Regis Resources Limited

Thanks, Darcy. All right.

Thanks, everybody, and good morning. Thanks for joining us for the Regis Resources June quarter and our full year FY '25 results, although not the full financials, they will come out later in August.

Joining me today is our CFO, Anthony Rechichi; and our COO, Michael Holmes; and our Head of Investor Relations, Jeff Sansom. As usual, we will refer to figures and diagrams from the quarterly report released earlier this morning.

So please keep that handy as we step through the results. All right.

So let's start with safety. I'm pleased to report that our 12-month moving average lost time injury frequency rate remains low at 0.4 million hours, well below the recent WA gold industry average of 2.2.

Now this represents 1 LTI, I think, which is, of course, one too many, but the results also reflect our ongoing commitment to keeping our people safe and maintaining a strong culture across all our sites. On to performance, we closed out FY '25 with a strong quarter, both operationally and financially, finishing at the top end of our production guidance and at the bottom end of our cost guidance.

June quarter production was 87,400 ounces of gold for an all-in sustaining of $2,812 an ounce. Now that result takes our FY '25 group production to 373,000 ounces, which is at the top end of our guidance range and with strong margins, thanks to our all-in sustaining being at the bottom end at $2,531 for the year.

In the quarter, we sold 96,800 ounces of gold at an average realized price of AUD 5,148 an ounce, generating revenue of just under $0.5 billion at $498 million, which gave us an operating cash flow of $260 million. Cash and bullion through the quarter grew to $517 million by 30 June, up more than $220 million for the year, and that is after a repayment of our $300 million debt back in January.

I also note that our $300 million revolving credit facility remains currently undrawn. We're ending the year debt-free and in the strongest financial position the company has ever been in.

Other highlights for the quarter include the release of our resource and reserves in May, which confirmed a fifth consecutive year of underground reserves growth at Duketon exceeding the depletion, a key part of our long-term strategy to transition to more resilient, high-margin underground production. At the same time, our exploration team continues to deliver.

The most recent results at Rosemont and ones we announced earlier this morning, for example, in the release, confirm extensions to our high-grade mineralization down dip and down plunge with standout intercepts like 0.5 meter at 114 grams a tonne and 1 meter at nearly 45 grams a tonne, reinforcing the quality and potential scale of the system. This combination of consistent underground growth, a growing reserve base and strong exploration success gives us real confidence in the path ahead and supports the next phase of value creation for the business.

In addition, as also announced today, we've also expanded our organic growth pipeline with the agreement to acquire the Southern Star Gold prospect from Great Southern Mining, which is located 3 or 4 kilometers, just 3.5k south of Ben Hur open pit, which is currently in production. While this is a relatively small project at this stage, it is a logical acquisition for us given its location to our established infrastructure, and it does represent our efforts to find and extract value wherever we can where we're operating.

It also reflects our work to build strong ongoing relationships with other key stakeholders in our immediate area. When the transaction completes, we'll commence a drilling program that we expect will convert mineralization to another production source within 6 months or so.

Now with that, I'll hand over to Michael for a bit more of a detailed rundown from an operational point of view. Thanks, Michael.

Yes. Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone.

From an operational standpoint, the June quarter delivered another consistent result across both sites. At Duketon, we produced 59,300 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $3,023 an ounce.

That included 17,200 ounces from our open pits at Ben Hur, Tooheys Well and Garden Well and 27,500 ounces from our underground mines at Garden Well and Rosemont. The mills processed 1.92 million tonnes at 1.07 grams per tonne with recovery steady at 89.7%, which included the processing of low-grade stockpile material at both Duketon South and North mills.

Importantly, FY '25 marked the end of the mining of the current Garden Well open pit, a mine that has delivered over 1.4 million ounces over 14 years of operations. Development continued at the Garden Well Main and the Rosemont Stage 3 underground and both remain on track for first ore in quarter 1 FY '26.

Growth capital for the quarter was $50 million, including commencement of pre-stripping at the King of Creation open pit. That wasn't in our original guidance, but it was a compelling opportunity in the current gold price environment.

