Savannah Resources (LSE:SAV) — Investor Presentation

0:01 Good afternoon and welcome to the SAVANNAH RESOURCES PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this quarter presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q and A tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. Company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand you over to Emmanuel Prentia, CEO. Good afternoon to you, sir.

0:32 Thank you. Thank you, Alessandro, and welcome, everyone. I hope we'll have a good half an hour to an hour slot well spent with us sharing a bit of the the news on the SAVANNAH RESOURCES project, a project that continues to excite us. We are very excited to excited to see that we have progressed very well over the last, few months in almost, all fronts. We had, one specific front in which it took us a bit longer, than expected to to get to, to to conclusions, and that's had a small impact on on the timeline that we have talked about in the last communication with it. So apart from that, plenty of reasons to be more comfortable that the pro the project is progressing well, and we'll see its start of production when when expected. I will go through the presentation that Es and I prepared for you today.

1:35 Please do send the the questions that you may have as we go. I'm sorry that this model that we that we use is not as interactive as it as it could be, but I think it's the best solution that we have for the amount of people that that join us and that wants to continue following the SAVANNAH story. So looking forwards to some further engagement on one one on one, but for now, this is the best option we have. So looking at what we, have on on our side and, regarding what SAVANNAH is and the the major holdings that we have and the recent performance, I think we all we've had good news. We are today one of the best performing lithium stocks year to date in a quite challenging global markets scenario.

2:28 We have made our way through an exercise of regradibalization, reacceleration of the project, and growth in some of the the key markets. And so I think that this performance is worth highlighting. You will see in the share in the shareholding structure that we have a group of Portuguese investors that has grown and and seems to be continuing to grow. That speaks well to the work that we have done on the grounds. Mario, Ferreira, and Uzi, are Portuguese investors. What you don't see there is that on the retail side of things. We also have more and more Portuguese retail investors, and that includes many people from from the broader Trasos Montes region and from BoutiqueS the likes of them. I'm very happy to, see them, coming to the register and become, partially my bosses.

3:28 You also know that, in June, we welcomed AMG to our, to our register also, and the partnership we have built with them keeps keeps evolving well. The work that we're doing with them is of importance for the future of the lithium battery value chain through Europe, and I think we are in the right path. And and they're holding I think they're also happy with the holding, and they know how strategic and important it is. And it is important to see and acknowledge exactly where we are in terms of of the lithium market. We are in a period in which the the global price for lithium is depressed, and it is clear that it is remaining depressed for a period that is slightly longer than we would expect.

4:26 At the same time, it is clear that because of that and also not only because of that, because of the evolution of the the final products that this industry delivers and the interest in those final products, the fundamentals are stronger than ever. And the market dynamics remains very supportive of the development of a project that is to start producing in in as in '27 as early as possible in '27. And two numbers for that affirmation, the in a period in which everyone is talking about a a crisis on the electric vehicle and the the number is not growing as fast as they could or should. Well, it's a crisis in which the global market is growing by 22% in the first half of this year. So there are worse crisis than this, and growth continues to be very strong. And the fundamentals driving that growth seem to be stronger and stronger. We're moving from a system that was mostly policy driven to a system that is more and more also demand driven and driven by the quality of the products and the importance of the electric vehicle, but also BSSs and some other applications that require more and more lithium as we go.

5:48 As we stand today and looking at what was the market last year, we are looking at growth of 2.6 times in the global lithium demand in only the next, seven years and with acceleration from '27 onwards, an acceleration in demand that will be very hardly met, by, by supply. And, so everyone in the market is looking at us at a at a system that will very likely come back into deficits from 10/27 onwards, and that's actually fits very, very well with exactly what we are doing and with our timeline. You will have seen most of you will have seen the very recent acquisition announced by Rio Tinto of Arcadian. Arcadian is the global number three. You may remember that our new chairman was part of the Arcadian construction.

6:47 So the the growth of the process of the project that led to the construction of this company called Arcadian. So it is an acquisition that we see, from, with with closed eyes, and that's built into CEO, made it very clear that it is probably in in in their interest, that's, the short term prices remain low. And I would agree in a sense with these very low short term prices, there is more demand and thus the supply ramp up will be tougher, and we may experience a bigger deficit than than anticipated, ahead. And that's exactly when we are gonna put our products to, to good use so it will further support, our project and the financials going forward.

