American Battery Technology Company (ABAT) 2026 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 full year 2026 earnings call. On behalf of the entire team at American Battery Technology Company, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to join the call today. Following this presentation, a recording of this call, along with our press release, will be available on our website.

下午好。我是 Tiffiany Moehring，現任 American Battery Technology Company（美國電池技術公司）傳播與行銷總監。歡迎各位參加我們 2026 會計年度全年財報電話會議。我謹代表 American Battery Technology Company 全體團隊，感謝各位今天撥冗參與本次電話會議。本次簡報結束後，本次電話會議的錄音以及我們的新聞稿將可於我們的網站上取得。

This presentation includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the US Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ can be found in our annual filings.

本簡報包含《1995 年美國私人證券訴訟改革法》安全港條款所定義之「前瞻性陳述」。此等陳述受風險與不確定性影響，可能導致實際結果與預期有所差異。關於可能導致實際結果不同之因素的更多資訊，請參閱我們的年度申報文件。

On today's call, our CEO and CTO, Ryan Melsert, joined by Alex Flores, our CFO, 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.

在今天的電話會議中，我們的執行長兼技術長 Ryan Melsert，將與我們的財務長 Alex Flores 一同，就我們的兩大業務線發表談話，包含鋰離子電池回收業務，以及從原生黏土岩（claystone）製備氫氧化鋰的業務。

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

現在我很榮幸將會議交給 Ryan。

Great. Thank you, Tiffiany, and thank you, everybody, for joining. We here at the American Battery Technology Company are working to introduce the closed-loop supply chain seen on the right here. Many of the sectors already exist and are mature. However, within the US, we have very little production of the critical minerals that are needed to support this domestic closed loop. In order to do that, we have implemented three different technology sets. We have developed and are deploying our technology for the recycling of lithium-ion batteries to help to close this loop.

很好。謝謝你，Tiffiany，也謝謝各位的參與。我們 American Battery Technology Company 正在推動右側所示的閉環供應鏈。其中許多環節已經存在且相當成熟。然而，在美國境內，我們對於支撐此一國內閉環所需的關鍵礦物之生產仍非常有限。為了達成這一點，我們已導入三套不同的技術組合。我們已開發並正在部署鋰離子電池回收技術，以協助完成這個閉環。

And in addition to closing the loop, we also need to fill this loop the first time. So we also have our own mineral resource development with our lithium mine, and we've developed our own internal technologies for the processing of this lithium-bearing claystone into a battery-grade lithium hydroxide product. So through these three units, we are working to enable this closed-loop infrastructure within the United States.

此外，除了把閉環「閉合」之外，我們也需要在第一次把這個閉環「填滿」。因此，我們也進行自有礦產資源開發，擁有鋰礦，並開發了自有內部技術，將含鋰黏土岩加工成電池級氫氧化鋰產品。透過這三個單元，我們正致力於在美國建立此一閉環基礎設施。

Over the past year, we have significantly ramped our operations at our first battery recycling facility, and we're proud to state that we have substantially increased revenue compared to the past year, an over 400% increase up to $21.7 million over the past year.

在過去一年中，我們大幅提升了第一座電池回收設施的營運規模；我們也很自豪地表示，相較前一年營收大幅成長，年增超過 400%，過去一年營收達到 2,170 萬美元。

While revenue increased substantially, we had only a moderate increase in our cost of goods sold, increasing about 67% from the previous year. This really is from achieving economies of scale in our recycling facility and implementing many different operational efficiencies throughout our first plant.

雖然營收大幅增加，但銷貨成本僅溫和上升，較前一年約增加 67%。這主要來自我們在回收設施達成規模經濟，並在第一座工廠全面導入多項營運效率提升措施。

On a cash basis, even though we substantially increased throughput, we actually decreased cash spend in operations for this plant by about 16%. Because of these increases in throughput and revenue and implementations of operational efficiencies, we were able to turn an annual profit or adjusted profit for the first time.

以現金基礎來看，儘管我們大幅提高處理量，我們在該廠的營運現金支出實際上下降約 16%。由於處理量與營收的提升，以及營運效率措施的落實，我們首次實現年度獲利（或調整後獲利）。

With the removal of these noncash expenses, we have an adjusted gross profit of about $1.7 million over this past year compared to a $6.2 million loss over the previous year. Again, this really is the manifestation of much higher capacity factor at our first recycling plant and the implementation of operational efficiencies. Because of these improvements, we've been able to increase our cash balance up to about $49.5 million as of the end of June and increased our total asset base up to about $133 million.

