Interim Report January – March 2022

Significant events during the first quarter 2022

• The company signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the continued development of the project with Cargill International Trading, a global player.
• The company's outgoing CEO was contracted to continue on a consulting basis as interim CEO.
• The short-term loan commitment was extended until September 2022.

First quarter, 1 January – 31 March 2022

• Income amounted to SEK 0 million (0)
• Earnings after tax amounted to SEK -1.6 million (-2.7)
• Investments during the period January – March totalled SEK 2.3 million (0.4)
• Basic earnings per share were SEK -0.04 (-0.08)
• Cash as per 31 March 2021 amounted to 5.7 million (8.1)

Significant events after the end of the period

• The company decided to postpone the Annual General Meeting to June 30, 2022
• The company contracts a new CEO who will take up the position on July 25, 2022.
• The company received a short-term loan of SEK 5 million.

The preparatory phase finally begins to move into the implementation phase

The dominating event over the past quarter was entering into a letter of intent with Cargill International Trading, one of the world's leading commodities trading companies.  During the first month of the year, formulations and agreement terms and conditions were discussed before the agreement could finally be signed and made public. Cargill then initiated an audit of the project before making a binding decision to invest in NIO.

The first step is the issue of an investment of SEK 50 m in association with raising at least SEK 100 m in total to finance organisational development and preparatory work before starting civil engineering work. After which, in accordance with the letter of intent, Cargill will support the company as an active shareholder and work with NIO to develop products and markets, as well as organise sales of future production.

It is accordingly a relatively comprehensive package of agreements that is to be negotiated, which will take time and resources to complete. The aim is however, for the agreement to be finalised during the second quarter of 2022.

Negotiations with the Swedish Transport Administration after the end of the period, have led to NIO entering into a co-financing agreement in order for the Transport Administration to engage in new planning work for the prospective railway terminal. This will be a significantly simplified, and therefore cheaper solution, compared to the terminal that was planned in 2014.                     
 

Market

During the fourth quarter of 2021, iron ore prices fell, very largely due to speculation and rumours of cutbacks in China. This resulted in a temporary drop in iron ore prices to under USD 100 per ton in November 2021. This was an extreme reaction, and not sustainable, and prices on the Iron Ore 62% FE Index quickly returned to trading at between USD 140 - 155 per ton and the spread between Iron Ore 62% FE and 65% FE remained at around USD 30 per ton.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the picture and caused a return to uncertainty on the market. Analysts assess that the exports of iron ore and pig iron from the region amount to around 45 million tons in total. This drop off will impact the markets, especially Europe that is more exposed to any loss of these products.            
As the war has progressed and Russia has escalated the destruction of key industrial areas in Ukraine, the effects on the markets will have an ever-increasing braking effect on global growth. As a consequence, the trend at the end of Q1 and start of Q2, was of a certain fall in the price of iron ore and of the premium for the higher grades.

What the effects will be in the longer term will depend on how long this conflict will last and how devastating it will be, but it will probably accelerate the transition in Europe to more sustainable energy and the use of hydrogen in steel manufacturing. The long-term driving forces to free Europe from carbon-based solutions within industry have been given a boost and as soon as the conflict is resolved, there is likely to be an acceleration in demand for high quality iron ore for new investments in the steel industry.

Outlook

The priorities in the current quarter are naturally primarily to conclude negotiations with Cargill and to prepare, and if possible, to raise the capital the negotiations intend to lead to. Assuming we manage to achieve this, it will be an important foundation stone for the actual implementation of the project.

Building up our organisation has already begun, in that my successor has been appointed. If everything goes according to plan, Ronne Hamerslag will take over at a time when NIO can finally take its foot off the brake and go full speed ahead.