Cleantech Lithium (LSE:CTL) — Corporate Update

0:01 Good afternoon, and welcome to the CLEANTECH LITHIUM PLC corporate update. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted online by the q and a tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company will review your questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll.

0:28 And I'd now like to hand you over to doctor Aldo Boitane, CEO. Good afternoon to you. Good afternoon. Welcome, everyone. We are very happy, delighted to be meeting with with investors, current investors, and future ones, to tell us the update of our company, especially the fundraiser we completed last week. With that, I'll pass, the introduction, of this presentation to doctor Steve Kessler.

0:54 Good afternoon. For those that we might not have met or talked to in the past, we'll just introduce ourselves. I'm Steve Kessler. I'm the chairman of the company. I've been in the mining business my entire life, forty five years for major companies, Rio Tinto, BHP, Billiton. I have been a chief executive of a lithium company listed in Australia, a European lithium. I've had over thirty years of of project experience in Chile, initially with with Escondida responsible for its growth from its startup to its capacity at 1,000,000 tons a year, the largest copper mine in the world. And then as the first CEO of of Koyawasi, taking that from extraction through financing, permitting, and into construction. My background is in hydrometallurgy.

1:51 So linking together my background in lithium, Chile, and hydrometallurgy, I was very honored to be asked to come on board as as chairman and enjoying it immensely. Alplit?

2:03 Thank you, Steve. My name is Aldo Boitano. Have also a background strong background in mining. And especially in the late last years on renewable energy, I I developed, along with other engineering people, projects in in solar energy that account for 800 megawatts. I'm single industrial engineer. I've also held various, chief executive office positions and management roles. And I'm one of the two cofounders of the company that that started in 2017, always with the aim of being the the clean the the cleanest lithium producer of the world. We have three lithium projects that account for more than half 500 square kilometers in licensed areas.

2:51 We have up to now a total resources that are above 2,000,000 tons. 800,000 of them are indicated and measured. The remaining are inferred. Part of the reason we we raised funds last week, we when we did the IPO, we're not we're not funding additional drilling campaigns, and we had on top of drilling some drilling more and and better on the preview on the last year campaign that made our resources go up. We also spent some more more of the of the money we we have budgeted. But, nevertheless, the idea is to take those 2,000,000 to somewhere between $4.04 and a half, 5,000,000 tons with the as the two main resources who have been developed, Francisco Basin.

3:38 Those two projects sit in in in wholly owned licensed basins. We don't have any compete competing lithium projects. We don't have indigenous community, very limited flora and fauna. And at the same time, this is a big requirement for for part of the direct lithium extraction and as part of our green credentials, it's a much cleaner technology to extract lithium. And and the only way you can really full do the circle of direct lithium extraction is when you control the basins, so you can reinject the spent brine without lithium. We have a very experienced board, as Steve just was mentioned, and and that's true for the remaining of the board, not only strong governance and and and finance and and and board experience, but also hands on experience on on developing projects from start up all the way into into production.

4:26 And the same can be said about the management team in Chile. Chile is is one of the countries with the most advanced engineering mining skills. It's not it's it's very normal that projects around that are that are done around the planet, their engineering is is subcontracted and done in Chile. Bechtel, for example. Their their mine world mining headquarters are are based in in Chile. And we've also, to to really do the best job we can, we really stepped up, the team in Chile and in Jersey and in London where we have offices, and that also has required additional funds. We listed on the aim in March 17. We raised 4.6 £5,600,000, at thirty p. We raised, before that in October 2021 in a pre IPO, £4,000,000 at twenty. We're currently trading around $50.52 p, and and we had had these additional funds very we're very pleased at a very low discount, $398.04 percent discount from the weighted average of the previous ten days to the race, and that meant a 47 p race that we did,

5:37 where we read, we read £12,300,000. I'll we'll explain more as we go with the presentation again. Laguna Verde, 1,500,000 tons, 800 of them indicated and measured. Francisco Basin, half a million tons inferred. And the Marai completely greenfield exploration project, sits in the northern part of the Lithium Triangle, a little to the Northwest of Salar Azacama, the largest reserve and productions place in the whole planet. And and we aim, again, with the funds we just raised to to find lithium in this project and to expand it. Part of the board, more importantly, that I haven't mentioned is the technical advisory board with Marcelo Bravo, one of the top world's experts in brine and lithium in particular, developed projects of of brine in in Australia, South Africa, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and and and and working on on the engineering development of the of our projects.

