American Battery Technology Co (ABAT) 2025 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon. I'm [Tiffiany Moehring] and I'm the Director of Communications and Marketing at the American Battery Technology Company. I would like to welcome everyone to our fiscal fourth-year quarter and full year 2025 earnings call.

午安.我是 [Tiffiany Moehring]，美國電池技術公司的傳播和行銷總監。歡迎大家參加我們的第四財季和 2025 財年全年財報電話會議。

On behalf of the entire team at American Battery Technology Company, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to join our call today. Following this presentation, a recording of this call, along with our press release and our quarterly SEC filing, will be available on our website at investors.americanbatterytechnology.com.

我謹代表美國電池技術公司全體團隊感謝大家今天抽空參加我們的電話會議。本次簡報結束後，本次電話會議的錄音以及我們的新聞稿和季度 SEC 文件將在我們的網站 investors.americanbatterytechnology.com 上發布。

This presentation includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Act 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ from those anticipated.

本簡報包含美國 1995 年私人證券訴訟法安全港條款所定義的前瞻性聲明。這些聲明受風險和不確定性的影響，可能導致實際結果與預期結果不同。

Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ can be found in our annual filings. On today's call, our CEO and CTO, Ryan Melsert, will provide remarks regarding our two lines of business, which include our lithium-ion battery recycling business and our primary claystone to lithium hydroxide business.

有關可能導致實際結果不同的因素的更多信息，請參閱我們的年度文件。在今天的電話會議上，我們的執行長兼技術長 Ryan Melsert 將就我們的兩條業務線發表評論，其中包括我們的鋰離子電池回收業務和我們的初級黏土石到氫氧化鋰業務。

It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Ryan.

現在我很高興將會議交給瑞安。

Great. Thank you, Tiffiany. As many of you know, we work in the critical mineral manufacturing business area. We are working to try to make the closed loop for the battery mineral supply chain within North America. Right now, this is much more of a linear economy, and as we work through the system, we're working with many of the partners in the other areas of the closed-loop infrastructure.

偉大的。謝謝你，蒂芙尼。正如你們許多人所知，我們從事關鍵礦物製造業務領域。我們正在努力嘗試在北美建立電池礦物供應鏈的閉環。目前，這更像是一個線性經濟，隨著我們完善這個系統，我們正在與閉環基礎設施其他領域的許多合作夥伴合作。

In order to fully implement this closed-loop system, we found that multiple different aspects were needed to be added. The first is the implementation and commercialization of a lithium-ion battery recycling system. In this system, we take back waste material from other stages of the industry as well as end-of-life material, recycle those materials through a multiphase process and then make battery-grade materials that are sold right back into that closed loop.

為了全面實施這個閉環系統，我們發現需要增加多個不同的面向。一是鋰離子電池回收體系的實施與商業化。在這個系統中，我們從行業的其他階段回收廢料以及報廢材料，透過多階段過程回收這些材料，然後製造電池級材料並直接賣回該閉環。

If the total amount of batteries in the field was stable in a mature industry, recycling could provide the vast majority of minerals needed. But with how quickly the battery industry is growing, in addition to closing the loop, we also need to be filling that loop the first time.

如果成熟產業中現場電池的總量保持穩定，回收可以提供所需的絕大多數礦物質。但隨著電池產業的快速發展，除了閉合迴路之外，我們還需要在第一時間填補這一迴路。

So in addition to our battery recycling business unit, we have also acquired large amounts of mineral resources in the US and developed our own first-of-kind technologies of how to extract those individual battery elements, how to purify and upgrade them and how to also make battery-grade products from our primary battery metals manufacturing business in addition to our battery recycling business.

因此，除了我們的電池回收業務部門之外，我們還在美國收購了大量礦產資源，並開發了我們自己的首創技術，包括如何提取單個電池元素、如何淨化和升級它們，以及如何從我們的原電池金屬製造業務和電池回收業務中製造電池級產品。

As for our quarterly earnings that we are reviewing today, we're proud to show that compared to the previous quarter, we had a very large increase in revenue for the company. This is largely due to increased operations at our first battery recycling plant just outside of Reno. So we nearly tripled revenue this quarter compared to the quarter ending March.

至於我們今天審查的季度收益，我們很自豪地表明，與上一季相比，公司的收入大幅增加。這主要是因為我們位於裡諾郊外的第一家電池回收工廠的業務量增加。因此，與三月結束的季度相比，本季我們的營收幾乎成長了兩倍。

And at the same time, we had a much smaller relative increase in our cash cost of goods sold, really showing that as we hit economies of scale and larger operation, the first recycling plant, our revenues are growing at a much faster pace than our costs. So we look forward to continuing to ramp this plant and continuing to improve that gross margin.

