You introducing us, Darcy, or do we just kick it off? Yep,

Okay. Good morning everyone, and thank you again for joining us for today's update.

I'm Darryl Cuzzubbo, Arafura's Managing Director. With me today is Peter Sherrington, who's been our CFO, and Tommie Vandervelde, our Chief Project Officer.

I'd also like to give a warm welcome to our new CFO, Angela Bigg, who started in the role just a few days ago. A little bit about Angela: Angela brings more than 20 years of experience in the global mining sector across both executive finance and executive operational roles, including being President and Chief Operational Officer of the Rio Tinto Diavik diamond mine in Canada.

This mix of multijurisdictional corporate finance experience and hands-on operational leadership gives her a really unique perspective, and puts her in a great position to help us take the company from construction through into operations. Might just hand over to you, Angela, for a bit of an introduction.

Thank you, Darryl, and good morning. I'm really excited to be starting with Arafura and be able to participate in a project of this nature and at this stage of its development.

I also have a slightly unique perspective being a Northern Territorian myself, and being able to be involved in something like this is something I'm really pleased about.

Thanks, Angela. Let me walk you through what we'll cover today.

As we've done in the previous updates, we'll go through a market overview, a summary of what we've achieved over the past year. Peter will then provide you an update on the financials for the year, plus where we're at on financial close and offtakes.

Tommie will update you on construction progress. Before we open up for Q&A, I just want to take a moment to thank Peter given that this will be his last shareholder update with us.

Let's start with the market overview. Looking back over the last 12 months, it's been a significant one.

We've seen a sustained lift in pricing. NdPr started the year around US$62 a kilo, peaked at US$129, and currently sits around $107 a kilo.

At the same time, the US and Japan introduced pricing floors of $110, and that actually has had a stabilizing effect on Chinese domestic pricing, where it has basically stayed range-bound between $100 and $120 a kilo, which really shows how effective these price floors have been. We've also seen two new independent and transparent pricing indices emerge over this period, being the Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and S&P Platts index.

This matters because China's domestic rare earth pricing isn't transparent. The constituent weights and trading volumes simply aren't disclosed.

Frankly, it's more of a policy instrument than a reliable market signal. A few other events that are worthy to call out from the past year: China added MP Materials and USA Rare Earth, the two companies most directly backed by the US government to compete with Chinese supply, to its export control entity list back in June.

China also effectively embargoed dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium exports to Japan. Zero exports of those elements were recorded in June, and that's created a supply crisis for Japanese magnet manufacturers.

More recently, the G7 Leaders' declaration elevated rare earths from simply being an industrial input to being an economic security priority, with a real focus on standard-based markets, transparent supply chains, strategic stockpiling, and building processing capacity among partner nations. China also added 14 EU entities to its export control list, meaning overseas organizations or individuals can now be penalized for supplying Chinese rare earth materials to anyone on that list.

Looking ahead, it's worth remembering that the moratorium on export controls for rare earths between China and the US expires on November the 10th. If I had to sum up the past year, there's been a lot of activity building out a rest-of-world rare earth supply chain, but structurally China is still very much in control, and that's not going to change quickly.

It took China three decades to build that dominance, it's going to take more than a couple of years to establish a reliable, cost-effective alternative. Even though metallization, separation, magnet manufacturing capacity might take 2 to 3 years to build out, you cannot turn on a new mine supply nearly that fast.

It typically takes 18 years to find and bring a new mine into commercial production. That's exactly what makes Arafura's move into construction on the Nolans ore to oxide project the right strategy at the right time.

It has taken us years of work to get into this position, and it's a genuinely advantageous one, both for us and our shareholders. If I can now turn to what we've achieved over the last 12 months, it's been an incredibly busy but productive year.

We pulled together everything needed on offtake and funding to reach FID, all while competing for attention and support against a lot of other critical minerals projects around the world. I'd argue that no other project globally has garnered more support than we have.

We've secured offtakes into five countries. We've secured ECA-covered debt from five countries, and we're the first project to receive equity from EFA, the second and the largest from the National Reconstruction Fund, and only the second in the world to receive equity from the German Raw Materials Fund, with the first project being a project based in Germany.

Let me run through some more specific highlights. In terms of government support, we were named one of two priority projects under the US-Australia Critical Minerals Framework agreement announced by the Prime Minister Albanese and President Trump last October.

As part of that, we secured a $300 US million letter of support from US EXIM. In terms of offtakes, we secured an offtake with US-based Traxys, the first on an independent, transparent price index.

