AMG Critical Materials N.V. Stock

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's AMG Q2 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded, and I will be standing by, if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Thomas Swoboda. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Ross. Good day, everyone, and welcome to AMG's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Joining me on this call is the entire AMG Management Board, namely Dr. Heinz Schimmelbusch, the Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Jackson Dunckel, the Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Michael Connor, the Chief Corporate Development Officer.

We published our second quarter 2026 earnings press release yesterday, along with the presentation for investors, both of which you can find on our website. They include our disclaimers about forward-looking statements. Today's call will begin with a review of the comments on which surface every morning. Today's call will begin with a review of the second quarter 2026 business highlights by Dr. Schimmelbusch. Mr. Connor will comment on strategy, and Mr. Dunckel will comment on AMG's financial results. I think we mixed up the names. The financial results will be commented by Mr. Dunckel. At the completion of Mr. Dunckel's remarks, Dr. Schimmelbusch will comment on outlook. We will open the line to take questions thereafter.

I will now pass the floor to Dr. Schimmelbusch, AMG's Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Schimmelbusch.

Thank you, Thomas. Ladies and gentlemen, as we stated last quarter, the price increases from earlier this year have begun to support our adjusted EBITDA. During Q2, we achieved $92 million of adjusted EBITDA, 30% more than the $71 million in Q2 '25. And notably, more than double Q1 '26 adjusted EBITDA of $44 million.

We remain optimistic about our ability to benefit from our recent investments as well as the improved lithium market dynamics. While Q2 benefited from very favorable phasing effects, it also clearly shows the earnings and cash generation potential of our platform. As ever, we continue to grow our critical materials footprint as demonstrated by our press release from earlier this very week. On Monday, we closed our purchase of Zinnwald Lithium, one of the major lithium reserves in Europe. This is a major strategic step in consolidating the critical materials industry in Europe while significantly increasing our resource base. By applying AMG's long-standing experience in mining, refining and certifying critical materials, we will be able to significantly reduce the project's capital requirement and improve its operating cost position while significantly improving its environmental footprint.

Another highlight of Q2 was the opening of our new chrome metal production facility in Newcastle, Pennsylvania on June 17. The facility has an annual capacity of up to 6,500 tonnes of chrome metal, which is deemed a critical materials in the U.S. and everywhere else, too. Chrome metal enhances the performance, durability and heat resistance of advanced alloys. And when AMG's new high-purity chrome metal facility, we are onshoring -- and with that facility, we are onshoring the production of a material with significant strategic importance to aerospace and energy.

I will now hand over to Mike Connor. Mike?

Thank you, Heinz. Good morning, everyone. The second quarter reflected continued momentum as we executed on our strategic priorities against an increasingly supportive backdrop for critical materials. While geopolitical tensions remain elevated, they continue to reinforce the importance of secure, localized and sustainable supply chains. Governments around the world are increasingly prioritizing domestic and allied sources of critical materials. An area where AMG has established a unique competitive position. Despite commodity prices remaining largely at normalized levels, AMG continues to generate strong profitability. Our results increasingly reflect the value created through disciplined capital allocation, strategic investments and operational execution rather than the exceptional pricing environment that drove earnings peaks in previous cycles.

In lithium, Bitterfeld continues to execute a disciplined commercial ramp-up, consistently producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide within specification while progressing customer qualifications in accordance with customer defined schedules. The refinery also recorded significant lithium hydroxide sales during the second quarter, reflecting the continued progress for full commercial operation. In Mibra in Brazil, spodumene production continues to increase with output expected to reach 130,000 ton run rate this year. Also, as Heinz mentioned, we completed the acquisition of Zinnwald Lithium following the quarter end. In vanadium, our recycling and upgrading capabilities continue to differentiate AMG. In the quarter, we temporarily benefited from securing attractive spot feedstocks, including significant volumes of spent catalysts following a competitor's bankruptcy.

Our diversified sourcing strategy provides the flexibility to maximize throughput when opportunity arises. This proves particularly valuable while shipping from the Middle East continues to be limited. In Saudi Arabia, construction is progressing on the initial phase of our Shell AMG Recycling Supercenter, which will expand our global vanadium platform. In chrome, we successfully opened our U.S. chrome metal facility in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, establishing the only domestic producer of chrome metal in North America. We see significant opportunities to expand this platform as demand for secure domestic supply continues to grow across aerospace, defense and energy markets. In molybdenum, we're integrating AURA Technologie and advancing engineering to expand our recycling platform. Combined with the business' strong profitability, AURA exemplifies AMG's strategy of acquiring differentiated technologies and scaling them for our global industrial platform.

Finally, subsequent to quarter end, we finalized the divestiture of Graphit Kropfmuhl and successfully closed our refinancing. Together with the significantly oversubscribed equity offering completed during the quarter, these transactions have substantially strengthened AMG's balance sheet and liquidity, providing the capital and financial flexibility to execute our growth strategy and pursue compelling strategic opportunities. Collectively, these milestones demonstrate AMG's ability to execute on both our operational and strategic priorities while strengthening our long-term competitive position.

I will now turn the call over to Jackson Dunckel, our CFO.

Thank you, Mike. Starting on Page 4 of the presentation, you can see that Q2 '26 adjusted EBITDA increased 30% versus the same period last year. This is primarily due to the increasingly strong profitability from our vanadium and lithium segments, both of which benefited from significant phasing effects. In lithium, it was from the shipment of 12,000 tons of concentrate shifting from Q1 to Q2. And in vanadium, it was from much higher input material in the second quarter. On the lower left, you can see our net income attributable to shareholders of $28 million during Q2 '26, more than doubled the $12 million in Q2 last year, aided by a write-up of our lithium inventories.

On Page 5, you can see the volume and price movements for our key products represented by arrows, which underscore our segmental results. I will cover these price and volume movements for the individual segment comments. AMG Lithium results are shown on Page 7. On the top left, you can see that Q2 '26 revenues more than tripled versus the prior year. This is driven mainly by higher sales volumes of lithium concentrate and the start-up of our Bitterfeld plant, which sold unqualified battery-grade lithium hydroxide as well as higher lithium and tantalum sales prices. Q2 '26 adjusted EBITDA was $31 million compared to $3 million in Q2 '25. The current period benefited in 3 significant ways. First, from strong production of lithium concentrate; second, from the phasing effect I mentioned earlier; and third, from the much lower production cost, which is helped by high tantalum price.

AMG Vanadium results are shown on Page 8. Revenue for the quarter increased by 36% compared to Q2 '25 due largely to higher vanadium volumes, driven by significantly improved availability of spent catalysts as well as higher ferrovanadium sales prices. Q2 '26 adjusted EBITDA of $33 million for our Vanadium segment more than doubled versus Q2 last year. This was achieved mainly due to increased volumes resulting from AMG Vanadium's global sourcing strategy and the purchase of domestic volumes from a bankrupt competitor as well as higher ferrovanadium sales prices in the current period.

The results for AMG Technologies are shown on Page 9. The Q2 '26 revenue of $190 million was 21% lower than the $241 million in Q2 of last year due to lower sales at AMG Antimony in the current period. Adjusted EBITDA during Q2 '26 was $27 million compared to the $53 million in the same period last year. AMG Technologies adjusted EBITDA was particularly strong in Q2 '25, because of AMG Antimony's exceptional profitability during that quarter. AMG Engineering signed $107 million of new orders during Q2 '26, achieving a book-to-bill ratio of 1.27x, which was more than double the 0.63 in Q2 last year.

Page 10 of the presentation shows our main income statement items. The key changes on this page are regarding taxes. The tax expense increased from $7 million in Q2 '25 to $19 million in the current period, primarily driven by an improvement in operating results, which was partially offset by losses with no benefit in Germany. Our cash tax payments of $30 million in Q2 '26 were largely due to the very high Antimony profitability last year.

Page 11 of the presentation shows our cash flow metrics. The increase in operating cash flow to $55 million for the quarter was mainly due to the much higher profitability in the current period and reversal of the working capital effects we saw last quarter. Our total cash used in investing activities was $33 million for the quarter. And as a result, we are pleased to report that we were free cash flow positive in the quarter. We ended the quarter with $440 million of net debt. And as of June 30, 2026, we had $343 million in cash and cash equivalents. With $165 million available on our revolving credit facility, we had $508 million of total liquidity at the end of the second quarter.

And our financial strength has only increased since then. Last week, we refinanced our 5-year $200 million revolving credit facility and issued a new 7-year $500 million Term Loan B to refinance our existing Term Loan B, which was maturing in 2028, generating $53 million in net proceeds. The interest rate of the Term Loan B is SOFR plus 3.25%, a reduction in spread due to the strong investor demand, and we hedged our interest rate by capping it at an all-in rate of 6.8%. In addition, the transaction we previously announced to sell AMG Graphite to Asbury Advanced Materials was completed as of July 28 in accordance with the announced terms. We received total proceeds of $64 million from the sale. So despite completing multiple strategic projects this year, as of July 29, we have more than $400 million of cash on hand. With the strength of our balance sheet and enhanced liquidity, we are primed for an acceleration of growth going forward.

That concludes my remarks. Dr. Schimmelbusch.

Thank you, Jackson. Prices for many of our materials strengthened in the first half of '26 and the backlog of our engineering business continues at historically high levels. Despite the significant geopolitical instability, we increased our '26 adjusted EBITDA guidance range to between $230 million and $250 million, up from our previous guidance between $210 million and $240 million. We expect the third quarter to be significantly down sequentially driven by favorable phasing effects in the second quarter.

Operator, we would now like to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Martijn den Drijver from ABN.

