Electra Battery Materials Corporation (ELBM) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Electra year-end 2023 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝你的支持。這是會議操作員。歡迎參加 Electra 2023 年底業績電話會議。提醒一下，所有與會者都處於僅聽模式，並且正在錄製會議。（操作員說明）

I would now like to turn the conference over to Heather Smiles, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development with Electra Battery Materials Corporation. Please go ahead.

現在我想將會議交給 Electra Battery Materials Corporation 投資者關係和企業發展副總裁 Heather Smiles。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Firstly, a few housekeeping matters. This presentation includes forward-looking information and forward-looking statements. Please see slide 2 for clarification on what that entails. All of our fourth-quarter disclosure materials are available on our website and SEDAR+, and today's presentation is also available on our website.

謝謝你，接線生。大家早安，感謝您加入我們。首先，一些內務事項。本簡報包括前瞻性資訊和前瞻性陳述。請參閱投影片 2 以了解其中的含義。我們所有的第四季度揭露資料均可在我們的網站和 SEDAR+ 上取得，今天的簡報也可在我們的網站上取得。

For those who don't know me, my name is Heather Smiles, and I oversee the Investor Relations and Corporate Development programs for Electra. I rejoined the Electra team in January of this year, and I previously worked for Electra from 2017 to 2019, and spent the last several years with Baffinland Iron Mines here in Canada leading their stakeholder relations program.

對於不認識我的人來說，我的名字是 Heather Smiles，我負責 Electra 的投資人關係和企業發展項目。我於今年 1 月重新加入 Electra 團隊，之前曾於 2017 年至 2019 年在 Electra 工作，並在過去幾年中在加拿大的巴芬蘭鐵礦 (Baffinland Iron Mines) 領導他們的利益相關者關係計劃。

Our presenters today are two familiar faces, our CEO, Trent Mell; and our Vice President, Project Development, Mark Trevisiol; as well as another new member of the team, our CFO, David Allen.

今天我們的主持人是兩位熟悉的面孔，我們的執行長 Trent Mell；以及我們的專案開發副總裁 Mark Trevisiol；以及團隊的另一位新成員，我們的財務長 David Allen。

Dave joined Electra at the New Year as well and has more than 30 years of finance experience spanning manufacturing, natural resources, shipping, real estate, and financial services industries. He's held CFO and senior finance roles with companies such as Algoma and Canada Goose.

Dave 也在新年加入 Electra，擁有 30 多年的金融經驗，涉及製造業、自然資源、航運、房地產和金融服務業。他曾在 Algoma 和 Canada Goose 等公司擔任財務長和高級財務職位。

Now, I'll turn it over to Trent.

現在，我將把它交給特倫特。

Thank you, Heather, and good morning, everybody. And I should say, I guess, Heather, welcome back to the team; and Dave, welcome to the team. It's nice -- it's been really enjoyable working with the two of you over the last few months.

謝謝你，希瑟，大家早安。我想我應該說，希瑟，歡迎回到團隊；戴夫，歡迎加入我們的團隊。這很好——過去幾個月與你們兩個一起工作真的很愉快。

So I'll start with some highlights on what we've been doing through 2024 before handing the baton over to Dave and then Mark. Summary of some of our activities. 2023, towards the beginning of the year, you'll recall we focused on the re-baseline exercise. So that was basically to do a reassessment to post inflation of what the completion schedule and capital costs would look like to complete the refinery.

因此，我將首先重點介紹 2024 年我們所做的工作，然後將接力棒交給戴夫和馬克。我們的一些活動摘要。 2023 年年初，您會記得我們的重點是重新基線工作。因此，這基本上是對通貨膨脹後完成煉油廠的完工時間表和資本成本進行重新評估。

Brownfield expansion plus construction, so depending on the metric, we're quite advanced with permits in place, civil works done, buildings, equipment there. Did that exercise, and then in tandem with that, we started what we believe is the continent's first plant-scale demonstration plant for the refining of black mass. Mark will talk a lot about that. And that took up a good part of the year and allowed us to take advantage of the gap in construction by recommissioning the front end of the Brownfield site that we've got.

