Earnings call transcript: 5E Advanced Materials outlines Q4 2025 results and future plans

5E Advanced Materials Inc (FEAM) held its Q4 2025 earnings call, providing insights into its financial performance and strategic outlook. Despite no specific earnings per share (EPS) data or revenue forecast being disclosed, the company shared significant updates on its operational progress and future plans. FEAM’s stock showed a notable increase in aftermarket trading, rising by 5.44% to $3.859. According to InvestingPro data, the company’s current market capitalization stands at $82.15 million, with the stock trading significantly below its 52-week high of $24.84. InvestingPro analysis suggests the stock may be undervalued at current levels.

Key Takeaways

• FEAM’s stock rose 5.44% in aftermarket trading.
• The company is developing high-purity boric acid production with a target of 130,000 short tons annually.
• FEAM completed a pre-feasibility study, confirming a 39.5-year mine life.
• The company plans a final investment decision by mid-2026.

Company Performance

5E Advanced Materials reported significant progress in its operations and strategic initiatives. The company is focusing on developing high-purity boric acid production, which is a key component in various industries such as specialty glass and fiberglass. The company successfully qualified its boric acid with 14 customers and is preparing for full-scale product testing.

Financial Highlights

• Pre-tax Net Present Value (NPV): $725 million
• After-tax NPV: $469 million
• Estimated free cash flow: $3.7 billion pre-tax
• Initial capital investment: $435 million
• All-in sustaining costs: $555 per ton

Market Reaction

In the aftermarket session, FEAM’s stock experienced a 5.44% increase, reaching $3.859. This movement reflects investor optimism about the company’s strategic initiatives and potential market position as a significant boron supplier.

Outlook & Guidance

5E Advanced Materials is targeting a final investment decision by mid-2026 and is seeking a loan facility of $8.5-$10 million for front-end engineering design (FEED) activities. The company anticipates an 8-9 month FEED engineering process. Key future catalysts include full-scale testing with manufacturers, securing offtake agreements, and completing the mine plan.

Executive Commentary

Paul Weibel, CEO of 5E Advanced Materials, emphasized the company’s strategic positioning, stating, "We view 2025 as an inflection year for boron." He also highlighted the company’s commitment to building a resilient boric supply chain, noting, "5E Advanced Materials has the right resource, and now it’s the right time."

Risks and Challenges

• Potential supply chain disruptions in the boron market.
• The risk of the U.S. transitioning from a net exporter to a net importer of boron.
• The need to secure offtake agreements and complete the mine plan.
• Dependence on the successful execution of full-scale product testing.

5E Advanced Materials’ earnings call provided a comprehensive overview of its current performance and strategic direction. As the company advances its initiatives, investor attention will likely focus on its ability to execute its plans and capitalize on market opportunities.

Full transcript - 5E Advanced Materials Inc (FEAM) Q4 2025:

Conference Call Moderator: Good day and welcome to the 5E Advanced Materials Fiscal Year 2025 year-end results conference call. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions and answer session. Please note today’s call is being recorded. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today’s discussion will include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. For more information on these risks, please refer to the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 5E Advanced Materials undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. At this time, I would now like to turn the call over to Paul Weibel, Chief Executive Officer of 5E Advanced Materials. Paul, please go ahead.

Paul Weibel, Chief Executive Officer, 5E Advanced Materials: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. Fiscal Year 2025 has been a transformative year as we move from development to commercial readiness. We achieved broad validation across our project from the SK1300 pre-feasibility study to customer qualifications and supply chain milestones. Before I go into detail, let me summarize the key achievements from Fiscal Year 2025. Strong project economics have been validated. A recently published pre-feasibility study for phase one only confirms a 39.5 year mine life with a robust after-tax NPV of $725 million and a 19% project IRR. On the commercial front, we have successfully qualified our high-purity boric acid with 14 customers across multiple segments and have now advanced to full-scale production testing with a tier one specialty glass manufacturer.