6:39 This is what we did again with the last six months with the money we raised at the IPO level. We always said we were all the all the way funded into the prefeasibility studies, but we were not having fund additional drilling campaigns and not fund, hydrological work and other things that happened, that we we we understood what needed to be done to to have a to derisk the project and to move it forward. But, nevertheless, so the last six months, environmental impact assessment started at both projects, Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin. We already have a draft of the scoping study at Laguna Verde. We're working on it. We're gonna be releasing in the next month or so. With our own resin and our own process, we developed via direct lithium extraction one battery one kilo battery grade lithium that was certified in Germany, for in excess of a 9.5 requirement. It had 99.9% of lithium and is suitable for battery production and other usage of of battery grade lithium.

7:43 We we applied for the Yamara project successfully, but had all the licenses. It is like I said, it's a very large project, 145 square kilometers. Francisco Basin, a a place where it never had been drilled before successfully. We we we did a very good drilling and added a maiden resource of half a million tons and put this place in the map in the whole world. And we expanded the original 1.2, mostly inferred resource at the Luna Verde into 1.5 where more than half is measured and indicated. Steve? Yes. And this is where we're going during the course of the next year or two years. The money that we've we've raised in this in the fundraising last week, largely going into resource and reserve development. As Aldo mentioned, we're currently sitting on on 2,000,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.

8:41 Our analysts and technical experts believe there's no reason why we can't get into the $4.04 plus million tons by the time we've completed the drilling and resource evaluation the middle of next year. This puts us in the same sort of size comparison as Lake Resources, which is a a sort of peer comparison in in in Argentina. We have scoping studies underway. They'll advance into prefeasibility studies by the middle to third quarter of of next year. We're working on the hydro metallurgy with with Sun Resin, which is the largest resin manufacturer in China and the most developed lithium plant manufacturer in the world. They have a number of plants working in in in China and just about to come into Argentina, and Aldo will tell you more about that relationship.

9:42 Where we're expecting a lot of activity in the next six to nine months is post our our scoping study when we put out the first economic valuation of the project as well as people seeing the size of the resource we're going to be. We've already had a couple of knocks on the door from traditional trading houses and Chinese interests interested in offtake and potential equity participation in the project. We've pushed those discussions out until such time as we have demonstrated a larger reserve and the economic value of the projects. And the number of players are getting much wider than the Chinese and trading houses.

10:28 We're seeing the major mining companies like Rio Tinto entering this this space for the first time earlier this year with the acquisition of the brine lithium project in Argentina, Rincon. And only yesterday, the the chief executive of Rio Tinto was publicly stating that they want to expand their position in lithium, and they've charged the investment banks around the world to bring them attractive projects. We've seen the motor manufacturers like Tesla and Volkswagen also publicly stating that to secure supply of lithium, they are considering going upstream into owning mines or participation in mining projects to get a secure supply of of lithium.

11:17 The battery manufacturers are also going that way. Now I'm absolutely certain that during the course of this next six to nine months, we will have quite a number of these knocking on our doors, wanting to know more about the project, and potentially looking for a participation in the project. We have deliberately not given any offtake contracts. We don't intend to give any offtake contracts until we advance those strategic discussions because we believe that is the carrot to attract a strong and the best partner for us that can mobilize the largest part of the construction finance that we need to get into production. So that's all a topic that's gonna take a lot of activity next year. Our aim is to finish the prefeasibility study third quarter next year, then finalize strategic partner, get into discussions on what is the financing package, complete the DFS, the environmental permitting, ready to go into construction and then into production in 2025.

12:26 That's the plan forward. The funds we raised last week will take us largely through that, certainly through until the end of the prefeasibility study. Aldo?

12:43 Look closely at the projects and also how we wanna development, develop them with the funds we just acquired last week. La Buena Verde, as I said, it's our more developed asset. We have, again, 1,500,000 tons of lithium at 260 milligrams per lithium. We believe that grade is somewhat, low, because of, freshwater in contaminating or diluting some of the the brine in the in the four holes campaign we did in the previous drilling season. And that's because we drilled more and deeper, and winter caught up with us, last winter, last May, June of last year, and we couldn't really, finish separating the that's that surface water into into the into the subsurface brine. And we found at one point four hundred and nine milligrams of lithium in the in the deepest sample.

13:38 But so the first job we're doing as as we are resuming drilling, we have the campsite set up and and the machinery up there is to recondition those four holes, again, with this new budget that we have. And and with that, do an upgrade resource as we are able to separate freshwater from from from brine. At the same time, we're gonna run a two, and we'll see if we if we do more than two, up to four, drilling wells to expand even more the resource, up to somewhere, 2.5, 3,000,000 tons, of of resource. Again, trying to make as much as that as indicated and measured. That is the case now. There's a strong geothermal influence in older brain. Every single one that we collected were between twenty and thirty degrees. This is important for the OpEx saving and the work we're doing in the in the scoping study that, again, we have a draft and we'll be releasing in the next month or so as we review it.

