Cleantech Lithium (LSE:CTL) — Recent fundraise and future milestones

0:01 Good morning, and welcome to the CLEANTECH LITHIUM PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And I would now like to hand you over to Daniel Fox Davies. Good morning to you. Morning. And once again, thank you very much for arranging and all your help from the company. Steve, good morning. Hi, Dan. We are actually both so my apologies. I am technically on holiday this week. So Steve and I are both in the same country for the first time in a while. I'm actually down in Spain and out of a hotel room, so I apologize for the less than salubrious backdrop.

0:46 But, Steve, good morning. So, obviously, we've put out an announcement this morning about the retail offer following on from the institutional raise that we announced on Friday. We've had a number of comments about that, people asking for clarification on on just whys and the wherefores and how we're doing on a couple of things. So we thought it would be good, and we appreciate we usually do this at the end of the day, but due to traveling commitments, we thought we'd get this out early, and then people could sort of come back in, and we'll post this out on the various channels so people can watch it later. But I suppose, Steve, the the first one is people are keen to sort of understand the the rationale and the reasoning for around the institutional raise. Maybe if you want to address that first, then I'll I'll jump in with a couple of things about who took part, etcetera.

1:36 Sure. There there's two two main reasons that we wanted to push ahead. Obviously, we put out into the market that we've been awarded the, you know, the sale by by the government. It's in its final ratification. At the moment, we completed the PFS. And from the PFS, there there were a number of areas of optimization that that we want to to to look at. It became very clear when we're looking at the timeline into production that the the critical path is on the environmental permitting. And part of that is we need to do one year, four quarters of environmental baseline studies before we can complete the the e e I a.

2:22 So that is is really key that we get on with that. On the ASX, we've been talking about for, you know, for some time in discussion with the ASX. They have a minimum liquidity requirement. So in order to meet that liquidity requirement for ASX, which is twelve twelve months of funding, and to get on with the the EIA work, and to do additional processing test work. I think everybody knows that we've been working with the Chinese company known over the course of the last two years in in our PFS. But there's been a number of companies both in The United States and The EU who really got into into lithium in terms of both developing non Chinese absorbents and also in design of DLE columns and and downstream. So we want to take the advantage of looking at those other processes in parallel with the with the Lansham work that we've been doing. So we need the cash to do that and to support the the the working capital.

3:32 And now is the time to to to go and start do doing that work. We are engaged with strategic partners with very good momentum. We we can talk a bit about that. But the reality is that financing coming from those strategic partners will only be later in the year, and we really need to get on and do the work now. That's why we've done this capital raise. Because just actually, think what I'm used to is for a lot of people, obviously, a number of parties will be disappointed that we weren't able to raise at a higher price. So if I may, Steve, I'll just take a step just to recap and take us back. As parties are aware, obviously, we we were delayed for the initially getting the sale.

4:19 We were delighted that we got the sale early this year. And what I think is quite useful, I'm just gonna repeat some of the things we talked to with some of the institutional investors. As part of that, as Steve just mentioned, we put up the PFS. There was an areas of of number of areas for optimization. The scoping study had it 20,000 tonnes a year. The PFS came back at 15 on the basis that some of the technical consultants feel that we need to do further work. It's not that we can't support 20,000 tonnes a year, but we can only support the data at the moment on 15,000. So that's one of the things that will be looked at next year. And I'll come on to how that impacts around the financial model and pricing and valuation. But if we go back two years ago, why are we going to the ASX? We'll we'll come on to that later in terms of the numbers there, but we had made a commitment to Regal, our largest shareholder, who were at about sixteen, seventeen. They'll now be about 20% approximately after this raise, that we would look to go on the ASX. They funded the company from the pre IPO when they initially put in a million pounds. They supported the IPO, and they've supported every round since.

5:21 And as we'll come to in a slide in a couple of minutes, they feel that the ASX or the Australian market has a much deeper and broader understanding of lithium, much deeper liquidity pools. It's just been a much better market than London. So we looked through that about two years ago, and the ASX, at that point in time, we had a option over the licenses. The ASX is adverse to companies that have options and wanted us to do a deal to acquire the the licenses a 100%, which we did in in these commitments for these payments. In order to fund that, we'd had an investor, and we had said that they were willing to put up a convertible loan note. They we went forward and started negotiations. They were unable to come up with the money. At that point in time, we'd had the prospectus published. The financials were audited. It was locked down. We were just starting to commence the the process of marketing.

6:14 And so Regal had offered to help fund that, but we couldn't do that as equity. Because of the prospectus, it would have put everything back, and then the financials would have become stale. So they put up the majority of a convertible loan note in the summer of twenty twenty four. The ASX marketing went very well. We ran into a regulatory hurdle between London and ASX, which meant we had to withdraw and come back and do that raise at the end of twenty twenty four in anticipation of getting the sale. And at that point in time, the feedback from all the brokers in Australia was it was far better because we were expecting the sale to be imminent and the PFS to be imminent that we came back to the market once we had that. So that's what sort of delayed it through 2025. So a couple of people have commented about the the pricing on the convertible loan note conversions. So they had the right when they extended last year, obviously, they were only hoping to come in for a a short bridge ahead of the ASX.

7:09 They extended out to the end of June, and they had the right to convert at the last placing price. Now in order to, I think, get the best possible reception, it was felt that we needed to clean up the balance sheet. We didn't want to be extending on the loan notes. It's far better for us to convert rather than trying to take it out of the public market. And not only did the ASX want to make sure that we had twelve months working capital, but the loan note holders, in order to condition of converting, they also wanted to see that the company was fully financed for at least the next sort of twelve, fourteen months in order for giving up their position as debt holders and coming in as equity holders. So as a part of that, Regal will now be just around about 20% of the company. On the institutional raise, Athos is maintaining their position, so they'll still bid about 22% of the company.

8:02 They really feel that we've got the potential to significantly rerate over the next six to twelve months coming to ASX. We've had a number of UK institutional funds that have come aboard, and the vast majority of the rest of it was existing long term shareholders who supported the company in every round from either the pre IPO or the IPO. We have had a couple of additions that come onto the register. We've had a couple of parties in Australia who were active in the lithium space, who were keen to get involved with the company ahead of getting onto the ASX. But we are aware that we were unable to obviously go out to all of the retail, and we have a lot of retail shareholders who've been very supportive of the company over the last four years. So we undertook the retail offering. We went with wins this time.

