Key points I have taken from this include:
Urea Market Competitiveness:
"And we are looking at with our competitors having to pay approximately $10 a gigajoule for their feedstock. Our company produces that same gas stream for $1 a gigajoule. So when you look at the input costs for urea, our competitors have to pay for 35 gigajoules of gas, and at $10, that's $350 of input costs. It can vary, it's between $320 and $350 for them. Whereas that same input of gas for us is $35."
And then going to explain Saudi Arabia as being able to produce at similar rates however has limitations as follows:
"Our competitors, if they import it, have to pay in US dollars to start with. So they are subject to the vagaries of the exchange rate. But more importantly, they have to pay approximately $30 a tonne to bring it to Australia and once you add those costs to it, they can't compete. So they will land urea in Australia at approximately $400."
Strategic Partner Engagement:
"So recently we've been approached by a very large European fertiliser manufacturer, and we're in discussions with them about joining with us at Leigh Creek and we're also in discussion with a large North American fertiliser producer. How we expect it to look is that the strategic partner would fund the urea plant and that Leigh Creek Energy would be a shareholder within that consortium. And we would be a shareholder in the urea plant and Leigh Creek would produce the syngas. That strategic partner would also be a shareholder in Leigh Creek Energy and Leigh Creek Energy would sell the gas to the urea company. So we would share in the profits of both urea and the production of gas, but we would focus as a company on the production of gas and they would focus with their expertise in the production of urea."
Hydrogen Opportunity:
"Thyssenkrupp did some engineering work for us and they came to the conclusion that we could produce 200 million kilos of hydrogen at Leigh Creek per year. That's a huge amount and it's actually a very, very large amount of hydrogen for the Australian market. And if you were going to produce that amount, you'd have to have (a) a market in place, or (b) export it. Most importantly, though, when Angus Taylor came up with that aspirational figure of $2 a kilo, thyssenkrupp also confirmed that we can actually make hydrogen at less than $1 a kilo. So we can make a huge amount of hydrogen, much cheaper than anyone else can make."
Upcoming Announcements:
Commercial Licences:
"We, as I said, have been working with a regulator on our licences, we expect to be in a position where we can make an announcement over the next few months about the progression on our licence, which gets us much closer to that commercial stage. We believe it will get us in that step where we're getting close to the full commercial approvals to go ahead at Leigh Creek"
CNE:
"you'll hear news about our movements and what we're doing with China New Energy. We are working with China New Energy on projects within China."
and
"As I said before, the hydrogen market is a maturing market in China and Shaanxi Meijin the parent company are already manufacturing hydrogen batteries and hydrogen fuel cell batteries and they're also already manufacturing hydrogen buses in China, and we see some serious opportunities for that in Australia and in China. "
Strategic Partner / Funding:
"we expect to be able to announce who our strategic partner is going to be going forward at Leigh Creek and that partner with someone who has experience already in building and operating urea ammonia plants and someone who has a bank balance that can support the capital expenditure that’s going to be required."
I am VERY happy with that..if it all goes according to plan!!
(20min delay)