14:36 The we have also started the environmental impact assessment. We're starting the hydrogeological work. A lot of work under undergoing with the aims to having the prefeasibility study to start before the end of this year. Francisco Basin, I already told you, we went from zero to half a million tons with just one very well executed hole. It we drill at 328 meters of depth. We had an idea originally with the geophysics that we'll have a 100 meters of sub surface brine, and we ended up having 204 and a very consistent grade of 305 milligrams per liter as we were completely able to seal the subsurface aquifer from the from the deeper subsurface aquifer where the lithium and the brine is.

15:28 Part of the reasons, we spent more money in Francisco Basin and the requirement of new funds is, again, because we drill deeper and and farther. But at the same time, we had a a blowout similar to to that exploration of oil and gas. We had a 50 meters below the surface, a 50 meter band of clay that are very thick and that kept the subsurface aquifer being a confined aquifer. Confined aquifer means that there's more than one atmospheric pressure down there. And once you drill through that, that went two thirds of that drilling tower you see at the bottom right. That's very good news because it's a very consistent grade, but it also creates some technical problems that cause delays and had to fix some of the of the machinery.

16:14 Just as as Agua Verde, our aim is to move with four holes, move expand the resource and move that into measured and indicated. One hole again produced half a million tons. Our brokers also have the idea that Francisco Basin could be easily two, two point five million ton resource that will really add up with La Buena Verde. We we aim to have at least 4,000,000 resource before the while we we lock down, we we close the the drilling season. It's an eight inch diameter cased all the way down to the 328 meters. It can be easily a production bore or or or a monitoring bore when we

16:55 move into a commercial operation, and it will serve us well now for all the brine we need for the direct lithium extraction, small lab test pilot scale, and then the larger to produce one ton of lithium. Just as El Buena Verde scoping study, it's under way. The prefeasibility is planned, to the first half of next year. It's a there's it's a little bit less advanced in timing with Laguna Verde who we started earlier, but the the environmental impact statements and the baselines have been done on the same time. And we're gonna run simultaneously dealing campaign with Laguna Verde. It's a very logistics and engineering, challenge that we did successfully in the previous season, and we're we're doing it as we speak. We released an ARMS midweek last week.

17:41 Yamara, it's, like I said, a very different project, much northern at a lower elevation. Lower Navarro and Francisco Basin sit at 4,300 meters above sea level, and that explains part of the reason there's no or indigenous communities because there's but at the same time, it's it's an elevation that is very common in Chile for for copper mines. Steve in Coahuasi had a campsite around 5,000 meters, when he developed the now second largest copper mine of the world. But Yamaras sits at 1,000 meters with no significant flora or fauna. We control, the southern part of the basin. There's there's evidence of lithium on the surface with with with very salty crust.

18:27 And there's we acquired an old geophysics done by, like, oil and gas exploration where you can see that low magenta color that shows just San Francisco Bay in El Buenavento where we acquire we did we our own geophysics.

18:43 It shows low resistivity or high conductivity. That means there's evidence of very high brine down there in an in an in a depth of 300 to 400 subsurface aquifer. And our aim is in in November, early December to drill one very deep hole to see what grade of lithium we find. And then, again, with the money, we just raised last week, expand this to a full lithium project with with resources and everything. We're, like I said, environmentally committed, not only with direct lithium extraction and but also my background on renewable energy that the combination of both directly some extraction that doesn't need evaporation ponds as a small footprint.

19:28 There's no subsurface depletion as you can reinject the spent brine without lithium, without any additional chemicals or anything. It's it's an organic way of working with the with the resin and extracting the the lithium from the brine. It it takes a few hours instead of a year of the series of operation ponds to to do the same. And in those few hours, concentrates the brine from anywhere to 200 or 600 parts per million to 10,000. And from there on, it's a known process of, of lithium enrichment into into battery grade. The recovery rate at the at the and and we tested this at, at the resting level is 95%.

20:12 And and and then the overall process of beryllium extraction means you have a recovery rate of lithium between 8085%. That's double the one you have in in evaporation ponds. It's a combination of the mechanical and and chemical process that has been working in live in Argentina in in a Salar that produces 20,000 tons per year for more since 1998 and in Chiselty Lakes in China as well. Mechanical and chemical because it starts with nanofiltering to get the larger molecules of, magnesium and calcium out, and then the resin work with the absorption of the lithium out of the brine then creating a little eluted liquid. From there on, you you have reverse osmosis, and you have force evaporation, and then you have ionic exchange to remove the traces of boron and other materials.

