Elevra Lithium Q4 2026 Earnings Report

Elevra Lithium EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$194.78
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Elevra Lithium Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $57.72 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Elevra Lithium Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2026
• Date: 8/5/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: N/A
• Conference Call Time: N/A

Elevra Lithium (NASDAQ:ELVR) Limited, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the identification, acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral assets in Australia and Canada. The company explores for lithium, graphite, and gold deposits. Its flagship property includes the North American Lithium project that consists of 41 claims and one mining lease covering an area of approximately 1,493 hectares located in Quebec, Canada. The company was formerly known as Sayona Mining Limited and changed its name to Elevra Lithium Limited in August 2025. Elevra Lithium Limited was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia.

Elevra Lithium Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: NAL production improved significantly, with June-quarter spodumene concentrate output up 15% quarter over quarter to just over 54,000 tonnes, recoveries rising to 71%, and May setting a monthly production record. Full-year production reached approximately 198,000 tonnes, exceeding revised guidance.
• Positive Sentiment: The company said the legacy contract that depressed realized pricing has now ended, with future pricing expected to better reflect market conditions. June-quarter revenue was $31 million at an average realized price of $921 per tonne, while approximately 41,000 tonnes of inventory was expected to ship mainly in July.
• Positive Sentiment: Elevra secured $207 million in net equity proceeds and a CAD 145 million Canada Growth Fund convertible-note investment, fully funding the staged NAL brownfield expansion. Construction has started, with the first stage expected to lift annual production from a roughly 190,000-tonne base to approximately 220,000–230,000 tonnes without significant operational disruption.
• Positive Sentiment: The company strengthened its Moblan position by acquiring previously held offtake rights, giving it control of 100% of its attributable production and greater commercial flexibility. An updated scoping study, incorporating the expanded resource base and evaluating a potentially larger or staged development, is expected in the current half.
• Neutral Sentiment: June-quarter sales volumes fell to approximately 34,000 tonnes because of customer schedules and a port transition, while unit operating costs increased 3% to $907 per tonne amid higher mining intensity and planned maintenance. Management said full-year costs of $853 per tonne remained below revised guidance and that cost of production declined slightly quarter over quarter.

Presentation

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Welcome, thank you for joining Elevra Lithium's June 2026 quarterly update. I'm joined today by Christian Cortes, Chief Financial Officer, Sylvain Collard, Chief Operating Officer and President, Canada, and Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer. As a reminder, any dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise quoted, and unit cost and revenues are reported on an FOB basis. June quarter was an important one for Elevra, both operationally and strategically.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Operationally, North American Lithium, NAL, delivered another strong performance. We achieved our second-best quarterly production result, established a new monthly production record in May, and importantly, we continue to improve plant recoveries while maintaining high mill utilization. Strategically, we completed a transformational financing package that fully funds the NAL brownfield expansion and provides capital to continue advancing Moblan toward a final investment decision. Those two achievements together create a solid foundation for the future.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

We have demonstrated that NAL can operate consistently at a high level whilst putting the funding in place to significantly grow production in the near term and over the coming years. I'll now turn to our operational results. Safety continues to be central to everything we do, and I'm pleased to report that we recorded no lost time injuries during the June quarter. Our overall safety performance continues to reflect the growing maturity of our operational systems and also the culture our teams have built over the past several years.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

As we grow the business through the NAL brownfield expansion, maintaining that safety culture will remain fundamental to how we operate. Mining during the quarter continued as planned as we continued to work through areas containing historical underground workings. As we've discussed previously, mining through these historical underground stopes requires additional waste movement and increased safety and operating protocols.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Despite this, ore mined remained consistent and aligned with mill requirements, allowing us to continue to supply quality feed to the processing plant. Operationally, beyond our safety performance, the highlight of the quarter was our processing performance, supported by improved mining and blending practices. We produced just over 54,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate, representing a 15% increase over the March quarter and the second-best quarterly production performance in the history of NAL. Within that result, May established a new monthly production record of more than 22,000 tonnes. That wasn't achieved through one single improvement. It reflects the cumulative benefits of the work our operating teams have been implementing over recent quarters on both the mining and processing sides of the operation. Mill utilization remained strong at 92%.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