7:39 You, as interested parties in the lithium sector, will have seen that the CRMA targets, the revenue demand, the need the needs the growing need for goods EVs, the exploding demand of BSS, all of these things have improved the the outlook for the system in the last twelve months. And so they only make us more confident that we are on the right track and that are building a project that is important for for Portugal, for Europe, and for the world. This is because our thesis is very, very solidly grounded on the fact that Europe will require a lot of lithium to, fit, its Gigafactory capacity.

8:31 The announced Gigafactory capacity is significantly higher than the number that you see on the left of your screen, the six eighty four. But we are, being conservative and considering only that only 50 to 70% of the total announced capacity will, go through. We are also being, very optimistic about how we reach the ability for, integrated mines, geothermal brines, and, and other projects to come online and feed that system. So we are considering here on the integrated mines number, a lot of projects that are challenging, significantly more challenging than us because they are not spodumene or because they are relating to the process or because their economics are not as great and are a bit more, and are a bit harder to to to execute on.

9:25 Even with such system scenario, it is very clear that SAVANNAH's product will be in tremendous demand and will be very much needed for the European system to have some degree of autonomy and some degree of control of supply. And the deal we have done with AMG proves that we are in the right direction to feed that European system. It has allowed us significant room to support further support, the European industry and other projects. We will talk a bit more about that. We have also talked about, how well placed, the project is feed the European lithium and battery value chain, but also the the Iberian lithium and battery value chain that is being built. And perhaps we haven't spent enough time referring that second point.

10:15 It is in Portugal that you have the most or that you have more announced factories or refineries for lithium at this stage. We're talking about potentially four refineries, two that are very frequently referred to the Aurora and the lithium refinery. There is a potential additional lithium refinery and a potential additional AMG refinery down the road. For a country that is in the westernmost place of Europe of Continental Europe and that is significantly smaller than its than its peers, it is relevant, and it shows how much Portugal can benefit from the development of this value chain.

11:00 We have also referred, I think, less less time that's as of today, most or slightly more than one in every five cars produced in The EU are produced in between Portugal and Spain. We have an EV car plant quite close to our project. We have another proposed Gigafactory that is quite close to our project. In Morocco, there were announcements of more than 10,000,000,000 of investment in the battery value chain only in the last months, mostly by Chinese firms, but significant projects of anodes, cathodes, battery assembly, and the likes. CALB has seen its project in CNESH being classified as natural national interest only only last week.

11:46 So the system is moving, and it is moving clearly in the direction of being a tremendous opportunity for Iberia and in particular for Portugal to to take advantage of this huge transformation in the automotive, system and in the energy system that Europe is starting to, go through. This is, repeated by, McKinsey. It is repeated by Mario Draghi. It is repeated by BCG. It is repeated by so many, and, it is clearly starting to come to life when we look at these projects and at how many people are working on these projects. It's we're talking about hundreds of very specialized people working very well in trying to bring them to, production as soon as possible.

12:32 Our mission in in all of this is to bring high quality European endogenous spodumene concentrates at scale, to, the benefit of all of this system. And we are very well positioned to do so because we have a great resource. We have a collateral, which is the quartz and feldspar concentrate production that yields an additional bonus in terms of value of the project. We have a resource that is quite shallow. It can be worked on in an open pit structure

13:07 or and so with all of these things and with the fact that we will be mostly hiring local people, which we already are, we can be very competitive even from a global perspective. And this is whilst complying with the most stringent standards of the world in terms of how to do mining. And those stringent standards are hard to work with. It was hard to get the environmental approvals. It was hard to get license. It is hard to execute the whole project on the basis of all the demands that this stringent requires. But at the same time, we can do it, and we are doing it, and we are still very competitive one from a global perspective. This number that we have referred being in the fiftieth percentile in the cost curve has two caveats to it. The first caveat is that is that it is today's global cost curve. It's not the global cost curve in five or ten years' time. And the expectation is that as the market grows very fast, the demand grows very fast, supply that will feed that demand will potentially, at some point, become a bit less competitive. And so we may be even more competitive versus some of the peers that will, come online in the future. And the second caveat is that we are not considering in those numbers, potential advantages of producing in Europe, be it shipping or, leads times that become that become a cash value or legislation

14:39 just like the carbon border adjustment mechanism or the battery passports that make our products produced here and with the standards that it is produced perhaps, more valuable than, than the others that come from abroad.

