Nickel Industries (ASX:NIC) Q3 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Nickel Industries Limited September quarter activities webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during Q&A time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. And to withdraw your question, press the star one again. For operator assistance throughout the call, please press star zero. And finally, I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to welcome Justin Warner, Managing Director, to begin the conference. Justin, over to you.

0:35 Thank you and welcome everyone to the Nickel Industries September quarterly activities results call. If I could just ask the moderator to move to the next slide, please, kicking off with safety. 12-month LTIFR 0.06. Unfortunately, there was a lost time incident recorded during the quarter. An operator took a fall. but they thankfully have recovered and so no significant injuries. That takes our 12-month TRIFR to 0.67 and 17.8 million safe man hours have been worked. In terms of some of the quarterly milestones on the ESG, we are part of the top 20 Asia-Pacific metals and mining peers as externally audited by S&P.

1:28 and so I think that's a tremendous achievement from a recognised independent third party. We received recognition from the Indonesian Mines Department for our disaster response and we ran a tsunami preparedness drill in one of the local villages. We planted over a thousand mangrove seedlings on World Mangrove Day with the local community and the Hang Jaya Mine won gold at the INTEC Southeast Asian 2026 for waste and coastal conservation education. And finally, we continue to expand our scholarships with over 30 students in various disciplines across two universities in Indonesia. And we're seeing some very good results from our students in the universities where they're currently studying.

2:23 If we could just go to the next slide, please. US $125.9 million adjusted EBITDA with record all sales and EBITDA at the Hang Jaya mine. Also, some tremendous milestones during the quarter with first MHP nickel and cobalt CAFO from ENC. The US $125.9 million of adjusted EBITDA is up on the June quarter. record all sales of 4.5 million tonnes. And as I'd mentioned, we were externally benchmarked by S&P under the Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment and we ranked in the top 20 amongst our APAC peers.

3:11 On the mining side, record EBITDA, US$76.9 million, up 68% on the June quarter. and that's reflective of the Indonesian government's revised HBM pricing. Four and a half million tons of oil sales, that's also a new record, up 56% on the June quarter and our EBITDA wet metric ton margin was also up 8% to a little over $17 US a wet metric ton. At our RKEF operations, EBITDA was down 30% to US 40.7. Really the key driver there is the increase in ore costs. So we've sort of seen margin moving from the RKEFs into the mining business.

4:02 Sales were pretty stable, 26,800 tonnes down slightly. And pleasingly, the NPI price is holding. So we averaged $14,408 a tonne. over the quarter, down slightly on the previous quarter, but as I said, it's very encouraging that the NPI price was sort of $10,000 a tonne last year, and it's now held consistently for the majority of this year at around that $14,000 a tonne mark. On the HPAL side of the business, $8.4 million US adjusted EBITDA from HNC. That was down on the June quarter, and really driven by higher costs, which is higher sulfur prices.

4:49 Pleasingly, H&C continues to make distributions to Nick and there was 13 million US distributed during the quarter, which is up sort of 271% on the distributions that were made in June. And at E&C, as I said, a couple of tremendous milestones, first MHP and first nickel and cobalt cathode production. If we could just go to the next slide, please. Mining operations, I mentioned a record 4.5 million tonnes of sales. The average realised sale price was down slightly. The reason for that was just due to a higher proportion of limonite sales. The EBITDA wet metric tonne up almost 10%, $17.

5:35 And what we are starting to see there is given that we're now hauling limonite only a couple of kilometres to the slurry plant to feed ENC rather than sort of 20 kilometres to third-party HPALs. We're starting to see that in a reduction in operating costs and an improvement in our EBITDA per metric tonnes. So all in all, great result from the mine. It set up 68% on the previous quarter and US$76.9 million. Moving forward, you can see that the Hang Jaya mine itself is going to be a significant EBITDA contributor to nickel industries moving forward. And obviously these sort of numbers augur very well for the development of the Sampala project. We continue to work through our RKOB increase. We've been through several revisions.

6:33 we are hopeful of receiving some sort of outcome relatively soon and we'll obviously update the market once we get some final feedback. If we could just go to the next slide please. Sampala development continues. The key really to Sampala is development of the 24 kilometres of haul road. You can see the photo on the top right there. That's sort of part of the first eight kilometres that's already been built. We are preparing to build another, to add another 2.2 kilometre section and then the remaining section, which is about another sort of 14 kilometres, we're just pending a forestry approval from the government and then we'll be able to start work on that section of the road.