At Tropicana, we delivered 28,100 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $2,262 an ounce. Open pit production was 9,700 ounces at 1.05 grams per tonne, and the underground delivered 14,000 ounces at 3 grams per tonne.

Mill throughput was 703,000 tonnes at 1.38 grams per tonne with a recovery of 90.5%. Development of the Havana underground is on track and to plan with growth capital of $1 million spent during the quarter.

With that, I'll pass to Anthony for the financials.

Thanks, Michael. This is a very satisfying finish to what has been a standout year.

We sold -- in the quarter, we sold just under 97,000 ounces of gold at an average realized price of $5,148 an ounce, generating $498 million of revenue. Operating cash flow came in at $260 million in this quarter, including $173 million from Duketon and $88 million from Tropicana.

Capital expenditure was $103 million this time, including $58 million at Duketon, $24 million at Tropicana and $21 million spent on exploration. We also spent $2 million at McPhillamys.

We closed the quarter with $517 million in cash and bullion, which is another record for Regis and the $300 million revolving credit facility that we've got in place remains undrawn. To circle back on Tropicana and provide some context for what Michael talked about, you'll note that the all-in sustaining cost at Tropicana was lower than our guidance range and to the tune of around $300 for the year -- $300 an ounce.

This has a lot to do with the impact of noncash stockpile adjustments, which were an overall credit for the year of around $160 an ounce. Those credits included favorable stockpile survey adjustments that resulted in a net positive noncash stockpile all-in sustaining cost outcome.

Growth capital at Tropicana for the quarter -- sorry, growth capital at Tropicana for the year was only about $5 million. And while this is below our guidance range, it is simply a timing aspect and our increased FY '26 capital range accounts for this.

The project remains on track with first stoping in the third quarter of FY '27. Thank you, and back to you, Jim.

Yes. Thanks, Anthony.

Look, before we move on to our outlook, I want to touch on McPhillamys and the process that we're undertaking there. As we announced during the quarter, we have commenced our legal proceedings with the judicial review hearing being scheduled for the 10th -- to the 12th of December.

We are hopeful of a constructive and sensible outcome here. Now look, some have asked us why we continue to put our efforts into McPhillamys after such a surprising, disappointing and frustrating decision.

Well, it's pretty simple. McPhillamys is a great project.

Look, we have withdrawn the DFS, but take a look at it, and you can see what the basic details were before this decision. This is from last year and the outcomes, as I said, have been withdrawn.

But for $1 billion in construction, the project would be mining nearly 1.9 million ounces of gold. It was a mine that would run for nearly 10 years to start with.

And it would produce about, on average, 187,000 ounces of gold per year for an average life of mine all-in sustaining cost of $1,600. If you do the math on the return that, that would generate, even knowing that in the first couple of years, there's a slightly higher AISC off the back of higher strip ratios early in the mine, this would be a mine that would be generating a significant cash flow today at the spot price.

So look, we're really -- clear justification for us to continue along these lines. And in fact, in addition to the judicial review, we've started to do some work on what, if any, options might be available for alternative tailings disposal.

But this work, as we've said before, will take a number of years to work through. For this reason, our most certain avenue is to continue to persist seeking some justice through a successful judicial review and sensible reconsideration.

But as I said, we hope for the best outcome, but we also are putting work and starting to build a plan for the worst and look for alternatives, albeit that might take a few years. Now looking ahead at what we have in our hands right now, our strategy remains clear: generate strong margins, look for opportunities that we can take advantage of, reinvest wisely and where we can unlock long-term value.

With these strategies, the outcomes we are currently guiding on for this year of FY '26. These production guidance range, same as last year, 350,000 to 380,000 ounces per annum.

And the all-in sustaining costs will sit in a range of $2,610 to $2,990 per ounce. Now clearly, this is a little higher than last year's cost.

However, the composition and underlying drivers of this are worth highlighting. The first is, of course, as we've seen in other gold miners already, there are inflationary pressures that everyone is enjoying for one of a better description.