14:55 When, building, the relation with AMG, we are building one of the first corner store now. And so what we see is our vision for the whole battery value chain that we can support. You know, the SAVANNAH's project is on the the the start left of the value chain. We're producing the mineral, the most critical mineral for the battery value chain to be developed. We are now working with the most advanced refiner of Europe. AMG opened their refinery last month. They're now going through the ramp up phase. They have plenty plenty of work, but they are the first to open a large scale lithium refinery in Europe. And we still have a lot of products that we can that we can put to the service of carbonates or hydroxide refineries and then CAM and battery plants, automotive industry as a whole, system systems and so on. So there's plenty plenty of work to be done throughout Europe in building this whole value chain. We are very well positioned to support it, and we will benefit from it. Our shareholders will benefit from it. Our stakeholders will all benefit from it, and Europe will certainly be in a better position with our project than if it was would be without it.

16:17 Looking at what has happened in, the last few months, I'd like to share a few things with you. The first one is that we have, finalized that phase one of the DFS drilling program. We drilled, 6,000 meters. We now have three 35,000 meters of samples that have fed into our our resource models or estimates and so on. This drilling has yielded very, very good results. The highest lithium assay to date was returned in the drilling program, and it included 76 meters of of drilling at an average of 1.85 or at a minimum of 1.85, lithium contents, in it, which is a great, great number by any standards globally, throughout the world. You don't see very frequently this kind of of, results. We have confirmed that your bodies continue to have, extensions, so we know that there will continue to be good news as we progress, in the work of defining fully finding the resource. But I should tell you that at this stage, the objective is not to to grow the resource as fast as that. It is to progress to execution and to production on what we already have fully confirmed and permitted and authorized to go.

17:42 The second development was on the board side with the entry of Mike Connor and with this with Rick being a bit more established as chairman, the words dynamics has also developed into being more geared to ex helping us accelerate the project execution. So I think it was a good and important development. A new phase of the company also needs to be followed by a new, board structure and a new dynamic, and I think we are achieving, that. It is now about also ensuring that, that new way of, way affecting also cascades down to the whole team. We continued to reinforce stakeholder engagements.

18:27 We have hired locally. We have done daily, meetings with everyone. We have an open door policy that is quite established now, and the level of trust locally is good enough for that open door policy to be, welcomed with the team did a bus trip with plenty of, local people to another mine in Southern Portugal, and it worked out very well. It allows locals to better understand what it's like to to live in a region in where you have a mine and where that mine contributes heavily to the development of the region, to jobs, to the the accounts of and and give the the financing capacity of the local the parishes and municipalities.

19:15 So it was an important exercise of openness and understanding for everyone. We continue to do these open warehouses events in which we now have hundreds of people, coming and visiting and talking to us and seeing that SAVANNAH is composed of a team of people who are really motivated to do the right thing for the region and that they are part of because our team is part of the region and includes mostly people who are from the region or have moved to live in the region and to make their living there. We also shared the interim results. We have now the highest ever cash balance for SAVANNAH at over 21,000,000 or over £20,000,000 as of the end of June.

20:03 We did the adjustments to the project timeline that was that was expected. These adjustments had to account for the fact that we had to wait for longer for a for a permit that is that is about to come out. So that was not the news that we that we expected to have in that front, but it's it is part of the process of developing these projects to accept that sometimes things take a bit longer and that we have to adjust our plan accordingly. The only good news associated to it is that that delay was the result of the change of governments and not the result of anything else. And as governments change in any country, there is a bit of an adaptation period. People come out and go out. Some people come in, and you have adaptations and delegations of power that normally take a bit a bit of time to to be put in place.

20:59 So it is kind of one off, events that, that generates this delay, and we hope that the timeline that we have today is much stronger and much more, executable. We were cautious in building it. And, last point that is worth mentioning is that the share price, again, navigated well through this bubbly weather. That's the that the sector has, you know, over the last months. We're growing, in terms of valuation. We're growing in terms of Portuguese shareholding and and and Central European shareholding in the company. We now have Portuguese investment bank, very established and very credible, doing research on our share and confirming that this still has plenty of room to to grow. So this is all important support to the further development of the project.