7:27 Both ANN and ETL are well advanced in having their feasibility study approved. Once that's approved, we will then look to get the environmental studies approved, and they're also well advanced, and then we can make an RKAB application for both of those IUPs. At the Sidoasi project, the feasibility study still remains under review by the Indonesian government. If we could just go to the next slide, please. ENC commissioning started off very well. We were at 50% of nameplate capacity within a number of weeks, so performing extremely well. Unfortunately, due to the El Nino conditions that Indonesia is currently experiencing and you would have seen in the quarterly results across Indonesia, September October we've received only seven millimeters of rainfall when typically over those two months you would see around sort of close to half a meter that has meant that we have had to reduce back the production coming out of ENC but so far for the quarter we produced 4840 tons of nickel and 494 tons of cobalt in MHP and the quality of that MHP is excellent.

8:57 The cash costs, and this is still at a commissioning phase, so not fully ramped up, was $13,943 a tonne. That's actually lower than HNC and we're not fully ramped, so that's very encouraging. And our cathode conversion cost, currently around $3,888 a tonne. We are looking to bring that down as we get that up to full capacity to sort of somewhere in the range of about $2,500 a tonne. The cathode quality is also excellent. We've commenced the LME registration process and so far it's progressing very well given the very high quality of the cathode that's being produced.

9:47 We also announced subsequent to the quarter a US$245 million OCBC-led project financing, and that will allow us to dividend recap some money back to the E&C shareholders. The other key milestone that was received during the quarter was an exemption to be able to sell our MHP, which there's a number of other HPL producers that actually don't have that exemption as yet, so I think it places us very well. and the IUI for full sales is progressing very well. So we're expecting to receive that this quarter and then we'll be able to realise first sales from ANC of the products that we've already produced.

10:35 At HNC, I mentioned EBITDA 8.4 million down 42%. 1.9 thousand tonnes of nickel sales, HNC attributable. and EBITDA per tonne is down from about 8,000 last quarter to 4,400. So look, still holding a strong margin despite the significant pressure from sulphur. Pleasingly, sulphur prices have sort of come off the highs of sort of 11 to 1,200 and currently at the moment they're sitting around 800. So HNC is still delivering, you know, $4,500 return margin is still a very good margin. And as I said, we continue to receive ongoing distributions from HNC.

11:27 If we could just go to the next slide, please. This is just some photos of the HPAL operations. So the top left Photo 1 is the slurry plant which is located within the Hengjia Mining Concession and so limonite is delivered there and then sent via a slurry pipeline down to the ENC HPAL plant. That's photo 2 there on the left and actually within that photo there, there is also CNE and TMI. So that photo, that whole complex is actually ENC, CNE and TMI and Unfortunately, it doesn't really give you a feel for the scale. There is a video there that you can watch. There's a link up there in the top right-hand side.

12:13 The bottom left photo, number three, is the sulfate and cathode refinery, and then the final photo, number four, you can see there some of the final products. So we've got the MHP, which looks like the green wasabi there, and then we've got some of the nickel cathode there, and you can see it branded PT Fudger, If we could just move to the next slide, please. RKEF operations, 27,822 tons for the quarter, so sort of staying pretty consistent. We're expecting to complete the rebuild of one of the HNI lines in the middle of November.

12:58 Once that's completed, we expect it to go back to about sort of 20% above nameplate capacity. Once that line is completed, we will then start doing the second line at HNI and there will be an ongoing program to effectively rebuild the kiln and furnaces across the four lines at HNI and RNI over the coming months. Cash costs of $13,054. and that really as I mentioned is just the increase in the nickel price and a sale price of $14,408 so as I said earlier you know pleasingly the MPI prices is remaining quite robust and so you know we've seen a reduction in EBITDA per tonne and that's really been driven by increase in ore pricing and obviously that's coming through in our mining numbers.

13:55 So it's really just a transfer of margin from the RKEFs back to the mining business. If we could just go to the next slide and the cash flow overview, I'll hand over to Chris to talk through this slide. Thanks Justin. Good morning, everybody. As Justin mentioned, we have another exceptional quarter with our EBITDA of $126 million. However, this obviously hasn't translated into cash flow this quarter, with cash actually falling from $268 million at the end of June to $146 million at the end of September. As you can see on that slide, $50 million of this was what we classify as growth spend, which is predominantly the E&C working capital loan, so funding the commissioning of E&C. Sampala Development CapEx, approximately $12 million for the quarter, and this was somewhat offset by the repayment by SingSharn of the $15 million nickel MAC converter option that we received through the quarter.