Congratulations with the results. I have 3 questions, and I will do them one by one, if I may. And the first one is on vanadium and the sourcing strategy. Can you provide some additional color on that sourcing strategy now that you found feedstock from a different source, a bankrupt competitor? That would be question one. And as a follow-up on that, is there an effect of that particular transaction in Q3 and Q4 as well? And what other sources are you targeting in terms of supply?

The second question, can you repeat that?

Well, the second question was whether that particular transaction with the bankrupt competitor would also affect Q3 and Q4? And then the third question was, what other sources are you targeting next to the Middle East and your normal supply from the petrochemical industry?

Well, I don't think the bankrupt supplier has a significant impact on our very diversified supply strategy globally -- global supply strategy of our ferrovanadium operation in Ohio. So it's nice to have, but not significant.

Understood...

But in terms of phasing, we do not expect it to repeat in Q3 and Q4. And in terms of global supply, we are focused on the Middle East.

Understood. And then my second question is about lithium. You mentioned additional sales of unqualified battery-grade lithium in Q2. Can you provide some color on the volumes and whether that will also continue in Q3 and Q4? And next to that, is the Bitterfeld plant because of those sales, nearing breakeven already?

So the first part of your question is, yes, we expect those sales to continue and increase as the plant continues to ramp up. We're not disclosing the exact volumes. But obviously, we said significant sales in the second quarter. You can see it in the growth in the sales figures for the segment. And we would expect that to grow throughout the course of the year as we ramp towards the full run rate.

Understood. And then my final question on lithium as well and again, Bitterfeld. How should we think of 2027? So you're moving towards full production and qualification. We're now in July, almost August. Is there any color you can provide on what we should pencil in for 2027 in terms of production and sales? Maybe a bit more color there would be appreciated.

Yes. I think we expect to be operating at full capacity next year. The qualification process, as we've stated previously, is not really in our control. So we're, to a certain degree, at the mercy of the customer qualification schedule on a customer-by-customer basis. We expect to start receiving those qualifications starting next quarter, and that will increase throughout the end of the year and into next year. So we can't give a really clear split on exactly how much will be qualified versus unqualified, but we expect to be producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide at a full capacity for 2027.

And just a small follow-up. Obviously, on the qualified part, there's market prices will apply, maybe some indexation. But on the unqualified, what would be a reasonable price assumption?

It would depend on a customer-by-customer basis. So I can't give you a universal figure that it will apply. Obviously, we would prioritize qualified sales.

And our next question comes from Michael Kuhn from Deutsche Bank.

Also a few questions from my side. I'll also do them one by one. I would start with the Q2 performance and the increased outlook. The initial guidance was for, say, roughly flattish adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter compared with Q2 last year. Obviously, you did much better. Maybe a little more of explanation what were the key surprise factors? And why, let's say, you didn't fully translate those into the guidance because at the upper end, it's $10 million more versus, I would argue, more like $20 million more in the second quarter.

So the key surprises were in lithium volumes as well as lithium price. The other key surprise was total volumes sold in vanadium. So our 2 key units performed well above expectations. In terms of why it didn't translate into a straight $20 million increase to our guidance. As we noted before, we do have phasing effects in Q3 and Q4. So that's why it didn't apply.

Yes, we were starting with that sentence of the phasing effects just to precaution analysts to multiply $90 million times 4.

That's fair point. That would have been pretty rich. And maybe a follow-up on vanadium. So I fully get that, let's say, in the global context, those additional volumes are, let's say, not too significant. Still, I would say, the supply situation remains difficult. Is there more of those opportunities in the market where you could do like one-off purchases of volumes, I mean, either out of bankruptcies or out of whatever other sources to, let's say, improve the overall feedstock availability?

The overwhelming supply structure is contracted under long-term contracts with a myriad of refineries and other suppliers. So events like bankruptcies extraordinary and insignificant, as I have said before. This is a very stable long-term structure, which is planned. Now we are expanding our footprint in this area, as you know, through a major project in Saudi Arabia, which symbolizes our presence in the Middle East. And we are going through a multiphase expansion scenario in the Middle East for acquiring additional sources of supply in addition to the initial project, which is not based on the spend catalysts, but on gasification ash in Saudi Arabia. So consider our presence in the Middle East to be significant enlarging.

[Operator Instructions] At this time, we have a follow-up from Michael Kuhn from Deutsche Bank.

So there's obviously the opportunity to ask a little more, happy to do so. Just on the closing of the graphite business, you mentioned the improved cash position as of end July. Ultimately, in terms of net cash proceeds, how much did you get out of the deal?

I think Jackson disclosed it in the script, but it was $64 million of cash proceeds.

All right. And maybe one more on -- or 2 more on lithium. I mean, if you look at the development of the European lithium landscape, there was an important step forward of Savannah as it late towards commercialization. And still, let's say, there's one step technical grade that needs to be done in China, I doubt. Is there an increasing pressure, let's say, to complete the value chain, which is also part of your medium-term vision? And how -- yes, how could those steps be implemented? And is there any, let's say, political support for that?

Well, as you know and as published several times, we are fully prepared technically and through feasibility studies to make that bridge step in Brazil going through the final stages of that decision-making process, but that symbolizes that we are fully prepared technically and organizationally to go from spodumene to technical grade also in Europe with respective preparatory steps underway. The value chain in lithium, which we refer to as the highway from Brazil via Portugal to Germany is optimized in many ways, but -- and it's taking a considerable management time. But it is a harmony between increased supply of mostly hard rock concentrates, increased technical grade capabilities and then refinery expansion steps.

And that has to be brought in balance, which is rather complicated because each of these decisions have carefully to be controlled time line. And we are very happy that we have this Chinese conversion capability friends, underlying friends because we can -- that is helpful for optimizing the completion of such a harmonized structure. It is to be expected that this structure is expanding significantly. It is also very high on our priority list because one has to remember that we are 20,000 tonnes. We are the sole refinery in Europe. The European growth in the first half of '26 year-over-year is 27% in EV sales and the battery pack average size has increased 10% by weight in that time frame, not to talk about the stationary battery expansion, which is significant 2-digit growth numbers when you estimate the European sales in hydroxide in '30, '31, '32, you have a variety of scenario forecast, but it's mostly around 500,000 tons with a 20,000 ton refinery, we are ready to expand, but we are only expanding based on the significant captive contractual supply status because of that, of course, is reducing the risk.

This is not to be confused with other value chains in other raw material industries such as copper, where you have custom refineries, which are supplying themselves from all sorts of disconnected -- legally disconnected producers. We want to be -- we want to manage harmonized value chains with significant equity control by AMG on all steps of this value chains. That's very important for the future. We, of course, have the objective to be the #1 producer in Europe in this year for a very long time.

Very clear. And very last question in that context. When can we expect a more detailed update on Zinnwald Lithium?

Zinnwald has been, of course, on our mind for a long time. It reminds me of the observation that it is difficult for venture firms to do large-scale investment projects. You need a lot of deep management structures and technology base to handle such a project. We have very clear ideas about the development of Zinnwald, which we have developed while we were observing a 30% shareholder. The most significant -- there are many significant aspects to this. It's a very important transaction. One aspect is that we have developed while we were in this waiting period, we have developed environmentally significantly improved technology for avoiding waste streams.

You have in lithium hard rock mining, you have, of course, waste stream, which are consisting of, number one, that you have ore, which you -- since you only mine 1% sort of ore and 99% is earth. So you have to handle that. But that's relatively benign uncomplicated, but the complicated part is the chemical waste when you are applying chemicals for upgrading waste, then you have a chemical waste. And we have a new technology, which is a breakthrough technology, which we own exclusively to apply to that project. That's one aspect. And the other aspect is that we will produce lithium chloride and when you produce lithium chloride, you know that you have the option from lithium chloride very elegantly to go into lithium metal. So we are studying also an aspect of that development, which related to lithium metal, which of course, is an extremely interesting market.

And we have a follow-up question from Martijn den Drijver from ABN AMRO.

Two questions, please. One is on tantalum. Can you help us understand where production stood in Q2? And what should we expect for the second half? Are you at the end of the year back to full capacity with tantalum? Or should we perhaps assume that to occur a little bit earlier?

And my second question is about ALD Engineering. We see a very strong performance, also very good book-to-bill. Are there opportunities to expand the capacity given the strong demand that you see? And if not, why not?

You mean the capacity of -- second question, the capacity of...

Engineering ALD.

Well, to talk about the second question, we have a very strong order intake and order backlog, and that is continuing. Half of our business is directed towards North America, United States in particular. A very significant part of other -- of the rest is based in China. The rest of the world is relatively small. The dominating customer of ALD Engineering in a visualized way is the aerospace engine. Another very dominating aspect is that we enable people -- the metal industry of the world to qualify secondary materials into the necessary high-quality, high-purity qualification needed for customers like the aerospace engine, which is the most -- it is the most significant customer of the metallurgical critical material industry.

It's the guiding light, our engineering company, ALD Vacuum Technology GmbH in Hanau, Germany is the guiding light into the critical material industry as regard to its metallurgical component. Now the growth of that market is significant and will continue, if not accelerating. The aerospace industry is very strong in its growth perspective and not only within -- not only as a number of planes or build rates of planes, but also of the increased share of critical materials within that market because the operating temperatures of the aerospace engine are increasing continuously in order to achieve energy saving and CO2 reduction effects.