On the financing front, we received the non-binding LOI from USXM for a potential $285 million project debt facility, a major step towards securing funding for phase one construction. In regards to being on track for the project FID, we now have milestones and are well positioned to advance towards FEED engineering and a final investment decision in mid-2026. Today, I will cover these four areas in more detail and discuss the upcoming Fiscal Year 2026. First, the recently published SK1300 pre-feasibility study provides a strong validation of the scale, economics, and longevity of our Fort Cady resource and reserve. This study covers phase one only, not including future expansions or higher value boron derivatives. The results underscore the strength of our project fundamentals. The project shows a pre-tax NPV of approximately $725 million with a 19% project IRR.

The after-tax NPV is about $469 million with a 16% project IRR. We estimate free cash flow over the life of mine at roughly $3.7 billion pre-tax with an after-tax payback of just under six years. The study outlines a 39.5 year mine life supported by 5.4 million short tons of boric acid reserves. Phase one targets 130,000 short tons per year of boric acid, which we believe has a strong need in today’s global market. On the cost front, all-in sustaining costs are estimated at $555 per ton with initial capital at about $435 million. This is inclusive of contingency and a gas cogeneration facility. These results are underpinned by real-world operating data from our small-scale facility, which confirmed our expected recovery and efficiencies. Thus far, we have received highly favorable feedback from analysts, prospective customers, and the investment community.

Next, I’d like to turn our attention to our traction with customers, where we see growing validation. Earlier this year, 14 customers successfully qualified our boric acid. They span a wide range of industries that includes specialty glass, fiberglass, ceramics, insulation, agricultural, defense, and chemicals. We continue to see accelerating demand for a high-purity U.S.-based boron supply, and additional customers are in advanced testing phases. As we move from breadth to depth, we recently hit a significant milestone with a tier one specialty glass manufacturer. We completed a full logistics and handling trial, shipping two tons of product from the California port of LA to Taiwan. This trip took approximately 20 days, and the material passed all on-site handling tests, including successful deployment in a glass furnace. As a result, we have received a green light to advance to full-scale product testing within this future customer’s production system.

As it currently stands, the product for the full-scale product test is produced and sits ready to ship. We are coordinating the shipping PO, and the shipment of 20 tons of high-quality boric acid product is imminently expected. The next trial is expected to take two to three weeks to ship overseas and approximately five weeks to test in a commercial glass furnace. Furthermore, our team has begun producing the next batch of high-quality boric acid that will go to other large LCD glass manufacturers who are waiting in queue to implement a similar test. Our operation is proven, scalable, and consistently meeting the strictest global quality standards. With these successful milestones being delivered, we have formally entered into long-term offtake discussions and have had two formal presentations, with the most recent being a presentation of specific offtake terms.

Most recently, our forecast of supply and demand has been resonating with our future customers, and industry dynamics are creating a clear opportunity for 5E Advanced Materials, particularly in light of recent announcements from one of the two major boric acid producers. 5E Advanced Materials and our stakeholders believe there is a fundamental need and requirement for a new market producer to reduce supply chain risks, and our method and approach thus far has reinforced confidence and strengthened trust within the boric acid market and investor communities. Finally, I’ll cover our roadmap to FID and financing. We remain on the path towards an FID by mid-2026. We have commenced early FEED engineering activities, with 5E targeting the formally staged gate to FEED engineering before year-end.

We have prepared an application for the XM Engineering Multiplier Program and target $8.5 to $10 million in a loan facility that will provide the capital and liquidity to fully fund FEED engineering. Once stage-gated to FEED, we expect that process to take approximately eight to nine months to complete, which leads to FID in mid-2026. Last week, we submitted a formal response to the U.S. Geological Survey draft critical minerals list, where we strongly believe boron has a place on the list. The draft list was released prior to the second largest boric acid manufacturer, citing that their business is under strategic review. As it currently stands, we believe the United States has a single point of failure in the boric acid market.