同時，我們的銷售現金成本相對增幅要小得多，這確實表明，隨著我們實現規模經濟和擴大運營，即第一家回收工廠，我們的收入增長速度遠遠快於成本增長速度。因此，我們期待繼續擴大該工廠的產能並繼續提高毛利率。

Separate from our quarterly financials, we also did just finish our fiscal year. And when you tie those past four quarters together, we also see a very substantial increase in revenue of about $4.3 million for this past year compared to about $0.3 million the year beforehand. And similarly, it's a much larger relative increase in revenue than the increase in the cash cost of goods sold, allowing for an increase in margin as we continue to scale that plant and improve operations.

除了季度財務報表之外，我們也剛完成了財政年度。如果將過去四個季度的數據結合起來，我們還會發現，去年的收入大幅增加，約為 430 萬美元，而前一年約為 30 萬美元。同樣，收入的相對增長遠大於銷售現金成本的增長，隨著我們繼續擴大工廠規模和改善運營，利潤率也會隨之增加。

Beyond just the recycling plant, total operational costs for the business actually decreased this past year over the year beforehand, as we again experienced economies of scale and had cost control measures to improve operations.

除了回收工廠之外，去年整個業務的總營運成本實際上比前一年有所下降，因為我們再次經歷了規模經濟，並採取了成本控制措施來改善營運。

We were excited to have been selected to be listed on the Russell 2000 and 3000 indices back in June. This is really a sign that we have a different scale of investor, as we move forward. And because of that operations, we have seen a very substantial increase in trading volume since being added to that index and a significant increase in percentage ownership from institutional investors.

我們很高興在六月被選為羅素 2000 和 3000 指數成分股。這確實表明，隨著我們不斷前進，我們的投資者規模將會有所不同。由於這些操作，自從被納入該指數以來，我們的交易量大幅增加，機構投資者的持股比例也顯著增加。

With that market activity, we've increased our cash balance to just over $25 million as of September 15, this year. As mentioned, our battery recycling operations, the main metric over the past year, is that we have increased the throughput of our plant about 70% in a single quarter for the quarter ending June versus ending March.

隨著市場活動的開展，截至今年 9 月 15 日，我們的現金餘額已增至 2,500 萬美元以上。如上所述，我們的電池回收業務是過去一年的主要指標，即與 3 月相比，6 月當季工廠的產量在一個季度內增加了約 70%。

This really has been about a large amount of incremental improvements, as we continue to add headcount, add shift count, have increased amounts of material and improve our operations there. We've been working with several different projects at this recycling facility for the past few years. One of them is a grant contract we won from the US. Advanced Battery Consortium from a project that actually started back in the fall of 2021. We've worked on that project for many years.

這實際上是大量的漸進式改進，因為我們繼續增加員工數量、增加班次數量、增加材料數量並改善我們的營運。過去幾年，我們一直在該回收設施開展多個不同的項目。其中之一就是我們從美國贏得的一份資助合約。先進電池聯盟的計畫實際上於 2021 年秋季啟動。我們已經在那個專案上工作了很多年。

And we formally closed out that project a few months ago, really able to show that we had achieved each of the requirements of that grant contract as we worked with the partners there with the US Department of Energy, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, to really demonstrate that this recycling plant could take in full-scale batteries.

幾個月前，我們正式結束了這個項目，這確實能夠證明我們已經實現了該資助合約的每一項要求，我們與美國能源部、通用汽車、福特和 Stellantis 等合作夥伴合作，真正證明了這個回收工廠可以接收全尺寸電池。

Recover those materials, purify the battery metals up to battery grade, work with our partner, BASF, to actually take those recycled metals, manufacture large amounts of high-energy density active cathode material specifically from those recycled metals and make large amounts, over 100 full-scale automotive battery cells from our recycled metals and actually test those cells at both our partner and Department of Energy facilities against control group cells and really being able to show that there was very little difference about the performance of the battery cells when using our recycled metals versus using metals from the market.

回收這些材料，將電池金屬淨化至電池級，與我們的合作夥伴巴斯夫合作，實際利用這些回收的金屬，專門用這些回收的金屬製造大量高能量密度活性陰極材料，並用我們的回收金屬製造超過 100 個全尺寸汽車電池單元，並在我們的合作夥伴和能源部設施中將這些電池與對照組進行實際測試，結果確實能夠使用我們的金屬單元上的電池性能與市場差，幾乎沒有實際測試，結果確實使用電池的電池性能。

This is a very important step for going through large-scale qualifications of many different customers. We were excited to receive financial support from the USABC and to now have this project closed out as we move forward with these different opportunities.