15:01 Another $43 million was spent in debt servicing costs, which is obviously on our bonds and our bank loans. Then we come to the cash flow before growth in debt of negative $12 million. That was predominantly driven by working capital, as the slide says. We've set this out in this quarter and we intended this going forward in a table on the bottom there for clarity for all of you. The key items in that were an increase in mining inventories, which have obviously increased stockpiles, so cash has been spent, but it's not in the EBITDA. $28 million in HPAL.

15:47 12 of this was the customer advance received in Q2, but applied to an August shipment. And $16 million was for the H&C product prepayment, for an H&C product prepayment, so purchasing our share of the products out of H&C in July and August. However, with MHP payabilities falling throughout the quarter, we did elect not to sell as much in the quarter. Receivables are the other large items. Henjaya Mine was up $43 million and the RKF was up $34 million. Of that $34 million, $29 million of it was at ONI and RNI with other receivables making up the balance, so just under $6 million. We expect all of this to unwind in Q4.

16:34 Payables was another timing item, which we expect to unwind in Q4 as well. $24 million of supplies were paid, let's call it paid down from the prior quarter, predominantly at H&I and ANI RKF projects. So all in all, it's been a tough operating environment through the quarter with much lower than expected cash conversion. And as I mentioned earlier, we expect a lot of this to unwind in Q4. Finally, as Justin's mentioned, and as we announced to the ASX yesterday, we have executed a US $245 million asset level debt at E&C on extremely attractive terms. So it's non-recourse, seven-year debt at SOFA plus 2%, which at current SOFA rates equates to 5.9%, obviously compared to our existing bond at 9%.

17:31 This facility or this loan will give a working capital buffer at EMC as we ramp up to nameplate and then as operations hit nameplate in coming months or as we expect to hit in coming months and the market stabilises, we will then look to dividend this up to the shareholders so Nickel Industries would receive its 46% share of any distributions to shareholders. OCBC led the transaction and I'd like to thank them for their support in this tough environment, being obviously throughout the year the sulfur effects of the Iran war and now obviously the El Nino drought effects with the water restrictions that we're seeing across the region.

18:21 we could have actually executed a much higher number likely north of 500 million dollars but this would have come at a higher higher interest cost or a higher margin and as we feel we have sufficient liquidity at the moment we elected for the us 245 million now thanks justin back to you yeah thanks chris um if we could just move to the uh to the next slide please um progress against uh fy 26 guidance so in terms of mine

18:50 We're at 10.4 million sales at the end of September of our 14.3 million RKAB. So we're on track to meet that for the year. And as I mentioned earlier, we are awaiting the outcome of an increase. And hopefully we should hear some positive news on that relatively soon. In terms of RKEF sales, where 85,000 tonnes for the year of roughly target of about 100,000 to 110,000 and that's been lowered slightly because of the kiln rebuild at HNI which I touched on earlier. There is a temporary reduction which started in October to about 75% of nameplate capacity and that's really just due to the shortage of water Ladies and gentlemen, we'll just go on to a brief music hold.

22:11 Thank you for standing by, and we will now resume. Yeah, thank you, everybody. Justin's having problems getting back into the line, so I'll continue on this guidance slide. Obviously, as everyone's aware, we haven't provided guidance in the past, but we've been getting a lot of questions and a lot of requests for it from both the research community and also the investor community. So as you can see on the slide, we've set out our total capex for 2026. We are a long way through that having spent 51 mil to date to the end of September and we expect another, we expect to reach 66 to 73 mil by the end of the year. FY27 numbers will be provided early next year once we've completed our budget process and the board has signed off on all of that.

23:02 Mine consolidated sales, as you can see, we are expecting, we will hit our 14.3 million tonnes at Henjaya Mine, which is our existing 2026 RCAD. Should we receive an increase in Henjaya Mines RCAD in the coming months, well then that number may increase. At the RKF operations, we're at 85,000 tonnes of nickel sales by the end of September, and we're expecting that to reach 100 to 110 by the end of the year. And then HPAL attributable sales at 5.8 currently, and we're expecting 10 to 11. by the end of the year. Obviously, the processing sales numbers are very much El Nino or water dependent over the coming months.

23:53 With that, I will hand over to questions, please. Thank you, Chris. And as mentioned, we will now begin the Q&A session. For those listening by phone and would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. And to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. When called upon, please use your handset or headset, ensure your line is unmuted, and be ready to ask your question. Again, that is star 1 to raise your hand and join the queue, and we'll pause for a moment to align the queue. And your first question comes from the line of Austenune of Macquarie. Please go ahead. Good morning, Chris, Justin, the team. Yeah, just came to get an update on the current weather condition. As you mentioned in the note, the release, there's an extreme dry condition limiting the production rate of all your RKEF lines.