21:03 This is known in other industries as the as the uranium industry that Steve took part and and developed one of the largest ionic exchange plants in the world for uranium, if not the largest. And and it's it's it's it's gonna go forward as a standard process in the whole world. You can see here all the companies that are working with direct lithium extraction, the tree producing lakes in China with sand resin who we early on in 2017, approach and who, since then, really step up their presence in

21:36 the Western part of the world with a with a with the acquisition of two wholly owned companies in in Belgium that produce valves and and and pilot plant, small units and larger units. They paired with Hatch in North America, had a PFS project and an MOU signed with Han Hansen, a company in Utah who's developing lithium in in a in a in a low grade lithium project.

22:07 They did very impressively in only five months after receiving a purchase order, delivered 134 containers, what is now the initial 25,000 tons per year initial stage of a project in Argentina, only 250 kilometers away in the other side of the Andes for our Laguna Verde project. And it's gonna take them only nine months to construct their OpEx and CapEx both at PFS level in in in The US with Hansen and also in Argentina are in line with our work we're doing with the scoping study and and information we provide the market on our admission document in the IPO in March. More interesting here is all the companies that are going forward with the deletion extraction. Most of them working with a black box technology providers like LITHIUM, who we sampled, in 2018,

22:57 and, and who offer us the same deal that has now with Lake Resources where they're up to take 25% of the equity of Lake Resources in exchange of a pilot plan and a PFS. They offer us the very same thing last year. And and from there, we we we rejected because they needed twenty four months to prove their so called in technology. They needed twenty four months to prove their so called in technology, and and and and we would have prevented us to go to the IPO and would have prevented us to to to go forward. And the so called proven technology needed all that time. By then, we knew more about beryllium extraction and our brine because sun resin, it has an open approach to technology. They sell you the resin, the pilot plant, the whole production plant, EPC style, all the way from brine to battery grade lithium like a normal mining vendor, mining provider.

23:55 And they, at the same time,

23:59 are very generous with information that we have been filling into environmental impact assessments and and the scoping study and then the future PFS and everything. We're heavily undervalued with the amount of resources we have. We we aim with our two co brokers, Daniel Fox Davis, listed us, and now Canaccord, who released a very powerful and deep note, two weeks ago to be more known around the planet.

24:25 We we have a big base of our shareholders in Australia. I'm traveling next week to Australia to to meet them in in person, and we will have extensive meetings over over virtual calls, etcetera. With this, again, mention the importance of clean energy. Not only clean energy, the infrastructure in place in Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin. The same can be said for Gemara. Pave highways that go through Laguna Verde into Argentina and International Highway. Francisco Basin has four access roads. Some of them come from the disconnected from the connect from the international highway as well. There's a substation within couple of kilometers in Francisco Basin with ample capacity sub sub electrical substation. There's cell phone coverage there that Buena Verde has in mind in terms of very close connection to another substation 52 kilometers away where you you if you manage, as I have done in the past, a power purchase agreement with a twenty four seven renewable energy provider, they will provide you the construction of the line to site,

25:28 a port just straight east to west from the coast being expanded as we speak for other mining activities. And and, again, this speaks volumes of the importance in Chile of mining and the the amount of the type of jurisdiction that we are compared to those of Canada and Australia. Steve? Yeah. Environmental sustainability is very much in focus around the world in the mining industry

25:58 to today. Now we're seeing the the EU really wanting to tackle climate change. One of its major drives is to move all the motor manufacturing to electric vehicles. But not only does it want to see the vehicles electric, it wants to make sure that the supply chain of all the materials going into those batteries, nickel, cobalt, and lithium, are coming from sustainable sources, low carbon sources. So that is where we're gonna see a a drive is those motor manufacturers and battery man manufacturers want to get a source not just of lithium carbonate and hydroxide, but clean low carbon lithium carbonate and hydroxide.

26:44 We're seeing in in Chile, we've had the presidential elections this year. The new new government is very supportive of the mining sector with a proviso that is done in an environmentally sustainable way. The government also pushing towards net zero carbon. And in particular, if we look at lithium production in the North Of Chile through conventional means of of the evaporation ponds where the brine from the aquifer is evaporated

27:15 and and lost. They like our approach and our technology that we don't do that. We take the brine, take the lithium, and return that water back underground, so no net water loss from the aquifer. So we expect that the government will be very supportive as we go through our environmental permitting procedure. Yeah. We already mentioned Chile and the importance in the global scene of lithium. We have the largest global reserves and the largest producing place in Salar De Takama and and and it's all brine production. We have the highest income country in Latin America. We've reduced strongly poverty and have created a big, big middle class, educated middle class against strong mining codes and laws, and that's never been on dispute.

