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quarter report and I'm joined on the call today by our Chief Financial Officer Lee-Anne de Bruin. It was a good quarter for Perseus, and looking at our operating performance for the quarter, we produced 107,000 ounces of gold, which was up 18,000 ounces on the December quarter, and the higher production was achieved from all three of our operating mines.

The the weighted average all-in site cost was $1,748 per ounce, which was lower than the previous quarter of $1,800 per ounce, and that's mainly due to the higher production. We achieved a realized gold sale price of $4,143 an ounce, which was $706 an ounce more than the previous quarter.

Our average cash margin for the quarter was $2,394 per ounce, and that gave us a notional cash flow operating cash flow of $252 million from all of the operations. We finished the quarter with $817 million of net cash and bullion, and Lee-Anne will speak to that later on in the in the call.

Given the the current global market situation, I just want to address the diesel situation. We acknowledge there's fuel supply uncertainty globally at the moment, and we continue to closely monitor our fuel supply availability, our consumption levels, and our inventory positions to mitigate the risk of operational disruption in the the short to medium term.

We have fuel supply contracts with reputable fuel suppliers who provide us regular updates regarding our fuel stock levels and broader supply chain conditions, and at this stage we don't have any foreseeable fuel restrictions. In terms of cost, diesel is approximately 10% of our group's all-in site costs, if we see sustained higher diesel costs, there may be some limited impact on our on our cost base.

In the quarter, we made some important changes to our portfolio. Firstly, at our Nyanzaga project, our drilling program enabled us to deliver an updated ore reserve, which increased our ore reserve by 73% to 4 million ounces of gold since the Nyanzaga feasibility study was completed in April 2025.

That increase is underpinned by 83,000 m of drilling that was completed since May '24. The increased ore reserve has extended Nyanzaga's mine life to 16 years from 11, including 14 years of production at greater than 200,000 ounces of gold per annum.

In terms of the project itself, there's been good progress at site during the quarter, and it remains on track for first gold in January 2027. In another development last month, we announced our decision to sell our 70% interest in the Meyas Sand gold project in Sudan.

This followed a lengthy review of the project and consideration of both development and divestment options. We decided that divestment of the project was the best option for Perseus, and it allows us to reallocate internal resources to our existing internal development opportunities.

That transaction was completed yesterday, and all funds have been received. We also made an investment of 23.7 million Australian dollars in gold explorer [Auran?]

Resources. We participated in [Auran's?]

recent strategic share placement, taking a 9.9% interest in the issued shares of the company. [Auran's?]

an emerging ASX-listed explorer, with their key asset being the [Bondoukou?] gold project, which is a 3 million ounce pre-development and pre-study project in Côte d'Ivoire.

It's located to the south and just along strike of our Sissingué gold mine and processing hub. The northernmost tenements are adjacent to the company's current active mining area at Bagoé.

At Yaouré, we achieved a strong quarter, with increased gold production and notional cash flow. Overall gold production for the Yaouré open pit and CMA underground was 36,000 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of $2,049 per ounce.

A key milestone for our CMA underground development at Yaouré was achieved in January, with first ore coming from the Bleka portal, and 1,600 ounces of gold has been produced from the CMA underground during the quarter. Yaouré produced $68 million of notional cash flow during the quarter.

The underground is making great progress, and we'll commence stoping operations early in this coming in this quarter that we're in now. For Edikan, we produced 45,000 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of $1,539 per ounce.

Whilst our AISC was stable for the quarter, the government of Ghana has implemented a new royalty regime that came into effect in early March, introducing a sliding scale structure. Under this framework, royalty rates increase progressively in line with rising gold prices and are capped at a maximum of 12% when the gold price exceeds $4,500 per ounce.

Some of the increase in royalty will be offset or has been offset by reductions in other levies, the Growth and Sustainability Levy rate was reduced from 3% down to 1% of gross revenue, and this was implemented at the end of March. A 6% levy on supply of goods and services has also been removed, providing some relief.

Edikan produced a notional cash flow of $124 million for the quarter. Notably, the Fetish and Esuajah North pit cutbacks made progress during the quarter, with approvals being received by the government, and mining has commenced at Fetish early in the in quarter four.

Our Sissingué operation saw production increase with the ramp-up at the Bagoé Antoinette deposit and associated increasing grade and tonnes milled. The complex produced 25,000 ounces of gold during the quarter at a weighted average cost of all-in site cost of $1,708 per ounce.

Production costs decreased by about 20%, and that was due to the higher proportions of the oxide material that's being mined at the Bagoé deposit. The notional cash flow generated by the complex for the quarter was $60 million compared with $25 million last quarter, overall it was a very good quarter for Sissingué.

Looking ahead, we remain on track to deliver our FY '26 production and cost guidance, with gold production between 400 and 440,000 ounces and all-in site costs between $1,600 and $1,760 per ounce. I think now I'll I'll hand over to Lee-Anne, and she can talk to the financial aspects of our quarter.