8:48 Although we were going out for an initially about 250 to 300,000, the book came in at just over 600. Of that, that comprises of approximately 250 different, parties and individuals investing. About 80% of that are existing shareholders with a position already. About 20% are new shareholders, although they make up around about 10 to 12% of the overall capital raised. And the way these platforms work is we can't scale back. We can't differentiate between an existing shareholder and a new shareholder. You can either just scale back Hargreaves or AJ Bell or somebody by 10 or 15%. So having listened to a number of the comments and and a lot of the smaller shareholders saying that we want to maintain our position or maintain our standing or we want to have the same opportunity afforded to us, that That was why the decision was to increase that and take that that funding in full at the 600,000.

9:50 So that was the announcement that went out this morning. So what does that what does that do for us now? As Steve said, we'll start the environmental process. Steve, do just wanna and and that was the low note conversion. So we now have a clean balance sheet. We're fully funded for well over the next year, and it allows us to then move forward onto the ASX, which we do. Steve, while we're here, do you just wanna mention on Leo joining the board? Yeah. Sure. Leo Koot has been a shareholder in the company since the early days. He's been very keen on what we're doing in in Chile. When the the loan notes were were were put put in place, he was asked by the loan note holders to represent them as an observer on the on on the board, not as a director, but as an observer.

10:40 He's got tremendous background in in natural resources and development of of large capital projects. He's been very successful, particularly in the oil and gas industry. We found his contribution to discussions very good. And on completion of the conversion of the loan notes, we are asking Leo to come on board as an independent nonexecutive director and contribute to the discussions on on the board. So that will happen in the course of the next week. Yeah. I have to say, he's a I I enjoyed working with him and his input very much over the last sort of year, year and a bit. He's a a a very solid and robust individual. So let I'm gonna go down to the questions. We'll answer some of them there. But do you just wanna refresh and go back on Cutfield when they're appointed and how the we couldn't really start the process until we have the sale and the PFS, Steve, and then?

11:38 Sure. Yeah. Yeah. We we we've had for for for the last couple of years, a a number of parties interested in CLEANTECH LITHIUM, but the the the the reality is is the the world of lithium has expanded greatly in not just in China, South Korea, North America, Europe. So we believe that the the best way to select what we think is gonna be the best partner for CLEANTECH LITHIUM going forward is to engage a very experienced firm, Cutfield Freeman, a boutique firm out of London, financial advisers. I've worked with them for many years in the past. They truly are are very, very professional. We've worked with them to produce initially a teaser information memorandum.

12:24 They've been in contact worldwide with all potential, you parties. And we've already got, I think, 14 parties in the data room that we've set up. We have Ignacio is in Asia at the moment with a member of the Cutfield Freeman team visiting in China and South Korea, and these are two parties that have been identified as serious potential strategic partners by Cutfield Freeman. They're already in the data room. The discussions Ignacio has been having with them have been very very deep, both technical, legal, and deal structure. So I think Ignacio is very pleased with the the momentum.

13:10 He's got 10 meetings, I think eight in China and two in South Korea on on this trip. He then comes back. Then it's gonna be around in in in North America. He's attending fast markets. He's been lining up a number of meetings with you know, through Cut Fuel Freeman with potential parties in The United States as as well. So the the process is is is going. The reality is it's gonna take time. We we may be in a position to have selected one or two partners in not too much time, but the the reality is to go through all the the due diligence which the party has has to do because it's not just an ask, you know, to come in for to provide the financing through to to final investment decision.

13:57 It's also looking at their participation in the construction finance in the future. So they'll be doing thorough due diligence, no legal, technical, financial. It's discussions on the terms of the of the deal, off take agreements, financing agreements, and this will all take time. So the the reality is closing could be towards the end of the year. But momentum is very, very good. Steve, I'm jumping so we I mean, we previously flagged. CTL approached us more than, I think, three years ago initially, Steve, and they've been down to site. I think, actually, Steve, I think it's it's nine in China and three in Korea, I think, is what what Ignacio's been saying. So I think he's in five different cities in China at the moment, then he heads down to Korea. So Cutfield have reached out to a range of companies throughout the lithium value chain. So that includes some of the world's leading battery manufacturers, cathode manufacturers, commodity trading houses, global mining companies that will be household names who wish to expand into lithium space, other large lithium producers that are looking at how they can expand their supply, including companies in Latin America that might be in the brine field in evaporation, but wish to then move looking into DLE.

15:18 So we couldn't Cutfield had started conversation, I think, well over a year ago. But, again, we were sadly delayed on the sale, which I think the market continues to really not understand or appreciate how significant that was. It is the first sale granted in Chile ever to a junior or an independent mining company. And it brings with it a huge amount of value to the assets and all the work that Steve and the team have done over the last four years. So Ignacio will be in Asia through this week that he's back, then he'll be out in fast markets. There are a number of other conversations happening with parties. We can talk in a a second about how a deal may or may not look like, what the company would like, what you've got there. But the the company has a very, very real asset. We have now 2,000,000 tonnes.

16:08 We have a PFS that supports us at 15,000 tonnes a year. While the work needs to be done, personally, the the general consensus is we can take that back up to 20,000 tonnes, which doesn't just increase it by about a 33%. But because you have the fixed capital cost, it adds more, like, about 45 to 50% when we model it to the NPV and the value of the company. And, again, I think one of the things we should focus on, this is just the Laguna Verde asset. So if you go back to the very beginning, the company had two primary assets, and our target was to get to 2,000,000 tonnes on both assets, looking to develop 20,000 tonnes per asset. We're at about just under 1,000,000 on our second primary asset. We're at 2,000,000 or just under 2,000,000 on the first asset, on Laguna Verde at 15,000. But the the numbers we're looking at is all around Laguna Verde. We still have a lot of potential on the second asset, and then we also have our third asset. And there are other opportunities that are being presented to the company all the time. So those processes will go on. Ignacio is hopeful that we would have a strategic partner in by year end.