We also received further support from the Australian government, becoming the first company to receive an offtake letter of support under the new Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve. We achieved a binding offtake term sheet with an Indian party, again on an independent, transparent index.

Our consistent push for an independent, transparent pricing is really paying off. It matters because we want our investors to have confidence that pricing will reflect market fundamentals just like it does for any other commodity.

From an equity perspective, we raised over the required $900 million in equity, with further support to be added to that from NRF, EFA, and German Raw Materials Fund. I do want to specifically call out Hancock, who took a risk on us early, and honestly we wouldn't be where we are today without them.

It was on the back of all of that we were able to make a final investment decision a few months ago in May. Just lastly, on project readiness, we engaged Hatch as our EPCm contractor at the end of last calendar year.

We fully established our owners team, are very happy with the caliber that we've been able to attract. We signed a compensation deed with our pastoralist, which included him becoming an Arafura shareholder.

We signed a territory benefits plan with the Northern Territory Chief Minister, and we were nominated as the first significant project by the NT government. Looking back on the last 12 months, it's been an incredibly busy year, but an incredibly rewarding one as we take the company from development into construction of what will be Australia's only ore to oxide rare earth mine and process plant.

On that, Peter, I might hand over to you for your update.

Thanks, Darryl. I'd like to start by outlining our cash position and the equity placements completed during the year.

During the year, the company raised over $930 million through three private placements and also shareholder purchase plans, including the second tranche of the May placement of $186 million that actually settled after the year-end. At year-end, the company held cash and term deposits of $723 million, including the second tranche that settled in July.

On a pro forma basis, the company would have held cash of greater than $900 million. As a shareholder and the CFO, I'm sympathetic to the impact of private placements, but these capital raisings have been significant in securing the equity that's required to fund the development of the Nolans project.

The Arafura team have been mindful of the size of the equity required to execute the Nolans project, and have been mindful to target raising funds on geopolitical events that have driven share price and also project development milestones. Just turning to the project financing, key project finance agreements including the common terms deed, facility agreements, intercreditor and security deeds, and other ancillary documentation are all extremely well advanced, at a stage ready for execution with the lenders.

All lenders' credit approvals remain current. A small number of lenders require final credit approval in order to move to contractual close.

The company envisages these approvals will be completed later this month. Offtake has been a priority, and during the period as Darryl summarized in his opening, the company has announced two binding offtake term sheets during the year: one with Traxys North America for 500 tonnes of NdPr, and in addition to that, 700 tonnes of Dy and Tb, which were our first heavy rare earth oxides that have been contracted.

Following that, we reached a term sheet with an Indian group for an additional 500 tonnes of NdPr and also for 7 tonnes per annum of Dy and Tb. Traxys is a significant global trader of specialty minerals, and Arafura is pleased to extend this strategic relationship with Traxys through the Traxys North American office offtake alongside the existing agreement with Traxys Europe.

The Indian government currently have a specific program running to bolster their processing of metallization and magnets within India to complement its growing automotive manufacturing. Arafura engaged with numerous groups looking to participate in the Indian rare earth permanent magnet programs, and had been selected looking to collaborate with a group that it believes is well placed to play a key role and is aligned with Arafura's objectives in relation to rare earths markets.

The Traxys and Indian counterparty term sheets have pricing mechanisms that are referenced to global seaborne index prices for NdPr oxides. The introduction of the US and Japan floor prices has placed greater focus on new rare earth magnet feed price mechanisms, deviating from the conventional industry practice of referencing the China domestic price.

Arafura is working to incorporate into alternative pricing mechanisms into other offtake arrangements currently being negotiated, but this has been a significant outcome that we've worked hard to achieve. In addition to the Traxys and Indian offtake, in May last year May of this year in 2026, Arafura announced it had received a non-binding letter of support from EFA to potentially support under the Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve.

Daryl's already discussed this, and of course we continue to work with the Australian government with regards to the letter of support as it relates to potential 500 tonnes per annum of offtake support. I'll close out by addressing strategic investments and contractual close on the project financing.

In May 2026, the company and NRFC executed long-form documentation in relation to the previously announced $200 million Australian $200 million of convertible notes. Arafura will seek to draw down the convertible notes based on its capital expenditure profile after construction commences.

In March 2026, Arafura entered into binding subscription agreements for a total of Aussie $230 million with KfW on behalf of the German Raw Materials Fund and Export Finance Australia. The equity subscriptions comprise €50 million from the German Raw Materials Fund and US$100 million from EFA.

There's significant linkages between the work streams for offtake, project financing, and these strategic investments, which creates some complexity. The company is targeting settlement of the EFA and German Raw Materials Fund subscriptions to occur in October 2026, this year, after contractual close for project financing.

