Ecora Resources Aktie

Hello, and welcome to the Ecora Royalties PLC Investor Presentation. Today, we are joined by the Ecora management team. I would now like to hand over to Marc.

Well, thank you very much for joining us for Ecora's H1 2026 presentation. It was a great start to the year, very much continuing to build upon the momentum established in 2025. Total portfolio contribution increased 75% in the period, benefiting from volume growth, particularly in our base metals royalty exposures as well as commodity prices. The 75% increase in portfolio contribution led directly to a sort of fivefold increase in adjusted earnings and in part, certainly demonstrating the scalability of the royalty model. The period also represents delivery in a number of key areas continuing on from our full year 2025 results.

First, the critical minerals portfolio continues to demonstrate its underlying cash generation potential with that portfolio contribution from the base metals up just under 160% in H1 2026 compared to H1 2025. Second, we continue to see rapid deleveraging and reduction in debt. Debt as of the end -- or net debt as of the end of the first half was $75 million compared to $125 million last year following the acquisition of a producing copper stream.

And we're positioned with further -- we're positioned with further debt reduction expected in the second half of the year, potentially benefiting from commodity prices in addition to the deleveraging that's expected should commodity prices remain at or exceed current levels. Third, in the period, it was clearly demonstrated that compared to historically, when Ecora's revenues was derived primarily from the Kestrel royalty, which is, by definition, very short dated, a large portion of the revenues generated in the first half of this year were underpinned by royalties or streams with mine lives that were on multiple decades with extension -- life of mine extension potential thereafter.

I think the third point to note -- the fourth point to note, excuse me, is the strong increase in free cash flow conversion that occurred. And you can see it with a 75% increase in portfolio contribution translating to a 5x increase in adjusted earnings, and that's something my colleague, Kevin, will discuss in more detail. And last, but certainly not least, in the period, it's very clear that this portfolio is now positioned for a number of key derisking events in relation to the next 5 years and the next 5 years of organic growth that's embedded in this portfolio that has been bought and paid for, some potentially as soon as the second half of this year. So with that, I'll hand it over to Kevin to take you through the financials.

Thanks, Marc, and thanks, everyone, again for joining us. Our financial highlights. As Marc mentioned, we saw a 75% increase in portfolio contribution in the period, very much underpinned by our base metals portfolio, which grew by 160% year-on-year. And this was driven by quite strong operational performance and also some very positive pricing tailwinds as well. So very pleased with the increase in our contribution and how the portfolio performed in the period. As Marc mentioned as well, the real key takeaway here is the earnings conversion in the first half of this year. We've been saying this for some time now, but as Kestrel winds off our income base, -- the efficiency of the rest of our portfolio really is expected to come through. And this is the first time we've seen this in a reporting period, whereby a 75% increase in portfolio contribution resulted in a 5x increase in adjusted earnings and really is a snapshot for what's to come for Ecora in the future when Kestrel is no longer part of our complexion.

I'll touch on this a little bit more in the next slide. Free cash flow picked up as well in the period, not perfectly correlated to the increase in the earnings in the period. There's still some timing differences on working capital as we go through the Kestrel transition. But we would expect in life outside Kestrel for earnings and free cash flow to very closely mirror each other. Turning to the next slide, which gives a summary of our portfolio contribution. I won't go through all of these. I'll pick the top 3 in particular, which really does highlight the stellar performance of our base metals portfolio in the period. Very much driven by operational performance at Voisey’s Bay. We saw a near doubling of deliveries under our stream entitlement, and this was in a period of much higher pricing as well. So both combined to result in a very significant uplift for us in the period.

Our guidance here at Voisey’s Bay remains the same as the beginning of the year. So we expect the second half to continue from a very strong operational perspective. And some key news in relation to further potential from Voisey’s Bay came out very recently with Vale Base Metals indicating the potential for a 35% increase in mill capacity, which would directly benefit our stream entitlement here as well. So very pleased with the first half from Voisey's and good indications of much more to come at this key asset. Looking next to our copper portfolio, which we were very pleased to see the portfolio contribution coming through here.

Mantos Blancos again produced another strong performance in the first half. We saw contribution increase to close to $5 million, which would be close to a 20% cash yield run rate on this asset, which we're very pleased with. There was slightly lower volumes in the period. This was expected, lower grade mining operations. But the flip side to this, of course, has been a very strong copper price, where we've seen a 37% increase in realized copper pricing in the first half of 2026 compared to 2025.

The exciting news with Mantos, similar to Voisey's, we are expecting a PFS -- or sorry, a Phase 2 publication from Capstone Copper in the second half of the year, which would pave the way for further volume uplift at this asset, which would be -- drop straight to the bottom line for Ecora without any capital commitments. Mimbula continues its ramp-up. This is not exactly apples for apples. H1 last year represented 3 months of income, whereas H1 in 2026 is the full 6 months.

So pleased to see this coming through as expected with the ramp-up profile here. More to come from this asset in the second half. And just to pick 1 or 2 others briefly, Four Mile -- just to remind everyone, we do have income exposure to uranium from our Four Mile asset. Again, not quite apples with apples. Q1 last year saw the operator stockpiling, whereas the first 6 months of this year saw a normal kind of sales profile here at the asset. So very strong uranium price tailwinds at the moment, bodes well for the second half of the year. It's always worth reminding ourselves that we do have some gold exposure in the portfolio through EVBC, which saw very impressive year-on-year growth given the record levels of gold pricing seen in the first half of 2026. And not to be forgotten is Kestrel, which whilst it only contributed 4% of total portfolio contribution in the first half,

we expect most of the volumes to come through in the third quarter and our guidance here for total volumes remains unchanged. So overall, very, very pleased with the portfolio contribution in the first half, and we expect plenty more to come in the second. Our adjusted earnings, and this is the slide I just want to touch on in a little bit of detail where we saw a 75% increase in contribution results in a 5x increase in adjusted earnings. And this is very much driven at the tax level. In H1 last year, you would have seen adjusted earnings before tax of around $5 million with $1.9 million of a tax charge associated with that.

That's very much reflective of the high tax rate implied by the Kestrel asset, which is a function of it having no cost base in an Australian jurisdiction. In the first half of this year, we had very little contribution from Kestrel. And as a result, we saw about $20.5 million of adjusted earnings before tax and only $900,000 of tax accrued on that income. So that really is a real takeaway from this slide that I just want to point out. It's very much a vision for the future of what a Ecora's portfolio can do when Kestrel finally departs our private royalty area. The other point I just want to pick out on this slide is that our cost base was virtually identical half H1 2026 compared to half H1 2025.

And with a 75% increase in contribution, this really does daylight the scalability of the royalty model. My next slide is a summary of our balance sheet. I think the key point to note here is that 87% of our royalty assets are carried on our balance sheet at the lower of amortized cost or impaired value. So that -- what that effectively means is that any inherent value uplift in our asset base since acquisition, and I've just mentioned Voisey's Bay potential for mill capacity throughput increase and a Phase 2 expansion at Mantos Blancos.

All of those updates imply valuation uplifts in our asset base, but these are not reflected on our balance sheet through IFRS. So the total royalty asset valuation should not be understood to be the commercial value of our assets. There's plenty more value on our balance sheet -- in our asset base, which isn't reflected on the balance sheet. And as always, it's worth noting as well that of that -- of our asset base now, 85% of that is in base metals, which is very pleasing to see as Kestrel unwinds. The next slide is our debt reduction and capital allocation slide. As Marc mentioned earlier, we've seen very meaningful deleveraging since we acquired Mimbula about 15 months ago now.

Net debt peaked at that point of about $125 million. This came down to about $85 million at the start of the year and at the half year, it was down to about $75 million. The table on the bottom right shows based on broker consensus pricing, where our debt levels could end the year, which would be close to $50 million and $25 million by the end of next year. And at these levels, we're very, very comfortable. That implied -- the implied operating leverage at the end of Q2 was 1.35x.

By the end of the year, if our debt reduces to $50 million, that will be under 1x. And those are very comfortable levels for us to operate at. In terms of capital allocation, we continue to prioritize growth and deleveraging in the period. The natural deleveraging creates plenty of financing flexibility for us to continue our growth journeys. And we continue to see very good opportunities. So to have financing capability is very important for us. We have a stated policy to pay out between 25% to 35% of our free cash flow in dividends. We continued this in the first half, paying 25% of free cash flow. And the free cash flow growth resulted in a tripling of the dividend from $0.6 in H1 2025 to $1.9 in 2026. And this very much fits with our philosophy of growing the dividend as a function of growing our income. And I think with that, I'll pass back to Marc.

Okay. Great. Well, thanks, Kevin. So turning now to Voisey's Bay. I think in short, it's been a fantastic start to the year. And as you can see on the left-hand side of the slide, production levels were right around nameplate capacity. So it's great to see this asset now hitting its stride. And in that context, as Kevin mentioned, the Vale Base Metals team thinking about what comes beyond the existing strong production. And that comes in 2 forms. The first mentioned by Kevin relates to the potential to expand the mill throughput from 2.8 million tonnes to 3.8 million tonnes. Vale has stated that a study is ongoing, is targeting a final investment decision with regards to that project by 2028 and potentially with increased production rates coming through in 2030.

The second area of expansion relates to the potential to expand the life of the ore body as a result of exploration drilling. And you can see on these following 2 slides, a snapshot as publicly available at the time in 2018 to today, and that's really tangibly providing evidence supporting our view that there is very strong potential for the life of mine to be extended at Voisey's Bay in time, potentially double or more. Very similarly, at Mantos Blancos, the operation continues to deliver strong operational performance. In that context, the Capstone Copper team is considering what's next. The Capstone team submitted an environmental impact assessment permit earlier this year in relation to a potential Phase 2 expansion and more details in relation to that Phase 2 expansion are expected in the latter half of this year by the publication of a study.

And similarly, the Capstone Copper team is also considering life of mine extension via the potential to extend the mineral resource and reserve via exploration in the pit or in areas adjacent to the existing open pit operation. Also in the portfolio, Mimbula, Kevin touched on this. So I'll be brief on -- I think the key point to mention is that the SX circuit began commissioning in June, which is a major step forward for the project. And from here, within the wider Phase 2 expansion, 2 of the key areas include the construction of an ETL circuit as well as an expanded electrowinning capacity.

That would be addition of electrowinning cells at the existing electrowinning facility. At Santo

Domingo, Capstone Copper continues to progress this project potentially towards an FID decision or final investment decision to sanction the construction of the project. That is targeted by the Capstone Copper team for later this year, which worth a reminder, this is an important royalty potentially to Ecora at spot prices on average over the first 6 to 8 years, this royalty could generate upwards of $35 million per annum on average over that period. So certainly one to watch. In our specialty metals and uranium portfolio, Maracas Menchen, saw a strong ramp-up in sales period-on-period, which is positive. And I think from a more strategic perspective, the offtake agreement or the sales agreement secured from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency certainly highlights the strategic nature of the Maracas Menchen operation, particularly given the majority of the world's vanadium supply is produced in China and Russia. The rare earth -- our rare earths royalty Phalaborwa project owned by Rainbow Rare Earths continues to -- the Rainbow team continues to progress the definitive feasibility study towards completion. And Rainbow Rare Earths is well capitalized to do so, having raised approximately $15 million earlier this year.

And last, the Patterson Corridor East royalty. This is an earlier stage royalty over a mineralization that's been discovered by NexGen in close proximity to NexGen's Arrow deposit. NexGen continues to drill the deposit and continues to deliver what are geologically exceptional results. We are very excited to see the continuation of the drill program and subsequent results and in time, look forward to NexGen releasing a maiden resource statement. On this slide is a bit busy, but we've sought to separate the key derisking events in the near term and the medium term. And secondly, to group them by order of stage of development within the Ecora portfolio. So that would include the first layer being producing assets, next being the potential expansion of producing mines or the restart of operations. Third being greenfield operations.

And last, projects which are not yet expected to -- as of this time anyway, is expected to generate royalty income for Ecora in the short term, for example, Patterson Corridor East, but certainly have the potential as they are derisked to drive significant NAV expansion at Ecora as the royalty increases in value. I think the last point actually to make on this slide is if you sat here looking at this exact same slide a few years ago, I think we'd observe that a number of these points were clearly still a few more years away.

And it's a very exciting time for that next wave of organic growth, specifically given many of these catalysts that were a few years away are now in the short term, as I mentioned, potentially as early as the second half of this year. And very important to, we think, daylighting and providing more confidence on the potential to take cash flow from our portfolio contribution rather from our critical minerals royalty portfolio and research analyst consensus for this year of, call it, around $60 million to $65 million to by the end of the decade, potentially in excess of well over $100 million. This is a slide that you have seen before in terms of mapping our royalty portfolio, although we presented it somewhat differently.

We presented it following that layering to better identify the cash generation potential that exists within our royalty portfolio, but also layered in terms of risk profile. So starting with the producing royalty portfolio, that's expected to generate approximately $70 million in 2026 based on research analyst forecast. And that next leg of growth relates to, as we discussed earlier, the potential brownfield expansions of the Voisey's Bay mine as well as the Mantos Blancos copper operation. And what's particularly interesting about these 2 is that as of today, while they appear highly likely as a result of what appear to be attractive economics,

they are not yet sufficiently detailed such that these assets are forecast into Ecora cash flow forecast or net asset value calculations by a research analyst covering Ecora. So that's certainly something to watch given its potential medium-term cash flow impact, but also NAV accretion potential should that occur in the future. The next layer relates to projects that are not yet in production, greenfield projects or operations that are expected to restart from having previously produced. And that really in that category relates to the Nifty royalty. Longer term, the portfolio has significant optionality and in particular, as I mentioned, the Patterson Corridor East royalty as well as the Canariaco copper deposit, which is now owned by Fortescue.

We sought to, as we come to the end of the presentation, pause and sort of contrast where Ecora was historically and contrast that in a way to the next chapter, so to speak, and where Ecora is now and towards the future. When you think about where and how Ecora historically derived its cash flow, that was very much the case, very much derived from a single commodity, dependent on one operator primarily and one asset. The cash flows were ample, but constrained in terms of life and were increasingly depleted every single year as a function of mining operations expected to be moving out of our Kestrel royalty area.

And last, benefited from very limited optionality or mine expansion potential. And that is a major contrast to the complexion of the portfolio today. First of all, the portfolio is much more diversified across commodities, similarly, much more diversified by counterparty. The portfolio offers a strong organic growth profile that's been fully funded and purchased. From a cash flow perspective, our key royalties benefit from multi-decade mine lives and in addition, as we mentioned earlier, from further potential life of mine extension. So any way you cut it, I think what you're really ultimately contrasting is a business that historically had relatively low quality of earnings and today has significantly improving quality of earnings.

And as a result, you overlay that with the organic growth profile of this business that exists, the strong fundamental outlook for the commodity basket to which Ecora has exposure, our position to continue to grow the portfolio inorganically via acquisitions. Generally speaking, we continue to believe the portfolio offers a very attractive entry point.

So to summarize, with reference to 2026 anyways, we're certainly on track to deliver volume growth year-on-year from 2025 to 2026, in particular, from our key base metals royalties. The portfolio is positioned to potentially benefit from a number of catalysts and derisking events in our near-term and medium-term portfolio. We're continuing to expect debt reduction, providing the balance sheet flexibility to acquire new royalties should attractive opportunities meeting our investment criteria present themselves. And furthermore, our debt reduction has potentially accelerated in the second half of this year as a result of commodity price tailwinds.

And last, it's important to note -- it's a relevant point in the context of persistent inflationary pressures. As Kevin mentioned, Ecora demonstrated flat year-on-year operating costs. And given as a royalty model, we don't have direct exposure to operating costs of the operations producing these minerals. The royalty model inherently is quite defensive in any inflationary environment or periods of extended inflationary pressures. So with that, we'll pause here, and we'd be happy to take any questions you may have.

Thank you to the management team for the presentation. [Operator Instructions]

Would like to start with the first question. Hats off to the entire team for a wonderful H1 report. Everything management said it was going to do has started to prove out. My question is, how are you planning to attack the valuation gap between Ecora and its non-precious metal royalty peers? Marc?

Well, thank you for the kind words. That's certainly appreciated and is a function of the very hard work the team at Ecora has done for the better part of 12, 14 years in anticipation of the roll-off of Kestrel -- to diversify the portfolio from a cash generation perspective, but also to add growth. So of course, it's a pleasure to see it coming together and so even more of a pleasure to see the portfolio demonstrate its cash generation potential that we as a management team have always known existed. As we look to the future and as we've seen our quality of earnings increase, in parallel, we've observed an expansion in Ecora's relative valuation multiples.

We've also seen a significant change in the Ecora shareholder base very much towards growth. And we anticipate in the future as the portfolio continues to deliver, combined with the potential to further diversify the business by acquisitions and of course, ensuring that we continue to tell the story effectively, so as many people as possible know about Ecora, given Ecora within the wider royalty sector is quite a differentiated royalty company. There are very few companies, if any, royalty companies of focus with 80% of their net asset value in base metals, 50% in copper of our size and scale, which is quite attractive, of course, in today's world and particularly with copper prices, the outlook for copper being very attractive as demonstrated by near-record copper prices today.

Thank you. We'll go to our next question here. Would you rather acquire a smaller number of very high-quality royalties at attractive prices or deploy more capital into a larger number of opportunities to diversify the portfolio?

Our strategy at Ecora is to focus on quality over quantity. As a consequence, we have been happy to be patient until such time, we believe attractive opportunities that we believe are attractive have presented themselves in a very conceptual and theoretical world, all else being equal, one would, I think, naturally prefer 4 transactions that are of equal quality as opposed to transaction purely as a function of diversification and reduced concentration risk. But rarely do opportunities present themselves as clearly as this. But at least at a minimum, I hope you understand how we approach the importance of ensuring the consistent application of discipline in our investment criteria balanced against what we believe to be an incredible opportunity for Ecora as a platform as it continues to grow.

Thank you. Free cash flow was $12.1 million in H1, but adjusted earnings were $19.5 million. How would investors think about the substantial coverage of earnings into free cash flow?

Yes, I'll take that one. Yes, as I said in the presentation, we didn't see perfect correlation between earnings and cash flow in the first half of the year. This is very much a function of the timing of certain payments that are due, whether that is tax or certain costs that we incur through our normal cycle. So there is a timing difference impact to our tax profile. A lot of the tax that we paid on Kestrel's earnings last year were paid in the first half of this year. So it will be a period of time until we see that correlation working much better, but that very much is the direction of travel that we expect to see in the coming years. If we look at our portfolio generally, Voisey's Bay, we pay no tax on that. We acquired very substantial tax losses in that structure. And as income rolls on from other assets and ramps up from existing assets, we'll see reactivation of certain tax losses in our wider structure, which the 5% effective tax rate on our pretax adjusted earnings is kind of a vision of what's to come from this portfolio, albeit it hasn't fully caught up in free cash flow conversion in the first half of the year.

On to the next question. Can you remind us of your capital allocation framework?

Yes. So I'll take that one as well. So our capital allocation framework, effectively, we've got kind of 4 pillars to that. The business is very much in growth mode. We continue to see very good opportunities to transact. Marc has mentioned, we're very disciplined in how we do that. But growth is very important to us in terms of continuing to diversify our portfolio, both in terms of earnings diversification and NAV diversification. And that very much is our focus. The second pillar of our capital allocation is designed to provide balance sheet strength.

This is, for us, very important because we think a lot of -- one of the main reasons the royalty business model is so valued is because it gives a derisked exposure to the natural resources sector or the mining sector. We feel it's very important not to compromise that through providing that exposure through a levered vehicle. And I think for us, it's very important that we have a strong balance sheet, which enables us to transact and continue growing. The third pillar is distributions to shareholders via dividends. This is based on -- and it kind of has resulted in a function of our growth ambitions, whereby we'll pay between 25% to 35% of free cash flow in dividends to our shareholders.

We're very conscious that for some shareholders, it's important that there is a cash element of dividend distribution in order to hold, notwithstanding that those shareholders are also very much supportive of growth. And elsewhere, we look at other aspects to capital allocation, whether that's buybacks we've done in the past. We'll determine those based on where we are at any point in what has historically been a very cyclical industry. So that capital allocation framework was crafted a number of years ago and is still the principles that we abide by today.