棕地擴建加上建設，因此根據衡量標準，我們在許可證到位、土木工程完成、建築物和設備方面都相當先進。進行了這項練習，然後與此相結合，我們啟動了我們認為是非洲大陸第一個用於精煉黑色物質的工廠規模示範工廠。馬克會談論很多關於這個的事情。這佔用了今年的大部分時間，使我們能夠利用施工空白，重新調試我們現有的布朗菲爾德場地的前端。

In tandem with that, we spent a lot of time, especially myself, working on the funding gap. I'll come back to that a little bit later, making great progress there as I indicated in Q3.

同時，我們花了很多時間，尤其是我自己，來解決資金缺口。稍後我會回到這個問題，正如我在第三季度中指出的那樣，我在這方面取得了巨大進展。

And then strengthening the balance sheet. Myself, Dave, and others, we extended the maturity of our debt. We, in Q1, I guess, announced a $5 million grant from the federal government. It's kind of a bridge to a bigger solution, made amendments to our debt facility to minimize potential dilutive impact of the notes.

然後加強資產負債表。我、戴夫和其他人，我們延長了債務期限。我想，我們在第一季宣布了聯邦政府的 500 萬美元撥款。這是通往更大解決方案的橋樑，對我們的債務融資進行了修改，以盡量減少票據的潛在稀釋影響。

And all said and done, I think we're getting closer and closer to our goal here, which is, of course, to complete construction and make our way into production and spent a lot of 2023 just laying the groundwork for that environment to occur. That may come out of the gates stronger when we do get back to work.

總而言之，我認為我們離我們的目標越來越近了，當然，這是完成建設並投入生產，並花了 2023 年的大量時間為該環境的發生奠定基礎。當我們重新開始工作時，這種情況可能會變得更強烈。

So as you can see in slide 4, a number of commercial pieces as well were announced through the year. Quite recently, we announced a feedstock agreement with Eurasian Resources Group. Incidentally, that's where our VP Commercial worked prior to joining Electra. And that's one of the biggest cobalt miners in the world. I'm delighted to have them as a supplier for our refinery.

正如您在幻燈片 4 中看到的那樣，這一年也宣布了許多商業作品。最近，我們宣布與歐亞資源集團達成原料協議。順便說一句，這就是我們的商務副總裁在加入 Electra 之前工作的地方。這是世界上最大的鈷礦開採商之一。我很高興他們成為我們煉油廠的供應商。

Also, earlier in the year, strengthened the relationship with LG Energy Solution on the offtake by extending the term and the quantum of the material they're going to be buying for us upon production. And then we've advanced and continued to advance the strategy with the Three Fires Group. I'll come back to that as well. But basically, it's an indigenous economic development group in Southern Ontario with some shared values around closing the loop on the battery supply chain through recycling.

此外，今年早些時候，透過延長他們在生產時為我們購買的材料的期限和數量，加強了與 LG Energy Solution 的承購關係。然後我們與三火集團一起推進並繼續推進該戰略。我也會回到這一點。但基本上，它是安大略省南部的一個本土經濟發展組織，在透過回收實現電池供應鏈閉環方面擁有一些共同的價值觀。

Plant scale, I'm going to defer to Mark on that. But bottom line, our journey here to produce IRA-compliant onshore North American battery materials continues unabated; some good progress, more to come. But before we get into that any further, let's go to Dave first. And he'll review the financial highlights for Q4. Dave?

工廠規模，我會聽從馬克的意見。但最重要的是，我們在這裡生產符合 IRA 標準的北美陸上電池材料的旅程仍在繼續。取得了一些良好的進展，未來還會有更多進展。但在我們進一步討論之前，讓我們先來看看戴夫。他還將回顧第四季度的財務亮點。戴夫？

Thanks, Trent. Good morning, everyone. I'll ask everyone to turn to slide 6.

謝謝，特倫特。大家早安。我請大家翻到幻燈片 6。

At the end of Q4, we held $8.2 million in cash and marketable securities. This was down from $15.7 million held at the end of the previous quarter. This was driven by capital costs related to construction of the refinery and costs related to running our black mass trial.

