Thank you, Ashley. The team at Eloise delivered an excellent March quarter despite significant challenges.

We had a lot of rain: 396 mils in February alone on the back of a 571 mil soaking in December, making it, we believe, the wettest wet season ever experienced at Eloise. Yet, the team still delivered an excellent result.

To say that we came home with a wet sail is something of an understatement. However, we produced 3,432 tonnes of copper, 1,692 ounces of gold in concentrate at an all-in sustaining cost of Aussie $4.18 a pound, and an all-in cost of Aussie $4.49 a pound, achieving, or in this case exceeding, guidance for the eleventh consecutive quarter.

That's exceptional, and very few companies can match that record. What isn't clear in the quarterly is just how hard the site team had to work to bring this quarter home.

The rainfall made it a very tough quarter. We were dealing with hot, humid conditions, full dams, water releases, road closures, supply chain issues, reduced ROM pad area, reduced concentrate pad area, and a lot of construction activity.

Thank you to the team at Eloise. Importantly, the underground mine development completed in the quarter is setting us up for a good June quarter.

We are on track to beat the top end of production guidance and possibly the lower end of cost guidance, diesel willing. Eloise generated $27.7 million in net mine cash flow and had $8.3 million of concentrate still on site at the end of the quarter.

This has subsequently been sold. Eloise generated $27.7 million in the quarter.

I'm maybe going over this a bit, but that's more than it generated in the whole of FY25. Eloise is generating great cash flow, enough cash flow, along with the Trafigura debt, to do everything we need to do and want to do over the next 12 months.

For those who can't read between the lines, and it does appear to be a few, let me be clear: we do not need additional capital to complete the 1.1 million-tonne-per-annum expansion or to progress the potential 1.5 million-tonne-per-annum expansion. The copper price is very good at the moment.

However, yes, the diesel price is a bit of a concern. Let's go straight to that now.

To date, Eloise has continued to receive its full contracted allocation of diesel, and has had no indication from Chevron, that's our supplier, that this situation will change. The cost of diesel has risen materially.

We all know that. Chevron has notified us that April diesel costs are up 50% on the average net price we have paid year-to-date.

This hike equates to an extra $1 million in April compared to our average month. May is expected to be higher again, given that current prices are currently 20% above the April price.

We estimate that this could equate to an additional $1.5 to $1.6 million in May compared to the average month. We estimate that the increase in diesel costs could result in an increase in AISC and AIC of approximately 40 to 50 cents per pound in the June 2026 quarter and approximately 12 to 15 cents per pound Aussie across FY26.

That's just the direct component. There are also a number of indirect cost increases, but it's very difficult to estimate the likely quantum of those over the full quarter at this stage.

Regardless, we are currently well protected by the great copper price, gold price, silver prices that we're achieving. At Jericho, we're ahead of schedule.

The Eloise expansion project remains on schedule for commissioning in the December quarter. Spending at both projects is effectively on plan.

However, the maths is getting hard to reconcile. I have our CFO, John Callagher, with me on this call.

He'll be able to answer those questions, because I muddle them. At Jericho, we are so far ahead of schedule that we're now considering an accelerated ramp-up to 1.5 million tonnes per annum.

We're not going to constrain development to match a budget that's now out of date, especially given Eloise is generating significantly more cash than we'd expected. The Eloise expansion project, managed by GR Engineering, is on budget.

Good news delivered this quarter on the expansion schedule and budget. Just as important, possibly more important, is the news of three de-risking events that I want to highlight.

The Jericho access drive crossed the J1 lens, confirming that the mineralization style and geotechnical conditions are consistent with the Jericho geological model. Please take a look at the diagram on page 11 of the quarterly.

This now materially reduces mining and ramp-up risk. The new ball mill has arrived on site, subsequent to the end of the quarter.

It's the major critical path item for the expansion project schedule, great to have it on site ahead of time. We have 12,000 tonnes of Jericho development ore on the ROM pad.

A three-day batch processing trial of this material is scheduled for late April to validate the metallurgical characteristics of the Jericho ore. We've already snuck some small parcels of Jericho ore through the plant, and it has responded beautifully.

We'll provide an update on the batch trial once we have compiled the data. The next critical piece of work at Jericho is installation of the JS3 ventilation shaft.

Surface works have been completed and the raisebore crew are on site ready to commence the pilot hole next week. We're on track to have the vent shaft operational by the end of June.

We released the Eloise and Jericho Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve updates during the quarter. Combined Eloise project Mineral Resources increased 10%.