And that is a long-term trend, which has started 10, 15 years ago and is continuing and is absorbing a lot of our technology efforts to be specific high-purity metals, which enable a higher operating temperature have to be then amended by ceramics in order to have to access a much higher temperature zone. And that is an ongoing optimization process, which is happening very much significantly influenced by our presence in that market. I think we are the #1 critical materials company as regard to the aerospace engineering company.

And Martijn, in regards to your first question, the tantalum production is a function of the lithium production because it's a byproduct, obviously. At a full 130,000 tonne run rate, we will produce roughly 400,000 pounds of tantalum. As we said, we're looking to ramp to full production capacity. In June, we hit that level, the 130 run rate. We're looking to stabilize that in the second half of the year and expect to run next year at the full capacity.

And at this time, there are no further questions. I'll turn the call back over to our host to close out the call.

Thank you, Ross, and thank you, everyone. It's a busy reporting day. We know that. So thank you so much for dialing in. All the best. Bye-bye.

Thank you. This does conclude today's AMG Q2 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's AMG First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded, and I will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Thomas Swoboda. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good day, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. As usual, joining me on this call is the entire AMG Management Board, namely Dr. Heinz Schimmelbusch, the Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Jackson Dunckel, the Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Michael Connor, the Chief Corporate Development Officer.

We published our first quarter 2026 earnings press release yesterday, along with the presentation for investors, both of which you can find on our website. They include our disclaimers about forward-looking statements. Today's call will begin with a review of the first quarter 2026 business by business highlights by Dr. Schimmelbusch. Mr. Connor will comment on strategy. And Mr. Dunckel will comment on AMG's financial results. At the completion of Mr. Dunckel's remarks, Dr. Schimmelbusch will comment on outlook. We will open the line to take your questions, thereafter.

I will now pass the floor to Dr. Schimmelbusch, AMG's Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Schimmelbusch?

Thank you, Thomas. Ladies and gentlemen, our focus on a broad portfolio of critical materials and technologies for the energy transition is increasingly paying off. In Q1, we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of $44 million, a 2% improvement compared to $43 million in Q4 '25. This is a better than expected initially driven by the consolidation of AURA beginning January 1, 2026.

Beyond circular molybdenum, AURA brought recycled tungsten into our critical materials portfolio and the tungsten price performance helped their results. On April 9, we increased our capital by 10%, successfully placing shares at EUR 34 per share. The capital increase was oversubscribed 4x. The proceeds of $127 million will be used to finance expansions into lithium, high-purity molybdenum and vanadium. These projects have low capital requirement, short implementation times and quick payback. We are laying the groundwork to play a key role in achieving energy and Critical Materials sovereignty in Europe and the U.S. The capital increase makes sure that we can implement the earlier mentioned projects in any given geopolitical environment.

I will now hand over to Mike Connor. Mike?

Thank you, Heinz. Good morning, everyone. In the first quarter, our markets have remained resilient despite the conflict in the Middle East. While we may see some limited impact from higher energy costs, particularly in Europe and potential volatility in vanadium feedstock later in the year, the broader effect has been to reinforce the key structural trends already underway, electrification, energy security, supply chain localization and recycling.

AMG is uniquely positioned to capitalize on these trends, which remain central to our strategy, and we will continue to aggressively pursue growth opportunities. Pricing across many of our key materials, including lithium, tantalum and vanadium, improved during the quarter. These gains are supported by structural tailwinds from global trends, underpinning a more resilient and constructive pricing environment over the longer term. In Lithium, Brazil delivered production in line with guidance, and we entered the second quarter -- as we entered the second quarter. Higher realized prices and volumes are expected to drive meaningful step-up in profitability.

At Bitterfeld, we are ramping on plan, consistently producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide within specification and generating initial sales and gross profit and early validation as we move toward full commercial production. We are also advancing a carbonate to hydroxide conversion plant to process additional recycled feedstock, improving our cost efficiency and flexibility, supported by a German government grant as previously announced. In vanadium, fundamentals remain supported by steel demand and growing interest in grid-scale energy storage, particularly for long-duration applications.

Our recycling and upgrading capabilities position us as a differentiated and sustainable supplier. Strategically, we continue to expand our global footprint. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, our Supercenter project with Shell is progressing on schedule with engineering complete and key equipment deliveries planned for later this year, positioning us to play a central role in the Kingdom's industrial and energy transition strategy. In parallel, AMG's LIVA hybrid energy storage system deployment for Aramco further supports the development of an integrated vanadium value chain in the region.

In the United States, we are opening our chrome metal facility in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, creating domestic production of material designated as critical for aerospace, defense and energy applications. The AURA acquisition performed ahead of expectations in the first quarter, driven by strong performance in tungsten markets. This early outperformance highlights the quality and resilience of the business and reinforces the strategic rationale for the acquisition. In addition, AURA provides a strong platform for our expansion into high-purity molybdenum, where we see clear opportunities to leverage our existing recycling and processing expertise to drive further growth and value creation over time.

During the quarter, we also strengthened our balance sheet through an equity raise and now expect to close the graphite divestiture in the second quarter, sharpening our focus on core energy transition materials. Overall, the first quarter reflected solid execution and building momentum. We entered the second quarter with improving market conditions, expanding capacity, a clear strategic vision and continued focus on disciplined execution and long-term value creation.

I will now pass the floor to Jackson Dunckel. Jackson?

Thank you, Mike. Starting on Page 4 of the presentation, you can see that Q1 '26 adjusted EBITDA decreased 24% versus the same period last year. This is primarily due to the exceptionally strong profitability from AMG Antimony in Q1 of last year. On the lower left, you can see our net income attributable to shareholders of $12 million during Q1 '26 was more than double the $5 million in the first 3 months of last year, aided by a write-up of our lithium inventories.

On Page 5, you can see the price and volume movements for our key products represented by arrows, which underscore our segmental results. I will cover these price and volume movements for the individual segment comments. AMG Lithium results are shown on Page 7. On the top left, you can see that Q1 '26 revenues increased 89% versus the prior year, driven by the start-up of the Bitterfeld plant, which sold unqualified battery-grade lithium hydroxide as well as higher spodumene volumes and improving lithium and tantalum sales prices.

Q1 '26 adjusted EBITDA was $4 million compared to $5 million in Q1 last year. Despite strong production in the current period, sales were impacted by shipping vessel availability and will be realized in the second quarter. Q1 '25 was also impacted by nonrecurring costs related to the start-up of our spodumene capacity expansion, which were added back to EBITDA. AMG Vanadium results are shown on Page 8. Revenue for the quarter increased by 18% compared to Q1 '25, due largely to increased volumes of chrome metal and ferrovanadium as well as higher sales prices in ferrovanadium.

Q1 '26 adjusted EBITDA of $21 million for our Vanadium segment was 60% higher than the same period in 2025. This is primarily due to the increased volumes driven by improved spent catalyst availability from our North American suppliers and the higher sales prices in ferrovanadium, which I just noted. The results for AMG Technologies are shown on Page 9. The Q1 '26 revenue of $205 million was in line with the $202 million in the same period last year due to significantly higher sales at AMG Engineering, which were offset by lower sales at AMG Antimony.

Adjusted EBITDA during Q1 '26 was $19 million compared to the $39 million in Q1 '25. The segment's adjusted EBITDA in the prior period was particularly strong due to high profitability in AMG Antimony and this quarter-on-quarter drop was offset in Q1 '26 by very strong results from AMG Engineering. Page 10 of the presentation shows our main income statement items. The key change on this page is regarding our tax expense, which was $4 million for Q1 '26, up from $1 million in the same period last year. The increase is largely attributable to an improvement in operating results, partially offset by a deferred tax benefit in Brazil, which resulted from the appreciation of the Brazilian real.

Page 11 of the presentation shows our cash flow metrics. The drop in operating cash flow was driven by increased investment into working capital as both volumes and prices increased in all 3 of our divisions. We ended the quarter with $581 million of net debt. And as of March 31, 2026, we had $203 million in cash and cash equivalents and $200 million available on our revolving credit facility. The resulting $403 million of our total liquidity demonstrates that our balance sheet is in good shape. And crucially, we have no significant near-term debt maturities. $127 million in proceeds from last month's placement of 3.3 million newly issued ordinary shares will further strengthen our balance sheet.

That concludes my remarks. Dr. Schimmelbusch?

Thank you, Jackson. Prices for many of our materials strengthened in early 2026, and the backlog in our Engineering business continues at historically high levels. However, as we noted last quarter, given the lag of the price effect on our profitability, we expect this tailwind to support our adjusted EBITDA in Q2 '26. We expect Q2 '26 to approach the level achieved in Q2 '25, aided by tantalum prices peaking and the very favorable phasing of shipments in AMG Lithium. Despite significantly increased geopolitical headwinds and hence, reduced visibility, we reiterate our adjusted EBITDA range for $210 million to $240 million for the full year '26.

Operator, we would now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Stijn Demeester with ING.

I have a couple of them, and I will ask them one by one, if that's okay. The first one is on AMG Lithium. Can you help us with the amount of spodumene volumes that were shifted from Q1 to Q2 in Brazil due to the shipping delays? Can you also update us on the operational issues in Libra and the targeted capacity for the full year as well as with the ramp-up over the coming quarters? That's the first question.

Yes. So we had about 12,000 tons that were on the order that we normally would have expected to arrive in the first quarter, which are now arriving in the second quarter. So obviously, that's a big volume shift from Q1 to Q2. So that will impact the profitability. And we tried to -- one of the reasons we gave the additional guidance on the second quarter earnings relative to the first quarter. In regards to the expansion, the expansion is on track for what we guided to previously, which is that we expect to be able to produce at 130,000 ton capacity by the end of the year.