截至第四季末，我們持有 820 萬美元的現金和有價證券。這低於上一季末持有的 1,570 萬美元。這是由與煉油廠建設相關的資本成本以及與運行我們的黑色大規模試驗相關的成本所驅動的。

I should mention that our cash balance at the end of the year does not include $5 million of new government commitments announced in February, nor the $5.1 million of previous government commitments not yet received. Cash management remains a key priority, and we continue to take steps to minimize costs and manage expenses.

我應該指出的是，我們年底的現金餘額不包括 2 月宣布的 500 萬美元新政府承諾，也不包括尚未收到的先前政府承諾的 510 萬美元。現金管理仍然是重中之重，我們將繼續採取措施最大限度地降低成本和管理開支。

Reductions in operating activities include significant reductions on exploration activity at the Iron Creek site, seeing general and administrative costs at the head office, and reducing the activities at the refinery to focus on the lower cost of black mass trial. This is partially offset by higher professional and consulting fees incurred during financing activities associated with the capital raise in Q3 and the risk of the debt, the convertible notes (technical difficulty) December.

營運活動的減少包括大幅減少 Iron Creek 現場的勘探活動、總部的一般和行政成本以及減少煉油廠的活動以專注於降低黑色大規模試驗的成本。這部分被第三季融資相關的融資活動中產生的較高的專業和諮詢費用以及債務風險、可轉換票據（技術困難）12 月所抵銷。

Turning to the slide for more detail on the restructuring of our (technical difficulty). In February 2023, Electra closed a private placement of USD51 million of the 8.99% senior secured convertible notes that are due in February of 2028, canceling the USD37 million in previously held debt in 2026, and ending with net seeds of USD13.7 million. In December 2023, we announced proposed amendments to the agreement with note holders to more closely align with market conditions. Those were completed in the first quarter of 2024.

請參閱幻燈片以了解有關我們重組的更多詳細信息（技術難度）。2023 年2 月，Electra 完成了5,100 萬美元的私募，將於2028 年2 月到期，利率為8.99% 的優先擔保可轉換票據，取消了2026 年之前持有的3,700 萬美元債務，最終淨種子額為1370 萬美元。2023 年 12 月，我們宣布了與票據持有人的協議的擬議修訂，以更緊密地符合市場狀況。這些工作已於 2024 年第一季完成。

Conversion price of the warrants was adjusted and an acceleration clause added. And in partial consideration, the holders agreed not to exercise certain adjustment provisions. These amendments, which were finalized in early 2024, have the overall benefit of reducing the potential dilution should the notes be converted to capital. We are grateful for the support and partnership shown by the note holders as we continue to advance the project finance.

調整認股權證轉股價格並增加加速條款。基於部分考慮，持有人同意不行使某些調整條款。這些修正案於 2024 年初完成，總體好處是減少票據轉換為資本後潛在的稀釋。我們感謝票據持有人在我們繼續推進專案融資過程中所展現的支持和合作。

This concludes my remarks. I will hand the call over to Mark for an update on our refinery project.

我的發言到此結束。我會將電話轉給馬克，以了解我們煉油廠專案的最新情況。

Okay. Thanks, Dave. Everyone can turn to slide 9. We talk health and safety every day in the plant and it is our top priority. We'd like to believe that we walk the talk when it comes to the results of our plant with regards to health and safety.

好的。謝謝，戴夫。大家可以翻到幻燈片 9。我們每天在工廠談論健康和安全，這是我們的首要任務。我們相信，當談到我們工廠在健康和安全方面的成果時，我們會言出必行。

And over the last two years, Electra employees have worked over 80,000 hours, and we've had zero lost time incidents. Our target was zero lost time, so it's something that we're fairly proud of and something that we, again, review on a daily basis at site.

在過去的兩年裡，Electra 員工的工作時間超過 80,000 小時，我們的誤工事故為零。我們的目標是零損失時間，因此這是我們相當自豪的事情，也是我們每天在現場進行審查的事情。

With regard to the project, you can see the pictures here of what the site looked like in 2022 and what it looks like now. We've added about 60,000 square feet of plant to our existing 45,000 square feet of existing plant.