24:53 We also note there have been some media reports saying your peers in the region may consider a similar move. Could you please provide some color on the broader market in the region outside of your four RKEF facilities in terms of the impact and should we see a more coordinated production cut across the whole sector? Thank you.

25:20 Yeah, thanks, Austin. So, yeah, we are, as of October, we've reduced the RKEF capacity to about 75%. We've really focused on ensuring that ANI is actually running at 128%. of capacity, and so our two strongest RKEFs, ANI and ONI, are still performing well. But yet, look, there will be coordinated cuts across all of the operations within the IMIP. IWIP at this stage is unaffected from any water shortages. but look, yes, you can expect some of these coordinated cuts. And certainly what we're seeing is the non-integrated producers, again, are the ones that are gonna suffer the hardest here. So just again, highlights the advantages that we have over our peers.

26:16 And look, typically December marks sort of the start of the wet season. So look, we're hopeful of starting to see some meaningful rainfall um hopefully sometime um in in the next couple of weeks thank you justin just a quick follow-up how should i think about the the cost between variable and fixed given that the production rate is coming down yeah look at the the the cost of the rkef is predominantly variable um you know 70% of the cost base is nickel ore and power. It's probably only 10% that's fixed, so not a big impact, probably even less than that.

27:07 Thank you. That's clear. I'll pass it on. Thanks, Austin. Your next question is from the line of Richard Knight of Baron Joey. Please go ahead.

27:18 Hi, gents. Thanks for the call. Thanks for the table in particular that sort of breaks down the EBITDA to cash flow from operations. I think that's particularly helpful just to see the receivables and payables movement between the assets. So thanks for that. A couple of questions. Well, one main one actually. In terms of the remaining 4 million tonnes, that you've got in your RKB for Heng Jaya. Can you give us an idea of what the Saprolite-Limonide mix is going to be there? I mean, obviously, given where the HPM pricing is, you're making tremendous margins on the Saprolite sales. Is there a sort of view, given the pressures on the downstream business in terms of high sulfur prices and potential production cuts, is there a view to sort of try and maximize revenue at the mining assets through more Saprolite sales?

28:15 Look, where we can, we will most certainly try and do that. Obviously, we're prioritising limonite for EMC. We do have the benefit of third-party producers that are buying limonite, so there's the opportunity there to sell additional tonnes, which is really what we did this quarter. And then for saprolite, look, where we can, and obviously it's driven partly by the by the mining plan and sequence and sort of saprolite to limonite ratio. But where we can, we'll certainly try and maximize saprolite sales given the very strong margins.

28:57 And can you give us a flavor of what that split is going to look like roughly over the next sort of three months?

29:05 For this quarter, it's a little bit challenging because we're still just trying to finalise the E&C limonite requirements and third-party limonite requirements, and so that then really drives what saprolite we can do. One of the things that we don't want to be doing is mining limonite to get to saprolite and just creating more limonite stockpiles. So it's just balancing that mining sequence with demand. Yep, yep, fair enough.

29:47 And then just on price realizations for MHP, I mean, you mentioned that they're they've pulled back a little bit. And obviously, Austin alluded to potential coordinated HPAL cuts in the space. I mean, can you give us an idea of sort of to what extent those MHP price realizations have pulled back versus the nickel price? And does it feel like they've sort of found a floor?

30:16 Yeah, look, it's back to about 84%. for nickel and back to sort of a little over 50 for cobalt. Cobalt was in the high 80s previously and MHP was sort of over the 90s. So I think we have found a flaw. I mean, interestingly, what a pullback in the MHP payabilities does is it obviously opens up the opportunity for stronger margins at the cathode side of the business, given that you're capturing the gap between the sort of 84% and the 100% payability.

30:59 Yep, yep, that makes sense. Just need higher cathode prices. That'd be helpful.

31:05 Yeah, yeah. Well, I think, obviously, the nickel price was up by 3% overnight, so this has certainly been a response to, you know, some of these cuts. So, yeah. Yeah.

31:17 Yep, brilliant. All right. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on. Thanks, Rich. Your next question is from the line of Jit Ming Tan of Barclays Bank. Please go ahead.

31:30 Hi, morning, gentlemen. Thanks for the call. One question for me on the 245-minute bank facility at ENC. I'm just curious to understand the use of proceeds and if part of that is going to be used to repay that $50 million loan that Nick provided to ENC. Thanks. Thanks, Jim. As I mentioned, that facility in there initially for working capital to ensure that as that, let's just call it as ENC, is well capitalised as we're commissioning up to name place and obviously as market conditions stabilise. As soon as we can, we will be sending the majority of that. We'll leave a very small amount as working capital, but over 90% of that will be distributed to shareholders.