28:09 We had a a social unrest in 2019 that moved the the country into work a way of having a new constitution, that was proposed and was rejected by the largest vote ever ever in Chile on September 5 that has many very strong now center left to center right pro business accounting for around 80% of the of the congress to to produce a new proposed constitution, but with very strong round rules and an overseen body of experts to to at the same time meet the requirements of a of a new constitution going forward, but at the same time assuring that the country keeps on its track of being a a developed country.

28:58 Where the we have free trade agreements with 85 of the world's economy, more importantly with The US, who now is gonna be requiring by 2026 that lithium and other cream key min key minerals into the battery, are coming from free trade agreements or or from The US. The president itself of Chile in September with the with the treasury minister announced a renewal a renewable commitment to invest in Chile. And, today, as we speak in in London, the mining ministry is attending a a conference and a and a talk to to lure investors to to come to Chile with speed permitting on the environmental front, tax incentives, etcetera.

29:45 As Steve said, it's highly supportive of sustainable extraction and a and a green approach to to to produce lithium. We've had a very good reception of of the government. Our projects have been taken abroad to conferences in other parts of the world showing our credentials. And and and and here you can see the in the top pictures, the impact of a large evaporation power in Salanda Takama, more than 50 square kilometers, with the impact on the environment and the local indigenous communities who live there. That's now our case with the small footprints and and our clean approach to technology. Steve? Yeah. And, this is an example of of some of the, you know, the the players, the modem manufacturers and battery manufacturers that have committed to green technology to ensure that the the batteries come from from sustainable sources.

30:41 I've mentioned that we are in discussion with with a couple, but there'll be a much wider group, and you can see some of the names there that we will expect to come knocking on the door, to discuss our project, much more. The EU is the the the area of of the world that's seeing the, you know, the strongest increase in demand, for for lithium. Analysts are expecting the demand to increase by 20 times in this in this current, decade. We're clearly seeing the price at the moment is at an all time high of $75,000 a ton today. That certainly will go down as more projects, you come in into the market, but there are you people saying that long term price will be in the 20 to $25,000 a ton range. It's difficult to to to to guesstimate out, you know, that far. There's been other articles by Benchmark Minerals that are really promoting the increased demand, not just for electric vehicles, but for electric storage linked to wind and solar, you know, to get more stability in the electrical system.

32:02 And there is the potential for pricing to stay stronger for longer. If we look at the next slide, this is what we believe is very important. You look at the carbon intensity of the hard rock production largely out of Australia and gonna be coming out of Africa. It's all going to China now for conversion to lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, and then into cathodes, and then into batteries. So a high carbon footprint. Brine evaporation, less so, but still significant. And this is where we expect to be close to zero carbon emission with with our lithium. We believe that's going to give us a good marketing advantage, particularly into The EU and The and and The US.

32:50 And we believe over time, the demands on those battery manufacturers to demonstrate their, you know, their clean supply of lithium that will translate into a premium for our production in the future. These are some of the deals that have been done during the course of the last months. There's a lot of m and a activity. Many car manufacturers, battery manufacturers, the traditional Chinese lithium manufacturer, all scrambling to secure lithium supply. We've seen Rio Tinto, they'll buy Rincon for 825,000,000, Ganfeng at Lithia in Argentina. They've also bought out Bacanora in in in Mexico, car manufacturers going into Vulcan, CTL.

33:41 This can only increase your course of the next year, and I'm sure we will be part of those discussions with parties interested in taking a strategic investment in this project and largely supporting the construction of into production. We've mentioned a lot about sun resin and our one kilo battery production. I'm gonna reiterate some of those concepts. We produce a one kilo battery grade certified in in in Germany in excess of the requirements and with very low impurities. We signed an MOU with sun resin and announced it to the market because they are the world leader in commercial scale BLE plants and because they have a an open approach to technology and and and to be a vendor and and and a technological partner from us with no strings attached, royalties, or or or any other thing, because we've been working with them in since 2017, and we saw them come to the West, both commercially and also with projects. And, nevertheless, this project in Argentina where, like, in only five months after the purchase order and nine it's gonna take them nine months to construct.

34:51 They're building the first stages of a 25,000 tonne per year plant. And this suits us very well with our goal of reproducing lithium and selling lithium in 2,025. We have imported from Belgium a very small unit to do a lab test to work with DLE and and the chemical process provided by us. We we have people who who have been working with SQM and over time. And and with that, we'll produce small quantities of lithium to be sent to the final end user soft takers, and they, in turn, can set up their their their computerized way of producing the products. They have batteries and others. And then with a with a larger pilot plant of one ton, we'll be producing that's gonna be sent to us in the next twenty six weeks.