關於該項目，您可以在此處查看該網站 2022 年和現在的情況的圖片。我們在現有 45,000 平方英尺的工廠基礎上又增加了約 60,000 平方英尺的工廠。

We have over 600 acres of land and the asset life is good for decades going forward. There's been a lot of work. We believe the site is roughly about 40% constructed. Most of the buildings that we need for the cobalt sulfate project are all in place and the majority of the infrastructure is there.

我們擁有 600 多英畝土地，資產壽命長達數十年。有很多工作要做。我們相信該網站已建成約 40%。我們硫酸鈷專案所需的大部分建築物都已就位，大部分基礎設施也已到位。

We've got all the power lines updated and to the rates that we need. We've got all the pipelines installed. So now it's mainly working on the internals of the plant, putting piping, putting electrics, putting instrumentation, and controls in place.

我們已經更新了所有電源線並達到了我們需要的費率。我們已經安裝了所有管道。所以現在主要是在工廠內部進行工作，安裝管道、安裝電氣設備、安裝儀表和控制裝置。

Next slide. Slide 11 just shows you a view of our crystallizer plant in the left foreground. And in the background is our new 40,000-square-foot solvent extraction plant. And to the immediate right is our sulfate warehouse. That's where our final product is going to be stored before it's shipped offsite.

下一張投影片。投影片 11 只是向您展示了左側前景中我們的結晶器工廠的視圖。背景是我們佔地 40,000 平方英尺的新溶劑萃取工廠。右邊是我們的硫酸鹽倉庫。這是我們的最終產品在運往異地之前將被存放的地方。

I mean, the highlight of this plant is that we've built it and licensed it for 5,000 tonnes per annum with a small incremental cost of capital at the beginning of about $600,000 to $700,000. We can bump this plant up to 6,500 tonnes per annum of cobalt and cobalt sulfate. And that would include a permitting process with the Ministries of Mines and Ministry of Environment, but that is well within reach. So that's a significant upside for us, both on servicing our customers and on the margins that it brings to our company.

我的意思是，工廠的亮點在於，我們已經建造了它並獲得了每年 5,000 噸的許可，初期的資本成本增量約為 600,000 至 700,000 美元。我們可以將該工廠的鈷和硫酸鈷年產量提高到 6,500 噸。這將包括與礦產部和環境部的許可程序，但這完全是可以實現的。因此，這對我們來說是一個巨大的優勢，無論是在服務客戶方面還是在為我們公司帶來的利潤方面。

Black mass update. Did a lot of work on black mass over the last number of months, as Trent has alluded to. So I'm on slide 13. The recovery rates for metals of lithium, nickel, and cobalt, graphite have greatly improved since the start. And some recoveries are actually higher than what we had in the bench scale test when we got this whole process laid out at SGS Labs in Peterborough.

黑色批量更新。正如特倫特所提到的，過去幾個月在黑人彌撒方面做了很多工作。所以我在投影片 13 上。自開始以來，鋰、鎳、鈷、石墨等金屬的回收率已大大提高。當我們在彼得伯勒的 SGS 實驗室佈置整個流程時，一些回收率實際上高於我們在小規模測試中的回收率。

We put about 40 tonnes of black mass through the plant. We produced about 28 tonnes of nickel-cobalt MHP, which we shipped to our customer. It's mainly all going to the Glencore right now. And over the next couple of months, we'll probably ship another 20 tonnes or so of MHP product.

我們向工廠投入了約 40 噸黑色物質。我們生產了約 28 噸鎳鈷 MHP，並將其運送給客戶。現在主要都是去嘉能可。在接下來的幾個月裡，我們可能會再運送約 20 噸的 MHP 產品。

Our lithium carbonate product is now approaching a technical grade. This wasn't as much of a focal point when we started the project. But as we all see, the price of lithium and lithium carbonate extremely escalated since we started doing bench tests, and now we're up to 97%, 96% lithium carbonate, which is a significant achievement for us.