And this is rolling across the industry seen amongst many of our peers as the guidance ranges start to come through. But the second is us taking advantage of the reset that we've seen to this higher gold price in the recent year.

Now this approach or strategy is something that we've been queried on a few times in recent update calls like this, and that is what can we do to take advantage of high gold prices. And as you can see, we can take advantage of it.

And as you also can hopefully see, we are. But I need to be clear that our strategy here of bringing in the higher cost, lower margin ounces that still make good money at the moment is not at the expense of our long-term good ounces.

We are not delaying good ounces and bringing in ordinary ones. We're doing both what we originally planned with our good, what we call our core ounces, and we're adding in marginal ones while it makes sense.

So at Duketon, while the original expectation in our plans was for FY '26 production to probably be tracking at the lower end of our target range of 200,000 to 250,000 ounces. As I said, for what I'd call core ounces that you see in our past presentations, with the current gold price, it's presented an opportunity to bring in additional, albeit higher cost ounces, which in the current reset price environment are profitable and deliver additional strong positive cash flows.

These additions are reflected in the higher AISC guidance. But also most importantly, as I said, they reflect stronger near-term value creation opportunities.

We continue to seek ways of unlocking more value for our underutilized infrastructure such as Molot Well Mill. And we, as Michael said, have accelerated new satellite pits like King of Creation.

This allows us to maximize use of installed capacity without taking on undue additional risk or complexity. At Tropicana, production remained steady year-on-year, but we're guiding lower costs relative to our guidance range last year, but costs are expected to be higher than what we reported in the FY '25 year as we are expecting to return to the normal noncash related stockpile adjustments, not the significant credit opportunity that we got last year that Anthony has already covered.

Hopefully, now, I think you understand the nature of our low AISC last year, but this year is returning back to normal areas. It's still a very solid mine for us and basically continues to deliver.

Now at -- the AISC at Tropicana does reflect the improved grade profile. And also, we're starting to see significant reduction or reduction over the coming year or so of the total material movement in the open pit, which, of course, TMMs are one of the largest cost drivers across the operation.

Broadly, across our business, the growth capital guidance has stepped up a little more to $180 million to $195 million. Now this reflects our development work at underground Garden Well Main and Rosemont Stage 3, as you saw, we did come in at the lower end of our guidance.

So some of this has rolled into the current year. But also, as mentioned earlier, we're undertaking additional activity across Duketon in the modest margin pits.

And there's a bit of work that we're doing there on the capital front to bring those plans forward. It's all modest and almost certainly makes a lot of sense in the current environment.

These investments are low risk, near term, well understood, backed up utilizing existing infrastructure. And of course, at Tropicana, we continue to progress the Havana underground in our growth capital, which we're expecting to see first stope productions in May '27.

Exploration remains in line with last year at $50 million to $60 million, focused on conversion, but also chasing long-term opportunities and optionality in our open -- in potential open pits. Obviously, if our early-stage exploration work proves successful, we'll be pleased to add a little bit more to that because it will be driven by good discoveries.

At McPhillamys, we continue to pursue legal resolution, which I mentioned before, while starting to see if we can find ways through technical studies of alternative tailing solutions. As I just explained, we see why this is a great value project.

The cost guidance range we're giving for McPhillamys is quite wide, $10 million to $20 million, and it does reflect the uncertainty in timing and scope depending on how our legal outcomes progress. So we'll keep the market informed with how that would change.

I wouldn't expect anything hugely significant there, but there might be a modest change in that range depending on the success of our legal approach. So overall, while headline guidance for this year is steady, there's been quite a bit happening underneath, and it's all aligned to our strategy.

We're generating strong margins from our core ounces. We're extracting extra ounces that give opportunistic margin where we can and where the price environment supports it.

We're investing wisely and funding that with a disciplined approach. We're building out our long-life backbone of the business through underground development and putting as well, obviously, effort into exploration to unlock our long-term sustainable value.

