Nickel Industries Limited

Nickel Industries Limited

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Q3 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptOctober 22, 2026

Justin Werner

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 serious 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 of Asia Pacific metals and mining peers, as externally audited by S&P. I think that's a tremendous achievement from a recognized 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 1,000 mangrove seedlings on World Mangrove Day with the local community.

The Hengjaya Mine won gold at the INTECH Southeast Asian 2026 for waste and coastal conservation education. 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.

If we could just go to the next slide, please. $125.9 million adjusted EBITDA, with record ore sales and EBITDA at the Hengjaya Mine.

Also some tremendous milestones during the quarter with first MHP, nickel and cobalt cathode from ENC. The $125.9 million of adjusted EBITDA is up on the June quarter.

Record ore sales of 4.5 million tons. As I mentioned, we were externally benchmarked by S&P under the Corporate Sustainability Assessment, and we ranked in the top 20 amongst our APAC peers.

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 HPM pricing. 4.5 million tons of ore sales, that's also a new record, up 56% on the June quarter.

Our EBITDA per 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 [million].

Really the key driver there is the increase in ore costs, we've sort of seen margin moving from the RKEF into the mining business. Sales were pretty stable, 26,800 tons, down slightly.

Pleasingly, the NPI price is holding, we averaged $14,408 a ton 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 ton last year and it's now held consistently for the majority of this year at around that $14,000-a-ton mark. On the HPAL side of 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.

Pleasingly, HNC continues to make distributions to NIC, and there was $13 million US distributed during the quarter, which is up sort of 271% on the distributions that were made in June. At ENC, as I said, couple of tremendous milestones, first MHP and first nickel and cobalt cathode productions.

If we could just go to the next slide, please. Mining operations, mentioned record 4.5 million tons of sales.

The average realized sales price was down slightly. The reason for that was just due to a higher proportion of limonite sales.

The EBITDA per wet metric ton up almost 10%, $17. What we are starting to see there is given that we're now hauling limonite only a couple of kilometers to the slurry plant to feed ENC rather than sort of 20 kilometers to third-party HPALs, we're starting to see that in a reduction in operating costs and an improvement in our EBITDA per wet metric ton.

All in all, great result from the mine, as I said, up 68% on the previous quarter and US$76.9 million. Moving forward, you can see that the Hengjaya Mine itself is going to be a significant EBITDA contributor to Nickel Industries moving forward.

Obviously, these sort of numbers augur very well for the development of the Sampala project. We continue to work through our RKAB increase.

We've been through several revisions. 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 kilometers of haul road. You can see the photo on the top right there.

That's sort of part of the first 8 kilometers that's already been built. We are preparing to add another 2.2-kilometer section.

Then the remaining section, which is about another sort of 14 kilometers, 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. 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 Soni 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, performing extremely well. Unfortunately, due to the El Niño conditions that Indonesia is currently experiencing, and you would have seen in the quarterly results, across September-October, we've received only 7 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 4,840 tons of nickel and 494 tons of cobalt in MHP. The quality of that MHP is excellent.

The cash costs, and this is still at a commissioning phase, not fully ramped up, was $13,943 a ton. That's actually lower than HNC and we're not fully ramped, so that's very encouraging.

Our cathode conversion cost, currently around $3,888 a ton. 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 ton.

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.

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 ENC 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 HPAL producers that actually don't have that exemption as yet, I think it places us very well.

The IUI for full sales is progressing very well, we're expecting to receive that this quarter and then we'll be able to realize first sales for ENC of the products that we've already produced. At HNC, I mentioned EBITDA $8.4 million, down 42%.

1.9 thousand tons of nickel sales, HNC attributable. EBITDA per ton is down from about $8,000 last quarter to $4,400.

Look, still holding a strong margin despite the significant pressure from sulfur. Pleasingly, sulfur prices have sort of come off the highs of sort of $1,100 to $1,200 and currently at the moment they're sitting around $800.

HNC is still delivering, $4,500-a-ton margin is still a very good margin, and as I said, we continue to receive ongoing distributions from HNC. If we could just go to the next slide, please.

This is just some photos of the HPAL operations. The top left, photo 1 is the slurry plant, which is located within the Hengjaya 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. Actually within that photo there, there is also CNE and TMI.

That photo, that whole complex is actually ENC, CNE and TMI. 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.

The bottom left photo, number 3, is the sulfate and cathode refinery. Then the final photo, number 4, you can see there some of the final products.