32:23 So we've obviously got shareholder loans in there. Any distribution, Nick will receive its 46% share. So we might be looking up around $100 million distributed to Nick. And that has always been the intention of this facility as we've been working through it over the last year or so. We obviously haven't needed traditional project finance per se because the entire thing was funded on equity and it has been funded on it as equity to date. So it can just really be looked at as a... as what I'd call a dividend recap to the shareholders. Thank you. You're welcome. Your next question is from the line of Hamish Wiltshire of Jefferies.

33:08 Your line is open. Hi, guys. Thanks for the call. Just a quick question on the Sapper Lite sales split. Again, with the 75% or 25% production cut out of the... Okay, yes. Should we expect to see a similar movement in kind of attributable saprolyte volumes heading towards those plants?

33:32 Okay, our saprolyte supply, we're currently about 60% self-sufficient. So, you know, cutting it down to about 75%, you know, it'll just mean, you know, we'll stop any third-party oil purchases. and probably move to, you know, 100% of saprolite for our RKEFs coming from the Heng Jaya mine, rather than, you know, having what we typically have is we do have a top-up from, you know, other third-party suppliers. Fantastic. Thanks for that. That's my only one. And your next question comes from the line of David Coates of Bell Potter Securities. Your line is open.

34:19 Thanks for the call. And just a couple of quick ones. I'm sorry if I missed it, but the IUI sales permit, just your best guess on timing on that and then assuming once that that comes through, the stocks that are built up will be able to be sold immediately?

34:42 Yeah, look, that... That's right, Dave. So we've had this sort of final inspection. We've obviously received the MHP exemption. So as soon as that IUI comes through, then that'll allow us to sort of immediately trigger sales of the product that we've currently built up.

35:06 Cool. Thank you. And you mentioned ANI is running well above nameplate. Is that? and typically these you know is that how sort of sustainable is that what kind of capacity is there to run those RKF lines at that sort of level above nameplate and I guess I don't know what are the constraints on them doing

35:30 that? Yes so I mean it's a number of different factors that go into you know being able to run it above nameplate you know it's sort of furnace conditions. It's grade of ore. So there is a number of variables. It's also the quality of the ore. ANI is in a good position because it's sourcing a lot of third-party ore at good grades and it has an ability to sort of blend to get the best sort of ore mix that it can, which then allows obviously you know, better performance through the furnace, better recoveries, and that's where we're seeing some of this outperformance come from.

36:19 So, you know, ANI is certainly helping to reduce the impact of the reductions of some of the RKEFs at IMIP.

36:31 All right, nice one. And finally, any additional updates from Santala? Permitting and... schedule, I suppose?

36:44 No, look, just still waiting on approval of feasibility study and of the forestry permit. We are hopeful to receiving those before the end of this year. And then, as I mentioned, we will be starting work very shortly on a 2.2 kilometre section of the haul road. and so we'll be back at work on the haul road and hopefully with the forestry permit coming through soon, that should allow us to get back into building the remaining haul mode sort of hopefully early in the new year.

37:25 Nice one. Okay, cool. Thanks, Owen. Good to see the nickel price responding a bit to the production impact. So, yeah. Yeah, no, no, no.

37:38 I think the other thing is obviously, you know, NPI prices held firm throughout the year. And so, you know, we think that's a positive as well.

37:54 Excellent. Thanks so much, Justin. Thanks so much, Chris. Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Kay Hatanto of Indo Premier Securities. Please go ahead.

38:07 Justin and team. Really great call. I just have a quick question. Just wanted to know the feasibility on the coming H file projects like TMI and CME considering that sulfur costs are pretty expensive and elevated right now and unfavorable supply demand dynamics in MHP.

38:24 Yeah, so TMI, CNE, they're all part of the same ENC complex. So that aerial photo that we looked at earlier in the presentation, that's effectively what you're seeing there is CNE, TMI and ENC all forming part of the one big HVAC facility. HNC is obviously our proxy into the impact of sulphur prices and you saw this quarter that margins are still at $4,500 a tonne, so still very healthy. And I guess pleasingly we've certainly seen sulphur come down from sort of its highs of $1,100 to $1,200 to today it's sitting at $800. So based on HNC as a proxy, margins are still good and then pleasingly the the limited commissioning that we've done at ENC, and we only hit 50% capacity, but the costs that we were operating at were lower than HNC. So, you know, it sort of just, it reinforces our belief that these HPALs, ENC, CNE, and TMI will all operate sort of in the lowest quarter.