我們的碳酸鋰產品現已接近工業級。當我們開始這個專案時，這並不是一個焦點。但正如我們所看到的，自從我們開始進行台架測試以來，鋰和碳酸鋰的價格急劇上升，現在我們已經達到了97％、96％的碳酸鋰，這對我們來說是一個重大成就。

Right now, we're not putting through any new black mass into the plant, but we're working on the recycled washates that were part of the process of making the MHP product in a lithium carbonate product, and concentrating those washates up to then produce finished products again of lithium and MHP nickel-cobalt. We're very proud of what we've achieved here with what we started with. We've had some batches of nickel-cobalt MHP approaching 50% nickel plus cobalt, so it's quite a high-value intermediate product.

目前，我們沒有將任何新的黑色物質放入工廠，但我們正在研究回收的洗滌液，這是在碳酸鋰產品中製造 MHP 產品的過程的一部分，並將這些洗滌液濃縮到那時再次生產鋰和MHP鎳鈷成品。我們對我們從一開始就取得的成就感到非常自豪。我們已經有一些批次的鎳鈷MHP接近50%的鎳加鈷，所以它是一個相當高價值的中間產品。

Slide 14, some next steps for black mass. There are some optimization areas that we've seen when we run the pilot plant or the demonstration plant in our existing refinery, and we're addressing those going forward.

投影片 14，黑彌撒的一些後續步驟。當我們在現有煉油廠運行試點工廠或示範工廠時，我們看到了一些最佳化領域，我們正在解決這些問題。

The cobalt business is a little bit unlike copper and nickel and zinc, where an intermediate product -- you could get a significant part of the London Metal Exchange price for your product, but not in the cobalt business, just because the processing plants worldwide aren't really tuned to take those products and recover high-value cobalt. So the way we can maximize more profit to the company is to produce a cobalt product that is LME-grade. That's what our target is, is to get up to a 99.9%, 99.5% cobalt product.

鈷業務與銅、鎳和鋅有點不同，後者是一種中間產品，您可以在倫敦金屬交易所獲得產品價格的很大一部分，但鈷業務則不然，因為世界各地的加工廠都在沒有真正適應利用這些產品並回收高價值的鈷。因此，我們能夠為公司帶來最大利潤的方法是生產 LME 等級的鈷產品。這就是我們的目標，即獲得 99.9%、99.5% 的鈷產品。

What you see there on the right is a separation of nickel and cobalt, with cobalt being on the top, blue colored in that bench scale test that you see there. And we've been managing to get almost four-9s separation and extraction, so that's 99.9%. So a critical step for us moving forward.

您在右側看到的是鎳和鈷的分離，鈷位於頂部，在您看到的小規模測試中呈現藍色。我們已經成功地實現了幾乎四個 9 的分離和提取，即 99.9%。這是我們前進的關鍵一步。

And as well, we are also in discussions with a few funding agencies on helping us to develop this further. And as Trent had mentioned, we'd like to be and stay in the recycling business and feed supply is so critical. And that's where the Three Fires Group Memorandum of Understanding comes in. Three Fires has got territorial rights in Southwestern Ontario on the lands, and we look forward to building that relationship and securing a supply of recycled lithium-ion batteries to our process.

此外，我們也正在與一些資助機構進行討論，以幫助我們進一步發展這項計畫。正如特倫特所提到的，我們希望繼續從事回收業務，而飼料供應非常重要。這就是三火集團諒解備忘錄的用武之地。Three Fires 擁有安大略省西南部土地的領土權，我們期待建立這種關係並確保為我們的流程提供回收鋰離子電池。

I think I will now turn this back over to Trent for some closing remarks. Trent?

我想我現在將把這個問題轉回給特倫特做一些結束語。特倫特？

We think we have lost Trent's line. One moment. Let me see if I can locate him.

我們認為我們已經失去了特倫特的台詞。一會兒。讓我看看能否找到他。

If you want, I can kind of finish things off. We can get him back on.

如果你願意的話，我可以把事情結束。我們可以讓他重新上場。

Certainly. I'm going to try to -- he's just joined the private (inaudible).

當然。我要嘗試——他剛加入私人部隊（聽不清楚）。

Okay. I have Trent back on the line.

好的。我讓特倫特回來了。

Hi, Trent. It’s Mark. Yeah. I just finished the black mass and over to you for the final slides there.

嗨，特倫特。這是馬克。是的。我剛完成了黑彌撒，交給你最後一張投影片。

Perfect, yeah. Sorry, everybody. I tried to unmute and pressed the little red button as I did. So I apologize for the gap.

