I'd like to welcome you to our first quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on the call today is Ana Cabral, Co-Chair and CEO of Sigma Lithium. Our earnings press release and presentation are available on our website. I'd like to remind you that some of the statements made during this call, including any production guidance, expected company performance, updates on mining operations, the timing of our projects, and market conditions may be considered forward-looking statements. Please note the cautionary language about forward-looking statements in our presentation and press release. I will now be turning the call to Anna Cabell.

Thank you, Anna. And with that, I commence SGMA's first quarter of 2026 earnings presentation. Please notice the forward-looking statements that we're going to make in this presentation. we're going to talk quite a lot about predictions and expectations and with that i would very much like to present the signalism 2026 version we are at our most efficient most competitive we became a financially resilient low cost and we're very well prepared to deliver on our high growth this year well first we'll talk about our enhanced operational efficiency we have upgraded our mining in record timetable we primarized our operations and we brought in the larger fleet that has the capacity to match our green tech 3.0 plants at that plant we have been achieving rapid recoveries in clean tech industrial processing we have the most advanced gms plants in the world our lithium is a hundred percent sustainable we have reached the kinter pool zero lithium a few years ago zero paying dams zero hazardous chemicals zero accidents for a thousand and ten days we use a hundred percent renewable electricity and a hundred percent of water is reused and recycled we do not use potable water there's nothing like sigma we have reached our most profitable quarter since production started three years ago on margins we have reached the highest profitability in our history we're very very proud to present 61 percent gross margins 39% EBITDA margins, unadjusted, as posted, published in our financial statements, and 26% profit margins. At the same time, our debt and cash position has strengthened our balance sheet. We have significantly decreased total debt, 32% in two years, 21% in one year, total debt. Our cash increased to $28 million as of May 15, 2026, today. So that's financial resilience achieved throughout the down cycle. Production has resumed cadence of high sales of high-purity lithium hydroxide. We are on track to deliver 240,000 tons of lithium oxide within the next 12 months. that positions us to deliver on our growth we are executing significant near-time growth we're going to resume construction of plant two that would allow us to double production during 2027 meanwhile our commercial team has outstandingly delivered to the company in addition to opening up a whole new business selling low-grade hyperlithium oxide we have achieved the record lithium price equivalent to two thousand one hundred and fifty dollars this quarter on the high growth materials sold we're very very proud to show that Sigma has one of the best safety records in the industry we reached the thousand and ten days with zero accidents and we've never had a fatality in our 14 year history that's a result of our rigorous safety protocols that begins with employee engagement in very strict processes a direct connection to the factory floor which actually is responsible to help us deliver this enhanced performance. Our TRFIR was zero, which is an incredible source of proud to all of our team. Now, I'll start with the financial highlights of the quarter. First, I want to talk about the financial resilience and debt repayment we were able to achieve as a result of our robust margins. Profitability for the first quarter of 26 clearly demonstrated that numerically. We achieved 61% gross margins and 26% net profit margins. On our EBITDA and operating margins, which are proxy to cash flow generation, we delivered 39% EBITDA margins in the quarter, unadjusted, as published, and 33% operating margin in a quarter. In the meanwhile, we've delivered a total debt repayment of 33% over two years. That's a significant delverage. over the last year we've delivered a total debt repayment of 21 percent our revenues are also up 48 percent quarter on quarter and here we compare with the third quarter of 2025 which is the most comfortable quarter as we were ramping down our mining operations in order to execute the upgrade If we compare with the previous quarter, our revenues are up 150%. Our cash is $28 million as of today, May 15th, which demonstrates that we're actually very profitable in delivering on these numbers. Cash is cash. that positions us very well to execute the significant new growth opportunities that we have ahead of us first we're going to resume construction of plan 2 that will enable us to double production capacity during 2027 and triple production capacity by the end of next year with over the last two years we have significantly increased our margins they are the highest in our history in the first quarter of 26 this quarter we have posted 61 percent gross margins that compares to 23 percent in the first quarter 2024. On EBITDA, our EBITDA margin was 39% this quarter that compares to 9% in the first quarter 2024. Our operating margin had the same behavior, 33% in our first quarter compared to minus 1% in the first quarter 2024. And then net profit, we had a 26% net profit margin compared to minus 19% in the first quarter to before when we were just starting an operation. So this demonstrates how Sigma has been thriving through the bounce cycle and we are extremely well positioned to now enjoy our first bull market since we began our operations. Everything from here will be excess returns. this lie demonstrates our discipline financial execution we have repaid 75% of our short-term bank trade that in the last year those were the trade finance lines that we used to finance our operations throughout the last two years they've gone from 90 million dollars down to 13 million dollars only that is a staggering 75 percent reduction not just that in the last quarter alone we managed to decrease these lines in 46 percent that's a quantification of our ability to generate cash. As we generated cash, we pay down short-term expensive debt. This slide is another demonstration of our disciplined financial execution. Over the last two years, we repaid 33% of our total debt, and 21% of our total debt was repaid over the last year. Our debt went from $201 million in the first quarter of 2024 to $134 in the first quarter of 2026. This is significant deleveraging. The total debt