39:44 Perfect. Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Abraham Aya from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Congratulations, a good set of numbers. Can I just ask very quickly on the details of the intercompany loan that has been reported in the cash flow waterfall? What are terms? Who does this to? What would be the use of receipts? Yeah, thanks, Ibrahim. I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that. It's the loan to E&C. So it's a working capital loan. It's a shareholder loan into E&C as we commission the working capital.

40:33 Got it. And are there any terms of repayment of this? I know you're expecting a potential dividend recap from the project financing that you're doing there, but any terms of these repayment here for this working capital facility as the project comes online? We'll be getting the cash out of the company as soon as we possibly can. We haven't, the terms are confidential, but as soon as we can, we're going to be taking as much cash out of PTFMI slash ENC up to all three shareholders. Understood. Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone. Your next question comes from the line of Eamon Agarwal of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

41:20 Hey, good morning, management. Thanks for the call. I had a few questions. Firstly, given the cash balance we have as of end third quarter, subsequent production cuts, how do you plan to meet the HPAL payments coming up in November? Do you have any plans to draw down on the sink shunt facilities? Thanks for the question. I think when we announced it at the end of August in our half yearly, I said there were no plans to draw down on that facility. We are reassessing that at the moment. Obviously, it's not a great environment at the moment. It will very much, I think, depend on when we actually draw down on the OCBC facility.

42:07 Whilst we've executed the facility agreements, we will be looking to draw down on that within the next week or so. and then we will have a we'll have quite a long long discussion with Sinshine regarding how much if anything of the cash we can of that cash that goes into EMC we can distribute up to shareholders should we not distribute anything to shareholders we will likely draw down on that facility to the extent obviously given what I've just said about EMC and I can't say how much of that facility will draw down. We do not need to draw down on the entire amount in one drawdown. We can draw down as many times as we like over the course of the next 15 months. So it's really, unfortunately, I can't give you an exact number now, but we will work through that. And obviously, as and when we draw down, we will inform the market.

42:58 The follow-on question that you should have or others may have is then we've got a final payment for Sampala in April of $144 million due. I was previously, I've told all the investors that previously I was intending to to not draw down on the SingShine facility and use the SingShine facility if needed for the April payment. So whether or not we, how we deal with that April payment will be very much dependent on how we, on whether or not we draw down now on the SingShine facility, the $169. We have just as a, I guess, as a precaution. Whilst that's six months out, we have had discussions with our local partner, who's the vendor of this MPALA project, and we feel quite confident that should we need to push back that payment, we will have the ability to do so.

43:57 That is the April payment, right? The what, sorry? You mean you can push back the payment in April? Yes, the April payment. The November payment, we will not push that one back. But the April one, yes.

44:16 Okay, and if you draw down on the sanction facility, that would be on Nickel Industries balance sheet. That's correct. The one on ENC, that's out of Nickel Industries, right? That's on ENC level. Exactly. The 245 we announced yesterday is at the ENC level or PTFMI level and the SimShine facility would be at the Nickel Industries

44:44 Okay, understood. And secondly, I think this is a follow-up on a previous question, but you're reducing RKEF capacity. What would be the impact on Hingjaya mine productions? Will that stay as is? The third-party sales will continue there?

45:08 We will be selling 100% of our saprolyte into our RKEFs. and we do have flexibility on limonite. So there is still third party buyers for the limonite as well as obviously supplying to ENC, which is obviously still running at the moment.

45:29 And in third quarter, how much of your limonite sale was to ENC?

45:36 It was, I believe, probably roughly About a third.

45:53 I'm sorry. Are you there, Amin? We lost you. Hello, Amin?

46:03 Hi, Amin. He should be back. Yes, we can hear you. We can hear you. Yeah, sorry, I... I lost you there. So you said a third of the Luminite sale was to ENC, right? Yes. Awesome. And I think just a housekeeping question, what was the NPI ASP so far in 4Q? LME prices have obviously dropped since September, so just wanted to get a sense of where we are.

46:34 Yes, so NPI pricing has failed significantly. pretty consistently at around sort of $14,500 for the majority of this year. And so, as I said, that's been a positive and we don't think there's going to be any significant movement there. In fact, I think what you may see is with a potential reduction of NPI, you could see a strengthening of the NPI price.

47:10 Got it. Thanks. That's all from me. Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Vikash Agarwala from Primus Asset Management. Please go ahead.

47:25 Hi, this is Chris. Thanks for the call. A couple of quick ones from my side. Firstly, just following on the pricing trend, can I understand a little bit on the Ceprolite pricing trend as well? Your reported relations with CQA is still higher Q&Q and much higher than what you were doing in 2025. How could you think about the relations in 4Q, specifically considering the nickel prices overall coming down from the highs in first half. How should we think about the relation in Q4?