35:42 We're gonna be producing large quantities of of of lithium to be sent to the same off takers and battery producers and end users to produce batteries. That means when we start into production, we'll go directly into into into production and selling. Again, the path to production with the we we receive this desire by our existing shareholders. 80% of them are the ones who I mean, 80% of the of the of the money raised last week comes from this, existing shareholders, strong backing us up, but at the same time, forcing to go faster and do more. And, and, that's the the path forward with La Buena Verde with the resource upgrade scoping study to be completed already. Like I said, have a draft, the pilot plant at the lab scale being done in the this this this month and the and the and the larger scale pilot plant in the next twenty six weeks. Another resource upgrade once the drilling season finishes and the plant production, a PFS complete. The same with Francisco Basin. You have to add all these things we have in Laguna Verde in a little delay way. Then advance Yaguna Yamara project, hopefully, like Francisco Basin from from zero initial lithium resources to to a maiden resource and an extended extended drilling campaign.

37:08 Yeah. So so in in summary, the these are the the points that we think make this a very special project. We believe that working with SunResin, we have a very short lead time into production using their technology. Infrastructure physical infrastructure and human capital in in Chile is absolutely excellent. It's not like developing a project in Central Africa. This is first world infrastructure, first world people. Because we were up at the elevation 4,300 meters, there's no vegetation there, there's no indigenous people, we believe permitting will be relatively straightforward, particularly as the government has already committed to to to make permitting much faster than it has been in the past.

37:59 The government has been supportive of of mining projects that demonstrate environmental credentials. We are now going into this next phase, this next year of looking for the right strategic partner that can help us to get that construction finance at very favorable terms into into place. And above all, I think our ESG focus underpins everything that we do. With this, we'll take the questions. Questions. Aldo, Steve, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just using the q and a tab, which is situated on the top right hand corner of your screen. But just for the company to take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed by your investor dashboard.

38:52 As you can see, we received a number of questions throughout today's presentation, and thank you to all the investors for submitting those. Could I just ask you to read out those questions and give responses where it's appropriate to do so? Steve yes. Steve, I think this first question from Edward is is for you. If lithium is the new oil, why do you think the major oil companies haven't started to move into the lithium sector, and do you foresee that one day this could happen? Well, what we've seen is the oil companies moving into this space, but at the at the other end. No. It's going into renewable energy. We've seen BP, Shell, others, you know, definitely going into renewable energy. Also going into the, you know, the construction of electric charging networks.

39:41 So it's gradually working backwards. You know, whether it'll ever go all the way through to lithium, I don't know. Now clearly, the oil industry did have a view that if they can extract oil, should they go in into mining twenty, thirty years ago? A number of them went that way. All of them dropped out. They they they realized mining is very different from oil extraction. I I work for for for Billiton. That was the acquisition of all the mining assets from Shell who've decided to leave the mining industry. Whether they go back, we we we don't know. But mining is different to oil extraction, but they are going into the into the renewable space.

40:31 Okay. Next question. In the previous meeting, you said that you have sufficient resources until the feasibility stage, but do you have collected new resources? Yeah. We explained partially this. Yamara wasn't there, and we need resources to drill and expand drilling if necessary. We didn't have a we had a very low budgeting going forward hydrogeological studies and now in full in full expansion of that is significant more resources. We had funded, the the previous drilling campaigns, but, again, we spend more as we drill more. We expanded our team And and and, also, we we took all these resources with with the aims of also working expanding our footprint in the world, and we have various conversations of going to other markets and do a listing in other markets.

41:26 And, again, this this not only came from us, came from our existing shareholders who encourage us to improve their resources to expand the company and do it as fast as as we can. Steve, I don't know if you wanna add a little bit to that. We we we actually, left some money on the table. We we had a very successful we were aiming for £8,000,000, and we went all the way to 12. And and and then the number was a little higher, and we we cut it back. And then we had from primary bid a little bit more than £300,000. They sent us a very nice mail complementing us for the speed and the amount of of how that was done. Steve, I don't know if you have we have anything else. I I I think that we we looked looked at the at at at the market in in London, we have very strong support from the institutions and most from our existing investors. I mean, one one of them, Regal, was a 9.6% shareholder institution from from Australia.

