funded with approximately $1 billion worth of nonrecourse project financing from export credit agencies. Our partner, Equinor, has a very strong balance sheet as well as a lot of capability. They have the ability to fund their portion of the project. And we -- I forgot to mention, we're the recipients of the $225 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy that has survived a series of reviews, and we're out the back end of that successfully. From a financing perspective, about a month ago, we raised $130 million of equity to fund our portion of the project. So we are continuing to advance towards construction in 2026 and looking to produce in 2028. That would be our first project. And then we see ourselves with a portfolio of projects we have to be able to expand over the next 10 years and potentially get to approximately 150,000 tonnes per year of production from the Smackover basin.

Great. And maybe just starting off high-level, broader industry demand question is pretty topical. We're seeing companies like Ganfeng calling out pretty robust demand growth next year. Citi -- our own Citi research estimates are calling for 30% battery demand growth in 2026 with ESS driving a large share of that. So from your perspective, maybe I'll start with Ernie, what's your base case scenario for 2026 lithium demand? And what are the key indicators investors can look forward to gauge demand health?

Sure. So I think our base case is 25% demand growth for lithium for next year, but we think there's a very healthy possibility of 30% plus. So we'll have to see how the monthly data shapes up for both EVs and energy storage. Key indicators that we track across the cycle, and they're very -- they're pointing to very bullish demand trends going to '26 are electrolyte prices and the seasonality for the first quarter. So electrolyte kind of the liquid, what's cathode and the anode, that. LiPF6 prices have doubled in the last 3 months. We saw a similar situation back in 2020, 2021, which led to a very bullish cycle for the lithium price. Other key things that we look at is seasonality between the fourth quarter to the first quarter. Typically, EV sales decline by 25%, more or less, fourth quarter to first quarter. It is very seasonal EV demand trends with promotions and end of subsidies and the like that make that big, pronounced impact. But this coming quarter for the first quarter, we're seeing battery companies guiding to maybe down [ 5% ] to maybe even flat, which is something that we last saw in 2021, which then led to the bigger price run in '21 and '22. So you're seeing further down the chain, very bullish demand trends that speak to the underlying health of the demand. And of course, this is all being led by energy storage. And then more on an end market basis. We think energy storage is probably going to make up around 27% of the overall industry by the end of this year. So the forecast that we've seen is a growth of anywhere from 50% to 70%. Then you're talking about mid-teens to high teens growth for lithium overall. And that's just -- that's only from energy storage. Keep in mind, I think consensus supply growth for next year is 20%. So once you add in the EV component, you're likely looking at a deficit going into 2026. That's just -- is kind of base case 25% demand growth, but we think 2026 is going to be -- is shaping up to be a very solid year and probably tightening of the supply-demand balance very considerably.

Got it. And then maybe just a follow-up on ESS demand and sort of clicking down there. Like what are some of the proof points that you're seeing here in the U.S.? Why is that so critical to energy security, data security? What are these structural demand drivers going to be?

Sure. So we are seeing -- one of the beautiful things about energy storage is that it's more diversified than, say, EVs. EVs, call it, 70% of global demand more or less is from China, whereas for energy storage, it's a lot more diversified. So in the U.S., we're seeing the growth really being led by AI and data center build-out. You guys likely have seen, but NVIDIA put out a white paper about a month or so ago saying that for data centers, you really need battery storage to be part of the solution because of batteries, you can better optimize the unit so that it doesn't impact the overall data centers from potential differences in voltages and power mechanics for the unit. And actually, we were just at the Arkansas Lithium Summit and the head of Google's Power division was there. It's the first I've seen big tech at a lithium conference, and they mentioned how for their data centers, they're essentially using battery storage and particularly LFP because it's scalable and ready to be deployed today. Other things that you're seeing beyond the U.S., in Europe, you've had incredible deployment of renewables that now they're actually adding a lot of energy storage to try to catch up to their renewable usage. You guys probably saw an article, I think, came out this week where, in some cases, they're actually turning off some of the windmills in some of the plants because they have too much power. So they're actually deploying energy storage to catch up to the investments they've already had in the upstream side of the power business. And of course, the Middle East has an abundance of solar power and Vision 2030 is a key hallmark for Saudi Arabia. So they're using energy storage as a way to promote that growth. So very diversified, very global. Each region has different kind of demand dynamics, but they're all growing incredibly quickly.