We've got the MHP, which looks like the green wasabi there. Then we've got some of the nickel cathode there, and you can see it branded PT Fajar.

If we could just move to the next slide, please. RKEF operations, 27,822 tons for the quarter, sort of staying pretty consistent.

We're expecting to complete the rebuild of one of the HNI lines in the middle of November. 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.

As I said earlier, pleasingly, the NPI price is remaining quite robust, and so we've seen a reduction in EBITDA per ton and that's really been driven by increase in ore pricing, and obviously that's coming through in our mining numbers, it's really just a transfer of margin from the RKEF 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.

Chris Shepherd

Thanks, Justin. Good morning, everybody.

As Justin mentioned, we had 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 ENC working capital loan, funding the commissioning of ENC, Sampala development capex, approximately $12 million for the quarter, and this was somewhat offset by the repayment by Tsingshan of the $15 million nickel matte converter option that we received through the quarter. 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 and 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 intend to do 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, cash has been spent, but it's not in the EBITDA; $28 million in HPAL, 12 12 of this was the customer advance received in Q2, but applied to an August shipment, and $16 million was for an HNC product prepayment, purchasing our share of the products out of HNC 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.

Hengjaya Mine was up $43 million and the RKEF was up $34 million. Of that $34 million, $29 million of it was at ONI and RNI, with other receivables making up the balance, just under $6 million.

We actually expect all of this to unwind in Q4. Payables was another timing item which we expect to unwind in Q4 as well.

$24 million of supplies were paid, we can just call it paid down from the prior quarter, predominantly at HNI and ANI RKEF projects. 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 mentioned and as we announced to the ASX yesterday, we have executed a US$245 million asset-level debt at ENC on extremely attractive terms. It's non-recourse seven-year debt at SOFR plus 2%, which at current SOFR rates equates to 5.9%.

Obviously compared to our existing bond at 9%. This facility or this loan will give a working capital buffer at ENC 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 stabilizes, we will then look to dividend this up to the shareholders, 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 Niño drought effects with the water restrictions that we're seeing across the region. We could have actually executed a much higher number, likely north of $500 million, but this would have come at a 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.

Justin Werner

Thanks, Chris. If we could just move to the next slide, please.

Progress against FY '26 guidance, in terms of the mine, 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. 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, we're at 85,000 tons for the year of roughly target of about 100 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.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll just go on to a brief music hold. Thank you for standing by and we will now resume.

Chris Shepherd

Thank you, everybody. Justin having problems getting back into the line, 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. 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 to reach 66 to 73 mil by the end of the year. FY '27 numbers will be provided early next year once we've completed our budget process and the board has signed off on all of that.

Mine consolidated sales, as you can see, we are expecting we will hit our 14.3 million tons at Hengjaya Mine, which is our existing 2026 RKAB. Should we receive an increase in Hengjaya Mine's RKAB in the coming months, well then that number may increase.

At the RKEF operations, we're at 85 million 85,000 tons of nickel sales by the end of September, and we're expecting that to reach 100 or 110 by the end of the year. 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 Niño or water dependent over the coming months. With that, I will hand over to questions, please.

Operator

Thank you, Chris. 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. To withdraw your question, simply press star one again.

When called upon, please use your handset or headset to ensure your line is unmuted and be ready to ask your question. Again, that is star one to raise your hand and join the queue, and we'll pause for a moment to align the queue.

Your first question comes from the line of Austin Yoon of Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Good

Austin Yoon

morning, Chris, Justin, the team. Just keen to get an update on the current weather condition as you mentioned in the release, there's extreme dry condition limiting the production rate of your RKEF lines.

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 that region outside of your four RKEF facilities in terms of the impact, and should we see more coordinated production cuts across the whole sector?

Thank you.

Justin Werner

Thanks, Austin. As of October, we've reduced the RKEF capacity to about 75%.

We've really focused on ensuring that, well, ANI is actually running at 128% of capacity, and so there's our two strongest RKEFs, ANI and ONI, are still performing well. 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. Certainly what we're seeing is the non-integrated producers, again, are the ones that are going to suffer the hardest here.

It just again highlights the advantages that we have over our peers. Look, typically, December marks sort of the start of the wet season, look, we're hopeful of starting to see some meaningful rainfall hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Austin Yoon

Thank you, Justin. Just a quick follow-up.