On to the next question, which parts of the business are growing fastest at the moment? And where do you see the biggest opportunity?

From an organic growth profile, our copper and base metals exposure has demonstrated the strongest growth, whether that be from '24, '25, '26. I would expect that to continue towards the end of this decade and beyond. 50% of our net asset value is copper exposure. And in time, as these royalties derisk and start generating cash flow, copper is expected to generate just over 50% of Ecora's revenue. So much more to come in base metals and copper in time. In terms of how we look at inorganic royalty and stream acquisitions, we, of course, for anyone who has been following Ecora for some time, this won't come as a surprise. From a commodity perspective, our strategy is to focus on critical minerals with a particular lean into base metals and copper.

Voisey's Bay and Mantos Blancos are showing strong growth, while Santo Domingo and other projects offer longer-term upside. How should investors think about the balance between near-term cash generation and the longer-dated development pipeline?

Well, we've sought to structure Ecora, and you'll see it in some of the slides is offering a layered growth profile. So first, under Ecora underpinned by producing royalties; second, by the medium-term royalties that are expected to deliver growth by function of brownfield production expansions. The third bucket, which is referenced in the question relates to Santo Domingo, but that's the third layer within our growth profile, which would relate to greenfield projects. And the longest relates to longer-term royalties that are not expected to generate income, but certainly the potential to drive significant net asset value per share accretion. And so when you think about the Ecora growth profile, it's very much a mix between free cash flow growth, but also capital gains potential or capital growth potential or NAV accretion potential as initially as assets are derisked towards first production and subsequently as they begin generating royalty income.

Do you see copper remaining the biggest driver of Ecora's growth over the next 5 years?

Based on the portfolio complexion today, absolutely. And that's obviously a deliberate effort to set copper at the core of the Ecora portfolio. We sought to position this business to copper for the better part of a decade. So it's great to see the copper market evolve as we -- as was expected and forecast when we sought to acquire and secure attractive entry points into copper over that period of time. And we really like copper in part because copper is as a conductor of electricity, incredibly diversified across the electrification thematic.

With copper prices currently providing significant tailwind, what would the underlying earnings picture look like if copper prices were lower?

Well, I mean, I think today's spot prices are in excess actually of most research analysts forecast for Ecora. So lately, we have either tailwinds on earnings or margin of safety should they come lower. As you look to the future, the long-term copper price forecast by research analysts that's assumed across most equity research analysts today is around $5.80 per pound -- excuse me, $4.80 per pound, which is well, well, well below the spot price, which is $6 to $7 per pound. So there does appear to be significant upside, I'd argue actually in the longer term by reference to where people are forecasting future cash flows at Ecora and the value of our copper royalties rather than downside based on where the price is today and particularly when combined with the longer-term supply-demand fundamentals for copper.

Is Ecora now at the point where the existing portfolio can generate enough cash to fund its own growth?

Yes, that's a really interesting question, and I'll comment on this and hand it over to Kevin. But I think in short, Ecora, we've deliberately sought to focus on producing royalties in part because they've allowed us to bootstrap our debt capacity such that each additional acquisition has increased our cash flow, but also debt capacity and subsequently bootstrapped in part to fund the next acquisition and so forth, which over time has significantly increased our ability to fund transactions off our balance sheet. But it's important to deploy our balance sheet very prudently and conservatively. And with that, I'll hand it over to Kevin to add additional thoughts in this area.

Yes. Thanks, Marc. I think when I look at our balance sheet and our borrowing capability, if we hit our numbers on the analyst consensus of net debt by $50 million at the end of next year, our borrowing facility, including the accordion feature would have a total capacity of $225 million. So plenty of balance sheet room to continue to grow via that avenue. I think, obviously, the key metrics there is operational leverage. At the end of Q2, we had 1.35x leverage. That will be under 1x by the end of the year. Our borrowing facility allows us to go to 3.5x for leverage. So the balance sheet certainly does support growth, absolutely. But as I said earlier, I think we're very conscious of not being overlevered.

We're very comfortable with the level of income diversification in our portfolio that generates very strong cash. But we never want to get into a position where debt becomes a poison pill in our portfolio in periods of pricing volatility. So we're very comfortable with the financing flexibility we have today, both in terms of the headroom that we have on our balance sheet, but also given the share price performance over the last year or so.

What would make you walk away from an acquisition even if it looked attractive on headline NAV or expected return?

Yes. Well, that's an interesting question, and it's one that Kevin and I could easily spend an hour talking about. We won't, which I'm sure many of you will be happy to hear. But in short, our investment criteria to target relatively low-cost operations within their specific commodity complex, established mining jurisdictions. We seek exposure to strong operating teams and strong counterparties. And of course, we target opportunities that through time, offer potential upside, whether it be like of mine extension or via entry point, attractive commodity price outlooks over time, which is particularly relevant given some of our royalty exposures provide 20-, 30-year exposure to these underlying commodities.

Specifically, in terms of what might make us walk away, it could be sort of any combination thereof of the factors I just mentioned. Ultimately, when one is assessing the financial perspective of a royalty, you have really 2 key parameters. You have production and the commodity price. And so I think the commodity price assumptions is sort of self-explanatory. In other words, is the commodity price necessary to generate those returns a level at which we anticipate seeing over a multiyear horizon? And cyclically speaking, in particular, in some of the critical minerals suite, these cyclical entry points can be very important to what sort of returns profile is expected.

But secondly, and this is, I think, an area that we take very seriously and spend a lot of time diligencing relates to that production profile. And I think this is, in some ways, what that question is getting at. So in other words, the headline transaction might look attractive if one just assumes the stated production profile, but there are certainly instances where by virtue of our due diligence, we've identified instances historically where there might not be as much certainty as we would have liked in terms of the deliverability of that royalty profile.

Does Ecora's smaller size actually give you an advantage when negotiating deals because you can purchase -- pursue transactions that are too small to move the needle for the larger royalty companies?

Yes. I mean I think -- Kevin, I really worked at Ecora in a smaller royalty company. So we can't really comment specifically as to whether a larger company might have an advantage in the sense of organizational. But I do believe that our competitive advantage specifically is in the form of our focus on a suite of commodities where there are fewer competitors. So for example, there are many royalty companies focused on precious metals. There are not nearly as many focused on critical minerals. And that creates a great competitive dynamic, we think, and has allowed us historically to secure high-quality royalties with great counterparties, we believe, anyways. And as we sit here today and we look at the opportunity set and we look at our growth pipeline, we're confident that we will continue to be able to grow the business in line with our stated investment criteria.

How transformational could Santo Domingo be for Ecora if it goes ahead?

I think it's in many ways a continuation of the transformation of Ecora. And today, in 2026, with Kestrel cash flows expected in Q3, we're really at this final point in a multiyear transformation from, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, very concentrated in Kestrel in coal with a short-dated mine life towards the business as it looks today. And the Santo Domingo royalty itself certainly has the potential to generate over $35 million per year for Ecora over the first 6 to 8 years, which is more than half of the portfolio contribution generated in 2025. But that's also in the context of other organic growth opportunities within the Ecora portfolio. And that's, I think, perhaps the most interesting thing about the complexion of Ecora as it exists today and that its growth profile in addition to the revenue profile is more diversified than it has ever been, at least in our time at Ecora.

And we believe that from here, further diversifying the portfolio by seeking to inorganic royalty acquisitions can only improve this business and its portfolio and its diversification, driving down volatility and will hopefully lead to translate to an increase in valuation multiples from which Ecora shareholders would directly benefit.

What do you think the market is currently underestimating about Ecora?

Well, if you were to assume research analyst consensus asset valuations of all our royalties, so as research analysts do, they'll take the expected cash flows of Ecora's royalty portfolio asset by asset, come out, discount them to present value. And if you were to take that consensus average and compare that to the market price of Ecora, that would imply a significant portion of the nonproducing portfolio is not priced into the market. And so on that basis, given the quality of the growth, given the commodity outlook for copper, in particular, amongst others, we continue to believe Ecora offers a highly attractive entry point.

We are now moving on to our final question. What's giving you the most confidence about the second half?

In many ways that the first half delivered exactly as we expected. And so therefore, we're going into a second half where there were no real surprises in the portfolio in the second -- in the first half. Going into the second half, at least on the H2 results, our operating partners haven't given any indication of an expected difference in terms of underlying production volumes versus their full year guidance. We're also expecting to see Kestrel return for -- in the third quarter, which should certainly contribute some great cash flows in addition to the critical minerals portfolio.

Last, but certainly not least, commodity price tailwinds. Thus far into the second half of the year, as both Kevin and I mentioned, we've seen very strong commodity prices on a historical basis, but also in absolute terms with copper thus far setting multiple new records thus far into the second half of the year.

We have no further questions. So I'll hand over to the management team for some closing remarks.

Well, in short, thank you very much for joining us today. We're very delighted to provide this update. We believe it represents a major step forward in Ecora's evolution and a true indication of the cash generation potential that exists in this portfolio, starting today with just the producing royalties. And in time, we believe that this portfolio can generate significantly more cash flows for shareholders. So we look forward in time to derisking those next -- that next wave of organic growth and speaking to you about it in the future.

Thank you to the management team for joining us today. That concludes the Ecora Royalties plc investor presentation. Please take a moment to complete a short survey following the event. The recording of this presentation will be made available on Engage Investor, and I hope you've had an enjoyable webinar.

Hello everybody. My name is Geoff Callow, Head of Investor Relations at Ecora Royalties. I'd like to welcome you today to our half year 2026 results call. I'm joined by our Chief Executive, Marc Bishop Lafleche; and our Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Flynn. They'll take you through a short presentation, and there'll be plenty of time for questions at the end. I'll just draw your attention to Slide 2, where as a disclaimer.

And then with that, I'll hand over to Marc, who will take you through the presentation.

Thank you for joining us today. It was a strong first half to 2026 with the critical minerals portfolio continuing to build on the momentum established during 2025. During the period, total portfolio contribution increased 75% to just over $31 million, certainly benefiting from both volume growth as well as a strong commodity price environment. The 75% growth in portfolio contribution translated to a 509% increase in adjusted earnings, certainly a part of the scalability of the royalty model. And that benefit is certainly highlighted in these results. .

The period also represents continued delivery in a number of areas. First, the critical minerals portfolio continues to demonstrate its cash generation potential. In particular, the base metals portfolio contribution increased just under 160% on the first half 2025 and was very much the key driver of top line revenue growth. The second key point to raise is the reduction in net debt, now down to $75 million as of 30 June from $125 million this time last year. Strong cash generation is expected to continue to drive debt reduction in the second half of the year and beyond, with the potential for an additional benefit from commodity price tailwinds should the price of copper and other key commodity exposures remain at or above current levels.

The third area of delivery is in the area of the contribution and makeup therein are key sources of revenue, whereby we have increasingly transitioned our revenue from short-dated assets to very much assets with mine lives measured in decades. And fourth, the performance in this period provides a partial indication of the increase in free cash flow conversion that's expected to occur in the future from the critical minerals portfolio and streams as the Kestrel royalty generates proportionally less revenue and time. And Kevin will pick up on this point later in the presentation.

Last, but certainly not least, the portfolio is now positioned for a number of near- and medium-term potential milestones and derisking events which individually and in aggregate, are expected to underpin this portfolio's organic revenue and free cash flow growth over the next 5 years and beyond.

So with that, I'll hand over to Kevin to take us through the financials.

Thanks, Marc, and thanks to everyone for joining the call. Turning to our financial highlights. Another very strong period of portfolio contribution growth, as Marc mentioned. We saw a 75% increase in total contribution from $17.9 million to $31.3 million in the period. Base metals once again driven this growth with strong operational performance across key assets combining with a very favorable commodity price backdrop, and we'll look at the drivers of some of this growth on the next slide.

Earnings grew at a much higher pace than contribution in the period, and this is really the point I want to focus on. We have been saying for some time now that as Kestrel reduces the efficiency of our portfolio becomes much more noticeable. And the reason for this is that Kestrel has a very high tax rate associated with it, which has impacted on our earnings in the past. The rest of our portfolio and group structure is much more efficient. So as we can see here, earnings grew by 75%, but our adjusted earnings grew by 5x. So this half year is the first time we're really seeing this trend for what the future complexion of our business is going to be starting to play out.

This is also positively impacting on free cash flow conversion, which has enabled meaningful deleveraging in the period. And with our dividend formula now well established, we've declared a dividend for the first half of the year of $0.019 and which is more than 3x that of the comparable period in 2025 and actually almost the same as what we paid out for 2025 as a whole.

Turning to Slide 6 and looking at our portfolio. I'm going to focus primarily on the top 3 assets as these account for the majority of our income and the growth catalysts that we expect to come through in the second half of the year. Our base metals portfolio grew by 159% compared to the same period last year, very much building on the momentum which started to come through in the second half of last year. Importantly, that's not just driven by price, but strong underlying ramp-up and operational performance. And this is particularly evident in Voisey's Bay, where we saw a near doubling of volumes as the operation nears its steady-state capacity.

Cobalt pricing was also strong in the period, with the average realized price of $28.50 per pound, comfortably in excess of the $16.50 we had in the same period last year. Our guidance at Voisey's for full year volumes remains unchanged. And based on consensus pricing in the second half, this should result in meaningful growth year-on-year. We are also pleased to see Vale Based Metals exploring the potential to increase mill capacity by around 35% in and around 2030. So we hope to see plenty more to come from Voisey's Bay over the coming years.

Our copper portfolio was also a particular highlight in the period, performing strongly. Although as expected, volumes at Mantos Blancos were lower in the period, the copper prices remained at record levels, leading to a 26% increase in revenue from the royalty to $4.8 million, which again similar to the second half of last year, was almost a 20% cash yield on an annualized basis. Capstone have indicated that a PFS in relation to a Phase 2 expansion will be published in due course. And this could see volumes increase significantly from 2030 onwards. So similar to Voisey's Bay, plenty more to come from this royalty along with a very favorable copper price environment.

The increase in Mimbula is partially explained by the fact that the first half of 2026 reflects a full 6 months of income compared to 3 months in 2025. The stream also benefited from strong copper prices in the period, which were about 37% higher compared to H1 '25. The underlying operation continues to ramp up. and the commissioning of the SX capacity should drive near-term growth in volumes here. Just by way of reminder, we have structured the stream to provide some protections for a ramp-up operation such that we receive a higher portion of metal for the first 15,000 tonnes of production.

Just to pick out a few others. Income from Four Mile is not quite like-for-like as the first quarter of 2025, saw the operator continue to stockpile rather than sell whereas this year, we've seen a normalized sales profile. It's also worth noting that we have some exposure to gold prices with EVBC, very much benefiting from very strong gold prices, and this comes through with an 80% increase in contribution in the period. And finally, Kestrel. We saw around 100,000 tonnes of sales in the second quarter, which generated $1.3 million of income. And this represented less than 5% of our overall contribution. We expect to see most of the 2026 volume in the third quarter, which is currently benefiting from a much higher coking coal price environment. And at Kestrel, our overall guidance remains unchanged in the period as well. So overall, a very good first 6 months from the portfolio with much more to come in the second half.

Turning to the next slide and how this contribution converts to earnings. I mentioned this in the first slide, but the conversion to earnings post Kestrel was really demonstrated in the first half of this year. This is particularly evident in the tax line. In 2025, we had $1.9 million of tax on $31.3 million of contribution, which led to $3.2 million of adjusted earnings. This represented an effective tax rate on pretax adjusted earnings of 37%. The equivalent number for the first half of 2026, where Kestrel contributed only 5% is less than 5% itself. And this is due to the tax losses that we've inherited at Voisey's Bay, which should ensure no cash tax payable for the foreseeable future. And tax losses in our wider group are getting reactivated as income from Mantos and Mimbula start to ramp up also.

The other virtue of the royalty model is scalability, and this is evident as overheads remain broadly flat despite FX movements, whilst contribution increased by 75%, and we hope that this will get even more meaningful as we continue to add to our income portfolio. So all of this combined to realize adjusted earnings per share of $0.078 in the first half. This was 5x that of H1 last year and actually close to the $0.088 for the entirety of 2025.

My next slide is a summary of our balance sheet. And I make this point every time, but I think it's always worth highlighting. 87% of our royalties are held on our balance sheet at the lower of fair value or amortized cost, and so they're never revalued upwards. As I mentioned earlier, there's potential for expansion at both Voisey's Bay and Mantos Blancos, so we won't see this incremental value reflected on our balance sheet. And so the balance sheet value is not reflective of commercial value. It's also worth highlighting as well that 85% of our royalty assets as of the end of June were in base metals, royalties and streams.

And turning to my final slide. This slide highlights the continued deleveraging in the period with closing net debt of $75 million, down from a peak of $125 million, only 15 months previously. As we can see in the bottom rights based on consensus pricing, we'd expect this to continue reducing in the second half towards $50 million by the end of the year. Our leverage number at the end of June was 1.35x, which is very comfortable in the context context of our permitted leverage of 3.5x. Our headline facility is $180 million with a further $45 million accordion, bringing total borrowing capacity to $225 million, providing significant access to capital to fund further growth.

So I'd just summarize the results for the first half. We saw significant portfolio contribution growth, which had a much more meaningful impact on earnings. We saw continued deleveraging, ending the period with a strong balance sheet. We're benefiting from good pricing momentum, and we expect several portfolio updates in the coming months to derisk the next wave of our organic growth.

And with that, I'll hand back to Marc.

Well, thank you, Kevin. Starting the portfolio update with Voisey's Bay. As Kevin just mentioned, the operation achieved very strong performance in the period. And in fact, production throughput during the second quarter was actually above annualized nameplate capacity levels. So a very strong result by the Vale Base Metals team. Ecora received 266 tonnes of cobalt in the first half, which leaves us very much on track for our full year guidance of 500 to 560 tonnes of delivered cobalts and in line with prior years. Annual maintenance is planned at Voisey's Bay at the mine and the Long Harbour refinery during the second half of the year.

So in the context of the strong operational performance, as Kevin mentioned, Vale Base Metals has indicated they are now focusing on the next potential phases of growth at this operation. And that really comes in 2 key areas. First is the potential to expand the Voisey's Bay mill throughput from 2.8 million to 3.8 million tonnes a year and that are aligned throughput at the mine with throughput capacity at the Long Harbour refinery. The second relates to life of mine expansion potential. We saw in 2025, Vale announced the drill program resulted in extensions of both the Reid Brook and Eastern Deep deposits, increasing the total mineral resource. And the 2026 program is focused on both near-term mine plan optimization, but importantly, aggressively seeking for long-term underground resource growth.

Slides 12 and 13 are very much an illustration of that significant life of mine extension potential that exists at Voisey's Bay with one slide was around 2018 and the other fast-forward to today. and very much demonstrate why we continue to be highly confident this operation will see its life extended. And in time, there's a very real possibility that, that life of mine is extended to be double or even more at the current plan.

Turning to Mantos Blancos, as mentioned as well by Kevin, Mantos Blancos continues to achieve really strong operational performance. And you can see this on the chart on the left hand of the slide, whereby throughput levels are very much now at or above nameplate design capacity. In terms of what's next, well, Capstone Copper submitted an environmental impact assessment during the first half and very much a step towards the next phase of potential growth at Mantos Blancos, which will be detailed and outlined in the Phase 2 expansion study that's targeted for release by Capstone Copper later this year. As a reminder, the Phase 2 study contemplates number one, increasing copper concentrate and number two, increasing copper cathode production and with varying degrees, both of these opportunities seek to leverage existing equipment, existing equipments underutilized capacity.

Capstone has indicated that following the receipt of environmental approvals and permits as well as approximately 1 year of construction, expanded Mantos Blancos capacity is expected to occur between 2030 and 2031. In addition to the Phase 2 expansion, however, there is also potential for resource growth at this operation to provide life of mine extension potential with Capstone stating that Mantos Blancos mineralization is open at both depth as well as in areas adjacent to the current mining operation.