That's very helpful. And then David, maybe just -- we've heard a lot of voices in the industry talk about the U.S. being more than a decade behind China in terms of the battery supply chain. So can you just -- what do you think is needed to catch up or perhaps just close the gap? And where does Standard and Arkansas fit into that picture?

Yes, I would say the U.S. government recognizes that they have a problem, that we have a problem that they are decades behind China in building out not just upstream, but the midstream and the downstream battery supply chain. I can tell you that there is a recognition of a problem from the White House, from Department of Commerce, from Department of Energy, from Department of Defense and even the Treasury now. I do believe there -- while there's a recognition of a problem, they may have -- they're under resourced to deal with the issue. And the biggest resource that they're missing is qualified people to evaluate their investment decisions. They have hundreds of things they're trying to advance and move forward. They're just struggling to get through. So what is really needed is not just a chasing of headlines and announcements, but a sustained investment to address the root cause of the problem.

And I guess just related to that, like it's obviously been in the headlines, you've even seen equity investments at this point like -- I mean, is there anything else that needs to be done, whether it's on the funding side or even perhaps accelerating the permitting side and what may or may not -- or what has this or has this not meant for your company at this point?

Yes. So first, I'll say, permitting needs to be addressed. Fortunately, for us, it's not a big issue. Our projects are on private lands, and we would not have to go through any federal review process, if it was not for taking the DOE grant. That said, we were FAST-41. We were put on a FAST-41 program to expedite, prioritize critical minerals projects. We are under a federal review, but we expect that to round up, run its course successfully by year-end. So that would be about a 9-month process. So I don't think that's an issue at least for us. But overall, if you're hard rock mining, open pit mining public lands in the west, it's a real problem, and it needs to be dealt with. As far as tools they have at their disposal. Commerce just finished a Section 232 investigation into China is manipulating the markets. We're told that report is on the President's desk. We know the House Committee on China just had a report -- they just published a report on China manipulating critical minerals pricing. A couple of weeks ago, a number of critical minerals executives, including Jon Evans from Lithium Americas, were testifying in D.C. There is a common understanding that there has been, I'll just say, dumping that has been happening in order to make sure projects are not developed in the Western Hemisphere. And now there is a whole portfolio. Someone at Commerce said they have 15 different tools to deal with it. I don't know what all 15 are. But I can tell you, they're talking about price support. They're talking about investments. They're talking about tariffs. There's a number of different mechanisms at this point in time. And there's even an initiative underway that would be not unilateral approach, but it would be multilateral with some of our allies as well.

That's a good segue. I guess, Ernie, I guess, within the current portfolio, there's not a high concentration of royalties or assets in the U.S. But maybe for those which may or may not have trade agreements, like how do you see this U.S. government involvement or potential actions affecting the current portfolio? And does it change the calculus at all on how you approach acquisitions in the pipeline?

Sure. That's a good question. So we have three assets today in the U.S., mostly in the west. I think with the reinvigoration and the energy and the promotion of domestic supply here in the U.S., we're probably looking at more U.S. assets than we have in the past. But like you said, a lot of our royalties are in allied countries. So by royalty count, we have a major presence in Canada, particularly in Quebec. So we think that could be a very strong source of supply for the U.S. We also have royalties in Australia and Brazil, that could also be very important to feed the domestic supply chain. So I think there's -- the demand growth is still so robust that there's going to be a need for lots of sources of supply. I think we're well positioned to capture not just U.S. growth, but global growth. And we are looking at potentially investing further in the U.S. given the more pro-business and pro-mining type attitude that we've seen in the last few years or so.

