Results Of 2020 Annual General Meeting

Dear Stakeholder,

Following on from the announcement of the 24 August 2020, where the founder and visionary of Tellus, Mr Duncan van der Merwe, announced his resignation as the Group’s Managing Director after eleven years with the company, Tellus’ Board has commenced an internal and external search to recruit Duncan’s successor. The process is progressing well and we are in discussion with a number of high-quality candidates.

As it is unlikely that the new CEO will be in place by the time of Duncan’s departure following the AGM on the 17th November 2020, I have the pleasure to announce that the board is appointing Nate Smith, our current General Counsel and Company Secretary, as Interim CEO. Nate’s appointment will be effective from the 17th November.

Please join me in wishing Nate all the best in the role. Nate’s bio is below.

Phil Garling

Chairman

Nate is an experienced executive having led teams at both large, established multinational entities, as well as early-stage ventures. Nate’s career has been truly global – having managed dynamic teams and deals on six continents and in more than 60 countries. Nate joined Tellus in June 2019 as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, and immediately had a large impact by:

• Assisting the MD in the implementation of the long-term commercial strategy of Tellus as agreed in the board approved business plan.
• Helping to develop, maintain and oversee a consistent Health, Safety, Environment Quality and Compliance culture across the company and especially the interface between the Board and company.
• Building ongoing host community and key stakeholder support in the local communities in which we operate.
• Providing leadership across multiple functions, including finalising Sandy Ridge’s bespoke and world class financial assurance and insurance framework.
• Working with the team to continuously improve the standard of Tellus’ current risk, compliance and governance framework.
• Driving the continued growth of the organisation towards operations, which includes the development of commercial contracts and partnerships with our stakeholders (clients, logistics businesses, vendors, etc.).
• Working with the team to put our clients first.
• Partnering with the MD and CFO in raising new capital and building relationships with current and new financiers.
• Building strong relationships with our major clients and driving positive commercial outcomes in negotiations of key agreements.
• Helping the MD develop the skills of the executive leadership team in line with continued business growth, and further strengthening Tellus’ organisational capability, culture, and teams.

Nate will help ensure continuity and inspiration as the business transitions away from the founder MD.

Prior to joining Tellus, Nate was a Vice President for the global shipping giant, UPS, in Atlanta (USA), where he was a trusted advisor of senior executives and head lawyer overseeing a large portfolio of vital business functions, including Global Mergers and Acquisitions, procurement, compliance, certain key customer contracts (including Amazon), Corporate Strategy, UPS’s venture capital fund, and UPS’s Emerging Markets business unit. Nate also was the acting corporate secretary and senior legal counsel for Ware2Go, a technology and logistics venture backed by BCG Digital Ventures.

Prior to UPS, Nate worked for the global law firms of Sullivan & Cromwell (in Sydney and the U.S.) and Latham & Watkins (in London and the U.S.), focusing on corporate matters, particularly finance, governance and securities. He was a business strategy consultant for IBM prior to attending law school.

Nate holds a Juris Doctor with High Honours from Emory Law School and a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Affairs with Distinction from the University of Virginia and is a former adjunct professor on international financial transactions at Emory Law School.

Tellus Holdings Ltd (“Tellus”) mission is to contribute towards a safer and cleaner Australia by developing a portfolio of geological repositories that provide waste storage, recycling, recovery, permanent isolation services and related commodity by-products.

Visit our project website – www.tellusholdings.com

Phone us at: +61 (0)2 8257 3395

E-mail us at: info@tellusholdings.com

Tellus Holdings Ltd (“Tellus”) is pleased to announce that its Sandy Ridge Facility, the first commercial near-surface geological repository in Australia, is now open for business, providing key enabling infrastructure to Australia during the COVID-19 recovery. Sandy Ridge’s world-class safety case ensures that difficult to manage waste streams can be permanently isolated from the biosphere, protecting current and future Australian communities, our environment and helping the waste industry develop in a sustainable and responsible manner. With additional in-ground and surface infrastructure they can also provide long term storage (retrievable), treatment, recycle and recovery services that support the circular economy.

This milestone was triggered by the Western Australia (WA) Government approving a robust financial assurance and insurance framework for the Sandy Ridge Facility. This approval now allows us to expand operations (in line with approvals), and enable additional jobs, industry and sustainability across WA.

