Jason Ursaner: Okay. Perfect. And I’ll hop back in the queue if I have any other questions, but thank you again for taking the questions. I appreciate all the color.
Robert Jornayvaz: Thank you, Jason.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Josh Spector from UBS. Please go ahead.
Lucas Beaumont: Thanks a lot. Lucas here again. So just on the Trio side. So you’ve got a pretty large step up there in the volumes for the first quarter. I mean, could you just kind of talk about how you’re thinking about the rest of the year for us, please?
Zachry Adams: Yes. Thanks for the question. Certainly, here in North America, I think as others have echoed, we’re seeing a spring season that’s trending ahead of normal just due to mild weather conditions, and we certainly see that in our Trio segment. So we would certainly expect our Q1 to reflect that, and it does so far. But Trio is a little bit different than some other nutrients in that the demand piece on that has a little bit of a longer tail through the first half. So we would expect to still see steady volumes through second quarter in the early summer as that product is used on a variety of different crops and not only for pre-plant applications, but also for citrus applications as well.
Lucas Beaumont: And sorry, so when you say 70 there, that’s implying it could stay up at this kind of 90,000 tons level. I mean that would put you kind of 180 in the first half, which will be 50% higher than last year less 40%. Is that correct?
Matthew Preston: No. I mean Q1 will certainly be our largest sales quarter for Trio, as Zach said, I mean, we got an early spring season, and then we’re seeing strong demand there. But like all of our sales seasonality and trends, I mean, we’ll certainly see sort of tail off here towards the back half of Q2. So by no means is it going to be a consistent Q1 and Q2 volume…
Lucas Beaumont: Sorry, go ahead.
Matthew Preston: I say, it’s very consistent with prior years.
Lucas Beaumont: Great. Thanks. And just following on from Joel’s question earlier on the cost. So you’re sort of talking about the ton cost, I think in the Trio side, so you had the step up there in sort of the aggregate cost level as well. So were you assuming that the aggregate costs are going to kind of be flat year-on-year as well, roughly? Is that how you think about it?
Matthew Preston: Yes, that was – yes, that’s correct.
Lucas Beaumont: Yes. And then just on the CapEx side, just following up on that one. So you mentioned most of the growth CapEx is going to sort of start to wind down from later this year, and you highlighted that’s kind of falling to sort of $20 million to $25 million. So I mean, obviously, you’re going to have these like ongoing kind of well growth CapEx, I guess, as you go right into next year too. So I guess how much of what’s happening this year is like left in terms of spend that will carry into 2025? And how you kind of see like a normal level of growth CapEx in that sense?
Matthew Preston: Yes. I mean as far as the big push on revitalization, obviously, the last two years have been significant CapEx in that $65 million, $70 million range, 2022, 2023, down a bit in 2024. So certainly nothing at those levels. We’ll continue to evaluate opportunities in front of us when it comes to expanding into Bed 9 and Moab, if we’d like to and certainly other areas, but no significant forward projections now for 2025 as we just continue to work to complete the projects that are currently underway, make sure those are successful and get up and running, and then we’ll evaluate our production profile at that point. And see what makes sense in future years.
Lucas Beaumont: Thanks. And then just lastly on the potential kind of lithium projects, I was just wondering if you could kind of give us your latest thoughts on how you think the project economics of that would sort of work if you have either sort of the royalty of the JV agreement? Is it you’re going to kind of capture like a percentage of sort of revenue there or something? I mean with where prices are at the moment, like the 2,000 tons a year would be worth kind of $30 million to $45 million a year in sales, which then, obviously, there’s a bit of production costs and everything, and you have to split with the JV partner. How would you kind of think about walking through that?
Robert Jornayvaz: We look at it as a pretty significant upfront payment. To use that oil and gas analogy. We view our – since we own the mineral outright, we don’t lease the mineral. We own the lithium in fee. And so we have the opportunity to structure, like you would a South Texas ranch in the Eagle Ford play where as a mineral owner, you would take a significant upfront payment they would be responsible for the majority, if not all, of the capital costs, and then you would collect a significant royalty off of that. And so we would not be expending any capital. It would give us the opportunity to expand, create more berms, more ponds, which, as I said in my remarks, every dollar that you spend to improve lithium production actually results in additional potash mag chloride and salt production as well.
So the multiple effect of dollar being spent out there really has an impact on Intrepid. And that’s why we’re so focused on our Utah, especially our Wendover facility right now because we own the lithium in fee.
Lucas Beaumont: Right. Thanks very much.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Jason Ursaner from Bumbershoot Holdings. Please go ahead.