21:54 I think we haven't shared too much on on the who is helping us do the DFS, and so this slide is perhaps useful for for everyone. So we have three international, very well established global firms that are specialized in mining and in lithium, specifically working with us, SAVANNAH RESOURCES and SAVANNAH PLC, part of the same group. They they but they have two teams involved in supporting us. Some of these guys were involved in some of the larger largest projects of lithium in the world and some of the most successful projects of lithium in the world. So we know that we have very, very solid expertise supporting us, and that's good. At the same time, we are also supported by Quadrant, and a few other firms that are poachies. And that is very important because we want to make sure that we have the best technology in the world and and the best engineering solutions in the world, and that is to the Portuguese legislation, to the Portuguese setting, to the geography, to to the ways of doing things here.

23:05 And so this mix of international experts with Portuguese experts is very important. Both and and LENFORCES have a long history of supporting projects, industrial projects, through the country and internationally also. So they are also very good, supports to the further development of the project. And this is all, coordinated by an internal team that is very experienced in building projects, like this. Team members, in the engineering and the technology teams out of Perth and BoutiqueS have, in the past, been involved in, the Pilbara expansions, projects, for example, or in the first Pilbara project, in the Mount Caitlin project and the like. So, that also ensures that we are we know what we are doing, and the team knows exactly how to get a project like this into production with the best quality possible.

24:05 We have referred that the FS is to be completed, in the second half of twenty five as early as possible in the second half of twenty five. So that's exactly what we focus on delivering. But at the same time, as we progress in the project over the coming months, we will also keep you updated on developments and advance further confirmations of critical DFS elements as, as they come. So we'll keep you posted on that. In the last meeting, there was a question on, land acquisition. So, we thought we'd just do a small deep dive onto, that point. So we now own more than a 100 properties, in the concession area. You will see that the the footprint of the projects is mostly geared towards the eastern side of the concession area in the first, decades of of operation.

25:00 So the most important for us is to have control of of that block of of land, and we have progressed well in that direction with further acquisitions, but also with the acceleration of this land easement procedure that will allow us to start working in land that is not ours yet with very clear rules, with a compensation, and with a very clear and well established objective for for the work that we do over the coming months when some of the land plots are still not ours. And at the same time, we are already working on preparing a scenario for expropriation. This is not because there are challenges associated to acquiring any given land plots for negotiation purposes. It is because projects in this region always require at some point an expropriation procedure because there are some land plots that don't have a very well defined owner or because there are borders that are not defined between plots or because there are inheritance issues associated to one or another plot. And so there always needs to be an expropriation process at some point. We're trying to, ensure that that expropriation process applies to the least possible number of, plots because we continue to prefer friendly purchases, and we continue to have that program open.

26:27 But at some point, when the project requires, we will also go through the other through the other procedures that ensure that we have full control of the land and the weekend progress to executing the projects well to the benefit of everyone. On the environmental confirmation work, progress is also being made. No news there, which is good news. It confirms that all the work is confirming what we expected and that we will be able to submit the re cape, the next step of the environmental compliance process when we were expecting because the FS moved a bit. It's it's caught the recape process, so we now expect both to be done at the same time. At this stage, everything is going in the right direction, so we'll go through that process hopefully, quite smoothly.

27:24 On the stakeholder engagement, I also refer that we're making very good progress. We will continue to accelerate engagements with everyone from the villages to the relevant agencies and government bodies to the boutique municipality to other regional businesses to trade bodies to universities to NGOs. We're talking and engaging with everyone to make sure that everyone understands the projects well. By doing that, we know that we are reducing the, the fears and the concerns that existed. And the fears and the concerns around the projects of these magnitudes are totally understandable. We need to acknowledge that we, that we need to address them, and that's exactly what we are doing. And as we are doing it and as we are showing to everyone in the region what we are doing and as we are hiring local and as we are becoming more local ourselves, I think that the message that is being passed is now more and more positive and that we have more and more people that are confident that what we are doing is a good opportunity for the region and will help the region thrive.

28:48 Because of that, but also because of the importance of the projects and the urgency of having, more and better solutions for the benefits of the region, the country, Europe, and the world, we have we are happy to have seen, supports, coming from, many directions, in the last few months. We, the the future of European competitiveness, the reports that was referred by Mario Draghi frequent, very often in the last few months as an explicit reference to the lithium potential of Portugal. And when referring to that, it is implicitly referring to us and to what dimension of our project. It's as important as that. It is a project that is so important that is referred as part of the, document that is meant to draft the strategy for European to remain competitive and to remain a good economic block and a good region to live in.

