Syrah Resources Limited (SYR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Syrah Resources Q2 Quarterly Report Update. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Shaun Verner, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call today. With me is our CFO, Steve Wells. We'll use the presentation released along with the quarterly report through today's call start on Slide 3. The second quarter of 2026 saw the global graphite anode material still digesting the U.S. International Trade Commission's negative determination, in the antidumping and countervailing duties case amid ongoing demand side policy uncertainty. And consequently Syrah's natural graphite production and sales performance was softer than we had initially expected. This policy inertia led to subdued market conditions and price sensitivity with natural graphite feed to our customers during the second quarter which together with increased ex-China activity from Chinese operated graphite suppliers negatively impacted sales demand for Balama. Our operations decisions at Balama are informed by confirmed demand signals from the market, and with lower-than-planned inventory drawdown, Syrah's natural graphite production was moderated with the planned production campaign being deferred into the third quarter and now underway. The expansion of Chinese controlled East Africa fines supply into the ex-China trade is a relatively new dynamic playing out in the seaborne market. The Chinese privately held natural graphite operation with links to and strategic direction from Chinese state-owned entities commenced fines exports from Mozambique into the ex-China anode market during the quarter. Under current policy settings, Syrah is competing with such supply for ex-China fines supply into Indonesia. The long-term strategic importance of graphite and Syrah's position are positive given that policy support remains a critical and expected factor in ex-China markets moving to reduce reliance on Chinese-dominated supply. Graphite and anode demand is still expected to grow significantly in the medium term, and these materials are essential to downstream industries that generate hundreds of billions of dollars in value per year globally. Although the immediate drive slowed somewhat in Q2, customers are still seeking secure and sustainable supply of Syrah's products over the medium and longer term to ensure these highly valuable industries are less vulnerable to disruption. Meaningful and stable government policy support, both on the supply and demand side is crucial to developing ex-China supply chains, incentivizing greater critical mineral sourcing diversification and growing Syrah's sales volumes. And Syrah is very active in highlighting existing supply concentration and in advocating for policy development. We're seeing that development in other critical minerals, rare earths being the most prominent example, where government support is having a clear positive impact on the expansion of capacity and demand outside China. The cost to governments and customers have not proceeding in this manner would be high, demonstrated by IEA analysis in its 2026 Critical Minerals outlook estimating that over $300 million per year of downstream production outside China will be at risk if battery-grade graphite trade with China were meaningfully disrupted. Syrah's capacity is key in partnering with customers and governments to build resilient graphite anode material supply chains. On Slide 4, turning to an overview of Syrah's performance in the second quarter. At Vidalia, the operations team made very strong progress in Q2, moving through several key qualification milestones and demonstrating very strong product quality performance and production consistency. We continue to build valuable operating experience through more extended production runs and intensive interactions with multiple customers in the final stages of material testing and qualification approvals. Vidalia now has a great foundation for the transition from qualification campaigns to continuous production and ramp up to commercial operations, subject to the final go ahead from major customers. We have been working through multiple customers highly detailed and extensive qualification requirements and we are making faster and more positive progress. We are also responding to continuing refinements that have been requested by customers as their own processes and requirements mature in sometimes newly developed battery manufacturing operations and product mixes in the U.S. Our product quality and performance are excellent as the updated technical performance outlined on Slide 11 in the appendix of today's presentation illustrates. We are absolutely confident that our anode product meets or surpasses the requirements for using customers' batteries, and that's been further demonstrated by the resolution of alleged customers default as we advised during the quarter. Earlier, Balama did not produce for most of the quarter with 2,000 tonnes being produced and completing a Q1 campaign. Natural graphite sales were 7,000 tonnes during the quarter and our weighted average sales price for the quarter of USD 736 per tonne CIF was up 17% on the first quarter of 2026, weighted to a higher proportion of core sales in the sales mix. At the macro level, electric vehicle sales were weaker through the start of 2026, however, are recovering now in key markets. Global EV sales grew 4% in the second quarter year-on-year and this bodes well for improved upstream materials demand in the months ahead. We used this period at Balama to deliver ongoing reliability upgrades across critical processing equipment to reduce unplanned downtime risks and to improve future plant availability. Balama's C1 fixed costs during the nonoperating periods of the quarter were around $4 million per month largely consistent with the prior quarter, with some incremental variable costs for mining activities in preparation for future campaigns and product logistics for ongoing sales. Ultimately, it is confirmed demand and product inventory position that informs Balama's operating requirements. We continue to carefully monitor the ex-China anode material demand position as customers adjust to a post antidumping case world and believe that we will see recovery in ex-China feedstock demand this year, even if it's slower than initially expected. We continue to deal constructively with a highly complex mix of policy, commercial and technical factors across natural graphite feedstock and anode material markets. We remain singularly focused on accelerating and increasing sales. The strong progress in anode material qualification activity this quarter demonstrates both that there is domestic demand in the U.S. for near-term sales and that customers still expect the policy environment to develop towards domestic sourcing requirements, facilitating Syrah's commercial progress. Ongoing impacts arising from China's export license controls and the potential for the U.S. tariff and investment policy to favor products produced in the U.S. and allied countries mean that ex-China demand growth remains positive with timing the unknown factor. We emphasize the extensive work of our operating and commercial teams in this space, with our investment and development experience, demonstrating the considerable time and capital required for others to follow, creating a sustainable lead time advantage for Syrah. Before I hand over to Steve to talk about the financials, I wanted to move to Slide 5 on safety and sustainability performance across the company. As we continue to develop as a leading ex-China critical minerals producer, we are guided by 3 core objectives being positive for the communities in which we operate, being sustainable for the environment and providing secure, high-quality supply for our customers. In the second quarter, performance against our key safety and sustainability metrics was very pleasing. The health, safety and security of employees and contractors will always remain Syrah's highest priority. And in Q2, we saw our total reportable injury frequency rate reached a record low of 0 incidents per million hours worked. This is a real credit to our site leaders and if the employee and contractor to remain focused on safety through the intermittent nature of Balama's campaign operations and Vidalia's ramp up. Our safety focus is underpinned by our work on critical risk hazard management and in-field leadership interactions, which are a daily priority. Congratulations to our teams for this pretty strong outcome, and we are highly motivated to maintain this performance and continue to refine our operational risk profile. Syrah's operations are also clearly aligned to leading global sustainability and governance standards. Our initiative for responsible mining assurance or IRMA 50 level of performance for sustainability and our commitment to external audit and accreditation process including ISO standards are critical differentiators. We continue to highlight our commitments to operational, environmental and tailings governance compared with other sources of supply, which we are convinced over time will lead to stronger preference for Balama and Vidalia products. Syrah has invested in this differentiated sustainability performance and in reducing the global warming potential of integrated production to a level significantly below Chinese alternatives. We continue to prioritize health and safety and environmental management systems confirming our commitment to operating sustainably and driving continuous improvement. This makes Syrah the most sustainable source of integrated natural graphite anode material available at scale today. And you can read more about Syrah's sustainability objectives and performance and progress in the quarterly sustainability report, which is released on our website today. With that, I'll hand over to Steve to talk about our current financial position. Steve?