Per publicly available financial results, the second largest boric acid producer and single point of failure in the United States supply chain have seen their costs increase approximately 60% from 2017 on a B2O3 basis. Given the material announcement at the largest U.S. boric acid producer, their 2018 reserve downgrade, and what we believe are weakening business fundamentals, there is a need to add boron to the proposed critical minerals list. Without this producer, the United States would lose its position as the second largest producer, and as a nation, we would transition from a net exporter to a net importer. The boron market is an oligopoly. The United States has a single point of failure, and without further investment in new boric acid projects, the United States will be reliant on Turkey for boron and China for its critical advanced boron materials.

We view 2025 as an inflection year for boron, as independent analysis shows supply shortfalls beginning in 2026, which we believe supports the fundamental need for a new market producer. Looking ahead, we are focused on several key catalysts in the upcoming quarters. These include progressing full-scale testing with multiple specialty glass manufacturers, securing additional qualifications and initial offtake agreements, securing a small XM loan to cover FEED engineering costs, completing FEED-ready engineering deliverables, advancing the larger project finance and XM loan process, finalization of our mine plan in connection with our horizontal well trials, and lastly, the potential opportunity for the U.S. Geological Survey to do the right thing and add boron to the final critical minerals list. In closing, I want to thank our employees and partners for their dedication.

With the achievements from Fiscal Year 2025, we are well positioned to advance towards FID in mid-2026 and build long-term value for our shareholders and our stakeholders. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Conference Call Moderator: Thank you. At this time, we’ll be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, please press star one on your phone at this time if you wish to ask a question, and please hold while we pull for questions. Once again, that will be star one on your phone at this time if you wish to ask a question. Okay, it looks like the apologies.

I was just about to hand it back to you, Paul, but we did get a question coming in from Tate Sullivan from Maxim Group. Tate, your line is live.

Tate Sullivan, Analyst, Maxim Group: Hi, thank you. Thanks, Paul. Can you review the comments you had about the disruption to the California boron mine? What was the specific announcement that you cited?

Paul Weibel, Chief Executive Officer, 5E Advanced Materials: Hey, Tate. Yeah, no, appreciate you, Donald, and thanks for the question. At the end of August, Rio, with the appointment of the new CEO, made announcements that they’ve streamlined their business. Historically, Rio has been broken up into four different business segments, and on a go-forward basis, they’re now structured where they have three business segments, which is one, iron ore, two, copper, and three, aluminum and lithium. Essentially, the industrial minerals, which I believe that’s where their diamonds, borates, and titanium business sat, are now with the Office of the Chief Commercial Officer per the release, and they are up for strategic review.

Tate Sullivan, Analyst, Maxim Group: Okay, thank you for that background. To get boron on the U.S. Geological Survey critical minerals list, is it a, I mean, three, six-month process or what needs to happen in terms of the review?

Paul Weibel, Chief Executive Officer, 5E Advanced Materials: Great question. We were in D.C. I was down there and met with Interior in July. Kind of the word on the street was that sometime this fall, the draft list would come out, and there was no comment on if boron would or would not make the list, but the essentially appropriate measure to get boron added to the list is essentially to submit public comments. My kind of gut told me at the time I should expect to see a draft list by October. I was pleasantly surprised, that kind of came in ahead, and I think it was maybe the first week of September or last week of August, the draft list was published, which essentially opened up a 30-day public comment window.

All comments are available on the Federal Register, and we submitted our comment as did, I believe, eight other groups, that you can search for boron on the Federal Register under the comments, and they’re all there. I was pleased that there were some well-known groups that did apply, and now we’re not kind of the only one in the room, kind of ringing the bell that there’s supply chain concerns there in this market.

Conference Call Moderator: Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. There were no other questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Paul Weibel for any closing remarks.

Paul Weibel, Chief Executive Officer, 5E Advanced Materials: Great. Thank you. I appreciate the Q&A during today’s call. As noted, we believe 5E Advanced Materials has the right resource, and now it’s the right time. We are committed to building a strong and resilient boric supply chain that underpins the U.S. industrial base for many generations to come. We look forward to Fiscal Year 2026 and delivering on our expected milestones as we go into 2026. Thank you.

Conference Call Moderator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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