Okay. Understood. If you missed our 12,000 tons, it means that today, you're already at around 100,000 to 110,000 ton capacity again.

Correct.

Okay. The next question is on Bitterfeld. In the press release, you mentioned revenue from unqualified battery-grade lithium hydroxide. It seems to have had a revenue contribution, but not an EBITDA contribution, is that correct?

Yes. And you can see in the EBITDA bridge that there was a positive impact regarding the impact of lithium prices on those sales. So you can see the number there, but we did not include that with our EBITDA. So it was a positive write-up of inventory due to improvement in lithium prices related to LCMs that we took last year for Bitterfeld due to the drop in prices in prior year.

But Stijn, accounting dictates that we include the sales in our results, but we have excluded the EBITDA, which we're allowed to do.

Yes. But the $21 million write-up is not entirely due to these volumes.

No, we sold about 20 -- it's unfortunately the exact same number. We sold about $21 million of revenue from Bitterfeld in Q1.

Okay. Understood. And then related to Bitterfeld, yes, can you update us on the several qualification processes that are currently ongoing? Because in most of your businesses, you have a guaranteed offtaker, for example, Glencore in vanadium, et cetera. But this doesn't seem the case for Bitterfeld. So how certain are you that you can sell those volumes, I assume in the second half when the facility ramps up.

We are qualifying with several customers. We're highly confident in our ability to sell the material at both -- the qualification will occur at different times for different customers, but we're continuing to move those along on schedule and are confident in our ability to place the material.

Okay. And any sort of quantum that you can commit to for the second half since you're already selling right now?

But it's a nature of the qualification process, but that shouldn't be done.

Yes. I mean we'll be producing in-spec material at full capacity by the end of the year.

Okay. Understood. Then last one from my end, and I'll put myself in the queue because I have some others. But on vanadium, do you see an impact of the conflict on the supply spend catalysts? And if so, is there any adverse impact on second half EBITDA? Or are you sufficiently supplied from the North America suppliers today.

Yes. I mean a majority of our feed comes from North America. We do have a certain amount of supply in the Middle East and other places internationally. Shipping globally, obviously, has been impacted. We do not see an impact right now on second quarter earnings. We're running at full capacity today. We can't guarantee that there won't be interruptions later in the year. But as I said, a majority of our feed does come from North America. So we're well positioned in that regard.

Okay. It means that the supply issues in North America are largely resolved today.

Yes.

Your next question comes from Michael Kuhn with Deutsche Bank.

I'll also ask them one by one. Starting with cash generation. I understood that there were some shipping delays in the quarter and obviously, working capital buildup still, I think '26 was meant to be a year of better cash generation. Does that still hold true? And when would you expect, let's say, working capital effects to normalize and then ideally cash generation to improve?

Yes. So Q1 is always seasonally low for cash generation. It was exacerbated by the very high volumes we produced across all 3 of our divisions and the increasing prices. So you can see in our cash flow statement that working capital cost us roughly $68 million in the first quarter. We would expect that to largely be resolved given that prices have flattened now and volumes have ramped such that we should be generating cash Q2, Q3 with a much larger percentage in Q4.

That's very clear. Then on engineering, you mentioned the order intake and the book-to-bill in the release. If I do the math, I end up with close to $90 million of sales in the first quarter, which I think is unusually high and above the run rate we have seen over recent years. Is that a sustainable level? Or should we expect some kind of normalization over upcoming quarters?

That is more or less a sustainable level. I mean this is the result of a full backlog that we're working through in 2026.

Okay, sustainable in '26, but not necessarily in the years beyond? Or is the, let's say, the client demand continuously high also in terms of, let's say, orders that you would expect?

Our inbound order intake has been extremely strong.

And our -- the basic fundamentals of the engineering business is exceptionally strong compared to some periods in the past. And it's an aerospace-related upswing, and we believe that to stay, obviously.

So we would consider today's operating results abnormal from a long-term operating perspective.

Okay. Understood. And maybe one more on antimony, although it has come down in terms of result contribution, I think it's still a bigger business than it used to be. I think you were always trying to get a decent premium versus, let's say, the Chinese prices. How is the situation evolving here? How do those premiums look like? And what should we expect in terms of results contribution from that business going forward?

It is very difficult to predict. However, we believe that the spike -- after the reversal of the spike has settled on a higher margin level related to additional demand drivers for antimony in the solar industry.

And that can be seen in a couple of ways, Michael. The price outside of China -- inside China have stabilized and equalized. So I think that's an important factor to look at when thinking about shipping restrictions, et cetera. And they've stabilized at a higher price because of the increased demand domestically in China related to new applications. So we believe that is a sustainable trend.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Frank Claassen with Degroof Petercam.

Most of my questions have already been asked, but one question left. Maybe on the equity issue you've done. Should we read into that, that for next year, CapEx levels will go up again? So maybe -- yes, could you elaborate what are the biggest pockets you think you're going to spend, let's say, the raised money on? Could you elaborate on that?

Yes, broadly, CapEx will increase in 2027. And again, the 3 main projects will be our lithium carbonate project, our high-purity molybdenum project and our -- and of course, SARBV. However, SARBV will likely be front-loaded in 2026. So that's included in the $70 million to $90 million estimate that we have. So hopefully, that helps you. But CapEx will be slightly higher in 2027 than it was in '26.

I think one important note there is that we will have continued strength in operating cash flows as a result of the other investments that we've made coming online to help fund those investments in addition to the equity raise. So we feel pretty comfortable with the relative cash flow generation overall of the company moving forward.

Your next question comes from Usama Tariq with ABN AMRO.

I have a few set of questions. So I will go one by one. Firstly, on AMG Vanadium. So the sales and EBITDA of vanadium was solid despite some disruption from the Middle East. So can we assume going forward that the vanadium is back to normal operation and can fully benefit from the increase in ferrovanadium prices going forward? So that would be my first question. It's more generalistic in nature, I would say.

Yes. The answer, I think we covered a little bit earlier, but to expand on it, yes, we're running at full capacity right now. We will see the benefits of the higher pricing in the second quarter. The pricing has tailed off a little bit towards the last few weeks. So that will impact later quarters in the year. But we've given some guidance in the second quarter that takes into account those full volumes and higher pricing.

And I'll move to the second question, if I may, that would be on lithium. So you did mention that some of the unqualified lithium hydroxide has been sold, assuming for instance for the traders. Can you help us understand the impact of such sales in Q1? And secondly, do you expect this to occur into the future given the qualification is not yet completed?

Yes. So I think Jackson quoted $20 million approximately for revenues in the first quarter for Bitterfeld. That number will continue to increase throughout the year as production reaches full commercial level.

Okay. There will be just one more question, if I may, then I'll go back into the queue, and that will be on technologies. So profitability was higher than expected. If you analyze the Q1 and deduct the $30 million in EBITDA from engineering, it suggests that the Antimony business is despite the 30% decline in price, generating annualized EBITDA of $45 million. Do I understand correctly from the previous questions that do you see this as more of a normal going forward? Or do you still think this is a little bit more optimistic?

Well, I think as Mike said, we expect antimony profitability to remain where it is. In terms of how you got to your numbers, I think we'd like to take that offline with you.

Your next question is a follow-up from Stijn Demeester with ING.

Sorry, I was on mute. Apologies. My follow-up is on AURA. Can you help us understand the quantum of the contribution of this acquisition in the Q1 EBITDA? And what kind of EBITDA should we be looking at for the full year from this a bit of guidance maybe on capacities in molybdenum and tungsten would help.

Yes. The AURA acquisition, the big plus and benefit of it is as a platform for further expansion. As we described previously, it's going to be the platform for high-purity molybdenum production in the future, and that's an investment for us over the coming months. The contributions today are not hugely significant, but they did have a decent impact on the first quarter, but relatively small single digits.

And what kind of volumes are you currently generating?

Yes. We don't disclose the volumes. It's a little complex as far as the production, but it's a small level today.

Your next question is a follow-up from Usama Tariq with ABN AMRO.

Just 1 or 2 follow-up questions. So you mentioned that you've received R&D tax credits in Germany. I'm sorry if I missed it out, would you be able to quantify the magnitude of it? Was it low single digit or mid-single digit? Anything on that?

It is 20% of the total expenditure, which we have said is $50 million.

No, sorry. The tax credits.

Sorry, the tax credit is not the...

Low single digits. And please note that, that is not included in the EBITDA because it's for Bitterfeld. So that our EBITDA was not positively impacted by that number.

Your next question comes from Maarten Verbeek with WTE Idea.

It's Maarten Verbeek of The Idea. Firstly, your guide that your adjusted EBITDA of the second quarter will virtually match last year's. Could you more or less indicate what kind of profits of antimony you have to compensate to arrive at that level? Would it be some $25 million? Is it a fair assumption?

We're not -- I mean, we haven't given any guidance on antimony profitability up or down. So we can't really bridge you. I will say that the -- approaching last year's profitability will be largely driven by lithium and vanadium prices. So those are the 2 key items. But in terms of bridging the antimony gap, that's not really in our mind.

Okay. And then secondly, when presenting the full year results, you mentioned that the guidance -- you guided to between $210 million and $240 million. And the current price levels of the key products would indicate at the upper end. According to me, those have all edged up even a bit further. So what has hold you back to even sharpen your outlook guidance for the year.

We have scenario plannings routinely updated, and they come to the conclusion of that range. And we are assuming that you -- when you read that range, think that we are conservative. And so probably you tend towards the upper number of that range.