Thanks, Shaun, and good morning, everybody. I'll turn your attention to Slide 6 to cover the cash flow bridge for the quarter. We started the quarter with USD 52 million in total cash across restricted and unrestricted cash balances, which excludes the proceeds from the equity raise announced in March, for which had not yet settled. Our net cash outflow from operations during the quarter was negative USD 19 million, inclusive of USD 12 million of customer receipts. This was a lower cash outflow than the March '26 quarter of negative USD 27 million due to lower operating costs in the low Balama production quarter, increasing working capital and payment for a large break bulk shipment sale in Q1 that was received in Q2. At the end of the second quarter, the company had a closing cash balance of USD 98 million following the settlement of equity raising earlier in the quarter. Of this closing balance, there was USD 31 million of unrestricted cash and USD 67 million of restricted cash under both U.S. government loans. Of the restricted cash, USD 23 million is available to fund Balama operating and capital costs and restricted cash of USD 18 million is available to fund Vidalia costs. Further, new liquidity is planned to be committed to Syrah in the nonbinding strategic proposals. After the end of the quarter, our U.S. subsidiary, Syrah Technologies, received an USD 8 million advanced manufacturing and production tax credit, which is a direct cash refund under Section 45X of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act related to the 2025 tax year. The market and policy conditions Syrah experienced in the second quarter were challenging, but demonstrated exactly why the multi-element strategic funding proposals were pursued. The development of ex-China demand and capacity in a China dominated market requires funding, customer and policy support and Syrah's deep focus on these elements has been critical in navigating conditions to date and will be into the future. And with that, I'll hand it back to Shaun.