17:18 As Steve said, some of these times, these things take a little bit longer. And what the the funding allows the company to be fully secure now for the next well over a year to allow it to meet its objectives and start on things like the environmental impact study, which is four quarters, I think it is you said, Steve. So that that can all go in hand in how we're bringing the strategic partner. Is there anything else, Steve, that aren't there, or I misspoke on anything? No. No. No. No. I I think the the momentum is is there. We just we'll be getting into parallel negotiations with a a a number of a number of parties. Okay. I'm gonna try and collate some of the questions as we do, but there is one about the note. I wanted to try and explain just a little bit more about the note and the numbers that we put out and that Canaccord put out.

18:05 Steve, do you wanna address this, or I could jump in and talk about the valuation numbers? Yeah. Just the the first thing. We did the the the PFS based on the on the resource that that that we had. And when you do a prefeasibility study or a feasibility study, you can only use the measured and indicated resource, not the indicated. And out of the 1,900,000 tons, we have naught point 8,000,000 measured and indicated. And it's only from that that you can use to develop the the reserves in the hydrogeological model. So it's because of that limitation, we could only do the PFS at 15,000. The aim is to do more drilling, particularly now that we've acquired the Minergy licenses that that's expanded the the sale area.

18:58 With more drilling, we can both expand the the total resource, but in particular, the measured and indicated, which should allow us if we can demonstrate with a hydrogeological modeling that we can produce at a higher production rate than 15,000. So that's all part of the pre d f DFS studies that we intend to do once we have financing from a strategic partner. So this this chart simply shows a a breakdown of the the cost of revenues. But the main one here is we ran it at 22,500 long term spot today, Steve. I hadn't had a look. Have you had a look? Yeah. Just over 23,000. So we're at 23. So it bounced up to 28.

19:43 So you got a slight increase over the spot price. We were up at 28 about two weeks ago. Now historically, lithium tends to be weaker in the first and second quarters. It tends to be stronger in the third and fourth quarters. There still is a consensus for the lithium price to increase over the next couple of years. But when we put out our note, our note is based on a straight discounted cash flow model based on the 15,000 on the numbers that we have using an NPV eight. Usually, we'd go for an NPV 10, but all the peers are around an NPV of eight, and it's probably more realistic as a cost of capital in Chile long term. And then we've taken a 92.5% discount from that, and we put in all the risk factors.

20:29 Now if you do further drilling and you increase the resource or you do some further drilling just to move from the measured some of the resource more into the measured indicator category, and we get a support that we can get back to 20,000. That changes the price target. The increase on the lithium price would price the price target, and the bulk of our pricing is purely around Laguna Verde. So people asking about the pricing. We we have to come up with a number. When you're prerevenue, you're really just doing off of financial models and doing some peer group analysis in terms of EV to resource in the ground, of which we remain very cheap. And it was a twelve month forecast of where we thought the company could be, and we still believe that that's the potential of where we could be in twelve months.

21:15 Part of that process is also getting onto the ASX. But our model was based on it was a fully diluted number of all the shares and warrants at the time. That will come down slightly from this raise, and then it is likely to go up significantly on a rerating or bringing in a partner. And then it would look to increase significantly as we could get back to 20,000 or add further resources to the company. But that's where the numbers come from, and it just comes out of the modeling. Mark Hayhoe did that work for us. Mark and I have worked together for a number of years. He's a geologist with a master's in geostats and a PhD, I think, originally in sedimentary. He's a he's a resource geologist, and he's also one of the administrators for the masters in mining finance at Imperial College.

22:03 So it's just it's a very robust model, but where the market is and where price targets are can be a disconnect for a period of time until you get through the main hurdles. And what we think is the main hurdle is going to be bringing in a strategic partner. And to that end, as Steve was saying, the companies that we're seeing are among the leading participants in the market globally, and there has been a significant amount of interest. What I take a great deal of comfort is that Cutfield have been very encouraged by the amount of interest that the company has had, the amount of companies that are in NDA, and the amount of companies that would have asked to see Ignacio and get into the data room. And they wouldn't do that unless they thought that we had a valuable asset which could be revenue enhancing to to them and which they want to partner with.

22:50 Steve, anything else just here on this slide? Nope. Okay. Right. Steve, do you want to lead off on ASX? Well, on on the a a a ASX, it's been very clear. It is a natural resources market. I mean, there are many, many natural resource funds. There's many institutions where investing in natural resources is the key part, you know, of of of of their fund. Our main shareholder, Regal, has been strongly saying we should be there. There's many other lithium companies. In fact, I was looking. There's nine brine projects and 22 hard rock projects, you know, which are listed on the a ASX. There's a much deeper pool of capital.

23:37 Everybody in Australia now has a superannuation fund, and they're all investing in the natural resources space. There are many institutions that like our brand story, but they say, we can't invest in you because you're not on the ASX. If you're on the ASX, then we can invest. So so that that's what we intend to do. This slide just shows CLEANTECH LITHIUM is at the bottom in terms of valuation compared to all of our other brine projects. So we've got a lot of room to move upwards. So so going going back onto the a a ASX, we are in the process. We have our legal advisers engaged. We've already had discussions with the sustainability committee of the ASX. We've explained that we've now got the sale through ratification. We cleaned up the balance sheet, and we see there's no obstacles to listing, provided we can demonstrate we have the liquidity to get onto the ASX.

24:42 The process now is is a lot of documentation is required. We need to update the the prospectus. A lot has happened since our our previous attempt to list on on the ASX. We need to update all the legal issues with the the sale, the financials, of course. Land tenure. We've acquired the Minergy licenses. We've completed a lot of technical work with the PFS and hydrogeological modeling. All of that needs to go into detailed reports. So our expectation is to put in the prospectus in in in in August. And by the time we go through the entire process, end of q three, we would expect to be listed on the on the ASX.