At Jericho, we added 63,900 tonnes of copper to resources. We did that at a cost of $33 per tonne, or fit- or not 15, 1.5 cents per pound, Aussie dollars, 1.5 cents a pound, we're adding copper to the resource.

It's an amazing deposit and a great exploration team there. Combined Eloise project Ore Reserves increased 14%.

A great outcome. The Eloise processing plant now has access to the largest resource base available to it at any time in its 30-year history.

I'll slow down a bit there; I want to make a point there. It's quite phenomenal.

We acquired an asset in 2021 that had a two-year mine plan producing 12,500 tonnes of copper. We now have an asset with a 10-plus year outlook with expansion underway to 25,000 tonnes per annum copper.

The market is slowly, very slowly it appears, waking up to this transformation that's right before its eyes. Regionally, we're back in the field exploring, Godspeed.

12 targets will be drill tested this year. It's great to have the team back in the field.

We've got a great ground holding, good pervasive structures, and good geophysical targets. Time will tell.

Turning to financial performance, did I say Eloise generated good cash? Eloise generated $72 million in metal sales post-TCRC reductions during the quarter.

Deductions during the quarter. No doubt a record, but a record we hope to break soon.

I've already discussed cash flow, but capital expenditure warrants some explanation. We are now 75% of the way through the year, we should be 75% of the way through our capex guidance.

I go through this with you every quarter. We're we are over on a few key items, the same ones that were flagged last quarter.

Let's go through them so analysts don't panic and think we've lost control of capex. That's certainly not the case.

In key areas, we have spent more because it makes sense, typically bringing capital forward to bulletproof the mine plan. In other areas, we didn't budget for some items or activities that we've now included, essentially gated capital.

We have generated additional cash, we've used that opportunity to do more. Specifically, underground mine development is alrea- already at 105% of our guidance for the full year.

Consistent with previous quarters this financial year, underground capital development consists costs have been higher than budget due to a higher proportion of mining activities being allocated to capital. The increase in underground capital development costs is offset by a reduction in mine operating costs.

Resource definition drilling is at 100%. It was gated at $2.5 million against a planned $3 million, and we've now gone through that gate as we firm up resources in the lower levels ahead of mining.

Long-term mine development is at 100%. This is at the same point as we as we described above for underground mine development, with a higher proportion of mining activities being allocated to capital.

Non-plant infrastructure is at 82%. This is a mix of some overspend due to higher costs and a larger owner's team than we had budgeted for, and some additional costs as we complete the full engineering studies for the upgrades.

The power upgrade is the major culprit there. Corporate is at 85%, a bit over there as well.

We've taken a couple of swings this year, obviously a swing and a miss, though, as we haven't had any news on the acquisition front. Rest assured, though, that we remain disciplined on this front.

At the moment, the best value that we can create for shareholders is to deliver the Eloise expansion on time and on budget, and that is our major focus. That concludes my review.

I'll ask the operator, Ashley, if you're still there, to open the lines for questions. Thank you.

Hi, Aaron and team. My question is on the project and the interaction of the resource reserve that you've put out recently.

Basically you're ahead on development of Jericho, the mill looks like it's on track, you've got expanded resource reserve base. Oh and you've got obviously better cash flow because of the commodity price environment and upgrading the production.

What do you need to see to formally go beyond the 1.1? Do you need to deliver it first, or is that something that is in your thinking?

Thank you.

Yeah. Sorry, Dan.

This 1.1 1.5 debacle is a bit of a problem. Duncan's sitting reasonably close to me and he's our proxy for the JORC police, I'll be careful what I say.

Dan, what we need is to complete our life-of-mine plan and provide you with a long-term, 3-year, 4-year, 5-year outlook, and then we've washed it through JORC, and we're allowed to tell you that we are building a 1.5 million-tonne-per-annum plant, we are ramping up underground at Jericho to the 1.5 million-tonne-per-annum rate. Until we've delivered that to the market, and that will be with our likely FY27 guidance, we'll deliver in July.

That life-of-mine plan is coming together now. We wanted to get it to you with the MROR, we didn't.

That life-of-mine plan actually requires quite a few iterations to get it right. We want to get it spot on.

We're doing that now. We'll deliver that to you, as late as, unfortunately, but in July.

We will have washed that through. Then we won't have to beat around the bush.

We won't have to put out these statements that have got disclaimers on them, and I won't have to use potential and aspirational and all that language everywhere. Dan, I sort of hope that is clear.

That work underway, remember, the plant we are building at the moment, the expansion at the moment, $77.6 million, that was about $15 million over, the well, $17.6 million over our $60 million original estimate. That's because we did include upgraded components.

