Australian lithium miner Core Lithium Limited (ASX: CXO) is pleased to provide its full-year financial results and annual report to shareholders for the year ended 30 June 2023.
FY23 Financial Results Highlights
- Implementation of programs and strategies to strengthen our approach to safe work and risk identification and management
- Direct shipping ore (14,774dmt) sold through a digital exchange platform
- Completion and commissioning of dense media separation processing plant
- First spodumene concentrate produced (18,274dmt) and shipped (5,423dmt) from Finniss Operations. Post year-end, 23,100dmt of spodumene concentrate and 15,000dmt of lithium fines were shipped to customers
- Finniss Mineral Resource estimate increased by 62% to 30.6Mt @ 1.31% Li2O, including the BP33 Mineral Resource estimate of 10.1Mt @ 1.48% Li2O
- Maiden revenue of $50.6 million EBITDA of $14.0 million and Net Profit After Tax of $10.8 million. Operating cash flow of $90.8 million
- Provision of first production guidance of 90,000t to 100,000t of spodumene concentrate sales for FY24
Core Lithium CEO Gareth Manderson said:
“In the second half of FY23, Core achieved first revenue, completed construction at Finniss and commenced production and sales of spodumene concentrate.
“Delivering a maiden profit in the first year is a significant achievement and a testament to the strategy to move quickly to production in a strong pricing environment.
“Core generated operating cash flows of $90.8 million, remains debt free and had cash balance of $153 million at year end. This reflected DSO sales and spodumene concentrate sales from the operation. This does however not include the sales receipts recognised after the reporting date, nor the $111.4 million raised in the recently completed institutional placement and share purchase plan.
“Core’s balance sheet and the strategic capital allocation for operations improvement, development, and exploration programs will provide the foundations for the Company to realise its growth ambitions in the financial year ahead.
“FY24 guidance, provided following Core’s first months in operation establishes the baseline of operational performance from which to build and work on safely improving plant recoveries and mine productivity as our top priority.
“The FY23 financial and operation performance provides a quality foundation for delivering our growth plans in 2024. Early works and the updated feasibility study at BP33, Finniss’ potential cornerstone asset, are progressing well and the project is on track for FID in the March quarter.
“As we mature as a business our focus is on safe, reliable and sustainable operations that consider the wellbeing of our people. This year we made significant progress with reviewing our key ESG risks and opportunities ensuring we will focus on the sustainability issues which are most critical to our business and provide an extensive update in the sustainability section of our Annual Report.
“While the breadth and scope of the work at Finniss has expanded significantly, our strategy to drive long-term shareholder value is unchanged – ramp up Grants production and deliver spodumene concentrate into long-term offtake agreements, grow the broader Finniss district mine life through the development of deposits in the region near the established processing infrastructure and pursue longer-term growth initiatives through our exploration program.”