25:35 So we're very pleased to to have appointed Todd Ross as our you know, one of the requirements is to have an Australian resident director. We've appointed Todd Ross, I've known for a while. He's actually undertaken he's been a CEO undertaking an IPO of a of a mining company on the ASX in the past. His background is investment banking. He was one of the earliest bankers to provide debt finance for lithium projects in Australia. So he understands the lithium space. He's lives in Perth. Good contacts with the brokers and the and the institutions. So just if I may, Steve, just jump in there. So when we go through an ASX process, you you approach the ASX for an initial informal sort of principle. So we've been having conversations. We started about two, bit months ago, just reviewing of what everything that needed to happen.

26:31 Obviously, there's gonna be an update to all the the licenses, as Steve just said, with Minergy and the PFS. The key thing is you have to have your audited financials. They are due fairly imminently. They need to be within a a window. So our target is to be on the ASX in September. We would look to bring that forward if we can, but there is is a a number of review periods both with the ASX and with ASX and some finalization. So, obviously, with the raise last week and with the retail funding this morning, that changes the capital structure of the company. So we need to update all of that information and put that in. There's a bunch of other process and procedures that needs to happen.

27:19 Ignacio and I are planning to be down in Perth and Sydney the week of the July 16. He's gotta go back. He's got the fast markets. So we're remeeting with a number of the other brokers down there. I'll talk you a little bit more about just one second about what needs to happen on the raise. And then we're also meeting with Regal as one of our largest shareholders in Sydney who said that they are supportive of the company and supportive of and they're they're they're not really sort of known over here, but they are they are the 800 pound gorilla in the room in Australia. They recently Galam, which is one of the peer group, which is a a DLE play in Argentina, they went out a couple of months ago looking to raise 20,000,000. They had a book of a 100,000,000. They ended up closing on 40, but Regal was the largest subscriber into that, and they are invested into a number of other well, they're the largest resource player in Australia at this point in time.

28:21 So in terms of people who asked a couple the questions here, and I'll try and dress them off. One of the requirements is the headline number is you need to have 300 shareholders with $2,000 Australians, approximately a thousand pounds each to be admitted as well as your minimum capital requirement. There are firms that help do that for you. It's called the spread. So a huge number of brokers will come along, and they'll bring you 50 names. They have managed accounts that agree to do this. We've spoken to a number, and we've got a couple of pipe bill on the register now who'd be assisting on that. Now somebody also mentioned about the share price. We were bouncing about $8.8.5. There have been some questions about the discount. One of the problems we had on this race once you start the process in your wall cross, last week, there were 19 other companies in The UK either looking to IPO, RTO, or do a placing on the market. A number of those are still open at the moment, but that was the feedback that I had from a number of funds.

29:22 So, sadly, it's not just when you're fundraising around the company and your value. You're also competing across a broad base of other AIM companies and another base of of resource companies, and there's a limited amount of capital in The UK. So that's one of the problems that we're facing. It's all about timing. But with the ASX, we will adjust that spread. I think we will be able to now undertake a number of marketing activities that we couldn't do over the last two, three months because there was some discussion around a potential raise. Will I be able to do a lot of marketing on the back of Ignacio coming back from his trip? We can give a lot more confidence around where those parties are. And I could see us getting back up to the $89.10 quite quickly. We've got a number of parties now on the register who have committed to supporting the share price between now and the ASX. So I don't think that's gonna be that much of an issue, and I think there's been a lot of parties that were aware that we would probably have to do a funding over the summer. So having now got that out the way and knowing that the company is now fully funded for the next year, year and a bit, I think we'll be able to see a solid recovery in the share price. Just addressing one of the questions here about the the share price numbers in.

30:33 I'll go through all the questions properly, Steve. But do you wanna talk about the the creation probe, and then we'll run through some of the other questions? Yeah. Yeah. We we we need to to get on with our critical path activity, which is the EIA. In terms of the the the sale, there is a requirement to put in place a governance committee between the company and the indigenous communities. We need to set that up. We said right at the beginning we will involve them in the EIA process, so that's immediate. The ASX, we've talked for a number of years. Now we're gonna get it done. Now we we we're we're financially in a position to do that. We've got the sale. There's no there's no issues with with the ASX to completing that. We're well underway with the strategic partner process. We've identified the work that we need to do for the DFS.

31:25 When we have additional funding from the strategic partner, we can undertake that drilling work that we need to do. So we're on the way. I think over the course of the the the next year, we'll make very, very good progress, you know, towards the completion of the of the DFS, the EIA, and then get into the financing for the project. Okay. Let's run through these questions. So we'll try and put some of them together. So presubmitted so sorry. It doesn't say who. We now have a 100% of the sale. Are we well, we have 97.7. We have a 100% of the sale. Steve, there's a good question here about drilling to increase the reserves. Obviously, you've mentioned earlier that we'd look to do in conjunction with your strategic partner. Is that correct? Yes.

32:12 Yeah. No. Drilling is is quite expensive. We want to do quite a bit more drilling both to extend the the the reserves movement into MNI, but we also need to do the drilling work for the reinjection as that's important for the hydrogeological modeling. The reality is is that we really do need to get additional finance from the strategic partner before we can start that work. So, realistically, that's something for next year as part of the DFS. Well, we we we we would hope to to be able to start that towards the end of the year. No. No. Clearly, we have the opposite seasons. It's winter season now. We can't do anything, but it's summer, you from November through to April. So, hopefully, we will have some funding to to do the work then.

33:06 Okay. Thanks. So right. Question about the the settlement criminal complaints against the company over the outstanding payment to some of the Laguna Verde vendors. Yeah. Yeah. This has been ongoing. We we've had ongoing discussions, you with the vendors. There's been a change. Now, clearly, the the sale makes a big difference. After consultation with the indigenous communities, the government removed the the Laguna from the the sale, and that's the majority of the license areas of the the the LV vendors. We are in discussion with them. We want to to resolve this issue in an equitable way for for both parties. So far, the discussions have been positive, and we hope to get there soon.

33:55 But just for clarification, the the LV vendors license area does not form part of the application or the area that was granted for the sale? Correct. So the the the the government awards the the sale. We had to demonstrate we had 80% of the license area of the of the sale, and we demonstrated that with our own licenses and the Minergy licenses, and we did not use the the the LV licenses as part of the sale application. But once we've got the the sale, the sale applies to the entire area, and it is completely separate from the mining license position.