Turning now to the wider base metals portfolio. Phase 2 Mimbula expansion project achieved a key milestone in June, when new SX capacity began commissioning phase. The key areas of the Phase 2 expansion project now are: first, the construction of the ETL circuit; and second, the expansion of existing electro-winning capacity. At Santo Domingo, Capstone continues to advance the remaining work streams towards a final investment decision targeted by Capstone for Q4 this year. And those remaining workstreams and events of FID include advancing detailed engineering towards a target of 60% completion and also including updating the capital cost estimates, which were released in 2024, but based on 2023 dollars. Number two, further evaluating district infrastructure optimization opportunities. And then third, to secure final financing to proceed with the construction.

At Nifty, Cyprium Metals has stated that the Phase 1 of the Nifty Restart project is now approaching practical and mechanical completion with first cathode expected in the second half of this year. Cyprium's Nifty Restart strategy is split into 3 phases, and Cyprium is progressing further studies in relation to the Phase 2 and Phase 3 concurrent to the Phase 1 project. And keep in mind that Ecora royalty entitlement at Nifty is subject to a cumulative copper production threshold. And based on Cyprium's current Nifty production targets and timing guidance and targets for Phase 1 and Phase 3, we then have estimated that the production threshold would be triggered for -- and tied the Ecora to royalty payments, at least 5 years following the restart of Phase 1.

So turning now to Ecora's Specialty Metals & Uranium portfolio. We're very pleased to see a likewise strong result from the team at Largo, where a very strong operational improvements at the Maracas Menchen's mine resulted in a significant pickup in sales during the period, particularly those subject to our royalty entitlements. And certainly, we benefited from a slight uptick as well in vanadium pentoxide prices. Of note is that Largo has secured an approximately $60 million order of vanadium products from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency, which very much highlights that this operation is a strategic supplier of vanadium products to both the American but more widely Western end markets. And third, very positive development relates to U.S. tariffs applicable to vanadium oxide and hydroxide imports from Brazil, which have received specific tariff exemptions thereby preserving Maracas Menchen's cost competitiveness, but also access to the U.S. market in the future.

At Phalaborwa, Rainbow Rare Earths continues to progress the Phalaborwa Rare Earth project, definitive disability study towards completion and furthermore, remains very well funded following an equity raise in the first half of this year. At Patterson Corridor East, really, in that front, it's been more of the same with NextGen continuing to report absolutely outstanding results from the drilling program. The mineralized footprint at Patterson Corridor East and high-grade sub-domain has been expanded over the period, remains open in nearly all directions, and NextGen are continuing to advance our 2026 drill campaign over the second half of this year with the addition of a fifth drill rig. So we're very excited to see what comes next.

In the near and medium term, as outlined on this slide, our operating partners are targeting a number of potential key derisking milestones that relate to Ecora's next wave of organic growth. And taking a step back, it doesn't seem that long ago that many of these were actually still a few years away. However, we now appear to be at the beginning of hopefully, a potential multiyear phase when we start seeing these come through year on year-on-year, and these are very much layered across the entirety of Ecora's portfolio spanning producing brownfield expansions as well as near-term and longer-term development stage royalties.

This is another way of looking at Ecora's layered growth profile split into stage of development, further summarizing Ecora's longer-term cash generation potential. The first layer relates to solely the producing portfolio, which is forecast this year to generate approximately $17 million based on consensus forecast. Ecora's second layer of organic growth relates to potential expansions of operations that are already in production, so specifically Mantos Blancos and Voisey's Bay. Both of these expansions appear, number one, economically attractive; and number two, relatively low risk. And Vale is currently targeting a final investment decision to proceed with the Voisey's expansion in 2028 and with Capstone targeting the expanded Mantos Blanco's production within 5 years. And please note that neither of these 2 potential expansions are actually currently included in any Ecora research analyst forecasts. Although we certainly would expect this to change as the likelihood of the expansions are derisked and further detailed, for example, by the publication of the Mantos Blancos Phase 2 study later this year.

The third layer of our organic growth profile relates to new mines or operations that are expected or restart operations that are targeted to be in production by our operating partners within the next 5 years. And the figure shown on the page is that spot and steady-state production targets in the longer term. So you can see when you think back to the catalyst page we just discussed, and you overlay that with our next 5 years of potential free cash flow growth, this business really is in a position to further derisk our growth profile and in some ways, rebuild upon what's already occurred in the producing portfolio. Longer term, this bucket is not expected to generate income for the next 5 years. However, this still has a potential to drive significant share price appreciation as these projects see incremental derisking events. For example, from the Canariaco project, which is now owned by Fortescue, or NextGen's Patterson Corridor East, which continues to deliver very strong exploration results and in time, resource and beyond.

So in parallel to Ecora's near-term potential catalysts, and number two, expected strong organic growth profile over the medium term. We're also in the final most impactful stage of a multiyear transformation, where first, we've seen our sources of revenue go from primarily one asset to a much more diversified portfolio. Number two, we've seen our sources of revenue shift from primarily coking coal to critical minerals. And certainly not least, we've also seen our revenue profile go from very short-dated measured in years to operations, primarily with mine lives that run for decades. So this is a major change in this business. And in addition to that, in the period, we've also adopted a growth-focused capital allocation framework, which provides clarity of purpose, and which has already delivered benefits in the form of supporting growth, but as Kevin mentioned as well, allowing for a relatively much more rapid pace of deleveraging is following an acquisition.

So when you combine the portfolio, significantly improving quality of earnings with the near- and medium-term potential derisking events targeted by our operating partners, a strong 5-year organic revenue growth profile and likewise, strong fundamental outlook for Ecora's key commodity exposures such as copper, this provides us and Ecora anyways, great confidence in the near and long-term outlook for Ecora and is the basis for our belief that Ecora continues to offer investors a really highly attractive entry point.

So to conclude with a brief outlook. Looking ahead, number one, we're on track to deliver volume growth from our key base metals royalties during 2026. We're very well positioned for multiple near-term catalysts, some potentially as soon as the second half of this year. We expect further debt reduction in the second half of this year with commodity prices potentially providing an additional benefit should they remain at or above current levels. We remain focused on growing and further diversifying the business and importantly, have the financial flexibility to do so. And last, the royalty model continues to be defensively positioned to inflationary pressures that continue to persist.

So with that, we'll take some Q&A. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first audio question is coming from Richard Hatch, calling from Berenberg.

Congrats on a good set of numbers. Just one question. I mean, just looking at the balance sheet and how quickly it's deleveraging as you're guiding to sort of $50 million on consensus net debt by the end of this year, $25 million. We then start turning into a conversation where perhaps the balance sheet is underlevered. So can you just talk us through where your heads at in terms of the scope for additional shareholder returns if the right growth opportunities aren't made available to you in the next couple of years?

Richard, thanks for the question. Our priority and focus at the moment is to continue to grow and diversify Ecora. As you know, over the past years, following -- to support a number of acquisitions, we have used our revolving credit facility as a tool to transact. And then with a clear deleveraging path subsequently delevered and again, down the facility to continue to grow and diversify which very much remains the aim and the focus. We've also been very focused on ensuring that any leverage to acquire a transaction is accompanied by a clear deleveraging plan that's robust, but does not overlever the business. But that being said, in the future, we would anticipate continuing to use our facility to continue to grow.

[Operator Instructions] And now we'll go to Riley Venton of Atrium Research.

Congrats on the strong first half. Just sticking on the potential acquisitions, can you remind us your kind of investment criteria in terms of projects that you're evaluating?

Absolutely. Well, thank you for the question. As development, you could shape our focus into 2 key areas. So in terms of quantum and in other words, ticket size as well as majority of attention over opportunities that are towards the front end of the development curve, if not already into production. And secondly, we're seeking. We would consider opportunities that are at the earlier stage of development. So -- but certainly, in lower investment amounts in terms of commodity focus, our remit includes critical minerals, although we certainly have a preference, if possible and available, subject to the opportunity set to retain the core of this portfolio in copper and other base metals.

And from a jurisdiction perspective, we continue to focus on well-established mining jurisdictions. And of course, from a team perspective, as a royalty company, we clearly don't control the operations. So partnering with the right counterparties who have track records of execution in terms of project development as well as operational expertise remains to counter that. That's certainly not all we consider when we do a transaction, but are amongst the key points.

Okay. And then maybe just one more for me on Voisey's Bay. I know Q2 included some catch-up from Q1 based on the timing of deliveries. Can you give us a sense of how much of Q2 was attributed to those planning benefits? And then as you ramp the ramp-up being kind of largely complete, what do you see as kind of the steady state contributions for the next couple of quarters here?

Yes. So I think, Riley, we're always going to anticipate seeing some variability at Voisey's Bay just as a result of the timing of cobalt shipments. And for those who aren't aware, the Voisey's Bay stream is settled in physical cobalt. So unlike the rest of our portfolio, which is calculated by reference to production in the quarterly period at Voisey's, there's an additional step which is for those volumes to be shipped to a warehouse in Ramadan, we take possession of that cobalt and on and sell it to our marketing partner.

So in terms of the second part of your question, it was measured in a handful of deliveries. So not in and of itself, the key driver between the volume deliveries between Q1 and Q2. But in any event, it was great to see the volumes catch up in Q2 as expected. And looking ahead, this asset this year, our guidance is 500 to 560 tonnes of attributable cobalt Historically, the steady-state production capacity on a life-of-mine average basis has been around that 560 tonnes per year mark, some years above, some years below. But as we mentioned earlier on the call, Vale is now exploring the possibility to extend throughput, which would obviously increase our steady-state volume entitlements if they were to proceed with the mill expansion.

Next, we'll be going to Ben Davis of RBC Capital Markets.

Great set of numbers. Just quickly on Piaui, the nickel project. I was just curious where we are in terms of construction fundings. Is there any sort of more of an update you can give on how things are progressing there? And also, if you can remind us if they ever did receive that funding from the U.S. government at the end of the Biden administration.

So generally, in terms of the product, I'd say the team continues to be very focused and very active towards securing project financing. It's a great team. that's only gotten better over time as they've attracted some very experienced individuals, both particularly in terms of project execution. And so that's been great to see. The backdrop for funding nickel projects clearly was challenging, in particular during 2025. That certainly has -- it's beginning to change as a result of cost pressures, potentially structural rather than temporary.

So I think the overall outlook for this project from a funding perspective has certainly improved. We don't have any immediate updates beyond that. But as and when these are made available, we'll certainly pass that on.

Great. And just more generally, in terms of actually getting the kind of the deal you're looking at, I mean is there anything you can say on -- I mean, is it getting hard easier in terms of competing sort of capital out there in terms of kind of funding for projects that is making it trickier to get the deal on?

Yes, it's an interesting question. And I'd say, depending on where you are in the cycle and the economic backdrop generally, the opportunities can somewhat shift. I think actually where we are today, there's certainly a group of opportunities that are open and are possible, and that group is a function of the fact that there is equity capital available and there's debt capital available. As you know, Ecora can be the only financing solution in some circumstances. But at other points in time, we are part of a wider capital structure. I think -- so to answer your question more directly, there are certainly some opportunities where that collection of wider financing and the availability of other financing through equity, debt and also from the form of other participants potentially creates opportunities that might not otherwise be available. .

More generally, on the pipeline, our focus continues to be to continue to grow and diversify the business, obviously, within a very disciplined way. But we're sort of pleased with the state of the offering at the moment. And in time, we're very confident that we'll continue to grow and diversify the business. We're pleased with what we're seeing in the market at the moment. We're seeing opportunities. But in terms of exactly when and how these are aligned, that's always a difficult thing to predict in the royalty sector, as you know, in particular, in circumstances where we're one piece of the capital structure. And while we might be ready to go at the other parts are not quite there. That's not always within our control.

Next question will be coming from Tim Huff of Canaccord.

Yes. Just one question, sort of a follow-up on pipeline like a couple of the other questions. First half '25 to first half '26, you guys moved from being like 50%, your base metals portfolio was about 50% of contribution moved to over 70% in the first half of this year, which, in my mind, really good news. You mentioned previously that you continue to want to see the base metals portion, particularly copper being the focus of this portfolio. And I'm just wondering sort of from a diversification perspective, I guess, when does -- at what level do you guys start to think about maybe needing to build out the Specialty Metals uranium portfolio a little bit more. I mean, I know you've got Patterson Corridor East and you've got Phalaborwa in there as well. So I mean, those will be built out at some point in time. But equally so, you've got a lot of copper projects coming up in the portfolio -- in the pipeline as well. So I was just a little bit maybe background thought as to how you see that developing going forward between the base metals and the specialty metals parts of the portfolio?

Tim, thanks for the question. Look, I think when we think about this portfolio is construction, dramatically, we've start to build it in such a way that the commodity exposure transcends electrification. And that covers both renewable energy, energy storage, data centers, batteries, urbanization, just old-fashioned white goods. The one commodity that cuts across all these trends is copper. And therefore, we're quite pleased to have copper as the core of the portfolio. But beyond that, look, our strategy has never been copper only. It's been a critical mineral strategy. And so we certainly do consider other commodities within the critical minerals framework.

That being said, we do feel that retaining operate the core of this portfolio, given that, as I mentioned, transcends he electrification trend firmly aligns the business its aspects to a very strong fundamental outlook for copper as a result. We, at this time, are not focused on only copper. But if we're seeing copper opportunities, all else being equal, we probably would lead to more copper than one niche commodity. But I think it really needs to be considered in the specifics of the circumstance, which includes factors like jurisdiction, management team, project execution risk, returns profile entry point. And all these factors will be taken into consideration if one were ever to be doing sort of a side by side of an opportunity.

As we have no further audio questions at this time, I will hand the call over to Scott to take any questions submitted through the webcast. .

Thanks very much, George. [Operator Instructions] First question is you've spent several years transforming Kura from a Kestrel dependent royalty company into a much more diversified critical minerals platform. And H1 feels like one of the first periods where that architecture is really starting to show through in the numbers. Which part of the portfolio do you think the market is still and appreciates most today?

Look, I think -- the ramp-up in cash generational retention that existed within the producing portfolio, assets like Voisey's Bay and Mantos Blancos, that has been signaled and telegraphed for many years to come. So obviously, it's delightful to see that now being demonstrated. But beyond that, there's significant growth in this potential, as we mentioned earlier in the presentation, starting with just expansion of assets already in production at Mantos Blancos and Voisey's Bay. And then beyond that, a 5-year greenfield or restart growth -- organic growth pipeline and of course, longer-term assets.

So I'd say, I think thus far, most of the focus, frankly, appears to us to be really on that first step, which is just demonstrating free cash flow generation potential that exists from our producing asset base and also is why -- now we look to the future with a lot of excitement and optimism, in particular, given the significant milestones and derisking events that are expected in the near and medium term that ultimately will thus translate hopefully to much more confident the 5-year organic growth profile and beyond.

Thank you for that. That's all the questions we've got time for at the moment. Marc, maybe I could hand back to yourself for any closing remarks.

Look, in short, it's a great set of numbers. We're really pleased with the performance, and we're well positioned for a strong H2 and beyond. So thank you very much for your time today. If have any questions or any further questions, I encourage you to reach out to ourselves at [email protected].

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Ecora Royalties Investor Presentation. Today, we're joined by CEO, Marc Bishop; and CFO, Kevin Flynn, for the presentation and the live Q&A. [Operator Instructions]

I'd now like to hand over to Marc to begin the presentation. Marc, over to you.

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for a call in relation to our 2025 results. On a number of fronts, 2025 marks a year of delivery. First and foremost, we saw 2025 representing an inflection point. For the first time in this business' history, critical minerals exposures generated more than half of our overall portfolio contribution. And this is primarily driven by our base metals exposures, which grew 150% year-on-year. So all in all, we're obviously very delighted to see our critical minerals royalties demonstrate what is a portion ultimately of the true underlying potential of the wider portfolio in the past year.

Second, during the past year, we acquired a producing copper stream, the Mimbula Copper royalty, which has certainly augmented our exposure to copper and pro forma for that commodity, cemented copper at the core of our commodity exposure.

And last, I think one of the key highlights of the prior year relates to the rapid deleveraging, which we demonstrated following the acquisition of the Mimbula Copper stream. Following the transaction's close, our net debt was just under $130 million, and we ended the year with net debt that was roughly similar to where we actually started the year 2025. So in other words, roughly flat, inclusive of a $50 million acquisition, which is a strong outcome, an indication of the portfolio's cash generation, but also second, the active steps we took during the year to unlock value from noncore assets.

So pausing to speak about the prior year. And overall, it's quite clear to us anyways that 2025 is indeed a landmark year for this business. First, in relation to the commodity complexion with critical minerals representing for the first time ever, more than 50% of coal.

But second, in terms of a reduction as we look to the future of an expected reduction in the volatility of the critical minerals royalties cash flows relative to those that we've seen historically with Kestrel, which is a royalty that has been in and out of our royalty area and on a quarter-to-quarter basis has created an element of volatility that we should see far less of into the future.

And third, I think this is perhaps to us the most important point on this slide. We're now looking at a source of cash flows that have mine lives that are measured in decades and that compares to Kestrel, which is always measured in much shorter increments more recently in years. So this is a very exciting step forward when we think about the producing aspect of this portfolio and the business' quality of earnings, further supplemented by the organic growth that exists within the existing Ecora portfolio.

Looking back 5 years, the critical minerals portfolio really has delivered. From 2020 to 2025, we see approximately 6x to 7x increase in contribution from specialty metals, uranium and base metals. But looking to the future, we still do appear to remain very much at the foothills of the organic cash generation potential that exists in Ecora. And the next 12 months -- 12, 18 months are very key towards derisking that 2030 profile, particularly those assets that are not yet in development -- not yet in production that are at the development stage.

And this is summarized on the left of this slide, where what you see is a very layered dimension to our growth profile. For those who have been tracking Ecora for as long as Kevin and I have been with the business, I think what you'll see for the first time probably ever in Ecora's history, we now have a growth profile that's layered across volume growth from assets that are in production, volume growth potential from assets that are in production being expanded by brownfield expansions or being restarted from assets that are -- once we're in production that have stopped and are intended to revert near-term development, so assets that are far along the development curve, not yet in production, but greenfield growth.

And then last, early stage or assets where we see not necessarily a path to income in the next 5 or 10 years, but a path to sizable capital appreciation potential in royalties like Patterson Corridor East, for example.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Kevin to talk us through the financials for the prior year.

Thanks, Marc, and thanks again, everybody, for joining us today. Turning to our financial performance slide. So as Marc mentioned, this was really an inflection point in the year. Looking at our portfolio contribution, whilst there was a small decrease in the period of about 10%, that in no means tells the full story. And we'll touch on this in a little more detail on the next page in terms of the changing complexion of the business and also the significant growth that Marc touched on that drives the next wave of our evolution.

Our adjusted earnings were a bit lower in the period. This really reflects the increased finance costs we assumed with the Mimbula acquisition. Although the deleveraging kicked in, in the second half of the year, our finance costs were on average higher, reflecting higher average borrowings. In addition, our overheads, whilst a reduction in terms of our underlying cost base, the U.S. dollar to sterling exchange rate movement led to an increased reported overhead in the period. So that impacted on adjusted earnings. But we should see some improvements and increases in adjusted earnings going forward as these catalysts kick in.

In terms of free cash flow, another point that's quite important to reflect on with Kestrel representing less than 50% of our income is that our free cash flow conversion significantly increases. Kestrel has a high associated effective tax rate with it. And as its proportion of our overall contribution reduces, the free cash flow conversion within the portfolio increases.

This slide shows our portfolio contribution in the year, and I'll use this as an opportunity just to run through briefly some of our key assets. The first one, Voisey's Bay, had a very strong year with contribution almost tripling in the period. This reflects a 113% increase in volumes, which is reflective of the ramp-up of the operation as it continues its underground transition. And we'd expect to see in 2026 full steady-state production being achieved here, which should result in increased production levels in 2026 before that then becoming a stable platform thereafter.

Voisey's Bay also benefited from a significant increase in cobalt prices in the period. It's hard to believe that it's about a year ago sitting here that cobalt prices were about $13 a pound. Today, that number is closer to $30. And this reflects actions taken by the DRC in the period to really stabilize the cobalt market following a period of significant oversupply, which resulted in the DRC announcing first an export ban and then a quota-based system, which has really stabilized the pricing environment for cobalt. So good tailwinds to come in 2026 for our cobalt asset.