29:48 In Portugal, we had endorsements by by political parties at the debates that was done only two weeks and a half ago in parliament. That debate was held after a petition by the opposition group that continues to exist and continues to make moves. But it was comforting and encouraging to see that only 14 out of 230 MPs voted to restrict our projects in reaction to that petition. It just reinforces our responsibility to do things right, but it also reinforces that by doing things right, we will serve well the country and we will serve well the region. The new government has followed the line of previous governments and reinforced the various occasions that developing the lithium and battery value chain in Portugal is important for Portugal and is a priority.

30:44 And at the regional level, we still see caution by by the political figures in the region. That caution is totally understandable, and it was not expectable at this stage that we would have vocal political supports. But the working relationship and the trust are growing, and that is important. And there's a quote here by an MP of the main opposition party, Nelson Brito. The quote is relevant because he's the representative of in the Portuguese parliament. And is a municipality that has a copper mine. And so he knows very well what he's talking about when saying that when you have responsible mining, the municipalities thrive, and the the populations benefit tremendously from from the mine. So what has happened in the last decades in and in is certainly an inspiration for us, and it's something that we want to make sure everyone understands is part of what we want to do.

31:54 We want to do that and better for the region. And on the international side, on top of visits by The UK and the German embassy teams to SAVANNAH and BUTICASH, we had plenty of other opportunities to engage with tier one institutions throughout, and we got the vocal support by The US deputy secretary of state for economic growth, energy, and environment on last week. So we added the quotes that came out in the Portuguese press in that front. So all of this only reinforces, again, our responsibility and the need for us to progress well, fast, and to the best standards, but it is important to also acknowledge that we're not alone and that we are doing things that are being recognized as important by many.

32:47 The last announcements to the market has referred where we are in terms of the timeline. So we we are doing most of the things that we wanted to do in '24, but land access took a bit longer than we expected. And so the FS phase one that is phase two that is meant to start over the coming weeks is starting a bit later than we would want. Still, we have expanded the project team and mostly the team on-site, and that was an important step. We have progressed on the environmental licensing process. We have done a resource upgrades. Again, on low end, you've seen the numbers on being able, and they're they're very exciting. So we're progressing in all fronts that we should be progressing.

33:33 And with that in mind, we will want to start building in m twenty five, early twenty six, and hence, start producing in '27 as early as possible in '27. So all of our efforts today are are in the direction of ensuring that we do things very, very well over the coming two years because they are very, very important years for for the projects. For many of you, it is normally referred that '27 will be the the objective. So start of production is the objective and the end game. And let me be clear. It is clearly the main objective today, but it is just the start of the game. So when we will start, producing, we will start to have plenty of other opportunities to generate value for shareholders and for stakeholders and for the region. And we are certainly today already thinking about all the things that we can do afterwards and ensuring that what we do today is compatible with doing more things, in the future.

34:43 On the share price side, even though, the share price has progressed, well in the last months and even though we are one of the best performing shares in the in the system, there still is a lot of value to be, that's on a p to n f comparison that, those who follow us have seen in the past. It it remains very clear that when comparing to international peers and out of here in the international peers that we refer here, you have the best lithium companies in the world. So we're not comparing to locals. We're not compare comparing to regionals. We're comparing to the best in the world. Their valuations are, higher, which means that those buying into SAVANNAH today should, be, buying a good opportunity for value generation in the future as we continue to, become valued a bit more closely to our international peers and as we continue to derisk the project and, increase, value delivery, as we go.

35:47 So important to bear in mind this. If you see in detail, you will see that you have some in some of the peers here, have companies that are European based. But, again, we are focused on being a project that is very, very good from any global standards. And so the comparison to the international peers is more and more relevant as we show that we are capable of building a project, a a global benchmark project of, the best quality possible and with the best value delivery possible from you from Europe. The conclusion slides don't bring, anything new. They're just support, for questions that, that you may have, but, they, repeat what we have referred, in, in the last year frequently.

36:44 Our ambition is to build a benchmark project with value delivery in all fronts, and that's for the team, for licensing, for the local community, for the valuation front. We're working on all of these fronts. We're working on ensuring that all of these fronts are prepared for everything that is ahead, and what is ahead is making this company way more Portuguese, way more local way more local, and make it become, one of the most successful, established lithium players in the system in only two to three years now. I will open to, questions. I will try to answer some of the questions that have come as I was talking, and, please do continue to pop few others as you'd like. We still have, about twenty minutes, so I'd like to, to use that time, to the best benefit of those, who are listening to me. So there is a question on what we are doing to mitigate any political details and our assessment of the success of these activities.