How should we think about the cost between variable and fixed given that the production rate is coming down?

Justin Werner

Look, the cost of the RKEF is predominantly variable. 70 70% of the cost base is nickel ore and power.

It's probably only, yeah, 10% that's fixed, not a big impact, probably even less than that.

Austin Yoon

Thank you. That's clear.

I'll pass on.

Justin Werner

Thanks, Austin.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Richard Knights of Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.

Richard Knights

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, thanks for that. Look, a couple of questions.

One main one, actually. In terms of the remaining 4 million tons that you've got in your RKAB for Hengjaya, can you give us an idea of what the saprolite-limonite mix is going to be there?

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?

Justin Werner

Look, yeah, where we can, we will most certainly try and do that. Obviously, we're prioritizing limonite for ENC.

We do have the benefit of third-party producers that are buying limonite, there's the opportunity there to sell additional tons, which is really what we did this quarter. Then for saprolite, look, and obviously it's driven partly 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.

Richard Knights

Can you give us a flavor of what that split is going to look like roughly over the next sort of three months?

Justin Werner

For this quarter, it's a little bit challenging because we're still just trying to finalize the ENC limonite requirements and third-party limonite requirements, and so that then really drives what saprolite we can do. Sorry, Rich.

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, it's just balancing that mining sequence with demand.

Richard Knights

Yep, fair enough. Yep.

Then just on price realizations for MHP, you mentioned that they've pulled back a little bit, and obviously, Austin alluded to potential coordinated HPAL cuts in the space. 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?

Justin Werner

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.

I think we have found a floor. 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% payabilities.

Richard Knights

Yep, that makes sense. Just need higher cathode prices, that'd be helpful.

Justin Werner

I think, obviously, the nickel price was up, I think, 3% overnight, it's certainly been a response to some of these cuts, so, yeah.

Richard Knights

Yep, brilliant. All right, thanks, guys.

I'll pass it on.

Justin Werner

Thanks, Rich.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Jit Ming Tan of Barclays Bank. Please go ahead.

Jit Ming Tan

Hi, morning, gentlemen. Thanks for the call.

One question for me on the $245 million bank facility at ENC. 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 NIC provided to ENC.

Thanks.

Chris Shepherd

Thanks, Jit Ming. As I mentioned, that facility in there, initially for working capital to ensure that let's just call it as ENC is well capitalized as we're commissioning up to nameplate, and obviously as market conditions stabilize, as soon as we can, we will be sending the majority of that, we'll leave a very small amount maybe as working capital, but over 90% of that will be distributed to shareholders.

Obviously we've got shareholder loans in there. Any distribution, NIC will receive its 46% share.

We might be looking up around $100 million distributed to NIC, 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, it can just really be looked at as what I'd call a dividend recap to the shareholders.

Jit Ming Tan

Thank you.

Chris Shepherd

You're welcome.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Hamish Wiltshire of Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hamish Wiltshire

Hi, guys. Thanks for the call.

Just a quick question on the saprolite sales split again. Relative with the 75%, the 25% production cut out of the RKEF, should we expect to see similar movement in kind of attributable saprolite volumes heading towards those plants?

Justin Werner

Look, our saprolite supply, we're currently about 60% self-sufficient. Cutting it down to about 75%, it'll just mean that we'll stop any third-party ore purchases and probably move to 100% of saprolite for our RKEFs coming from the Hengjaya Mine rather than what we typically have is we do have a top-up from other third-party suppliers.

Hamish Wiltshire

Fantastic. Thanks for that.

That's my only one.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Coates of Bell Potter Securities. Your line is open.

David Coates

Morning, gents. Thanks for the call.

Look, just a couple of quick ones. Sorry if I missed the IUI sales permit.

Just your best guess on timing on that and then assuming once that comes through, the stocks that have built up will be sort of able to be sold immediately?

Justin Werner

Look, that's right, Dave. We've had the 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.

David Coates

Cool. Thank you.

You mentioned ANI is running well above nameplate. Typically, how sort of sustainable is that?

What kind of capacities that have run those RKEF lines at that sort of level above nameplate and are there any other constraints on doing that?

Justin Werner

Yes, it's a number of different factors that go into being able to run it above nameplate. It's sort of furnace conditions.

It's grade of ore. 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, better performance through the furnace, better recoveries, and that's where we're seeing some of this outperformance come from.

ANI is certainly helping to reduce the impact of the reductions of some of the RKEFs at IMIP.