這對於對許多不同客戶進行大規模資格審查而言是非常重要的一步。我們很高興獲得 USABC 的財政支持，現在這個計畫已經結束，我們將繼續利用這些不同的機會。

Because of our increased operations and the successes working with our partners on these early scale projects, last September, we were notified that we had been selected for a competitive grant from the US Department of Energy for $144 million to now construct a second battery recycling plant. We were selected back in September 2024, and through an accelerated process, we were contracted in December 2024 and actually started this project back on January 1, 2025.

由於我們業務的擴大以及與合作夥伴在這些早期規模項目上的成功，去年 9 月，我們收到通知，我們已被美國能源部選中，獲得 1.44 億美元的競爭性撥款，用於建造第二家電池回收工廠。我們於 2024 年 9 月被選中，並透過加速流程於 2024 年 12 月簽訂合同，並於 2025 年 1 月 1 日實際啟動了該專案。

So we're excited to be taking all the lessons learned in our first recycling plant, working through our next-generation designs and moving forward with a second battery recycling facility. While we work with a lot of automotive companies, the past half year, we've really started to work even more with stationary grid battery systems.

因此，我們很高興能夠吸取第一家回收工廠的所有經驗教訓，開展下一代設計，並推進第二家電池回收工廠的建設。雖然我們與許多汽車公司合作，但在過去的半年裡，我們實際上開始與固定電網電池系統更多地合作。

So these large battery energy storage systems usually work to support grid operations. They tend to be extremely large, in the gigawatt-hour scale and have a different type of load profile than we see within automotive batteries.

因此，這些大型電池儲能係統通常用於支援電網運作。它們往往非常大，達到千兆瓦時的規模，並且具有與我們在汽車電池中看到的不同的負載曲線類型。

But because we make battery-grade minerals, they work equally well, whether they're sold to companies to make batteries for vehicles or batteries for stationary storage. And similarly, we received both types of material into our recycling facility near Reno. A few months ago, we were fortunate enough to have been invited to the groundbreaking ceremony of one of the fastest supercomputers in the world at Argonne National Lab near Chicago.

但由於我們生產的是電池級礦物，因此無論它們是出售給公司用於製造汽車電池還是固定儲能電池，它們的效果都一樣好。同樣，我們將這兩種材料都接收到了裡諾附近的回收設施。幾個月前，我們有幸受邀參加位於芝加哥附近的阿貢國家實驗室世界上最快的超級電腦之一的奠基儀式。

And their supercomputer is backed up by large amounts of grid-scale batteries. So it was great being able to join the ceremony. There were very few private companies actually in attendance. It was mostly different government organizations, and to really highlight how the US manufacturing of critical minerals supports data centers, supports supercomputers and supports different types of artificial intelligence and machine learning operations, we were asked to present at this event actually to several dignitaries, including the US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, back in July.

他們的超級電腦由大量電網規模的電池支援。能夠參加這個典禮真是太好了。實際出席的私人公司非常少。主要是不同的政府組織，為了真正強調美國關鍵礦產的製造如何支援資料中心、支援超級電腦以及支援不同類型的人工智慧和機器學習操作，我們被要求在這次活動上向幾位政要進行介紹，其中包括 7 月份的美國能源部長克里斯·賴特 (Chris Wright)。

So really being able to explain to him directly at the Argonne National Laboratory why both battery recycling and domestic lithium manufacturing are important to support data centers, supercomputer and artificial intelligence operations as we move forward.

因此，能夠在阿貢國家實驗室直接向他解釋為什麼電池回收和國內鋰製造對於支援資料中心、超級電腦和人工智慧的運作都很重要。

Because of our large amount of interactions with the DOE, it was great to be able to connect with this new administration and really show them the benefits of the projects we're working on together. When we look at our primary claystone to lithium hydroxide technologies, over the past several years, we have been building out this multi-tonne per day integrated pilot facility near Reno.

由於我們與能源部有大量的互動，我們很高興能夠與新政府建立聯繫並真正向他們展示我們共同開展的項目的好處。當我們研究從原生黏土岩到氫氧化鋰的技術時，過去幾年來，我們一直在裡諾附近建造這個每天可生產數噸的綜合試驗設施。

While we finished bench scale operations a few years ago, it's very important to take those bench-scale results and actually build demonstration-scale integrated systems that operates in real time on a continuous fashion. This is a very big de-risking step as we look to be building out our commercial scale lithium hydroxide refinery.

