Neometals (NMT) - Mercedes Opportunity Growing & Advancing Quickly

Interview with Chris Reed, Managing Director & CEO of Neometals Ltd. (ASX: NMT)

Our previous interview:    • Neometals (NMT) - Path to Revenue in ...  

Recording date: 14th February 2023

Neometals Ltd. is an Australian mineral development company, involved in the recovery of a large array of battery metals including lithium, titanium and vanadium. The company’s core business units consist of its lithium-ion battery recycling process in Germany, its vanadium recovery project in Finland and its Lithium chemicals unit, a joint venture (JV) with Bondalti Chemicals SA via Reed Advanced Materials (RAM) Pty Ltd.

The company believes that Europe is the ideal market to operate in, this is due to the size of the European battery market as well as its domestic battery production initiatives and EV demand. The European battery market is the second largest in the world following China. Neometals Ltd. believes that through its Green Processing Technologies, aimed at providing battery materials, it is able to address the needs of the European markets.

The Lithium-ion Battery Recycling business unit of Neometals Ltd. is aimed at producing nickel, cobalt and lithium from production scrap. The Primobius JV between the company and the SMS Group is operating a commercial disposal service at its 10 tpd shredding in Germany and is the recycling technology partner to Mercedes Benz. The company’s partnership with Stelco in Canada is expected to reach an investment decision in September 2023. The Vanadium Recovery business unit is underway with finalising the feasibility study of a 300,000 tpa operation in Finland which will be published in Q1 2023. The operation is supported by a 10-year supply agreement held between the company and SSAB. The lithium chemicals business unit is underway with various studies aimed at enabling the operation of a demonstration plant at Bondalti’s Estarreja chloralkali plant in Portugal in H1 2024.

0:00 - Company overview
0:30 - Perspective on the company share prices due to concerns about operational delays
1:58 - Realities of working in Europe
3:10 - The problem being solved by Neometals
6:50 - Reaching the “Product Readiness” stage
7:58 - Hitting the “moving targets” of the company
10:08 - Requests made by Mercedes to the company
13:44 - Discussions about scaling up
16:11 - Figuring out the “Scrap rate” of the batteries
18:33 - Evolved thinking for the source of value growth for the company
22:46 - Catering to the needs of the customers
23:22 - 2023 Timeline for the company
23:42 - Message to the shareholders
24:39 - Updates on the vanadium component of the company
25:34 - Discussion about the pricing
26:18 - Updates on the company’s other operations
33:05 - Outro

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