37:55 So we're we're doing what's what a company in our position should be doing. We are addressing all concerns. We are talking about all the details of our project and ensuring that we show that the project is very robust in, you in from any standard. We are engaging proactively with everyone that is involved in in speeding up procedures and ensuring that the procedures the legal procedures that are associated to our projects are done on time and that they are not, delayed. So we have talked to, a variety of ministers, secretaries of states, respond, people in charge of, of critical fronts in the all the entities that we have to engage with. We are doing that as we speak, and it is obviously a priority for us to try to ensure that within the system that we are part of and, we are, developing a port a project in Portugal.

38:56 And, developing such projects includes coping with how things work, in Portugal. We're trying to ensure that they work as well as possible and that, we reduce the risk of any, further delays. I think that the good receptiveness of the projects, the improved perception around the projects, and the endorsements that we have referred in in the slides help you understand that I feel much more confident today than only a few moments than only a few months ago. But, obviously, it is work in progress, and we will want to continue working towards reducing, again, the risk of any further delays.

39:44 There is also a question on, local, opposition and on, how active it is. What we have seen in the recent months is that the more we engage locally, the more we show the that we are open to talking about everything. And the more we show exactly what we are doing to everyone locally, the better. What we have also seen is that the more our team is comprised of local people, but people that are also of the the best competent competence and cap and capacity possible, the best. So we're not hiring local just because, just for the sake of hiring local. We are hiring people who have the capabilities that are required for the team to perform to its best, and we are finding many of those locally.

40:37 So it is a good news that we are seeing good local talents being able to, support us. And local, when I see when I talk about local, I talk about the region. We are also hiring people from the Portuguese Coast that are moving to live in boutiques and in the small villages around around boutiques, and that is also important for for the region because the region needs to attract a younger population and needs to attract more people to thrive. And we are also seeing some people who are part of the boutique community but have left the region for for years or for decades and are today in The US or in France or in Switzerland and are asking to to come back are asking for opportunities to work with us so as to come back to their hometown.

41:25 And that is also good to see and important to to see. Is there still opposition to the project? There is still a group that opposes the project. And to be honest, I don't expect the group to to go away. What I expect is that that group will not be able to mobilize everyone else and instigate fear onto everyone else because everyone else will be seeing exactly what we are doing and will be seeing that we are doing the right thing. And so the opposition group will remain. There is no project that is that is of uniform reading by everyone, and people don't support anything at the 100%.

42:13 But I would say that today, a majority of the population in the region understands the projects, understands what we are doing, and is starting to support us, which is great to see. There's another question on when we will anticipate phase two real results. There are there's also another question on the next big steps towards the finish line. Let me answer both in parallel. So we we have talked about it in the presentation, but I reinforce. So field work completion of the DFS and the environmental licensing process, these are important fronts that we're working on as we speak. Building the team so that we are ready to build and execute the next steps of the project. You all know that the team that is required, to build this project in the is in the order of the hundreds to the thousands.

43:08 And so the more we build a very, very solid team today, the more we will be able to do everything according to the best standards, afterwards. We're getting prepared for construction also in terms of CapEx financing, partnership, contractors, so we're progressing also in that front. We, will continue to work towards striking additional commercial agreements for the remaining of, the production volumes, on the spodumene side, on the lithium side, but also on the ceramic side, we've had very interesting talks with potential potential buyers of the product, potential partners partners in that front. So we will hopefully have good news there over the coming months. Then it's construction in '25 and '26 and production in '27. And as referred, that moment of production is not finished. This line is the start line for so many things that we are already starting to envision that we will talk about, when, time comes.

44:13 A view on the current trading part, pattern. Well, it is. There's also another element associated to, like, mister Archer and to it shares. Obviously, I cannot talk about the shares of of someone else. It would be against the rules. But on the current trading pattern, it is quite quite obvious that the project is better perceived today. And as it is better perceived, I think that investors will understand more and more that this is a project that will be done and that will generate very significant value. We are also seeing more and more interest from Portuguese shareholders, which we welcome, and that obviously helps support the share price. But, again, that's that's for b. I would say that the the brokers and the researchers that's that analyze the share see significant potential for further growth, and the comparison versus peers also seems to signal exactly that. So I would I would hope that we can continue to deliver value on the share price.