雖然我們幾年前就完成了實驗室規模的操作，但利用這些實驗室規模的成果並實際建立以連續方式即時運行的演示規模整合系統非常重要。當我們考慮建造商業規模的氫氧化鋰精煉廠時，這是一個非常大的降低風險的舉措。

Similarly, we were fortunate enough to have the buildup of this demonstration facility supported by a Department of Energy grant. This project also started in the fall of 2021. And as of a few months ago, we've also officially closed out this project and completed all requirements, showing how we went through the design, construction, commissioning and then sustained operations in a multi-week run, showing how we feed our specific Tonopah Flats claystone material into this plant, go through each of the operating steps and make a battery-grade lithium hydroxide product at the back end.

同樣，我們很幸運，該示範設施的建設得到了能源部的資助。該計畫也於2021年秋季啟動。幾個月前，我們也正式結束了這個項目，完成了所有的要求，展示了我們如何在幾週內完成設計、施工、調試和持續運營，展示了我們如何將特定的 Tonopah Flats 粘土岩材料送入該工廠，完成每個操作步驟，並在後端生產出電池級氫氧化鋰產品。

So we've made many different scales of samples to be sent out to different strategic customers and to be able to go through different types of analytical evaluations tests, manufacturing different types of active cathode material, and again, making full-size battery cells with the lithium specifically extracted from our Tonopah Flats Project.

因此，我們製作了許多不同規模的樣品，發送給不同的策略客戶，並能夠進行不同類型的分析評估測試，製造不同類型的活性陰極材料，並再次使用從我們的 Tonopah Flats 專案中提取的鋰製造全尺寸電池。

Because of the operations at our bench scale and these demonstration scale facility, we have continued to go forward with the design of our commercial scale 30,000-tonne lithium hydroxide per year facility, working with our selected EPC firm, Black & Veatch, continuing to send these materials to customers for a definition of different types of long-term offtake agreements as we progress that project.

由於我們的實驗室規模和這些示範規模設施的運營，我們繼續推進商業規模的每年 30,000 噸氫氧化鋰設施的設計，與我們選定的 EPC 公司 Black & Veatch 合作，繼續將這些材料發送給客戶，以便在我們推進該項目的同時確定不同類型的長期承購協議。

Building this demonstration facility has been great advancing the technology and de-risking the construction, but a parallel effort is advancing our permitting progress for the local, state and federal levels. We were excited a few months ago to have been selected by the White House, the National Energy Dominance Council and the FAST-41 Permitting Council to have our Tonopah Flats Lithium Project be selected as a transparency priority project, which is really meant to streamline all federal permitting operations for high priority critical mineral projects within the US being selected for this was important to really get alignment amongst many of the different federal agencies. And this transparency priority project was really set up by the executive order that President Trump issued back on March 20.

建造這個示範設施對於推動技術進步和降低建設風險具有重要意義，但同時，我們也在努力推動地方、州和聯邦各級的許可進程。幾個月前，我們很高興我們的托諾帕弗拉茨鋰項目被白宮、國家能源主導委員會和 FAST-41 許可委員會選中，被選為透明度優先項目，這實際上是為了簡化美國境內所有高優先級關鍵礦產項目的聯邦許可操作，被選中對於真正在許多不同的聯邦機構之間達成一致非常重要。這個透明度優先項目實際上是根據川普總統 3 月 20 日發布的行政命令設立的。

But on top of becoming a transparency priority project, there was actually an escalation, and we were approved to become a full covered project just back in August. So now having our Tonopah Flats Lithium Project be a covered project, we have a project coordinator actually assigned to this effort, holding meetings amongst all different federal agencies and really driving visibility and accountability as we move forward.

但除了成為透明度優先項目之外，實際上還有一個升級，我們在八月就被批准成為一個全面覆蓋的項目。因此，現在我們的托諾帕弗拉茨鋰項目已成為一個受保護的項目，我們實際上已指派一名項目協調員負責這項工作，在所有不同的聯邦機構之間舉行會議，並在我們前進的過程中真正推動可見性和問責制。

So just in the past few weeks, we've seen very significant acceleration of these permitting efforts, as we work to bring these different federal groups together. And this FAST-41 Committee works amongst all different federal agencies, including we've mentioned that back in the spring, we did receive a letter of interest from the US. Export-Import Bank to provide a $900 million low-interest loan to support this Tonopah Flats Lithium Project.

