Ramelius Resources Limited

Ramelius Resources Limited

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Feb 23Next Earn

Q3 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptApril 29, 2026

Operator

I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mark Zeptner, Managing Director.

Please go ahead.

Mark Zeptner

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for dialling in this morning.

In addition to the quarterly report, we have released a presentation that we'll speak to during this call, noting that it also includes information from our Dalgaranga exploration update released last week. Both documents have been uploaded on the ASX platform and will be available on our website shortly.

This morning I'm joined by members of the executive team, our COO, Tim Hewitt; CFO, Darren Millman; and our EGM of Exploration, Peter Ruzicka. Initially, I'll be speaking to highlights for the quarter, and we will then pass on to Tim, who will speak to the operating highlights.

Peter will obviously talk to the exploration results, and Darren will speak to financial highlights before I close out with our priorities for the remainder of FY26. While the presentation is relatively high level, I do note a lot more detail can be found within both the quarterly report released today and the Dalgaranga exploration update I just mentioned.

As usual, at the end, there'll be an opportunity for listeners to ask questions, whether that be through the teleconference or the webinar, depending on how you have joined the call. Assuming you have the presentation deck handy, I'll initially be speaking to slide 3.

Gold production for the quarter was 38,093 oz at an all-in sustaining cost of A$2,211. This was a solid result, generally in line with our expectations given the planned six-day mill shutdown and weather-related disruptions late in the quarter.

This has resulted in some production moving into Q4, but importantly, our FY26 production guidance is unchanged, with a strong fourth quarter expected. Tim will talk further to mill grades and expectations for the remainder of the financial year.

It was exciting to see the processing of the first ore from Never Never in the quarter, marking a significant milestone as we transition Dalgaranga into the Mount Magnet hub mix. We look forward to a more significant contribution from Dalgaranga in this current quarter.

For full-year guidance in terms of all-in sustaining cost, we have updated the range to $1,900 to $2,050 per ounce, reflecting three things: the earlier than expected declaration of commercial production at Never Never, which Darren will talk to shortly, diesel price escalation, and higher royalties from stronger gold price. I will note that the $175 increase in the all-in sustaining cost midpoint is pretty much accounted for by these three items alone.

Work on the Mount Magnet plant expansion has accelerated across the quarter with a strategy to front-end load the engineering design work. We have commenced preliminary site works and the establishment of the project execution team.

There are two areas of focus for the engineering design. Firstly, the existing 1.9 million tonne ball mill drivetrain refurbishment is underway, and we did appoint a third-party contractor subsequent to the end of the quarter who will oversee the project.

We're referring to this project as stage 1. Secondly, the new 3 million tonne circuit, we are focused on the front-end engineering design, FEED, and then the EPC contract is targeted to be awarded early in the September quarter.

We're referring to this part as stage 2. On the financials, we have completed $110.2 million worth of share buybacks, equating to 44% of our announced share buyback program, which I know is one of the largest amounts by value spent in the quarter by any Australian gold producer.

In addition to this, we closed out our FY27 hedge book and pre-delivered the Q4 FY26 hedge commitments, and despite this, we still finished the quarter with a very strong cash and gold balance of $606.5 million. Our growth projects are fully funded, and we remain focused on increasing returns to our shareholders as we grow the company.

Darren obviously will talk to this in more detail a little later. On slide 4, we'll see a breakdown of all sources during the quarter.

What you can see here, as mentioned, that Q4 will be our strongest quarter of the year with Dalgaranga expected to contribute over 30% of production. Haulage to Mount Magnet is expected to materially increase in the June quarter with haulage rates ramping up as we speak.

The 56,000 oz planned for Q4 puts us right in the midpoint of FY26 production guidance, and with no further hedge commitments leaves this strong quarterly production 100% exposed to the current strong A$ gold price. With that, I will now pass over to Tim.

Tim Hewitt

Thanks, Mark. Good morning, all.

Moving on to slide 5 to discuss the production metrics. We mined 550,000 tonnes of ore at a grade of 2.45 g/t, with both metrics being comparable to the prior quarter.

Open pit tonnes mined for Q were 26% down on the prior quarter with a focus on stage 2 cutback of Break of Day and the commencement of Big Sky pit. Both of these are in a higher life-of-mine strip ratio for the quarter.

This was offset by increased tonnages from the high-grade underground operations from Galaxy, Penny, and Dalgaranga, all increasing quarter-on-quarter. Mined grades, while marginally down on the prior quarter, were in line with the modelled expectations.

At the Mount Magnet processing plant, tonnes processed were down compared to the previous quarter due to the planned six-day mill shutdown. Grade was similar to the previous quarter, resulting in the gold production of just over 38,000 oz.

