Vulcan Energy Resources Limited - Quarterly Activities Report June 2023

July 28, 2023, Vulcan Energy Resources Limited (Vulcan; ASX: VUL, FSE: VUL, the Company) has continued its transformation into a project execution company, focused on delivering Phase One of the Zero Carbon Lithium™ Project.

Highlights

- Cris Moreno appointed as Managing Director and CEO, and Dr. Francis Wedin transitions to Executive Chair, to ensure the right skills are in place to lead the delivery of Phase One of the Zero Carbon Lithium™ Project.

- Senior appointments brought into the team from the oil and gas, battery and Tier One EPC industries to support Phase One project execution.

- Binding Term Sheet executed with SLB for provision of drilling services for a minimum of 15 production and re-injection wells, for production of renewable heat and lithium from Vulcan’s Zero Carbon Lithium™ Project.

- Vulcan’s Lithium Extraction Optimisation Plant (LEOP) enters final stages for mechanical completion. Once operational, this plant will produce the first tonnes of domestically produced lithium chemicals in Europe.

- Vulcan and Stellantis mark their fourth agreement together, with a joint project to develop renewable energy supply for the Mulhouse automotive plant in France.

- Land packages acquired for key Phase One production/re-injection sites, to increase Vulcan’s current brine production.

- EUR 66m (A$109m) institutional placement successfully completed, supported by existing major shareholders, for preparatory works towards Phase One project execution.

- Initial market sounding for debt financing conducted by BNP Paribas with international commercial and development banks was completed, with positive feedback.

- Government-backed Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) confirmed in-principal support from France, Italy and Canada. The French ECA confirmed that Vulcan will be eligible as a Strategic Project of national importance, based on Vulcan’s lithium offtake agreements with French OEMs.

- Bridging Phase engineering is ongoing for Phase One, working towards securing an EPCM contractor, which will include an updated execution schedule, CAPEX/OPEX, due to be completed in Q4 of this year.

Mr. Cris Moreno and Dr. Francis Wedin, MD-CEO and Executive Chair respectively effective 1 July, jointly commented: “During the Quarter, we completed our transformation into a project execution company, focused on delivering Phase One of our world-leading Zero Carbon Lithium™ Project, in a methodical, stepwise manner. We have made significant progress, including on permitting and land acquisition, and on construction of our Lithium Extraction Optimisation Plant (LEOP), after three years of successful piloting of our lithium extraction. “During the next Quarter, we are looking forward to starting up LEOP, which will represent the first tonnes of domestically produced lithium chemicals production in the EU, a significant leap forward for the battery value chain in Europe. LEOP will help to ensure operational readiness by the time commercial Phase One is fully delivered.

“We are fully focused on delivery of Phase One, at a time when Europe’s and Germany’s vulnerabilities to restriction of critical raw materials supply have become an increasingly urgent problem to fix. We are also working with local stakeholders to build out our renewable energy production on a much larger scale as part of Phase One delivery, at a time when the Climate Crisis is becoming a serious, tangible issue for Europe.”