is essentially the short-term bank trade finance debt that we discussed in the previous slide, plus the shareholder and development bank debt that sits in our balance sheet now as short-term debt, because it's due in December of this year. $134 million is an amount that's easily obtained by SGMA through cash flow generation and through the monetization of its future production through prepayment of off-takes. The point I made in the previous slide is demonstrated on this page. Our off-take agreements enable our debt repayment and help us fund growth CAPEX. Last year, we signed and closed a $96 million repayment on a 70,500 ton off-take agreement for one year. That repayment has been paid to us in installments, and the purpose of it is to fund working capital. In fact, that off-take helped us deliver the upgrade of our mining operations. Last quarter, we also announced and signed a $50 million conventional offtake with repayment. The purpose of that offtake is to help us repay the total debt that was shown in the previous page. Half of our total debt approximately that sits in the short term and is doing December will be repaid with the proceeds of this off-take risk repayment. We're also working in a few contract negotiations for a similar transaction for another $50 million that will basically tie up 50,000 tons for 2026 and 70,000 tons for 2027 in off-takes. Again, those are going to be conventional uptakes with prepayments that will have proceeds directed to complete the repayment of the total debt we've shown in the previous page. We're also in contract negotiations for $100 million of prepayments for our production starting into 2027. And that will happen throughout, that will be delivered throughout the five years or the seven years onwards from 2027. The user proceeds of that contract will be for growth CAPEX, meaning building our next plants, plant one and perhaps plant three, as we could double down on this prepayment for $100 million, given the scale of our current production with just one splound. Meaning, with the current production forecast for the next 12 months, we could actually honor all of these offtakes from 26, 27, 28, and beyond, and with those proceeds fund the debt repayment and also our growth complex this slide illustrates our cash position for the first quarter of 2026 and a bit beyond here I illustrate how we have actually built up our current cash position of 28 million dollars as of today may 15 2026 we started with six million dollars at the end of the first quarter and then we've had net inflows of 34 million dollars receivables from materials sold and delivered and prepayment installments from that 96 million off take up and additionally, prepayment installments from low-grade sales, meaning the sales of our failing fines. We've had $19 million of operating costs, so that all-in, that represents net inflows of $34 million. Then we've had $3 million of CAPEX, and then we had $11 million of interest and debt repayment, as we've discussed in previous slides. So, that led us to a cash at the end of the first quarter of $4 million, plus $22 million of receivables for materials delivered to the clients. Due to cutoff, those receivables came to our balance sheet in the days following the 30th of March. So, today, we've had $28 million in cash in our bank as of May 15th. Now, in this quarter, we are also expecting inflows already signed of approximately $40 million, again related to the $96 million prepayment for 70,000 tons we discussed earlier. In addition, we expect the signed prepayment for the offtake for 40,000 tons to close, and that will bring inflows of an additional 50 million dollars this page summarizes our published first quarter financial statements but more importantly it demonstrates how our low-cost position underpins signal it's financial resilience we sit at the very low end of the cost curve for hard rock lithium material industrial manufacturers and as a result we have been very well positioned to enjoy excess returns entering into the secular cycle for lithium more importantly as we went through the last two years of down cycle we have increased our efficiency and increased our discipline and we have maintained that discipline entering into this bull cycle. And that is why we have this entrenched competitive advantage. We have always been to the left of some of the African country producers, which just demonstrates how well positioned we are as far as the global lithium industry. This next section talks about the operating highlights for the first quarter of 2026 and our outlook. this slide outlines the production volumes delivered by Sigma lithium every quarter and he demonstrates how we resume sales cadence of our primary product the high-grade lithium oxide we go through all the stages of our outlook in other words how we have upgraded our industrial plant from first quarter 24 all the way through the fourth quarter 24 then we have reached and maintained industrial cadence throughout 2025 and then it shows how in the third quarter 25 we have demobilized the mining contractor and then it also shows how in the first quarter 26 we have managed to primarize and upgrade our mining operations in record time we have mobilized our fleet on schedule combining sales of low-grade and high-grade products of basically the low-grade funding the upgrade of the mine then we have ramped up our mind tracking to 33,000 ton plan on schedule this quarter we have already achieved 20,000 tons as of now, May 2026. So, the outlook of 33,000 tons for the second quarter is perfectly reachable and perfectly achievable. Entering into the next quarter, we have larger fleets fully mobilized. In fact, the 60-ton trucks are fully mobilized, and then we have the 75 tonne excavators fully mobilized that increased our haulage capacity significantly we came from 40 tonne trucks into 60 tonne trucks that's a 50 percent overall increase in haulage capacity going into the next quarter we're going to have an additional fleet continuing to mobilize additional large fleets continuing to mobilize trucks and compatible excavators all in all the geometry optimization and the stripping have gone as planned our ongoing mine developed has unlocked very large mine blocks which then have been transformed into lithium oxide into our upgraded 3.0 green tech plot the next step up in the third quarter will be to maintain that pace and maintain that cadence hence we are guiding to 240,000 tons for the next 12 months but then we're maintaining our guidance of 200,000 tons for the year 2026 this slide makes it quite simple for our shareholders we're forecasting the cash flows, and we here demonstrate our robust cash flow generation forecasted for 2026 and