So to wrap up, we delivered at the best ends of the FY '25 guidance. And by that, I mean top end of production and the bottom end of AISC.

The cash and bullion before debt repayment grew by more than $520 million. Now we're debt-free.

We're entering FY '26 with strong financial flexibility. Our growth capital is focused and disciplined with Havana, Rosemont and Garden Well Main advancing along with near-term opportunities in smaller pits at Duketon being exploited while the price resets to new levels.

Exploration continues to yield compelling results, and we remain committed to unlocking the value at McPhillamys and creating real long-term value for our shareholders. So with that, I'll now hand it back to Darcy and open it up for questions.

Thanks, Darcy.

A couple of quick questions, if I may. So firstly, just on this -- on costs and the inflation we're seeing across the sector.

Can you call out a number that you're seeing across the board, I guess? And maybe just to help us with the calculation, just sustaining capital, is that going to be roughly flat year-on-year at around $100 million?

Well, look, the -- first on the inflationary front, I think we've seen some commentary around this 4% or 5%. That's probably not too dissimilar to us on a general inflation approach.

In terms of the guidance for capital, look, we -- at this point, we're not looking to give guidance beyond this year. Yes, I mean I suspect that our numbers this year may be a little higher than what some expected.

But I guess my emphasis is there that's because we're chasing opportunistic ounces, which will be adding a better outlook in the next year. So if we see opportunities, we might repeat that.

If we don't see the opportunities, we won't. So I can't really, at this point, give you a quantitative guidance, but I can say qualitatively, we'll only be chasing it if we see the value there.

Sure. That's for additional growth capital, okay.

Yes, yes.

And then a quick one for Anthony. Just on the cash going forward.

Is there anything you need to be aware of there? Any working capital?

I guess, can you confirm when you're expecting to pay cash tax?

Yes, Levi, look, working capital, no, nothing really significant along the way. But as I've been saying, we start to pay tax again when we get the next tax return in.

So that will be sort of around February next year, February '26. So -- sorry, yes, February '26 is the time.

And yes, then we start making the cash payments there. So obviously, haven't been paying tax for a while.

We make a catch-up payment there for the year ended June '25, using up the last of losses that we've got. And then going forward, we expect to be paying -- returning to paying monthly tax installments again.

Yes. And last one, just back to this higher gold prices, Jim.

Can you -- we've seen what you've been able to do across Duketon. But what about the optionality at Tropicana?

We know the plant is full at the moment. But can you sort of help us with understanding what else there could be there in a similar vein down the track once you're exhausted stockpiles?

Yes. That's a few years down the track yet, Levi.

It's probably safe to say that the team there that's running the site are looking for those. I mean, first prize is all the exploration work.

We can see the growth in reserves and the opportunities underground because we've got Boston Shaker 3 and 4. We've got Tropicana.

We've got Havana coming in. You can see in the presentation, we talk about some of the drilling in the underground that we're chasing.

That is -- that's really the drilling in the underground in these potential Swizzler Fault and the other various offsets, which are a bit longer-dated opportunity. But I think it's still -- it's first prize that the team there is chasing is more open pit discoveries that can be added in post Havana, which is still a few years away.

So yes, the team there is looking at it, and we're all sort of hovering around the options. But at the moment, the stockpiles that are there keeping that mill full will still be there for a few years yet.

That's not to say we're not thinking about it, but it's not something we can -- at the moment, it's just if you were going to put other alternative feed in, what you're doing there is displacing good material with bad material, and that just doesn't -- with bad, I mean, lower margin and why would you do that?

Congrats on a solid FY '25 results. First one for me, just around the growth capital outlook.

You want to just talk us through in more detail the sequencing of spend through FY '26. How much have you got left on some of the underground versus the new open pit and sort of when we should expect those bigger chunks of capital to go out quarter-by-quarter?

I think what you can reasonably expect at this stage, it's reasonably smooth through the year. I might have said that some of it sort of won't start until later in the year, but then that's sort of off the back of the underground is running flat chat at the moment.