42:29 They've gone all the way to to 16%. Most of the other institutions increased their participation in the project. We did the book build very, very quickly last last Wednesday, but made sure that we did not disenfranchise any of our smaller shareholders and put together this this primary bid primary bid proposal where anybody could sign into primary bid and and participate in in the race. So we wanted to make sure none of our shareholders would disenfranchise through the capital raising process. And I think it went very successful. Yeah. Question to you, Steve, also, how will we collect the 400,000,000 US dollars resource required for production for in this case, I will add to the question for each of the projects projecting at 20,000 tons per year.

43:24 Yeah. No. No. Our estimate is is 400,000,000. Normally, we would, you know, finance in the mining sector. Part of that will come from equity from the shareholders and part from and the major part from, you from from debt. Whether this is, you know, 40% equity, 60% debt, I think because these projects are gonna be such strong cash flow, that could be pushed to 30, maybe 20% equity, and 70 or 80% debt. So if we're looking at shareholders bringing 80 to 120,000,000 in in equity, the bulk of it coming from debt, we want to have a strategic investor coming into the project that can really mobilize that debt. Typical project, you know, I worked with Escondida and and Koyawasi.

44:20 Both of those we brought in Japanese strategic investor. They put in their own equity participation in in the finance. They took off take contract, provided off take finance, and then mobilized the banks such as JECSIM in in in Canada export finance banks and the commercial banks to provide the large part of that debt financing. We would do exactly the same whether it's, you know, with the Japanese or Chinese or European or North American investors. We have many options to get that debt financed in place.

45:06 Yeah. Is the plan to develop one mine of all threes of or all three simultaneously? Well, we're doing developing two simultaneously, Francisco Bay and Laguna Verde. They're a little bit in in one one is a little bit more advanced than the other, like the case of Laguna Verde. So we don't know if we'll go with both at the same time out. It will depend on environmental studies and also the amount of resources or if we have one and then the other. And and and Yamarata, if Yamarata is successful, if we find lithium and we expand the drilling there, it will come in in third place. Again, not easy to run simultaneously drilling programs and and and expand projects forward at the same time, but but we're doing it at least with two of the three.

45:53 The next question is this week, Galen lithium released an updated York of 5,800,000 tons at eight eight hundred and sixty six milligram per liter, 76% in measured capacity. Their market cap is 480,000,000 Australian dollars. How we compare to this? Like, how this constructs contrast to CTL? You wanna answer, Steve or myself? Yeah. I I I I I think if we look at at a few of of these comparisons, the the the closest in terms of of lithium grade to us is is Lake Resources. They're about 200 milligrams per liter. We're 200 to to to to 300. Lake has 4,400,000 tons of of lithium carbonate.

46:43 We believe we'll be about that by the middle of next year, whereas our market cap is about $40,000,000. Lake is $800,000,000, 20 times that. So that gives you an idea of the the potential for share price revaluation during the course of the next year as we produce more results on our drilling resource expansion, metallurgical results, scope scoping studies, we believe there's no reason why we cannot get to the same sort of market valuation as as as Lake. Galan is about 480. They they they're not as advanced in terms of their their share price as as Lake.

47:32 And a lot of this is also to do about the the amount of of marketing which they're doing in the various communities. We listed in in London. We have listed we are listed in Frankfurt. We're in discussion with a number of parties to assist us with with marketing of the company in in Frankfurt. We've had discussions on on potentially having an OTC listing in The United States. We've had discussions with our broker, Chemical, on the potential of listing with a dual listing in in Australia. The board haven't taken any decisions on these, but clearly, know that to get our our story more widely known around the world, increased activity on on marketing will will be required.

48:26 And hence, also, this additional funding that came in will help to support whichever way we go. Yeah. The next question speaks of, do you foresee that the hard rock lithium miners will one day be replaced by direct lithium extraction lithium miners? Interesting to hear your thoughts on the more polluting hard rocks compared to the DLCs. Yes. DL hard rock mining is is much more polluting than DLE. Evaporation ponds come in the middle. What we foresee now is that the brine development projects are much larger than hard rock lithium projects, and it will take over again the past in the past before the development of of hard rock lithium, especially in Australia, with finance heavily by Chinese offtakers, were less in the market. And we see DLE taking most of the new developments, as I show in a chart over the presentation, of the of the brine sector.

49:24 And we see the LE as being mainstream. Of course, there's this black box technology providers, but at the same time, some resin and and and the industry the mining industry in general who tends to control the processes and go forward. Despite another question. Good buying interest in stock, there seems to be an awful lot of ongoing selling, often one or two million shares a day, which is holding the share price down. Given you only have 79,000,000 shares outstanding, have you analyzed your register to see this ongoing selling is coming from? You wanna comment, Steve, and I can complement maybe? Yeah. You know, I I think we're we're we're we're now up to 105,000,000 shares. I think that most of the institutions, you have been very, you know, sticky, and they're holding on to their their stock. They're they're not coming into the market.