34:41 It's the sale that gives us the the permission to exploit lithium, not the mining license. Thank you. So, again, guys, you know, just to be clear about this, the originally, when we were talking about four and a half years ago, I mean, I remember having conversations with you, Steve, and with with Jason. I mean, one of the things was we wanted to put a pontoon into middle and drill some holes in the middle, but then the government said it's an area of outstanding beauty, and it's very nice that you can't do that. And then, obviously, they've they've come back. And after consultation, as you said, we can't drill there. But my understanding for talking to him, Daxios, is the the Laguna Verde vendors are, you know, very good people. We entered into there. We're hoping to resolve it on an amicable way. And I think Ignacio will be focusing on that now that this current once he gets back from his current trip in into Asia, there's only obviously so many hours and time zones and things. So we should be able to update on that in the coming days and weeks ahead.

35:41 Steve M was just asking about the industry response. Steve, I think we've covered that. Cutfield really couldn't do their part of the job until we'd have the PFS, but they got to work shortly after you published it. We've had a a huge amount of responses to a number of people in the data rooms, and the follow on from that is Ignacio's in China heading to Korea as we speak, talking with some of the world's largest companies in the EV value chain. James, the the 10.5 we've just addressed earlier, but I think now that we know that the funding's in place on the back of the activities of of what he's saying, we need to go out market, basically. There's a number of parties, think, are very interested in the company. We'll be doing a bit more work in terms of roadshows and investor relations and outreach and just demonstrating the value not only in The UK, but also into Europe. We still have the German listing, which we really haven't focused on, and we could do some more promotion to the German market. And we'll be doing some premarketing in Australia, and I think the Australian market will see the value.

36:43 And once you get the sort of the implicit approval, it's nothing ever written down, but they'll ask you whether you've had the approval in principle, then I think a number of parties in Australia will look to get more active. And we have several Australian investors that have come on as part of this raise. But that, I think we could move up. We're fairly thinly traded in The UK, and it wouldn't take very much to get the company back up over the 10 and a half percent. That's the same question coming in from Paul M. I hope to stress there. Steve, the sale ratification for the controller's office, can we update everybody on how that's going? Yeah. The the the sale process no. The the sale and the economic terms and the outline of the the the poly are all being determined by the Ministry of Mining, you after the consultation with the indigenous people.

37:36 That's been put into a contract with us. We're we're happy with that. Then the processes mining ministry has that put into the controller's office. Every contract of any sort with the government has to go through the controller's office to ensure it meets the the constitutional legal requirements of of Chile. The mining ministry has done that. They put the the contract through. They had a number of observations, you know, from the controller where the documentation wasn't quite quite complete. The ministry is has revised all of that in agreement with the controller, and it's an ongoing process. It's an administration process to get to the point, which we hope is during the course of the next month, that there is a decree which is, you know, developed for signing by the president of Chile, president Caste and Ignacio, very, very soon.

38:39 All the discussions we've had with the the ministry of mining, ministry of of economics, they're very, very supportive of CLEANTECH LITHIUM. They really do want to see the lithium industry advance with private sector involvement, and we are very, very confident that the process will complete shortly. Thank you. Steve, actually, interesting one here from from Steve O again. I was talking about Chinese partners or potentially Korean partners. And, again, I would stress we've mentioned that then Ignacio is going to The States, and we are talking to potentially his partners. But how would having a Chinese or would a Chinese partner affect the free trade position that Chile has with The US market? We we don't think so. No. There are already no Chinese investments in in The United States.

39:28 The US wants wants lithium and other, you know, strategic minerals, you know, to to go in from either within The United States or free trade countries like like Chile. The the the reality is that the world is really dividing in in in in two in terms of of financing. No. No. There there are projects with Chinese involvement, either equity interest and and technology, which is coming in. Clearly, there's Asian financing available. It's also clear that out of The United States, there's deep pools of financing, which is available, but only available to companies using The US or European technology.

40:19 And and that that's part of the work we wanna do, you know, post PFS is look at some of these alternative technology providers because we want to be in a position to choose which is gonna be the best alternative for us if there is any sort of geopolitical concerns of using Chinese technology or Chinese equity and wanting to to sell material into The United States. So, yeah, geopolitics is is an issue, but we're making sure we're covered in both areas. Thank you. I've got one tip for John about the share price. You wanna see what I'll jump in? So John was saying on the way down, in terms of the share price, the lithium price is given as the reason. I think, John, it was it was one of the reasons oh, wait. It's because since then, the lithium price has gone up three and a half times, but the share price continues to pull, so you see. So, John, the whole the whole sector, we did very well to ride the the the lithium curve, and then all companies came on came off on the back of it. We had a number of things that affected us, partly the delay in the ASX, which led to, I think, a bit of a lack of confidence. We understand why.

41:33 But, obviously, we were hoping for the sale in early twenty twenty five when we didn't get that. That hit our share price significantly. And Steve and the team had put a huge amount of work into the PFS, but the company didn't want to publish the PFS without having been awarded the sale. Then we had to go back through that process. And then with the acquisition of the Minergy licenses, we then had to update the PFS. So I think that was a lot of the problems that we had through 2025. On the back of the sale and the publication of the PFS, we did actually get up to an intraday high of 17. We closed on thirteen. Sandy, one of the investors that approached us on the funding last year was Metals One. So they took a 1,000,000 of the 5,000,000, so they were effectively 10% of the company post raise.

42:24 And then having seen the share price increase by effectively the best part of 200 plus percent for them, they exited the company. They are an investment vehicle. They had a number of other projects that they were looking to fund. They had a smaller project where they thought they could equally make a two to three times uplift. We are disappointed that they did it in a relatively brutal manner, for want of a better word, in that they just called up two market makers and dumped their position. They saw an opportunity. They're there to make money, but it's been difficult for all of us as the rest of the shareholders. So one of the market makers, I think, just crossed out most of their position. We went to 13. The other market maker, they most market makers don't have a huge balance sheet. Market making books tend to be couple of million quid at a firm.

