Great, thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone.

Thanks for joining us. I know it's a super busy day, lots and lots of quarterlies for the market, everyone running around, appreciate you dialling in, taking the time to catch up with our results.

I won't spend too long, as usual, just try and hit the highlights. Kath will pick up the financials as we get further through, and then we can dive into some Q&A.

Just to sort of touch the headlines first before I run through the areas in more depth. I think safety, again, continued improvement.

I've talked about this since I started in the role two years ago, and I'm really pleased that we're making steady improvement every quarter. Team's working really hard at it.

They've absolutely treated this as their first priority, and the results are flowing through, which we're really pleased about. Naturally, it's never done.

That focus on a good, mature culture is something that we'll keep working at. I think it ties back into performance in the mine as well, and obviously, these results are largely focused around Nova.

You'll see the results from Nova have been really, really strong through the last quarter: production, cost. The team's doing a great job, and I've reinforced, obviously, a few quarterlies now how difficult it is when you get to the end of an ore body like this, when you're approaching the end of mine life.

It is challenging. The team's dealing with that extremely well, and we start to see where focus on good safety, good productivity, good discipline in our operations all tie together, and we're also driving out great cost outcomes as well.

I do recognise, of course, the benefit of the by-product credits from copper, which is nice. It's another piece of the pie.

Obviously, lithium markets, fantastic for the last 12 months for this mine. As you can see, it all starts with what we control, and those basics are running well.

For Greenbushes, look, obviously a better quarter than the first quarter of this financial year, which was impacted by rain and the grades. We've seen that grade improve.

That's continuing to flow through, and we'll see that lift through the second half of this financial year. The improved production, sales off, which is just a shipment, which to be honest is with a very rapidly rising lithium market, not the end of the world.

We end up seeing some improved financials on the back of that. A lot of work that's happening to get CGP3 up and going, CGP3 at least.

That's, as we've announced already, hit first ore, and produced first concentrate this month. It is a huge focus on that ramp-up, and I'll talk more to that in due course.

Kwinana, look, another quarter that's sort of been in line with the prior quarters. I think really to call out was impacted by a shutdown that took out some of the available days for production.

The team did finish the last month at about 50%, which is sort of the best that we've seen from the refinery for any sustained period. I guess, much as lithium price is up, you take the view that this is a very challenging feature.

That's I think the quick highlights. Our financials, Kath will dig into it further, but you can see that we generate some positive free cash, and continue to maintain a very strong balance sheet.

If I drop down a little bit further into Nova, and I touched on really these points, a really good operational quarter, delivering cash to the business. I talked about a stope misfiring in Q1, which has been addressed and mitigated.

Again, that's the sort of thing that the team naturally doesn't want to happen. They had to work really hard to deal with it safely.

They've done that, and it's now in the rearview mirror looking forward. With a mine at this point, close to closure, we don't have the ability to flex that schedule, and so we have to deal with these things very attentively.

Sales a bit lower, just in line with shipping plans, one less ship in the quarter, that'll roll through. There's nothing really material in that.

Overall, tracking really well against our end-of-life mine guidance. As I said, the performance from production was really good, and they continued to lift through this quarter, we've got some strong confidence there, and right through to the end of this calendar year.

Of course, costs are a function of that performance. All that said, the team are working really hard to manage our costs as this mine winds down.

We're certainly not looking to carry anything we don't need to as we move towards closure in 2027. I've put Kwinana next just to touch on it quickly, because then we can talk a bit more on Greenbushes.

As I said, 35% nameplate for the quarter, 2.1 kt. We're tracking pretty much in line with the guidance that we've set out for the financial year.

The costs are up, and that's a function of the production through the quarter. We did take a bit out with the maintenance shutdown that was done and some other modifications that were done to the plant.

The next slide drops into Greenbushes. Look, it's a good quarter, a lift on Q1 in production.

Costs are still running high relative, and that's obviously largely production related. As the tonnes ramp up, we'll see that come back in.

The realised price lifted to $850, which I think reflects this very close connection with the PRA or spot price in the market. I'll talk more to that on the next slide.

I think it's something that's very favourable, particularly in this lifting market, very buoyant market now. The big news was obviously getting first ore through CGP3 late last year, just before Christmas.

The team did find some issues as they started to run it up, they stopped, and they fixed those early in January, and then got back into it. As I said, we've just seen first concentrate starting to come through.