And then as it starts to peter down and turns into an operation and sustaining, then some of these other pits, these growth pits will kick up. I just -- if you're looking at it for a general modeling, I'd just say it's -- assume it's pretty smooth over the year.

Great. That's helpful as well just the timing of the pits and things ramping up.

And then second one, just you obviously called out there running more stockpile material. If you just remind us the makeup of some of those stockpiles in terms of how much is on the higher end versus the lower end in terms of grade that you have to run in FY '26?

And how much of your FY '26 guidance, if any, is coming out of Duketon North?

Yes. Some of the guidance is coming out of Duketon North, not a huge amount at this stage, probably maybe 3 or so months and 4 months or so at the moment, we're now looking for other opportunities for us to put through there.

I mean your question around a general -- to paint a general picture of the stockpiles, we've been processing -- certainly, let's say, Duketon North. We've been processing stockpile material there now basically all of FY '25, I think.

And those stockpiles have been -- some of them have been there for years and years and years. And what do you do?

Well, you start at the ones that have got the best margin and you work your way down to the ones that have got the least margin. In some cases, there are stockpiles that have got the same grade, but one of them might be 200 or 300 kilometers away up at Gloster and others might be out in front of the mill.

So it's quite interesting that you actually can shift your feed around even though the grade might be better -- the gold production might be lower, you might be making better ounces because it's right next to the mill or -- and it might sound confusing, but I guess the point is there are multiple options, and we have to take -- we have to take care to make sure that we are exploiting each one of these remaining stockpiles in the sensible order so that we're starting with the most valuable down to the least valuable. But really, at the moment, that's all pretty much done by the middle of the year, right, the calendar year -- financial year.

Down at Duketon South, there's a few more moving parts because we're looking for -- as we bring in these opportunistic stockpiles, opportunistic pits, we can park the stockpiles and leave them for another time. And bottom line is I can't give you a crystal clear answer on it because there's multiple moving parts that we're managing there.

And sometimes we come across material, put a few holes in it and we find something that was considered to be a pretty ordinary resource, we might firm it up and go, oh, we've actually picked a few more ounces here. It makes more sense to mine that pit over the next 4 months than it does to process that stockpile for the next 4 months.

So it's really some real agility that the guys are using on that front, which makes it interesting, but it makes it a little bit hard to give clear guidance on how that looks. Look, we think that at Duketon South, we've probably got about 2 more years of stockpiles under our current plan to be pushing through.

But if we find another little open pit or we get something like the thing that we just bought this morning, that could push that out because it's more opportunistic to exploit the pit than it is to process the low-grade stockpiles.

Got it. That's clear.

Obviously, lots of optionality there, Jim, if I can clarify, how much -- how many tonnes did you put through the Duketon North mill in FY '25 and for how many ounces?

Yes, I don't have that number off the top of my head for that. We might have to take that one on notice.

No problem opportunistic on that one. And then just lastly, maybe one for Anthony on D&A.

Just noticing that's quite low in the quarter. How much of that is your stockpiles being run through?

Or is there some significant adjustments to prior quarters just on the new reserve and resource statement you put out there as well?

Yes. Not so -- there weren't any adjustments.

What it was is that during the quarter and towards the end of the last quarter and during the quarter, we had a lot of the open pits amortization had -- while we had left capitalized for them on some of the open pits at Duketon had come to an end towards the end of the financial year. So it had the impact of not as much being available to be amortized.

So that's come off a little bit and hence, pulled the year back to closer to about $1,000 an ounce, which I was on these calls, I think I was guiding to over the course of the year, we're seeing in our forecasts.

So from a go-forward perspective, is the FY '25 total the appropriate rate or something lower closer to the fourth quarter?

It's similar. We're expecting it to be a little bit less again, but still similar.

But yes, not expecting it to get up above that, particularly with the open pit, like I say, in that open pit situation with those capitalized amounts having been whittled away over time.