Got it. And then I guess just maybe a question for both of you. I mean this has also been a source of funding or derisking at this point, but large consolidation in the industry. You have largest lithium companies who struggle to bring projects on time or on budget. Now those same companies have gone through pretty extensive CapEx cutting cycles when you could argue countercyclical investment is more prudent at this point. So I mean, are we just at the beginning of large global oil majors, mining majors getting involved here? And then maybe additionally, what that has meant for both of your companies?

Sure, I'll take it first. Our 45% partner, Equinor is a top 10 global energy company. They are -- they have a very strong balance sheet, but they also build and operate global energy projects around the world. So -- and they're very hands on. They're a 45% partner, but they've seconded over 20 people to our project team, very integrated in everything we're doing. So that's an example of one major, very active. Our neighbors in Southern Arkansas and in East Texas, adjacent lands, Exxon, Chevron, OXY, they're all there. They're all advancing. We've been -- Exxon came in about 2 years ago. We've been there 7 or so. They all have very strong balance sheets. They all have very good engineers. They all have very smart people. They will figure it out, but they haven't selected their technology. They haven't demonstrated technology. They're still building out their land bases. They have aggressive plans. I think they'll be successful eventually. But right now, I think they're watching in this period and positioning themselves to be fast followers or potentially acquirers down the road.

Yes. I would agree. I think you've seen some great moves by likes of Equinor, by Exxon, but those have probably been the most advanced. The rest of the projects are probably 2030 and beyond, when probably the market needs additional sources of supply. I would say probably the energy companies have been more visionary than perhaps the mining companies, because in mining, probably outside of Rio, we haven't really seen any major investments from any major mining companies. And especially with Rio Tinto's Capital Markets Day tomorrow, it's going to be interesting to see how they stage their lithium investment. So that's going to be interesting for mining, the supply growth. But we do see bigger players entering the industry, I guess, in the last cycle, we did see CATL, I guess, moving further downstream with their lepidolite mine. So I wouldn't be surprised to see maybe some of the battery companies themselves is also trying to get more involved. Gotion, another battery company in China, also has domestic sources of supply in China. So I think that level of involvement is also not out of the question, and a lot of them are -- have been able to tap the capital markets in Hong Kong and have a lot of money to deploy. I'll also mention in May of this year, we were in China, we met with battery companies, converters. And even sort of at the lows in pricing, everyone wanted product for '26, '27 and '28. So I wouldn't rule out kind of downstream investment into the upstream.

Yes. I'll also just add, none of this is very surprising. This is large public companies managing their quarters in cyclical commodity businesses. You've seen this movie before, across commodities and across different periods of time. Things get rough, people start cutting cost, they start laying off people, they start deferring projects and then pricing whips back and then they try and rehire people, and you've seen the movie before.

Yes. And David, I guess, maybe just pivoting to Standard more specifically, you've had some exciting developments recently. So maybe just give us a quick recap of the Southwest Arkansas project, sort of milestones that are coming up? And I know it's early stages, but if you could touch on Franklin project as well.