Maarten, I mean, there's certainly a good amount of geopolitical uncertainty in the world today, which limits visibility for the latter part of the year. And additionally, you noted prices have creeped up, but that's not true across the entire portfolio. So if you look at vanadium and tantalum, for example, in recent weeks have trended downward, vanadium in the United States, particularly. So it is a little bit of a mixed bag. Lithium continues to strengthen, obviously. But as Heinz said, we run multiple scenarios with multiple price environments and are confident in our current guidance.

But don't see that tantalum is downward trend. It's from a very high level to a less high level, which is an upward trend corrected to a less upward trend. So -- and it's interesting to note that in March, the tantalum price was $200 or higher. And in such a constellation, you get our lithium thing for free because the breakeven price for lithium at the consolidation of $200, tantalum is 0, which means that we are the lowest cost mine in the world scale.

At this time, it appears we have no further questions. I would like to turn the program back to Thomas Swoboda for closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much for your interest and all the questions. I'm sorry if we couldn't take all the follow-ups. We are heading to our AGM today, and we will be very busy being on the road. So hopefully, we can catch up with you in person soon. Morgan, thank you very much.

Thank you. This does conclude today's AMG First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful rest of your day. Goodbye.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's AMG Q4 and FY 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded, and I will be standing by if you should need assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Thomas Swoboda. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Paul. Good day, everyone. Welcome to AMG's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. It is a very busy reporting day. We are aware of that. So we appreciate you taking your time for us. Joining me on this call is the entire AMG Management Board, namely Dr. Heinz Schimmelbusch, the Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Jackson Dunckel, the Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Michael Connor, the Chief Corporate Development Officer. We published our fourth quarter 2025 earnings press release yesterday, along with a presentation for investors, both of which you can find on our website. They include our disclaimers about forward-looking statements.

Today's call will begin with a review of the fourth quarter 2025 business highlights by Dr. Schimmelbusch. Mr. Connor will comment on strategy and Mr. Dunckel will comment on AMG's financial results.

At the completion of Mr. Dunckel's remarks, Dr. Schimmelbusch will comment on outlook. We will open the line to take your questions thereafter. I will now pass the floor to Dr. Schimmelbusch, AMG's Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Exec Officer. Dr. Schimmelbusch?

Thank you, Thomas. In 2025, we achieved the third highest adjusted EBITDA in the company's history despite weakness in lithium and vanadium. This flexible response to a changing market environment highlights the quality and the breadth of our critical materials and technologies portfolio. Governments are pushing for onshoring of critical materials supply, creating significant opportunities to grow our business. AMG is focused on capital-light, high-return projects that expand its geographic and critical materials base. For example, we are expanding the footprint in U.S. critical materials with a high-purity chrome metal facility, which is set to come online in the first half of '26.

Moreover, the Management Board plans to strengthen AMG's critical materials recycling franchise in 3 ways: First, we plan to develop a circular high-purity molybdenum processing facility for fresh refining catalysts in 2009 (sic) [ 2029 ] at latest.

Second, we are strengthening our lithium cluster in Germany by accepting recycled lithium carbonate and converting it to technical grade hydroxide for the use then in Bitterfeld's main upgrading facility. And third, Phase 1 of our supercenter project in Saudi Arabia is currently under construction and commissioning is targeted for the second half of 2028. Looking ahead, our operational focus will be on compensating for the temporary inventory benefit of more than EUR 70 million in Antimony in 2025.

Thanks to the recent tailwinds from pricing as well as volume increases in our vanadium and lithium businesses, we are optimistic about maintaining our attractive earnings level. Based on our detailed scenario planning, we expect 2026 adjusted EBITDA in the range of EUR 210 million to EUR 240 million.

The first quarter of 2025 will represent the trough of earnings cycle as higher pricing begins to impact in the second quarter and our volumes ramp up in the second half of '26. This is due to certain delays in the pricing reaching our EBITDA. I will now hand over to Mike Connor. Mike?

Thank you, Heinz. Good morning, everyone. While markets have been captivated by AI and other intangible assets, the foundation of that growth remains deeply physical. AI, electrification, aerospace, defense, renewable energy, all of it depends on refined materials and industrial infrastructure. As a result, it's becoming increasingly clear that critical materials are not commodities. They're strategic assets, and they are increasingly being used as tools of geopolitical influence. Governments around the world are intensifying efforts to secure supply chains. In that environment, AMG is not simply participating. We are positioned at the center of it.

Today, control of critical materials is not defined by who owns a mine. It's defined by who can process, refine, recycle and deliver materials to exacting specifications at an industrial scale. This is where AMG lives. We combine more than a century of metallurgical experience with advanced processing technology, world-leading vacuum furnace systems and global leadership in metallurgical waste recycling.

Across lithium, vanadium, specialty alloys and catalyst recycling, our competitive advantage is processing excellence. Today, we are outlining $120 million growth CapEx program to expand and strengthen our recycling franchise. You can see a summary of this program detailed on Page 3 of our fourth quarter investor presentation posted this morning on our website.

Let me now move to our Lithium segment, where we are seeing meaningful progress. At Bitterfeld, we are delivering on plan. The refinery is producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide in specification and ramping steadily. Operational performance is strong and customer engagement on qualification continues to advance. We expect to begin selling commercial volumes by midyear and progressively ramp toward full utilization. This marks a significant inflection point for AMG.

Bitterfeld provides critical energy storage material capacity in Europe at precisely the moment the region is building its own battery ecosystem. As the plant ramps and pricing recovers, the value of this asset will become increasingly evident. We are also expanding our lithium feedstock optionality in recycling. This is shown on Pages 5 and 6 of our quarterly slides.

Today, we can recover lithium from recycled lithium hydroxide streams, which are typically available at highly attractive pricing and represent a portfolio -- a profitable feedstock source for us. To enhance this advantage, we are adding processing capacity for recycled lithium carbonate streams as well. This expansion increases access to low-cost secondary material, improves margin resilience, strengthens flexibility at Bitterfeld and reinforces our role in building a circular European battery ecosystem. Importantly, this investment is supported by grants from the German government, as we previously announced.

In Brazil, concentrate volumes in the fourth quarter were temporarily impacted by amphibole incursions in that ore body, increasing waste material and reducing production late in the year and into early 2026. Drilling confirms these incursions were isolated. Production has moved beyond the affected area and is now operating smoothly. Most importantly, with lithium and tantalum prices recovering, we are seeing a meaningful and accelerating improvement in profitability in Brazil.

Turning to molybdenum, which we detail on Pages 7 and 8 of our quarterly presentation. We have announced our ambition to build a fully circular high-purity platform, similar to what we established in vanadium. AMG has successfully tested proprietary technology, converting recycled molybdenum into high-purity oxide suitable for fresh HDS catalyst. The acquisition of AURA Technologies accelerates this strategy.

AURA provides an established recycling platform and a fully permitted site, reducing execution risk, accelerating our timeline and lowering capital intensity. It strengthens our specialty recycling platform, expands our footprint in high-specification materials, and we see clear opportunity to further scale this highly profitable venture over time.

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, our supercenter joint venture is advancing toward final documentation for nonrecourse project financing. This project, which will process power plant gasification ash into high-purity vanadium pentoxide, demonstrates our ability to combine advanced processing expertise with alignment to regional industrial policy objectives. The full scope of our supercenter project is shown on Page 9 of our quarterly slides.

Additionally, AMG LIVA will install its hybrid battery system at an Aramco solar plant in the Kingdom. This installation supports renewable integration, reduces carbon emissions and enhances grid independence, translating our materials expertise into energy system solutions. Overall, we expect headcount of approximately 3,200 by year-end compared with 3,600 at the end of 2025, reflecting the sale of AMG Graphite and the closure of AMG Silicon operations. This is disciplined portfolio management in action, focusing capital and talent on our highest value strategic platforms.

In summary, when 2026 -- while 2026 is an operational transition year, strategically, AMG is emerging stronger with expanding processing platforms, improving profitability drivers and increasing strategic relevance in critical material supply chains. We are building capacity where it matters most, expanding high-return recycling and processing platforms. Positioning AMG at the center of the structural shift toward material security and supply chain localization.

The world is rediscovering that physical assets and industrial know-how matter. AMG has spent decades building a global platform that gives us an unparalleled position as geopolitics and supply chain shifts redefine the critical materials industry. As a result, today, we are more confident than ever in our strategy, our recent investments and our ability to capitalize on the opportunities emerging in this market.

I will now pass the floor to Jackson Dunckel, AMG's CFO.

Thank you, Mike. Starting on Page 10 of the presentation, you can see that Q4 '25 adjusted EBITDA increased 25% versus the same period last year. This was primarily due to the recognition of incremental [Technical Difficulty] On the lower left, you can see that our adjusted net income attributable to shareholders.

In the fourth quarter, we had $41 million of net operating loss in the U.S. and to a lesser extent. This was due to operating losses, and it is consistent with IFRS accounting. It's important to understand, however, that these tax loss carryforwards are at our U.S. and German holding companies.

In Germany, we removed the equity and holding it as assets held for sale, and we had a $19 million write-down for silicon. Per accounting rules, these losses negatively impact us from utilizing our loss carryforwards. In the U.S., our holding company pays the interest on our debt and holds all of our corporate costs.

In 2025, our earnings on vanadium could not overcome these expenses and IFRS dictates that we derecognize the loss carryforwards. As some of you have noted, prices are increasing, and this outcome does not reflect management's confidence that we will be able to utilize these net operating losses when the two holding companies return to profitability.

As such, we added back to adjusted net income figure in addition to the tax effective amount of our, I'll discuss below. The net result is a $5.6 million adjusted net income for the quarter, which reflects the operational performance of the business.