While that was marginally below the record March quarter, the June quarter included a planned maintenance shutdown to realign the rod mill during April. Even with that major shutdown, mill utilization remained strong, amongst the best we've ever achieved at NAL. Recoveries increased to 71% during the quarter, representing another meaningful step forward. The improvement in recoveries was the result of continued strong crushing performance, optimization of stockpile and blending strategies, high mill utilization, and sustained throughput rates. Stepping back now for a moment, I'm pleased to report that NAL produced approximately 198,000 tonnes of concentrate for the 2026 financial year, exceeding the revised production guidance that we provided with our results for the December 2025 quarter. That is an important achievement. Earlier in the year, we encountered transitional mining challenges that impacted production.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Our team identified the issues and responded quickly, adjusting operations to mitigate the impact and safely maximize production. Moving now to our commercial results. We generated $31 million in revenue, as we previously announced, our average realized selling price for the June quarter was $921 per tonne. This was below realized pricing in the March quarter and also below spot pricing reported during that period. This spot pricing is associated with deliveries under a legacy customer contract that contained a lagged pricing mechanism. The embedded pricing formula referenced lithium hydroxide pricing and corresponded to a pricing period of October 2025 to March 2026. Therefore, our realized pricing did not reflect the strength we've seen in the spodumene market. The June quarter represented the final deliveries under that arrangement. Those legacy contract obligations have now been satisfied.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Going forward, we expect realized pricing to better reflect prevailing market prices. Sales volumes were also lower as we shipped approximately 34,000 tonnes during the quarter, aligned with customer shipping schedules. Our sales volume for the year totaled approximately 181,000 tonnes, which was the midpoint of the guidance provided with the December 2025 results. With strong production and a step down in sales volumes, we finished June with approximately 41,000 tonnes of product inventory, and the majority of those tonnes are expected to be shipped in July. To summarize, the June quarter saw a decline in reported pricing and sales volume as a function of timing and legacy contract pricing mechanisms as opposed to operating performance, which was strong. Turning to costs. Unit operating costs increased modestly to $907 per tonne.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

That was a 3% increase quarter-on-quarter as we sold higher cost inventory. Those higher costs reflect the two factors. Increased mining intensity associated with operating through historical underground workings, and the inclusion of a planned maintenance shutdown in April compared to no major shutdown activity in the previous quarter. When we look at the full financial year, our unit operating cost of $853 per tonne sold came in below the revised guidance range of $860-$880 per tonne. Just as we exceeded our updated production guidance, we also delivered a better cost outcome. In terms of advancing our strategic priorities, we achieved multiple objectives during the June quarter. First, we assembled a strategic financing package which secured the funding to execute our near-term growth strategy at NAL and advanced longer-term development at Moblan.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

The financing included an equity placement which was significantly oversubscribed and a retail share purchase plan which combined to generate $207 million in net proceeds, along with a CAD 145 million investment from Canada Growth Fund through two tranches of convertible notes. One question we received is: why did we choose to raise enough capital to fully fund this staged expansion now? The answer primarily comes down to one factor, that being certainty. While expansion is a relatively capital-light project compared to a greenfield development, this is a major capital project and we wanted to remove financing as a potential constraint. By securing funding upfront, we can focus on execution rather than being reliant on future market conditions, which may be impacted by lithium prices, geopolitics, or any other host of factors.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

That funding certainty allows our project teams to move confidently through detailed engineering, procurement, and construction execution rather than depending on a series of future standalone funding outcomes. With the funding now secured, our attention has shifted to execution. We broke ground on the NAL expansion in late June, and we will continue placing orders for key long lead equipment to reduce schedule risk and maintain project momentum as we move into execution.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

The NAL expansion remains our highest strategic priority because it has the potential to expand our cash flow generation and improve margin durability across lithium price cycles by significantly improving our unit cost base. The updated scoping study released in May reinforced that view. Compared to the previous expansion scoping study, which looked at a single-stage expansion, the 3-stage development approach accelerates initial production growth and cost reduction by approximately two years to deliver returns more quickly.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