On execution of the project finance and settlement of strategic equity, the Nolans project will be fully funded. The company will be placed to move into project execution.

This is a significant milestone. I want to thank the finance and commercial team for the hard work they've done in the background for the due diligence with lenders, equity investments, and to ensure the company has been ready to execute private placements at short notice as opportunities emerged.

More recently, our efforts have turned to planning to ensure our business systems and governance are appropriate for the next phase in construction, knowing that whilst the funding work streams have been intense, the next phase of project execution and then operations will bring new challenges which we are now preparing for. I'll now pass to Tommie, who will talk about project execution.

Thank you, Peter. The top three priorities for the Nolans project over the previous quarter has been getting the right people in the right roles doing the right work, focus on project execution readiness, and ramping up the procurement process to be ready for execution after the FID announcement.

Now reporting back on each of these priorities, we are happy to share that all roles in a highly capable Arafura owners team have now been filled, and the Hatch EPCm team has all the required key resources in place. The focus of the team has been and remains on refining the project execution plan and setting up for execution readiness as we heading to construction.

Thirdly, the procurement process has been ramped up effectively, and the team is executing the procurement strategy as planned. That covers the last quarter, but looking to key milestones achieved towards project execution readiness now, the project is progressing commercial engagement with an expression of interest process being implemented through the Northern Territory Industry Capability Network, or ICN.

This is aimed at extending the project commercial reach and ensuring suppliers and contractors have visibility on upcoming packages. In support of this process and to encourage local business participation, an industry roadshow was undertaken in Alice Springs, Darwin, and Katherine.

The roadshows were very well supported with hundreds of attendees from various organizations. The site re-establishment works have been largely completed and is now ready for main construction to commence, and this was done with no safety incidents.

Health, safety, environmental routines and site access processes have been implemented, including the demarcation of culturally sensitive areas. Then moving on to looking forward to project activities over the next 9 to 12-month period ahead, the Stuart Highway turnoff work package is planned for the end of Q1 for the full year '27, and this scope completes works undertaken previously and is critical to public and project traffic safety at that intersection.

Then drainage works and establishment of temporary site offices is planned for Q2 in full year 2027 in readiness of bulk earthworks, with bulk earthworks planned to commence in Q2 of full year '27. Mobilization of a batch plant is planned for around the end of Q4 for the full year '27, with a start for Q1 full year '28 with concrete works to follow right after that.

In summary, as we head into construction, we continue to do the work and implement the systems to ensure we best position the company to safely execute the Nolans project, and of course with the best commercial outcome for the business in mind. I now hand back to Darryl to close.

Thanks, Tommie. Look, just one thing I just really wanted to pull out.

Tommie just referred to the Stuart Highway access works. That actually is the start of construction.

When we announced FID back in May, we said we would start construction in September, and those access works will start in the next couple of weeks, and hence we'll be starting construction proper literally in a couple of weeks' time, which is obviously an exciting time for us. Look, before we open up to Q&A, I did want to take a moment to publicly thank Peter for his leadership and impact over the last 18 years at Arafura.

No one has put in more sustained effort or leadership to get us to where we are today than Peter has. I was reflecting on this recently: if you think about it, there's a reason other rare earths projects don't even attempt to go all the way to oxide stage processing.

They see the funding challenge as too difficult. Peter, as CFO, took the challenge head-on.

It's because he did, despite more than a few naysayers along the way, that we're now in a genuinely unique position to take advantage of the urgent need to diversify supply chains. Just to put the scale of that challenge into perspective: if you include the completion support that Peter and his team been able to secure, Peter and his team took on the job of raising around 10 times our market cap at the start of the process.

I honestly can't think of any other company who has pulled that off, and it was his offtake-led followed by ECA debt strategy that made this possible. It wasn't just a great strategy either; it took an enormous amount of effort.

Peter and his team were often still in the office late on Friday evenings, in on weekends, and taking late-night calls with European lenders and offtakers. We wouldn't be where we are today without you, Peter.

On behalf of the Arafura board and management team, want to thank you, and we're genuinely grateful. Penny, I think with that I'll hand over to you to open up to Q&A.

Go ahead, Darcy.

Thank you, Darcy. Let me just start by a couple of questions.

There are quite a few coming through on the webcast. What I'll do is probably summarize these, Darryl, for yourself and for the participants.

I guess we have commented on the actual physical start date. Can you provide some more clarification in terms of some of the major works and when they will be starting?

Sure, Penny. Tommie did touch on it.