The crushing system that we are installing now is a 1.5 million-tonne-per-annum crusher. It'll need a new ball mill, though, to get it to 1.5.

We can do that out of cash flow. We'll do that, as and when required.

Some people have asked, namely my chairman, have we ordered that long-lead-time item. Sure, we're hearing that the long lead on mills is starting to push out beyond the sort of normal 12 months.

This one fairly straightforward what we need, to the point where we can bring on one of our idled mills if needs be. It's not on a critical path.

Even the long lead, even the order is not critical path at the moment. It's underground development that's the real piece.

We're figuring out at the moment how much that's going to cost, whether we ramp up to 1.5, quickly, very quickly, or very, very quickly. It all depends on broadly how many jumbos and how much money you throw at it.

We've got to balance that against reality. As you've seen us do with this project from the beginning.

We're always running to keep up with it, but we are running. A bit of waffle there, Dan, but I hope that answers your question.

Is there anything else you needed?

No, I appreciate the color. Maybe a separate question.

I know in your remarks you intimated that you are spending more money on projects, and part of that is, well, the Jericho development is going very well, why slow that down? I get that and you've got the cash, better cash flow to do that, but can you maybe make it easier to just unpick what is discretionary extra spend you've been doing versus what has been inflationary or things that have cost more?

Do you understand what I mean?

I do. It's a fair question.

It's actually a hard question to answer at this point, I don't think we're really keeping a tally on that. I think the reality, you've seen the cost overrun at Jericho really being JS1 last year.

That's behind us. Just looking at mining alone, the vent shafts that we've put in have really been on budget, and we haven't seen anything there that has been a discretionary or extra.

Let's go back to your point on creep. We haven't seen any creep there.

Let's put diesel aside and what we're heading into to put that to one side for the time being. We'll bring an extra jumbo, an extra drill rig to Jericho.

That's going to be discretionary. We'll be able to explain that to you very clearly.

Dan, I think that's really from June quarter onwards. Then GR's, it's EPC, very straightforward.

It should be what you contract for is what you get. We'll find out in December.

Far, very good. Far, no creep there and no disputes and little claims lodged here and there, but no issues.

Some of the overruns we've had in offices, a camp, it's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Dan. We're not seeing it as material.

Now that the overrun on NPI, what I talked about, needing more power sooner, you could argue that that's discretionary. You could also argue that we probably underbudgeted for it when we went in and did the full engineering work.

We needed a bigger upgrade to power sooner than what we'd originally expected. That's probably true of a lot of what we're doing, because as I said, we're running to keep up.

We bought on quite a big owner's team, which is what we needed. We underbudgeted them.

We're starting to drop off some members there, which is a shame, but that's how these things happen. I want to keep these guys forever.

I want another project to put them onto. We're working hard to do that.

Another topic, sorry, I wander easily. I just looking around the room here then, to try to see if there's any extra you need.

We can take it offline with you and John Callagher, if you want. I know I've only added color.

I think you probably wanted percentages and numbers. They're relatively small.

They're relatively inconsequential compared to what we're spending at that Jericho on development and EPC through the GR's.

I appreciate that. Maybe we can chat in more depth offline.

Just last question. I was somewhat surprised given all the rain that is well documented in the region.

It's obviously been very difficult circumstances for mining companies. Somewhat surprised that you did very well during the quarter on operational numbers.

You can have impacts delay, i.e., you might have impacts come through in the June quarter that are not obvious to us on either operations or the projects. Is there anything of note on that at all?

Really good pick up, yeah, because that's a fair question and I've certainly been involved in assets in the past where you get one good quarter and next quarter you're in a world of pain as a result. That's why I did sort of make that point.

I think it's in the quarterly, but in my notes I read, then, importantly, the underground mine development completed in the quarter is setting us up for a good June quarter. We're on track, yeah.

No, I don't see anything that's going to cause us a struggle in June. June could be, well, not a repeat of March, but similar to March.

You'll see in the diagram we put, the TKM diagram, you'll be able to see that February was an absolute shocker. I never want to live through that experience again.

You'll see, we certainly put a lot of high-grade through in March. The June quarter, we had a lot of stockpiles, we had a lot of material on ROM pad.

We had a lot of material on the cons pad itself. A lot of that's already gone.

That will help bring home the June quarter. Similarly, what I was getting to is I think we're going to have some high-grade continuing from the underground, from the Deeps, and blending it with the rather largish lowish grade stockpiles we've got on that ROM pad.