Look, the asset's working. I think they took the time when it was down to check a few more things, hopefully avoided any more surprises, and the work in front of them now is to ramp that up, hopefully smoothly.

We're going to know more by our half-year results in a few weeks' time, almost three weeks away. I think that'll be a place where I can give you a more substantial update.

At this point, it's a bit early really to say too much until we see a few more results come through. I have a couple extra slides on Greenbushes, and wanted to start, as we've talked about in the last quarter, to just feed in more information to the extent I can about both the life-of-mine optimisation or the strategic review that we're doing, and the focus on productivity.

First thing I did want to touch on first though was just on the spodumene price curve, which I'm sure everyone is following closely in the market. It's certainly moving very, very quickly, I would say relative to expectations that I had.

That's fine. It is what it is.

I'm sure we're going to have some ups and downs. We saw overnight that there was a bit of a downshift with GFX and others, and I think we certainly expect to see some of the curtailed supply out there start to be reintroduced, and I think MinRes this morning mentioned they were looking at that, and so we can see more of that respond to high price.

Really the takeaway from this slide is the way that that translates for Greenbushes. As when we take the averages of the PRAs, one-month price, it trails, but it's pretty much a very close connection to the spot price that's out there.

Does give us a very good realised price as that flows through. We don't have any of that lag or impact from contracts that you might get discounts or other frictions from a lower in the cycle.

I expect we're going to see obviously some very attractive lifts in our realised price over the coming months. The next slide then I guess brings to life how that translates into margin, which is one of the things, again, I've called out before.

I think Greenbushes is one of those few mines, lithium mines in the world that generates extremely higher margins. We said 64% EBITDA for the last quarter, and I think the lower end was just shy of 60% at the absolute bottom of the cycle.

The thing that's really unique is it also drives fantastic cash conversion and translates that into returns that flow out of the business. They don't have to be reinvested to maintain production.

This chart just brings to life what that looks like if you take 1.5 million tonnes, current production level roughly, at $2,000 a tonne, and then with the lift in production that's coming through CGP3, the sort of amount of cash it generates through that step up just helps to visualises that. The next slide talks a bit to the optimisation work that's ongoing.

It's slides that I have referred to before, just to reorient everyone. We've got an overall review of the entire mine, which is I guess a life-of-mine optimisation, and I'm going to talk to what's the kind of work that's happening there in a minute.

That is significant. It's got a lot of expertise, external expertise helping us with it.

It basically goes right back to the ore body, assesses the ore characterisation, the design of the mine, how we manage waste, tailings, our grades, etc., top to tail, and reset that in optimal way. In doing so, obviously unlocks a lot of value.

In parallel with that, we're also progressing with productivity. Now, these things are naturally linked.

Productivity work is happening now anyway, and that's focused across a number of different streams. All of that together brings us to I guess our goal, which is achieving the full potential of Greenbushes.

Rob Scargill, who's the CEO there at Talison, is doing a great job. He's got a lot to work through, and the team he's put together are working through it.

They are finding a whole range of issues, challenges, and changes they need to make. That's part of the shift, but we've seen Nova in a short space of time make this shift and this steady focus on production, stability, and safety.

I don't share the safety results of Talison, but there is some challenges there as well. I think these things are linked, and Rob's got a really good set of programs and changes in place step-by-step to support the team to shift that culture and focus on safety, on production reliability, stability, and ultimately productivity.

It will drive out more tonnes and obviously less costs as well. The example I want to refer to, that's the overall asset review, really looks at the pit wall slopes.

Steepening pit walls is something that naturally has risk, threat and opportunity both ways. On the upside, it means a lot lower strip ratio, and in this case, you can see, and I'll talk to the lines in a minute, it starts to expose more metal or more material, valuable material that otherwise might not have been accessible.

On the downside, if you get it wrong, you have a geotechnical issue or a failure in the wall, that can sterilise more. It needs a lot of careful work and thought.

The team have brought in experts to help them with that. They are maturing their geotechnical management processes and activities.

They're doing all the right work to make sure that we control those risks, but ultimately unlock a lot of value. If you look through this chart, you'll see some little dotted lines that run out into the grey hatch on the right-hand side.

That sort of pit shell, the 2023 resource shell and '21 resource shell, shows what the overall resource would be, and you can imagine if you actually did all of that strip, it's a huge amount of work and cost. The other point to know though is, on top of that grey shaded area there on the left side of that slide, sits our plant.