The start of construction proper, firstly we've already re-established the site. We spent a bit of money on getting the site ready, and most of that work has been completed.

The access works that allows, if you like, the broader construction activity to commence will start in about 2 weeks' time. The next large contract, as Tommie mentioned, is the bulk earthworks, which we expect to release the middle of next quarter.

We really want to get our bulk earthworks done by the middle of next year, which then allows concrete works to start. That's kind of, if you like, a high-level critical path for the next 6 months.

Thank you. This one's probably best directed towards Peter.

Peter, from Peter Collis: can you please tell us the Nolans expected annual DyTb output, and what percentage of that is currently locked into binding offtake agreements? What is the plan for selling the remainder?

Then a follow-on question from that: can you advise if the pricing for these contracts are index priced or if there are any floor mechanisms involved?

The DyTb, if there's roughly about 40 tonnes of DyTb that we recover through processing. It's a part of the SEQ heavy rare earth product, it's always been part of the product stream is contained within that.

In terms of we've already contracted 15 tonnes or thereabouts with Traxys North America and also with the Indian counterparty. In terms of placing the rest of the product, we probably are looking to try and match the Dy and Tb with the customers who require the NdPr to go with it.

The Dy and Tb is critical to the manufacture of magnets that operate in high-temperature environments, high-performance environments, they don't lose their coercivity at higher temperatures. These predominantly EV automakers will have a requirement for those products.

In terms of pricing of those products, we will be unlikely to put a floor in, but we do have different pricing methods. In some instances we will negotiate an annual price.

We believe that demand will be significant, supply will be tight for some period of time. In some instances where the customer wants a pricing mechanism, we will be looking to price it quarterly given that there will be tightness in the marketplace.

I'm just not going to disclose what those pricing regimes are. They're commercially in confidence.

Of course. Perhaps as a follow-on to that question, and this is probably perhaps Darryl or Tommie: can you just elaborate on the studies that are underway to either increase the recoveries of heavies and/or separate heavies further?

Yes, maybe let me make one comment, and Tommie, you can talk to it a little bit more detail. Look, we've detailed this, right, in our quarterlies previously.

We are looking at a separate project to process additional heavies. One, recover additional heavies from the waste stream.

Peter mentioned the 40 tonnes of DyTb per annum. That will take it to 50, 55 tonnes.

Also processing it to a separate DyTb oxide, but that's a separate project and it's a project subject to a separate decision which we will obviously come to the market with at a later point. Tommie, did you want to make any additional comments to that?

No, that's perfectly accurate.

Okay. Another question, just in regards to the ore to oxide process and once you've made a hole in the ground.

From what this shareholder has read, the refining process in China is highly pollutive. Can you please outline how the process will be conducted more safely in Australia?

Let me answer that, and then Peter, Tommie, if you've got anything to add, just jump in. Firstly, you can imagine with our nine lenders, five countries, we have to meet all the different international standards.

You can process rare earths in a very environmentally responsible way. In fact, if you look at Lynas, they're doing that.

You look at the process is very similar to hydromet solvent extraction processes that you see at Olympic Dam. You can absolutely apply international environmental standards to what we're doing, and we are doing that and need to do that to satisfy our lenders' requirements.

Everything that we do meets the different international and Australian engineering standards as well. Peter or Tommie, did you want to make any additional comments on that?

I suppose for the Nolans ore to oxide, one of the key differentiators with other processes is that all of the waste material is handled on a single site, which perhaps is, different projects do different things. In China, a lot of processing is done at separate sites, which means waste is dealt with in different locations, whereas all ours is under one single residue storage facility, permanent, with one regulator.

In addition to that, the environmental impact, similar to any sort of safety impacts or economic impacts, is part and parcel of the design criteria to ensure that whatever is designed will give the best outcome from an environmental perspective.

Yeah.

Just to pick up on Peter's point too. Everything that we process we neutralize, and basically what we put back in the ground is what we've taken out of the ground.

Okay. If we move along to the indicative timetable, can you please just provide some guidance in terms of how long after commencement of construction until you have product to sell?

Then what is the period of time sort of until we actually reach mechanical completion? If that's something you can provide guidance on.

Yeah. Let me make some comments, and again Tommie, you jump in, right?

We have a 37-month construction schedule from the start of construction in a couple of weeks' time. Do the maths on that.

We expect practical completion towards the end of 2029, at which point we will move into commissioning and ramp-up, which we're forecasting to be a 2-year process. Now, from a funding perspective, it's been assumed it's a 3-year process, but we are working to a 2-year ramp-up.