This news release summarises Sandy Ridge’s:

• World class financial assurance and insurance framework, which was just approved;
• Ability to drive direct and indirect jobs in the post-COVID environment;
• Direct support of government and industry’s waste and sustainability policies; and
• Numerous other benefits to WA, clients, environment and the community.

Approved by key decision making authorities: The Honourable Stephen Dawson MLC, Minister for Environment, Disability Services, Electoral Affairs and the Honourable Ben Wyatt MLC, Minister for Finance, Aboriginal Affairs, and Lands have signed off Tellus’ financial assurance and insurance framework that gives confidence to regulators, clients and the community that the Sandy Ridge Facility is prepared for and protected against any plausible uncertainty. The assurance was a condition precedent linked to staged operations (in line with approvals) that formed part of the 99- year Crown Lease announced in December 2019.

Multiple Layers of Assurance (Bonds and Trust Fund) and Insurance: The confidence of our assurance and insurance regime is underpinned by the following framework which includes:

• Over $100 million of construction insurance;
• Over $422 million of operational related insurances, comprising:
  • $322 million of ongoing general operational insurance; and
  • $100 million of operational and closure environmental liability insurance unique to Sandy Ridge, backed by a consortium of leading specialist international underwriters;
• Assurance bonds; and a
• Material trust fund managed by an independent trustee, which requires additional funding each year during Sandy Ridge’s operations. The amount of funds in the trust will be regularly verified by independent experts and the WA government.

Independently Reviewed: Tellus also commissioned UK based firm Eden to independently review Tellus’ proposed financial assurance framework and provisions at Sandy Ridge. The review confirmed that the proposed financial assurance framework is considered appropriate both in terms of its quantum and structure.

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasised the importance of both direct and indirect jobs in local and regional WA. With the assurance and insurance now in place, Sandy Ridge has achieved another important milestone and can start providing additional services to clients and industry within all States and Territories of Australia and consistent with Ministerial Statement 1078. This allows Tellus to expand our workforce and provide additional opportunities for sustainable, long-term employment and training at a local and regional scale.

For example, Sandy Ridge creates numerous job opportunities both within Tellus and in supporting industries:

• Jobs in Supporting Industries and Projects: Most materially, Sandy Ridge will permit WA to approve and develop new projects in a sustainable manner, thus driving thousands of jobs. This is because Sandy Ridge can ensure that any resultant waste created by new developments can be permanently managed in a responsible and world’s best-in-class manner using environmental sound management (ESM) principles. Only Sandy Ridge can provide this assurance for legacy, existing production and emerging waste streams and only Tellus can issue a valuable Tellus Permanent Isolation Certificate (Tellus PIC^TM).
• Construction Jobs: We created approximately (~) 80 direct or full time equivalent (FTE) jobs and ~ 200 indirect or part time equivalent (PTE) jobs over the 22-month construction period. At the peak of construction we had over 100 workers at site.
• Operational Jobs: During operations we will have ~ 50 direct jobs and ~ 100 indirect jobs as we ramp up to full capacity and, we have built a modern 71-person village at site to accommodate the workers.
• Tellus has a buy local and hire local policy and will continue to work to source future employees from our local communities.
• Future Circular Economy Jobs: Tellus additionally proposes to build a circular economy technology park, which will further expand our work force. For every 3,000 tonnes of waste arriving on site, one additional direct job and ~ 2-3 additional indirect jobs could be created.

The Sandy Ridge Facility is an example of leading infrastructure that meets and supports the Government of Western Australia’s waste legislation, regulations, policies, business plans and strategies with the objective of protecting the environment by managing waste responsibly.

The Sandy Ridge Facility will contribute towards meeting the “recover” and “protect” targets within the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recover Strategy 2030 and associated Action Plan 2020-21. The operation of the Sandy Ridge Facility will help address the 2030 target which states “all waste is managed and/or disposed to better practice facilities”.

The Sandy Ridge near-surface geological repository in a semi-arid area is a “better practice facility” that meets strict site selection criteria, has been developed, and will be operated against world class best practice techniques for managing Class IV and Class V intractable wastes (hazardous waste) that meet the requirements of “disposal” within the 2030 Strategy.  In due course, the Sandy Ridge Facility will assist in meeting longer term goals associated with circular economy for the waste industry.