beyond. We have actually created a forecast for three different price scenarios, $1,500 per ton, $2,000 per ton, and $2,500 per ton. It's important to remind that the current prices sit around $2,900 through $3,000 per ton. Now, as far as production guidance in volumes, we simply condensed the quarterly forecast and the quarterly historical production demonstrated in the previous slide. Again, what we are guiding is not different than what we have achieved over three years sequentially cadently because we are an established producer. So the historical production for 2024 was 240,000 tons and then in 2025 we delivered 180,000 tons as a result of the upgrade on the mine that we decided to promote precisely for this moment so that in the next 12 months we're very well position to deliver approximately the same 240 000 tons or 270 000 tons that we have been historically delivering over the last three years for this year we will be delivering 200 000 tons so that translates into the numbers for cash flow we are forecasting here so again at a thousand five hundred dollars per ton with just one plant we are planning to produce a hundred and thirty million dollars of cash flow that's just one plant at 240,000 tons estimated to be achieved in the next 12 months that is a quite conservative cash flow forecast again at the top end of our forecast we are still 20 percent below the current prices and with just one plant we're forecasting to achieve $330,000,000 for the next 12 months and again using just 240,000 tons of production forecasts, which as you can see is very much in line with the levels of production forecasts we've been achieving over the last three years of operation. Now near-term growth. Once we complete the second plants at 520,000 tons of production, we are estimating forecasts at these three different price scenarios that range from $320 million to $760 million approximately, which are very robust numbers this lighting summary demonstrates the Sigma because of our cost discipline because of our operational efficiency is a cash flow machine that is essentially what we are we are wired and structured as a company to deliver cash flow to our shareholders organic cash flow in any market scenario beginning with a thousand five hundred dollars per ton this slide basically recaps how we are going to execute the near-term growth is a recap slide but it ties well with the previous slide it's just to remind everyone that we have actually initiated the construction of plant two and we advance quite a lot on it but more importantly we have been benefiting in that construction process from a streamlined timetable because the infrastructure has been already built way back in order to support plant one so as you can see in this schedule we are at civil foundations over halfway through them because again most of the long-term duration items in the construction schedule have already been built or have already been executed such as earthworks and foundations water drainage and the recycling recirculation systems so we're mostly with the construction in place where are we in construction we needed to order and assemble machinery which is the expensive part of construction which we do plan to resume in a second half of the year so as a continuing again what is our production profile going to look like 426 200,000 tons for the next 12 months 240,000 tons and then once it complete plant 2 520,000 tons that's fully funded and then once you complete plant 3 770,000 tons of lithium oxide reminding everyone that plant 3 is not yet funded however each one of these new plants cost just a hundred million US dollars if you compare that with the cash flows as shown that we expect to generate, one can see that these numbers are actually quite low in the big picture for Sigma today, given our robust margins and our ability to generate cash flow and to access cash flow with our clients through prepayments of our future production and of our current production. We're very proud of these pictures, and we have a video that we posted on our website that we encourage everyone to see. These pictures were taken last week, and they demonstrate the upgrade, the modernization, and the significant capacity increase of our mining fleet. What you see here are trucks, which have a 50% higher haulage capacity than the previous fleet we had, 50%. So, here is our mine. this slide is a picture that i particularly like very much because emerges two concepts they're very dear to us operational efficiency with this very large haul of trucks but more importantly they are pausing there on a brief sunday shift change against the backdrop of our rock piles these rock piles are just material taken from the pit and we actually actively regenerate them by planting them with grass so the rock piles become incorporated to the landscape so all these conversations about our files are just much ado about nothing because there are two kinds of piles rock piles are gonna look like this hills incorporated to the landscape and of our Our failings are actually being sold, so very soon, this year, we're going to be zero failings. Why? Because we dry-spec them, we process them, so we're actually able to sell them as high-purity, low-grade lithium oxide. We're very, very proud of continuing on this trajectory of becoming or being one of the most sustainable lithium operations in the world. This is another picture of our upgraded, modernized, and increased capacity. So we have all these trucks lined up so that we demonstrate our haulage is actually much higher, much more efficient, and much more modern than what we had before. So our mind now honors our state-of-the-art 3.0 green-factor lithium-on-frag plant. So wrapping up our quarterly presentation, we're going to talk about what we expect regarding shareholder returns for the rest of the year. This slide just quantifies why we believe SGMA is very well positioned for a re-rate for our shareholders. On the page, we show that our production cadence for high growth being reached now, in addition to our growth plans in execution for the second plant, basically demonstrate that SGMA is not rated to its cash flow generation capabilities in current delivery. So at 40,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, we are valued at 2.3 billion U.S. dollars, which is a significant discount to some of our peers in other parts of the world and more importantly even to some of our peers that do not even produce they have a similar valuation to the company so it's basically the reread quantified and demonstrated in numbers and now I open for Q&A from the current shareholders in the current audience to this quarterly presentation thank you very much for listening to us.