That's the level of detail you don't really get to see when we report for the quarter, Dan. Fair question, but yeah, I'm expecting the next three months to wash out to be another fair quarter.

All right, well thanks for all your perspectives.

No worries, they're free and available anytime. Cheers.

Morning, Aaron. Good result.

Just wanted to have a chat on TCRCs. Obviously they're moving around all over the shop.

Just understanding your exposure and how that might change over time to what's going on in the spot market versus what you're getting.

I'll ask John in a second what our TCRCs are, because I'd be guessing. We're contracted Eloise life-of-mine offtake with Trafigura.

We get benchmark TCRCs that are set in November each year. Nothing is sold into spot.

TCRC at the moment, John?

Correct. The baseline TCRCs have been locked in for this calendar year at [zero?]

.

At zero?

Yeah. Yeah.

Free treatment. Zero?

Yeah. Whoo!

I'm glad I asked. Zero, Hayden.

That's a good number. Then into next year then, John, are we seeing benchmarks that roll sort of beyond the calendar year, they're certainly all comfortably negative.

Is that what we should be assuming going into 20 into '27? It's

difficult. We're certainly for the calendar year, this is where we're at, but also we do have the $10 charge there as part of our finance facility arrangement also.

For Jericho.

For Eloise, that will sit across effectively two years of production. That's what I'm looking at as the baseline for the moment

for

the near- to medium-term outlook.

Hard to know, Hayden. With sulfuric acid prices so good, you could expect TCRCs to remain low.

Quite possibly. I'd be surprised.

Then

just on the capex profile, Aaron, you're obviously spending $40 million on Jericho that quarter, but can you sort of break down the mine development versus what's going on in the mill? How lumpy is that for the rest of the calendar year?

For Jericho?

Yeah.

It should be flat.

How much total capex is there to go on the mill expansion from here? Oh.

Mill expansion,

We'll get back.

We'll come back to you. We're not halfway through that.

We're expecting that sort of $40 million a quarter for the rest of the year, there or thereabouts?

Yep, overall.

Okay. All right, cool.

Thanks, guys.

No worries, thanks, Hayden.

Good day, Aaron and John. Thanks for taking my call.

Just wanted to touch on the 1.5 expansion again first off. Probably just flush out a little bit of can you outline specifically, I guess, what is needed to take it to that 1.5, I know you've outlined the ball mill, and what the I guess the capital expectations there are?

Kind of alluded to this already as well, but the timeline on potentially bringing that online. Is there still maybe a 12-month lead time until you kind of get that?

Just trying to put a few, I guess, metrics behind that, if that's all right.

Ball mill, a larger rougher cell, Aussie $15 million in the plant. I might ask Ben to comment on Jericho itself, what that sort of ramp-up looks like in terms of underground equipment and development.

Timeline, Dan, I can't give you that answer. If we had that answer, yeah, that would be a standalone announcement.

We're working on that now. I know we owe that to you.

I know you're waiting for it. We'll get it to you in July.

Ben, any comment on Jericho ramp-up?

The constraint to get up to that higher production rate in Jericho is ventilation. The next pair of vent shafts in Matilda, once they're complete, then that enables an additional jumbo to be put into that mine to ramp the development rate up to 750 m a month and then a short 1 to 2-year period before you can put that into the higher production rate.

Somewhere, about 3 to 4 years to get up to that rate from now. Yeah.

Thanks.

Thanks, Dan. Yep,

yep. No, thank you.

I just wanted to note you've had the I guess 12,000 t of ore from Jericho that's sitting on your stocks and being processed in the June quarter. Is that being capitalized from a cost perspective?

Then from a follow-up, I guess what are

the You're the only person who's asked that question. That's Yeah, I'll hand over to John.

It's a good question. I think we're trying to figure out what to do with that ourselves.

No, John might have the answer. I don't.

Go

on. Look, in my world, I'd absolutely capitalize it into the project.

The mine, I understand we need to look at the accounting rules around that. If there's, from a how we manage that internally, yes, that would be the answer, but then there'll be the audit and statutory piece from a technical angle, which may impact that treatment in the stat accounts.

We may be forced down a path to treat that as revenue.

Yep. Yep, got it.

Dan, we'll be very careful in the June quarterly to make sure we spell it out separately or break it out for you. It is de minimis really.

We'll break it out for you so that it doesn't complicate how you're modeling Eloise.

Yep, no, looking forward to reading the special note for me in the June quarter. Just a follow-up from that, though, as well is just I guess ahead of the 1.1 mill expansion at the end of the year, are you expecting to build a bit of a working capital inventory kind of in the quarters pre that?