David Coates

All right. Nice one.

Finally just any additional updates on Sampala, permitting and schedule, I suppose?

Justin Werner

No, look, just still waiting on approval of feasibility study and of the forestry permit. We are hopeful of receiving those before the end of this year.

Then as mentioned, we will be starting work very shortly on a 2.2-kilometer section of the haul road. 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 road sort of hopefully early in the new year.

David Coates

Nice one. Cool.

Thanks, guys. Good to see the nickel price responding a bit to some of the production impact, so, yeah.

Justin Werner

Yeah. No, look, I I think, and and, the I think the other thing is obviously, NPI prices held firm for the for the for the, throughout the year, and so, we we we think that's a a positive as well.

David Coates

Nice one. Thanks very much, Justin.

Thanks very much, Chris.

Justin Werner

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of K. Hatanto of Indo Premier Securities.

Please go ahead.

Kay Hatanto

Hi, Justin and the team, really great call. I just have a quick question.

Just wanted to know the feasibility on the coming HPAL projects, like TMI and CNE, considering that sulfur costs are pretty expensive and elevated right now, and unfavorable supply-demand dynamics in MHP? I think

Justin Werner

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 HPAL facility. HNC is obviously our proxy into the impact of sulfur prices, and you saw this quarter that margins still at $4,500 sort of a ton, still very healthy.

I guess pleasingly, we've certainly seen sulfur come down from sort of its highs of $1,100 to $1,200 to today it's sitting at $800. Based on HNC as a proxy, margins are still good, and then pleasingly, 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, it sort of just reinforces our belief that these HPALs, ENC, CNE and TMI, will all operate sort of in the lowest quartile.

Kay Hatanto

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Abraham Hirani from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Abraham Aya

Hi, thank you for taking my call, and congratulations, a good set of numbers. Can I just ask very quickly on the details of the intercompany load to that has been reported in the cash flow waterfall?

What are terms, who this is to, what would be the use of proceeds?

Chris Shepherd

Thanks, Abraham. I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that.

It's the loan to ENC, it's a working capital loan. It's a shareholder loan into ENC.

That's for as we commission the working capital.

Abraham Aya

Got it. Are there any terms of prepayment of this?

I know you're expecting 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?

Chris Shepherd

We'll be getting the cash out of the company as soon as we possibly can. The terms are confidential, but as soon as we can, we're going to be taking as much cash out of PT FMI/ENC up to all three shareholders.

Abraham Aya

Understood. Thank you very much.

Chris Shepherd

Thanks, Abraham.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Aman Agarwal of J.P. Morgan.

Please go ahead.

Aman Agarwal

Hey, good morning, management. Thanks for the call.

I have 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 Tsingshan facility?

Chris Shepherd

Thanks for the question, Aman. I think when we announced 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. 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 quite a long discussion with Tsingshan regarding how much, if anything, of that cash that goes into ENC, 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 ENC, and I can't say how much of that facility we 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. 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.

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 have told all the investors that previously I was intending to not draw down on the Tsingshan facility and use the Tsingshan facility, if needed, for the April payment, how we deal with that April payment will be very much dependent on whether or not we draw down now on the Tsingshan facility, the $169 [million].

We have, I guess as a precaution, whilst that's 6 months out, we have had discussions with our local partner, who's the vendor of the Sampala project, and we feel quite confident that should we need to push back that payment, we will have the ability to do so.

Aman Agarwal

That is the April payment, right?

Chris Shepherd

The what? Sorry.

Aman Agarwal

You mean you can push back the payment in April?

Chris Shepherd

Yes, the April payment. The November payment is we will not push that one back, but the April one, yes.

Aman Agarwal

Okay. If you draw down on the Tsingshan facility, that would be on Nickel Industries' balance sheet.

The one on ENC, that's out of Nickel Industries, right? That's on ENC level.

Chris Shepherd

Exactly. The $245 [million] we announced yesterday is at ENC level or PT FMI level, and the Tsingshan facility would be at the Nickel Industries ListCo level.

Aman Agarwal

Understood. Secondly, so, as I think this is a follow-up on a previous question, but you're reducing RKEF capacity, what would be the impact on Hengjaya Mine productions?

Will that stay as is? The third-party sales will continue then?

