Ann: Quarterly Activities Report and Appendix 5B, page-87

@Anndy, you mentioned the possibility of ARU running out of funds during the build process - that I don’t address. After reading that, it's clear you don’t have a full grasp of how the ARU project is structured. I thought I should add some clarity here, to help readers that you may have misled.

ARU has multiple financial safeguards in place: cost overruns, contingencies to protect the banks, and additional buffers within those contingencies. In July 2024, the project’s cost jumped from around $1.7B to $2.4B overnight—a shift that ARU has yet to adequately explain. Instead of addressing the question, they attempted to brush it under the rug.It’s hard to believe this $700M increase wasn’t disclosed earlier, and it raises the question of whether the oversight was careless or simply forgetful. One could also argue that it is deliberate to hide an expansion program - more on that later.

Rather than take responsibility, ARU chose to ignore the issue. This behavior is concerning, especially when management is planning expansions, overlooking such a large amount, and then asking shareholders to remain silent. It makes you wonder what else is being hidden.

Unfortunately, when I raised this with Shaan Baccerelli, she seemed completely unaware of the issue and went off on a tangent, thinking she had addressed the question. Given that Darryl has recently hired and fired staff, one would expect ARU to have people on board who can either answer basic questions or direct them to the right experts—rather than simply ignoring them. Remember, these guys are now managing a $2.4B budget, so how does that position them to succeed?

The “negative” that @Anndy pointed out is actually one of ARU’s biggest strengths. They’ve allocated so much cash for the project financing, that industry professionals would find it almost laughable. The real question is whether the handling of these financial issues was careless or forgetful—either way, it reflects a level of incompetence.

On the flip side, ARU does have 191% offtake in the pipeline, which is a strong sign for the project.Which leads to a bigger question: why are we raising additional funds through retail shareholder dilution if these costs haven’t been independently priced in, meaning they should have been valued accurately. Maybe, they didn’t want to waste time with offtakers needing product ASAP. But, that all is not a retail shareholder issue, nor something we should have to wear as a cost.

ARU spent months organising an expansion plan without securing a single equity partner—something Darryl Cuzzubbo was specifically hired to address. But at the last quarterly meeting—where Darryl promised to update shareholders—he talked about securing equity, yet we were met with news of cost overruns and new expansion plans instead.Either the expansion was already accounted for in the project, or their previous disclosures were off by about $700M. Either way, your comment about ARU running out of cash was overly simplistic and shows a lack of understanding of the project’s complexities.

To be clear, I’m a shareholder and I do believe in the project—it has great potential. But my frustration is with the board and management’s poor handling of communication and their failure to acknowledge mistakes. When you make a mistake, own it. Nor should you take from a company that you have provided no benefit-aka their cheeky remuneration grab. That’s where the relationship with shareholders started to go downhill.

The issue with ARU is that management seems self-serving, believing they deserve more than they’re entitled to, instead of addressing the real issues that need attention.

Finally, regarding your point about who will execute the project: ARU’s downfall, in my opinion, is their lack of financial market expertise. Many of my questions have been around finances, budgets, and market knowledge, and it’s clear that they’ve lost their way in this area. Oddly enough, the CFO received a significant pay rise and 9 million shares for overseeing this loss of value for shareholders - yet are overloaded on the engineer aspect and project delivery skillset. They've been paying HATCH for years, even though HATCH was only supposed to be on the books for 12 months. That raises another red flag, but could also surprise you to the upside with the level of Knowledge of ARU have to execute this project.