剔除這些非現金費用後，我們在過去一年錄得約 170 萬美元的調整後毛利，相較前一年為 620 萬美元的虧損。再次強調，這主要反映我們第一座回收廠的產能利用率顯著提高，以及營運效率的導入。受惠於這些改善，截至 6 月底我們的現金餘額提升至約 4,950 萬美元，總資產規模也提升至約 1.33 億美元。

We're also proud that over the past year, we've had our fiscal discipline and have zero long-term outstanding debt for the company. So all these pieces together show that we have the strongest financial results we've had in any year as an operating company and are in a strong position to keep growing as we move forward.

我們也很自豪，在過去一年中我們維持財務紀律，公司沒有任何未償還的長期負債。綜合以上各項，顯示我們作為一家營運中的公司，取得了歷年最強的財務表現，並在未來持續成長方面具備堅實的基礎。

We're excited to work with many partners. One of our closest partners is the US Department of Energy. We were fortunate enough to have a visit and tour by some of the DOE leadership just a few weeks ago. We have multiple projects, both on the battery recycling and on the claystone to lithium refining side that are supported by the Department of Energy.

我們很期待與眾多合作夥伴共同推進。我們最緊密的合作夥伴之一是美國能源部（DOE）。就在幾週前，我們很榮幸接待 DOE 部分領導團隊來訪並參觀。我們在電池回收以及黏土岩轉化為鋰精煉兩個領域，皆有多個由能源部支持的專案。

The leadership was able to come and see our operating battery recycling plant and also see our integrated demonstration facility for how we convert our Nevada-based claystone material into our battery-grade lithium hydroxide. It was great to be able to show these individuals the progress we've made over the past few years as we have moved from R&D level efforts up to bench scale systems to pilot plants and now operating commercial scale facilities.

領導團隊得以參觀我們正在營運的電池回收工廠，也看到我們的整合式示範設施，展示我們如何將內華達州的黏土岩材料轉化為電池級氫氧化鋰。能向各位展示我們過去幾年取得的進展令人振奮：我們已從研發層級推進到桌上型（bench scale）系統、試點工廠，並進一步到如今的商業規模營運設施。

Within the recycling plant itself, we continue to scale this first facility with a design rate of about 20,000 tonnes per year. We've moved into having our highest annual revenue really by that increased throughput, additional manufacturing of byproducts, and improved pricing for the products that we sell. The feed for a recycling plant comes from a wide variety of sources. Quite a bit of it now comes from grid-scale battery energy storage systems that are used to support domestic data centers and artificial intelligence training models, but also a large amount from electric vehicles, from battery cell manufacturing, and from the consumer electronics market.

在回收工廠方面，我們持續擴大第一座設施的規模，其設計產能約為每年 20,000 公噸。透過提高處理量、增加副產品製造，以及改善我們所銷售產品的定價，我們實現了歷史新高的年度營收。回收工廠的進料來源相當多元。目前相當一部分來自電網級電池儲能系統，用於支援國內資料中心與人工智慧訓練模型；同時也有大量來源來自電動車、電池電芯製造，以及消費性電子市場。

We have achieved our first ever positive gross margin because of this increase in economy of scale and the implementation of operational efficiencies. And again, we were selected over the year for one of the largest lithium-ion battery cleanup projects in the country's history, working to process a lot of these grid-scale batteries that have been through incidences and need to be recycled in a responsible manner. We also work closely with some partners in the collection area.

由於規模經濟的提升與營運效率措施的導入，我們首次達成正向毛利率。同時，我們在過去一年也獲選參與美國史上規模最大的鋰離子電池清理專案之一，負責處理大量曾發生事故、需要以負責任方式回收的電網級電池。我們也與部分合作夥伴在收集端密切合作。

The Battery Network, which is formerly Call2Recycle, is one of the nation's leading consumer battery collection companies. We did form a partnership with them, working to collect batteries throughout the country, recycle them in our facility, and really demonstrate this closed-loop supply chain to our partners.

Battery Network（前身為 Call2Recycle）是全美領先的消費型電池收集公司之一。我們已與其建立合作夥伴關係，在全國範圍內收集電池、於我們的設施進行回收，並向合作夥伴實際展示此一閉環供應鏈。

We're also continuing to develop our second recycling plant based in the Southeast US that is designed to process about 100,000 tonnes per year of these batteries and are continuing to work with the Department of Energy on the $150 million grant that supports the construction and rollout of the second plant. We also are continuing with a $10 million grant we have from the Department of Energy. This is really used to commercialize our next-generation recycling technologies.