Justin Werner

Look, we will be selling 100% of our saprolite into our RKEFs, and we do have flexibility on limonite, there is still third-party buyers for the limonite as well as, obviously, supplying to ENC, which is, obviously, still running at the moment. In third quarter,

Aman Agarwal

how much of your limonite sale was to ENC?

Justin Werner

It was, I believe, probably roughly about a third. Oh,

Aman Agarwal

sorry.

Justin Werner

Are you there, Aman? We lost you.

Hello, Aman?

Aman Agarwal

Hi,

Chris Shepherd

can you hear me?

Justin Werner

Yes, we can hear you. We can hear you.

Aman Agarwal

Sorry, I lost you there. You said a third of the limonite sale was to ENC, right?

Justin Werner

Yes.

Aman Agarwal

Awesome. I think just a housekeeping question, what was the NPI ASP so far in 4Q?

LME prices have obviously dropped since September, just wanted to get a sense of where we are.

Justin Werner

NPI pricing has held pretty consistently at around sort of $14,500, sort of $14,000, for the majority of this year. 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.

Aman Agarwal

Got it. Thanks.

That's all from me. Thank you.

Justin Werner

Thanks, Aman.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Vikash Alaghawala from Premis Asset Management. Please go ahead.

Vikash Alaghawala

Hi, Justin. Hi, 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 saprolite pricing trend as well? You reported high realizations for 3Q, still higher Q-on-Q and much higher than what you were doing in 2025.

How should we think about the realizations in 4Q, considering the nickel prices overall coming down from the highs in first half? How should we think about the realization in 4Q?

Justin Werner

Apologies, you're talking about how we should think about the nickel price in Q4,

Chris Shepherd

the saprolite price?

Justin Werner

Saprolite, yeah.

Chris Shepherd

Saprolite, I think,

Justin Werner

yeah, look, obviously, LME is up 3% overnight, look, if you see further increases in the LME nickel price given that the saprolite formula is linked to the LME price, then you would expect to see an increase in the saprolite price. Then

Vikash Alaghawala

how should we think about the realizations in 2Q and 3Q when LME prices were going down?

Justin Werner

The saprolite 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. 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. That's really why you've seen the big increase in saprolite margins and saprolite pricing.

Vikash Alaghawala

Understand, that's helpful. On the ENC payment, can I understand, you mentioned that the working capital money will come back very soon, hopefully soon after the drawdown of the OCBC facility, I'm assuming?

Chris Shepherd

Vikash, I think we will wait, as I mentioned on one of the earlier questions. We're going to be working with Tsingshan 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, 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.

We're in the middle of a drought. Where we need, we will leave it in there as long as we have to, to be honest.

Vikash Alaghawala

Understand. On a 100% basis, how should I think about the working capital requirement for ENC?

Chris Shepherd

We believe we've got 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 the yesterday's facility, the OCBC facility, for that in the first instance.

We don't expect there to be any further requirements for injections from the shareholders.

Vikash Alaghawala

Got it. Understand.

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.

In case we capture current sulfur prices of $800-odd dollars, then where do we see the margins for HPAL?

Justin Werner

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. As I said, at a $4,500-a-ton margin, still very strong.

Pleasingly, sulfur has come off sort of $300 a ton. That means a $3,000-a-ton reduction in costs.

Sulfur at this point is not as critical as perhaps it was, sort of one or two months ago when we were up over $1,100 a ton. What we're hearing from a lot of people is that there does appear to be quite a bit of movement through the Straits of Hormuz, and that's obviously being reflected in the pricing.

Vikash Alaghawala

Got it. That's very helpful.

Thanks. That's it from me.

Justin Werner

Thank you.

Chris Shepherd

Thank you.

Operator

A reminder, to join the queue, to press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Love Sharma of Point72.

Please go ahead.

Love Sharma

Hi, guys. Sorry, I missed some part of the call.

Just wanted to understand one thing. You have these upcoming payments due, $169 [million] in November and I think also in April, any thoughts there?

Are you planning to utilize the Tsingshan facility and then the cash flows later? Secondly, on the ENC project finance facility, what kind of cash release will you get, if any, at the corporate level?

Thank you.

Chris Shepherd

Thanks for the question, Love. As I mentioned earlier, I previously guided investors that we did not believe we would have to draw down on the Tsingshan 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.

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 of the Tsingshan facility in November. Should we draw down on that Tsingshan facility in November, it is, depending on, again, how cash flows are over the next 6 months, that will determine how we address the Sampala payment in April, $144 million payment.