Mantos Blancos was certainly a highlight in the period, generating $9.5 million based on record levels of production. And actually, this amount approximates to a running cash yield of about 20%, which we're very pleased with. We acquired this royalty for about $50 million in 2019. We would expect here to see volumes in 2026 a little bit lower as they go through a period of planned lower ore grades within the body. That should recover then in 2027.

Mimbula represented our copper stream acquisition around this time last year, which Marc touched on. It's worth pointing out here that the $4 million reported really only represents 2 full quarters of production because due to a nuance in the accounting, we only recognize the revenue when the units are sold. So the quarter 4 production is sold in January of 2026 and will be reported in Q1 '26. So in 2026, we should see that transitional period of reporting for Mimbula disappear.

I'll just pick out a couple of other highlights. Four Mile is our uranium royalty in Australia. Similar to Mimbula, this doesn't really tell the full story. Normalized sales patterns returned to this royalty in the first quarter of last year, but similar to Mimbula, this is reported based on cash sales. So the $2.2 million really only represents 3 full quarters of production here in the period. So we should see some revenue growth to come in 2026 based on more normalized levels of sales.

Looking further down, it's worth remembering we do have some gold exposure in the portfolio through our EVBC gold royalty. which generated $3.2 million in the period based on very strong gold price environment, which again shows the virtues of a diversified royalty portfolio, certainly diversification across commodities. The operator here has signaled that there's reserve potential for a further 5 years. So good to have some gold price exposure in the portfolio in a strong gold price environment.

And finally, Kestrel, which is now nearing the end of its economic life for Ecora. Kestrel met guidance in the period, although reported income was down. This is due to average coking coal prices being down around 35% in the period. The midpoint guidance for tonnage next year is about 1.1 million tonnes. And thereafter, Kestrel really starts its transition outside of the group's private royalty area.

But the key takeaway from this slide, certainly, as Marc alluded to, is the quality of the earnings now within the portfolio. So if we look at our base metals portfolio, which was up 150% in the year, many of these assets have reserve lives that go into decades. And if we compare that to Kestrel at the bottom, which now has only about 2 or 3 years left, that really does show the potential and the cash flow potential to be generated from our core assets going forward.

So to show you how the portfolio contribution, along with some portfolio initiatives has resulted in our meaningful deleverage in the second half of the year. This slide really shows it. The portfolio contribution, which is cash flow number of $55 million, really accelerated our deleveraging in the second half of the year.

Looking at our capital allocation priorities, growth still remains our firm focus, and we were very pleased on that basis to acquire the Mimbula stream about a year ago for $50 million. At the time of doing that, we increased our borrowing facility to $180 million. And a lot of the conviction that we had to take on that additional debt was the visibility that we had in the near-term cash flow potential from our portfolio, along with some of the initiatives that we undertook subsequent to the acquisition to bring down our deleveraging.

Amongst those, we accelerated the remaining contingent payments associated with our Narrabri thermal coal royalty disposal a number of years ago. And we also took the opportunity to dispose of our noncore Dugbe gold royalty in the middle of last year. Both of those actions realized $28 million, which effectively refinanced over 50% of the Mimbula transaction and brought our net debt down to the end of the year to similar levels to the beginning.

To remind everyone about our dividends, we paid close to $7 million in dividends in 2025, which represents about $0.0281 per share on a cash basis. With our year-end results, we've proposed a final dividend of $0.014 for the final dividend, which combined with the interim dividend would bring a final dividend -- or sorry, a total dividend for 2025 to $0.02 per share.

And I think it's very important in the context of our net debt to look at the table on the bottom right of the screen. This is a table we like to include to show based on guidance that's in the public domain or the guidance that we provide when applied to consensus price forecasts shows a path to deleveraging to the end of 2026 to $53 million from $85 million at the beginning and bringing this down further to $27 million by the end of 2027. At those levels, our debt position is very comfortable. We're very comfortably within our debt covenant limits. And with a $180 million debt facility provides a significant financing flexibility to continue adding to our royalty portfolio.

And with that, I'll hand back to Marc.

Thank you, Kevin. Well, all in all, I think looking across the suite of our commodities during 2025 and to some degree, through carrying forward to the start of 2026, we've seen a really strong performance across the board. Copper, cobalt, uranium, rare earths, nickel all performed quite well. I think met coal was slightly soft over the course of last year, although we've seen that rebound to levels in early 2026 that are historically in line with averages.

And one of the strongest performers, which has followed -- which is delightful to see following our acquisition of the Phalaborwa rare earth royalty, our rare earth prices, which performed exceptionally strongly in 2025, in part is becoming part of a geopolitical negotiating tool between China and the United States is in relation to tariff and trade policy.

From a volume perspective, looking ahead at 2026, overall, from our base metals exposures, we anticipate volume growth. Mimbula is expected to continue to ramp up towards an expanded nameplate production capacity rate. Voisey's Bay, likewise expected to continue to ramp up towards nameplate throughput levels. As Kevin mentioned, Mantos Blancos production is expected to be slightly softer this year as mining goes through a lower ore head grade portion of the ore body and is expected to normalize in the future. Otherwise, overall, we anticipate other than Kestrel, where you expect roughly half the volumes overall continued volume growth in our critical minerals.

I think we've touched on the key points here at Voisey's, but just taking a moment to touch on a few additional points. Year-on-year, we'd expect 12% to 25% volume growth at Voisey's. And touching on something that we've always highlighted as being very likely at Voisey's is the life of mine expansion that we've seen here, where the volume extended to 2044.

And more recently, we've seen as part of Vale's Base Metals Day in late March, additional disclosures in relation to the Voisey's Bay ore body and to the likely and possibility life of mine expansion potential that exists, which is significant and really underscores what we've been indicating for many years is a possible of multi-decade life of mine expansion potential at Voisey's Bay in excess to the existing life of mine that already runs towards the end of the next decade.

We touched on most of the key points at Mantos Blancos. So just zooming in on one on the far right, and that's the Phase 2 expansion study. I think we're delighted to have seen record performance in the last year. And in addition to what were very high levels last year, there's -- Capstone has alluded to the potential to increase production to potentially 100,000 tonnes compared to production last year and just above 60,000 tonnes of copper. That feasibility study in relation to Phase 2 is expected later this year.

And we're very excited for that to be released. We think that's the key next step to demonstrate the value upside of this royalty. And as of yet, with the benefit of that further detail, hopefully, that will provide sufficient financial figures and forecast for Ecora research analysts to include this potential value in our revenue forecast, but also our net asset value estimates as well.

I think we've touched on the key wins on this slide. So I won't touch in too much detail on any other than to just pick out one, which is the Cañariaco royalty. And that's specifically the key point to flag is the Fortescue, the multibillion-dollar iron ore and future-facing commodity mineral royalty company out of Australia has acquired control of this project, which is an incredible step forward in terms of the projects, our operating partner quality and capability to develop this project in the future.

So bringing it all together for our base metals exposures, I think what this slide clearly demonstrates is that following the Mimbula acquisition last year, we have roughly doubled our attributable annual copper production solely with the Mimbula acquisition, which is a great step forward. And beyond that, with the existing assets in our portfolio, Ecora offers a copper pipeline to more than quadruple our attributable copper in this decade and the next. So all in all, while we really do feel that this slide highlights how we've cemented copper at the core of our portfolio that's fully paid for and that is amongst, if not the leading organic copper growth profile of any royalty company.

Turning to key assets in the specialty metals and uranium side at Phalaborwa and over the course of the past 12 to 18 months, we've seen a number of key derisking milestones that continue to position this project for the publication of a feasibility study and subsequently a financing process. We've seen strong increases in underlying rare earth prices over the last 12 to 18 months.

And turning on the uranium side, I think it's difficult to categorize the exploration program at Patterson Corridor East as anything other than geologically exceptional. NexGen is targeting a program in 2026 to further build upon last year's program, and we're very excited to update you soon and hopefully with some very continued positive news on further progress.

Kevin mentioned that this was expected to be our final year of material contribution from Kestrels and you can see why on the map on the right hand of this slide. Over the course of this year, we expect roughly half of the volumes from the prior year. And then beyond that, sort of a tail between a few hundred thousand to 500,000 tonnes between 2027 to the end of the decade.

And then last, at EVBC, as a result of strong gold prices, we've seen our operator partner, Orvana communicate the possibility to continue with EVBC in production towards the end of this decade. Should that be the case, carrying this asset well past its originally expected mine life and potentially benefiting Ecora from further upside and participation in what has been a very strong gold price backdrop.

So bringing it all together in terms of key points, I think, number one, we anticipate further volume growth from our key base metals royalties in 2026. We anticipate a number of key potential derisking or project development milestones in relation to some near production development royalties that we're very looking forward to and hopefully, we'll be able to update you in relation to on our next call.

Commodity prices have demonstrated a level of volatility year-to-date 2026. Nevertheless, remain at historically elevated levels. And should they remain at these levels, combined with the operator -- our operator partner volume guidance, we anticipate further rapid deleveraging, which positions the business very well for further growth and diversification.

And last and certainly not least, I think the royalty model as it stands is very defensively positioned to the continued inflationary pressures that we see in the market today, more recently as a consequence of a conflict in the middle in our end, but have persisted for a variety of factors for the past 5 or 6 years at a minimum, if not more.

So looking ahead, we do genuinely feel that Ecora is probably at the best it's ever been with a platform of key royalties generating from the producing side, generating income that's expected to run decades with a number demonstrating only a small portion of the portfolio's true longer-term underlying cash generation potential. And over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, we hope to see further derisking events that will further underpin that next wave of growth in this business and its portfolio.

So with that, we thank you for joining us, and we're happy to take any questions you may have.

Thank you so much to Marc and Kevin for the presentation. We've had a number of questions that have been pre-submitted and also submitted live. [Operator Instructions] But the first question that we have is, you're talking quite positively about the year, but when I look at the numbers, it feels mixed. What am I missing?

Well, I think when you look at the numbers, you are correct to see certain parts of our portfolio performing in diverging ways. So for example, further volume growth from our base metals assets. We anticipate some degree of volume growth from our specialty metals, for example, Four Mile. Gold on the back of -- on the expected volume from our legacy exposure to EVBC, expect some form of price tailwinds. And where you'd expect to see some form of downside relative to last year is specifically the Kestrel met coal royalty. So overall, you're expecting stronger contribution from the critical minerals and offsetting a weaker contribution from the legacy met coal exposure.

I think -- just to add to that, I think you are -- if you're looking at 2025 in isolation, you are missing the nuance of the Four Mile and the Mimbula assets, which don't represent a full run rate in the period. And also, you've got a blended average price of Voisey's Bay, which is much, much lower than what we currently have and what's expected to be for 2026.

The next question, you kindly provided a little bit further clarification on the following. So the expected time line for revenue growth from newly acquired assets, e.g. copper streams and base metals. And maybe you could include the Mimbula deal. It sounds good, but when will we see cash flow through? I know that has been sort of covered in the presentation, but maybe anything you want to add on that?

So I think the first thing I'd point anyone to -- I think for -- in terms of time lines and additional details on the portfolio, I'd encourage you to review this slide, which gives you an indication of what key events are expected when. And in terms of Mimbula. Mimbula is in production. Mimbula contributed to our earnings profile last year. And the Mimbula asset is expected to continue to demonstrate volume growth over the course of 2026 in addition to production that was -- to which we received as part of our stream following the acquisition last year.

Now you described this as the first year for critical minerals represent a major majority of your portfolio contribution. Is there a target split you're managing towards? And what does the ideal portfolio look like in 3 to 5 years?

If you look to the future in 5 years and working -- why don't we start that and work backwards. Based on the NAV, the portfolio's NAV and the development milestones as communicated by our operator partners, the #1 exposure as a percentage of NAV, but also revenue in 5 years is expected to be copper. Secondly, it would be base metals. And then more widely, you'd have in the suite of critical minerals, uranium and vanadium and rare earths as a smaller portion of the total.

When we look to the future as sort of an optimal portfolio structuring, our intent is very much to keep the core of the portfolio in base metals, and we've been very deliberate in targeting copper as our core commodity exposure. We certainly will consider the wider suite of critical minerals. But even then in that context, our strategy and our desire is to retain copper as a core commodity exposure.

Thanks, Marc. Your position in Largo Resources still stands today. What is your outlook and interest in Cañariaco Copper Project in Peru?

So we touched on this briefly in the presentation. Cañariaco, if I understand the question correctly, was recently acquired by Fortescue, which is, as I mentioned, a fantastic counterparty, very well capitalized, very experienced in the mining sector, has the capability to develop this type of project in time, both the wherewithal, financial experience, execution capability. I think this is an asset that historically has not garnered a huge amount of attention in the Ecora portfolio.

I think the -- hopefully, following the acquisition by Fortescue, it will. It's an asset that has the potential to generate substantial income for us in time for many decades with enormous prospectivity beyond what's already been drilled out and evaluated in the resource. So it's something that we're excited about. And hopefully, we'll see more from Fortescue as they further explore and develop this asset and move it up the development curve in the next 12, 18, 24, 36 months.

Now the next question. The top 5 ranked critical minerals according to the latest watch list from the Critical Minerals Institute are copper, gallium, tungsten, uranium and rare earth elements. As it stands, your portfolio has significant exposure to copper, which looks like will increase further, which is great.

However, I understand your exposure to the rest, top 5 is currently rather insignificant. Uranium and rare earth elements is no more than 10% of the portfolio. And apparently, you have no exposure to gallium and tungsten. Other interesting metals you seemingly have no exposure to are lithium, palladium and aluminum. Could you expand on your plans for exposure to future-facing critical minerals other than copper?

Yes. So look, I think the first thing to note here is that when we think about our commodity selection, and when you think about constructing a portfolio, we've taken careful steps to keep the core of our NAV in commodities that have very deep, deep markets and very much to the degree possible that are less impacted by small changes in supply and demand.

And I think certain critical minerals, which certainly small -- as a smaller percentage of NAV could be interesting to Ecora as it could have a disproportionate impact should they be too large a percentage of NAV, but just by virtue of small changes in supply and demand in very small markets can have very outsized impact on price swings.

So what we've sought to do is build a portfolio that, in aggregate, offsets the volatility and diversifies commodity price movements from one commodity to another. And by no means do we feel that the commodity exposure we have today is complete. We would certainly consider and evaluate many other commodities in addition to those we have exposure to, some of which we've evaluated that have already been named. But really, that being said, our core strategy still remains within the context of having a diversified portfolio of critical minerals to retain copper at the core.

Thank you. A similar type of question that's coming out here, but maybe if you want to expand a little bit more, Ecora has repositioned towards future-facing commodities. How do you decide the optimal balance between bulk commodities like coal and iron ore and transition metals like copper, stroke nickel?

I think the question in some ways, is a function of the expected longer-term supply-demand balance for those commodities and the outlook for those commodities over multiple decades. I think you can certainly make the case that the outlook over 2, 3 to 4 decades for copper is much stronger than iron ore -- or excuse me, is certainly much stronger than steelmaking coal and in part why we've allocated the portfolio away from its legacy in coal towards commodities that are expected to perform much more strongly over multiple decades.

And secondly, typically trade at much higher valuation multiples. So in that sense, allocating cash flows from coal, which trades at low valuation multiples to buy royalties and commodities that trade at much higher valuation multiples is actually a very accretive way to grow the portfolio. And since we've seen even in the last 5 years, when you look at Ecora's trading multiples as the balance of the portfolio cash flow has diverged towards critical minerals, you have seen multiple expansion. And that's something that we think in time will be very accretive for our shareholders and has already demonstrated that it's the case in part.

In terms of the entry point beyond that, I think one of the advantages of having a broader suite of commodities is you do have some flexibility to move between underlying commodities depending on where those are in their commodity price cycles. So in other words, if commodity price A is very expensive, you could pivot and look laterally at commodity price -- at commodity B, which may offer a more attractive entry point.

But underneath it all, when we choose commodities, it's fundamentally driven by a long-term analysis of supply-demand balances and what are underlying long-term trends to try to position this portfolio to strong trends that ultimately we hope will benefit in pricing exceeding our investment cases at the time of making the investment.

Next question, are you seeing plenty of opportunities out there? Or are good deals getting harder to find?

Yes. This is a pretty frequent question. And I think over time, we've to date anyways, consistently found opportunities. I think we look to the future with confidence. I think there's a clear need for capital. And I think there's a very clear need for the development and incremental supply in light of the demand growth trends we -- that are expected and we're seeing to date.

So when we look at our investable universe, we do sense that we're investing into a demand -- a market that has a growing demand and a growing need for capital, which I think is quite positive. And look, I think as a group, we've always advocated patience is key, maintaining our investment -- our discipline and sticking to our investment criteria is key. So I think we -- as we've always done, be very patient and wait for the right opportunity to come along.

That being said, we look to the future with confidence and feel as though we have every confidence that in time, we'll be able to continue to grow the business.

Next question, what is the impact the Middle East conflict is having on Ecora now and potentially in the future?

It's something, obviously, we've been monitoring very carefully. I think to date, very difficult to see any direct implication, and that's something that we've looked at in our portfolio, but also in terms of engagement with our operator partners. Depending on the length of the conflict, the ultimate form of the conflict, the disruption to global markets, the conflict may or may not eventuate. It's very difficult to assess exactly how it could impact Ecora other than to say this is something that we're clearly monitoring. There's -- obviously, there's the impact from energy and the availability of diesel in the mining sector.

But also there's an impact on the availability of sulfur as a precursor to sulfuric acid, which is an important reagent or chemical used in, for example, nickel, copper to some degree, sort of SXEW operations, uranium, cobalt to a degree. So yes, I think globally, it's far beyond just the impact of energy. In some instances, it could create issues for some producers, but the exact impact to Ecora, if any, is we'll have to continue to monitor and evaluate as things progress.

Next question. Net debt peaked at USD 124.6 million in Q2 2025 and stood at USD 85.5 million at the year-end. What's your target leverage level? And at what point do you feel comfortable returning to a more active acquisition strategy?

Yes, I'll take that one. I think we don't necessarily have a target level of net debt in the business. I think one of the real virtues of the royalty model is that it does provide a derisked way of gaining exposure to the mining industry. I think to provide that through an overlevered structure dilute some of that virtue.

Over the past number of years, we have leveraged our cash flows in order to continue our acquisition journey. We've deployed well over $0.5 billion in that period. But we've always done so with a view to the level of confidence that we've had in the cash being generated from the business to take those levels down to very manageable levels.

Most recently was the Mimbula acquisition, where we did increase our leverage as the question rightly points out. But we have some initiatives to bring that down reasonably quickly. And I think if you look at our projections for 2026, based on consensus price forecast, that would bring our leverage -- operational leverage ratio down to about 1x at the end of the year. Those are very comfortable levels, but we don't necessarily have a targeted level of debt that we are comfortable with our operational leverage.

Our debt facility is $180 million. We've got a further $40 million through an accordion feature to put on top of that for the right acquisitions. So if we're seeing a path through to about $50 million of net debt by the end of the year, that leaves us a lot of headroom under that facility in order to continue the growth ambitions.

Have the management looked at increasing the 20% to 25% -- sorry, 25% to 35% dividend payout ratio as the latest dividends have been very disappointing with shareholders receiving only about 23% of what they received 3 years ago?

Should I take that? I'll take that. I think the capital allocation adjustments that were made a number of years ago was very much in the context of the pivot that we are now experiencing. If we look at where we were, we had an asset in Kestrel running off. And that asset itself had a lot of volatility.

So I think where we are now with the growth profile we have in the business, I think it's very important for us that dividend growth is a function of free cash flow growth. And I think we have enough visibility on that going forward to see a path to dividend growth coming in that way. At present, we're comfortable with the 25% to 35% payout range as our assets continue to show their potential.

Are there specific geographies or operators you're prioritizing or avoiding?

I think generally, our investment criteria is to target well-established mining jurisdictions and high-quality ore bodies and established operators. So that has been our focus historically, and that continues to be our focus for the future.

And where do you think Ecora has a structural advantage that isn't yet reflected in the valuation?