That would see, if you like, production reaching nameplate at the end of '31, early '32, but with first production at the end of 2029. Tommie, any additional comments to that?

No, Darryl. That is accurate.

Mhm.

Okay. Peter, from one of our shareholders, Andrew Ballard, wanted to thank you for your many years of service, very grateful for your contribution to the company.

What he would like to understand as well is whether the debt will be finalized and binding prior to your departure, and also what the conditions are around the US government $300 million debt facility. Is this something that is being pursued and will be executed as part of the full debt stack?

Thanks, Andrew, for the recognition. In terms of the debt facility, one of my main objectives is going to contractual close at the time we leave.

It's also critical to settle on those strategic investors as well. Whilst contractual close is an important milestone, there are other important milestones along the way with the debt facilities, including first drawdown and financial close, but certainly that is a milestone that we're looking to wrap up in the period whilst I finish here.

There was a second part to the question, sorry, Penny.

The US debt and whether that is part of the total debt stack that is in place at the moment and whether or not that is something that is being looked at to close.

The seven so we have $775 million US dollars of senior debt facilities, which actually excludes the letter of support or letter of intent from US EXIM. The US EXIM facilities are not something that we consider as part of the senior debt facilities.

It's an opportunity that's to be pursued perhaps alongside any project expansion, whether it be for heavy rare earths or a stage two. At present it's not in this part of that initial debt stack.

Okay. Can you comment on the Canadian facility and what that's tied to with it being ECA financing?

What's the reciprocal arrangements?

Some of our procurement is Canadian-based in terms of engineering services, some of the equipment packages are based there. There's quite a bit of connectivity to the Canadian market for some significant parts of procurement for the project, yeah.

Okay. One other question that Andrew had, which I will address: there was a question as to the July quarterly.

We had opted not to do a investor briefing as part of the July quarterly. The rationale behind that, Mr.

Ballard, was that we had both the EGM at the beginning of July, where we provided a significant material update in terms of progress, updated on FID and construction. Then we also had this call coming up at the end of the full-year results, we felt it would be a duplication essentially of information and perhaps we were better to spread that out over the key milestone.

Hope that answers your question there. Darryl, the share price performance hasn't met expectations.

As a reflection of performance, is that a reflection of the performance of the board? Then what are we doing as a company to improve the share price going forward?

Good question. Firstly, you're not alone on that.

It's a bit of a crazy situation, right? If you look at the amount of cash that we have on the balance sheet, that is not much different to our market cap.

Talking to an investor recently and using his words, is yeah, investing in Arafura at the moment is like having a free option. Just if you take a broader look, you look at other rare earths projects, they've also pulled back.

Some of the, if you like, the attention has come off the rare earths sector, and I think we're seeing, if you like, the impact of that. If I talk to what's in our control, and there's two things in particular: so firstly, we continue to get in front of investors and say, "Hey, we can bypass China, and we're the only project that is in construction."

Look across the globe: we are very well-positioned, uniquely positioned to be an alternative to China, and there's not a lot of competition in that space. We'll continue to make that position.

There will no doubt be a catalyst at some point that brings attention back into the rare earths sector, and I'd like to think that with this positioning in front of investors that we will see a rerating, and I'd like to think it'll be a little bit stickier given that work. The second thing that we have to do is we're now in construction, and we need to deliver on our milestones in construction.

You look at Liontown, right? They've been in construction, they're delivering on their milestones, and look at their share price.

They're the two things: one is continue to remind the market how we are uniquely positioned, and the second thing is delivering on our construction milestones.

The next question is in regards to the board, if you wouldn't mind answering on behalf of the board. Just want to understand if the composition now we have the right people to successfully deliver the Nolans project and to support the executive team in the delivery of that project, recognizing quite a few of the members do have commitments with other mining companies, perhaps you can elaborate on that.

Sure. The last 2 years, we have very, very deliberately made sure that we've now got a management team that's got the execution capability for the construction phase and going into operations, and you can see that skill set on the management team.

Also we did the same thing with the boards. We brought on Mark Spreadborough, who's got deep operational expertise in running complex process plants such as Olympic Dam.

We brought on Roger Higgins, who's got both operational and large project experience. He was on the board for Worley for quite a while.

We brought on Ian Murray, who has not just deep financial expertise, but he's been a CEO and he's taken a company from relatively junior into a significant space. We've been very deliberate at building out both the board and the management team.

Every year we refresh our skill sets and are always assessing, but I think we're very well-positioned from both the board and a management team perspective for the phase that we're currently in and going into.

Okay. In terms of index rebalance, obviously Arafura is part of the S&P 300 and MSCI indexes.