完美，是的。對不起，大家。我嘗試取消靜音並按下紅色小按鈕。所以我對這個差距表示歉意。

Look, I think as we did a highlight on slide -- where am I -- 16 here, that's some of our partnerships. Before I go there, just want to highlight one of the things Mark said.

聽著，我想我們在幻燈片上做了一個亮點——我在哪裡——16在這裡，這是我們的一些合作夥伴關係。在我去那裡之前，我只想強調馬克所說的一件事。

Maybe some of you caught it, but when he talks about LME-grade cobalt, one of the new opportunities we're looking at through black mass is it's not just cobalt sulfate, but can the separation of MHP also allow us to produce a cobalt metal. That would be exciting to have that optionality, and it's a trader's dream to be able to trade cobalt sulfate or cobalt metal, depending on which way the winds are blowing and how commodities are trading. So stay tuned on that.

也許你們中的一些人明白了，但當他談到 LME 級鈷時，我們透過黑色物質看到的新機會之一是，它不僅僅是硫酸鈷，而且 MHP 的分離也可以讓我們生產鈷金屬。擁有這種選擇權將是令人興奮的，交易者的夢想是能夠交易硫酸鈷或鈷金屬，這取決於風向和商品交易方式。所以請繼續關注。

We have the option to bleed cobalt from black mass into our cobalt sulfate plant, but to have a separate circuit that could produce a standard-grade metal product could be very, very interesting. So we'll have more on that.

我們可以選擇將黑色物質中的鈷滲入我們的硫酸鈷工廠，但擁有一個可以生產標準級金屬產品的單獨電路可能非常非常有趣。所以我們將會有更多相關內容。

So yeah, slide 16. Just wanted to highlight some of our partnerships. I touched on this a little bit earlier. But the journey we're on, as our long-term shareholders would know, is to produce IRA-compliant, so that's Inflation Reduction Act, US-compliant cobalt sulfate for the battery supply chain.

是的，幻燈片 16。只是想強調我們的一些合作關係。我早些時候談到過這一點。但正如我們的長期股東所知，我們正在進行的旅程是生產符合愛爾蘭共和軍（IRA）標準的產品，這就是《通貨膨脹減少法案》，即用於電池供應鏈的符合美國標準的硫酸鈷。

Why? Because more than 80% of battery-grade cobalt today comes out of China. And if you look at the 30D credits in the US, so that's the $7,500 vehicle credit starting next year, you can't have any material coming out of China, or you'll lose that credit. So it's a small market for anybody looking to sell IRA-compliant materials into the US. And moreover, we saw the tariffs this week in the Biden administration that are further signaling the policy intentions here. 25% tariff on batteries, 100% on vehicles, and electronics, I think, we're the poster child of what onshoring should look like.

為什麼？因為如今超過 80% 的電池級鈷來自中國。如果你看一下美國的 30D 信用額度，即從明年開始的 7,500 美元車輛信用額度，你不能從中國獲得任何材料，否則你將失去該信用額度。因此，對於任何想要向美國銷售符合 IRA 標準的材料的人來說，這是一個很小的市場。此外，我們看到拜登政府本週的關稅進一步表明了這裡的政策意圖。我認為，對電池徵收 25% 的關稅，對車輛和電子產品徵收 100% 的關稅，我們是在岸外包的典型代表。

Our entire focus is on the North American market. Yeah, so these partnerships you see here underscore that. The feedstock we have in place now, not just with Glencore, which goes back a few years to the ERG; we've locked up the two largest non-Chinese cobalt miners in the world, both of whom have top-notch ERG practices, tracing, IRA-compliant materials, so the ethical mining practices are -- their operations are what you would see in the Western world and what you would expect. And with the two of them, we pretty much have all of our supply locked up for the foreseeable future.