As you're ramping into Jericho at the moment, that 12,000 t, I read that as you're going to do a batch treatment just to see how that floats and how it processes through the mill. I guess what quantum of inventory are you expecting to build ahead of the 1.1 mill being kind of commissioned?

Oh, that changes. Did you want to answer it, Ben?

It's tricky.

Dan,

Less than 50,000 tonnes.

We think it'll be. We'll get up and get back mining into Jolly, not on a just-in-time basis, but now that we've got the development heading towards Matilda, we've got the development setting up Jolly, we'll open Jolly up as we need it.

Some of our earlier work had quite a large stockpile being built up, which is good from a de-risking, but not good from a cash flow point of view. Really the best thing we can do is deliver ore to the mill as it's needed.

Of course, that makes sense. You get that.

Put jumbos to work on development and getting that behind us. I think Ben's answer is spot on.

We're definitely targeting a Goldilocks stockpile there of circa 50,000 tonnes, neither too big nor too small. Yep,

yep, no, perfect. Maybe just wanted to ask a final question just on I guess try to get a bit of color on diesel.

I think your disclosures have been fantastic on this, by the way. Just noting that in the June quarter, it's a bit more leverage from the Deeps, which is increasing the TKM.

If you had a crystal ball, I don't know if it would have changed it or not, but and it's incredibly hard to change near-term mine schedules, of course. Assuming that diesel remains high into the end of the year, how are you thinking about that dynamic between going into Deeps versus higher Eloise Macy and some higher and shallower portions of the ore body that might have a lower TKM from a cost perspective?

Is that something that you're kind of thinking about, and I don't know, just, yeah, a bit of color around

thinking about

benefit there.

Thinking about constantly. Dan, to be honest, there's no easy answer to this, and so we will react.

There's not a lot we can do proactively. We to the best of our ability, we are setting ourselves up on site, but we're a small company, a single asset, a big diesel consumer.

Price, I think price is going up. We need to be protected by the copper price and actually gold and silver, and I can foresee that.

I'm not worried about price. Until I woke up this morning, I wasn't worried about supply either, but that was the maintenance team at Viva Energy having a bit of fun today.

A terrible accident, and I'm very glad to hear that there was no serious injury there. Terrible, but yeah, maybe we are back to worrying about diesel arriving.

We war-roomed, for want of a better term, I'm sure there is a better term than that, what we would do if we received 10% less, 20% less, half our diesel. Pretty easy to figure out what the scenario is if we don't receive any.

They're not good scenarios. We've got a response to each of those.

We'll deal with that in almost a crisis management response, a reactive way if and when that happens and for whatever period that happens. It's very hard to do much now, Dan, because some of those responses are quite nasty, not good if we were receiving half our fuel allocation.

There's not a simple answer to that. If we're down 10%, well, sure, maybe there is.

One of the good things, we're heading into winter. I don't know that Queensland actually has a winter, but let's call it the cooler, drier season.

We're not using the chillers as much. Chiller uses a lot of power.

That helps us out a bit. You're right.

It'll be a TKM focus, of course. Campaign milling, all of those sorts of things are possible, but they're not pretty outcomes.

We'll deal with it if we need to.

Yep, yep. No, it makes sense.

Maybe the latter of the point that's probably a bit redundant, but maybe from a I'm probably personally a little bit less worried about supply rather than just costs. I guess, but from a cost perspective, do you see a lot of difference between your shallower and lower-grade tonnes versus your deeper and higher-grade tonnes out of the mine from a NSI perspective?

If yes,

Not really. Not really.

I think you've been through some of that with us before. The grade in the Deeps is just great.

Yep. Yeah.

No, makes sense.

Hang on, I'll let Ben add some color.

Give you an idea on diesel usage, mobile equipment make up for 15% of our diesel usage on site. Any tactical shift on trucking doesn't really change the needle.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks, Dan.

Awesome. Yep.

No, thanks, guys.

No more questions from Daniel Roden, thank you.

Cheers, mate. There we go.

Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

Always a pleasure.

Hey, Belinda.

I'm here just a few little things around the edge. Obviously, everything's already been answered a bit.

With that really good quarter of 27.7 million, and then you've got the stockpile there and obviously wouldn't be expecting as many weather disruptions this quarter, could you expect an even better financial result or are there other factors at play?

The main piece at play is the copper price. We're seeing that moving anywhere between $17,000 and $18,000 a tonne Aussie.