50:16 One of them did sell some of the shares which they had picked up during the pre IPO and and IPO round, part of a normal balancing of of portfolios. But they came in into this capital raise and increased their their participation as well. I think that the large part of the, you know, the the selling is is in the retail sector. That that's to be expected. There's gonna be good if there's a good movement in in the share price that's with good liquidity. Hence, we went to to primary bid to increase the numbers of retail investors, and that's a good thing in the long term.

51:01 I think that where we are today is is is having a very good base. Now we did this capital raise at 47 p. Today, we started to to move up as some of the the brokers have started to put buy notices on on the company. The company, as it gets more recognized, I think we can only see the share go one way. At least that's our our expectation. There's two more questions about funding an offtake strategic partner, Steve. One is, is there a press preference for offtake strategic partner being from The US or from Europe based? And the next one is, do you know who have been the main advisers on the strategic tie ups with the trading companies and end users? How can be sure that you will get the best terms of your production funding tie up? Is I I put them together because this is kind of the same. Yeah. The same No. No. No. No. No.

51:54 There there's there's a a number of strands there. The EU wants clean lithium into the market. It is also concerned with increasing China dominance of the lithium market. I think that a large part of the lithium carbonate hydroxide that's produced, you know, certainly from hard rock goes to China. 80% of the cathodes are coming from from China. They're participating in batteries, you know, all the way through to supply the car manufacturers. The EU wants to get greater diversity. I think that gives us an advantage in trying to attract the right strategic investor from from the EU.

52:39 The other area, as Aldo mentioned, is is the inflation reduction act in The United States, which requires the lithium and other battery materials to come from The United States or from a free trade agreement country by 2026. 80% must come from US or FTA country. Chile is the only FTA country that's producing lithium. Now in future, there will be some production from, you know, from Canada and and Mexico, but, you know, Chile is is the dominant FTA producer of lithium. So both those strands work in our favor. But clearly, I mean, the Chinese and the Japanese trading houses will make a a strong push as as well. No. They want additional material. It all adds to our ability to be selective in who we believe will be the strongest strategic partner for the benefit of our shareholders and the development of the project going forward.

53:44 Yeah. That's an interesting question for me. If if we think we will be listing in Santiago, in what stage of corporate development will be you eligible for the private retirement funds that by law are having? Chile is a big motor of the of the of the stock market. First to say we have, other than myself, who are are the one of the two principal minority personal shareholders now after legal funds increase a little bit from below 10% of the of the registry to up to 16. I I I diluted to 10% along with the other cofounder from Australia who also have 10%. We had almost £1,000,000 on the pre IPO when we did 4 millions in the in the last October from people from Chile who are connected with the central bank, who are connected with the stock market and so on. We haven't been deciding on the listing in Santiago.

54:42 We're looking right now at other parts of the world. There'll be a very important board being held in Chile with everybody coming here, for the last two the last week of, November, the first week of December. And and we'll certainly are looking and having our eye on this, and and we'll go forward. If if we deem it as as important, we'll go forward with this. Oh, can you securely reserve electrical power requirement ahead of commissioning the plant? Yeah. Of course. Yeah. We we we haven't engaged in the final power purchase agreement conversations, but I like I said, I'm very proud of the development of making Chile now more than 50% of the the grid be renewable energy.

55:28 And there's plenty capacity. There's plants being constructed. The whole Chilean 90% of the Chilean energy requirements is is connected with the with one of the longest north to south transmission lines. That means you can bring a aeolic and and hydroelectrical renewable energy from the South Of Chile to the North and and and photovoltaic from the North, to the Central Chile and South. And, and that assures a twenty four seven energy energy. And, again, PPA or even buying on the spot are are things that are very common in the mining industry, and and there's enough production and and future production to to be able to achieve that.

56:14 We answer all the questions. Yes, Aldo, Steve. Thank you very much for that. I think you actually managed to address every single question from investors. And, of course, the company will review all those questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the investment company platform. But just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which one is particularly important to you both, Aldo, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? Yes. Yes. Again, the major key points is that we are a green low emission lithium company. We're we're aiming to producing this green lithium with direct lithium extraction along with renewable energy in the leading mining jurisdiction of Chile. We have a board and management experience of delivering, as Steve said and I said, mining projects from exploration into production.

57:02 And, again, to tell all investors current and future that this is unrivaled opportunity to invest in a in a really heavily undervalued lithium project, that's it. Thanks once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few minutes to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of CLEANTECH LITHIUM PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.