As I mentioned earlier, we're prepared for that, and we've already had discussions with our local partner, which is the vendor, our local partner at Hengjaya Mine is the vendor of Sampala, and we believe that should it be required, we will have the ability to push back that April payment. Does that answer your questions, Love?

Love Sharma

Sure, basically the $245 million would be fully available to use, that right? It pays off any kind of shareholder loans, etc., you might have there.

Is that right?

Chris Shepherd

The $245 [million] is fully available to distribute up to the shareholders, depending on how the commissioning or when we ramp back up to nameplate, we will 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, as I mentioned earlier, we will maximize the distributions from ENC up to the shareholders as early as we can and as large in amounts as we can.

Love Sharma

We should take it as pro rata, right, based on your shareholding there?

Chris Shepherd

Yeah. Correct.

Love Sharma

All right. Understood.

Thank you. That's it for me.

Chris Shepherd

Thanks, Love.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Shannon Gao of BofA. Please go ahead.

Xiang Gao

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the very good presentation. Just a small, quick follow-up from my side.

First is what's the outstanding balance of working capital loans to ENC at this moment? Secondly is that because you target to commissioning the CNE in mid-2027 and TMI in September 2027, does the target still hold here?

The commissioning and nameplate target?

Chris Shepherd

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, we haven't disclosed the entire amount, seeing as we haven't got the approval of Tsingshan to do so as our operating partner, but it is north of $100 million. There's a lot of working capital that we've injected into ENC, which obviously as and when we can, we'll distribute back to shareholders.

The second question you had, sorry, we missed that. Could you repeat that, please?

Xiang Gao

Previously, the CNE is targeted to commissioning in mid-2027, and the TMI, based on the slides, it's expected to reach nameplate in September 2027. Are these two projects still holding to the target?

Chris Shepherd

They're progressing very well.

Xiang Gao

Okay. Lastly, what's the margin expectation on CNE and TMI?

Will it be similar to HNC or more similar to ENC?

Justin Werner

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 at September of next year, and obviously what is the nickel price and cobalt price.

Xiang Gao

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Donavan Tan of BlackRock. Your line is open.

Donavan Tan

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 Tsingshan also regarding 50% on MHP and 20% on NPI.

Could you just comment on that and whether that affects you? Thank you.

Justin Werner

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 ENC and ramping up very well. Given the shortage of water, we've moved back to about 33% capacity.

Our intention will be 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 tons of cathode per annum.

Donavan Tan

It's still full capacity for the MHP processing plants? Thanks.

Justin Werner

No.

Chris Shepherd

No.

Justin Werner

MHP, ENC, we ramped it up to 50% in a number of weeks. Given the shortage of water, we had to reduce it back, it's currently at around 33%.

The cathode refinery, we are looking to ramp that up to 100% capacity.

Donavan Tan

Got it. Thank you for clarifying.

Justin Werner

Yeah. Thank you.

Chris Shepherd

Thanks, Donavan.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Bharat Shettigar of Standard Chartered Bank. Please go ahead.

Bharat Shettigar

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?

Chris Shepherd

There's very shortly or very soon to be $245 million of additional debt at the ENC OpCo, so that's that amount that we announced yesterday. Other than that, there is no other debt.

Bharat Shettigar

Just to be clear, once you are able to draw down the new $245 million loan, you just can immediately repay the shareholder loans, right?

Chris Shepherd

Correct. That's correct.

Bharat Shettigar

Right. In terms of the dividend recap exercise, you mentioned earlier, is it primarily related to the $100-odd million shareholder loan that will be repaid or some of the equity that you've infused in ENC, will there be some kind of repayment of that as well?

Chris Shepherd

When I refer to dividend recap, I'm effectively talking about the $245 million facility. 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.

I shouldn't call it a dividend. It's a repayment of shareholder loans.

The entire ENC project has been funded by equity as shareholder loans, the money that we put in via the OCBC-led syndicate will be distributed to shareholders via repayment of those shareholder loans.

Bharat Shettigar

That's completely clear now. Thank you.

Chris Shepherd

Thank you, Bharat.

Operator

That concludes our Q&A session for today. I'll turn the call back over for closing remarks.

Justin Werner

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 some ENC first sales and ramp-up still very much to look forward to.

The underlying RKEF 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 will start to see coming through over the course of this quarter and then certainly moving into next year. Thank you again, everyone, for your time.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining us.

You may now disconnect.