48:03 You're talking about how we should think about the nickel price in Q4? The saprolyte price. Saprolyte. I think, yeah, look, saprolyte with a strengthening of obviously LME is up 3% overnight. So As we see further increases in the LME nickel price, given that the saprolyte formula is linked to the LME price, then you would expect to see an increase in the saprolyte price.

48:33 So then how should we think about the relations in 2Q and 3Q when LME prices were going down?

48:43 The saprolyte price... really why we've seen a big increase is there was a big disconnect between how the HPM for saprolite was previously calculated and what the actual market price was. You know, there was about a $20 difference. The government then adjusted that formula to sort of bring the HPM price in line with the actual saprolite market price. So that's really why you've seen the big increase in separate light margins and separate light pricing.

49:21 I understand. That's helpful. And on the EMC payment, can I understand, you mentioned that the working capital money will come back very soon, so hopefully soon after the drawdown of the OCBC facility, I'm assuming? Vikash, I think we will wait. As I mentioned on one of the earlier questions, we're going to be working with Shanghai Decent over the course of the next month. ahead of the TMI payment, and as part of that TMI payment, we'll be working out how much and when we can distribute the OCBC-led financing. I'm not going to try to predict that now, when and how much we bring back. We're obviously in a very fluid market.

50:12 We're in the middle of a drought. We will leave it

50:22 Understand. But on a 100% basis, how should I think about the working capital requirement for EMC? We believe with the loans that we've put in now, there's no additional working capital that will be required. If there is, we will be using yesterday's facility, the OCBC facility, for that in the first instance. So we don't expect there to be any further requirements for injections from the shareholders.

50:55 Got it, got it, I understand. And last question from my side is on the sulfur prices as well. You mentioned that there was an impact from the sulfur prices, but correct me if I'm wrong, the sulfur inventory was already good enough for the second half, and the production cost probably should have been lasting even beyond the 2026 year. But in case we cut independent sulfur prices of 800-odd dollars, then where do we see the margins?

51:31 Yeah, I think, I mean, I think, I mean, look, we're not privy to the full information, but I do believe that this quarter at HNC is probably the first quarter where we're seeing sort of fully priced sulfur prices. And so, as I said, you know, at a $4,500 a ton margin, still very strong. And pleasingly, you know, sulfur's come off sort of $300 a tonne, that means a $3,000 a tonne reduction in cost. So, you know, sulphur at this point is not as critical as perhaps it was, you know, sort of one or two months ago when we were up over $1,100 a tonne.

52:18 And, I mean, what we're hearing from a lot of people is that, you know, there does appear to be quite a bit of movement through the Straits of Hormuz, and that's obviously being reflected in the pricing.

52:32 Got it. That's it. Thanks. That's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. And a reminder to join the queue to press star one. And your next question comes from the line of Labshama of 0.72. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Sorry, I missed some part of the call. Just wanted to understand one thing. So you have these upcoming payments due 169 in November and I think also in April. Any thoughts there? Are you planning to utilize a sanction facility and then the cash flows later. And secondly, on the ENC project finance facility, what kind of cash release will you get, if any, at the corporate level? Thank you.

53:17 Okay. Thanks for the question, Love. As I mentioned earlier, I previously guided the market, guided investors that we did not believe we would have to draw down on the SingShine facility for the November payment. As part of that, we're expecting operating cash flows to very much fund that payment and given our existing cash as well. You can see the cash balances come down through the quarter, very much working capital driven as I went through earlier through the presentation. um there is a depending on when we actually draw down or when we draw down slash distribute any funds from that OCBC facility up to shareholders will determine if and how much we draw down at the SingShine facility in November should we draw down on that SingShine facility in November it is depending on again how cash flows are over the next six months that will determine how we address the Sampala payment in April, the $144 million payment. As I mentioned earlier, we very much, we're prepared for that and we've already had discussions with our local partner, which is the vendor. So our local partner at Henjaya Mine is the vendor at Sampala and we believe that should it be required, we will have the ability to push back that April payment.

54:43 Does that answer your questions, love? So basically the 245 million would be fully available to you, is that right? So it pays off any kind of shareholder loans or sector you might have there, is that right? The 245 is fully available to distribute up to the shareholders. Depending on how the commissioning go or when we ramp back up to name place, we'll determine how much of that facility we actually distribute up to shareholders. That facility really has, in this operating environment, given us a lot of breathing room. And we will, as I mentioned earlier, we will maximize the distributions from E&C up to the shareholders as early as we can and as large an amount as we can.