Appreciate every favorite topic, just more understanding and the flow-through to tax and ability for returns, but I appreciate that, and I'll pass it on.

Just on the opportunistic pits. Obviously, you've called out King of Creation, but just kind of want to get a sense of what else you view in the belt as opportunistic.

And I suppose if you've got stocks finishing up running through Molot Well in the first half, I think you said, are there any options to run mine tonnes through that mill in the second half in the plan?

Well, yes, there are. But at the moment, we haven't -- that we're looking for the right opportunities there.

So if we were confident in the nature of those ounces and we were confident in their costs, we probably would have put them in our guidance. But at the moment, we're still running the numbers on it.

But what we are confident of, we have included in our guidance ranges. And of course, if that changes materially and improves, then we'll update the guidance for that.

And just with the Southern Star acquisition, just realize it's a relatively small outlay, a bit of a longer haul. Just given it's on a mining lease, is this primarily opportunistic near-term open pit feed?

Is it a bit of a potential boost to a Ben Hur underground in time? Or is there something else further along strike there that you like as a longer-term play with your right of first offer on GSN's exploration ground?

Yes. Look, I mean, it's 3.5k away, I think, from Ben Hur.

I'd love to think that it's an extension of underground potential there, but it's fair distance. Look, we just see it in the first instance as opportunistic quick short-term ounces -- it could grow to something else.

It might not. We haven't bought it on the basis that it's going to be $0.5 million.

We bought it on the basis that it will be what we think it will be, which will be fairly modest. But if it grows, as you can see in the deal, there's upside payments for that, which will actually be pretty cheap ounces if we bring them in.

But look, it's -- we didn't get it on the basis of thinking that it was significant extensions or opportunistic value for Ben Hur. Basically, if Ben Hur is going to work, it's got to stand on its own.

Yes. And just finally, the Rosemont South drilling are some more good hits you called out in the section in the release down plunge.

Just wanting to kind of get an update on how the geos -- what they're waiting to see before doing some more aggressive step-out drilling.

They're not -- they're doing that. The underground drilling, if you have a look at in the release, on Figure 4, you can see the cross- section of Rosemont.

And some of the -- a couple of the holes that I described, there's some -- if you've got the diagram, you can see there's some green circle dots that are off to the left of the area that's got the stope designs around it, sort of the south of the South pit. And that's the exploration.

So the exploration -- the guys are drilling that from the surface. And that's where -- if the area that's got the stope designs around it, we're infill drilling there, and we're getting holes that -- that's where the -- like, for example, the 0.5 meter at 114 grams, which we thought was pretty good, right?

And then it was adding -- it looks like it's adding ounces to an area we've already committed to going into. But then we've got a couple of results coming out from the area outside the Stage 3 further, if you use the terminology, it might be Stage 4.

We've stuck some holes in down there, and they're coming back with like 3.1 at 3.4, and they're coming back with the mineralization. So the exploration team is -- they work in this underground space, looking at this extension of work, our exploration guys and our ResDev guys actually work very closely together.

So as part of that step out. So that step out that you're talking about is actually what those green holes are doing because that would be if that works out, that's probably an area of production in, I don't know, 3 or 4 years' time.

Sure, Jim. Have you got a sense of when -- it was probably a bit aggressive, but how soon that you could get all those green dots done?

Is that like a 2- or 3-year program? Could it be done this year?

Just trying to get a sense.

No, that won't be 2 or 3. We'll keep getting results on that now almost on a monthly basis.

So stay tuned as we put out -- at least on the quarterly basis, we'll be able to update and give some ongoing confidence that this is just doing what we expected. And while we're just waiting for the other question, the -- back to Hugo's query on throughput at Duketon North.

I mean the mill up there has got a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes, but that's oxide material. The low-grade material we've been putting through has been pretty hard.

So we've been getting about 1.5 million tonnes per annum through there, and that's been running at a grade of about 0.5 gram. So that's given us about 20,000 ounces or a little bit over 20,000 ounces.

So that's the sort of thing we can get through Duketon North with hard rock with our opportunistic works. Back to you, Darcy.