因此，就在過去幾週，隨著我們努力將這些不同的聯邦團體團結在一起，我們看到這些許可工作的進展顯著加速。這個 FAST-41 委員會與所有不同的聯邦機構合作，包括我們所提到的，早在春天，我們確實收到了來自美國的一封意向書。進出口銀行將提供 9 億美元低利率貸款，支持托諾帕弗拉茨鋰計畫。

So as a federal agency, this is also being facilitated through the permitting council and through our selection as a covered project. We mentioned we were added to the Russell Index back at the end of June. Since being added, we have a different set of investors really owning and trading our stocks.

因此，作為一個聯邦機構，我們也透過許可委員會和選擇我們作為涵蓋項目來促進這一進程。我們提到我們在六月底被添加到羅素指數中。自加入以來，我們擁有一群不同的投資者真正擁有和交易我們的股票。

We've seen a very significant increase in our trading volume per day since the end of June being selected and also a big increase in the amount of institutional ownership. This does really provide many different types of discussions we've had with strategic investors since then and has really facilitated different types of funding opportunities as we move forward.

自六月底入選以來，我們的每日交易量顯著增加，機構持股也大幅增加。這確實為我們自那時以來與策略投資者進行的許多不同類型的討論提供了機會，並且確實促進了我們前進過程中不同類型的融資機會。

As a summary of our financial results for this fiscal year versus the previous one, as mentioned, a very substantial increase in revenue really by increasing the operations and the ramp rates of our first battery recycling plant.

總結我們本財年與上一財年的財務業績，如上所述，透過增加我們第一家電池回收工廠的營運和產能提升率，我們的收入確實大幅增加了。

Our cost of goods sold has increased, but at a lower percentage than our revenue has increased. And as we continue to scale that plant, we expect to see continued improvements in our margin. We continue to receive funds from our government grants we have contracted, including ones that have started partway through the fiscal year. So we do expect to see that increase as we ramp up those newer projects.

我們的銷售成本有所增加，但增幅低於收入的增幅。隨著我們繼續擴大工廠規模，我們預計利潤率將持續提高。我們繼續從已簽約的政府補助中獲得資金，包括在財政年度中期開始的補助。因此，隨著我們加大這些新項目的投入，我們確實預期這一數字將會增加。

And throughout the year, we were able to take in substantial funds through our financing activities, an increase in funds used for operating activities as we continue to ramp up our first recycling plant and a substantial decrease and our cash used for investing activities.

全年，我們透過融資活動吸收了大量資金，隨著我們繼續擴大第一家回收工廠的規模，用於經營活動的資金有所增加，而用於投資活動的現金則大幅減少。

As mentioned, our cash balance has increased substantially, both at the end of the fiscal year and as of mid-September, as we continue to receive funds really facilitated by that listing on the Russell 2000 Index and the exercising of several of our outstanding warrants. We still have a large balance on our contracted government grants, as these are multiyear projects that we're continuing to receive funds on as we move forward.

如上所述，我們的現金餘額在財政年度末和 9 月中旬都大幅增加，因為我們繼續獲得資金，而這實際上得益於在羅素 2000 指數上的上市以及我們幾項未償還認股權證的行使。我們與政府簽訂的合約中仍有大量補助金餘額，因為這些都是多年期項目，隨著項目的推進，我們將繼續獲得資金。

And we have received some competitive tax credits last spring that will still be monetized as we move forward and continue to build out our first recycling plant near Reno and our second recycling plant in the Southeast US. That's a summary of our financial results for the past fiscal year.

去年春天，我們獲得了一些有競爭力的稅收抵免，隨著我們繼續在裡諾附近建造我們的第一家回收工廠和在美國東南部建造我們的第二家回收工廠，這些稅收抵免仍將轉化為貨幣。這是我們上一財年的財務表現摘要。

We will be holding our Annual Shareholder Meeting in November, at which time, we will go through more details about the operations of our past year and some more of our multiyear operations, as we look more forward looking.

我們將於 11 月召開年度股東大會，屆時我們將詳細介紹過去一年的營運情況以及未來幾年的營運情況。

So at this time, I'd like to thank everybody for joining this earnings call, as we went through the details of both our fiscal fourth quarter and our full fiscal year. And again, we look forward to seeing everybody in mid-November at our full Annual Shareholder Meeting.

因此，此時此刻，我要感謝大家參加這次財報電話會議，我們討論了第四季和全年的財務細節。我們再次期待在 11 月中旬的年度股東大會上與大家見面。