It would require moving a lot of the infrastructure and assets, which would be extremely costly and painful. Not to say we can't do it, that's the kind of work that other mines in the world have had to go through, but it's not very desirable.

The other way to tackle this is if you take those little dotted lines that run into the grey and you draw them straight up to the edge of the grey, and you steepen that wall significantly, you can start to access that high-grade ore, you can lower your strip ratio significantly so you expose more metal, lower strip, much lower cost, and ultimately drive enormous amount of extra value out of the mine. That's the kind of example of work that's happening at the moment, and I wanted to do this to try and just illustrate it.

When you start to see more of the results and the information coming through as we get through decisions, finalise our plans, and we can present that back to the market, you'll understand where that's come from, and just helps to give you a sense of the work that's happening. Equally, the care that we're taking to make sure that this is done properly.

As many of this mine is 135 years old. Even the pit we're working in is quite mature, and any changes to that, we need to make sure are done with due care and attention.

The last slide then on Greenbushes just speaks to the productivity stream that I mentioned earlier. We put in the sort of major areas of focus, mining being naturally a big one early, and I've put a couple of little charts in there just to illustrate the lift in productivity from the mining fleet.

That takes us to what we believe is industry average, we're not outperforming yet, but I want to give credit to the team, to Rob, Adam, and their mining team, they've put a lot of focus on this. They have had a lot of issues and barriers.

They're working through different challenges, but I think they're really starting to see the consistent results come through now, and that will play out in our costs, obviously our waste movement. The second area I want to talk about then is production and plant performance, and that's a mix of utilisation through better asset management, reliability so we get throughput, but also recovery.

More stability will drive recoveries, and then work done to optimize recoveries. As part of that, we're also looking at value in use, which means what is the grade that we're selling to our customers?

Is that optimal for them? What level of impurities?

How much are we throttling the assets, the processing plants to achieve that, and what's the cost or value trade-offs? We're asking those kind of questions as part of this to make sure that we've really optimised this, recognising the customer's interests and their costs, but equally what's the best we can do with the plant.

The business has run producing SC6 and a fixed grade on impurities for a very long time, and we haven't really asked the question, and so we're at least testing it, and we'll see what makes sense. No decisions yet, but it again shows you the kind of work that's happening, and the impact on productivity from these different streams is quite significant.

Look, that's a quick roundup on the operations, a bit more on Greenbushes. Turn it over to Kath, and sort of touch on the highlights from the financials, and then we can get into some Q&A.

Thanks, Ivan, and welcome. Hi, everybody.

Sales revenue is $82 million, and as Ivan indicated, underlying traditional shipment timing for Nova. Nova's EBITDA was up $42 million, which included some value adjustments with the increase in nickel price in the month of December.

The share of net profit from TLEA rounded to zero. Positive profit at Greenbushes being offset by losses at Kwinana, and this includes our share of capital expenditure, which we impair that asset to zero.

Also wanted to call out, again, that we're in a one-month lag with pricing with spodumene, next quarter we'll see the benefit of the higher pricing. Underlying EBITDA improved to $30 million, and supported by Nova's result and some mark-to-market movement on the investments that we have.

We remain razor focused on cost control, but I'd like to note that corporate had a one-off payment for our insurance in there as well, so that's impacted the quarter. Free cash flow is positive at $13 million, and our balance sheet continues to strengthen with the net cash increasing to $299 million so close to $300 million.

I think that summarises that, and I'll hand it back to Ivan.

Thanks, Kath. Look, we'll turn it over to Q&A.

I'm trying a different mic. Hopefully, the sound quality is better for you.

We can open up and start taking some questions.

Oh, hi. Good morning.

Thanks for the call. Just the first one for me is related to CGP3.

Obviously, you've started commissioning and ramp-up there. What is the rough timeline of you achieving that nameplate, please, just so that we can test our numbers going forward on that one?

I'll come back with a second. Thanks.

It's 12 in simple terms, 12 months, the end of the calendar year.

Got it. Perfect.

Then just on the pricing, we basically had you achieve the price during this quarter for I guess the months of September, October, and November. Even if I apply about a 5% discount, I'm still getting to a higher price.

Now, obviously, I acknowledge that the shipment timings might have been a key impact here, but is that the right way to think about pricing, September, October, November, and then based on when the ships basically are loaded and leave the port, basically the timing is FOB basis, is that right?