That comes while maintaining the same total capital intensity, allowing capital deployment to be staged to align with project development and execution. Overall, the staged approach allows us considerably more flexibility while maintaining the same long-term vision and improved outcomes. We also made progress at Moblan, where we completed the purchase of the offtake rights previously held by Waratah Capital. That transaction eliminated a life of mine sales commitment that would have required selling a percentage of Elevra's annual concentrate endowment at a discount to prevailing market prices. By purchasing the offtake rights, we control 100% of our attributable production at Moblan, which is equivalent to 60% of Moblan's annual production, which gives us greater flexibility as we continue to progress the project and evaluate future commercial and financing arrangements.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Our immediate priorities at Moblan remain advancing permitting and completing an updated scoping study to incorporate the significantly expanded resource base. During the quarter, we also agreed to sell our interest in the Ewoyaa project. While we believe in the development potential at Ewoyaa, we view this as a disciplined portfolio management decision that will reduce our corporate complexity, bring additional capital into the business, remove future funding obligations, and sharpen our focus on developing our North American asset portfolio. We ended the quarter with $255 million in cash. This included $202 million in net proceeds from the equity issuance completed as part of the strategic financing package.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

This amount does not include the proceeds from the issuing upfront tranche of the Canada Growth Fund convertible note, which was approved by shareholders earlier this month, or the proceeds from the sale of our interest in Ewoyaa. Despite the decline in realized pricing during the quarter, NAL generated a modest operating profit, which was impacted by a $51 million operating cash outflow, made up of $30 million increase in receivables associated with the timing of cash receipts, and an $18 million increase in finished goods inventories. Beyond this, there was approximately $10 million of cash outflows associated with capital expenditure, corporate, and other expenses.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Moving forward, we retain the financial flexibility to execute on our growth initiatives while continuing to operate from a position of improved strength. To conclude, we believe the June quarter demonstrates how far Elevra has progressed over the past year.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Operationally, we've shown that NAL is capable of consistently delivering high levels of production while continuing to improve recoveries and operating performance. Commercially, we moved beyond the legacy pricing arrangements that affected recent realized prices. Strategically, we secured the funding required to execute our growth strategy, commenced the fully funded NAL Brownfield Expansion, strengthened the long-term value of Moblan, and simplified our portfolio through the sale of Ewoyaa. With that, we will now be happy to take questions.

[Operator]

Thank you, Lucas. As mentioned, we will now begin the Q&A session. For those listening by phone and would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Your first question comes from the line of Max Yarrell at BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Max Yarrell, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. It looks like we're starting to see some of the positive impacts from the ore sorting initiatives. Do you think these head grades and recoveries are now more representative of what we should expect moving forward in the next coming quarters?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Sorry, Max was on mute. I was chatting away to myself. Sorry. Thanks for your question. Max, Sylvain and the team have certainly done a lot of work around both our mining strategies, our stockpiling, ore sorting and ore blending, and those benefits are being demonstrated through the improved recoveries. Probably a couple of points to note. The grades that we saw mined and processed during the quarter are still below the long-term averages of NAL, there's increased potential there. Whilst we've made excellent progress, the ore body's long-term average grade sits above where we were last quarter, which obviously gives us increased confidence in terms of the results we expect to see during the expansion as it relates to the recoveries and so forth. Again, Sylvain and the crew have done a great job, but there's still more to be done.

[Max Yarrell, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

That's helpful. Thank you. One more, if I may. With the old legacy contract moving behind us now and moving to the new commercial terms, is there a potential to increase the cadence of shipments? There's this 41,000 tons sitting in inventory. Is there potential in the near term for a third shipment per quarter?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Yeah. Max, I'll just provide a couple of comments before passing over to Christian Cortes, who looks after our marketing for the primary driver for the cadence of shipments that we've seen to date has been around minimizing freight. When NAL first restarted, we were sending lots out in 15,000-ton cargoes, which obviously provided a more regular cadence. The issue is that it costs you probably around another $60-$70 a ton more of freight cost by doing that. We've typically clubbed those volumes together into larger shipments. It's really a case of us being able to minimize our shipping costs, I'll pass to Christian for anything else he might want to add in future outlook.

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Hi, Max. Yeah, look, I first probably talk about what happened in the previous quarter. We did have a changeover on ports at the end of June, which basically meant we had to shift towards building inventory at the new port. That, to some extent, limits how much volume we could move in the quarter. Saying that and putting last quarter behind us, as we look for the next six months, those volumes on a quarterly basis will increase. I would expect to ultimately see two shipments per quarter and on a combined basis, that should be somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 tons. We will see more volume as we move forward. Just adding to what Lucas was referring to, we obviously keep an eye on assessing cost benefit here. There has been ultimately an initiative to reduce the cost on the shipments.