我們也持續推進位於美國東南部的第二座回收工廠開發，該廠設計可處理約每年 100,000 公噸的電池；同時也持續與美國能源部合作，運用支持第二座工廠建設與推展的 1.5 億美元補助。我們也持續執行一項來自能源部的 1,000 萬美元補助。該補助主要用於我們下一代回收技術的商業化。

There are three of these technologies we have previously proven out at the laboratory and bench scale. And through this support from DOE, we're working to now build commercial scale implementations to integrate into our recycling facility.

我們先前已在實驗室與台架規模驗證了其中三項技術。在美國能源部（DOE）的支持下，我們目前正著手建置商業規模的實施方案，並整合至我們的回收設施中。

And as we continue to expand our recycling plant, it really does have a lot of synergies with our claystone to lithium hydroxide processing facility to help scale both of these technologies to address our domestic needs. In our claystone lithium business, we've had many achievements over the past year. The highlights are really working to publish our pre-feasibility study last fall. This really demonstrated the technical and financial performance of this system.

隨著我們持續擴建回收工廠，它確實與我們的黏土岩至氫氧化鋰加工設施具有高度協同效益，有助於同步擴大這兩項技術規模，以滿足國內需求。在我們的黏土岩鋰業務方面，過去一年我們取得了許多成果。重點之一是我們在去年秋季推動並發布了預可行性研究。這確實證明了該系統的技術與財務表現。

We showed we have about 21.3 million tonnes of lithium hydroxide that can be made just from the resources on this site, and that includes about 2.7 million tonnes that are further classified as proven or probable reserves. We're continuing to develop and roll out our 30,000 tonne per year mine and refinery at our property just west of Tonopah, Nevada.

我們顯示僅憑該場址資源即可生產約2,130萬公噸的氫氧化鋰，其中約270萬公噸進一步被歸類為探明或概略儲量。我們正持續開發並推進位於內華達州托諾帕（Tonopah）以西之自有地產上的年產3萬公噸礦山與精煉廠。

We worked closely with the Department of Energy last fall, along with hundreds of other projects. One of our Department of Energy grants was canceled. We did work closely with DOE and appealed that decision. And over several months of work with them, we were able to reverse that termination and have our grant fully reinstated. So as of now, we were working under the same project with the same funding and the same milestones to continue to have the DOE support the construction of that first processing train.

去年秋季，我們與美國能源部密切合作，並與其他數百個專案一同推進。我們的一項能源部補助曾被取消。我們確實與DOE密切合作並對該決定提出申訴。在與其歷時數月的合作後，我們成功撤銷該終止決定，並使補助全面恢復。因此截至目前，我們仍在同一專案架構下運作，資金與里程碑皆維持不變，DOE也將持續支持第一條處理產線的建設。

Our full Tonopah project is on government-managed land through the Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management. So through BLM and through the Department of Energy as a supporting agency, we are going through the NEPA process, which includes large amounts of baseline studies in addition to having our plan of operations submitted to really show how we plan on developing this property.

我們完整的托諾帕專案位於由內政部與土地管理局（BLM）管理的政府土地上。因此透過BLM，並由DOE作為支持機關，我們正在進行NEPA程序；該程序除包含大量基線研究外，也要求我們提交營運計畫，以充分說明我們計畫如何開發該資產。

We are fortunate enough last fall to have completed the baseline studies and just a few weeks ago to have received certification from the BLM that they have now accepted our plan of operations. This approaches the end of the pre-NEPA phase of this process and allows us to move into the full NEPA process for the remaining steps to have our permits to begin site work and construction at this property.

我們很幸運在去年秋季完成了基線研究，並在幾週前收到BLM的認證，確認其已受理我們的營運計畫。這使本流程接近完成NEPA前置階段，並讓我們得以進入完整NEPA程序的後續步驟，以取得許可，開始在該資產進行場址作業與施工。

We were excited last spring that we were selected by President Trump's National Energy Dominance Council and the FAST-41 Permitting Council to be a priority project within the country. This really was chosen for a handful of projects really looking to scale manufacturing facilities to produce critical minerals within the US. It really does result in streamlined federal permitting, really working to combine the efforts of the multiple agencies that are needed as we work through this process.

去年春季，我們很振奮地得知，我們被川普總統的國家能源主導委員會（National Energy Dominance Council）以及FAST-41許可審批委員會選定為全國優先專案。此項選定聚焦於少數專案，旨在擴大製造設施規模，以在美國境內生產關鍵礦物。其結果是聯邦許可程序得以精簡，並致力於整合多個機關在本流程中所需的協作努力。

We did build and operate an integrated demonstration facility that shows how this technology works. We continue to work with that plant to produce large-scale batches of this battery-grade lithium hydroxide product that we've been delivering to customers for evaluation as we work through their qualification processes. So the Tonopah Flats Lithium project is one of the largest lithium resources identified in the US, and it's something we are working to scale to really address our domestic needs.