I don't think it's any -- I think the share price at Ecora has obviously performed very strongly in the last 12 -- in the last, call it, 12 months. However, even then, the company trades relative to other royalty companies at quite a big discount. And I think the opportunity for investors that we're very excited about as shareholders of Ecora, Kevin and I, is the opportunity to -- for our revenue complexion to shift from, number one, short-dated cash flows at Kestrel to number two, to multi-decade royalties; and number two (sic) [ three ] to commodities in critical minerals that trade at much higher valuation multiples.

When you combine those 2 together, there's enormous potential in the Ecora portfolio that is not reflected in the share price today. And thus, we're very excited for this next phase of growth in Ecora organically, but also as we look to acquire more royalties and diversify our sources of income.

What opportunities are there for direct or indirect investment participation available to international investors?

I would say -- well, Ecora has a number of listings. So we're listed on the London Stock Exchange on the ticker ECOR. Ecora is listed on the TSX. The ticker is ECOR. And you can also trade via the OTCQX platform if you're based in the U.S. and would like to sell in U.S. business hours. The ticker there is ECRAF.

And what do you think the market is missing in your valuation today? And what needs to happen for the gap to close?

Well, it's amazing what 12 months will do. I think 12 months, the answer would have been this portfolio needs and was -- we would have anticipated in '25, the portfolio demonstrating a portion of its cash generation potential from the critical minerals royalties. And that has happened, and we've seen a very strong share price reaction, almost 200%, just under 200% from 12 months ago roughly to today.

So in that sense, I think there's a lot more to come in that regard over the next 5 years, where this portfolio has yet to demonstrate its true underlying cash generation potential. And as Kevin has said, the portfolio in the future is expected to generate this cash flow at a much lower effective tax rate, increasing cash conversion.

So beyond that, I think that's the organic growth profile in commodities that are underpinned by really robust fundamental long-term demand trends. And beyond that, we're looking to diversify our sources of royalties and our sources of income and sources of growth. So we're really quite excited, Kevin and I, for what's next.

Super. Well, that is all the questions we've got time for today. Maybe, Marc, I could hand back to you just for some closing remarks.

I think the short version to say is we feel that 2025 is a very important year and an important step forward for Ecora. That being said, there's still an incredible amount of work to go. I think we're very excited by this big step forward and the foundation that we've led, but we're highly motivated and energized to continue transport to building on these foundations that we now have to, in time, take this company to far beyond where it is today. So thank you for your interest, and thank you for joining our call.

I'd like to thank both Marc and Kevin today for the presentation. That concludes the Ecora Royalties investor presentation. Please take a moment to complete the short survey following the event. The recording of this presentation will be made available on the Engage Investor. I hope you've enjoyed today's webinar, and thank you for your time.

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Ecora Royalties 2025 Full Year Results Conference Call. My name is Geoff Callow, the Head of Investor Relations. I'm joined today by Marc Bishop Lafleche, our Chief Executive Officer; and Kevin Flynn, our CFO. We'll run through a short presentation, after which there'll be an opportunity to ask questions.

And before I hand over to Marc, can I draw your attention to Page 2 of the presentation. We have some forward-looking statements, and there's a disclaimer on there relating to these.

And with that, I'll hand over to Marc.

Thank you, Geoff, and thank you all for joining us today. 2025 marked a year of delivery on a number of fronts. First, this represents an inflection point for Ecora's critical minerals portfolio, which achieved a record level of portfolio contribution. This was driven primarily by Ecora's base metals exposures, which grew 150% year-on-year. And we are truly delighted to see our critical minerals royalties demonstrate only a small portion of their true underlying cash flow generation potential.

During the year, we acquired the producing Mimbula copper stream. That was for an upfront consideration of USD 50 million, and that acquisition contributed to the year-on-year base metals growth, which saw Ecora partner with Moxico's exceptional management team while also cementing copper at the core of Ecora's commodity exposures.

The portfolio also delivered rapid deleveraging following the Mimbula acquisition. This was driven by the portfolio's cash generation as well as active management, which we took to unlock value from noncore holdings. Net debt declined very quickly from just under $125 million after transaction close to ending the year around $85 million, which is roughly similar to the levels at the beginning of the year.

So from our perspective, it's been a landmark year. And as you can see very clearly on this chart, for the first time in this group's history, our critical minerals exposures represented the majority of Ecora's full year portfolio contribution.

And as I mentioned, this does, from our perspective, represent a true inflection point on a number of fronts. First, in terms of commodity complexion underlying the cash flows generated by this portfolio. Second, in terms of a reduction in the historical volatility connecting to mining operations moving in and out of Ecora's royalty area. And third, Ecora's revenue profile is now underpinned by operations and projects with mine lives that are measured in decades compared to Kestrel, which is measured only in years, and this is truly a seismic shift.

Carrying this point forward, as you can see on the chart on the right, in the past 5 years since 2020, starting from a very low base, Ecora's critical minerals exposures consisting of base metals, specialty metals and uranium royalties have delivered approximately 650% growth in portfolio contribution. And what we're even more excited about is when we look ahead by 5 years, we still only appear to be at the foothills of Ecora's strong organic critical minerals growth profile centered in copper, which offers torque to the strong long-term fundamentals outlook for copper, but also the other critical minerals to which Ecora has exposure.

The next 12 months are expected to derisk that next wave of growth that I just mentioned, spanning that '25 to '30 period. A number of key potential milestones are layered across the portfolio, spanning firstly, producing assets, brownfield assets as well as near-term and longer-term development-stage royalties.

This -- to pick out a few, this includes, for example, the continued ramp-up in production at Voisey's Bay and Mimbula, the potential Mantos Blancos Phase II brownfield expansion, further steps towards the restart of mining operations at the past producing Nifty mine and a key one for us, the possibility of an FID decision by Capstone Copper at the Santo Domingo project. Also, the continued technical derisking of the Phalaborwa project, and last but certainly not least, the possibility of a change of control at West Musgrave, which could certainly add clarity and visibility on the time line to a first production date.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Kevin.

Thanks, Marc, and thanks again to everyone who's joining us today. Turning to our financial performance slide. It's very pleasing to report another strong set of results, which highlights two very important things. Number one is the resilience of our business model, which is particularly important in times of volatility such as these. But secondly, the steady progress we have been making on our stated strategy, which is now in a very meaningful way starting to convert into earnings.

Looking at portfolio contribution. Whilst our headline portfolio contribution is slightly down in the year, this really doesn't tell the whole story of the changing complexion of our portfolio, which I'll touch on, on the next slide, and as Marc alluded to earlier.

Our adjusted earnings excludes noncash valuation and impairment reversals. And this was lower in the period, reflective of the higher financing costs that we assumed as part of the Mimbula transaction and also some currency movements based on our reported overheads. Again, I'll touch on these a little later.

Our free cash flow improved in the period, which we flagged in the past as we would expect this to be based on the declining overall portion of Kestrel as a percentage of our portfolio contribution. Kestrel attaches a higher effective tax rate than the rest of the portfolio. So we should continue to see good free cash flow conversion going forward.

And finally, the dividends with the $0.014 that we're proposing today, along with the $0.006 we paid in relation to the first half of the year, that would take our total dividend for the year to $0.02 per share.

Turning to the next slide, which is our portfolio contribution. A couple of key points to note here. First of all, the change of complexion I mentioned earlier, sees our base metals portfolio contribute 50% of our overall contribution, the first time that, that has ever done so in our history.

The second is the quality of these earnings as well. The base metals portfolio itself, we can now speak of that profile in terms of multiples decades rather than where we were in the past, which was talking about the short-term nature of the Kestrel royalty. The free cash flow potential and conversion of this portfolio is also expected to increase as we have a much more efficient portfolio in terms of free cash flow conversion as Kestrel reduces in the year and years ahead.

The highlights within the portfolio, just to pick a few out, the base metals, we saw 113% and 43% volume growth from Voisey's Bay and Mantos Blancos, respectively. Voisey's Bay also benefited from the noticeable recovery in cobalt prices during the year following action taken by the DRC to address considerable oversupply in recent years. Around this time last year, in fact, the alloy-grade cobalt price was only around $13 per pound. Today, this number is $30 per pound, which bodes well for the year ahead.

At Mantos, another standout performer in the period. We generated $9.5 million, a record contribution from this royalty, which actually approximates to about a 20% running cash flow yield. So we're very pleased with the performance here in the period.

To pick out a couple of other highlights, the Mimbula acquisition. This added to cash flow from day 1. But just to draw your attention to the fact that the $4 million we report here are $2.9 million net of cost of sales. That represents effectively only 2 full quarters of income given that the income is only recognized at the point of sale. That's different to an accruals basis for the rest of our royalty portfolio. So we'd expect to see this contribution increase on a reported basis significantly in 2026.

Elsewhere, Four Mile resumed its normal sales profile during 2025. But like Mimbula, this reported income lags a quarter. And so the $2.2 million we report this year is effectively only 3 quarters of normalized sales levels. And with this much stronger uranium pricing environment currently, we'd expect to see more to come from Four Mile in 2026.

And of course, in the current gold price environment, not to be forgotten that we have some exposure to cash flow through our EVBC royalty, an asset which has been generating revenue for the group for over 15 years now and the operator signaling reserve capacity to the end of the decade.

Finally, Kestrel itself. Kestrel met its guidance during the year, although it was impacted by a lower coking coal price environment where prices were down around 36%. 2026 should, depending on advance rates, see the last meaningful volumes for the group. To that extent, we're guiding midpoint range of about 1.1 million tonnes from Kestrel in the year ahead.

So in conclusion, very pleased with the performance from the portfolio, which saw a change in the complexion of our earnings, the quality of those earnings increasing and the free cash flow potential of the portfolio really coming through.

Turning to the next slide, which is our adjusted earnings and shows how our portfolio contribution translates to earnings per share. Just to elaborate on the two points I mentioned earlier. Our operating costs, despite actually the underlying cost base of the group, falling a little bit during the year, we report our sterling overheads in U.S. dollars in line with our functional currency. The strengthening of the pound against the U.S. dollar in the period accounted for about $1 million of extra reported overheads. We do hedge a portion of our fixed cost base, and we'll continue to do so to try to manage this volatility going forward.

I mentioned earlier, our financing costs increased in the period. This was associated with the Mimbula acquisition, which increased our average borrowings in the period, which on average, were $115 million.

Our tax in the period, despite showing a 3 percentage point drop in our effective tax rate, still showed a small reduction in the period, but we'd expect to see this continue to become much more efficient as Kestrel contributes a lower overall portion of earnings going forward.

Turning to the balance sheet. A couple of points to pick up on here. First of all, the depletion in Kestrel means that this asset now on the balance sheet, once net of deferred tax, represents less than $20 million. The flip side to that is that now 88% of our royalty assets on our balance sheet are held at amortized cost. And as a result of this, the balance sheet doesn't reflect the significant value of the portfolio based on reserve expansion, mine life extension or an increase in the long-term commodity price inputs. A good example of that is our copper assets, which most were acquired at long-term copper prices of less than $4 a pound. The current long-term copper price is now closer to $5 a pound.

We've also announced today the noncash impairment reversal at Voisey's Bay. And although the price has recovered significantly here, this reversal is actually driven by resources with the new mine life plan suggesting expansion, but also that those expanded mine life will see volumes brought forward in the next few years. We've always believed that there is the potential here for further mine life expansion. So it's very pleasing to see this now start to come through.

Turning to our next slide, our net debt reconciliation. Net debt itself has largely remained unchanged in the period, which is very pleasing considering the $50 million Mimbula acquisition undertaken in March, very much aligned to our capital allocation priorities, prioritizing growth.

Following the Mimbula acquisition, we undertook a number of initiatives in an attempt to accelerate deleveraging. Firstly, we reached an agreement with Whitehaven Coal to accelerate the remaining deferred consideration associated with the Narrabri disposal.

Secondly, we took the opportunity to dispose of the Dugbe Gold royalty in Liberia. And whilst asset disposals are not a core part of our stated strategy, this asset was somewhat of an outlier in the group, given its precious metals nature and also its estimated time to first cash flow. So we were very pleased that these initiatives combined realized $28 million, which effectively refinanced around half of the Mimbula investment.

We continued our dividend policy in the period. And on a cash basis, we paid $0.0281 per share in 2025. Today, we're proposing a final dividend of $0.014 per share, which when combined with the interim dividend of $0.006 per share, brings our total proposed dividend to $0.02 per share for 2025.

And finally, the table on the bottom right of the slide is certainly worth highlighting. This table shows that based on latest broker commodity price decks, what our base case net debt would look like and then flex to a plus or minus 10% case. The strong free cash flow, which we expect the portfolio to continue generating does enable meaningful deleveraging with net debt of under $55 million by the end of 2026 and then less than $30 million by the end of 2027. These levels are comfortably within our covenant levels, leaving significant headroom under our $180 million facility, which provides ample firepower to continue our growth journey.

And with that, I'll hand back to Marc.

Thank you, Kevin. On the whole, Ecora's commodity exposures saw very strong price performance during 2025 from copper, cobalt, uranium and rare earths in particular. That strong performance carried forward into early 2026. The recent conflict in Iran has certainly resulted in a degree of market and commodity price volatility. Nevertheless, the long-term commodity price outlook, in particular for copper, continues to be underpinned by exceptionally strong supply-demand fundamentals.

Turning now to look at our operator partners' expected 2026 production volumes. So much of this is actually covered later in the presentation. So I'll just pick out one point on this slide very quickly related to Four Mile. And that is during 2025, we saw Four Mile sales return to normalized levels following a period in 2024 when produced material was stockpiled. In 2026, as you can see on the chart, we expect production and sales to revert to full run rates of 4 million to 5 million pounds per annum.

Turning to Voisey's. The Voisey's Bay mine achieved a very strong production ramp-up during 2025, which saw stream cobalt deliveries to [ Ecora ] more than double. And as Kevin mentioned, with the benefit of cobalt price tailwinds, the Voisey's Bay portfolio contribution last year tripled year-on-year. So delighted to see this asset deliver on the potential we've always known existed.

And we've also seen in that vein, an extension to the Voisey's Bay mine life. There certainly remains potential for much more meaningful and continued expansion to that life of mine in the future. In 2026, we continue to expect further year-on-year volume growth, up between 12% to 25% as Voisey's Bay operations ramp up to full production levels.

And on a separate point, as many of you will already be aware, we receive physical cobalt products to settle the Voisey's Bay stream. And therefore, the timing of those deliveries is often unusually subject to shipping time lines, and this can result in a degree of quarter-on-quarter variability. In the first quarter of this year, we have now received approximately 42 tonnes of cobalt, an additional 56 tonnes of cobalt is currently being shipped and with delivery expected in the initial weeks of April. So these 56 tonnes will accordingly be recognized in the second quarter, and that would be incremental to what we expect to be delivered in the second quarter of this year. This will have no impact or change our full year attributable cobalt guidance.

The last point to highlight on this page, and it's actually something that Kevin has already mentioned, but it's worth repeating in the context of wider commodity price volatility that we've seen of late, and that is the resilience of the cobalt price. Cobalt prices remain robust. The alloy-grade cobalt price is now just under $30 per pound and has stayed there despite the volatility we've seen in copper or other commodities in the past week or 2.

Turning to Mantos Blancos. Kevin touched on this, but what a year for Mantos Blancos. This royalty has delivered record annual portfolio contribution and primarily driven off of very strong production growth following the completion of a debottlenecking project. In 2026, Capstone expects production to be down approximately 10%, and this is a function of mining operations passing through a zone of lower copper head grades. We see this as a transient factor and Capstone expects copper head grades to rebound next year in 2027 and beyond.

So on the back of this absolutely stellar record performance in 2025, what's next at Mantos Blancos? And from our perspective, we're very excited about that next phase of growth, which includes the potential to, number one, increase concentrator plant's throughput to at least 27,000 tonnes per day; and number two, the potential to increase cathode production, and that's from existing underutilized SX-EW capacity. Mantos Blancos Phase II study focusing on the sulfide concentrator plant expansion is expected in mid-2026. And we'll hopefully then see this expansion included in Ecora's NAV and also our revenue forecast.

So finally, within our wider key base metals exposures, First, at Mimbula. The project expansion continues towards throughput nameplate capacity levels of 56,000 tonnes per annum. Q4 2025 production implied an annual production sales rate and run rate of 20,000 tonnes per annum. And full year guidance at Mimbula is 30,000 to 35,000 tonnes per year. But keep in mind, please, that this is an average run rate. And so we certainly expect to see production ramp up over the course of the year. And it's also worth keeping in mind that Q1 is typically the rainy season in Zambia. And in any heap leaching SX-EW operation, heavy precipitation can certainly impact PLS grades coming off the heaps.

Turning to Santo Domingo. It goes without saying for those who are familiar with the Ecora story that Santo Domingo is core to our medium- and longer-term growth profile. This is an asset that over the first 7 to 8 years has the potential to generate over $35 million per annum. That's an annual average again, and that's at spot copper and gold prices. So certainly, core to our growth profile. And very exciting is the next -- is the progress that Capstone has made, first of all, securing a strategic partner to develop the project. But second, that Capstone seems very focused on pushing this project forward, completing necessary work to position the project for a potential final investment decision imminently.

At West Musgrave, BHP stated last year that it would consider divesting this project more widely within the Nickel West nickel exposure and subsequently launched a sales process to explore this possibility. There's a substantial amount of speculation in the press in relation to the likelihood and potential interested parties. Nevertheless, we'll, of course, have to see how things evolve and ultimately develop. But needless to say, should a sale eventuate, that could certainly provide much greater clarity to the time line to first production at the West Musgrave project in the future.

And then last, Canariaco. This is an asset that often doesn't get much attention in our portfolio. However, it retains enormous potential value in the future. And accordingly, we wanted to highlight the completion of Fortescue's acquisition of Alta Copper to become the owner of this project.

The project is highly prospective, sizable land package that has not been explored historically. Development studies to date have really only focused on Canariaco Norte, and that envisaged production, ignoring byproducts, Cu approximately 135,000 tonnes per year. So at current spot price is something in the order, inclusive of byproducts of $10 million per annum. Certainly, a longer-dated assets in our portfolio, but one that we're very excited about given how strong of a partner Fortescue is and how well positioned Fortescue is to advance this project forward.

This next slide brings our entire copper exposures together. We started 2025 with less than 2 million pounds of attributable copper from producing royalties. And following the Mimbula acquisition, that roughly doubled. And when you look further out, Ecora's organic profile has the potential to deliver just under 20 million pounds of attributable copper equivalent, and that's all underpinned by very high-quality operator partners.

Turning now to look at Ecora's specialty metal and uranium exposures. Let's start with the Phalaborwa rare earth project. And we've been absolutely delighted by the project, the momentum that this project continues to build, having delivered a number of derisking events. And this is all in the wider context of a demonstrated geopolitical imperative to diversify global rare earth supply chains and bring new sources of supply into production.

At Patterson Corridor East, I think we can only really say that the exploration program continues to deliver what are truly exceptional results. And we're genuinely excited to see what the 2026 exploration program delivers as this royalty continues to evolve in what seems to be a truly world-class uranium exposure.

Finally, our bulks and other. So starting with Kestrel. The Kestrel mining operation within the Ecora royalty area is now firmly in its final innings. In 2026, we expect 1 million to 1.2 million tonnes of sellable product mined within our royalty area, and that's slightly half of the volumes we saw last year.

The EVBC royalty, as Kevin mentioned, continues to perform very strongly and has been benefiting from a very robust gold price environment. This operation continues to benefit from life of mine extension potential, many years past its initial reserve case when the investment was made approximately 15 years ago. And should gold prices remain elevated at or around current levels, there's certainly potential for further long extension in the future.

So in summary, 2025 delivered very strong portfolio contribution growth from our critical minerals exposures, completely transforming our commodity complexion in terms of our underlying commodities generating revenue for the group and further growth on that front is expected in 2026. Our operating partners are targeting key development milestones and derisking events in the next 12 months, which then underpins our next phase of organic growth spanning the short, medium and long term. We are delighted to have delivered the very strong deleveraging following the Mimbula acquisition. And from here, we're exceptionally well positioned to continue to grow and diversify this royalty portfolio. And last, in the context of persistent inflationary pressures, which have evolved this year in terms of their underlying source but remain, we expect that the royalty model's nominal price exposure and also its defensive nature should really continue to shine.