43:17 So if you have one market maker ending up with a million pounds on a position, they don't have the ability to run that very long. So they end up having to unwind it into the market, and that's affected the share price. And then if you look at some of the chat rooms, there was speculation around the funding. But we're hopeful that now that we are financed, now that we're into this process of a partner, now that the environment for LITHIUM continues to be strong, it's really onus is on on partly the company, but also on me to get out and go and market the story. We're now free to go and talk to a lot more people now that these financings are closed, But we really feel that the market doesn't appreciate the significance of the sale or the value of the assets we have, and that's really the challenge that we have over the next six to twelve months. John, is there anything else you want to add to that, Steve?

44:08 No. No. No. I think that's that's a fair summary. John was also asking the message. John, I'm also a long term shareholder. I mean, a number of people have been very successful in making money along the way. RAP Capital's come back into to this round. They they invested the pre IPO, the IPO. They held the position for about a year and a bit. When lithium prices were high, they they exited. We have other investors that have traded in and out throughout the company's history for everybody that is selling. Somebody else is buying it at that given point in time. So for the long term shareholders, of which I am one, I think we've mentioned previous presentations, I've I've invested in every round since the pre IPO and a a great many friends and family, is that I remain bullish about the overall long term outlook for lithium and for the EV industry and for the battery industry.

45:04 Ignacio talks in our presentations that we do together that he feels that there's still considerable overestimation what supply can come on and how quickly and an underestimation of the demand, particularly around everything that's going into AI and the data centers and the battery requirements there. He says it really isn't being factored in. In his opinion, he's a much better and more knowledgeable individual than I am. So we remain bullish on lithium. We have a really solid world class asset at just under 2,000,000 tonnes. We want to move that more into the mission indicated categories. We have a robust PFS that supports 15,000 tonnes a year. We are now in the process of talking to a number of strategic partners, and we believe that we can actually get the company back to a point where we should be able to all make a significant return on our investment.

45:55 I think one of these things is it's taken longer. Obviously, if you've been investing in every round or you invested in the highs, then it is painful, and we are underwater, and we appreciate that, which is why we try to keep these placings open to all the retail investors to give people an opportunity to participate. But from think the company's really achieved some significant milestones, and they will allow us to people have some people have commented about the ASX or not, but I do believe that the ASX will give us a much better market for our assets and the commodities that we're in. Steve, anything else you want to add there? No. No. I I I I I think many of us are invested right from the early days, we believe, in the project and the company, and the the value will will will return.

46:44 No. That's why we we we have a we just published the incentive programs for management and directors where, you know, clearly, directors are looking at a minimum price of 20 p. And for Ignacio's incentives, a major part of incentive kicks in when the price gets to 50 p. So so those are the sort of prices we're looking at, not where we are today. Steve Steve, I was wondering, we we talk about a 2,000,000 resource, but 15,000 tons per annum production. Over Over twenty years, you're just pointing out that's 300,000 tons. He's asking whether the rest of the resource is unrecoverable or or why it's 15 versus the resource size. Yeah. The the the the reality is is you can't pump everything out of an aquifer.

47:34 There's always residual volume. There's a rule of thumb that probably from an aquifer, maybe up to 40% can be successfully extracted. But you can only put it into your studies if it comes from the, you know, the measured and and indicated. We had measured and indicated of of 800,000. We declared, you know, pumpable reserves of 300, you know, 300,000 from from that. So our aim is to expand the resource, expand the MNI, then we can expand the area of the well field and then extract more. But but the reality is you probably won't get more than about 40% of the of the resource production. We have a very, very challenging question from from Zeus. Zeus is asking, basic question, what do we see as the likely share price range should we achieve a partner and successful move to the ASX by year end? Steve, as as chairman, you're limited. Shall I speculate?

48:44 Oh, no. Dressed for here. You can speculate. I can't. Yeah. Zeus, I mean, like, it's how long has been string? There there are are so many things that can contribute, not least being Trump's foreign policy. I remember, actually, Steve and I went out for the IPO, and I I had a book on the Monday of, like, I think, million pounds. And on Tuesday, Putin rolled into Ukraine, and we lost half the book. However, if we do some back of the envelope numbers, we are trading at about 25 to 30% of our peer group average in terms of resource to EV in the ground in Australia. And I would feel that we are should be at the the upper end of our peer group rather than at the the average.

49:33 Just after we published the sale on the PFS, we were trading in the low teens. We reached an intraday high of 17. That was when Metals One sold their position, and we ended up down at 13. Now I appreciate some of the comments about we've had further share issuance and the swarms, but, actually, in a lot of small cap resource companies, cash is king, the ability to meet through with your objectives when you're a nonrevenue company. So that gives people a lot of confidence that you have the run rate now for the next year, and we can start some of these long lead procedural issues. The the EIA is not that expensive. It's just time consuming, nor is it that challenging technically or or from a logistical point of view. It just needs to be done, and it does cost a certain amount of money.

50:21 So all of those things go forward. Now the ASX is we'd want to be back up at $10.11 pence to meet the the 20p 20¢ requirement. So for those that don't know, it's a requirement of the ASX that you have a nominal value of 20¢. Irrespective of your market cap, it's just your they want you to start at 20¢. So we're gonna be working hard in terms of marketing through the summer. Where the share price could go is gonna be very dependent on the lithium price as well and the overall sentiment, but the big one will be the rerating on finding a partner and then how that deal looks. There's a number of different ways that that could come, and I'll invite Steve to talk in a second about what the company would like and then what is a range of options that might be available to the company.

51:12 But I would hope that we would certainly be back in in the mid teens by year end. I think it's perfectly reasonable to get from today's price at 6 back to a a one to two x recovery from here. We were already trading at 8 and a bit beforehand. Some people have been a bit critical of the discount. Sadly, in order to get a book, the way this sort of works when you're doing institutional placing is you the smaller investors want to take confidence that the larger investors are there, and the large investors we were talking to said, look. You know, we're happy to come in, but you're thinly traded. We're continuing to support, but we put in millions and millions, and we are significantly underwater. And we're they're very large big pools of capital. And the reality is is that they're in a position to set the pricing.