Thank you very much for the presentation. We will now begin the Q&A section. To ask questions, just queue the question in the Q&A button. Please beware that your company's name should be visible for your question to be taken.

Please hold while we poll for questions.

Our first question comes from Joel Jackson with BMO. It seems do you expect production to be 13 kt in June, then 24 kt in July? How do you get such a large jump in production a month over month?

Thank you for the question. Hi, Zoe. Well, essentially, we haven't given monthly guidance, but as you can see in one of the slides, we significantly increased the voltage capacity of the fleet, and we have even larger fleet being fully mobilized. In other words, as we commence mobilization in February and we continue on with mobilization, we increase the number of shifts continuously with the mobilization. In other words, it wasn't just about getting the equipment to site. It was about getting the equipment to basically be available to us for four shifts. So we've gone from getting the equipment available, large-scale equipment, to commencing it with one shift, Then moving from one shift to two shifts, and then as personnel went through basic security training, we're going from two shifts to four shifts. Why so? That's the night shift. So we commenced personnel on the day shift, and that split into two shifts. And then we just moved into the night shift at once, once they received very detailed protocols for night operations. So, again, without giving guidance per month, this is sort of how we have actually a very beautiful mobilization curve throughout this quarter as we try to give as much detail as possible to everyone in a very specific slide where we end up with 33,000 tons of material on the quarter.