Sure. I'll go back in time a little bit. So in 2025 alone, Andy Robinson and the project team have done just a fantastic job of finalizing front-end engineering and design, and wrapping up our Definitive feasibility study this summer. Then we work very closely with the state of Arkansas to get through their unitization process, which is really a force pooling process, put in place a royalty regime that would work for us and just tick off all the things we needed to do from an Arkansas regulatory perspective. So we kind of hopped through the engineering work, the feasibility study work and the Arkansas regulatory. We are looking forward from a Southwest Arkansas project, we are -- we've been working for last 9 months or so with an adviser to help us put in place our offtake agreements and our debt project financing. We are in very short order going to be able to announce, are putting together our letters of intent for our debt financing package. So that looks very good. I was hoping to be able to say something today, I can't, but we're close. Though those agreements will be -- need to be supported by long-term take-or-pay agreements from off-takers. We've been involved in a dialogue with a large group of off-takers over the last year. We believe we're going to be in a position to make some positive announcements on that side, in the coming weeks as well. So there's a lot of balls in the air. And then our finalization of the NEPA process hopefully by year end. So those are upcoming milestones getting us to construction in '26 and production in '28. As far as our Franklin project, so at the same time, we're moving Southwest Arkansas forward, Franklin is -- will be our first project in East Texas. We have a very good resource in Southern Arkansas. The resource in East Texas is larger and higher quality in terms of lithium concentrations. We believe our best projects that get built will actually be our portfolio of products in Texas. Arkansas had first-mover advantage for a number of reasons, some of it regulatory environment and some of -- it was the first land position we had. But the way we're looking at it now from a development time line, we see ourselves having 22,500 tonnes of production from Southern Arkansas in '28 and then we start layering on in every 2 or 3 years, additional projects from there. East Texas, we believe there's three or four large projects there. So our plan would be by 2035 to try and build out about 150,000 tonnes of lithium production there with each project successfully having better economics.

Great. And maybe just as you move towards commercial scale DLE deployment in North America and get some government support here, are you seeing a shift in the investor perception on DLE? I mean, maybe this is a question for both of you. And technology was described as unproven, I think there was a lot of noise out there in both directions, like how have you seen the perception shift?

Yes. First, I'll say huge shift in investor interest in lithium overall. So we went through a period of time, first quarter of 2025, where it was hard to get an investor meeting. You -- the small cap, mid-cap prospective lithium developer, no one was interested in hearing the story. That started picking up in the June time frame and has been -- through the fall has -- there have been robust series of discussions that have happened. So lithium itself is in favor, and we're getting quality meetings with quality names, and we were able to do a financing and I'd say, opportunistic financing on the heels of a non-deal road show based off the interest we had about a month ago. The DLE side of things, I think the fact that Standard has been operating an industrial scale demonstration facility for 5 years has helped. I think the fact that we are running a commercial scale column, the exact same size we're going to build out when we build our facility has helped materially. I think the fact that we've survived diligence from Koch Industries, from Equinor, from the Department of Energy has helped. And then with export credit agencies, we have now gone through the lender-technical adviser diligence process and got out the back end of that successfully as well. So is there some novelty or newness to what we're doing? Absolutely. But we've derisked it as far as we possibly can, and it's time to build it.

That's great. And maybe, Ernie, just like how you think about participating in assets that aren't sort of in your core, which has typically been hard rock?

Sure. So I think we are open to DLE, I think for us it's much more asset-specific as opposed to just investing for the technology. But I would agree with David that I think there has been an evolution towards DLEs, especially with China now having many projects that are successful. Now we're seeing the ramp-up of Eramet, the Centenario project in Argentina. So that will be one to track to see how the DLE there is progressing. I think also one of the benefits of probably Eramet and Standard is that they're starting with good grades to begin with. So applying the technology is probably a lot easier than perhaps some of the -- there's other companies that have much lower grades that we think might be tougher. And that's not necessarily just because of DLE, just because it's a much lower quality project to begin with. But we are open to it. I think -- at current stages, we're prioritizing assets that are more advanced or near-term cash flow as far as deploying our dollars for additional royalty investments. So by design, that doesn't lead to, I guess, a lot of DLE opportunities that we're evaluating. But as those projects derisk and get closer to commercial production, they will be a larger size of our pipeline.

If I could just add because you raised a good point. DLE is not going to be successful everywhere. There are a lot of companies and a lot of projects proposed that are looking to develop what I would consider low-quality resources with technologies that may not be that proven. The two most important things to look at when considering a direct lithium extraction project, are what is the lithium concentration and then what percentage of that lithium are you getting out from your extraction process. We know from our demonstration facility that we're running at the back end of a Lanxess facility that the economics of developing 200 parts per million or milligrams per liter project are not robust. The capital intensity, just kills you. You need to be looking at projects with lithium concentrations north of 400. So 400 to 600 parts per million is where our Southwest Arkansas project is. East Texas, we're seeing 600 to 800 parts per million. So really, it all starts with the quality of the resource, like every mining or any oil and gas operation. DLE is not a magic bullet that just works anywhere.