51:57 Smaller companies usually need them. And although some people say, look. We are marginally oversubscribed, and could you have put the price slightly higher? The bulk of the book was at that price. So it's a little bit higher, but you would have probably ended up with about 15 to 20%. So you end up with a clearing price, which allows you to get the the momentum that you want to do. And when you're doing your as we we very much hope that we're not gonna be in position to ever have to do a UK raise again. We got the compliance listing in Australia, but if things go the way that we hope from here, this should be the last capital raise that the company needs to do before it gets to FID, and we'll talk about that in terms of the overall capital structure. So where it is, it's impossible to tell, but my own personal target is I would like to see us back in this in the mid teens to 20p, and then the significant one will come with the rerating with a partner.

52:47 Steve, somebody wants to talk about the other assets here. Was asking, do we need a sale for each additional site in Chile? Yes. Yeah. All all all lithium production needs to be under a sale. Just to refresh my people, we we've split the project in two. We've got Laguna Verde, which we've applied for the the sale, and that is with a combination plant in the city of Coppiapo because we had always considered our second site at Viento Andino, developing that and also using that in an expanded carbonation plant. So so we've always looked at both those projects feeding into the plant in Copiopo. Once we've had the the sale sale for Laguna Verde ratified and we've demonstrated to the government, we are really pushing ahead with the project and the EIA and working with the communities, doing more more technical work.

53:46 We will be in discussion with the government on a sale for Viento and Dino as soon as as soon as we can. Okay. Let's run through these. We got on. So to say off from there, Greg, is must management target for the upcoming ownership structure, what's your target scenario with the strategic partner? What we've discussed so far with with potential strategics and and sort of deal structure is that we're we're open in terms of of percentage. We want to have CLEANTECH LITHIUM maintaining control. We expect the incoming partner to provide the finance through to to FID, which is to fund all of the EIA, DFS drilling technical work, and take a percentage of Laguna Verde.

54:41 But when we're looking at valuation, we're looking at the valuation of the PFS. You know, the project's got an NPV of $950,000,000. So we're expecting the price at which somebody comes in to be related to the the NPV of of of the project. And whether they come in at ten, twenty, 25%, we are we are open to to to that. It may be that there are some parties want to come in and want to have majority ownership, and there's you know, because they they want to have a controlling interest, and that depends on on what price they are prepared to to pay.

55:28 So we will discuss with with all parties everything from minority through to potential offer for a majority stake. But our preference is clean to it lithium stays majority. Steve, thanks for that one. So quick question, David, would be about the confidence in the DLE technology. It's something that Ignacio's spoken with other institutions. We've addressed this a number of times, but do you just want to to reiterate our confidence in what you've been doing? And also, just for those people that weren't aware of the Steve's PhD is in hydrometallurgy, which is is basically very consistent with with DLE in the process there. But, Steve, confidence levels? Yeah. No. We we've worked we've been very pleased with the work that Lan Shen has done. We're very confident in in the process.

56:21 What we're also very confident in is the way the market has, has moved. You you've looked at major mining companies like Rio Tinto going into the lithium space. They've put their hat on DLE. They they are developing the Rincon project in Argentina using DLE. They formed joint ventures with Codelco in Maricunga and Anami in Alto Andino, and they're insisting those projects are going to be DLE. You've just had in the last weeks, Albemarle and then SQM announced to the market their evaporation projects in in Chile.

57:07 They're also going to move to DLE. In The United States, have the standard lithium, their project at Smackover in the the Smackover Basin with with Aquadec. That's a DLE project. So there are many, many DLE projects. Eramit, their DLE project Centenario in Argentina is getting close to full production as a demonstration that DLE is working. Vulcan Resources in Germany is a DLE project. So the big growth in the lithium market from brines in the future, it's DLE. Now that's that's the way the market is going.

57:52 And what's supporting that is not just the Chinese companies that are now developing the technology. You have major companies like KBR, SLB, Euridea, Sangaban, they're all developing absorbance and the downstream processing technology for DLE. So so there's been a big shift in the market from three, four years ago, when it was an emerging technology. Today, it's mainstream that if you're developing brines, you're gonna be DLE. Thank you. I mean, there's actually a I'll send a link to Telegram Group. There's a a DLE conference, and there's a couple of good YouTube interviews for some of the world's other junior companies that go into depth about DLE, which I can refer people to.

58:47 Simon, I'm looking to raise additional funds on the ASX. So, Simon, we we need to have 300 investors at a minimum parcel of 2,000. So that's 600,000 Aussie, realistically, £500,000 at the minimum price. So that's a spread. There's a little syndicate of investors that we're talking to who would bring that. The company's intention is to do a compliance listing and get onto the market if the price is around the lower price. If the lithium price was to storm ahead and the share price was to be significantly higher, I don't think anyone would ever rule out taking additional funds if it was offered, but we'll be in a position to only consider that if the share price was significantly higher and it was able to be used for either further assets or to expedite work that what company wanted to do.

59:33 But at this point in time, the the intention is to raise what's required from a compliance assisting process, which is the headline number is 300, but we may even be able to get that down to two fifty given the number of shareholders that we've got. That's a discussion to be had with the ASX. And then one of the things about getting onto the ASX is, although Steve pointed out, there's roughly about 40 odd companies there, there's actually well over 60 plus analysts that cover that universe. So when you look at a company like Galan or you look at Lake, there's usually half a dozen analysts. One of the things that Ignacio and I will be doing in July is seeking to meet with all of those analysts, start getting some coverage. Because if you're covering the the Latin American daily sector, you'll need to bring up coverage of CLEANTECH.

1:00:22 The reality is, though, if you're an analyst sitting in Perth or Sydney, you don't cover UK listed companies. You don't put them in. The Australian market doesn't buy London companies because of time zones and various other reasons. So that's on the additional funds intent. Laurie has been mentioning the Laurie, again, it's a compliance listing. We've got actually a lot of really good support. I'm quite happy we have the spread in place. There's no shortage of partners that want to come back in terms of helping. It was just the process of getting the sale and the PFS. Chris, please put a comment about better expectations. That may well be fair criticism. Hope to do these seminars to allow to people for in terms of expectations and timelines.