我們的全部重點是北美市場。是的，所以你在這裡看到的這些夥伴關係強調了這一點。我們現在擁有的原料，不只是嘉能可（Glencore），它可以追溯到幾年前的 ERG；我們已經鎖定了世界上最大的兩家非中國鈷礦開採商，他們都擁有一流的 ERG 實踐、追踪、符合 IRA 的材料，因此道德採礦實踐是——他們的運營就是你在西方世界和你所期望的。有了他們兩個，我們幾乎在可預見的未來鎖定了所有供應。

LG continues to be a great partner. They're going to buy up to 80% of our production, now up from 60%. They're going to buy 19,000 tonnes over five years, which is a big increase because we've added two years to when we're running at full capacity. So the remaining 20% has been bid, if you will, several times over. Our entire book, if you will, of express demand to our future production is about two times what we'd expect to produce, and so IRA is a big help.

LG 仍然是出色的合作夥伴。他們將購買我們 80% 的產品，而現在是 60%。他們將在五年內購買 19,000 噸，這是一個很大的增長，因為我們比滿載運行的時間多了兩年。因此，如果您願意的話，剩餘的 20% 已經被多次出價。如果你願意的話，我們整本書對我們未來產量的明確需求大約是我們預期產量的兩倍，所以 IRA 是一個很大的幫助。

We're not in a rush to sign up that 20%. We've got some conversations ongoing, but I think time is on our side, and we'd be wise to use that leverage to our advantage.

我們並不急於簽約這 20%。我們正在進行一些對話，但我認為時間對我們有利，我們明智地利用這一槓桿來發揮我們的優勢。

What else have I got? I guess, the Three Fires piece -- maybe just before I go away from LG, an important consideration when you look at where the markets are today. Nickel has been under pressure, and lithium and cobalt. That's just the cycle. It's just the nature of the market we're in, and some of the geopolitical pressures perhaps magnifying that.

我還有什麼？我想，三把火——也許就在我離開 LG 之前，當你看看今天的市場狀況時，這是一個重要的考慮因素。鎳一直面臨壓力，鋰和鈷也面臨壓力。這就是循環。這就是我們所處市場的本質，而一些地緣政治壓力可能會放大這一點。

We structured our contract with LG to be, you could say a toll, but it's a toll-like, I guess. Basically, you just don't lose money. It's a margin-based contract to remove some of that volatility.

我們與 LG 的合約是，你可以說是收費的，但我猜這只是收費的。基本上，你不會虧錢。這是一種基於保證金的合約，可以消除部分波動。

The peaks and troughs are out of the way. We're true partners. And the whole point here is that if we run an efficient operation, then we're going to make money quarter over quarter and not risk our balance sheet.

波峰和波谷都不礙事。我們是真正的合作夥伴。這裡的重點是，如果我們營運高效，那麼我們將逐季賺錢，而不用擔心資產負債表的風險。

Three Fires, yeah, Mark touched on it. It's about the closed loop. If we've got the refining operation up and running in Temiskaming Shores, then we need to get our hands on the material. And the most efficient way to do that, and again, to protect the margins, is to have our own supply, our own primary recycling facility or shredder, as it's better known.

三把火，是的，馬克談到了這一點。這是關於閉環的。如果我們已經在特米斯卡明海岸啟動並運行了煉油廠，那麼我們就需要取得這些材料。做到這一點的最有效方法，也是為了保護利潤，就是擁有我們自己的供應、我們自己的主要回收設施或粉碎機，正如眾所周知的那樣。

And Three Fires with some cell plants in their traditional territories and other feed opportunities beyond, we think they're perfect partners to help us set that up, both from a funding perspective from land and permitting, with us providing all the commercial and technical expertise.

三火公司在其傳統領土上擁有一些細胞工廠，並擁有其他飼料機會，我們認為他們是幫助我們建立這一目標的完美合作夥伴，無論是從土地和許可的資金角度來看，我們都提供所有商業和技術專業知識。

So with that, if I turn now to the next slide, slide 17, catalysts that are upcoming. '23 was challenging, of course, as we all know. '24, I think we're looking -- I'm feeling very good. My mood from Q3, Q4 hasn't changed. If anything, it's gotten more buoyant.

因此，如果我現在轉到下一張投影片，即投影片 17，即將推出的催化劑。當然，眾所周知，23 年充滿挑戰。'24，我想我們正在尋找——我感覺很好。我第三、第四季的心情沒有改變。如果有什麼不同的話，那就是它變得更加活躍了。

I think one thing I'll give the team credit for is we were one of the first projects to pause post inflation. And it seems like a distant memory, but we took an early decision to slow things down. And I'm hoping we'll be one of the earlier ones to come back as well.