Tellus Holdings Ltd (“Tellus”) mission is to contribute towards a safer and cleaner Australia by developing a portfolio of geological repositories that provide waste storage, recycling, recovery, permanent isolation services and related commodity by-products.

Visit our project website – www.tellusholdings.com

Phone us at: +61 (02) 8257 3395

E-mail us at: info@tellusholdings.com

Or visit the WA Government website – https://www.epa.wa.gov.au/proposals/sandy-ridge-project

Tellus Holdings Ltd (“Tellus”) is pleased to announce that the Company has received a cash refund through the Australian Federal Government’s Research and Development Tax Incentive Program of approximately $1.8 million.

The Research and Development (R&D) tax incentive is an Australian Government program under which companies receive refunds for 43.5% of eligible expenditure on R&D.

The R&D refund relates to Tellus activities conducted in the 2018/19 financial year.

”Tellus is committed to contributing to a cleaner Australia and providing clients with a range of best practice solutions for difficult to manage waste materials” said Tellus Managing Director, Duncan van der Merwe ”The company continues to actively research and develop sustainable solutions for long term waste management.”

Tellus Holdings Ltd (“Tellus”) is pleased to provide an update of our proposed Blue Bush Project.

The proposed Blue Bush Project would be Australia’s first east coast near-surface geological waste repository in a semi-arid area, located approximately 45 km’s south of Broken Hill in New South Wales (NSW).  Drilling in the 1970’s and 1980’s identified a thick, flat, dry kaolin clay bed on top of a 1,700 million-year-old gneiss formation called the Broken Hill Block. These are some of the oldest and most stable rocks in eastern Australia which supports the site safety case.

The proposed Blue Bush Facility will be a 200,000 tonnes per annum licenced capacity with a 25-year operating term, and may be supported by a transfer station located within or adjacent to the industrial precinct of Broken Hill. The proposed Blue Bush Facility and Blue Bush Transfer Station are collectively referred to as the ‘Blue Bush Project’.

Geological repositories are highly engineered facilities with multiple man-made and natural barriers and a facility layout that can primarily offer permanent isolation (disposal) of equipment, hazardous materials and waste from the biosphere over geological time. With additional in-ground and surface infrastructure they can also provide long term storage (retrievable) and treatment, recycle and recovery services that support the circular economy.

Tellus is developing geological repositories because due to our economy and modern lifestyle, Australia is one of the highest emitters of hazardous waste per capita and there is insufficient infrastructure nationally at competitive price points to manage the rapidly growing problem from legacy, production and emerging hazardous waste types. We need to stop seeing waste as a waste and start seeing waste as a resource that can support the circular economy and jobs.

Recent early stage work includes:

• Completed one exploratory drilling program (57 holes) to confirm the potential resource, one step-out drilling program (69 holes) to identify the extent, and one water drilling program (11 holes) to confirm the lack of ground water.
• The initial drilling results are encouraging.
• Completed several field investigations to help us better understand potential environmental and human health hazards, risks and benefits.
• Finalising a Scoping Study that will recommend the project proceed to a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS).
• In support of our proposed Project, we have prepared an Environmental Scoping Report (ESR).
• The ESR was submitted to the NSW Government on 15 September.
• We have commenced early stage community stakeholder engagement in January 2020 within the constraints of a COVID travel restrictions.

We look forward to ramping up a sustained, transparent, proactive next phase of stakeholder engagement and to provide updates as the company progresses through the project studies and approvals gates. There are several GO/NO GO gates the company needs to go through before it reaches a final investment decision.

A hazardous waste, as defined in the Australian Government’s National Waste Policy: Less waste, more resources (2009), is a substance or object that exhibits hazardous characteristics, is no longer fit for its intended use and requires disposal. A much simpler definition is hazardous waste is a waste with properties that make it potentially harmful to human health or the environment.