That $1,000 a tonne actually makes quite a bit of difference, as you can see, multiply that over 3,000 tonnes for the quarter, 1,000 bucks here and there starts to make a difference. The gold price also is relevant to us.

Exchange rate is relevant. Belinda, if we come back to just tonnes and grade, this next quarter is set up to be a good one, of course, ceteris paribus, we should have a similar cash.

We started the quarter with quite high stockpiles. We got rid of them.

We started this quarter with a high stockpile. We got rid of it, and we built it up again.

That was weather related, trucking related. Heading into this dry quarter now, we'll touch wood, a clean pad at the end of the quarter.

That we'll see, probably Oh, well, if that is the case, we'll see sales outstrip production, and another good revenue quarter. Where we start the quarter today or where we started the quarter at around $18,000 a tonne, if we keep this price, or better for the full quarter, then sure, the June revenue, the June cash will look better than March, but let's see.

You also made a fairly low-key comment about potential acquisitions. Obviously you've got the cash there.

Could you talk a little bit more about that?

I couldn't hear you, Belinda. Can you repeat the question?

You're very very faint.

You made a fairly low-key comment about potential acquisitions. You've obviously got the cash there.

Could you talk a bit more about your intentions there?

Sorry. Look, yeah, I know it was low-key, probably deliberately.

Thanks for highlighting that, Belinda. You don't get to ask a question next quarter.

No, we we are acquisitive. It it's in every presentation we make, and everyone who knows me sort of knows, my background and and and, of course, what we're trying to do at AIC, build a mining company, a multi-asset company.

We continue to keep our eye out for the next project. I I very much want to keep, that construction team and the expertise we're building up at the moment.

I want to put that to work as quickly as we can as new projects are already running late on on getting that project. Duncan Bristow, who looks after business development here and investor relations, is helping me.

We're looking at lots of things. Sometimes, you don't budget for that, and you don't of course you don't budget for for for M&A failure, because looking at an asset, doing due diligence is expensive.

Then when nothing happens, then, you you you wear that cost and, and shareholders go, "Oh, jeez. How come corporate cost is is 8 million bucks, not the 7.5 million that they expected?"

We've we've sort of we've we've made that comment today to say, well, we've had a swing and a miss, we earlier earlier in the year we were in defense mode. That's not cheap.

We've come out of that. We're we're back on the hustings.

We'd love to buy another asset. It's not easy.

I kept it low-key, Belinda, because I also want to make it clear that we're not about to blow our brains out on on buying something. I I think, shareholders are often worried about that.

Please show me the respect of, what we've achieved, over, over the 7 years here, if not the last 20 at at Evolution and AIC. We remain very disciplined.

We're looking for an asset of better quality than Eloise. That's not hard.

Sorry sorry, that's not easy. I was going to say that is very hard at the moment.

We're we're looking for something that's, equates to good value, that is value accretive. Again, that's not easy at the moment when we're comparing, asset quality to Eloise and value accretion to where we are, pre pre ramp-up, pre the valuation that we expect to be at you know the 1st of January if if you know when we when we deliver the current upgrade.

Sorry, I I I hope that answers the question. Is that Is that clear, Belinda?

Yes, it does. Just one more brief one.

Yep.

you did talk about the high rainfall, obviously, a minor uncontrolled release of mine-affected water. Is that subject to any action by the regulator, and do you see the need to take any mitigation steps at the site or has it fared really well, considering?

It

fared really well, considering. Possibly, but unlikely.

There's no real damage. We had a lot of water.

Any rain that lands on the northern end of our tenement ends up at the southern end when you're getting that much rain. That's technically mine-affected water leaving site.

That's problematic. We tried not to do that.

It was almost impossible this year. We did get temporary permits.

We did bring water cannons to site. We did everything we could to stop that.

I wanted to make the point that the guys on site did a fantastic job and it wasn't the easy quarter that it looks like when you read through our high production, low AISC. It was a tough quarter and we were doing everything we could.

Also very transparent. Sure, we'll see where we end up with on that one omission, but I'm not expecting anything of material impact.

They're always hard to know, hard to say, Belinda.

Thank you very much.

Thanks. Good morning, Aaron and team, and congratulations on a good quarter.

Most of the questions I had have been pretty well answered, to be honest. I might just delve into a couple of details, if that's okay.

I

know you've made a couple of comments in the quarterly, and I did just miss the first couple of minutes of the call. Mined and processed tonnes were lower this quarter, and the grade was up.