It is. We can double check it and clarify.

Yep, that's your understanding's absolutely correct.

Just cuz looking at our numbers for the price and also for consensus, the pricing was a tad bit weaker, I just wanted to understand if we're kind of modelling that correctly.

We'll double check. We obviously do reconcile that, but we'll just make sure if there's something that's in there, whether it's tied to the shipment, possibly.

I'm not sure, but we'll get back to you to make sure we've got the right inputs for your model.

Excellent. If I can just slip in one more, just around sort of Greenbushes going forward, obviously a strong lithium price environment, and you've got a downstream partner there at the mine as well.

You've talked about the age of the mine, and then also you're ramping up CGP3. If I look at your sensitivity chart in terms of the sales volumes, you've obviously got about 2 million tonnes, which is what your current plans are.

Have any conversations started as yet in terms of any future expansions at the mine and how they might look like in terms of underground, above ground, what type of hurdles you guys need to cross in terms of thinking about further expansions, anything related to growth, I guess, in the Greenbushes space?

Look, there's a lot going on there, but that's included in that broader life-of-mine optimisation. The existing assets, CGP1 and 2, we believe can offer up a lot more productivity and throughput and production.

Optimising them, naturally bringing CGP3 up to its full potential as well, so that's using the existing suite of capital that we've deployed. The tailings retreatment facility, we're working through that study presently, we know what to do there as well.

There is a lot happening in that space to recognise and drive growth from the existing capital base, and make sure we've got the best from it. CGP4 is in the mix.

It's one of those things that sits in the schedule, and we've got to find where the optimum place for that is. We don't have that answer yet.

There's a lot of moving parts in the review that we're doing. It's very significant.

As I get more detail, step-by-step, we'll feed it out. I guess I'm just as eager as you are, of course, to have that finished because it gives us a really clear new baseline to work against.

Rob and the team are working really hard. I think we'll see some of that come through in the reserve resource update we do later in February.

You mentioned underground, we're certainly looking at where that fits. As we think about the overall resource, I've talked about pit wall steepening as one lever that obviously drives a lot of value, but equally understanding which part of the resource we want to target through the open pit versus underground, and then what the schedule and sequence of that is, again, work that's underway currently.

Got it. That's very comprehensive.

Thank you for that. Appreciate it.

G'day. Thanks, Ivan and team.

Thanks for your time. Do we have an updated expected date for the life-of-mine optimisation?

No. No, Levi.

I would love that too. I'm pressing regularly.

Rob's probably getting annoyed with me. Look, they're working hard.

They're making progress. I think there are some areas where they dig in, they find things that they just have to do more work on technically to make sure that we're going to make the right decisions.

I will share a clear plan, or at least target, once we have one, but I just don't have that to offer up at this point.

Thanks. In the absence of that, can you you need a big second half as CGP3 ramps up.

Can you just remind us of its operating parameters? Maybe tonnes, grade, recoveries, full speed by the end of the year.

What does that actually mean?

Yeah. You're talking about the the whole grade curve and so on.

Giving you the nominal tonnes, 0.5 million tonnes, it will run at it's I guess design feed grade, which is the same as CGP2, which is about 1.8%, and, it it will run to I guess test recoveries. We we are targeting higher than that, you've seen the the results for CGP2 starting to rise, the team do more work on it.

I guess, our goal naturally from the ramp-up is that we don't have to go through that that process, that we actually are hitting our grade curve from the outset and then beating it. I'm not going to promise that at this point.

That's where the team's focused. I don't know, is that what you're looking for?

All those numbers we've said previously. I'm just not sure.

There's there's nothing new at this stage that's going to to change these things until we get further into the ramp-up.

Yep. Thank you.

Just pushing a bit further on that. Just confirming on page 7 of the presenation, the 2 million tonne rate, do we take that as being the calendar year '27 run rate?

No. That was an indication of margin at that volume.

It's a capacity. It's not a mine plan that we've issued as guidance yet.

Yep. Okay.

The next round of meetings with TLEA and the Tianqi for guidance, when is the '26 budgets expected to be set?

We've been through that now. They're getting signed off as we speak, so that's the '26 calendar year for Talison.

Naturally, we'll then take that and build our guidance for the '27 financial year, obviously a bit closer to the time.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks.