Waste material would be subject to Tellus’ strict Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) that must be approved by the NSW EPA and, is necessary for the environmental and human health safety of the Blue Bush Facility. Wastes accepted could include:

• Acid and alkaline compounds used in manufacturing.
• Arsenic compounds from gold mining.
• Contaminated soils with asbestos from housing and PFAS from firefighting.
• Electronic waste like computers and phones.
• Fly-ash from energy utilities.
• Lead compounds from mining.
• Liquid chemical waste could be accepted, but only if it is immobilised (i.e. made solid).
• Mercury compounds from dental industry,
• Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material from the mining of minerals used in the electric car and solar storage batteries
• Solar panels
• Zinc compounds used in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Tellus will not be accepting:

• Nuclear waste (e.g. from power generation and defence use).
• Low Level Waste (LLW), Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) and High Level Waste (HLW).
• Tellus will not accept for in cell placement liquid and sludges, explosive wastes, flammable liquids or solids, self-combusting wastes or wastes that can generate a gas-air mixture which is toxic or explosive, highly corrosive or oxidizing, gases (greater than 5% in volume), clinical waste (e.g. infectious hospital waste and body parts), municipal solid waste (putrescible household and commercial waste)
• Uncertified waste (which cannot be identified or has not undergone characterisation testing).

The Blue Bush Environmental Scoping Report (ESR) will become a publicly available document. It provides preliminary information on the proposed project and its potential impacts. It is prepared to support a request for Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs).

• The NSW Government will review our ESR for adequacy.
• If adequate, SEARs are provided to Tellus.
• With SEARs, Tellus will begin a sustained and stepped up community engagement in the Broken Hill region, and with Local, State and Federal Government.
• The Board is to approve the project proceeding to a PFS (expected in October 2020).

• The Environmental Impact Statement is likely to be submitted by Tellus in early 2021.
• Tellus is aiming for a three-year approval timeframe for the Blue Bush Project. However, final project approval is dependent on the NSW environmental planning approval process.
• A final investment decision is required before construction can commence.
• Construction is likely to take between 18-24 months.
• Operating life would be up to 25 years and will be followed by an institutional control period.

If approved, the proposed Blue Bush Project could result in significant and long-term positive environmental, social and economic benefits to the Broken Hill region, NSW and Australia. These benefits could include:

• Providing an innovative, safe and secure permanent isolation and long-term storage facility for hazardous chemical waste in regional NSW.
• Providing an opportunity to clean up legacy lead issues in Broken Hill.
• Providing opportunities for sustainable, long-term employment and training at a local and regional scale in NSW.
•  Jobs
  • About 80-120 full time equivalent (FTE) and 200 – 300 indirect jobs generated during the peak of construction.
  • About 50-90 FTE jobs and 100-225 indirect jobs generated during operation.
• Diversifying local and regional economies in the Far West Region of NSW.
• Boosting the economy
  • Capital expenditure is estimated to be > $100-150 million.
  • Operating expenditure is estimated to be tens of millions of dollars per annum over 25 years.
  • Royalties, taxes and levies.
• Providing local business support.
• • Fulfilling the Australian and NSW government’s own environmental and waste policy obligations.
  • Supporting the circular economy by providing an opportunity for the future potential recovery of valuable materials (that are currently deemed waste). The project could attract new waste recycling and recovery industries to NSW.

Tellus Holdings Ltd (“Tellus”) mission is to contribute towards a safer and cleaner Australia by developing a portfolio of geological repositories that provide waste storage, recycling, recovery, permanent isolation services and related commodity by-products.

For background, Tellus has recently commenced staged storage operations in line with approvals, at our Sandy Ridge Facility. This is Australia’s first west coast near-surface geological waste repository in a semi-arid area, located approximately 240 kilometres (km) west-north-west of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia (WA).

The Sandy Ridge Facility took 7 years to develop and has a 100,000 tpa licensed capacity for 25 years, located on a 70-million-year-old (m.y.o) thick, flat, dry kaolin clay bed which is on top of a 15 km thick 2,700 m.y.o granite formation which supports the safety case.  Tellus has now shifted strategic focus to a potential similar facility in the east.

Visit our project website – www.tellusholdings.com/projects/proposed-blue-bush-project/

Phone us at: +61 (0)2 8257 3395

E-mail us at: bluebush@tellusholdings.com

Or visit the NSW Government website – https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/major-projects/project/39691