So to sum it all up brightly, we feel it's been truly a landmark year for Ecora. We're very pleased with the foundations that have been laid. And we remain very motivated, and we're very excited to continue to drive this business forward to the next level. Thanks very much.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Laura Chan from RBC.

Curious if you could provide some color on the business development pipeline and perhaps comment on how -- on the capital -- competitive intensity for new deals.

Sorry, Laura, if you don't mind just repeating your question again, and the audio wasn't great in your line, so if you wouldn't mind just repeating your question.

Sorry. Can you hear me better now?

That's much better. Thank you.

Yes. Could you just provide some color on your business development pipeline and perhaps comment on the competitive intensity for new deals?

Thank you for the question. At the moment, we continue to be very focused on diversifying this portfolio. Our focus remains assets either up the development curve in production or assets that are not yet producing and in less large ticket qualities in or around the definitive feasibility study stage. From a commodity complexion, our focus is to consider the suite of critical minerals with a tilt towards maintaining copper at the core of our commodity exposure.

And more generally, in terms of the competitive landscape, I think what we've observed is with the increase in equity market valuations and more generally with more supportive equity market backdrops, we do think that, that unlocks opportunities that may otherwise not have been available given Ecora is typically only a small portion of the capital structure and other forms of capital are necessary.

So all in all, we -- it's difficult to determine exactly when the stars will align, although we're quite excited about the opportunities that we see coming across the desk. And we're confident that in time, we'll be able to continue to grow this portfolio and maintain the exposure to high-quality underlying operations or projects.

Great. Congrats on the results.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Riley Venton from Atrium.

Congrats on the strong year. I had a question on Kestrel. With production expected to kind of conclude in 2030, and we have guidance for 2026. But what sort of volumes are you anticipating in the royalty area for the 3, 4 years between now and then as things wind down?

Thank you for the question. On Slide 21, I refer to -- there's an image on the right hand of that page, which overlays our royalty area with the longwall mining operations. And you can see why 2026 would be the final year we anticipate material exposure in our royalty area. As we mentioned for 2025 -- 2026, excuse me, we expect 1 million to 1.2 million tonnes in our royalty area. And then towards -- in the final years of '27 to 2030, somewhere between 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes depending on exactly which panel is being mined in the longwall panel sequence.

[Operator Instructions] So there are currently no further questions at this time over the phone. With this, I'll hand the call over back over to [ Scott ] for any further questions.

Thanks very much for that. [Operator Instructions] Tilemachos from Berenberg has asked a question under the current trajectory and expectations, what level of net debt do you think you will reach by the end of full year 2026? Thank you.

Yes. Maybe I'll take that one. If we look at Slide 12, we've included a table in the bottom right-hand side of that slide. What this table does is it takes broker consensus prices that were published at the beginning of March, applied to the public production guidance by the operators that we're exposed to. And it gives you a flavor for where the consensus net debt would be on a deleveraging basis as we go through the course of 2026 and 2027. We've sensitized that on a plus and minus 10% basis. So if -- for those who don't have the slide in front of them, that would be ending net debt on a consensus basis of $53 million at the end of 2026 and $27 million at the end of 2027.

Thank you, Kevin. Next question is from Riley Venton from Atrium Research. In terms of potential acquisitions, what are you considering in terms of project stage? And are you looking exclusively at copper?

So I think we've touched on that one slightly in an earlier question, but to capture a couple of key points here. Number one, the stage in terms of meaningful ticket exposure would be for assets that are far along the development curve, if not already in production with a great line of sight to production, for example, FID or in construction already. And then for smaller investment tickets, assets that are far along the development curve, but not quite yet at that FID stage. The bulk of our time being focused on the former. That being said, we feel it's wise not to ignore high-quality opportunities that come across if they're not yet in production.

In terms of the commodity focus, look, we target the suite of critical minerals. I think at the core -- creating a portfolio with copper at the core has been deliberate, and it's something we're very happy to achieve. So there is a natural tilt towards growing our copper exposure. That being said, if we see really high-quality opportunities with high-quality operators in well-established mining jurisdictions and other commodities, we'd consider these one-off, but the core focus remains base metals and copper.

That's great. At the present time, we've got no further questions on the webcast or the conference call. So I'd like to hand back to Marc for any final closing remarks.

Well, thanks a lot for joining us. We feel it's been a phenomenal year for Ecora, a true underlying inflection point for this business. We're very excited for 2026 and for this next phase of organic growth that we look forward to building upon via further acquisitions in time.

Good afternoon, and welcome to today's Ecora Resources investor presentation. Today, we are joined by Marc Bishop Lafleche, Chief Executive Officer; and Kevin Flynn, Chief Financial Officer.

Questions are encouraged throughout this webinar and can be submitted via the Q&A box situated on the panel on the right-hand side of your screen. I will now hand over to Marc to begin the presentation.

Well, good afternoon to those joining us from the U.K. We are very excited to present the half year results that we've recently announced. We saw during the period very strong volume growth from our base metals portfolio and more generally, growth in our critical minerals asset base. We saw during the period, very strong ramp-up at Voisey's Bay, strong performance at Mantos Blancos, and during the period, we also acquired a producing copper stream, which has begun to contribute to our earnings.

We've also announced following the end of the period, a transaction to sell a noncore development stage gold royalty, the Dugbe Royalty. This transaction has the potential to realize up to $20 million, of which $16.5 million is payable at completion, which will, as Kevin will discuss later in the presentation, accelerate the deleveraging of this business following the drawdown on our debt facility to buy the Mimbula copper stream in late Q1.

I think, as you'll see on this slide, it's really an exciting time for the core portfolio and its evolution from our history in 2020 when the critical minerals portfolio generated less than $20 million. 2025 is expected to be the first year in the history of Ecora, where more than half of our revenue is expected to be generated from the critical minerals asset base. And as you fast forward to the end of 2030, we expect growth beyond the current levels of volumes in our portfolio to drive 2 dimensions.

First, just around $50 million of income potentially from our producing asset base and then beyond that with a path to $100 million from our development-stage portfolio. I think the Dugbe transaction, and it's very exciting to get across, unlock that value for development stage royalty, as I mentioned. And that sale also allows us to, in time, potentially reallocate that capital to producing royalties in commodities that are better fit with our wider strategy, but also potentially more advanced in the development curve and have the possibility of contributing to our earnings and revenue growth in the shorter period.

The Dugbe sale also highlights the substantial value that exists in the portfolio with the equity price where it is today. And with that, I'll hand it over to Kevin.

Thanks, Marc. Hello, everyone. The first slide here summarizes our financial performance in the first half of the year. I think the very obvious point to notice at the ad set is that in 2023 and '24, you'll see the dark blue boxes representing the first half of the year. The light blue boxes represent the second half of the year. And effectively, in each of those 2 years, we saw the vast majority of the Kestrel volumes coming through in the first half of the year.

This year, it's the other way around. So effectively, the green box that you see on these pages is more comparable to the light blue boxes in the 2 preceding years and we kind of have illustrated that by adding to the right-hand side, what the broker consensus numbers are for the second half of the year just to see how that catch-up is expected to come through given the seasonality associated with the Kestrel royalty. But what's very important not to overlook is that the second half of the year will not just be Kestrel.

The first half of the year, we saw a fantastic growth and momentum in our base metals portfolio, which was up 81% in the period. And that momentum is set to come through again in the second half of the year, and really meaningfully add growth into the portfolio and some of those catch-up metrics will come through as well. In terms of adjusted earnings, what you can't quite see here is the quality of those earnings come through in the first half. What I mean by that is that the Kestrel asset attaches quite a high effective tax rate to it, given it's got a no cost base in our Australian group.

And without that, actually, our effective tax rate in the first half of the year is only 10%. And that really does give a flavor for what this portfolio is going to be able to achieve once Kestrel leaves our private royalty area materially in the next 2 years' time.

Our dividend now is formulaic based on a payout ratio of 25% to 35% of free cash flow. And in the first half, we announced a $0.06 dividend representing approximately 25% of our free cash flow. As Marc said, we're on a path to where our portfolio can organically grow and increase earnings and income. And as such, the dividend, how we see the dividend under our capital allocation policy is that the dividend should naturally grow as indeed we grow our income line.

Looking at H1 in a little bit more detail. And I think the real focus here is on our core base metals portfolio. The 2 outstanding performance within this Voisey's Bay and Mantos Blancos and just to touch on each of those individually. At Voisey's in the period, we saw 140 tonnes of cobalt delivered that compared to 56 tons in the previous period. And what's really exciting here is that in the first 2 months alone of Q3, we've received the equivalent tonnage than what we received in the first half as a whole.

So really good momentum coming through at Voisey's in line with the ramp-up that we've been speaking to for some time. That ramp-up and the transition to the underground mine is now firmly established. The other side of the coin with Voisey's has been the cobalt price. Here, we've seen some weakness in the cobalt price over the last number of years, and this resulted in an announcement by the DRC government at the beginning of the year to enforce a cobalt export ban to really address pricing weakness through very substantial oversupply. That ban was extended to the end of this month, where a lot of commentators believe there will be further price support mechanisms put in place.

And what we've seen is the cobalt price trade up from about $13 per pound at its low point to a range of about $18.25 to $20 a pound for alloy grade product of which Voisey's Bay does produce. So some really good tailwinds at Voisey's Bay as we enter into the second half of the year.

Mantos has now achieved 3 record quarterly volume production force, which very much is in line with what we really invested into at the time we acquired this royalty in 2019, the debottlenecking and the expansion phase. And that's now really starting to bear fruit for us.

At the same time, as copper is trading towards $4.50 a pound, I think it's worth remembering that when we acquired this royalty in 2019, our long-term pricing assumption for copper was only $3 a pound. So some very good performance achieved from Mantos in the period.

And Mimbula is our most recent acquisition, and this really doesn't tell the full story at the half year. The accounting treatment for Mimbula dictates that we effectively cash account given that the product that we received here is only recognized in the income statement when it's sold. So we've already sold our product from Q2, which was $1.4 million.

So if this was accounted for on accruals basis, we would have seen about $2.1 million in the period. Just selectively touching on a couple of the other ones. Four Mile is similar to Mimbula and that it is accounted for on a cash receipts basis. And again, this doesn't really tell the full story in the period because the normalized levels of sales recommenced at Four Mile in the first quarter of this year, which only got reported in the second quarter.

So what we'll see as we go through the second half of the year, is much greater levels of income being recognized from Four Mile. Conversely, in the second half of last year, we saw no revenue from this asset. So we should report some pretty significant growth year-on-year for Four Mile.

Looking further down, it's not to be forgotten, we do have some gold exposure in the portfolio through our EVBC royalty. This performed really well in the first half of the year, which is unsurprising given the gold price momentum throughout the course of 2025. And that momentum has really continued as well into the third quarter of this year. Gold is now trading above 3,600 an ounce. So we will be the recipient of some of that benefit in the second half of the year as well.

And not to be forgotten, of course, is Kestrel. Kestrel is now a short-life asset for us. It's got about 2 years of meaningful cash flow ahead for us. But it's not to be forgotten that we still expect about 10% growth in volumes to come from Kestrel. And as I said earlier, most of that is going to come through in the second half of this year. And that will also help and accelerate our deleveraging.

And speaking of the deleveraging, this slide here shows our net debt position. Again, this is a snapshot at the end of June, and so is a little bit outdated given the Dugbe disposal that we recently announced. Net debt did increase in the period. This was largely due to the Mimbula acquisition, which we funded from the balance sheet. We were very confident to step up into our net debt to finance Mimbula, not least because it was an income-producing asset, but also the way it was structured, afforded us some very good protection mechanisms around the ramp-up profile as well. At the same time, as we announced Mimbula, we also agreed with the owner of our former Narrabri royalty to accelerate some earn-out payments associated with its sale a couple of years ago.

And in addition, with contractual payments from that sale, we received $11.5 million in the period. If we added the $16.5 million we received from Dugbe to that, that effectively has refinanced 56% of our Mimbula acquisition. And that really is from portfolio management, which very few people had any visibility or insight into. So we're very pleased with the performance from portfolio management in the period.

At 30th of June, our leverage did increase to 2.5x. On a pro forma basis with the Dugbe disposal, that would have been closer to 2.1x. And with the Kestrel cash flow and the other cash flow we should see from the portfolio in the second half of the year, we think we're still on track to achieve very significant deleveraging by the end of this year.

On consensus price numbers, there's a box on the bottom right of this page, which shows where our net debt could end. On consensus, that would be $90 million at the end of this year. And that's broadly in line with where we opened the year having invested $50 million into the Mimbula stream. So we're very pleased with that level. And more importantly, as we go into 2026, we'd expect to see our leverage ratio given commodity prices and latest production guidance to kind of hit 1.5x and below by midyear. So all in all, with our $180 million revolving credit facility with no amortizations or step downs on that facility until early 2028. We remain in a really good position and well capitalized to continue the growth journey. Back to Marc.

Thank you, Kevin. We've included on this slide quite a lot of separate data points in terms of the near term and the medium term. Quite a few are actually covered later on in the presentation. So I'll just pick up a few. Pick number one, Santo Domingo, Capstone has stated that a decision point is expected in the second half of the year with regards to a minority financial partner to part fund and join in the development of the Santo Domingo project. In many ways, this is a cookie-cutter approach to the development of Santo Domingo that was utilized at the very nearby Mantoverde mine that we see as, sort of, part of a 3-step derisking sequence with regards to the Santo Domingo royalty. The first being, as I mentioned, the strategic partner, the second being a final investment decision, which Capstone has indicated the project that will be ready as early as, sort of, mid-2026 and then from their first production.

What we've also seen is a financing from Cyprium Metals to part fund or largely fund the restart of oxide production and that funding is entirely sufficient for the restart of the oxide circuit and will be used according to Cyprium as a strategy to part fund the restart of a mining operation, which could see the production of approximately 38,000 tonnes of copper per year.

So both very positive developments, but they're not covered later in the presentation. So we thought to just draw them out right now.

Well, at Voisey's Bay, as Kevin mentioned, this is an asset that we've always known and is capable of doing so much more in terms of generating its cash for Ecora, but as a result of a slower ramp-up, we really haven't seen the asset demonstrate its potential. And as a result, we're just really happy to see in 2025, this asset hit its stride. What we're seeing is a very steep ramp-up curve when you combine H1 and H2. And in fact, from a production perspective, 2 months into Q3, we've received 140 tonnes already of cobalt, which is actually the same amount as we've received in the entirety of the first half of the year.

So we really have now a line of sight on this asset in a steady state production capacity, which over the life of the mine is expected to average around 560 tonnes annually of cobalt to Ecora. Beyond that, there's certainly potential for production expansion, and it seems more likely than not that we'll see the life of mine being expanded as a result of further exploration, which is entirely captured by our royalty.

On the right-hand side of the slide, we've included historical cobalt pricing, and Kevin touched on this, so we won't go into huge detail here. Suffice to say that we've seen some pretty sharp price acceleration from historically low levels at the beginning of 2025, but on a relative basis, the price levels as of the way are now are still actually quite low cyclically. We've seen cyclical levels go from -- on the alloy grade anyways of recent history around $13, $14 per pound, highs in excess of $40 per pound. So we're definitely not at levels by any means on a cyclical basis where you think that the cobalt price is toppy and there does appear to be on the back of strong demand growth, continued price appreciation potential into the future.

At Mantos, we won't dwell on this slide. Suffice to say, we're absolutely delighted to see this asset deliver and in fact, the Capstone team has done a phenomenal job on the operational side, just getting this asset to really hit the stride in the past 3 quarters. The operations throughput has met or at least in the Q1, has met and they're exceeded the actual nameplate capacity of the mine. And in the past 3 quarters, we saw record -- consecutive record royalty income generation.

So with that operation really hitting its stride as it stands, I think the next focus for Capstone is to further evaluate the possibility of a Phase II brownfield expansion. And this expansion is really interesting for 2 reasons. I think number one, it's interesting because it allows Capstone to utilize existing and underutilized equipment and thus, the expansion potentially achieves very low capital cost for relatively high incremental copper production relative to global copper operations and thus is the type of projects that mining executives really like to pursue. I think it's an interesting second because it contemplates usually retreating existing waste material, which as part of the royalty model is, of course, captured by our royalty, but certainly highlights the optionality that comes with the right royalties assets that are good quality tend not always, but certainly tend to get bigger or produce more or run for longer than expected just as a result of their quality. And the Phase II expansion certainly demonstrates that.

We acquired the Mimbula at copper stream in late Q1. This is, in our minds, the perfect next deal for Ecora. It's producing. And thus, it's structured in a way to not only provide immediate cash flow to our P&L, but also to accelerate the revenue profile to contribute fairly materially in the first 6 to 7 years of the stream in a way also with a ratchet that reduces the volatility of the income of the asset as the asset moves from production levels last year through the Phase II expansion to targeted capacity levels of 56,000 tonnes of copper per year.

We've included this slide with regards to Kestrel, as it's somewhat unusual for a royalty company to have the equivalent of seasonality with the royalty. And the Kestrel royalty by virtue of the Ecora entitlement doesn't cover the entirety of the mine, and that certainly goes a long way visually to explaining why there are periods of the year where Ecora receives some royalty income, and there are periods of the year, Ecora does not receive any royalty income. You can see on the left-hand side, a section of the mine that's circled in red, that is the area we understand where mining is currently occurring at Kestrel and mining entered that area towards the end of the second quarter. And thus, we have a fair amount of confidence and certainty that mining operations will stay in our royalty area in the second half of the year.

Patterson Corridor East is an asset within our portfolio that perhaps is a bit less well understood, and we're really excited to daylight this exciting new uranium discovery. Next-Gen resources is approximately USD 5 billion market cap, Canadian-listed uranium developer and historically, the focus at NexGen has really been around the Arrow projects. And you can see on the slide in the map on the right, there's a yellow star labeled Arrow. That project has been outside of our royalty area. But what's -- and recently, what NexGen has, as a result of exploration drilling, come back with what I can only describe as frankly, geologically exceptional drill hole results. In some instances, local measuring uranium grades of close to 16%, which is actually a level of radiation. That's just dangerous to humans. Many uranium deposits measure grade in parts per million. And that's 16% grade is quite spectacular by way of comparison.

NexGen has announced a drilling program this year to further delineate that deposit, a total of 46,000 meters are planned. And just at the time of the half year, approximately half of that program has been completed. I think the NexGen's public disclosures are really, really encouraging. And to date suggests the possibility of a discovery of a generational uranium deposit.

I think this is an asset that really complements the longer end of our development portfolio, but certainly has the potential in time to become a Kestrel-like asset. In other words, an asset with very little upfront capital invested and the potential to generate meaningful amounts of royalty income over a long period of time. And just to further illustrate that, if you -- based on the disclosures by NexGen, the Patterson Corridor East deposit is demonstrating similarities to the Arrow deposit. And so if you just extrapolate, well, what could that mean, the Arrow deposit is expected to generate approximately GBP 30 million a year initially of uranium.

If you assume a long share of price of uranium of $100 per pound and Ecora NSR interest of 1%, that implies sort of $30 million a year, which is an incredible source of potential cash flow well into the future, far beyond the immediate ramp-up growth profile that we discussed earlier into the -- earlier in the presentation.

The past few years have been years where we've seen almost nonstop headlines in relation to critical minerals strategy and policy by governments. And in recent months, I think we've seen a real acceleration in tangible action, in particular, in the United States. That's manifested first as stockpiling. The United States Department of Defense has entered into an agreement with U.S. rare earth producer, MP Materials to stockpile effectively or offtake rare earths produced under a 10-year term.

And we've also seen the U.S. Department of Defense tender for cobalt purchases for a strategic stockpile. That tender is framed as up to $500 million. So at this stage, it's not totally clear how much cobalt will actually flow into the tender or how fast as the tender is structured as over potentially a 5-year period. But nevertheless, I think it really demonstrates the strategic nature of our Voisey's Bay alloy grade cobalt units, given that there are only 4 mines globally that produce alloy-grade cobalt that qualify for this tender. Two of those operations are Vale, one is Glencore and one is Sumitomo.