Morning, Ivan and Kath. Thanks for the update this morning.

First one, on your comments around Greenbushes guidance, production sort of tracking slightly below, CapEx also below. If I try and triangulate those two comments, is that just in terms of stripping at the mine, is that running a little bit behind, and that's why your strip ratio has sort of fallen in the last quarter and why both production and CapEx might be lower for the year?

No, they're not all linked. Look, stripping will come down, and I've talked about this example on pit walls when we'll see a material reduction, we expect, in our strip ratios through that, and that will trend down.

Quarterly variations is more about weather impact through Q1, yet obviously have less of pit access and availability. They're now fully open, so that'll look different.

The team are looking at where they tip waste, how they manage waste, the grade and steepening of those waste stockpiles. There is a lot of changes that they're working through presently.

Don't want to try and characterise these things as just one cause for change. In terms of the production, look, it's partly grade related, which was a bit better than we saw in Q1, of course, a little bit worse than we had in our plan, and that's just a normal reconciliation we're working through.

Team are hitting that. The other bigger factor is, of course, just the way CGP3 ramps up.

That's really the key unknown. What we'd anticipated in our guidance in terms of that startup, we're behind.

Is it not recoverable? No, not at this point.

That's what we're going to need to see in the coming weeks and months, how that goes. That'll give us a gauge to how the rest of this year looks and then, obviously, into the rest of the calendar year.

There's a few different moving parts. I certainly wouldn't tie them all together in terms of production outcome for Q2.

Got it. In terms of the CapEx timing piece, then I presume those are all works that still need to happen, maybe that's more of a shuffling some of the CapEx into FY27 rather than things no longer happening.

Is that fair?

Yeah. As I've talked about in prior quarters, Rob has got a very tight handle on CapEx.

He's been very prudent, and he is pushing back on it, which is good. We're not in a place where we've agreed to downshift guidance on it yet.

We'll see again how that pans out now as they run up CGP3. Obviously, some of those costs are capitalised until we get to commercial production.

There's a bit more to come, but I don't think you should read into that that there's a major shift that's impacting production.

Got it. Then just sort of second one, I think dovetailing off Rahul's question earlier around that the realised pricing piece.

Can you just remind us what sort of volumes are going out on the technical grade piece at the moment, and if that's also a bit of a delta there in terms of that realised pricing?

Look, it's very small. It wouldn't be material enough to affect the realised pricing.

We're talking 50, 80,000 tonnes in a year, it's pretty small fry.

Got it. Great.

Then just last one if I can, sort of back on the IGO level, you've highlighted obviously the step-change in potential cash generation for Greenbushes at current spodumene pricing. Now we're two months through current quarter, basically, pricing setting.

Does that then enable you to start thinking about dividends back out to IGO shareholders, given you have that line of sight to cash flow when you sort of at or above your threshold for excess returns already? Or is that maybe a little bit too early for February still?

Definitely too early. I think we've got a very clear capital framework at Windfield, which we use to manage dividends and obviously the debt there, and you've seen some movements in the debt.

We'll work through that. We'll pay dividends out of Windfield to the shareholders, IGO and TLEA, in due course, and that'll be done again based on that framework, very well managed and controlled.

Then the key discussion will be at TLEA as to what we want to maintain there in liquidity and what the shareholders might then pay out. Certainly no discussions or decisions on that at this point.

The first step is to see that cash really starting to flow out of Windfield.

Got it. Thanks, Ivan.

I'll pass it on.

Thanks.

Hi, Ivan and Kath. Just on that framework that you talked about with Windfield, $150 million of debt paid this quarter, but no cash distribution to IGO.

What's the priority now? Further de-gearing versus distribution?

As CGP3 ramps up, is there a set level of cash buffer that's required before distributions resume? I'll circle back with a second.

Pick up the last part first. There is a cash buffer we will hold.

That's not tied to CGP3 or any specific part of the asset. It's just a part of our overall capital framework, and that's being managed.

Naturally, we'll look at then dividends versus the debt and the balance on that. We'll take into account things like the US dollar and forward views on cash generation, and so on.

All those decisions go through a pretty structured process with the board and the shareholders. Out of that, we'll let you know how that translates.

Obviously, the way this market behaves is going to be relevant. Obviously, it's very buoyant right now, and certainly all the signals are for a very strong period of demand.