Our next question comes from David Fang with CICC. Regarding Phase 2 and 3 expansion, may we have more color on a detailed timeline for Phase 2 and Phase 3 construction commissioning ramp-up periods?

Thank you. Thank you very much for the question. We've given quite a lot of detail on Phase 2. In other words, we are planning to – there's a timetable where we've done so far on phase two, and we basically pause in civil works and just sort of the last layer of civil works. We are planning to resume that in the second half of the year. As we have discussed, financing is quite available given where the industry is, given obviously the fact we're being fully funded by the Development Bank, and given the progress we've delivered so far on resuming our operations at full capacity. so if once we uh resume construction at that stage what needs to happen we need to order equipment and receive equipment so we're giving ourselves a quite conservative conservative timetable for that to take place so even if we put in a 12-month uh basically equipment assembly commissioning arc that would basically get phase two fully running within just sort of mid-year next year. Phase three could happen in parallel or could happen sequentially and as we may be clear in slide phase three isn't funded but again for the same reasons we don't see funding phase three again just another 100 million dollars as an issue therefore we're quite confident uh that we will be able to either sequentially continue on phase three or funding available we could actually engage in two uh constructions at once one key point about both phases is They're both supported by existing infrastructure in place. In 2022, as we built our first plant, we built infrastructure to support three lines, three industrial plants. And as we paused short of two lines, in other words, as we just built one plant, the infrastructure is there. So what we call phase 2 and phase 3 are simply industrial lines, and that's it. So these actually have quite a reduced time table, and we can build them quite expeditious.

Our next question comes from Joe Jackson, with BMO. Back on slide 16 and providing 200 KT production guidance for the year, Are we wrong in assuming you expect Q3 at 72 KT?

You're not wrong. We're just trying to be conservative, but that could happen. I mean, again, why? Because we've done it before. So what we're trying to do is to anchor our forecast into very achievable numbers. And that's why we've kind of given investors as much as we could as far as building blocks for forecasted production. But thank you for the question, Jill.

Next question from Eileen Chen with Hot Wind. Many Australian lithium producers have recently signed off-take agreements that include floor price mechanisms to provide downside protection during periods of lithium price weakness. As Sigma Lithium continues negotiation with existing and potential off-take partners, Could management comment on whether future contracts may also include floor price provisions? In addition, could you provide an update on the current status of Sigma's ongoing off-site negotiations, including how much future production is currently under discussion, the level of interest from customers, and whether the company expects to finalize any new agreements in the near term?

It's a great question. Thank you for the question. Let me unpack your question. The first thing, it's commendable what the Australian producers have done in getting floor prices. Could we get them? Absolutely. Do we need them? No, we don't. Given that our production cost is so low, as we've shown in one of the slides, we don't really focus on floor prices. What we focused on was to commit as little production as possible so that we can maximize the amount of repayments obtained from our customers. So as we talk through our off-take strategy, given that we do not need floor prices and it does carry a price in terms of amount of product being made available to the customer to actually bring a floor price mechanism into the contract, we've just forsaken them because we're solving for another objective, which is to commit as little product as possible. And we've shown that in the two uptakes already signed and that have already been ongoing here at Sigma. For example, the first uptake for $96 million basically ties up only 70,500 tons of product for just one year. So if one divides one amount for another, you get to an implied what we call premium price or uptake rights price of about $1,300. And that's a very good monetization for future production. The second, we've initiated discussions about it last year when the Litton price curve was slightly different. But again, it carries an implied monetization price of $416, which is actually higher than some of these announcements with full price as we've seen. So it's essentially a commercial discussion. It's not a one-size-fits-all, but I really want to highlight the fact that given that there are agreements being signed with blue boxes, we've got a demonstration right there of how robust is the interest from clients to secure the right to purchase production. And, again, I must highlight that we're not locking future prices. These aren't derivative agreements. These aren't for sales. These are just clients paying producers in advance for the security of having the product made available to them as they deliver on their own growth. Why is that? because we are in a very robust environment for demand growth. We are delivering manufacturing, advanced manufactured products into advanced manufacturing industries. And they now run the gamut from EVs to data center, battery storage materials to the fans to, you know, a whole array of advanced manufacturing industries to transportation electrification of what we call larger and larger haulage transport vehicles, beginning with large-scale trucks, now going into what we call barges. So it is actually fascinating what is happening with the diversification of the demand for our products and how rapidly the demand grows in the current scenario for energy security and energy transition worldwide.