55:34 And we should take it as pro-rata, right, based on your shareholding there? Correct. All right. Okay, understood. Thank you. That's it for me. Thanks, Ralph. And your next question comes from the line of Xian Gao of BFA. Please go ahead.

55:53 Good morning everyone and thank you for the very good presentation. Just very small quick follow-up from my side. First is what's the outstanding balance of working capital loans to ENC at this moment? And secondly is that because you target to commissioning the CME in mid-2007 and TMI in September 2007, the targets you hold here I missed the second part of the question. I'll come to that. The working capital loans across all shareholders are north of $100 million at the moment. So we haven't disclosed the entire amount. We haven't got the approval of SingSharm to do so as our operating partner, but it is north of $100 million.

56:44 So there's a lot of working capital that we've injected into E&C, which obviously, as and when we can, we'll question you had. Sorry, we missed that. Could you repeat that, please?

57:00 So previously, the CNE is targeted to commissioning in mid-2027, and the TMI, based on the slide, it's expected to reach nameplate in September 2027. So are these two projects still holding to the target? The commissioning and in-play target.

57:28 Yeah, it is progressing very well.

57:32 And lastly, what's the margin expectation on CME and TMI? Will it be similar to HNC or more similar to ENC?

57:43 Look, we would expect the margin to be superior to HNC given that we've already demonstrated that we can achieve lower operating costs at ENC. the biggest driver of margin will be what is the sulfur cost in September of next year and obviously what is the nickel price and cobalt price.

58:11 Got it, thank you. Your next question is from the line of Donovan Tan of BlackRock. Your line is open.

58:20 Hi morning, thank you for the presentation. I think I just wanted to check in on one thing given we've kind of seen the headlines on the production cuts and I think one of them that were named was also regarding 50% on MHP and 20% on NPI. Could you just comment on that and whether that affects you? Thank you.

58:41 Yes, so in the quarterly you would have seen that in October we've cut back NPI to 75% capacity and we were at 50% capacity of E&C and ramping up very well. Given the shortage of water, we've moved back to about 33% capacity. But our intention will be is whilst we've cut back to 33% capacity on the MHP, we will look at potentially ramping up the nickel cathode plant to full capacity, which is about 40,000 tonnes of cathode per annum.

59:23 Okay, so it's still full capacity for the MHP-producing plants?

59:28 Okay, thank you. No, no. MHP, so ENC, we ramped it up to 50% in a number of weeks. Given the shortage of water, we had to reduce it back, so it's currently at around 33%. But the cathode refinery, we are looking to ramp that up to 100% capacity.

59:53 Okay, got it. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Jonathan. And your next question is from the line of Bharat Chettigarh of Standard Chartered Bank. Please go ahead.

1:00:08 Yeah, hi, management. Thanks a lot for the call. A couple of things. Firstly, apart from the $100-odd million shareholder loan at ENC, is there any other debt at the Fajar entity or at the ENC Opco? There's very shortly or very soon to be $245 million of additional debt at the ENC Opco. So that's the amount that we announced yesterday. Other than that, there is no other debt.

1:00:40 Okay, and just to be clear, once you are able to draw down the new $245 million loan, you can immediately repay the shareholder loans, right? We can. Correct. That's correct.

1:00:59 Right, right. And in terms of the dividend recap exercise you mentioned earlier, it's primarily related to the hundred odd million dollar shareholder loan that will be repaid or some of the equity that you're infused in ENC, will there be some kind of repayment of that as well? When I refer to the dividend recap, I'm effectively talking about the 245 mil facility. So we've put that debt in there at the ENC project level in order to dividend the majority of it, well over 90% of it to shareholders as effectively it's I shouldn't call it a dividend. It's a repayment of shareholder loans. The entire operation, the entire ENC project has been funded by equity as shareholder loans. So the money that we put in by the OCBC-led syndicate will be distributed to shareholders via repayment of those shareholder loans.

1:02:04 Okay, that's completely clear now. Thank you. Thank you, Bharat. And that concludes our Q&A session for today. I'll turn the call back over for closing remarks.

1:02:16 No, look, thank you everyone again for your attendance today. As I said, it's been a consistent three quarters for this year. And we have ENC first sales and ramp up still very much to look forward to. But the underlying RKF and nickel mining businesses remain very strong. And look, once we get some rainfall, we've already seen some relief in sulfur prices. We're still very well positioned and there's a lot of growth that we'll start to see coming through over the course of this quarter and then certainly moving into next year. So thank you again, everyone, for your time.

1:03:02 This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect.