André Labuschagne
In FY26, we produced 42,000 tonnes of copper equivalent production. Out of our Tritton copper mine, we did about 23,000 tonnes of copper metal, and in Cracow, our gold mine, we produced around 41,000 ounces of gold.
Those are the two operating assets. Then we got two development projects.
One is the the old Jaguar copper-zinc mine in Western Australia and the Stockman project in Victoria. Both of those, are projects which can add future production to the portfolio.
As you will see through the presentation, we've invested the last in FY26 significant, money into exploration with also the success on the back of that exploration, will be clear when we go through some of the slides as we we we, present the results. That has created us, and with an acquisition, we did a we bought Peel Mining, which closed in 1 July.
Peel Mining, with a combination of the exploration, is really looking at Tritton, adding significant life and reserves and resources to the Tritton, mine life. Sort of just touching base, in the beginning of FY26, we set this is a plan for FY26.
At Tritton, it's all it's about operational delivery. It was the Murrawombie pit coming to production and and close out.
Although we had some delays in the in the December quarter, Murrawombie pit is now in full production and will finish off in November. We need to We wanted to make sure we start Constellation on time, and we have brought some of the capital works earlier to ensure the timely start of Constellation.
Over the group, we spent about $25 million in exploration, and it all was for resource extensions. We were successful at both Tritton and Cracow, in extending those resources and for both of those added significant potential mine life, as you will see in the as we go through more slides.
We sold the non-core assets. That was already done in quarter three.
At the Jaguar mine, we have now reduced the care and maintenance to the bare minimum. We did test, eight base metal targets, and we're waiting the results of those, and then we'll make a decision on what's the best way forward.
The Stockman feasibility study, we although we said we wanted to get it out in FY26, it will come out in the first half FY27. We for those who've been around, we have repaid the debt, we went from $40 million debt to zero debt.
We sold the non-core assets, and, we did put some gold hedging in place, but that all gold hedging has now rolled off, end of end of June. Currently, there's no hedging in the group.
What did that mean for the results? As I said earlier, we produced 42,000 tonnes copper equivalent.
Tritton had a 19% improvement on copper production year-on-year. Cracow was stable.
The key takeaways of the financials, in my view, is an EBITDA of $285 million, which is a 78% increase year-on-year, and then cash and receivables, a 300% increase year-on-year. Although some of it is a capital raise, but still really good operating cash flows and financial performance in the business in FY26.
For the June quarter, you can see Tritton and Cracow delivered about $120 million operating cash. We have put quite a bit of money to exploration, both for, capital development, but also a significant amount of that is for the last month of the Murrawombie pit, capital.
Then there's the other bits and pieces, including finance and other which are interest and other expenses, closing the year with $165 million available cash, as as at end June. If you look at the year-to-date, $350 million operating cash flow from the operations, significant improvement year-on-year.
Capital, quite a big number, but it is capital development, predominantly from both, the underground mines and also the Murrawombie strip, which is about $100 million of that 180. Once again, the improvement in the operations, partly obviously helped by commodity prices, but also them achieving significant improved production year-on-year, out of the two mines.
Touching on Tritton in a bit more detail, we have put quite a bit of information out in Tritton over the last few weeks. One was the reserve resource update.
And, that was, in my view, a spectacular result, you know. We went from December 2024 at 2.4 million tonnes in reserves, which is not even two years in reserves, to 10 million tonnes in reserve, and you'll see in the slides coming a significant opportunity to improve.
You go from not even two years in reserves to over five years in reserves, is making big difference. Although some of it is through the acquisition of the Peel assets, specifically Mallee Bull, but, bulk of it is through the Constellation open pit and underground reserves being declared, and and you'll you'll see there is still significant upside for all these.
If you look at the slide where the blue is indicating the resource currently on all those assets, the brown is the current declared reserves. What we've seen, for example, so far at Constellation, everything which has been in the resource in the mining area we mining has turned into a reserve.
It's just a lack of drilling and further work which is the reason why it hasn't converted. Mallee Bull, there is significant opportunity to improve, and each Avoca Tank, very small reserve.
You'll see in the slides coming up, Avoca Tank is actually bigger, and at as as we go deeper. A lot of that resource will convert to reserve through the drill program we putting in place for FY27.
The same for Budgerygar, there's been significant resource update or upgrade in this latest results. The drilling program will will improve that reserve position in anyway in FY27.
Overall, I think from where we were to where we are now, and the amount of money we spent on exploration and also the M&A transaction, has really set Tritton up for this 10-year mine plan, and when once we see we get a a Mallee Bull and Constellation into full production, we clearly see a potential for Tritton to go to 30,000 tonnes and a significant life, as we move forward. Now, looking at the quarter results, although it was, improvement quarter-on-quarter, and the mill was running at 1.8 million tonnes in quarter four, it's a mill nameplate capacity, we did have a few days where we had crusher, challenges and mill challenges, it even couldn't can do better, but it's the first time in a very, very long time where that mill was running at capacity.
That's because of the the ore tonnes delivered from Murrawombie pit. We ran at 1.8 million tonnes, and we still had over 200,000 tonnes of stockpiles, from the Murrawombie pit production.
I think a key thing we missing in all of this is the underground mines actually outperformed on expectations. That was all to do with we knew that we lost time at the Murrawombie pit.
The team looked at any and all opportunities to make some of that shortfall up through underground mines. They were They produced over 2,000 tonnes of copper metal additional to what they planned to do.
Overall, the underground team has shown that they can really step up and and and and give us what we're looking for, we were very happy with that as an outcome. On the operating costs and the capital, capital was slightly higher.
We already said in the third quarter we are bringing forward some capital for Constellation to ensure an early start, and there was some additional tonnes or waste tonnes through the Murrawombie pit when we had the wall failure, there was a there was and also an accounting readjustment, resulted in additional capital for Murrawombie pit. We talked about exploration success, and I'll show you a few more slides, but clearly, for Tritton, it was a big step-up, and and the underground mines, once again, showed that they can deliver when, when it's expected.
This is sort of the results through the drilling. As I said earlier, we spent significant amount of money on exploration.
Now the the the slide on the left-hand side, that's the results from the December 2024 reserve resource update. That's the size of Avoca Tank when we started mining it.
Now where we are, you can see we already mined more than what was in the original resource, but the drilling down below Avoca Tank is is the exciting bit where you can see potentially that resource is now doubled in strike length, and it's still open and still continuing. A drilling program will will define that into reserve in FY27.
We are keeping the development going so to ensure that we can access those tonnes in in in FY28 as we we move forward with Avoca Tank. The other one is Budgerygar.
You can see on the once again, on the left-hand side, that's when we started, Budgerygar and, the size of the resource. Since then, we've mined most of that.
We also added, and drilling has added, significant additional resources at Budgerygar. There's no reason why we don't believe that it continues at depth.
It's actually, it's actually wider and thicker than than previously expected, it is a a better resource in our view than what is expected, was expected when we started drilling. It just shows you, in the in the Tritton assets the more you drill, the more you find.
Every single one of the mines ever mined or discovered is still open at depth. Nothing has closed off.
Tritton is already We've We've got, ore down to 1,300 meters, already, and it's still open, and we're still getting high-grade intersections at Tritton at depth. This is just a few images of Constellation.
As I said, we started early. We already Most of that trench for infrastructure, for water and and and com- and comms is now done.
The roadworks has started, the office is set up, the mining lease was granted last week. Within the next week, they're already The trucks was already on on the go line.
They're putting the the diggers together, and we will start as soon as we can, to start with the prestrip, with the aim of having first ore on Constellation in quarter three to the mill. When you look at Cracow, as has been for the last probably two or three years, consistently producing on cost and capital and production.
Production was in line with the plan, delivering 10,000, 1,000 ounces, and and basically 41,000 ounces in line with with plan for FY26. The guidance has been met, and all And the key focus there is obviously Golden Plateau.
We talked about it a lot. That is where we see the potential significant extension of mine life through development of Golden Plateau.
The drilling we doing is really confirming historical data to make sure we can use those old data in mine planning. You can see some of those results: 40 meters at 9 g/t, 6.7 at 5, really good, graded intersections.
It is a mine which was mined in the 1930s at 10 g/t, anything less was sort of left behind. In the 1980s, as you can see in that image, there was an open pit over the top.
They mined 2.5 million tonnes out of that at around 4.5 g/t. Significant grade.
Still, we don't expect necessarily to see the same grades, but we are now modeling an open pit and underground option, on the back of the drilling we seeing, and we will communicate those results and mineral resource update in this half, with the aim of starting this mine in FY28, if everything comes together. On the project side, we have now put Jag into the lowest care and maintenance costs.
We've drilled eight holes. They are in for tests.
We're waiting for the assays to come back. We also did downhole EM in all eight of them to see ensure that we look around.
Once we get those results back, we will decide on the best way forward for Jag in terms of base metal drilling, but also one of the big opportunities we keep on talking about is the gold exploration on the tenement package. There's 62 km of gold anomalies never really been tested between two of the big gold miners in the region.
Clearly, we see a significant potential and option value for gold in the Jag, Jag tenement package. On Stockman, we we're busy finalizing the feasibility study.
We will bring it out within this half, and communicate that to the market, once it once it's in place. Then we'll decide on what's the best way forward for Stockman in terms of final feasibility study and, and financing options.
What's ahead of us for FY27? We will bring out our guidance next week.
The, clear focus, of course, for us is Murrawombie pit will finish off in November or in in quarter two. There will be one over a million tonnes on stockpile once it's done.
Constellation will be in production by quarter three, and, we already already did the reserve resource update, including the Peel assets. We will later this year, within the next few months, release a 5- to 10-year with the aim of putting a 10-year mine plan out for for Tritton.
At Cracow, Golden Plateau is critical for us, not critical, but it's a key operational value for us. We will get ready to drill the Southern Minefield, which is purely an exploration greenfields exploration.
We are busy with the tailings dam lift, and it is a funny one. Three years ago, we sort of or four years ago, we debated do we lift the tailings dam or not.
We've lifted the tailings dam, and now it's the third lift already, because everything just keeps on extending, as expected, at at Cracow. We'll always review the portfolio, we will continue to see how we get best value out of our assets.
We talked about Jaguar, we talked about Stockman. On the exploration side, we will always keep drilling the Western Minefield, and targeting that less than 50,000 ounces as we extend the Western Minefield.
Drilling of Golden Plateau will finish off in the next few months, and then we'll bring bring that study out. At Tritton, Constellation was a greenfields discovery we made four or five years, probably, now, more than that, probably six years ago.
And, the team there still believes that there's a lot of greenfields exploration opportunities, we've restructured the business to clearly focus on greenfields exploration, and then brownfields as a separate team. The greenfields team are really looking at the whole region, the structures, and identifying new targets for us to test on the greenfields exploration side.
On Jag, we are proposing to do some gold drilling as well in in this financial year. Obviously, as we all know, there's big capital management programs coming on with with what we're doing with Constellation start.
Clearly, for us, capital management, is the key focus for us in FY27, as part of the implementation of the FY27 plan. I guess that's sort of summarizes it.
I think summarizing FY26, it was a very successful year. The company's in the best position it's it's been in my my time with the company, which is over 12 years.
Strong balance sheet, we're ready to fund the growth internally. And, as we bring these bigger bigger assets online at Tritton with Constellation and Mallee Bull, and the current increases we see in the current mines, clearly there's a great future for Tritton.
Cracow has never disappointed. It'll always continue to grow, find more, but Golden Plateau might just be the the asset which can put you in that 5- to 10-year life-of-mine horizon, which it it really never had.
It always had about two two years in reserves, and and and nothing more, but always replaced it. The company really looking forward to FY27, getting Constellation up and running, keep the balance sheet strong, and deliver results from the operating mines, and and show the market the value of the projects in the business.
That sort of summarized that, we'll take some questions. I've got hands up here from David Coates.
David, I'll put you put you up. Can you hear me, David?
Hang on, let's try that. Can you hear me?
Hang on,
can you hear me now?
André Labuschagne
I can hear you.
Excellent. Thanks, André.
Thanks for the presentation this morning, and running out that, it's been a pretty transformational year, particularly through Tritton, well done. A couple of questions from me.
Just at Tritton, C1 cash costs very handily dropped below the $4/lb mark, which was great to see. Can you just run us through the key drivers of that reduced costs, is just volume or are there some other factors involved there as well?
Look,
André Labuschagne
the biggest part of it will be the volume, David. With increase in copper tonnes, it is probably in my view two things.
One is, the additional copper tonnes obviously makes a huge difference, but also open-cut mining tend to be cheaper than underground mining. The stockpile build-up results in a bit of those, the costs getting carried over.
In my view, it would be 80% plus just because you mine more tonnes. That just shows you the flexibility, the high level of fixed costs, I guess, in these businesses.
More tonnes just clearly go to the bottom line.
Excellent. Thank you.
Just did you just touch on there, building the stockpiles. Can you just run us through what strategies you guys are considering for stockpile processing, is it just going to be the grade first, or recoveries come into it,
André Labuschagne
or how
are you
André Labuschagne
Look, currently it would be, obviously underground ore goes first because that's your highest grade, and then the stockpiles are getting managed between high-grade, medium-grade, low-grade, and, mineralized waste. The highest grades goes in first, as we put it back in.
It's really driven by grade. The recoveries are once we get through, there's an area now where we're getting slightly lower recoveries, but as we get more deeper into the sulfides, we expect the recoveries to recover.
We don't use recovery really as that driver. It's about grade, going in first, with the undergrounds obviously the highest grade going in.
Thanks. Just quickly, one last one.
You mentioned, if it all comes together for Golden Plateau at Cracow, you'd like to be sort of starting there in FY28. Is that a development start or a production start?
I understand, guidance is coming out shortly, but what are you kind of aspiring to there?
André Labuschagne
It will take us once we've made the decision that the project makes sense, which should be in the next three let's call it three to six months, getting approval to start mining is about 12 months. Now we already started that process just for an approval, because it will be a major amendment, and major amendments in Queensland is about 12 months.
The aim is to really to start working there as a strip in early FY28.
Okay. Cool.
Excellent. Thanks for that clarification.
Cheers. I'll pass on, thanks, André.
André Labuschagne
Yep. Are there any other questions from anyone?
I got some which came through earlier, which I'll just touch on some of those questions. If you want to ask any questions, just put up your hand, and I'll take those questions.
While we sort of wait, I had a few questions online as well, about the feasibility study update at Stockman, as I said earlier, that will come out in this half. Once we get it out, we will decide which is the best way forward.
Currently, my view is it looks very strong, but depending on where we get to, we will decide what's the best way forward from a finalizing the feasibility study, and we will to communicate that to the market. We talked about some of the other questions already.
We talked about the tonnes coming out of Murrawombie, as I said, it will be over a million tonnes by November. The key for us at Jag, I've got a question about Jag and what do we do at Jag.
The key is we have got the care and maintenance costs down now to about $2.5 million per annum, clearly waiting for the base metal results. As we touch on, we are contemplating doing some gold exploration at Jag as well in FY27.
Those are some of the questions I had. I had a question, can we speed up Constellation open pit and underground, because there's cash available?
We are going as fast as possible already. There's no real opportunity.
We need to get to the first year of production out of the pit so we can start the decline. We, as I said earlier, we will start the prestrip pretty much in the next few weeks, and then it's all about getting that in place.
Speed up conversion of resource/reserves drilling? Look, you can only fit so many drill rigs into these mines, and without wasting money.
The aim is to try to drill two or three years in reserves ahead of us, and then two or three years in resources ahead of ourselves. That is the plan.
We also put about the same amount of exploration dollars, as I said earlier, around $25 million to $30 million of exploration back into the business again in FY27. There is significant money going in already.
That's some of the questions we had online. I don't know if there's any other questions from anyone.
Let me just have a look. We got Richard.
Richard, I think you're open to talk.
Can you hear me, André?
André Labuschagne
I can. How are you doing?
Yeah. I'm just interested with the Murrawombie pit, what the metallurgy of that is like, is there a transitional zone, how far through that are you?
André Labuschagne
We're basically through the transitional zone, Richard. We're now in sulfides, there's not much more to go.
Basically, for the next few months till November, it will all be sulfides.
Yep. Thanks.
André Labuschagne
All right. We got Alan.
Alan, I think you need just unmute yourself. Alan, can you hear me?
Yes.
André Labuschagne
Yep. You've got a question?
André, this may be a bit early, but I was wondering if you had a broad estimate of the full-year costs of depreciation and amortization, and also full-year finance costs?
André Labuschagne
Ooh, that's a bit early. Look, a lot of that or some of that will come out next week.
I can't give you the numbers off the cuff, and I think it also maybe till the guidance is out, we probably just need to get that out first, and then I'm happy for you to make contact and we can help you with some numbers.
Okay. I presume it's fair to say that finance costs will materially reduce in the second half because of the repayment of the debt?
André Labuschagne
The repayment of the debt's there. The finance costs currently in the business is the finance cost for the environmental bonds, so that will still be there till we refinance those, It will be less than what's in this year's, but it will still be there for FY27.
Sorry, André, could you repeat that? I think I missed that.
André Labuschagne
There is a facility, a guarantee facility, in place, which we are still paying interest on, there will be some finance costs still remaining in FY27. It's obviously less than FY28, because FY28 included $40 million financing costs and interest for the original $40 million facility.
Right. Okay.
Thank you.
André Labuschagne
All right. We got Tim.
Tim, you probably just need to unmute yourself.
Sorry, yeah. Too many popups.
There we go. It's okay.
Thank you for the pres-o, and well done for the last couple of years on behalf of all of us.
André Labuschagne
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Worked hard, and it's it's you've you're over the first finish line, I think, so. I'll call it anomaly K, so that's how long I've been around.
Can you talk us through So you've you've touched on it a couple of times, saying prestripping is going to be done soon, and you're anticipating
André Labuschagne
it.
The oxide, I think I heard the oxide's going to go straight to the mill rather than
André Labuschagne
We will stockpile it first. We doing some test work, and the test work which we've done to put the oxide through the mill looks very promising.
Although you get slightly lower recovery on your copper, you do get good gold recoveries and good silver recoveries. It's better than putting it on heap leach.
The aim is to put the oxide through the mill, at some point in FY27.
Okay. That's very good to know.
You alluded to it as well, cuz I've got to go back and look at the old results, but from memory, the gold, when you got down 20, 30 m or something, you were getting above a gram a tonne or something,
André Labuschagne
Andre: There's some really good gold grades in there.
When do you anticipate the sulfides and supergene sort of coming up the road?
André Labuschagne
I need to just make careful that I don't talk [laughter] I think it's within the first six months.
Okay. That's good.
Okay. Yep.
Yeah. Again, rough, I know
André Labuschagne
Yeah. I'll have to go back and make sure, but I know that's the sulfides or the transitional or, the oxide stops within the first 30 m of the pit.
Timing in terms of how deep and how quick you're going to go. Even if it was in the second half sort of thing, then that's still We
André Labuschagne
trying to be in ore which will be processing in the mill in quarter three.
Right. Okay.
That answers totally the question. Thank you.
André Labuschagne
Yep. All right.
Much appreciated.
André Labuschagne
Not a problem. I think that's everyone with questions.
I'll give it a couple of more seconds, and then if there's no more questions, thank you, everyone, and appreciate you joining the call for the full-year results. Enjoy your day.
Already premium?