And then I think another dynamic we've seen is the rise of public-private partnerships. We've seen it in Intel, but you've also seen it in MP Materials, where the U.S. by way of equity subscription has now become the largest shareholder in MP Materials. But within the wider Ecora portfolio, there are a number of touch points to public-private partnerships, one of those includes Rainbow Rare Earths and the Phalaborwa project, which is expecting to produce mostly NdPr products with some heavy rare earth elements. And the U.S. government already is indirectly a large shareholder of Rainbow Rare Earths and via TechMet has the ability to part fund the construction of that project.

I think the third dimension we've seen is a potential acceleration of the development of mineral products in Canada and in the One Canadian economy as contemplated in the One Canadian Economy Act of Bill C5, NexGen's Rook 1 project is highlighted as a project of maximum significance with a view to accelerate development time line. And similarly, in the Ring of Fire development project is certainly attracting a lot of attention as a potential project to include within that same category at a federal level and provincially and the government of Ontario is certainly looking to accelerate that project.

So both those actions have the potential to really unlock potentially a lot of value from assets that are currently sitting in the longer end of the development phase in our portfolio that could be accelerated.

So in short, bringing it all together, I think for Ecora, this H1 represents potentially a major inflection point for this business, where historically, the focus was very much around Kestrel and the wind off at Kestrel. I think what we've seen in the H1, which is expected to continue in the second half of the year and beyond, is an initial demonstration of the cash generation potential that exists in this portfolio, starting really from the sharp end of the spear, so to speak, starting with producing assets.

The next phase of growth we see as those beyond just ramp-up in volumes from assets that are already in production is potential for brownfield expansions. And then last, of course, is new development assets coming online, and our portfolio provides a really strong growth profile. We focus in the presentation on the next 5 years, but that growth profile does carry forward into the next decade.

So with that, thank you very much for joining us for our presentation, and we're happy to take any Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question, Voisey's Bay cobalt deliveries were strong in H1. How confident are you in meeting the full year guidance given the planned maintenance later in the year?

Well, thank you for your question. Volumes certainly improved in H1. They've been much stronger in H2 to date, and we anticipate having just recently as part of these results, upgraded the low end of our range. We did it on the basis of quite a lot of confidence in the volumes for this year. And I think more generally, the performance year-to-date from our perspective anyways, gives a lot more certainty on the pace of the ramp-up and the likelihood of Vale achieving what's targeted as full production capacity at some point next year.

Has there been any thought to giving guidance on production at Voisey's Bay as is done at Kestrel? The holder of another stream on the asset noted in their conference call that ramp-up has been lumpy, but they are aware of this in advance due to the 3-month transit to Germany. With this royalty being proportionately larger to Ecora, would be -- would serve a purpose in keeping shareholders appraised of ups and downs in due time?

Yes. So I think from our perspective, we've fully disclosed volumes. We've provided volume guidance for this year, for H2 as well as the long-term steady-state production capacity. So to the degree to the person, if there's anyone who has been unable to find that information or finds it unclear, I'd encourage you to reach out, and we can guide you to that. The correct e-mail address would be [email protected]. And from there, we can certainly give you more information.

How would the P&L be affected if the DRC lifts the ban on cobalt exports?

The outlook at this time suggests that the DRC government is expecting to either extend the ban or implement an export quota regime. I think generally, most industry participants are of the view that there may be a further extension of the ban to be followed by a cobalt regime later -- an export quota regime later in the year.

I think in the background, what we've seen is fairly substantial year-on-year cobalt demand growth in an absolute sense. And that certainly was overshadowed in 2024 by cobalt capacity additions. Nevertheless, on the demand side, we saw cobalt increase by certain estimates in the high single digits, other estimates in the low double digits and thus, in the background of the cobalt export ban this year, I think there's just been a continued catch-up on that demand side from what was a very choppy supply additions in 2024.

Our next question, there have been various news stories about cobalt being something to phase out rather than increase due to environmental and ethical concerns. Can you speak to how you view this matter and also in relation to our cobalt stream from the Voisey's Bay mine in Canada and why this mine may be a better source for diligent buyers?

Yes. There's a few points to make here. So I'll just take them one by one. So starting with the question of providence from Canada. Well, I think it's important to note that not all cobalt products are fungible. And by that, I mean there's alloy-grade cobalt, there's cobalt sulfate, the standard grade cobalt. So in other words, metals, precursor materials for batteries and there's a much bigger mix than that.

What's kind of unique about the Voisey's Bay cobalt is its providence, of course, is also its carbon intensity, which is amongst the lowest of any cobalt product produced in the world, but third is the product specification. And that product certainly can flow into a battery precursor and flow into a battery supply chain as battery precursor material. But typically, most alloy-grade cobalt flows into industrial applications, in particular, the aerospace sector, where cobalt's very high meeting -- melting point makes it a great alloy agent in certain applications. To give you an example, jet engine turbine blades across civilian and military end markets.

More generally, on the cobalt thrifting question, I think the pressure to substitute cobalt from nickel-based battery chemistries is often a function of price. And the incentive to do so as a battery maker is not static. It can flow as a much stronger incentive when cobalt prices are high and arguably a much weaker incentive when cobalt prices are low. As I mentioned, cobalt prices historically on the alloy grade anyways have ranged from 13 to about 40 or a standard grade product from 10 to slightly less than 40. And where we are today on the standard grade in the mid-teens or the high teens for alloy grade, that incentive is actually far less potent.

And if you look at the nickel-based chemistries, actually in the last 12 to 18 months, we've seen actually an uptick in cobalt loadings away from an 811 nickel-based battery chemistry back to chemistries with higher cobalt loadings, which appear to be a function of safety. The trade-off is very much between price and safety. And when cobalt prices are low, that the market seems to be shifting more towards safety.

How are you positioning the portfolio to reduce reliance on any single asset or operator?

Yes, that's certainly not something that happens overnight, but it's something Kevin and I have been, frankly, very focused on for the better part of a decade. 10 years ago, if you looked at Ecora, the business in terms of its value and revenue was almost entirely concentrated in Kestrel. And actually, in that regard is why we see it as such an important milestone for this business and its portfolio in 2025 to first cross the threshold where for the first year ever, you have potentially less than 50% of your revenue generated from Kestrel.

And even more than that, we're shifting within the next few years to a portfolio that's much more diversified in terms of its sources of income in terms of counterparties, commodities, jurisdictions. But we're seeing mining operations that have mine lives measured in year -- in decades, excuse me, as opposed to Kestrel, where the mine life was always measured in years. So I think holistically, and as we've taken this business from what it was to where it is today to where it's going, actually, this business has never been in position to be more better diversified.

How are you stress testing your assumptions on commodity prices, operator performance and resource estimates? And which risks do you see as most significant to achieving guidance?

Yes. So I'll take this question in the context of when we think about making capital investments. And to the degree the question is not quite on the market as we answer it, please again don't hesitate to reach out. When we make investments, obviously, we have a very well-defined investment process. And to name a few of the criteria we seek: number one, high-quality ore bodies. And by that, we mean ore bodies have the potential or are resulting in low-cost mining operations. I think the main reason for that is that a mine that produces with high operating cash flow or high margins is far more likely to stay in production through commodity price cycles than a mine that has much higher cost and a down cycle could be squeezed.

And with respect to development stage royalties, the logic is a higher -- a lower cost ore body or lower-cost project is by extension, is more likely to generate the best economics. And the projects with the best economics are those to be most likely come into production and also most likely to do it quickly relative to other projects in the same commodity.

We also spend a lot of time thinking about the commodity price outlook. And one thing we've really sought to do is target entry points in commodities where through cycle on average, you're more likely to do better than your baseline assumption at the time of the investment.

And I think if you go back, Kevin touched on this, our copper entry points historically have been quite in hindsight, well timed. As Kevin mentioned, the Mantos Blancos royalty, the long-term price there was $3 at the time. If you fast forward about 5 or 6 years today, the long-term price is just under $450, so approximately almost a 50% price uplift.

Our next question, what's the risk if one operator of a royalty asset underperforms operationally? Do you have recourse?

Well, I think the royalty model in many ways is a mix between equity and debt. And it's equity-like in that when we deploy capital, like an equity investor, our risk on volumes is subject to the mining operations performance. I think it's less debt like, obviously, in many -- less equity-like in the sense that the royalty cannot be diluted through equity issuances. And the income received to the royalty operator is not subject to the operating leverage and financial leverage that may exist in a mining operation.

And so by that, I mean, the royalty payment is calculated with reference to the value of the metal produced and is not directly impacted by the cost of extracting that material from the ground and processing it into a sellable form or from any of the financing costs from debt, for example, or interest payments that have been incurred as part of the capital structure of that mining project.

How resilient are your royalty cash flows to commodity price volatility?

I think actually, that's a really interesting question when you think about Ecora because the Kestrel royalty is one that actually, by its nature, is quite volatile. So to give you a bit more detail by what we mean on this, the Kestrel royalty is entitled to 7% of revenue on any prices, on sales of product up to 7%, up to AUD 100.

So let me take that one again, excuse me. 7% of any sales on the first AUD 100 per tonne in Aussie terms and 40% on any sales above AUD 300 per tonne. And, therefore, as you move through price cyclicality with steelmaking coal, the income generated by that royalty can move quite substantially. I think as we move forward in the portfolio, however, and we see the ramp-up of the critical's minerals portfolio, this business is on track to be much more diversified in terms of its sources of income and thus, one commodity might be up, one might be down. On average, you're in the same place to make a very simplistic example.

But then as a result of price volatility, you become much more sort of linear. So, I think, actually, it's a very good thing for this business in some ways to be moving away from a ratchet source of income with Kestrel to a much more linear source of income if your objective is to have a low volatility source of portfolio contribution. And I think that's something that will likely become more and more apparent in the coming quarters and years as the critical minerals portfolio continues to ramp up.

Now you've reduced coal exposure, but do you still receive material revenues from coal assets?

Yes. So the Kestrel royalty is certainly expected to contribute less than it has in the past, although in 2025 and '26, less so, but certainly material income from the Kestrel royalty. And I think to say that we've reduced the coal exposure with Kestrel royalty is not necessarily a proactive decision point. It's rather that mining operations at the Kestrel mine are moving outside of the core royalty entitlement area.

You described 2025 as a pivotal year with growing exposure to critical minerals. What other opportunities are you pursuing to expand into battery and transition metals?

Yes. From a commodity selection perspective, what we're seeking to do is to assemble a portfolio with the core in copper and base metals that is positioned to benefit from growth in electricity demand. And whether that's a function of digital infrastructure, more grid investments, so in other words, power distribution, whether it's a function of EVs, whether it's a function of renewable energy generation, general GDP growth, increased urbanization or all of the above or some. So these are really strong underlying trends that suggest the outlook for electricity demand is likely to continue to grow at a fairly strong pace.

And our portfolio centered in copper is in part a function of the fact that copper is a conductive element. At any point of that value chain, you can find high copper loadings. When we think about what's next for the business, we're targeting probably for a next material transaction, one that would be similar in its nature to Mimbula. So in other words, one stream or a royalty over a mine that's a fairly advanced stage, if not already cash flow generating, one where we have a very strong line of sight on that cash flow generation in the short term.

And then, in terms of the wider commodity complex, we have evaluated -- we continue to evaluate a very broad set of commodities. And frankly, it's easier to say what we don't pursue than what we do. What we don't pursue are precious metals as part of our strategy and hydrocarbons or fossil fuels. And that has allowed us to some degree, some flexibility to move laterally between commodities depending on cyclical price points of the various commodities to find good entry points. I think the Rainbow Rare Earths example last summer was a great example of a cyclical entry point, where in the last 12 months, we've seen spot prices increased 60% to 70% for the NdPr products with a lot of potential upside beyond that.

Now the interim dividend is set at USD 0.60 per share, around 25% of free cash flow. How flexible is the payout ratio if free cash flow rises meaningfully in H2?

Kevin, do you want to?

Yes, sure. As part of our capital allocation policy that we announced last year, the dividend was set to a payout ratio of between 25% to 35% of the free cash flow generated in the portfolio. But given the seasonality with Kestrel, what we did was we took the 2 preceding 6-month periods and average those to effectively try to smooth out any spikes or dips associated with Kestrel.

Given that our priority post Mimbula has been to delever, and we've been able to successfully accelerate that with the Dugbe disposal. I think at the half year, we were reasonably comfortable to pay out just over 25% of free cash flow at $0.06. I think our imperative in the second half of the year is to remain focused on deleveraging. And I think more broadly with our dividend, with the portfolio that we have and the meaningful path that we have to see portfolio contribution growing in the coming years from the assets that Marc described earlier, the dividend should increase in line with that. In other words, the business has been set up to increase our dividend when the portfolio contribution is increasing at the same time. And within that range, depending on where we are in the cycle, we'll look at whether that's towards the top end or the lower end of the payout ratio.

How do you evidence influence over ESG standards if you're not operating the mines?

That's actually a really interesting question. It's something we ourselves think quite a lot about. And our conclusion is that the strongest influence we actually have is at the point of investment. We can certainly -- and we do include certain provisions in our investments where possible to the best of our ability, encourage operators to run mines responsibly. But actually, the most influence is whether to invest or not to invest. And as a result of that, I think what you've observed when you look at the investments we've made historically, jurisdiction is a strong contributing factor.

In other words, certain jurisdictions have very strong statutory frameworks around labor, environment and other key areas of ESG impact or sustainability impact. And then, as we look to the future, I think in many ways, I think 5 years ago, the mining sector in some ways was perceived as part of the problem. And it's been really exciting to see that narrative evolve and the wider sustainability framework and perspective expand to the idea that the mining sector and the raw materials it produces is fundamental to a much more sustainable world of the future.

Have you considered dual listing to attract North American institutions that follow the royalty sector more closely?

So Ecora is dual listed. Ecora trades on the London Stock Exchange with the ticker ECOR, but also on the TSX with the ticker of COR and also trades on the U.S. OTCQX platform with the ticker ECRAF.

Would you consider royalties in new economy commodities such as lithium, nickel or rare earths, even if outside your historic focus?

We absolutely would. We have today royalties over very high-quality nickel projects. One of them, we're the largest shareholder in directly is actually a U.S. government agency. We have a royalty in rare earths, the Phalaborwa project owned by Rainbow Rare Earths. We've always sought to keep the core of our portfolio in copper and base metals, but that certainly is much broader. The wider commodity basket that we target is certainly much wider than only base metals and copper.

Can you give more color on how you expect the portfolio mix between copper, cobalt and other commodities to evolve by 2027?

Yes, we can. So to give you some guidance, I'll refer to the current research analyst consensus forecast. The copper as a percentage of total income by 2030 is expected to represent 50% of income and cobalt is approximately 20% of income. If you have more detailed questions beyond that, I'd encourage you again to reach out. The e-mail address would be [email protected]. And my colleague, Jeff, will be happy to provide you with further information.

We have a couple more questions. Recent company presentations show revenue growth coming down over 2024 to '26 to circa $50 million and then, a large jump up to circa $100 million in 2030. The most recent shows only 2025 and then 2030. Is it possible to give a little more color on the trajectory and whether it's linear or large jumps in certain years as shareholders, the lack of any detail over the next 2 to 3 years is just concerning.

Yes. So let's go back to the slide then so that folks on the line who aren't familiar with the background to the question can follow along with the answer. So I think the individual is referring to the slide here where we show income from -- on a portfolio basis in 2020 and break it out into coal, which is sort of the dotted box, specialty metals and uranium and base metals to where we are in 2025 and where we're expected to be in 2030.

I think the answer to the question is that the producing portfolio is -- follows a much more linear path to 2030. The development stage portfolio, which on the right is the dotted, sort of shaded blue line is quite a bit more lumpy. And in many ways, that's driven off of new projects expected to come into production. I think from where we sit today, pinning down an exact year on some of these projects is a bit difficult. And actually, in many ways, why we're very excited for the next 6 to 9 to 12 months.

During that period of time, we expect a lot to be able to much more precisely pin down the year when some of these projects are expected to come into production, but generally speaking, this is the view on the producing portfolio, which, as I mentioned, is probably more linear in its shape, particularly from the critical minerals royalties. And then, as I said, the base metals and development, in particular, are somewhat lumpy and tied to the development of 3 or 4 projects.

Turning to our final question. Which of your royalty assets are expected to contribute most growth in the next 3 to 5 years?

I think we've touched on that actually in some ways during the presentation. Voisey's Bay, Mimbula, Mantos Blancos from the producing portfolio. And then, beyond that in the development stage assets, you could say it's a function of Capstone Santo Domingo is actually quite a big one in the pipeline. This is a royalty that once in production could generate at spot copper prices around $30 million a year for Ecora. The Phalaborwa Rare Earths project at spot prices today. And if you overlay the offtake agreement between MP Materials and the U.S. government, that implies roughly $3 million a year and the Nifty project. While the Nifty royalty is subject to a production threshold of 800,000 tonnes per year that's expected to be hit in about 5 years, that would be around $4 million per year. And then, beyond that, of course, there are a number of other assets. I've just picked out a few that immediately come to mind, but by no means is that the limited list.

There are no more questions online. So do you have any additional closing remarks?

Well, thank you very much for joining Kevin and I today. I think the entire Ecora team is really excited, as I mentioned, to be showing -- to be printing and to be demonstrating what we've always sort of spoken to but never really been able to print is the cash generation potential that exists within Ecora. This is a really exciting time for the business as it transitions from a very short-dated royalty -- from a royalty company's primary source of revenue was from a very short-dated asset in met coal to a royalty company that's much more diversified from a basket of critical minerals that has a sector-leading growth profile.

And we look -- we're very excited to -- and we look forward to our next update following the full year when hopefully, we'll have seen some of the key developments that we've alluded to in the portfolio come through, and we can further update you on that at that time.

Thank you, Mark and Kevin. That concludes the Ecora Resources investor presentation today. Please take a moment to complete a short survey following this event. The recording of this presentation will be made available on Engage Investor. Hope you enjoyed today's webinar.

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much for joining the Ecora Resources Half Year 2025 Results Presentation. I'm joined today by Marc Bishop Lafleche, our Chief Executive; Kevin Flynn, Chief Financial Officer. I'm Geoff Callow, the Head of Investor Relations. Marc and Kevin will take you through a presentation detailing our half year results. And at the start of that, you'll find a disclaimer, which relates to forward-looking statements, which we won't dwell on, but please be aware of that. And finally, there'll be an opportunity for anybody at the end of the presentation to ask any questions you may have.

With that, I'll hand over to Marc.

Thank you for joining us today. We are excited to present our first half 2025 results. During the period, we saw very strong volume and revenue growth in our critical minerals portfolio, in particular, from base metals. A very strong continued ramp-up at Voisey's Bay mine and is currently carrying forward into the third quarter. We saw record production and revenue from the Mantos Blancos copper royalty and the period saw the first income from the Mimbula stream, which we acquired in late Q1.

As a post-period event, we entered into an agreement to sell the noncore development stage Dugbe Gold Royalty, and this accelerates the group's deleveraging following the Mimbula stream acquisition earlier in the year and provides Ecora with greater flexibility to reallocate the capital in the future should an opportunity present itself. As I mentioned just now, it was very pleasing to see our producing critical minerals royalties increasingly demonstrate their underlying cash generation potential during the first half of 2025. Over the calendar year '25, we expect it to be the first year in Ecora's history when more than 50% of our revenue is generated in connection to critical minerals, and that's assuming current commodity prices, which represents a significant milestone in this company's evolution from 20% base metals in 2020 to an expected 85% in 2030 with copper at the core.

So 2025 really does appear, in our view, anyways, to represent a potential inflection point for Ecora as this company transitions from historically being linked to a single commodity with a relatively short life to being much more diversified in terms of counterparties, commodities and most importantly, perhaps underpinned by royalties over mines that have production horizons that are measured in decades rather than years.

I just mentioned the Dugbe Royalty sale, and this is certainly an example of value that doesn't appear to have been priced into the Ecora shares. We believe there is substantial value beyond the core producing royalty asset base. And as part of the Dugbe transaction, it's really great to demonstrate this and unlock value as part of that transaction.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Kevin to run through the financials.