Got it. That's great. And I want to pivot just a little bit back to sort of pricing trends both near term and then sort of long-term sort of commercial offtake discussions. But maybe, Ernie, for you. I think you talked a little bit about inventory levels. I think what surprised us this year is that maybe the demand was understated, the sort of elasticity of supply to respond to prices was maybe overstated and that's what we've seen. Price has start to recover, but how does that take shape into the early part of 2026?

Sure. So there's very few new greenfields coming online in 2026. Probably at the earliest you could see some greenfields maybe in the fourth quarter of 2026, but that's kind of at the absolute earliest. So you really -- and the restarts that are potentially, say, with Bald Hill, or other assets in Australia, those probably also come in, in 2027. So we think 2026, just given the supply constraints and the positive demand dynamics, could have a very robust pricing year. In the last two prior upturns we've seen pricing growth of 3.5x and over 10x. And if you look at it from the trough to the peak, so that would imply anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000 a tonne as far as peak pricing. That's a very big range. So it's hard to see, I guess, such a big range where it ultimately goes, but I would suggest '26 is going to be a very strong year for pricing and then '27, perhaps it moderates as those new entrants or the restarts occur, but it will still be at healthier levels than we were in the last 2 years, and it will probably be -- lead to very successful outcomes for growth, both Standard and LRC.

That's helpful. And David, maybe just on medium-term or long-term price or however you want to frame it, just what you -- what sort of do you think incentive levels need to be to fulfill all this incremental demand? And then like how do you think about the competitiveness of your asset throughout what is likely to be many different cycles?

Sure. So we are in active dialogue with a number of players looking to procure lithium in the 2028 and beyond time frame. There is a common recognition across lithium consumers that they need to play their role to bring lithium on. They know that current pricing is not sustainable. They know that they will need to play a role in providing floor price support and providing take-or-pay obligations to help support the debt portion. Long term, I would say, I believe lithium pricing needs to be north of $18,000 a tonne to probably closer to $20,000 a tonne to see lithium projects being developed to hit that demand situation. Right now, as far as the market participants that are looking to sign long-term offtake agreements. And I'll be candid. EVs are still licking their wounds, right? They're licking their wounds from the investments they've made in the past period of time. So they're the most gun-shy portion of the market now. Even though their procurement groups know they need the lithium to come on in 2028 and beyond. Their financial teams and executive suites are really making it difficult for them to enter into those agreements at this point in time. Global trading houses are very aggressive right now. Battery manufacturers are more aggressive right now as well. They are all seeing the energy storage or BESS segment of the market growing, data center-driven grid stability side of things. And I think that's where you're seeing strongest sentiment and demand pull right now.

And I guess just a follow-up there. I mean, like we've seen some unique structures, like is anything starting to materialize in terms of prepays or anything close to sort of the fixed cost. The fixed price contracts of old? Or is there anything that you...

Yes, so I'd say it's -- for a resource developer, it's an interesting balance where we're -- we want to support the debt, but we don't want to kill the equity story. And so there is a willingness to enter into floor pricing discussions, but the art is setting the floors at a level that doesn't cause a ceiling to be put in place at a level that kills your upside. So there's price discovery that's underway, is the best way I can describe it. I missed something in your first question -- in your last question, I mean, which is our cost structure, we're -- first quartile cost structure, we're under $6,000 a tonne with sustaining capital and royalties and everything thrown in there. We can -- we're a long-life asset, 20-plus year reserve life. We can survive and prosper in volatile markets. We just need to get it built.

Awesome. Well, we're almost at time there, so we'll leave it there. So please join me in thanking David and Ernie.

Great. Thank you.