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

We are following a schedule with customers, it's to some extent changing as we move into the new agreements. That will allow us to assess when there is an incentive to get smaller cargoes out there. Whether be that we can maximize price, we will certainly do that as well.

[Max Yarrell, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

That's helpful. Thanks, guys. I'll turn it back over.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Max.

[Operator]

Your next question is from the line of Reg Spencer of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

[Reg Spencer, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity]

Thank you. Morning, everyone. Christian and Lucas, just after some comments on market conditions. Clearly, we've seen a pullback on market prices over the last couple of months. I guess we could put that down to prospects of new supply coming back into the market. Demand does look robust and, at least to us, there's not a lot of obvious new supply alternatives coming into the market. Can I ask, what are your guys telling or your customers telling you with respect to their outlook for overall market conditions as you move into the second half and into 2027?

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Hi, Reg. Thanks for the question. I think as we get feedback from different channels, call that customers, call that parties that are looking to source volume as we move forward. In addition to that, independents are observing the market. I think it's fair to agree with how you're currently describing it. The fundamentals are still very strong. There's nothing that suggests that demand will weaken in the short term. With respect to, I guess, the reaction on the market, on the buy side, yeah, there are ultimately indications that we'll see more supply coming in, primarily from restarts in addition to a couple of new projects gradually building up volume as we go into 2027.

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

My view is inventory levels continue to be relatively thin and therefore, our read of the market is a reaction towards sentiment driven off a potential increase in supply coming in the near term. Now, whether that's going to come from Jiangxi or whether that's going to come from restarts of Africa, I can't really tell you, but I think as we've seen GFEX is already pricing that, and that ultimately puts some level of pressure on spot pricing in China. All in all, we continue to see the short-term three to six-month window pretty strong in terms of fundamentals.

[Reg Spencer, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity]

Great. Thanks, Christian. Just last one from me for you, Lucas, if I can. Have you got an idea on when you might complete updated studies for Moblan? Have you guys put any additional thought into how that project might be scaled or scoped in terms of production capacity?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Yeah. Reg, we've actually awarded the scoping study for Moblan that'll be delivered in this half. The key objective is really sort of twofold. One, just given the increased resource base to determine really what the optimal production level for Moblan is. Just as a reminder, the previous DFS had annual production around 300,000 tons. The resource base has grown appreciably since then, so we expect it to support a much higher level of production. Combined with that, we also want to really sweat the approach on the capital investment and potentially whether that's staged. That'll be the primary objective of the scoping study, which we'll deliver this half. From there, we'll roll into an updated DFS.

[Reg Spencer, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity]

Understood. Great. Thanks very much. That's all from me. Thanks, guys.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Reg.

[Operator]

Your next question is from the line of Austin Yun of Macquarie. Please go ahead.

[Austin Yun, Analyst at Macquarie]

Morning, Lucas and team. Just a quick question. Yeah, I understand the legacy contract going to roll off. Could you please just remind us how the price is linked, going forward basis? Should we think one-month delay or if there's any additional sort of nuance adjustments required for the next 12 months? Thank you. Bye.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Austin. Yeah, you're absolutely right. That legacy contract is now very much in the rear-view mirror for us. I'll pass over to Christian to describe the sort of contract terms in terms of delays and so forth or pricing periods, provisional pricing periods, under the current arrangements.

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Hi, Austin. Look, it continues to be a combination of, I guess, months on pricing. However, that being said, we're no longer carrying those big lags that we described in the early report as well as on the quarterly. What do I mean by that? I mean, primarily there's potentially two that I can summarize here. One of them is you price in the month that you ship, and that ultimately stays on the water for two months prior to getting to the customer. There's a second category, which we are effectively exposed to index all the way until delivery. You then take effectively the average of the month that you delivered on. That will allow you to then, I guess, ultimately figure it out.

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

If you take a midpoint of what you saw in the quarter, it would effectively match that on the basis that we are shipping twice in the quarter, once at the beginning and once towards the end.