45:26 There's a question on why lithium and why Europe. I hope that the presentation answers that question. I am I'm I've been working in in energy transition in mobility for more than ten years now, and I can tell you that my reason for having moved to lithium is very, very clear. And and the ability to build projects in this sector and the importance of building them according to the best standards and at the best speed possible is of utmost importance. And things that are of utmost importance deliver a lot of value. So that's the reason why we're working on lithium. That's also the reason why we're doing it from Europe because we can do it from Europe. There is there was until recently a perception that projects I mean, mining projects cannot be done in Europe.

46:21 Just look at what Caliber is doing in Finland. They're doing a spodumene, mining projects. They're building it as we speak. They have hundreds of people working on sites. Right now, they're geared to start producing next year. And it is it is a great project, and our projects is as good, will be as solid, and will be bigger. So we can do these projects in Europe. We can do these projects in Portugal, and we have the resource here, exactly here, exactly where we are, and the resource it takes where we develop the projects. And it is clear for us that the opportunity of SAVANNAH is a great opportunity, and the responsibility for developing it is big, and it is in our shoulders.

47:15 There's another question on whether we consider the BLP a strategic project. And if yes, do we think that the EU will agree with you? The answer is yes and yes. We will wait for the strategic project application procedure to, to go through, obviously, and I obviously don't know, what the outcome will be, but, it is obvious, to me that, SAVANNAH's project is one of the most strategic projects for for Europe as classified by the CRMA and as classified by all the measures that are aimed at accelerating the battery and electric vehicle value chain in Europe. There's an also another question also associated to past delays in the project and what makes us confident that this time SAVANNAH can go through to production.

48:15 Well, it is common that at this stage of the project, some shareholders are tired of of the process. Mining projects take very long to prepare. They take very long to get to production. They take a lot of efforts by many, a lot of money by investors and by shareholders too, to get to the stage where, you know that you have an amazing project at hands and that you have the permits, you have the structural elements, you have the knowledge of how to build the projects as to be successful. And so it is normal that this question, that this question appears at this stage.

49:00 The answer is, is, that one. We have everything at hand to do a great project. We have the permits. We have the endorsements. We have the local community ties that are improving as we speak. We have the knowledge. We have the capability. We have the resource. We have all the engineering studies that's confirmed that this project is doable and delivers very significant value. So the more we are close to the day that we will open, the more a 100% certain we are that that SAVANNAH will go through, to production. This is, I think, the answer that I, that I can provide.

49:45 Is there always risk, and are there always obstacles to, the path that we have, still ahead of us? Yes. There are. But, the more we progress and the more we see steps behind us, the more the following steps are easier and the more they are of importance for value delivery. How much do we think we can extend the resources of the current project and if there is significant potential? I will I will not answer with a number at this stage, but I will reinforce that, yes, there is significant more potential inside the concession area. And and we know that as we progress this block of the projects to production, we will work on the other blocks, and they will deliver good news.

50:46 When are new Portuguese lithium resources to be auctioned and will we be be be bidding? I I don't have an answer for this. I I think I have referred this to two presentations ago. My my reading is that it is important for the Portuguese government to show the international investors that projects goes through so as to auction the other the other projects and the other areas. What I know is that our projects has the best concession area and has the best resource out there. So we are attentive to other opportunities. Yes. But we know that's the the most important for us is to deliver, to deliver this one.

51:36 There's also another question associated to so delaying DFS is understandable due to land access for drilling. I hope I have also reinforced that land access from now on will start to use the other the other legal instruments. And so the we I see less and less land access as a risk going forward. The the question is whether there are other limiting factors for, retype, and the answer is no. There is work, that needs to be done. This drilling also will also feed more information, to the RECAPE process, some of the work that is being done in other fronts on water, on nature, on, on observation of of wildlife and everything else are important steps in the direction of recape.

52:30 But, no, we don't see any limiting factors in our work towards recape. We do see that, there are a variety of entities that we need to work with, so as to get a very solid, retape. And so, we will need to, be working with them, side by side, and, we will want to make sure that they also work in the projects with the right level of priority so as to not to ensure that there are no delays. Was there any damage caused to the project by the wet weather across Portugal and Spain in the last couple of days? It's a it's a good question, and I can with that, this question also answer another one not associated to the last days, but to the last weeks. And, the world is becoming more, extreme in terms of weather, conditions that happens everywhere, and so it is no it it shouldn't be a surprise today that we are today talking about, bad weather with rain and, and winds.