Can you please provide a bit more information regards to the specific initiatives and capital market communication plans that are in place with the aim of protecting and safeguarding our standing in these benchmarks?

Yes, probably a little bit to what I've said already. Then, Peter and Penny, Angela, jump in.

We continue, as I mentioned earlier, to get in front of investors, both in the Australia, Asia market, and particularly in the US/North America market. Now that we've got this offtake into the US with US Traxys, we continue to get in front of existing investors, get in front of new investors, if you like, talk to them about how the rare earths supply chain is being built out, cuz it's quite a nuanced supply chain.

It's not broadly understood. How we really do provide an alternative to China, and continue to update the market on how we're progressing into construction and ultimately into operations to be an alternative to China.

At the end of the day, we also point out, you look at our market cap, $1.2 billion, you look at Lynas's and Mountain Pass's market cap, our production level isn't that distinctly different to theirs as we go into production, but we've got a significant difference in market valuation. As we've pushed through the project execution risk, you'd like to think we'll see a significant rerating.

Peter or Penny, do you have any additional comments to make on that?

I might just add that we do recognize that sort of broader and deeper research coverage is incredibly important in supporting that institutional awareness and in particular liquidity. One thing to call out I think is that Arafura itself operates in an incredibly complex and specialized sector.

As a large and integrated project, it does mean we need significant level of analyst understanding and modeling. Whereas given where it has been historically has had a very niche coverage or limited coverage, and particularly as we speak with a number of our research analysts and brokers, they are getting themselves up to speed at the same time in what has been a very opaque market in terms of pricing, barriers to entry.

Being able to make some assumptions which a lot of this is based on assumptions for the brokers and their research, being able to make some valid assumptions going forward as to what the market and expectations on pricing is incredibly critical. There's a fair bit of market understanding, access to management, creating that transparency or providing that transparency, and then most importantly then us being able to demonstrate through our actions and on our milestones.

I think there is a engagement program that we have in place, which includes the institutional meetings, ECM engagement, analyst briefings, and then we have very specific and targeted outreach. It is a bit of a grind, but it is a work that is in progress and we are giving ample time to it.

Perhaps Angela, did you want to add something?

Probably just the other thing is that we've got two components. One, it's all the work that Penny and Mr.

Darryl described, but as we move into construction, it's really important that we demonstrate we are a credible organization that delivers what we say we're going to do when we're going to do it. That change in our reporting cycle to the market, I think, will only stand to help our position.

I think one other thing to recognize is there's a lot of work that goes in now for things that might create opportunities down the track. Some funds will have different investment horizons, and as we get closer to completion of construction and closer to earnings, different groups will be able to look at us and we'll fit within their mandate.

There's a lot of work that goes on now to bring those groups in so as they're briefed when you hit those milestones.

Perfect. Thank you.

Following FID, just to be clear, there are a couple questions in here as well that when is FID. We have called FID, that did occur on the 21st of May with a financial investment decision being made.

Can you please elaborate on any remaining conditions to be satisfied to achieve financial close and that senior debt drawdown, and then if there's any remaining offtake conditions? Yep,

I think the, in terms of milestones, FID has been called. The next critical milestones are contractual close, closing out those couple of final credit approvals that are required for contractual close.

Most lenders are complete and ready to go, but the whole group have to be ready to execute. Then the settlement of those strategic investments from EFA and the German Raw Materials Fund, I think they're probably the most critical milestones or that we're working our way through to for the construction to commence.

Perfect. I've got two questions from Mr.

Birch, and this probably relates to a podcast, Darryl, most recently, mining podcast. We were told construction begins in September, yet your most recent podcast contains commentary suggesting that construction is delayed until next month.

Can you just clarify? I think that might just be from when it was recorded versus published.

That's right. Lee, I did that podcast in August.

When I was referring to construction starting, it's construction starting as I said it would in September. Construction is expected to start in a couple of weeks, in September, which is when we said it would start when we called FID mid-May.

It is on track.

Perfect. I think sort of just to follow on from that, sort of it has been a long time in the making.

Obviously there were some pre-construction early works that were done in 2022, 4 years in preparation for this final stage of construction. How should shareholders think about the ability to maintain schedule, and should we be expecting any delays or surprises?

Lee, a good point. We did that early works a few years ago, and that effectively de-risked our project execution at the start of the project, but probably pulled in the order of 6 to 9 months out of our schedule as well.

That's why we did it. I'm glad that we did that.

Now just to your question around schedule going forward: this is obviously a complex project in a relatively remote area, there is absolutely project execution risk. The question is: how do we manage that risk?