You have commented that the June quarter is looking pretty good for grade. I guess one of the sort of natural questions that might come out of that is how sort of sustainable are those grades in the context of, I guess, sort of the broader mine plan and?

We're in a high-grade zone definitely at the moment. You saw that in March, you'll see that in April.

David, the sustainable grade to be modeling, and I'm not telling you how to suck eggs, but you know the sustainable grade to be modeling is our reserve grade. Be sure, Dave, we'll head back towards reserve grade.

I think there is a paragraph in there that references those development headings are, what was it, Ben, 6% or 7% copper. That's not sustainable, but you've seen Eloise.

She produces those headings, but sure. No, we haven't turned a corner to find something that's completely different to anything we've ever seen before.

No, cool. That's just the natural ebb and flow of the mine plan?

Yes, it was, actually. I know it seems suspicious that we pulled out high-grade in March.

We had to. It was there.

It happened to be there as well.

No, cool. Again, as with the other guys on the call, certainly appreciate your disclosure on the sort of broader fuel supply situation.

I was sort of asking kind of a gossipy kind of question, I suppose. In kind of talking to other producers and stuff around the place, one comment that has sort of found its way to the surface is that Trafigura has sort of been able to help out on the fuel supply front, given their sort of global trading network.

Is that something that's giving you guys a little bit of perhaps additional reassurance on your fuel supply, or is that basically a furphy?

That's not an easy question to answer, David.

I've run out of all my easy ones, mate.

I would say it is being fantastic having two partners at the moment: Trafigura and THIESS. Both of whom, yeah, have literally come to us and said, "Look, we want to support our partners as best we can."

Pybar recognized that if we run out of fuel, they run out of fuel, and it impacts their business worse than it impacts ours, to be honest. Trafigura the same.

Trafigura see no point in having us run out of fuel, for them to have nothing to trade. That's a broad answer.

As we sit here today, David, the broad answer is all I can give you, because neither of those partners have actually delivered an extra liter of fuel to us or supplied us with fuel for a cent cheaper than we have otherwise get, because we haven't needed that. Chevron have done exactly what the contract says to date.

Yes, those partnerships always are and in this case their network, their contacts, their ability, their vision, what they can see, could be very helpful. We've had early-stage discussions there.

That does give us some comfort. David, we're out operating sort of in an environment we've never been before.

Who knows? Who knows how this plays out?

I think as one of the earlier Dan or Dan, I forget which one, said, "Yeah, not really so worried about supply anymore." Price will fix supply, but where does price go?

We don't know. Yeah.

I hope that answers. I hope that gives you some color.

I think that other comment that you received around trap may have been overplayed, but let's see.

That's why I'm asking you, I get a straight answer.

Me, mate. Unfortunately, very honest.

Yeah. Sounds like you guys have been running through your contingency plans, and

I guess

you probably don't have as many levers to pull as some of the bigger companies with more operations and so on, and that's just sort of kind of what it is.

It's reassuring or

it's good to hear that you guys sort of at least are running through them. Controlling what you can, I suppose.

Yeah. Correct.

Yep.

That's enough from me, mate. Thank you.

Thanks, David.

Hi, Aaron. Great results, well done.

Thanks, Richard, and thanks for staying on the line for so long. We've had a lot of questions today, but

I was going to say the last two calls, I think I was a bit slow on the buzzer.

You'll know for next time.

Dan

Morgan is quick. He's quick off the mark.

He probably presses star one as soon as he dials in. Yep.

Indeed. I thought if I stay behind, maybe everyone else will ask my questions.

Hey, I've only got a couple of questions.

Firstly,

I noticed last quarter, not this one just gone, the one before, you spent, I think it was 700,000, and this quarter, you spent 900,000 on deposits for trucks. I think it was a combined 1.6 million you've spent deposits for trucks, I think it said.

I was wondering, is that for Eloise, or in anticipation of Jericho?

Look, there's long lead times at the moment, the trucks have been ordered a good 9 months before delivery to site, these are largely for Jericho.

Okay. How many trucks are we anticipating through 1.7 1.6 million of deposits?

3. 3.

I can confirm that, but I think it's 3.

Okay.

It's normally about 300,000 a yeah.

Okay. Those are loaders or 60 t loaders or

No, they're the

60 t dump trucks.

Dump trucks. Dump trucks, yeah.

Dump trucks, okay. Okay.

Second, there's been some commentary around CopperString, and also around Eva Harmony, and what's going on there sort of new ideas around solar or wind for their new copper operation. CopperString really isn't, or doesn't sound like it's going to get anywhere near anytime soon.