Moving on to slide 6, we take a more detailed look at the Mount Magnet operations. Open pit mining continued at both Cue and Dalgaranga, with operations impacted by significant rainfall associated with Cyclone Lincoln towards the end of the quarter.

All underground mines delivered strongly on development metres with focus on capital development at both Galaxy and Dalgaranga. Significantly, production commenced at Dalgaranga with the first stope fired in Never Never.

Galaxy's ore delivery was much stronger this quarter compared to prior. Looking forward, production is expected to be significantly higher in Q4 with increased haulage of high-grade ore from Dalgaranga.

The team's focus will continue for the remainder of the year on operational excellence, safe production, and cost management. On to slide 7 and Penny.

Mining at Penny totalled 80,000 tonnes at a grade of 6.33 g/t. However, given the weather-related events late in the quarter, not all of that material made it to the processing plant, with 74,000 tonnes milled at a grade of 6.72 g/t for just under 16,000 oz of recovered gold.

Production has now commenced in Penny West, and stoping at both Penny North and Penny West will deliver similar ounces in Q4. On to slide 8 and Galaxy.

Here we've combined both the operational statistics and some recent drilling results. We saw improvement in both tonnages and grade at Galaxy in the quarter, with Galaxy delivering their best quarter this year.

145,000 tonnes of this was processed at a grade of 2.24 g for just under 10,000 oz. Peter will speak to Galaxy exploration plans later, but as noted on the slide, we continue to see mineralisation at depth within the target zone.

Some of the high-grade drill results to highlight are 4.1 m at 22.4 g/t from 463.9 m, 8.1 m at 10.3 g/t from 109.7, and 14.2 m at 3.07 g/t from 473.8 m. Now moving on to Cue.

As mentioned earlier, the focus on Cue for the quarter has been on the development of stage 2 cutback at the Break of Day pit and Big Sky, we did see that reduction in tonnes mined. Of the 252,000 tonnes mined, 128,000 tonnes were processed at Mount Magnet at a grade of 2 g/t for 7,900 oz.

Haulage was down on the prior quarter with the fleet prioritising the additional high-grade ore from Penny and the reduced mill requirements with the planned shutdown. The photo there shows stage 2 cutback, and in the background, you can see some of our recent progressive rehab on the waste dump.

Moving on to Dalgaranga, slide 10. The image on the left shows the current underground development, both the incline and decline positions on the Never Never deposit, with the right image showing progress made to date on the paste plant.

You can see the paste pad in the background. Total lateral development at the underground was 1,690 m, which is largely in line with the prior quarter, while good progress was made in the open pit.

Still with Dalgaranga and slide 11. As you could imagine, there is a lot going on at site besides the underground and open pit mining, including the paste plant and workshop construction, and the completion of the first underground pump station.

The team fired their first stope successfully mid-March, containing just under 41,000 tonnes at a grade of 7.41 g/t. At the end of the quarter, there was a total of 58,000 tonnes of ore at a grade of 3.23 g/t ready and awaiting haulage to Mount Magnet.

Haulage is expected to increase notably in the current quarter. With this, I'll now pass over to Peter.

Peter Ruzicka

Thanks, Tim. On to slide 12.

This is the five-year production profile for Mount Magnet, and we wanted to highlight a few key points from an exploration perspective. Firstly, Mount Magnet's growth profile significantly increasing to up to 400,000 oz per annum by FY30.

On the graph on this slide, at the bottom of each year, you'll see the low-grade ore currently planned to be processed in that year, especially in the years FY29 and FY30. You'll see in those years, FY29 1.9 million tonnes at 0.8 g/t, and in FY30, 1.8 million tonnes at 0.6 g/t.

Exploration opportunities in each year are highlighted at the top of the graph, and are clearly linked to improvement of our future production profile at Mount Magnet by replacing that low-grade material. We currently have 10 surface rigs and 4 underground rigs devoted to the Mount Magnet hub.

My exploration commentary today will focus on Galaxy and Gilbey's. Moving on to slide 13.

The Galaxy mineralised system is open at depth with both the BIF host and the controlling structures continuing undisrupted at depth. I'll draw your attention to the ounce per vertical metre profile on the left of this figure.

The drop-off below around 320 m below surface is a function of drilling density only, continuation of geology, just not enough drilling. In January, we released an exploration target below the current classified resource based on the continuation of geology and assumptions around the average ounce per vertical metre profile of around 2,300 oz per vertical metre.

That work saw an exploration target of 400,000 to 600,000 oz defined. Current underground programs are looking to achieve three objectives: identify relatively shallow lateral resource opportunities, increase resource confidence for resource to reserve conversion, and upgrade the exploration target below the classified resource.

This is a real opportunity to displace lower-grade ore in the mine plan for FY29 and FY30. Moving on to slide 14 and Gilbey's underground.

We've highlighted results from the Dalgaranga exploration update we released on the 22nd of April. Conceptually, we're looking to add minable ounces to the production profile, again, in FY29 and FY30.

Additional high-grade drill results from Gilbey's underground drilling include 3.9 m at 21.2 g/t, 6.1 at 10.4 g/t, and 7.7 m at 5.94 g/t. There's currently a mineral resource of 6.9 million tonnes at 1.9 g/t for 380,000 oz for Gilbey's underground.

We're trying to add to this with conversion of an exploration target below the current resource, that exploration target set at 2.1 to 4.7 million tonnes at a grade of 1.5 to 2 g/t for 100,000 to 300,000 oz. That exploration target is based on existing sparse drilling data, which confirms extension of the mineralised shear zones and the same host rocks at depth.

Again, looking to displace low grade, 0.6 to 0.8 g/t ore in FY29 and FY30. With Gilbey's underground material grading at 1.5 to 2 g/t, this will have a meaningful impact.

Moving on to slide 15, Dalgaranga open pit potential. From an exploration lens, Dalgaranga remains the corridor for future discoveries, both to the north and south of the Gilbey's mine area.

Surface drilling during the quarter has evaluated a number of targets in the southern Gilbey's area at Plymouth, Sly Fox, and Gilbey's South. Last quarter, we reported a result of 4 m at 42.6 g/t gold from Plymouth, highlighting the high-grade potential.

More recently, we've recorded a number of encouraging results from Sly Fox, including 16.5 m at 2.5 g/t gold. With that, I'll now hand over to Darren.

Darren Millman

Thanks, Peter, and morning all. I'll now be speaking to slide 16.

For the March quarter, we generated $101.9 million of free cash flow. This is up on the prior quarter even in a period of reinvestment into the business.

The all-in sustaining cost for the quarter was $2,211 per ounce and was driven by higher maintenance costs associated with the planned mill shutdown in the period and associated impact on mill throughput. Also impacting the all-in sustaining cost was the higher gold price, which increased royalty costs and added approximately $20 per ounce for the quarter.

The year-to-date all-in sustaining cost of $1,987 per ounce remains below the $2,000 and leaves us well placed compared to our peers. During the quarter, we sold 38,150 oz at an average realised price of A$5,795 per ounce, which included a mix of spot and committed forward sales.

We pre-delivered 8,000 oz of the June quarter hedge book commitments, which leaves us unhedged position for the remainder of FY26 with full upside to this remarkable gold price. In total, sales revenue for the quarter was $221.1 million.

The realised gold price for the quarter was up 12% on an average improving spot price, and also included the impact of the hedge commitments. The Aussie gold price itself improved over the quarter by 5%.

The resulting all-in sustaining margin, which is the average realised gold price less the all-in sustaining, was $3,584 per ounce, our best on record, and represents an all-in sustaining margin of 62%. Moving on to slide 17 and the cash flow for the business for the quarter.

Operational cash flow was $171.3 million, an increase on the prior quarter despite the lower production. After taking into account the costs of the Q3 hedge book deliveries of $16.1 million, this reduced to $155.2 million, which is still an increase quarter-on-quarter.

This operational cash flow funded growth capital investment for the quarter of $51.2 million, which mainly related to underground development Never Never, the stage 2 cutback at Break of Day, and infrastructure across both Dalgaranga and Mount Magnet. Our investment in exploration resource definition for the quarter totalled $26.4 million and was focused on Dalgaranga, Mount Magnet, Cue, and Penny.

As highlighted by Peter, we are seeing the returns on investment for our exploration results to date. The resulting underlying free cash flow for the quarter was $101.9 million.

This underpinned our ability to make a total cash payment of $110.2 million in share buybacks to reward shareholders. This equates to 44% of the $250 million share buyback program announced back in December last year.

Lastly, we closed out the FY27 hedge book and pre-delivered the June 2026 quarter hedges. The FY27 hedge book closure costs equated to $28.4 million, and pre-delivery of the June quarter hedges in this quarter totalled $30.6 million, assuming these ounces were sold at the average spot price for the month.

The remainder of FY26 is unhedged and no further forward contracts are currently being considered. The resulting closing cash and gold position was A$606.5 million.

On slide 18, we provide a table noting key updates to FY26 guidance. We have increased our all-in sustaining cost to $1,900 to $2,050 per ounce, still remaining in the low-cost quartile, with the three main drivers of this increase being, one, the declaration of commercial production at the Never Never underground one quarter earlier than planned, resulting in an additional $100 per ounce in all-in sustaining.

It's important to note that this is merely a reclassification of cost from growth capital to sustaining, aligning with the fact that the mine is now profitable earlier than we expected with high gold price and high initial grades than initially modelled. All in all, a positive for the business.