Next question from Aileen Chen with Hotlin. Sigma currently has approximately 300,000 downed potassium oxide intermediate products inventory. Could management provide an update on the current commercialization and sales progress of this material? Specifically, how much of the existing inventory has already been sold or committed? What is the current market pricing for Sigma's Lithium Oxide Intermediate Product? Is pricing linked to Lithium Concentrate Benchmarks?

Fixed price agreements were negotiated on a spot basis. and how should investors think about the potential cash flow contribution from this inventory oh that's a great question yes we do have 300,000 tons of lithium oxide low-grade products available they are currently commanding a price of about $77 to $80 x-works at launch in the market we price these products of DSO as per Shanghai Metals Market. Therefore, if one looks at these benchmarks, they are updated daily, sometimes weekly, but not more often than daily. And it's quite straightforward to calculate how valuable these products are for our clients because these are not DSO. These are processed, low-grade, high purity materials at about 1 and 1.1% of lithium oxide content, which are pre-crushed, in a way, and pre-separated. So they're bringing a touch base and saving for our customers, hence the heightened demand. So, again, unpacking your question, we are in a wait-and-see strategy to decide what to do with these products, given that the prices are now settling around these levels of $80 for the next works. However, as we are still finalizing deliveries on the previous sale of 400,000 tons announced last quarter, we would just commence deliveries of these products somewhere in the beginning of third quarter. And so most likely we will wait until then to decide what to do with those materials as prices continue to be quite robust and demand is very much there. One point I want to highlight about your question is, on an ongoing basis, we will continue to generate that kind of inventory, given that we're back at full processing lithium oxide from fresh rock. On a 12-month basis, we generate about 250,000 to 300,000 tons of what we call the lithium fines, the lithium low-grade materials, and therefore, this could become an ongoing business if prices remain at the current levels. And so, one could forecast the extra cash flow coming from these businesses on whichever basis one uses for lithium oxide pricing. It's roughly a tenth of the pricing. These markets are becoming more and more mainstream. I highlight the sale that one of our peers in Australia has done to one of our European trading companies recently at about $290 per ton CIS. Transportation costs vary, but I just gave you my cost at Swerks, which is cost at plants. So, assuming lithium prices remain robust as they are, these markets for low-grade materials do continue. The contribution to cash flow is essentially the $250,000 to $300,000 tons of material times. I mean, currently, that would be $80 per ton. On an ongoing basis, it would vary based on the lithium oxide price forecast for each one particular analyst.

We are showing no further questions. I am returning to our CEO, Ana Cabral, for her final remarks.

I want to thank all of you for your participation on this call. I want to thank our incredible team for having gone through last year and coming out stronger, fitter, more resilient, and ready for our first bull market. As you may recall, Sigma initiated production in the middle of 2023. We barely caught a bull market. So the best is yet to come, given that whatever comes our way now as far as prices is excess returns, given our extremely low-cost position, always to the left of most African, all African-producing nations.

So we're very excited and very enthusiastic about the near-term future, the short-term future, the midterm and the long term because we were built to expand any moment or any point in the lithium cycle thus we conclude the first quarter of 2026 conference call of Sigma lithium for further information and details of the company please visit the company's website www.sigmalithiumresources.com You can disconnect now.