As we've mentioned previously, we took the 4 months since FID and the start of construction to go through competitive tender processes to make sure we're getting the best possible pricing for the work. We've ramped up the team to manage the project both at the owners team and also in the EPCm.

A lot of work has gone into what's called a project execution plan to again de-risk, if you like, the schedule. Then we've still got a lot of work to do around making sure that we can attract the right people, retain them, you don't want turnover in people.

From a logistics perspective, logistics is everything. If you want to deliver a project, on time and hence on budget, you need to be managing the logistics closely.

I would say we understand the project execution risk of a project of this scale and complexity, and we're managing the sort of levers, if you like, to manage that sort of risk.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm just trying to sort of combine a couple of questions here. Questions regarding any potential future capital raisings and dilution going forward: are there any expectations that further capital will be required?

Right now, right, we're fully funded. We're focused on construction, there's no, if you like, work on any capital raises, etc., etc.

Right now we're fully funded and we're focused on building this thing.

The annual report refers to potential capital cost reductions of more than 5%. Can you give us a bit more guidance on how these have been identified and whether these opportunities have converted into contracts or quoted savings?

How should we think about those?

I should have mentioned that earlier. It's a good question.

Let me make a couple of comments, and Tommie, you jump in, right? Lee asked a really good question around the project execution risk, right?

There's things that you can absolutely control, and one of the things is if we are in a inflationary environment, there's not much we can do about that. What we can do is how do we offset that sort of inflationary environment?

Tommie and his team came up with in the order of $200 million of potential savings on the project, they've been looking at that for probably close to 2 years now. That includes reducing some of the footprint, changing the pipe rack configuration, changing how we do concrete works.

It's quite a range of ideas, and that was done as we move forward, as a way to offset the inevitable CapEx pressures. Tommie, do you have anything else to add to that?

No, Darryl. It's exactly what has been happening, and we continue to do that.

Is the main point: we continue to optimize our design and see if there's any additional opportunities to make savings that really move the needle for the project to mitigate any other inflationary pressures. The

one I forgot to mention was the tailings as well, right? Some good work there, not just lowering up-front CapEx, but also just the environmental impacts as well.

It's win-win from both a CapEx and an environmental perspective, and an OpEx perspective. Some really really good work has been done by the project team with Hatch in this space.

To regards to your comments about establishing a price index for NdPr, which would clearly be beneficial for the industry, can you tell me if there's any active discussions or work underway on this, or is it more sort of conceptual? If you can elaborate on that, Darryl, please.

I would say it's no longer conceptual, but the job's not done. We now have two indices, one being reported, one to be reported.

You've got to call out the US for their leadership in supporting the Benchmark Minerals Intelligence. We now have an index.

We have been getting offtakes onto that index, and again thank you for the US. We've got US Traxys onto this index, and we've got this Indian party that Peter referred to on this index.

We are advocating getting other offtakes onto this index. The work that still has to happen, though, is that other producers, other projects, and consumers need to continually move volumes onto this index.

This independent, transparent, what we call seaborne index, needs to become the primary index. The only way that happens is by having other projects, producers, and consumers, customers, getting their volumes off that index.

Still work to do, but I think we're making a great headway.

Obviously with the recent capital raisings, we have quite a few new shareholders on our register, a lot of which are retail as well. I've got a couple of questions in this vein.

Can you please differentiate the ore to oxide strategy that Arafura have adopted? The reason I am sort of elaborating on this is probably because some questions have asked whether our concentrate will go to Iluka or Lynas or other parties for processing.

Perhaps if you can just touch on again just for the benefit of those listening the fully integrated single-site ore to oxide strategy that sort of is exclusive of other participants in the market.

Yeah. This really goes to the heart of what differentiates us.

If you look at pretty much across the globe, we are the only project that's ore to oxide that's in construction. Why is this ore to oxide important?

There's really three reasons for that. Most rare earths projects, they go to a concentrate, they process to a concentrate, or they process to a mixed rare earth carbonate.

We go take it one step further and process to an oxide. We do that for three reasons: firstly, if you really want your product to go to any company in any country and hence bypass China, you've got to go to an oxide, you're not dependent on China.

We've taken that strategy, and because of that, that is why we've got so much multi-government support for our project, more than any other rare earths project that I know of. The second reason we've done it is rare earths is found with radionuclides.

It's only when you go to oxide and you separate out the oxide that you also separate out the radionuclides. What that means is everything that leaves our site is free from a radiation perspective.