[Austin Yun, Analyst at Macquarie]

Cool. That's clear. Just a quick follow-up on the unit cost, which has been pretty good for this quarter. My understanding is that there's a bit of a favorable inventory movement. Just to strip that out, how should we think about just the pure cash cost performance for the business? Just try to get some color for the, again, for FY 2027. Thank you.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Austin. Look, probably if you were to think about it on a cost of production basis rather than cost of goods sold basis, in short, our unit cost of production was a little lower than last quarter. In short, as we've highlighted in previous quarters, we have got an elevated level of stripping going on in the mining side of things. That's been largely consistent for the last two quarters. We consider that we've got a stable cost of production. Obviously, as we progress through those underground stopes over the next 12-18 months, effectively those incremental costs will drop away as well. It's also fair to say we've got a little bit of additional mining inventory into the system as well as we ramp up ahead of the NAL brownfield expansion and increase milling capacity.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Our actual cost of production on a cost basis actually reduced this quarter slightly, Austin, as compared to the previous quarter.

[Austin Yun, Analyst at Macquarie]

That's clear. Thank you. I'll pass it on.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Austin.

[Operator]

Before we move on to the next question, a reminder, if you would like to join the queue, to press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Harrington of Petra Capital. Your line is open.

[Andrew Harrington, Analyst at Petra Capital]

Thank you. Morning, gents, and thanks for that clear explanation on the pricing. That was going to be my first question. My second one is in terms of the NAL expansion, will there be any disruption to operations that we should look towards in the coming periods as you put the tools to work?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Andrew, for the question. In short, no. The way that Sylvain and the project team are structuring that work is that any tie-ins will do during the course of regular maintenance shutdowns, Andrew. We're not anticipating any extended or prolonged periods to be able to cut across the additional equipment that we'll be installing.

[Andrew Harrington, Analyst at Petra Capital]

Okay. No impact on pit operations either?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Sorry, just say the last part again?

[Andrew Harrington, Analyst at Petra Capital]

Any impact on in-pit operations?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

No. The short answer is no.

[Andrew Harrington, Analyst at Petra Capital]

Okay.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Again, Sylvain and the mining team have actually increased inventory ahead of that. One of the key elements is making sure we've got sufficient ore exposed and adequate blending options to be able to maintain the recoveries as we've seen in the last quarter.

[Andrew Harrington, Analyst at Petra Capital]

Okay. Thank you. That's it from me.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Andrew.

[Operator]

Your next question is from the line of Levi Spry of UBS. Please go ahead.

[Levi Spry, Analyst at UBS]

Good day, team. Just wondering, employees now, as the contract run off, expectations going forward of any discount to spot pricing, moving forward based off of the grades and just rough thoughts there?

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Hi, Levi. We obviously have a contract with Mitsubishi, who is not an end user. There is not a discount on the price, but there is a commission in the way we effectively report prices on volume that gets allocated and sold by Mitsubishi. There is a discount on the FOB that we take net of commission. That aside, as we're having discussions with customers for future off-takes, the expectation is that there is no discounts on market prices as we bring those contracts into the customer portfolio.

[Levi Spry, Analyst at UBS]

Thank you. Is the Mitsubishi commission phase, is there any detail that we could look at around that, just working out if it's material or not? Or is there any detail you can point to?

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Well, it's not a specific percentage on a fixed basis. It moves around, depending on what price and profits are looking like. I've been exposed to a few of these. I can tell you there's nothing that suggests that this one is unique. It would be in the range of what you usually have traders-

[Levi Spry, Analyst at UBS]

Okay

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Efectively taking commission as they move the product.

[Levi Spry, Analyst at UBS]

Okay. Thank you.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

I think, Levi, the other point I'd just add there is, we spent the last 12 months cleaning up legacy contracts and so forth. We certainly won't want to be replicating any of those elements going forward.

[Levi Spry, Analyst at UBS]

Noted. Thanks, team.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Levi.

[Operator]

There are no further questions on the phone. I would like to hand over to Andrew Barber for written submissions.

[Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, [Ollie]. Lucas, could you just explain how long the shutdown was in April, please?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Yeah. It was just under four days and 85 hours in total.

[Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer at Elevra Lithium]

Great. Thank you. Christian, with the reduction in the prepay facility, how was that done, and were there forward sale contracts used for that?