On Page 11, you can see the price volume movement for our key products represented by arrows, which our segmental results. I will. Page 13. On the top left revenues increased 16% versus the prior year, driven by higher lithium market prices as well as a 35% increase in [Technical Difficulty] sales volumes. These impacts were partially offset by lower lithium concentrate sales volumes versus Q4 '24.

In Brazil, as Mike discussed, poor ore quality caused recoveries to drop during Q4, reducing production volumes and impacting production costs. We are currently running at an annualized production rate of 110,000 tonnes. Despite the depressed volumes, we remain profitable and low cost due to our multiproduct mining operation. AMG Vanadium results are shown on Page 14.

Revenue for the quarter increased by 8% compared to Q4 '24 due largely to our aerospace-focused businesses, titanium alloys and chrome, which increased volumes and prices during the quarter. Q4 '25 adjusted EBITDA of $11 million for our vanadium segment was 64% lower than the same period in 2024. This is primarily due to the recognition of incremental 45X allowances in Q4 '24, but is also due to lower volumes of vanadium produced to supply shortages from our North American refinery suppliers and shipping challenges for overseas catalysts. -- results for AMG Technologies are shown on Page 15.

The Q4 '25 revenue increased by $66 million or 40% compared to the same period in '24. This improvement was driven largely by the higher antimony sales prices in the current quarter as well as strong sales in engineering. EBITDA of $31 million during Q4 '25 was [Technical Difficulty] 54% higher than the $20 million in Q4 '24. The increase was due to higher profitability in AMG Antimony and AMG Engineering.

Page 16 of the presentation shows our main income statement items. The key change on this page is regarding our tax expense, which was $43 million for Q4 '24, up from $8 million in the same period in '24. This increase was due to the derecognition of net operating losses we discussed earlier.

Page 17 of the presentation shows our cash flow metrics. Strong cash generation resulted in $81 million of cash from operating activities during Q4 '25 compared to $64 million in the same period in '24. Our cash generation would have been even stronger if we had received the cash for the 45X allowances as planned. Due to the government shutdown last year, we now expect to book this cash in 2026.

Our Q4 '25 return on capital employed was 13.2% compared to [Technical Difficulty] 9.1% in Q4 '24. AMG ended the year with $509 million of net debt. And as of December 31, 2025, we had $289 million of cash and cash equivalents and $195 million available on our revolving credit facility. The resulting $484 million of total liquidity demonstrates that our balance sheet is in good shape.

And importantly, we have no significant near-term debt maturities. In '26, capital expenditures are projected to be approximately $70 million to $90 million [Technical Difficulty], primarily driven by the targeted growth investments in our vanadium and lithium segments, which Mike discussed earlier in his remarks. Based on our expected 2026 EBITDA and this estimated CapEx, we expect to generate positive free cash flow in 2026. That concludes my remarks. Dr. Schimmelbusch?

Thank you, Jackson. Pricing for many of our materials has strengthened in early '26 and the backlog in our engineering business has sustained historically high levels. However, given the lack of pricing effect falling through [Technical Difficulty] P&L, this tailwind will only begin supporting our adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of this year. We expect the first quarter of '26 to be down sequentially. Our scenario planning results in an adjusted EBITDA range for the year of $210 million to $240 million end [Technical Difficulty]

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Frank Claassen of Degroof Petercam.

Two questions, please. First of all, on -- you've indicated that on the Brazilian lithium plant, you are now at a 110-kiloton run rate. When do you expect to reach the full 130 kilotons? That's my first question. And then secondly, you've made EUR 30 million equity contribution to the supercenter in Saudi Arabia. Is this it? Or is there more to come in the coming years?

For the Brazilian operation, we're working on it. We obviously have had some problems with the expansion. Currently, we are running at the 110 rate, and we're working to fix it as quickly as possible. Our hope is to have it running at the full rate by the end of the year.

And on ACMC, that $30 million has not yet been invested. We are currently investing equity to get the plant moving and starting construction, but that does represent the total required outlay, assuming that we close the nonrecourse project financing, which we feel very good about.

One might...

Sorry, yes, go ahead... Mr. Schimmelbusch...

We haven't contributed it yet, but that is the max we will contribute.

So one might add that this is Phase 1 of a multiyear, multiphase project development concept in Saudi Arabia, but that is not a short-term equity contribution matter. This is just to mention that this is not a onetime project. This is part of a multi-project expansion.

And our next question comes from Michael Kuhn of Deutsche Bank.

Firstly, on, let's say, sequential results momentum. You're basically saying another down quarter. Maybe you could provide a few more insights into -- into the building blocks here. And maybe you could also put maybe a rough number on the 45X effect in the '25 accounts and, let's say, in the catch-up effect that you expect for 2026?

So I'll start with 45X. We have an outstanding receipt from the government of $30 million. That is not a catch-up effect. That's purely the calculation from 2024, 2023. We will be submitting '25 in due course.

And as far as the sequential earnings, there's about a 3-month lag that we see the impact of lithium prices. And so you can look at the timing on the charts, but essentially, that's happening over the past few weeks. So we'll really see that in the second quarter. So I wouldn't expect to see significant increase in profitability in our Lithium segment until the second quarter. There's also a lag on some vanadium prices as well. It's not as significant but similar in nature.

And so when you look at the profitability of those 2 segments, you won't see the pricing effects until the second quarter. And the impact of the pricing effect, you know our volumes for both lithium and vanadium largely, and you can kind of calculate that. But we wouldn't expect significant movements for those 2 segments in the first quarter, but do expect to see that price impact come through in the second quarter.

So Michael, numerically, what that means is, yes, sequentially down in the first quarter, second quarter, well north of $50 million of EBITDA and then ramping thereafter throughout the rest of the year.

Understood. Then maybe on the AURA acquisition on that deal. I understand the logic. The question I would ask is why wasn't that part of AMG's portfolio right from the beginning and entered it now?

Yes. So AURA on a stand-alone basis was a pretty small operation. And the key to unlocking the potential for us for AMG that made it highly attractive was the technology that we came up to produce high-purity molybdenum, which can be reused in fresh catalysts.

The technology didn't exist historically. And so that's why we weren't in there originally. But once we were able to develop this technology, which we've worked on for several years because we saw the huge market potential of it. Once we achieved that, we then looked at the best opportunities to quickly and as cost effectively as possible, develop that expansion, which we're extremely excited about because it's a fantastic market. And there's great opportunity for further expansion on it.

But the key is the technology advance that we made recently and then putting a strategy together to advance it. And so historically, prior to us achieving that technology, it would have been a relatively small business for us, as you can see in the purchase price. It wasn't a huge opportunity from an EBITDA perspective until we added in that technology advance.

One more on the carbonate converter. -- let's say, adding this to your supply chain and having discussed potential investments in Brazil and Portugal in the past, does this have an impact on, let's say, the overall planning of your -- what you want to reach at some point, integrated lithium supply chain?

No. This is an optimization. We want to open our supply chain to recycling. And recycling interim products have that quality, which we need to convert into a quality in order to the hydroxide refinery being able to process it.

All right. And then very last question. Any additional news you can share on, let's say, the talks with the U.S. government that we already discussed over the past 2 calls.

Well, we are discussing, as Mike has said, of course, with several governments wherever we are operationally involved in critical materials. This is a worldwide thing. We are very happy that the U.S. government is active in this, and we are since quite some time in very constructive conversations with the various funds, which are covering that subject in the U.S. government and the various departments. So that is -- we will comment on that when we -- when we have definitive results. But right now, it's in the preparatory stage.

[Operator Instructions]. We have no further questions at this time. [Technical Difficulty]

Thank you, Paul. Your line was quite bad. I hope I'm getting it right. So thank you again for taking the time, and we hope to see you on the road to discuss the developments in the industry and in our company in person. Thank you very much. See you next time. [Technical Difficulty]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's AMG Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Thomas Swoboda. Please go ahead, sir.

Yes. Thank you, Jen, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to AMG's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Joining me on this call are Dr. Heinz Schimmelbusch, the Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Jackson Dunckel, the CFO; and Mike Connor, the Chief Corporate Development Officer.

We published our third quarter 2025 earnings press release yesterday, along with the presentation for investors, both of which you can find on our website. They include our disclaimers about forward-looking statements.

Today's call will begin with a review of the third quarter 2025 business highlights by Dr. Schimmelbusch. Mr. Connor will comment on strategy and Mr. Dunckel will comment on AMG's financial results. At the completion of Mr. Dunckel's remarks, Dr. Schimmelbusch will comment on outlook.

We will then open the line to take your questions. I now pass the floor to Dr. Schimmelbusch, AMG's Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Thomas. Our Q3 adjusted EBITDA of $64 million represents a 58% increase versus Q3 last year, driven by continued momentum in AMG Technologies with AMG Engineering's order backlog as well as profitability in AMG Antimony.

On top of that, we benefited from a $5 million compensation settlement at AMG Vanadium for an equipment failure related to our growth investment in Zanesville. We remain focused on the elements within our control, executing operationally, strengthening our balance sheet and streamlining our portfolio. The divestment of our natural graphite business represents a key step in this strategy, and we expect the transaction to close later this year. While our 2 main products, lithium and vanadium continue to face low pricing, constrained for profitability and cash generation in the near term, AMG is actively advancing expansion projects across our portfolio.

These initiatives are closely aligned with governmental efforts to onshore strategic materials production and strengthen domestic supply lines in the United States.

Construction of our chromium metal plant in Newcastle, Pennsylvania is progressing on schedule with a start-up targeted for Q2 '26. Upon completion, it will be the only chrome metal facility in the country reinforcing AMG's role as a key enabler of national material security.

We also expand our U.S. titanium alloys capacity at the same facility to keep up with our customers' increasing demand for aerospace applications. In addition, we are evaluating the establishment of a tantalum and niobium metal plant in the U.S., leveraging our long-standing experience in both metals in Brazil and our unique backward integration into AMG Engineering processing technology.

This project if executed, significantly enhances our position in the aerospace sector in North America and globally. Similarly, we are assessing the construction of an antimony trioxide production facility in the United States, the first of its kind in North America with a final investment decision expected in the first half of '26.

Leveraging AMG's unique positioning and technical expertise, we are confident in our ability to execute these projects efficiently and with limited capital investment financing from ongoing operating cash flow now -- generated from our ongoing cash flow.

Together, this initiative, combined with the expected recovery of the lithium and vanadium markets down the road, position AMG for sustained long-term value creation. We look forward to providing further updates as these projects progress in the coming quarters. Let me now hand over this to Mike Connor. Mike?

Thank you, Heinz. Good day, everyone. I will now provide an update on AMG's strategic positioning, highlighting key developments and progress made over the past quarter.

In October, we signed a definitive agreement with Asbury Carbons for the sale of our graphite business. This transaction reflects our commitment to active portfolio management, and we will use the proceeds from this transaction to strengthen our balance sheet and focus on our core growth businesses.

AMG is uniquely positioned across its portfolio to strengthen Western critical material supply chains as governments in the Americas, EU and Gulf states intensify efforts to secure access to strategic raw materials, our diversified platform stands out as both uniquely positioned and increasingly attractive to partners and policymakers alike. Importantly, control of critical materials today is often determined less by ownership of raw material resources and more by mastery processing infrastructure, technology know-how and the ability to scale refining capabilities.

This processing know-how defines the modern geopolitical landscape of material supply. AMG's integrated approach of combining advanced processing technology with regionally distributed production directly addresses this challenge.

Our multiregional, multi-material footprint not only reduces supply vulnerability, but also positions AMG as a unique enabler of critical material independence for Western economies.

In October, AMG Lithium signed an MOU with Beijing Easpring for the supply and offtake of battery-grade lithium hydroxide. Both companies' investments in Europe underline the joint commitment to a localized battery supply chain. As a first step, we are collaborating closely with Easpring to ensure a successful qualification of AMG's lithium plant while negotiating a binding offtake agreement. Our partnership with Easpring underscores that the European battery value chain is rapidly materializing. This tangible progress is an encouraging indicator of the region's growing capability to build a competitive and self-sustaining energy ecosystem.

And after successful commissioning our Bitterfeld lithium hydroxide refinery in May and having produced material in specification, we are making progress on the ramp-up of the plant and the qualification progress with customers as planned.

We are now producing multi-ton batches from raw materials of mixed origin according to specification. This marks a significant step on our way to commercial production. Finally, in Saudi Arabia, we remain on schedule with our joint venture Supercenter project in the detailed engineering phase.

The EPC contract has been awarded on a full notice-to-proceed basis, and preconstruction works are expected to begin very soon. This project exemplifies AMG's global execution capabilities and underscores how we combine deep technical expertise with alignment to local industrial policies, advancing long-term economic diversification and resource transformation. I will now pass the floor to Jackson Dunckel, AMG's CFO. Jackson?

Thanks, Mike. I'll be referring to the third quarter 2025 investor presentation posted yesterday on the website. Page 3 shows our strategic announcements, including the sale of our graphite business. I'm pleased to report that the net cash proceeds for the sale will be approximately $55 million.

Starting on Page 4 of the presentation, I'd like to emphasize Heinz's comments about the strength of AMG's portfolio.

AMG's Q3 '25 adjusted EBITDA increased 58% since the same period last year despite the continued low lithium and vanadium prices. On Page 5, you can see the price and volume movements for our key products represented by arrows, which underscore our segmental results.

I will cover these volume and price movements in the individual segment comments. AMG Lithium results are shown on Page 7. On the top left, you can see that Q3 '25 revenues decreased 33% versus the prior year, driven by an 8% reduction in lithium market prices, a 32% decrease in lithium concentrate sales volumes and a 64% decrease in tantalum sales volumes caused by shipping delays that will be reversed in Q4.

These impacts were partially offset by higher average tantalum sales prices versus Q3 of last year. In Brazil, we are currently running at an annualized production rate of 110,000 tonnes due to the continued effect of the failure during Q2 '25 of one piece of equipment associated with our expansion project.

As noted in yesterday's release, we are addressing this issue. Despite the decrease in lithium market prices and the depressed volumes, we remain profitable and low cost due to our multiproduct mining operation. AMG Vanadium results are shown on Page 8. Revenue for the quarter increased by 2% compared with Q3 '24 due largely to the increased sales prices in ferrovanadium and chrome metal, partially offset by lower volumes of ferrovanadium driven by production issues from our refinery suppliers.

Q3 '25 adjusted EBITDA of $19 million for our vanadium segment was 81% higher than Q3 of last year. This increase was primarily due to the higher sales prices as well as the Zanesville compensation payment of $5 million.

The results for AMG Technologies is shown on Page 9. The Q3 '25 revenue increased by $92 million or 59% versus Q3 '24. This improvement was driven primarily by higher antimony sales prices and stronger sales volumes of turbine blade coating furnaces in the current period.

Adjusted EBITDA of $41 million during Q3 was more than double the same period last year. This increase was due to the higher profitability in AMG Antimony and AMG Engineering. Page 10 of the presentation shows our main income statement items. The key change on this page is regarding our tax expense, which was $7 million in the current quarter compared to $2 million during Q3 '24. The Q3 '25 expense was primarily driven by strong profitability in the quarter as well as tax expense from unabsorbed losses, partially offset by a Brazilian deferred tax benefit related to the appreciation of the Brazilian real.

Page 11 of the presentation shows our cash flow metrics. Our Q3 '25 return on capital employed was 14.4% compared to 7.4% in the same period last year. Our free cash flow generation remained negative in the third quarter.

The inventory buildup for our production ramp-up in Bitterfeld and adverse shipping schedules in tantalum have held back our free cash flow generation during the current quarter.

We are optimistic about delivering positive free cash flow in the fourth quarter of this year. AMG ended the quarter with $544 million of net debt. And as of September 30, 2025, we had $220 million in unrestricted cash and $199 million available on our revolving credit facility.

The resulting $419 million of total liquidity at the end of the quarter demonstrates our ability to fully fund all approved capital expenditure projects. Also, in July, we executed a maturity extension on our $200 million revolving credit facility to preserve our liquidity and reduce financing risk.

The revolver maturity date was extended from November 26 to August 2028 with terms similar to the original agreement. Our term loan maturity date of November 2028 remains unchanged. We continue to expect capital expenditures to be $75 million to $100 million for 2025. And that concludes my remarks, Dr. Schimmelbusch.

Thank you, Jackson. Our AMG Technologies segment continues to perform particularly well, driven by a very high order backlog in AMG Engineering and high profitability in AMG Antimony.

We update our estimate for the temporary tailwind from selling low-priced antimony inventories for -- of more than EUR 50 million to more than EUR 70 million for the full year of '25. We, therefore, increased our adjusted EBITDA outlook from EUR 200 million or more to EUR 220 million or more in '25. Over the last few years, we have provided you with financial guidance for the following year at the time of the Q3 results.

Based on your feedback, we have decided to push forward our guidance publication for the full year results in line with our peers. We trust that this change will lead to improved guidance accuracy. Operator, we would now like to open the line for discussions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Stijn Demeester with ING.

I have 3, I will ask them one by one, if that's okay. First one is on the guidance. The low end of your EUR 220 million EBITDA guidance suggests an earnings slowdown in Q4 to a level of around EUR 28 million, roughly half the level that you achieved in Q4 -- in Q3 on an underlying basis. Is this driven by your usual conservatism? Or do you actually see elements that would justify such a slowdown such as the recent downtrend in antimony prices or other elements? That's the first question I have.

I apologize for being boring answering these questions referring to limited visibility. Now, in this particular case, we just experienced, to give you an example, the announcement of export restriction lifting by the Chinese government following the meeting with the United States on a presidential level.

Then this announcement was followed by another announcement by China to point out that there will be procedures, which then will be developed to channel to use dual-use goods in a particular way. We don't know these procedures. There will be a variety of clarifications coming and then the visibility will slowly reappear of what that all means.

Given those things, and in particular, the antimony example, we are living in rather volatile times. And therefore, we are sitting together as a Management Board and discussing thoroughly such statements about guidance. And they are not optimistic or conservative. They are just based on data, which has to be analyzed and then we come to that conclusion. This is a very thorough process.

Understood. Understood. Second question is on the graphite divestment. My perception was -- or other divestments, my perception was in the past that several units within technologies that are not engineering could be considered as non-core. Is this still valid for AMG Antimony or has the recently changed market dynamics changed your view on that front?

Very clearly, antimony was never a non-core business in AMG, but always a very contributive, steady and part of our portfolio. And based on technology leadership and our market position in the overall trade of antimony. And that market position and that technology leadership has enabled us to materialize opportunities as they were related to the export restrictions.

We're very happy about that. It was a highly profitable period, and we continue to experience satisfactory results, which are distinctly better than what the average results were in the long past. We also want to point out that we just announced -- or I just announced in my introductory remarks that we intend to build.

We intend, it's in an early stage because we are in feasibility studies, but that will be very materializing that we have a position to build an antimony trioxide plant in the United States.

It would be the only material plant of that kind -- the only plant of that kind and it would be joining the other one and only plants which we have in the United States in critical materials as we build our position as partnering United States industries and government.

Understood. Then last question for now is on the cash flow. I believe the working capital further increased throughout the quarter. Can you maybe give some color on this increase? Is it structural? Or should we count on unwind in Q4?

It should unwind in Q4. So some of it was due to shipping delays, as we said. Some of it is due to increased working capital in our lithium and vanadium businesses, but you should see unwinding in Q4. So as we often do, the fourth quarter is very strong from an operating cash flow basis.

And we'll take our next question from Michael Kuhn with Deutsche Bank.

I'll also ask them one by one. Starting with your portfolio and recent discussions about raw material supplies. Obviously, rare earth is not a part of your portfolio as of now. Would that be something you would consider to add? And what would be, let's say, the time line and, let's say, the implementation steps that would be needed for such an expansion?

That's a very interesting question because it was asked -- we were asked as a broadly based really early in the market, critical materials company running a fairly vast portfolio in critical materials. We consider ourselves to be in the group of industry leaders in this.

So we were asked many times, so what about rare earths? And so the question is very relevant. Now you might please take notice that we are in rare earths, not in resource -- presently resources of rare earths, but in processing technology of rare earths. In the rare earth downstream flow sheet, you need several applications, material applications, which involve metals, and, therefore, are being treated as high purity, necessary for magnetics, for example, are treated in vacuum furnaces. Since ALD is the world leader in vacuum furnaces, our AMG engineering star, we are deeply involved in the downstream industry of rare earth since a very long time.

Now it is tempting -- was always tempting for us to combine our downstream know-how with a resource acquisition. As regard to resource acquisitions, we are particularly careful. We presently as regard to resources, we operate a highly successful large-scale lithium-tantalum mine in Brazil. So we are in resources.

So in this screening process of opportunities to add resource capabilities to our downstream know-how, we are involved in this. And I would say this is a very thorough process. It is not academic. It's real. But I would say stay tuned would be a too aggressive statement.

Understood. But I guess, let's say, especially among the U.S. government, there is such a high interest that there could be scenarios imaginable where, let's say, some kind of support schemes could be enacted to, let's say, support such development?

Yes, of course. And we are in contact with that world. You are finding us here, this conference call is happening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is indicating just visiting one of our expansion sites in the United States, which is our focus right now in expanding our portfolio and deepening our portfolio in line with what we see is necessary in the United States in onshoring and in improving the domestic value chains.

And that includes, of course, rare earth. And you could see a business model which combines magnetics capabilities, production capabilities with a resource, which tailors the resource, adding such a thing, and have a uniquely vertically integrated operation.

Very interesting. Then one more question on portfolio consolidation. I think you were very clear in the context of antimony. Is there any other part in the portfolio that might be up for disposal, which you would regard rather as non-core?

Our portfolio is fairly elaborate and it is not really totally visible. So there are many parts which are very difficult to explain and very special.

But surprisingly, there are corners here as the company develops and as our focus is increasingly pointed to products where we are clearly in the leadership group, non-core opportunities or opportunities to somehow streamline our portfolio occur.

Now the last thing we want to do is to say what it is because that would be sort of in our -- when you think about negotiating strategies, that would be not optimal. I have -- Mike, do you want to add to this?

No, I think that's pretty clear. We constantly evaluate the portfolio. And if we identify opportunities to dispose of assets that we would consider to be integral to the key trends that we're working towards, we will dispose if we can get the right price in the right space, for sure. So we constantly work on that and maintain our portfolio as aggressively as possible.

Understood. And then last question on cash flow and, let's say, expansion projects. You mentioned you signed an EPC contract in Saudi Arabia now for this joint venture. I would be interested to know, let's say, what that would imply for the cash flow and for potential cash injections into that entity.

And also regarding the potential U.S. expansions, obviously, your chrome plant, you mentioned that repeatedly will have a pretty short payback period for the other projects potentially underway, would those be similarly short? And yes, what kind of CapEx thinking should you apply, let's say, for the next 3 years generally?

So let me start with ACMC, which is our Saudi Arabian plant. As we've said in the past, we are focused on nonrecourse project financing. We own 1/3 of that plant.

And so our equity contribution would in turn be 1/3. And you would expect to see 70% of it financed by debt. So if you put all those numbers through CapEx estimates, it comes to quite a small number, which will not strain our balance sheet in any shape or form. And as we have more information, we'll share that with you.

But we're in the beginnings of the project financing for that. In terms of other projects, the number that we told everybody for chrome was roughly $15 million. I will say that the incremental projects that we're considering are in that order of magnitude or less and have similar paybacks because of being located in the United States, which is chronically short of such critical materials. And therefore, we expect very strong paybacks as well. And then in terms of '26 and a longer look on capital expenditures, we'll cover that in February. But that -- hopefully, that gives you some guidance that we're not looking at big projects here or big expenditures.

[Operator Instructions] And we'll take our next question from Martijn den Drijver with ABN.

I have a couple, I'll take them one by one as well. My first question is about antimony. Have you now fully utilized the low-priced inventory that you had available? Or will there still be tailwinds in Q4 and possibly even into 2026?

No, we would expect that to have fully been utilized. So no further inventory tailwinds in '25.

And then my second question is on lithium. And you mentioned in the press release that the Bitterfeld plant is producing specification using raw materials of mixed origin.

Can you elaborate a little bit on that mix supply? And what percentage of that raw material is off-spec material versus technical grade lithium hydroxide from China? And can this percentage of off-spec material go up? And equally important, what is the price difference of this off-spec material versus the supply from China? Just to get a better understanding of the impact.

The qualification process is not based on off-spec material, the qualification process is based on virgin material in our inventory.

So later on, strategies imply that we benefit from off-spec materials as the opportunities occur and our procurement network can identify such prospective materials. Right now, this is not what we are doing. Right now, we are doing standard material, and we turn standard material in specification results. And that process is fairly advanced and as expected.

Clear. Any additional color on when that off-spec material could become part of the supply chain?

It already is right now. We want to qualify the material. That means that the next step will be large-scale samples to be audited after audits to be given to our customers, and then we will start production, and that's then the moment where we can optimize further supply chains.

Understood. Then moving on to vanadium and the supply issues. Could you elaborate a little bit on when you assume a normalization of that supply? And once that supply normalizes, how should we think about profitability given that the mix will also include spent catalysts from the Middle East?

It's a very good question, Martijn. Thank you. Our refinery supply customers continue to struggle. And we don't expect to see any resolution of that through Q1/starting in Q2. The incremental purchasing that we've done in the Middle East will be available also starting in Q2. So you should see significant volume improvements starting in Q2 and improving in Q3 and Q4.

That's clear. And then forgive me for asking, but I looked a little bit into the silicon operations and with regards to that portfolio management question before. If you add the adjustments to gross profit in the last 8 quarters, that has been almost $10 million, which means that the EBITDA losses are slightly higher. What do you intend to do with the silicon operations as it's not likely that energy prices in Europe will come down?

Our silicon metal operation is presently partly shut down. We're operating on a minimum level. And it for the last 3 years has been suffering tremendously under the -- primarily under the energy price situation in Germany. And by the way, our competition in other European countries to a much lesser extent, are also suffering under those things.

And as we experience consistent problems with German energy supply, it is not likely that we will shortly reappear as a silicon metal producer. So this is an ongoing, keeping it alive, intense-care operation, and we -- our options are very limited.

Just on the numbers, the gross profit adjustment you see is a negative, right? So we are taking profitability out of our gross profit, i.e., the silicon plant is making money, albeit not very much, but it is making money.

Okay. Good. And then my final question is just a bookkeeping question. The $5 million from the compensation settlement, has that been received? Or is it in receivables?

It has been received.

And our next question will come from Maarten Verbeek with AMG.

It's [ Marcus Baker ] of DRD. A couple of questions from my side, maybe some clarification on the previous answer you mentioned or you gave.

Concerning those 3 CapEx plans you plan to execute and you mentioned for the chrome metal that was some EUR 15 million. For the other 2, was it also EUR 50 million each or combined EUR 50 million?

We're still in pre-feasibility stage. So we're finalizing numbers at this point. But I think what Jackson was trying to give you is a sense of scale. So we believe that they're of that size of nature, but we don't have exact figures now as we're working through that.

I mean, really, what we're trying to get across is that we're looking to capitalize on our existing footprint in the United States, leveraging our processing capabilities globally to use those existing assets as a footprint for a platform for expansion into the United States into other materials using our key technologies. And we can do that very cost effectively because of our experience gained from our operations in other locations.

Okay. And concerning the Supercenter in the Middle East, I think you will be starting to construct shortly. How long will this take? Will it take 1.5 years, 2 years before completion?

It will be about 2 years.

Okay. And then lastly, you have sold your graphite business, and you will see $55 million in net proceeds.

Obviously, you still have a liability towards Alterna because you bought 40% of them and you will pay them back in cash or in shares. When will that happen? Or can you simply hold on to that amount for the next 3 years and then pay them?

Yes.

It will happen, but we will not be able at this moment to comment on whether we pay in cash or in shares.

But we have an additional 2.5 years, as you know.

[Operator Instructions] And it appears there are no further questions at this time. Mr. Swoboda, I will turn the conference back to you.

Thank you, Jen. Thank you, everyone, for this very dynamic conference call. I hope we were able to answer all your questions. We are looking forward to see some of you on our investor marketing activities in Europe in due course, and please stay in touch. Thank you so much.

And this does conclude today's AMG Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.