我們確實建置並運轉了一座整合式示範設施，用以展示該技術的運作方式。我們持續利用該工廠生產大批量的電池級氫氧化鋰產品，並交付客戶進行評估，以配合其資格認證流程。因此，Tonopah Flats Lithium專案是美國已識別的最大鋰資源之一，我們正致力於擴大其規模，以真正滿足國內需求。

Summarizing our financial results from the past year. Again, we had a substantial increase in revenue, over a 400% increase compared to fiscal year '25, while our cost of goods sold only increased by about 67%, so showing substantial impact of economies of scale plus the impacts of implementing operational efficiencies.

以下總結我們過去一年的財務成果。同樣地，我們的營收大幅成長，較2025會計年度增加逾400%；而銷貨成本僅增加約67%，顯示規模經濟的顯著效益，以及導入營運效率提升所帶來的影響。

Our cost of goods sold on a cash basis was further improved. And while last year, we had many review periods working with the federal government, we have even more government contracts in place now and look forward to continuing to work with them as we draw down from those over the next few years.

以現金基礎計算，我們的銷貨成本進一步改善。此外，儘管去年我們在與聯邦政府合作期間經歷多個審查階段，但目前我們已簽訂更多政府合約，並期待在未來幾年隨著逐步動用（draw down）這些合約而持續與其合作。

On a cash basis, we continue to invest in our first recycling plant, increasing the amount of equipment that we have as we implement more automated processes. And our operational activities actually used less cash over the past year. Even though we had more than fourfold the throughput, we decreased the cash spend on our operating activities as we again implemented those operational efficiencies. We were able to bring in large amounts of funds through financing activities, and the result is a substantially increased cash balance of about $49.5 million that has allowed us to collect interest over the past year and be ready to expand our facilities as needed.

以現金基礎計算，我們持續投資於第一座回收工廠，隨著導入更多自動化流程而增加設備配置。而我們的營運活動在過去一年實際使用的現金更少。即使處理量增加逾四倍，我們仍因再次落實營運效率提升而降低了營運活動的現金支出。我們透過融資活動募集了大量資金，結果使現金餘額大幅提升至約4,950萬美元；這讓我們在過去一年得以取得利息收入，並在需要時準備好擴建設施。

At the same time, we have extinguished all of our long-term debt that was outstanding as of fiscal '25. And as of the end of fiscal '26, we have no outstanding long-term debt. There are several updates that have happened in the industry over the past few months. One of them is the Department of Commerce issued a directive that effectively bans the export of black mass unless there is an exception or adjustment obtained from the Department of Commerce. We've been working closely with Commerce over the past few weeks. We have submitted an exception request. They have replied with several follow-up questions and requests for additional information.

同時，我們已清償2025會計年度末仍未償還的所有長期負債。截至2026會計年度末，我們已無任何未償還的長期負債。過去幾個月產業內出現了數項更新。其中之一是商務部發布指令，實質上禁止黑粉（black mass）的出口，除非取得商務部核准的例外或調整。過去幾週我們一直與商務部密切合作。我們已提交例外申請。對方已回覆數項後續問題，並要求提供補充資訊。

However, at this time, there's no formal response as to the status of our exception request. So as of now, we continue to sell the byproducts out of our recycling facility and for the short term, are storing our black mass product at our facility until there is a conclusion with this directive. We're working with the Department of Commerce very closely and with support from the Department of Energy and many other federal agencies as this process is being reviewed.

然而截至目前，關於我們例外申請的狀態，仍未收到正式回覆。因此目前我們仍持續銷售回收設施產出的副產品；短期內，則將黑粉產品存放於我們的設施內，直到該指令有結論為止。在此審查過程中，我們正非常密切地與商務部合作，並獲得DOE及其他多個聯邦機關的支持。

So with that, we thank everyone for joining this review of our fiscal year '26 financials and look forward to having our formal Annual Shareholder Meeting in November to talk through more details of the past year and our steps ahead for the coming year. So thank you, everybody, for joining today.

因此，我們感謝各位參與本次對我們2026會計年度財務的回顧，並期待於11月召開正式的年度股東大會，進一步說明過去一年的更多細節，以及我們在未來一年將採取的步驟。因此，感謝各位今天的參與。