Thanks, Craig. As Craig alluded to, the strong operational performance from our three sites and always our dedicated teams has delivered a solid financial quarter assisted by our increased exposure to the gold price upside with the hedge book being rolled off.

This has allowed for continued delivery against our stated capital management objectives. As Craig said earlier, we ended the quarter with cash and bullion of $817 million, which was up $62 million on the last quarter.

This was despite our strong investment in our growth projects Nyanzaga, CMA underground, and ongoing exploration. Perseus's liquidity is growing and is sitting at $1.2 billion, and this includes a $400 million undrawn debt facility that was secured in December '25.

Importantly, this number of $1.2 billion excludes our $245 million of liquid investments in relation to Predictive Discovery and [Auran?] , and excludes the $260 million that we will that we've received in April in relation to the Meyas Sand growth project, gold project, should I say.

During the quarter, Perseus's board also then approved a 5 cents per share interim dividend equating to $46 million, and this was up 100% on the prior year period, interim period last year. Where available trading opportunities existed, we continued to execute our buyback in the market.

Our share buyback program, we did a total of $26 million in the quarter at an average price of $5.39. As mentioned earlier, we continue to wind down our committed hedge position during the quarter with a further reduction from 11% to 9% of the three-year forecast production.

The increase in cash and bullion to $817 million gives consideration to the operational cash flows of $217 million that were delivered from our operations, capital investment in our growth projects—there was $63 million in the quarter invested in progressing the Nyanzaga growth project or gold project; we then had $18.6 million invested in the development of the CMA underground; exploration drilling at all of our assets equated to $8 million; and there was ongoing sustaining capital included in in numerous TSF works across all three of our sites. We purchased a 9.9% share in [Auran?]

for 24 million Australian dollars. Importantly, we continued contributions to our host countries, with $42 million in corporate and other taxes being paid.

We also then returned, as you can see and I mentioned earlier, we returned to our shareholders $64 million, which included the interim dividend paid and $26 million on the share buyback. Just flag this to show that we are, tracking the all-in site cost that we that we always track to at Perseus versus the all-in sustaining metric which the World Gold Council reports on.

The key difference is here is really the produced versus sold metric that we use as the denominator, and then we had an accumulation of inventory movements, which was largely inventory build-ups at Yaouré with increased mining and building up of stockpiles and, in addition, a small impact as a result of a shipment timing at Sissingué. With that, I'll hand back to Craig to talk about our growth projects.

Thank you, Lee-Anne, and a great set of financial results as well for the quarter. Nyanzaga gold project, as I mentioned earlier, remains on budget and schedule, with first gold anticipated in January 2027.

Overall, the project progress has reached 48% complete by the end of the quarter, and the total cost incurred to date is $220 million. As of the 31st of March, the project recorded over 5.4 million hours worked with no lost time injuries, and the workforce has increased to more than 3,162 personnel and continues to ramp up in line with construction activity.

Significant progress was made over the period on all major procurement associated with the project, all major procurement associated with the process plant is complete. The fabrication of the mills, the gyratory crusher, and the thickeners have been completed and are in transit to site.

Structural steel fabrication has reached 78% completion, and progressive site deliveries are underway. The TSF construction has commenced and is ahead of schedule.

The pre-strip mining activities have commenced. The carbon-in-leach tanks installation is ongoing, with the first four tanks nearing their full straight height, and the non-process infrastructure is also progressing well.

I look forward to continuing to provide more updates on this transformational project over coming months. The CMA underground project at Yaouré is also progressing well.

As mentioned earlier, we had our first ore mined out of the Bleka portal in January, paving the way for production from the first stope, which will be early in the June quarter. At the end of the March quarter, nearly 1,600 m of lateral development had been achieved, and the high voltage electrical power supply to the underground portals was also completed.

The project is making great progress. We've spent around $63 million, and the stoping ore, which is coming out this quarter, is an important feed for the Yaouré mill.

From a sustainability perspective, we've had a strong focus on vehicles and driving across the business with the implementation of a number of key initiatives, including a review of our vehicle and driving standards, delivering defensive driver training, and progressive installation of vehicle and driver monitoring systems. This effort reflects the reality that vehicles associated with mining and particularly remote operation remains our highest safety risk, very important focus for the business at the moment from a safety perspective.

Our safety indicators remain strong with a TRIFR of 0.75, but as I've said before, our statistics only tell part of the story, that true safety performance is measured in human outcomes, and we continue to drive ongoing safety improvements across our business. In terms of our economic contributions in the countries that we operate, our total economic contribution for the quarter was $282 million, including $179 million in local procurement, $91 million in taxes and royalties, and $1.3 million in direct community contributions.

We maintain about 95% of our workforce coming from the host countries from which we operate, which really does reflect a genuine commitment to building local capability, just not for our operations today, but for our future growth options as well. This was a great quarter for Perseus.

We delivered a strong operating performance and continued to build on our cash position whilst making meaningful progress on our strategic growth projects. We made some significant portfolio improvements and all whilst maintaining high sustainability standards.