1:01:11 There's a comment about allowing Metals One. People are saying, oh, we we know that they were there in short term. I didn't know Metals won. The company didn't know Metals won. We hadn't dealt with them. They were introduced as a party that wanted to invest. They're a publicly listed AIM investing company into mining stocks. We had hoped there would be a longer term, but they have a right to exit if they wish to do so. So I I think it's a it's very easy to criticize in hindsight. Steve, last one for you, think, and then we can wrap this up. Is the sale ratification holding up the strategic partner bids? Nope. No. No. No. The the contract terms are are done. That that's all recognized. It is just the the constitutional legality which the controller has to tick tick off.

1:02:01 All the, you know, the people we're talking to recognize that the sale has been awarded by the ministry, and that very, very shortly, that ratification will come. Okay. Thank you, Greg. I hope that answered your question. Greg, on that note, the the it's not our Telegram group. It's a a shareholders' Telegram group. I'll ask Nick, who's part of the communications team, to post a reference to that into the company's Twitter account, and you'll be able to get a link from there. For that, I don't have it to hand. It was set up by some of the the shareholders directly. Right. And so, Steve, if everything let's let's if we bought in a partner by year end or early next year, give us a broad brush what we would do through in terms of DFS, FID, production, and the timeline to selling the first production?

1:02:58 Well, the the the first thing that that that's needed is twelve months of environmental baseline. We then do, you know, in parallel, you know, this year work on the processing side. We wanna bring in the strategic partner by the end of the year. And it's only then with a strategic partner that we will choose the the consultant for the DFS and then get on with that. That's probably gonna be nine months or so for the DFS. We've got financing package to, you know, put together two years of construction. So the realistic time frame, also with the environmental permitting within Chile, We're looking at first production early two thousand and thirty one if we can bring it in in earlier. You know, the government has said that it really wants to accelerate the, you know, the permitting process.

1:04:02 So if you can go faster, it'll be good. But in all the documentation we're putting in now, it's being conservative from early two thousand and thirty one. Okay. Now some people said you know, ask the question. If if a group came up and offered to buy out the assets I mean, I I know what the major shareholders' position are, but some people are saying, you know, how are we gonna hang on to 50%, Steve? You know, what if somebody made an offer to buy out the asset? Do you wanna sort of comment on that just because it's sort of a repeated one that comes up in various of the forums? Yeah. No. No. No. No. Clearly, we're we're we're duty bound, you know, as a board, you to put offers through to our, you shareholders.

1:04:47 But we're we're very clear. We've got, you know, two major shareholders in in Regal and and and Athos who hold, like, 42 between them. You know, they they clearly have a blocking vote on on anything. So any proposal to buy an asset or the company will need their their approval. And they've already made, you know, very, very clear where they expect the share price to go to once we are in in in production. We've made clear to potential strategic partners. We want to stay in control of of Laguna Verde. But it may be that there's such an attractive offer that comes for 51% of of of Laguna Verde that the board may decide to to accept that and channel those funds into the development of Viento and Dino and and other projects. So so we we are flexible.

1:05:48 We wanna stay in control. We're expecting a strategic partner in the ten, twenty, 25%, no no, range. But, realistically, we also have to listen to what other strategic partners want to do as well. Yep. I mean, I I think the the major shareholders are definitely looking at a a three to sort of four year horizon. They are fundamentally bullish on lithium, and they're fundamentally bullish on the assets. But I think the thing to point out as well to current and potential shareholders is Ignacio's had a a a long and and very sort of, you know, senior career in the lithium space in Chile. And there are, you know, a number of other projects in Chile that the company's constantly being sort of proposed, potential to look at. I know you know, I've I've sent you a number of things where people have reached out to me and said, oh, we have a further asset. So if you have an opportunity and it made sense and it was at the right price, so the right price being many, many multiples higher than where we are today, you know, for purely from my broker, I could see a scenario where it might make sense to take cash off the table on Laguna Verde and then channel that into another asset or pick up further assets.

1:07:06 But, again, this is all speculation. The focus for the moment is to run through the the fairly onerous process on on ASX. It's well, it's not onerous from a a technical point of view. It's just time consuming, and and there is a a series of events that need to happen in in in order and reviews by different parties. One of the things in in AIM, obviously, is that the the Nomad reviews and supports it. In Australia, you do have to go to ASIC, and then you have to go to the Australian Stock Exchange, and they have peers to review and comment. So it's a a little bit of a slower process than you tend to do in London. And then Ignacio's time, know, is very much focused on the strategic partner. So I'd like to thank everybody who came in and supported on the retail round.

1:07:52 We'd like to thank everybody that's continued to remain to be a shareholder, whether they support in the round or not. It has been less than we'd hoped. I know a number of shareholders are are disappointed in where the share price are. We discuss that quite regularly between myself and the board and Ignacio. It's not that we are it would be we get we get I I get certain comments, and I know Steve does as well. But we are limited on what marketing we can do when you're going into a closed period around the finances. We're limited on what market we can do if we know that we're going to be doing a financing. But the company is now fully funded to meet its objectives at least for the next twelve months, borrow a small raise onto the ASX.

1:08:40 And I really hope that from here, we can help to rebuild some confidence, attract new investors, and to help drive the share price up to what we think is reasonable representation of fair value. Steve, is there anything else that you'd like to round up on? No. I I I I just, again, like to thank our institutional and our retail who've demonstrated that they believe in the project by coming in on this this round two. We've now got the, you the funds that we can continue to work as expeditiously as possible to advance the project and create more value and get that share price moving upwards. Okay. Well, what we'll probably do, guys, is we'll Steve, well, thank you for that. And I know that once Ignacio gets back and we've done fast markets, we'll probably, in about sort of six weeks' time, just do a general update. I mean, Ignacio's not gonna be able go into any detail, but he can certainly express his thoughts on on the sort of questions and propose on how we've been doing and how the fast markets was. So we'll maybe just do a a generic update on where the lithium price is and how we've been progressing.

1:09:45 But, again, just to preempt, we'll be limited on what we can and and cannot say why are these negotiations going on. But as always, Steve, thank you very much for your time. I know a number of people appreciate it. It's good to be able to update with everybody, and we'll catch up very soon. That's great. Daniel, Steve, thank you very much indeed for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, which will help the company better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good