Would you look at maybe something like what Eva is doing up north? Have you?

Richard, look, solar and batteries are getting cheaper and cheaper, potentially. It's still not cheap, though, and it's still not easy to finance.

CopperString, it's very hard. Sure, there's a lot of rumors that it'll be late.

There's no fact to that. CopperString will be fantastic.

We need it. I think everyone in the region well understand the benefit and the need for CopperString.

You need CopperString to put in these solar plants, because it gives you a long-term offtake as well. Solar plants, as we all know, only work during the day.

For us, step change costs is CopperString. Marginal and assistance with our greenhouse gas emissions is solar.

Yes, it is something we're looking at. It is progressively becoming looking more and more economic.

We looked at this 2 years ago, we looked at it a year ago. It was easy to say 2 years ago, the numbers just didn't work.

Today, they're getting close. Getting close to being positive.

We've got a fair bit of capital ahead of us at the moment without adding solar to that. Because the capital cost of these things for a small amount of your load, just doesn't unfortunately beat getting a new diesel generator to site.

Longer term, definitely something we'll look at more closely. Be careful interpreting or comparing the power draw for Eva and Eloise.

Eva's what, not 10 times, but 6 5 6 times the scale. That's next-level problems when it comes to power.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, I get that. No, I get that.

If if you've got one more moment, towards the end of your presentation, half an hour ago, you you mentioned the the number 25,000 tonnes per annum rather than 20 or 30. And 1.1 sounds like a sorry, 1.1 plant sounds like 20 21 22, and a 1.5 sounds more like 28 to 30.

You mentioned 25, was that you just hedging your bets or why did you say 25, not 28 to 30 or 18 to 22?

Richard, if you only knew how much trouble you could get me into with this answer. I might

Okay. No, no, no,

no, Richard, I'm only making fun, because we have a lot of trouble around this. Believe it or not, JORC makes it very complicated in providing these forward-looking production targets, production comments, because it potentially falls in the capital P, capital T, production target.

There's a whole lot of hoops you need to jump through to provide a capital P, capital T. That's where let me start out.

We don't have this JORC ready for you, we shouldn't be making these statements. These statements are aspirational and may not come off.

If we in 1.5 million tonnes, until we've released to you all the information that JORC requires us to release, this is purely aspirational target. Yes, your numbers, multiplying out our current average grade, is correct.

My number is lower than that because I put a lower grade through. We increase the amount of dirt we're moving, that means we're increasing the amount of Jericho we're putting through.

Jericho's relatively lower grade than Eloise. If you look closely, and I'm not trying to be smart, Richard, but if you look at our Reserve Statement, you'll see today, of course, it's weighted towards Deeps and Lens 6.

Roll that forward 3, 4, 5 years, it won't be. It'll be weighted towards Jericho.

Deeps and Lens 6, there's 2.4%, 2.6%, 2.8%, and Jericho 1.8%. That'll be the delta between the numbers I aspire to and the numbers that you've calculated, I think.

I suppose the other delta being most miners of your size, if you have any comparisons, generally talk about copper equivalent, including silver and gold credits, whereas you guys don't.

It's pigheadedness. It doesn't help us, I guess, but I believe gold and silver are a byproduct credit, and we account for gold and silver in our AISC.

If we're going to provide you with a copper-equivalent production, then we should be providing you with a copper-equivalent AISC. It's me being a pedant.

There's two things we do: we only talk about copper, and we always talk about estimated true width. You'll see a lot of our spivvy cousins always talk about copper equivalent, and they factor them up with things that are just hocus pocus, and they will never tell you what the estimated true width of their downhole intersections are.

Don't get me started. Thank you, Richard.

No, I think one of those had a bit of an issue at about 9:30 this morning, but anyway, won't talk about that either.

It's been a problematic day for some, yep.

Thank you again. Have a good quarter.

Thank you, Aaron.

Cheers, Richard.

Creepers, I wasn't even ready for closing remarks myself, Ashley. We've had some questions in a half.

This is the longest call we've ever done. We've broken some records today: revenue and their CEO waffling on.

The March quarter was another great quarter under challenging operating conditions. Eloise, a great ore body with a great team running the operation.

That was clear. Calendar year 2026 is a transformational year for AIC Mines.

We have the team in place, we have the funding in place, we've increased resources and reserves, we're progressively de-risking Jericho. The copper, gold, and silver prices are supportive, to say the least.

2026 is going to be a great year for AIC Mines. You cannot own too many AIC Mines shares.

Thank you for dialling in. That concludes the call.