Thanks, Steve. Moving to Slide 7, which outlines the U.S. government policy initiatives that are developing to support Syrah's position. Noting that irrespective of the International Trade Commission outcome, the extensive Department of Commerce investigation through 2025 found widespread Chinese product dumping and subsidization harming the development of sustainable U.S. domestic anode demand and capacity development. Syrah continues to advocate for policies that address nonmarket practices and oversupply from China. During the quarter, U.S. trade policy developments continued to focus on reducing dependence on Chinese critical mineral supply chain with graphite identified as a strategic material. Existing U.S. Section 301 tariffs on Chinese graphite remain in place and are considered relatively durable while additional policy measures targeting Chinese graphite and anode material and precursor products continue to be evaluated. The evolving policy environment reflects bipartisan support for strengthening domestic critical mineral supply chains and improving supply security for battery materials. A key development area is the ongoing U.S. Section 232 investigation into process critical minerals and derivative products. The U.S. administration is progressing negotiations with trading partners and has indicated that graphite remains a priority critical mineral in this space. Potential outcomes under consideration include targeted trade measures such as minimum import price mechanisms, tariffs or other measures designed to support both targeted domestic demand and investment in domestic and allied supply capacity. Updates on the Section 232 process are expected during this third quarter of 2026. Recent U.S. trade proposals have included exemptions for natural graphite imports under certain tariff actions, reflecting the current absence of domestic natural graphite mining capacity in the U.S. Syrah continues to engage with U.S. policymakers and regulators on immediately available supply of natural graphite in Balama and anode material in Vidalia as well as our expansion potential. The U.S. government is highly incentivized to develop and support local anode manufacturing capability for unfettered access to critical industrial inputs and to protect the U.S. market from China trade practices and there are many potential policy levers that are supportive of Syrah. Some of these include the remaining tariffs on Chinese anode imports Section 45X production tax credits, as mentioned by Steve, with Vidalia, and the huge importance of ex-China supply of anode material to enable battery manufacturers and auto OEMs in the U.S. to continue to qualify for 45X tax credits of their own, which currently deliver more than $1 billion each annually to the major players, underpinning their profitability. There's also the U.S. government's defense logistics agency tender for natural graphite and the project vault stockpile initiative for Critical Minerals. Also, the U.S. Department of War, supplier financing and non-PSP critical mineral sourcing requirements were recently announced for military applications, where Syrah has been advancing customer discussions along with customer discussions that we are having into the critical nuclear industry supporting power supply requirements into developing demand in the U.S. And lastly, Syrah also retains a USD 165 million Section 48C tax credit awarded to Vidalia for further potential expansion. Such policy positions improved the economics of producing anode material in the U.S. directly benefiting Vidalia and strengthening demand for Balama feedstock globally. Looking at the right-hand side of this slide, expected ex-China demand growth for lithium ion batteries remains attractive and U.S. existing demand and future growth will require a greater proportion of ex-China supply of anode material to ensure supply chain security and to maintain cell and auto manufacture eligibility for the tax incentives that we mentioned earlier. On Slide 8, some additional details about the outlook for our operations and business overall. We are ready to increase production subject to market demand as the ex-China market stabilizes and grows. Over the medium term, ramp-up of Balama to targeted levels is dependent on both meaningful policy developments, which are expected to enhance support for ex-China producers, and overall market growth in both the industrial and battery segments. These will obviously be the key factors in the timing and positive cash flow from Balama. At Vidalia, we are ready to ramp up immediately, and we expect the commencement of commercial anode material sales in the second half of 2026. Our expectation remains for positive operating cash flow from the Vidalia operation from mid-2027 onwards if that occurs. Finally, as outlined earlier, our pro forma liquidity after the equity raising and work toward finalizing the strategic funding proposals provides flexibility to ramp up our operations towards targeted levels and to continue to develop the business. And finally, let me close with an overview of some of the elements of our investment proposition on Slide 9. We have a clear advantage in natural graphite and active anode material markets as the integrated first mover commercial scale supply outside China. No other company today has both an operating graphite mine and integration with a fully operational commercial scale anode material facility, positioned to supply into the U.S. domestic battery manufacturing market. We strongly believe this will deliver advantage, particularly considering that other new projects have long lead times and very significant capital requirements. Secondly, Balama is the largest and highest grade natural graphite resource and operation outside China. Its scale and all quality give us meaningful optionality if demand grows and where ex-China customers prioritize diversification, both for natural graphite feedstock in industrial and battery markets and through integrated anode material production. Importantly, we're advancing the implementation of the strategic funding proposals we announced in March that reset our balance sheet and provide incremental support to the business. And lastly, we continue to develop our alignment with the U.S. government through both the DFC and DOE with both an immediate and future pathway to direct U.S. government equity holding in Syrah highlighting the importance of Syrah's assets and securing critical mineral supply for U.S. energy and battery supply chain interests. Thank you for joining the call today, and I'm now happy to move to any questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Regan Burrows with Macquarie.