Secondly, higher gold price resulting in higher gold royalties, which is expected to increase all-in sustaining by approximately $40 per ounce in FY26. Thirdly, diesel costs, which at current prices are estimated to impact the all-in sustaining by $35 per ounce or $20 after factoring in our diesel hedge book.

On growth capital, as mentioned earlier, we have updated our Mount Magnet plant construction strategy to front-end load engineering design work, which has resulted in some expenditure originally planned for FY26 to be now incurred in FY27, but importantly, there is no impact on our overall project timing. Overall, at the group level, we have revised PP&E growth capital for FY26 to $90 to $100 million.

On growth capital mine development, the reclassification of Never Never mine development from growth to sustaining that we just discussed has resulted in reduction in mine development growth by approximately $20 million, which at the midpoint of our production guidance equates to a $100 an ounce impact. Again, I can't stress enough, overall, the sustaining and mine development costs for the Never Never underground are unchanged, and it's just a classification of costs for this in the fourth quarter.

On depreciation and amortisation, the earlier than expected commercial production from Never Never underground has resulted in amortisation of the mine property, which resulted in the acquisition costs of the project commencing sooner than initially expected. Revised guidance for the depreciation and amortisation of FY26 is $310 to $330 million.

On slide 19, we are highlighting our historical returns to shareholders, predominantly in the form of dividends, with buybacks added to the mix in FY26. As previously disclosed, the Ramelius board wants to ensure shareholders' return are maintained during our investment period in FY26 and FY27, then we grow the returns.

In FY26, we have already exceeded FY25 returns, with the interim dividend of 3 cents per share paid in the quarter along with the $110 million in share buybacks made. We look forward to continuing this trend as we move forward.

I'll now pass it back to Mark to wrap up.

Mark Zeptner

Thanks, Darren. We're on slide 20, where we have summarised our key focus areas for the remainder of the financial year.

At the corporate level, we will continue to drive improvements in our safety performance and also closely monitor diesel fuel supply and usage whilst continuing our share buyback program. Our exploration team will remain focused on high-grade targets as discussed by Peter, particularly at Mount Magnet and Dalgaranga.

We'll continue to ramp up at Dalgaranga underground and also ramp up the ore haulage quantities to ultimately match production levels. On the Mount Magnet plant upgrade, we will continue with both stage 1 refurbishment of the existing plant and complete the front-end engineering design and award the EPC contract for stage 2.

Lastly, we expect to hear back from the EPA on our Roe environmental approval during this June quarter. These key focus areas will drive our next phase of growth and value creation.

We'll now open up the line for questions if we can, please, Kailee.

Operator

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question via the phones, you will need to press the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad.

If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type your question into the ask a question box. Your first question comes from Hayden Bairstow with Argonaut.

Hayden Bairstow

Good morning, guys. Just a couple for me, just on the drilling you're doing at Mount Magnet.

How quickly do you think you can start defining some of those open pits? Because pushing that Eridanus feed into stockpile rather than through the mill would be obviously pretty material on a three-year outlook.

Then also, can we just have an update on where the Edna May process is at too? Thanks.

Mark Zeptner

Thanks, Hayden. Unfortunately, bringing in new open pits that aren't currently in the mine plan, it may be a longer lead time to bring those in than we'd all like.

I'm thinking you're thinking Hesperus, maybe Windbag, maybe a bigger Franks Tower, and those sorts of things. There is an investment at Eridanus which we think is worthwhile, because ultimately, once we're down into the higher-grade material, that'll supply decent grade baseload feed to the mill for the long term.

In terms of Edna May, we're still considering our options there. There's obviously a lot of value on the table at Edna May.

At the moment, the nice thing is we don't need any ounces to deliver on our five-year plan, but we're still considering what we do with Edna May.

Hayden Bairstow

All right. Thanks, Mark.

Mark Zeptner

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.

If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type your question into the ask a question box.

Operator

Your next question comes from Ben Wood with UBS.

Ben Wood

Morning, team. My question's just on some of the capex that we'll see go from FY26 into FY27 relating to the FEED project and potentially Rebecca-Roe early works.

How much do we sort of expect of that $100 million, say, to be carried forward? Is it the full amount, or is it potentially a bit less than that?

Darren Millman

On the Mount Magnet plant expansion, probably thinking somewhere between the 50 to 75 of the FY26 number, a lot of that given our new strategy with Mark just spoke to. Rebecca-Roe, we just really wanted to double down on Mount Magnet, probably about 75% of those costs will move into FY27 also.

Ben Wood

Thanks for that.

Mark Zeptner

Hopefully we answered your question there, Ben.

Ben Wood

Yep. That's good.

Thanks, guys.

Mark Zeptner

Good.

Operator

We will do one final call for questions. That's *1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced, or type your question into the ask a question box and click submit.

As there are no further questions, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating.

You may now disconnect.