Ana Cabral Gardner: Yes, well, I think what you see on the screen is a pretty good indication where we sit on the first — on the first — on a Q1, with fluctuations, but we’re kind of averaging the industry, a little bit of a premium, but not really. Q1 was a tough quarter from an industry-perspective, because you see what happened in Q1, clients were stocked, but they were still buying our product. Why was that? Because of this slide. Given that life was so difficult for the clients, they were putting other products aside and processing our product just to bank that margin that we are literally giving to them. And we were told this much. So just the fact we had people buying full boats and paying us, I mean, not the full premium, but a tiny bit of a premium meant something for us.
But what they were really doing is that they were banking this much extra margins, that’s provided by the metallurgy of the product. That’s kind of, we’re delivering for free. So it was a fascinating quarter. We learned quite a lot and we just got a team coming back from China, like, they were there for 32 days, and they were told just that. So, part of this enormous premium we were able to obtain in this very — we call price discovery process, where we got 18 clients to the that’s auction bid this boat was a result of the clients having experienced this for now six shipments, seven shipments, and ascertaining for themselves, that they do need 2 tonnes less, sometimes 3 tonnes less of our product versus the comparable. So they’re banking that difference, right, which kind of ties back to the question.
Steve was asking us about why lithium suffered? Well, we want this money too. So that’s — this is value in use, floating around. We’re either going to get it through a premium or we’re going to just bank it ourselves in a lithium sulfate plant. We’re not going to let it hang for that long, but one thing at a time, now is to double.
Joel Jackson: Sorry, so Q1 pricing would be similar to Q4 pricing or like, average — your actual average delivery price similar, higher or lower?
Ana Cabral Gardner: You can use…
Matthew DeYoe: Explicitly glide 1Q, yes, Joel.
Ana Cabral Gardner: Yes, you can use what’s here. It’s okay. It’s — this indication.
Joel Jackson: That’s what I was asking. Because you’re giving Q4 and you’re giving kind of April, but you’re not giving mark — the February, March…
Ana Cabral Gardner: Yes. There’s about $100 of a difference. So there’s $100 floating. So you can just take a pick, but it’s — we don’t have the finals, right, because they were still on provisional. But it’s going to be between this number and the number we achieved for this last auction, somewhere in between.
Joel Jackson: Okay, thank you. That’s good. Thank you very much.
Operator: And at this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call over for any closing remarks.
Ana Cabral Gardner: Well, I just want to thank everyone for the support, for the patience, and for sticking to us. I mean, I think we are on to build probably one of the most resilient lithium businesses in the industry. We’re building the next major. The mathematics shows this numbers talk for themselves. Math has no opinion and we’re here to stay. And you look at — when you look at this picture, we now have the longevity, which was the missing link of the sustainability when it comes to project years of Sigma given that we have prioritized cash flow and now it’s clearly demonstrated why it was so important, because we were able to hit the tail end of the bull market, and we earned quite a bit of cash. So then this year, we reprioritize, lengthening the project life.
So, we’re one of the greatest forces of the industry. The fourth complex, when you attribute the names of the projects to the owners with the third largest lithium industrial mining complex in hard rock. We’re quickly closing in on the number five producer. By next year, we’re going to probably be on top of number four and number three. So it’s a force for good. So here we are, aiming to be number three very soon with a product that is clearly, metallurgically better from a physical and chemical scientific standpoint. So it’s the mathematics of savings for our clients, the mathematics of valuing use, numbers are numbers. So thank you so much for being here with us, for supporting us, for encouraging us, and for being partners with our team.
And I can only close by saying we’re in this together. I have never sold a single share of this company. So we’re here to stay, and we’re here to follow this journey with you.
Operator: This concludes the Sigma Lithium fourth quarter and full-year 2023 earnings conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