Can you just remind us the pricing dynamics for Tesla and Lucid contracts. Were they both fixed at the time of signing? Or does that fixing period commence on achievement of qualification?

Sorry, can you just repeat the first part of the question, Regan, I missed it.

Sorry. Can you just confirm the pricing dynamics for both of those offtake contracts that you have with Tesla and Lucid. Were they fixed at the time of signing those contracts? Or were they fixed from sort of commencement of qualification material?

They were fixed from the time of signing those contracts.

Okay. Great. And just sort of staying on that. I mean it looks like the Tesla qualification is largely met. Can you sort of give us a bit of a comment on how far you are down that pathway for the Lucid contract?

I think it's difficult to provide specific information given the confidentiality elements of each of those processes. But as we said during the call, progress through the quarter was very positive on qualification processes for a number of customers. And that's what leads us, I guess, to a stronger view that commencement of sales in the second half of this year is likely.

And if we're taking the commencement of sales in the second half of this year across both contracts as occurring, looking at the calendar year '27, how does that sales mix look across the portfolio? Do we sort of assume, I guess, a similar dynamic versus the contracted volumes? Or are they going to be sort of ramp periods between those 2 contracts, how should we sort of think about that?

Yes. I think for the Vidalia facility overall, we've spoken previously about an overall ramp-up requirement. We expect it to take 6 months or so to reach 80% capacity utilization. We haven't provided any insight into the mix of customers split through that ramp-up. But our focus is clearly on commencing that commercial production process and ramping up as quickly as we can to that 80% level. And again, the expectation of having the Vidalia operation at an operating cash flow positive level in the second half of '27 is very much based on that commencement of commercial sales sometime in half 2 '26.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Andrew Harrington with Petra Capital.

I have a few questions. But I'm happy to hand over the other people on the line after the first couple. So referencing sort of time lines or milestones for qualification, it's very hard to gauge. So how do we think about it when you cross those milestones? Are you 3 months into a 12-month process? Or 24 months into a 30-month process? When you say you've made a lot of progress, how can we understand those crossing of milestones?

Yes. It's a really challenging question to answer, Andrew, given the confidential nature of those qualification processes owned by customers and controlled by customers. In general, mass production qualification processes with major customers take at least 12 months, and in some cases, up to 2 years and beyond. So we are very much at the back end of that with our expectation of commencement of sales being much closer than it has been in the past. So I know that doesn't provide you an accurate view of the time line or exactly where we are at on those processes. But what really matters here is our expectation around the commencement of sales. And we will continue to work through with other customers in addition to the ones that we are well progressed with on qualification of material out of Vidalia to provide us greater optionality in terms of what the sales mix might look like for the existing operation and for future expansion of operations at Vidalia.

And so when is the first sale expected? You're saying second half of calendar 2027. That's your first delivery, the first invoice, you will be sending out? Is it how are we thinking about?

No. I said our expectation is that commercial sales will commence in the second half of 2026. And that based on that, we have an expectation that Vidalia, if it achieves the ramp-up profile that we're seeking can achieve operationally cash flow positive operations in the second half of '27.

Got you. All right. And then the Vidalia refunds that has arrived after the quarter, you were saying you expect roughly the same amount every quarter? Is that how -- is that correct?