我認為我要讚揚團隊的一件事是我們是通貨膨脹後第一批暫停的項目之一。這似乎是一個遙遠的記憶，但我們很早就決定要放慢速度。我希望我們也能成為最早回來的人之一。

And it's not just the startups, OEMs as well, cell plants, battery plants were delayed, but the trend is clear. I mean, we can't look at this quarter to quarter. We're building a global supply chain. It's a multiyear process. So some of the alleged headwinds that we saw in Q1 reports, I don't think we can put too much weight on that in terms of where the business is going.

不僅是新創公司、原始設備製造商、電池廠、電池廠都被推遲了，但趨勢很明顯。我的意思是，我們不能逐季度觀察這個情況。我們正在建立全球供應鏈。這是一個多年的過程。因此，我們在第一季報告中看到的一些所謂的不利因素，我認為我們不能在業務發展方向上給予太多重視。

So '23, also, we spent a lot of time, as we outlined, mitigating some of the uncertainty. We strengthened our balance sheet. We reduced our costs. And I think we're in a pretty good place now to come out of this stronger and to compete.

因此，正如我們所概述的，23 年我們也花了很多時間來減輕一些不確定性。我們加強了資產負債表。我們降低了成本。我認為我們現在處於一個非常好的位置，可以走出困境並參與競爭。

To recap from past quarters, we require roughly USD60 million, and that's just the construction piece to get us to a point where we can start commissioning. And again, to reiterate, the focus here is on non-dilutive funding solutions, government industry, strategic partners, and I feel that's starting to take shape.

回顧過去幾個季度，我們大約需要 6000 萬美元，而這只是讓我們開始調試的基礎設施。再次重申，這裡的重點是非稀釋性融資解決方案、政府產業、策略夥伴，我覺得這已經開始形成。

Near term, we're going to keep working on the optimizations of the black mass that Mark spoke to. And then we're awaiting some decisions from some of our partners that will allow us to come to the market with some funding ideas.

近期，我們將繼續致力於優化馬克所說的黑色物質。然後我們正在等待一些合作夥伴的一些決定，這將使我們能夠帶著一些融資想法進入市場。

And then once we've got construction of the cobalt plant at hand, we do have pipeline opportunities. There's the expansion of the plant itself. There's black mass. There's the Bécancour LOI that we've got in Quebec to build a facility there or somewhere in the province. And we've also taken some early steps with some inbound interest on what a nickel sulfate refinery might look like somewhere in North America.

一旦我們手頭上的鈷工廠建設完成，我們就有了管道機會。還有工廠本身的擴建。有黑色物質。我們在魁北克省獲得了 Becancour 意向書，希望在那裡或該省的某個地方建立一個設施。我們也採取了一些早期措施，對北美某個地方的硫酸鎳精煉廠可能會是什麼樣子產生了一些興趣。

So that is a summary of the quarter. Thank you for dialing in. And I'll now open the call to any questions for our analysts.

這就是本季的總結。感謝您撥打電話。現在我將開始電話會議，回答我們分析師提出的任何問題。

Thank you. We'll now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) There appear to be no questions. So I'd like to turn the conference back over to Heather Smiles for any closing remarks.

謝謝。我們現在開始問答環節。（操作員說明） 似乎沒有任何問題。因此，我想將會議轉回希瑟·斯邁爾斯 (Heather Smiles) 進行閉幕致辭。

Thank you, operator. And thank you, everyone, listening for your time today. We appreciate you taking the time to listen to our updates. And as a team, we're really looking forward to the next opportunity we have to bring you an update on our progress. Thank you so much and have a great day.

謝謝你，接線生。謝謝大家今天抽空聆聽。感謝您抽出寶貴時間收聽我們的最新動態。作為一個團隊，我們非常期待下一次有機會向您介紹我們的最新進展。非常感謝您，祝您有美好的一天。

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.

今天的電話會議到此結束。您可以斷開線路。感謝您的參與並祝您有個愉快的一天。