Thanks, Marc. My first slide, as always, summarizes our financial performance in the period. And I think just to deal with that at the outset, if we look at the comparative periods across these charts in '23 and '24, these illustrate the inverse of what we're currently seeing with the timing of Kestrel being within our private royalty area. So in '23 and '24, we saw the vast majority of our full year contribution being earned in the first half of the year. We're expecting that dynamic to reverse in 2025.

So in effect, the green box for H1 '25 is more comparable to the lighter blue columns within the previous years. And what we've done here is we've just put in a dotted line to show where the broker consensus numbers are looking at for the rest of the year across these KPIs showing how we expect the portfolio to catch up as we go through the second half of the year. Now that's not to say, of course, that this catch-up is solely driven by Kestrel. That will be to do a disservice to the fantastic progress and momentum we've seen from our base metals portfolio in the first half of this year, which was up 81% on the previous year. And there's some very good tailwinds, both volume driven and pricing to suggest that there's more to come in the second half of the year.

Portfolio contribution in its usual way carries across into our adjusted earnings per share and our free cash flow graphs as always. Just one other thing to pick up on. The total dividend for the first half of the year announced was $0.06 per share, and that's very much in line with our capital allocation policy, paying out approximately 25% of our free cash flow.

Turning to the next slide, which is our portfolio contribution in a little more detail. As I said, the headline number here and the reduction of 65% doesn't really tell the full story. If we go further up the page and look at our base metals portfolio, which, as I mentioned, increased by 81%. We certainly want to highlight the Voisey's Bay and the Mantos Blancos assets as key drivers of this increase.

Looking at Voisey's Bay first, we're very pleased that the ramp-up and the transition to the underground mine is now firmly established. And for the first period, really, this is coming through our income statement, reporting more than double revenue. And Marc will touch on the reasons why we're very confident with what we received in Q3 to date and the outlook for the rest of the year in a moment.

The other side to this coin, of course, is the cobalt price. The DRC introduced an export ban on cobalt in the first quarter of this year, which has created a stability in the cobalt price around about the $18 to $20 per pound level, which has remained pretty firm in the period. This export ban was extended and is due to end at the end of September. Many commentators think that further price stabilization mechanisms will be implemented by the DRC government at this stage. But it's worth remembering that before this export ban was put in place, the cobalt price was around about $13 a pound. So we've received some very positive uplift in terms of both volume and pricing from this asset, both of which looks set to continue.

Mantos was another stellar performer in the portfolio, up 35% in the period. This was mainly volume driven as the operator Capstone has announced 3 consecutive months of record levels of production. Again, we expect very good momentum to come here going forward, and Marc will touch on that again a little later. But this positive and record levels of outcome is coming when the copper price, which did experience some volatility earlier on in the year around tariff disruptions has now bounced back to about $10,000 a tonne, whereas post tariff, it traded down to about $8,000. So again, with price and volume tailwinds here, we expect a good finish to the year.

The Mimbula copper acquisition, this one really doesn't tell the full story. Given the way the stream is structured, the revenue recognition point is based on the receipt of the copper and the sale of those units. We usually receive those units and sell them immediately in the week after the quarter end date. So the revenue recognition period is the first week of the quarter. So actually, the $0.7 million received here relates to February and March of 2025. It doesn't include $1.4 million we've sold already in Q3, which was based on production in Q2. So again, we expect good momentum in the second half of the year here.

Just picking out a couple of others as we go down. Four Mile, very similar to Mimbula and that it lags a quarter. So whilst the normal levels of sales volumes has resumed here, it is lagging 1 quarter. So we expect much higher levels of revenue to come through in the second half. And bear in mind, the $1.4 million comparative number here in H1 last year, there was no revenue in the second half of last year. So we expect good momentum here, too.

It's worth noting again and further down the chart that EVBC provides us with some gold exposure. And the delta here reflects the outperformance of the gold price over the first half of the year and beyond that. In fact, gold is trading just under $3,500 an ounce, and we have some good torque to that through the EVBC gold royalty.

And last but by no means least is Kestrel. And whilst this now represents a short-term asset for the group, it's still worth remembering that we expect total volumes here between 2.2 million and 2.3 million tonnes this year. This is about a 10% increase on what we received last year. So whilst not core to the long-term equity story of Ecora, the next 2 years from Kestrel is still very key to our deleveraging path, and I'll touch on this later on.

Turning to our adjusted earnings. A couple of things just to highlight here. Our overheads in the period, we report these in USD, but the vast majority of our cost base is in pound sterling. So a slight increase here year-on-year given the weakening of the U.S. dollar in the period. The $6.4 million here includes about $800,000 of share-based payments. So that is not a cash cost. Our finance costs of $4.9 million reflect higher borrowings in the period -- higher average borrowings in the period following the Mimbula acquisition, but they've also benefited from somewhat lower finance costs, given the rate cuts that the Fed has imposed this year-to-date and with expectations that further cuts could be coming in the second half of the year, the potential, especially with Dugbe now as well to see a reduction in our run rate on finance costs.

And one thing which is also worth noting is the tax cost of $1.8 million. This tax cost is based on the portfolio contribution accrued in the first half of the year. And as we noted, Kestrel is not a significant component of that. And Kestrel, as I've said before, attaches a very high effective tax rate. So the effective tax rate implied here is a real indication of what is to come in terms of free cash flow conversion in life after Kestrel in a couple of years' time.

Turning to the balance sheet. Just to highlight a couple of things. The increase in royalty assets, obviously, includes the Mimbula acquisition, offset somewhat by the fair value revision to Kestrel in a lower coking coal price environment. Worth noting, as I often do, the $249.7 million royalty intangible assets, this represents about 45% of our total royalty assets. Now these assets under IFRS are carried at the lower of their fair value or amortized cost. And as such, any increase or inherent increased value in this portfolio, whether that is through reserve and resource upside revisions to commodity prices or indeed just the unwinding of the discount rate as these get closer to production is never reflected on the balance sheet.

And if we go further down the page, the $429.9 million net assets at 30th of June approximates to about 126p per share. So based on the hidden value, if you like, of the intangible assets, there should be some upside to that number on a pro forma basis.

My final slide is our net debt reconciliation and our liquidity. This chart is a little bit out of date given the recent announcement of the Dugbe disposal. But for this year, it includes the Mimbula acquisition. And it's worth remembering as well at the same time we did this, we took the opportunity to accelerate all the remaining deferred considerations associated with our Narrabri disposal, which, along with the payments we had received in January 2025 associated with the contractual obligations brought in $11.5 million, adding the $16.5 million from Dugbe to this number, and we've effectively refinanced about 56% of the cost of Mimbula through extracting value from our portfolio.

Leverage remained comfortable at the half year at 2.5x. Again, this is pre-Dugbe. Post-Dugbe, that pro forma number would have been about 2.17. And that's comfortably within the 3.5x permitted under our borrowing facility. The Dugbe sale, as Marc mentioned, should accelerate deleveraging in the second half of the year along with the second half weighting of our portfolio cash contributions. And if we look across to the box on the bottom right-hand side of the page, we'll see based on consensus pricing, where the debt numbers could end up at the end of this year and next year. So we remain well capitalized. On top of those numbers, we have $108 million facility. We have no obligations on this until maturity in early 2028 and plenty of capital left to recycle into future acquisitions.

And I'll pass it back to Marc.

Okay. Well, thank you, Kevin. And as we both mentioned, it is a very exciting time for Ecora, both in terms of the ongoing revenue growth from our producing critical minerals royalties, but also in terms of the derisking events spanning the next wave of cash flow growth. And while we won't dwell on this slide as many of the key points are covered later in the presentation, I think we'll just briefly mention one thing, and that relates to developments at the West Musgrave project.

First, while BHP has reiterated that it intends to review the decision to temporarily suspend its Western Australian nickel unit by February 2027, and that's along with the development of the West Musgrave project. In July of this year, BHP announced that it would consider divesting the Australian nickel assets. And of course, this potentially opens the door to a change in the West Musgrave project ownership. Ultimately, West Musgrave is a low-cost, fully permitted, long-life copper-nickel asset located in Australia that's partially built in actually only a couple of years from coming into production. And suffice to say that the list of similar projects globally is very short. So it's, of course, very early days, but certainly something to keep an eye on.

You've heard already from both Kevin and I, the key takeaway at Voisey's in short is that the long-awaited production ramp-up is now firmly established and we're on track to see full production levels next year. In the first half, we received 140 tonnes of attributable cobalt. And by comparison, in the first 2 months of Q3, we've already received that exact same amount. So based on the H1 performance and the second half outlook, we have upgraded the low end of our full year 2025 attributable cobalt guidance range to 365 to 390 tonnes of cobalt. Previously, that was 335 to 390 tonnes. And that's notwithstanding scheduled maintenance outages at the Voisey's Bay mine in Q3 and then at the Long Harbour refinery during the fourth quarter as disclosed by Vale.

So with the Voisey's Bay operations now within a line of sight on steady-state production capacity, I think the question is, well, what's next at Voisey's? And the first is the possibility to increase production. So Vale has previously stated that there exists potential to increase mill throughput rates from 2.8 million tonnes currently to 3.0 million tonnes per annum, potentially more, we'll see. And second, this is in the form of the possibility of the life-of-mine extension potential. I think this is an area that we've discussed a lot in the past. But from what we're seeing, it seems almost certain that the LoM will be incrementally extended to some degree. And if we look beyond that, the scenario of doubling of the mine life actually bears both very possible and still with a potential gap to what we would see as the very best possible blue sky scenario.

I think we've touched on the cobalt market to some degree. And I won't dwell on the developments from the DRC government. But I think one other point to add, and it continues the theme of government action in relation to critical minerals frameworks. The U.S. DoD has recently launched an alloy grade cobalt tender of up to $500 million, and this is something we'll come back to later in the presentation.

The Mantos Blancos royalty performed very strongly during the period. And this is something really driven off of strong operational performance by the Capstone team. The debottlenecking program that was announced and completed last year has really led to the sulphide throughput increase to meet or exceed nameplate capacity levels in the past quarters. And so also what's next at Mantos Blancos, and that's really the possibility of a Phase 2 expansion.

And this study and this expansion potentially contemplates using largely existing or underutilized equipment to do 2 things. Number one, potentially increase sulphide concentrator throughput capacity to such that we could expect to see annual production copper increased by approximately 10,000 tonnes. Second, increased copper cathode production by releaching historical waste material. And Capstone is targeting incremental copper production of approximately 25,000 tonnes per year over 15 years. So that's fairly material considering that Capstone's guidance for Mantos Blancos in 2025 is the midpoint is around 54,000 tonnes and the Phase 2 expansion is potentially targeting an increase of somewhere in the order of 35,000 tonnes per year. That study is expected in 2026.

And again, something we've said before, but to repeat the point, appears to be the type of low capital, high return on investment project that mining execs favor. As you'll all be aware, we completed the acquisition of the producing Mimbula copper stream during the first half of the year. The Phase 2 expansion continues to advance. The crusher installation is now complete and in commissioning. The ongoing Phase 2 expansion continues. And there's also exploration drilling ongoing at the site. Kevin touched on this, but we do expect to see growing copper volumes of stream copper in the second half of the year as we benefit from a full reporting period and, of course, in H2 and beyond as the Phase 2 expansion progresses towards completion.

A very short update on Kestrel, and it's simply that no change in guidance for the calendar year. As many of you will already be aware, we've always expected Kestrel to be very heavily weighted to H2. We've already seen the mining operations return to our royalty area in late Q2. So we are very confident on these volumes coming through in the second half of the year.

Turning now to Patterson Corridor East. This is an asset in our portfolio that sometimes appears to sort of get lost in the wash despite our best efforts to really showcase and bring attention to this royalty. In the first half of the year, NexGen began a 43,000 meter exploration drill program at Patterson Quarter East to further delineate the deposit. And at midyear, just over half of that program has been completed. I think the only way to describe some of the results of the program thus far are just geologically exceptional. Mineralization has been confirmed at 600-meter strike, 600-meter vertical extent, open in all directions and in a hosted and competent basement rock and interestingly, actually, at shallower depth in the NexGen's nearby world-class Arrow deposit. So in short, Patterson Corridor East does continue to show what we see as potential to be a generational uranium discovery. And we, of course, eagerly await the release of a maiden resource, which NexGen is targeting sometime next year. And we think that should go a long way to helping daylight the value of this royalty.

I think a second point to note, while we're on this topic, is that Ecora's royalty entitlements over NexGen properties are actually much broader than solely Patterson Corridor East. They do not include Arrow, but they do mirror the mineral claims underlying the 10% carried interest that NexGen acquired from Rio Tinto in July 2025. So in time, these royalty interests that Ecora has in Athabasca certainly have the potential to benefit from further exploration.

And last, before we finish, turning now to a wider critical minerals market perspective. In recent years, it's clear to anyone connected to the minerals sector that the establishment of the independent supply chains has emerged as a key focal point for Western governments. However, it's only been in the last couple of months actually, where we've seen a very strong acceleration of action and that's been from the U.S. government, in particular. I think the first trend relates to stockpiling and the alloy grade cobalt tender that's just been launched by the U.S. Department of Defense is a great example of this type of market development. The tender represents actually somewhere around 100% of the total 2024 alloy grade production by the 3 qualifying producers being Vale, Glencore and Sumitomo. And of course, it's unclear at this time what volumes will ultimately transact, but there's a real possibility as we look to the future of a much tighter supply-demand balance, specifically around these really high-spec alloy-grade products and other commodities where governments might look to stockpile minerals.

I think second is the emergence of a trend of public-private partnerships. And our rainbow Rare Earths royalty, which we acquired last year with hindsight that is turning out to be a really opportune countercyclical entry point is very well positioned to benefit directly and indirectly. And you can see a read across, obviously, through the existing indirect U.S. government ownership stake in Rainbow Rare Earths via TechMet and indirectly via developments more widely in terms of security of supply in the rare earths market and the direct read across, of course, to the U.S. Department of Defense agreement with MP Materials to enter into a 10-year offtake agreement for NdPr production at price levels that are well in excess of spot levels. And that ultimately provides some level of insulation to MP Materials anyways to nonmarket forces into the future.

So in terms of what this all means for Ecora? Well, first, we think that our commodity exposure is very favorably aligned to what is actually quite a simple question. And that question is whether one believes that the world is likely to continue to see strong electricity demand growth. We have high-quality portfolio of royalties over low-cost assets and development-stage assets with strong operators. And the revenue profile is underpinned by a very strong critical minerals growth. I think H1 certainly acts as a tangible demonstration of the portfolio's underlying cash generation potential with more to come in the future with volume growth in H2 and beyond, which seems to particularly highlight what we see as a very attractive current entry point for investors.

So thank you for joining the presentation, and we'll now take questions.

[Operator Instructions] We'll now take our first question from Laura Chan of RBC.

Just one question from me. I mean your portfolio is obviously shifting towards base metals. But how are you thinking about the composition mix in the long term? Would you look at exposure and something like lithium? And if you have one, is there any -- is there a targeted commodity mix that you have in mind?

Laura, thanks for the question. I think from a commodity perspective, our mandate to some degree is quite broad. I would say, it encapsulate the critical mineral/electrification trend. That being said, we've sought to concentrate our portfolio in base metals with a cornerstone of copper. We certainly would consider other commodities subject to such as lithium, for example, such as -- subject to the entry point, the returns profile, cost curve positioning, all the same key investment criteria that would apply on a relative basis throughout the commodity complex.

So while we don't have a particularly predefined target commodity mix, we do consider moving laterally as and when commodities present cyclical opportunities, but there is certainly a focus on retaining base metals and in particular copper at the core of our commodity exposure.

And we'll now take our next question from Will Dalby of Berenberg.

Just a couple from me, if possible. The first is kind of more of a clarification point. On just looking at Slide 14, on Voisey's Bay and the production there and you sort of highlight the difference in price between alloy grade and standard grade and then I see a portion of H2 '24 production was sort of about 50-50 alloy and standard. What's the kind of outlook there for the quality split?

Will, thanks for that. Historically, if you run sort of 5 years, what you'd see is probably 80% alloy, 20% standard grade. Although of recent years, this year, in particular, as you can see in H1, there has been a focus to produce and target 100% alloy grade. So while it's certainly possible that we might see some alloy-grade product -- standard-grade products in the future, it does appear as if there's an effort to shift to 100% alloy grade.

Okay. That's clear. And then the second, maybe just a bit more on broader strategy and commodity-wise. So looking at your portfolio split, I'm really thinking about a couple of good or interesting nickel assets you have in the Piauí and West Musgrave against the backdrop of -- obviously, nickel had a challenging couple of years, and I think consensus sort of it's probably destined to kind of stay there for the foreseeable. I guess the overall question is how are you seeing nickel and those assets sitting in your portfolio? Do you feel like you kind of have a more patient approach to ride through the cycle and let those come back? Or do you think there's maybe threats that these kind of projects are maybe going to struggle to get built and you have to start thinking about potentially trying to monetize them and reallocate capital elsewhere? Just be interested to get your sort of views on that.

Yes. So when you think about our nickel exposure, Will, I think part of the thought process would relate to cost curve positioning and number two, a more geopolitical security of supply question. So in terms of cost curve positioning, our nickel exposures are well in the lower half of the first cost curve -- the lower half of the cost curve. And as a result, both West Musgrave and Piauí have the potential to produce at today's price and still generate robust free cash flows.

I think second, the world increasingly is shifting towards sizable and dominant market share in nickel from Indonesia, which in time is likely to revert as ore grades deplete as ore -- as costs are increased from mining of -- from mining ore bodies further away from processing sites. I think like any commodity, nickel historically has demonstrated cyclicality, but those assets are amongst the best undeveloped nickel deposits globally outside arguably of potentially Sudbury.

More generally, would we consider monetizing them? I think it's a more general question on our portfolio. I think Ecora would be open to considering anything on its merits at this point -- at this time in the nickel market, though, you think it might not be the best time to maximize value.

Yes. I appreciate your comments. And yes, congrats on the strong first half.

There are no further questions in queue. [Operator Instructions] There are no further questions in queue. Handing it over for webcast questions.

Great. We've got a few questions from the webcast. First question is, congratulations on the sale of Dugbe Gold Royalty. I would like to know what other noncore royalties in your opinion that will be worth millions that are currently not recognized by others.

Well, thanks for the question. I think you could make the point if you look at what's currently priced into the Ecora shares. The entirety arguably of the development nonproducing portfolio is not reflected in the current Ecora share price. So you could -- I don't think you need to necessarily look to noncore assets to see substantial value in this portfolio.

Great. Thank you. Next question is, what is the pipeline of potential royalty deals, especially in other metals that we don't have right now, lithium, manganese, zinc, tin, graphites?

Yes. So I think within our targeted commodity remit, you've definitely included in that question a few of the commodities that we review and consider. As I mentioned in response to an earlier question, the key commodity that we'd really like to retain at the core of the portfolio is copper. We have absolutely reviewed a number of opportunities laterally, more specifically in terms of battery chemistries or elsewhere in terms of energy production or energy consumption. To date, we haven't seen any opportunities that were -- that fully met our investment criteria in the other commodity suite, but it's also a question of cyclical entry points. And I think as you move forward in time, there's a sort of changing and evolving relative landscape towards what commodity might offer a more opportune entry point and vice versa.

So by no means are we saying that we wouldn't consider any of those commodities, we absolutely do. Just today, we haven't found any to transact on. And with copper available, we chose to focus on that commodity.

Thank you. Next question is the royalty sector has heated up lately. Will we consider to buy other smaller peers such as SMIT Royalty, Electric Royalty, et cetera?

I think, generally speaking, we don't really comment on M&A publicly. I think as -- of course, we do consider any and all opportunities. To date, we've seen strong value, for example, the Mimbula-producing copper stream and that's something we've pursued.

Great. Thank you. There are no further questions on the webcast. So I'll hand over to you for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much for joining us. We're very excited about these results. So we do feel they represent a strong point of inflection for this portfolio and its evolution into the future. And we're very excited for the second half of the year, both in terms of further growth in our producing royalty portfolio, but key derisking events in relation to that next wave of growth, both in terms of brownfield expansions and greenfield installations thereafter.