If you only go to a concentrate or a carbonate, you've got the radionuclide issue and transportation of that. You're relying on another company in another country to be able to receive a product that's got radionuclides in it, and you've got very, very limited options.

The third reason is, and I think Peter alluded to this earlier, everything is done on the one site. That gives us significant cost benefits.

As Peter said, you process it on the one site, you put your tailings back on the one site, there's no transportation of intermediate products. You compare it to a processing hub such as Iluka: we've got very low-cost mine supply at the door of the process plant, we've got a very structurally, if you like, advantageous cost position.

One, because we're all on the one site, but secondly, because we are a phosphate host of ore body, which means we can generate phosphoric acid from the ore body, which we use in the process and we sell the excess as by-product credits. With all of that, we end up going from what would otherwise have been the middle of the global cost curve to down the bottom of the cost curve.

Thank you. That was quite thorough.

Any thoughts on Elon Musk's recent comments about 1 billion robots by 2030? I think some other market observers had sort of said 2050 and late '30s, but your thoughts and how that would impact

We say bring it on, right? Let me add some color to that.

Firstly who knows what the forecast is, but what I can say is if you look at rare earths, it has got significant structural demand growth for at least three decades. Now what other commodity can you say has demand growth for three decades?

We've been saying consistently for the last 5 years or more that we expect demand growth to double in the next 10 years, and that has proven to be a very sound forecast. If anything, what we're seeing now is that the take-up of EVs starting to escalate.

China already sells more EVs and plug-in hybrids than conventional vehicles, and just last month in Australia, EVs and plug-in hybrids actually overtook conventional vehicles. We're going through this tipping point, you can see EV sales are increasing.

The forecasts on robotics, humanoid robotics, we've continued, I think, to underestimate that demand growth. This is significant, because a typical humanoid robotic uses the same amount of rare earths as one EV.

You can see how robotics will ultimately be a much bigger consumer of rare earths than EVs. I think, look, who knows what the forecast is, but it all bodes very, very well for rare earths.

If you look at rare earths from a substitution perspective, in EVs if you want to go to a different type of non-rare earth permanent magnet motor, the substitution price for rare earths is an order of magnitude more than what the rare earths pricing is today. If you see the structural supply deficit hit for NdPr, you would expect to see quite a significant shift in NdPr pricing, which is why we want this index.

This is why we want the seaborne index, to reflect market fundamentals.

Yeah. I think we have time for maybe two more questions before we do wrap up.

One of our long-term shareholders has commented in regards to the pro forma cash position of approximately 1.4 billion. This will be post all the capital raisings and settlement of the outstanding equity subscription agreements and NRFC.

Looking at where some of the underwriters' valuation transactions have got our price forecast of $0.35 and $0.40, how will management take real ownership of this share price discrepancy between current trading performance, and if you look at a cash back sort of where that variation is to current trading price? I think you've addressed quite a few of these aspects, Darryl.

I think one thing I'd like to clarify: as at 30 June, the cash position was $723 million Australian with $186 million settling post that period. From a cash value perspective, we do have a slight equity value premium associated with the Nolans project, but I think getting that realization between where we are currently trading now and perhaps those price targets, how do we see that we can actually deliver that value and recognize that future value?

I suppose the cash back value is probably about 0.14 or 0.15, I think. We wouldn't debate what the number is.

It's still often enough. I suppose this is the point that should be made is that we recognize that we need to have more value ascribed to the enterprise rather than the cash position.

We've got to work hard to get our message out to the market. I think part of the challenge has been pull back almost on a sector basis.

Perhaps we noticed when the June quarterly and the June financial statements for Lynas were lodged that there was a pullback in their share price. Probably a recognition that prices were high, people were waiting to see how those results looked, and then probably perhaps money moving from the sector to other things where they thought there was more volatility to come.

That's an observation, it's not an excuse. We've got to work harder to ascribe more value to the project.

I think no one would debate that with the shareholders today.

Every

shareholder would agree.

Okay. Quite a few more questions have come through.

Those that we haven't been able to answer now, we will come back through and provide some responses. I think just a couple more, Peter, and I will call them out again.

We've got experts from Germany, automotive experts, and a couple others just wishing you the very best for your future and again expressing their gratitude for all the work that has been done up to date. Again from quite a few of our shareholders here, many thanks to you.

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for those and to Darryl for the kind comments as well.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Darryl, I might just hand back to you to wrap up.

No worries. Thanks, Penny.

Look, thanks again everyone for your time and your questions today. We really are an exciting, defining point for the company, and I look forward with the team giving you a further update at our upcoming AGM as we move rapidly into construction.

Thanks again, and until then, stay safe.