With a strong balance sheet, high-margin operations, and a clear growth path, we believe we're well positioned to continue to deliver strong long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you, and I'll now open the floor up to questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function within Zoom.

Your first question comes from Richard Knights at Barrenjoey. Please go ahead, Richard.

Hi Craig, Lee-Anne. Thanks for the call.

Just a couple of cost questions maybe to start with. Firstly, you mentioned that 10% of the all-in site cost was diesel.

Is that an average over the past quarter or is that using current spot prices? Just trying to get a feel for where that sits.

That would have been in our average for the financial year, and it would have been with spot prices probably in about February.

What do they look like now relative to February?

It's slightly different for all the jurisdictions, Richard. It's hard to say.

For example, Côte d'Ivoire is extremely regulated, we're not seeing the massive increases, but, for example, in Ghana, which is slightly less regulated, we are sort of seeing the roll-on of the spot effects there. We're seeing sort of similar to what you're seeing in the Australian market in Ghana where prices are going up probably 50%.

Got it. Fine.

At Nyanzaga, just in terms of procurement, I think you mentioned that everything's been procured basically, but is there any scope for cost escalation there, or is that pretty much complete now?

I think if you look at what was spent and committed, we're I think roughly 60-something percent of the project's committed.

Correct.

All the major items are covered. Short answer is we think it's manageable.

We're running through kind of all of our definitive estimate work at the moment and we'll obviously update the market when that's completed, but we're not seeing anything at this point in time that's giving us any concern.

Nothing material. A large amount of our procurement was contracted and secured last year, I'm not seeing on the major material items.

Yeah. Great.

Thanks. Finally just on [Auran?]

, I know you're limited in what you can say, but there's obviously some proximity to Sissingué there. At a high level, do you see this as a sort of interesting standalone opportunity, or is there potentially some synergy there with Sissingué coming to the end of its mine life?

Potentially. I think if you look at [Auran?]

and they were running a placement which we chose to participate in, I think it's a strategic investment on our behalf. I think that, as I said before, some of those northern tenements are nearby to where we're currently mining at Bagoé, but also, Kaegen and the team are doing a great job of the exploration there, and we were keen to support that and see where things take us, but at this stage, it's really just a strategic investment.

Yeah. Okay.

Great. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Richard.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Adam Baker at Macquarie.

Thank you.

Hi, guys. Can you hear me?

Yep. Hi.

Cool. Thanks, Craig.

Thanks, Lee-Anne. Just firstly maybe on Meyas Sand, pretty good outcome there, $260 million for the sale of that project, in a valuation significantly above what market expectations were.

Just flagging, is there any use for the cash here? Have you given any consideration to further shareholder returns through a special dividend or what not, or are you just going to bank the cash at this stage?

We'll consider all that. I think, obviously as we come towards the end of the year and we start talking about dividends and make decisions on what we're going to pay as a dividend this year, obviously it all contributes to our cash position and contributes to that conversation, but no decisions have been made at this point in time.

Okay. Secondly, at Sissingué, just the difference between sales and production, was this just a timing issue, or could you just touch on the difference there?

It's just a shipping timing difference, that's all, Adam.

Okay. Then thirdly, just on the fuel supply situation, you mentioned that you've got contracts with all the major suppliers, you're not seeing impacts at the moment from a supply point of view.

Could you just maybe talk to what sort of inventories you generally tend to store on site? How many weeks of fuel supply that you have there?

You mentioned you're not seeing impacts, I guess you're all okay from that perspective, but yeah, maybe you could touch on that.

Sure. We generally have between one to two weeks of fuel on site for all of our sites.

I think just stepping back on the supply issue, the supply issue for us is slightly different to your Australian mines because a lot of this fuel is sourced out of Nigeria and those areas, and Côte d'Ivoire specifically has its own refineries. That said, we are continually looking at whether there's opportunity for upping our stock levels.

In Ghana, we've got a long-standing relationship with Zen Fuel, and they have got large quantums of fuel actually in Ghana that they stock up for just their mining companies. We continue to manage the risk and looking at it, but all the work we've done in the last couple of weeks doesn't indicate anything around a supply issue.

It's more just looking at the pricing issue. We will continue to monitor that on an ongoing basis.

Cool, thanks very much for taking my questions. Thanks, Adam.

Thank you. The next question is from David Radclyffe at Global Mining Research.

I'll just read it out for David. He's asked at Yaouré specifically, can you provide some expectations for this quarter, and also if the guidance includes the CMA pre-commercial ounces or not?

The guidance for the quarter is that we remain within the guidance ranges that we have published, and as we mentioned in the last quarterly report at the lower half of that guidance. That remains, and yes, the CMA underground ounces are an important part of that production for the final quarter.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, I'll now hand back to Craig for closing remarks.

Thanks, Nathan, and thanks, everyone, for your participation and interest. I really just want to make a call-out to the great people that create the results that we presented today.

Perseus has a dedicated team of people across the globe and they show up every day and live the Perseus values of teamwork, integrity, commitment, and achievement, and I just want to thank them all for their contributions and thank you for your attendance.