Equally, we expect to see more supply come online, not just CGP3, but other production as well. I think before we get ahead of ourselves too far, we just want to sort of see how that washes through and take a view then on how best to allocate that cash to drive maximum value for the business.

Just to confirm, it's de-gearing currently the focus?

No. No, it's not the focus.

That was, that's just part of obviously how it's managing in the day-to-day sense. We will naturally want to pay dividends and think about our debt, they're both important priorities.

Sure. Okay.

Maybe secondly, on Kwinana, conversion costs spiked materially this quarter. How much of that reverses with utilisation versus how much reflects embedded cost issues?

No, it's been largely impacted by the maintenance, because remember we don't capitalise anything, everything's expensed. Obviously, the production volume is impacted through that period, you've got a compounding set of elements there.

I think the team are working to drive out costs, and as we look at and we're working through '26 budget for Kwinana, there is a lot of pressure on that, as you'd appreciate, and CapEx as well. The team naturally are trying to find ways to drive better reliability and better performance, but do that with less costs as well.

I would not take Q2 as a marker that says it's trending up or that's the run rate the whole forward.

Cool. Thank you.

Sure. Thanks.

Morning, Ivan and Kath. Can I ask another one on the ramp-up of CGP3, which I guess you called out as the biggest factor in the softer guidance commentary you've given?

Can you give us any more information on the specific issues that have been I guess faced and dealt with so far that you mentioned earlier on the call? Was there anything specific related to equipment or feed or people or anything?

Then in your view, are there any sort of key risks or checkpoints now looking forward, or is it just a sort of steady improvement over the course of the year? Thanks.

I'll tell what I can. It's a good question.

It's equipment related, one of the mills needed some realignment. It's not an unusual problem.

It's frustrating. You kind of go, "Well, how did that not get dealt with earlier?"

It happens. I've been through a few of those.

We've just needed some resealing. Again, not fantastic because it's painful to do it.

It's not a big issue. It's just logistically to get back in and fix some of these things just takes a bit of time.

The good news was the team used some of that downtime while they were working through some of these issues to then just go back over motors, pumps, etc., bump test and check and just really get confidence. I think they changed out a few bits and pieces so that we can get hopefully a cleaner next phase of the commissioning and ramp-up.

For anyone who's been through these things before, there's plenty of unknowns, you have to be very careful not to get too excited one way or the other. It's still pretty early in the process to sort of see how it behaves.

I think the good news is you talked about the other things that could be a factor. The feed's fine.

That's all good. People and capability, we've got a great team there.

Paul who's the project director's got an integrated team for commissioning. Strong team in place, feel comfortable with that.

We've got great support from the vendors, got access to all the support equipment that we need. There's no big risks there that we're sitting here deeply worried about, but I just think it's way too early to call or to get a better real sense.

I think by the time we get to our half, I'll get a better read on how things are going. At this point, oh, I'm just pleased we got first con, they're starting to basically run the plant and actually start to see what the recoveries are, how it's behaving, and, obviously look at the tuning and the reagents and all of the normal steps you take in that first month or so from startup.

Thanks for that, Ivan. That's helpful.

Then secondly, as you called out, put some additional sort of numbers in the presentation there around some of the recent productivity improvements at Greenbushes, improved truck utilisation, improved material movement. You suggested that that will flow through into the cost line over time.

Obviously, there's a lot of moving parts that go into the final cash cost number, but I guess I'm wondering, in isolation, are you able to maybe put some dollars around some of those mining productivity improvements? What's the goal for where you think you can get the cost of material movement with some of this productivity improvement?

Is it $10 a tonne? Is it $7 a tonne, or whatever the number is from a ballpark perspective?

What's the team working towards? I suspect you'll tell me that some of that will come out in the life-of-mine optimisation piece, but, yeah, just wondering if there's any sort of high-level thoughts around that at the moment.

Thanks.

It will. I don't want to give you a number yet.

That is the conversation, of course, when we go through budgets and we're pressing the teams. They're a bit gun-shy to offer it up in the first year because it's still a work in progress.

We've started to see a profile through '26, '27, which really does show some substantive improvements in unit costs on those underlying activities, and I think that will naturally flow through. We're also, as every mine does, fighting grade decline, some of it gets eroded indirectly from that or offset.