53:36 And only was it six weeks ago or seven weeks ago, we were talking about wildfire, about wildfires. So for for today and for now, no. No impact whatsoever. There was a loss of of power at some point in Boutiquekash for a few hours just a few days ago. It was short, and it is not normal. So the the electricity network there is actually quite good, but there was it it has basically no impact for us and no impact in the operations. On the wildfires, there was at some point strange theory about the origin of wildfires, and it's in between strange and and absurd.

54:24 I can tell you that, fortunately, Boutiquez and Ribeirod Bena, the two municipalities, were not, hit by, the fires, or not significantly hit by the fires. And given that our concession area is just a very small portion of the Boutiquez municipality, very close to the Ribeirod Bena municipality, we were, absolutely not affected. Everyone stayed safe. All the equipment's safe, and the concession area stayed exactly as, as it is. And it is obviously important for us that, those natural challenges do not affect, the region because the region is our region. Our people live there. Their families live there, and we want to, progress our project to execution in the region. So it was good that no wildfires, happened, there, apart from a very small one. There was one of those, of a few hours only.

55:24 In the wider region in Villa Puka De Aguilar, it's about an hour away from our from our projects. The wildfires affected it significantly, and so, obviously, I'm I I feel sorry for for Villa Poca De Aguilar, and I hope that in the future, we can also help. Another question on how the battery value chain in Portugal is growing and progressing. Is SAVANNAH taking the lead? If yes, when I think that the question here is not on the battery value chain as a whole. It's on the PRR application called CVP. Let me answer on the battery value chain as a whole. I see it progressing well.

56:11 I referred in in one of the slides that we have a good number of projects for refineries. We have the country has the projects for battery plant that is quite large. We have certainly seen interest by many companies, global companies that we have talked to in the recent past in investing more, in, the country or in the region, in the wider region, being being Iberian. So I am very positive that over the coming ten years, Portugal and Spain, and hopefully, especially Portugal, will be successful in building a battery value chain that includes many, plants and includes, the value chain as much as possible until the electric vehicle and until the big batteries that support the electrical system.

57:05 There is a lot of work to be done there. On the sub question associated to the PRR, and, unfortunately, I unfortunately don't have developments there. We have talked to the entity in charge of the process only a few days ago. And the person that answers the question perhaps knows that the the entity had a change of leadership only only a few weeks ago, so we're waiting patiently. We would certainly hope that that process has been done by now, actually, a few months ago, but, unfortunately, we just have to to wait. For the others, we don't know exactly what this is.

57:50 The PRR process is is basically a a consortium that is comprised of 19 companies, out of which SAVANNAH is one. It has an application for European funds under the next gen funding system that has supported and is supporting plenty, plenty of industrial projects throughout Europe and in Portugal also. This this PRR application is an application that's is yet to be to be fully granted and considered. And, obviously, we, as part of the 19 entities that would love to accelerate the sub elements of our projects that are associated to these to this process would love to have that granted and the process going.

58:39 If and when that is granted, it will allow us to have more financing to further accelerate the projects. Which projects does SAVANNAH RES compare to in Europe? I I prefer Calibre. I would say that it's probably the only one that we that we compare to in terms of the quality of the project, in terms of the delivery and the quality of the delivery itself, in terms of the resource, and in terms of the economic, value. The Calibre project is also a spodumene project. It's also open open pit. It is it is being built as we speak, so it is already fully funded, and it is already under construction. It is it is a project that is being done in Finland according to the Finnish standards. So the only difference, or the only very relevant two differences that I see to our project is first that they are more advanced because they are already building, and second, that our resource is significantly larger, and so we can hopefully generate even more as much or even more value to our shareholders.

59:47 Perfect. Emmanuel, I might just jump in there. We've just hit the hour. I'd just like to thank you for addressing all of those questions from investors. Of course, the company can review all the questions submitted today, and we will publish our responses out on the investor meet company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide with their feedback, which is particularly important to you and the company, Emmanuel, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? Nothing special in particular, Alexander. I think that this exercise that we have now made a bit more regular this year of talking to our investors on an open platform is an important exercise. I hope you also do like it and do welcome the efforts. I know that we don't answer all the questions here because we don't have time, so please feel free to send them over by email to Waze or to the general emails of the company or to myself, and we'll be happy to respond now or to try to have the presentation tell that it's next time to respond to them.

1:00:47 Thank you. Perfect. Emmanuel, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session? I should now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, and all the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, which I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of SAVANNAH RESOURCES PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.