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

The facility gets drawn down against future shipments. At the end of the quarter, we have fully drawn that facility. It will be paid back as we effectively sell volume into the market, and hence why the $9 million that we disclosed there was the first payment that we've undertaken since we raised the funds. I would expect to see that prepay facility, if not fully paid, mostly paid by the end of the calendar year.

[Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer at Elevra Lithium]

Great. Thank you. A further question is, considering the substantial inventory we have at the end of the quarter, was there an opportunity to make an additional sale during that fourth quarter of the year?

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Andrew. As I've touched on during the previous questions, we changed ports at the end of June. As a result of that, it was very difficult for us to effectively run shipments in addition to those that have been contracted for in the quarter. Saying that, we had already shipped just over 30,000 tons in the month of July, and that effectively is the reflection of us cutting across into the new port and building that inventory at port as we finished last quarter.

[Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer at Elevra Lithium]

Great. Thank you. Now, a question on the expansion. The context is with the strong quarter that we've just had, the first stage of 15%-20% increase in production, could you just clarify what the starting base and base production levels should be for that 15%-20%?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. As per the guidance that we have provided as part of the NAL expansion scoping study, people should think of that base at around that 190,000 tons and us building off there. In the order, sort of 220,000 tons-230,000 tons thereafter.

[Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer at Elevra Lithium]

Great. Thank you. Can you comment on how Mangrove's new Delta test plant is performing for their conversion process?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Yeah, we were certainly pleased to see them commission or officially open that and then obviously commission and ramp that facility up. Probably Mangrove are best placed to provide the market with updates on that. Other than to say we continue to be engaged in moving towards combining a definitive agreement in relation to the previously announced non-binding MoU offtake arrangement as well. That provides a heap of benefits for us in terms of providing both floor protection and also ability to be able to reduce our freight costs as well. Andrew Barber's working away diligently on that, and as I said, we're progressing towards a definitive and binding agreement.

[Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Lucas. In terms of the operations, have we completed working through the areas of lower grade that were encountered earlier in the year?

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

As I've mentioned earlier, the grades that we encountered during the quarter were actually lower than the life of mine average grade for NAL. It really is a testament to the good work that Sylvain, the geologists, the technicians, the metallurgists and the mining teams, and the plant and process operators have done in terms of moving through that. We will see periods where the grades will be higher than we saw last quarter, as we move forward as well. As people appreciate, the ore body's not homogeneous, there will be variability from quarter-to-quarter. As we've seen, we've been able to demonstrate a high level of production performance even when the grades are a step below the long-term average of the ore body.

[Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer at Elevra Lithium]

Great, thank you. Christian, a question for you. How do tax rates and payments vary by jurisdiction, say between Australia and Canada? Are there any tax losses from previous years that can offset current tax liabilities?

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Okay. I'll focus on Canada, because that's ultimately the main jurisdiction that is driving profitability, and we can obviously disclose a lot more in the annual report. In Canada, we are subject to mining tax, and we are obviously subject to paying corporate tax when there's profits. We are carrying forward losses in Canada, and that is circa CAD 200 million. That basically allow us to obviously amortize those losses in the short term. We would then be paying the mining tax in the earlier years or in the next couple of years as a result of that. I would probably phrase it in a way that my expectation is we are single-digits percentage-wise as a measure of profit in the next couple of years, and that rate increases and builds up to maybe mid-twenties as we fully amortize the losses as well as increase production and profitability.

[Christian Cortes, CFO at Elevra Lithium]

Again, at a high level, I will obviously put a little more information out there with the annual report, and we can expand on that question once that information is out.

[Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer at Elevra Lithium]

Thanks, Christian. There are no further questions.

[Operator]

With no further questions, that concludes our Q&A session, I would like to hand back to Lucas Dow for closing remarks.

[Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Elevra Lithium]

Once again, I just want to thank everyone for joining. Appreciate the questions, obviously, we're looking forward to an exciting FY 2027. Thank you, we'll talk to you soon.

Participants

Executives

• Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO
• Christian Cortes, CFO
• Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer

Analysts

• Max Yarrell, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
• Reg Spencer, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity
• Austin Yun, Analyst at Macquarie
• Andrew Harrington, Analyst at Petra Capital
• Levi Spry, Analyst at UBS