The goal is net-net, we're actually beating that, and both through increased throughput or production and also then these just more efficient work through less stripping and so on, that we're actually continuing to strengthen our position as the lowest cost lithium hard rock producer in the world by a long shot, and just keep on consolidating. Rob's, I think I've mentioned it before, he's put that broader goal out there to be the lowest-cost lithium unit in the world, and there's still a gap to the very best brines out there, but it's in shooting range, it's a good target.

We challenge the team to think and say, "What would it take, how could you run this mine differently and what needs to be true for us to start to get that lower cost performance?" That's not going to come in a quarter or two, of course, and I guess what I'm trying to do to the extent I can share information as we do, just feed it out step-by-step to give you a greater insight and picture on improvements, and then also give you some of those underlying productivity and performance numbers so that you can update your view of the asset.

Thanks, Ivan. We'll continue waiting for the study outcomes with bated breath.

Thanks for that.

Thanks, Matt.

morning, Ivan and team. Just one quick question.

Most questions being asked already, just one on the base metal strategy. I think previously you were talking about outside of lithium, you were looking at other early-stage opportunities.

Just conscious that, given this sounds like a windfall for cash coming from the strong lithium markets, how does that change your thinking of the exploration of the other opportunities? Could we see some capital being allocated to that part in addition to shareholder returns and debt repayment?

Thank you.

Look, Austin, it's great questions. No, really doesn't change.

The criteria that we've applied since I started two years ago, a lot of discipline, and Kath has been a big part of this, this real clarity around kind of returns that we're looking for from any growth needs to be in that ballpark around Greenbushes. We don't want to heavily dilute our business, and trying to hit Greenbushes, you can imagine that's a very high bar.

We can allocate capital first there, and naturally, that's going to be the most accretive and most sensible thing to do, which we're focused on. Dealing with things that are a drag on our returns, i.e.

Kwinana, which we're working through, we've been clear about that. Then to add something to it, it's difficult, and it's why we've been continue to be very disciplined.

If we saw something that we felt would deliver appropriate returns, sure. The lithium price, to be honest, and the translation of that is cash doesn't really change that decision.

Because we have more cash available to us, we're not going to be more eager to make a decision there. It will be on the same criteria regardless.

Arguably, the best time to be doing things, if you saw it, was 12 months ago or 18 months ago, it's kind of back to our eyes of value, and we've got a very high bar. That's good and bad.

It's a absolute privilege to be part of the custodian of Greenbushes, and it just means that our growth has to be very, very focused. That's probably all I'd say at this point, Austin, but it's, yeah, more of the same.

Thank you.

Hi, Ivan and team. Just a simple one, really.

Grades at Greenbushes, I think if I'm hearing correctly, they're back above 2%, and so therefore the implication is just putting CGP3 to the side, not stripping that out from this question, we should expect a material lift in production for the next couple of quarters from the existing business, not CGP3, correct?

Yeah. You'll get a lift, yes.

Another

fact, grade clearly. Equally, interruptions.

We had a pretty big quarter weather-wise, some rain later than expected through Q2, but Q1 is always going to be a challenge. There's naturally some of those impacts, grade impact, and then the productivity is the other piece, which I know Adam and his team are working very hard on.

I'm pushing and expecting to see then to deliver results through all of that hard work as well.

Thank you for perspective.

Thanks, Dan.

All right, thank you. Look, we finished early, which is nice.

Gives you guys hopefully a break before the next one. I won't say too much.

Just recap, I think Nova, was really pleased, as I said, safety, production, cost, just hitting the mark. This is an operation that we focused on, yes, it's relatively small and simple, but it's a signpost of how we want to bring our capability to operating a mine, and I think all credit to the team.

They've done a great job there and set this year up very well. That's great.

Unfortunately, it's only a year to go, not another 10, but it is what it is, though. They'll manage that through.

Greenbushes, a better quarter. The big focus is CGP3, naturally.

We're very pleased to be ramping that up into a lifting and buoyant market. It's fantastic, and there's a huge amount of focus to make sure that's smooth.

Ideally, we beat all of our plans. That's always going to be the target.

At this stage, early, we just need to back the team and support them as they get through that work. All that said, this is the time when Greenbushes really shines.

This is the period of lifting price, a buoyant market when you see the very best hard rock lithium asset in the world turned on, more production, and a whole lot more margin. We're really pleased to be part of that, and continue to work with the team to improve its performance.

Thanks for everyone's attention and support, and we look forward to talking to you soon at the half-year results.