Yes, a bit like what new pits you might bring on. But just on thing of creation itself, what is the scale of that mine maybe in terms of reserve or its contribution to production over the next few years?

Yes. I'll just get Michael to maybe just talk high level on just the ounces.

It's not huge, but everything contributes, right? This is a game where everything adds.

Michael, do you want to put some...

Yes, it's a relatively -- it's a good little producer, but it's only producing sort of around about that the 30,000 ounces for FY '26 and then the carryover of around 5, 000 to 10,000 the following year. So it's only -- we did a lot of preworks in FY '25, and we're sort of getting into it and mining in FY '26.

Thanks for the FY '26 guidance today. I'm just wondering if you could provide a split at all on where your contribution of ore or ounces or however you want to put it, comes from at each of your assets between open pit and underground?

We haven't got that breakup in that level of detail, Daniel. I think no, we'll report back on that as we go, obviously.

I'm not seeing a huge. If you look at our operation at Duketon, at the moment, we've got Rosemont underground running, and we've got Garden Well South underground running.

We don't see Garden Well Main coming into production until later this year. So the underground will probably continue to contribute as much as they have done proportionally.

And no kidding, the rest is left on the surface. So I wouldn't see any wild swings in that not until we get the third underground mine sort of running at steady-state capacity, which is well later in the year.

And Tropicana is probably just more of the same at the moment for the next few years.

Just my second question is, I mean, you outlined some stockpile adjustments that have been made through Tropicana and the impact it had on costs during the period. Was that a grade reconciliation benefit?

Is there more gold in it than you had thought and that caused a write-up? And my next question on that is, is that captured in your reserve statement made earlier in the year or not?

Look, it was really driven off the back of some beneficial additions to the ore stockpiles that weren't planned or weren't expected. So that allowed for -- we ended the year or the site ended the year with stockpiles of ore that were more than was originally planned.

And as a result, we ended up putting more value on stockpiles. And that picked that -- and that sort of was the -- because that's a noncash benefit, right?

We still spend the same amount of money. But as people -- as we sort of try to explain to people, and I know you know, that AISC is not a figure of cash.

It actually is adjusted for stockpile movements. So what we saw was there were minor stockpile adjustments and survey corrections and pickups through the year, which in various parts added to the existing stockpiles.

It meant that some of the costs pulled out of AISC and went on to stockpiles, and they'll come back as a noncash component of the AISC over the coming years.

Yes. I guess where I'm kind of getting to on this is your resource reserve statement is as at the 31st of December '24.

And so when you're referring to you've had some additions through the year, are you referring to up until that point or after -- like is there something that's just happened? Like should I be adding more stockpiles than what I can see in your resource and reserve statement to my thinking on the go forward.

I get the question. Yes, because these are fairly modest, but they have made a difference.

But with the stockpile adjustments, the -- it's sort of -- it's been enough to have an impact on the all-in sustaining costs. But in terms of the impact on the overall resource and reserve statement for Tropicana over the next, whatever it is, 7 or 8 years of reserves, I don't think it's material.

It's helpful. There's no doubt about it, but we're certainly not expecting any more of it.

Maybe just to add to Dan's question another way. So we've got the Garden Well Main and Rosemont Stage 3 underground coming.

Do we expect tonnages to lift this year from the underground feed? Or how do we think about those underground tonnes at Duketon?

And then secondly, with your updated resources, when does that take your open cut life out to at Duketon?

Yes. Sorry, Kate, the line is not too good there, but I think were you asking what do we expect the underground tonnes to do in the near future?

That's right. Yes.

Yes. So we'd expect them to be -- while we've just got Rosemont and Garden Well Main running -- sorry, Garden Well South running, we'd expect them to be reasonably flat.

But once Garden Well South comes in, which will be later on this year, we should see stoping tonnes start to lift and therefore, the underground tonnes and ounces will start to lift as well. And depending on what the balance is, that higher-grade material from the underground will then be certainly in Duketon South mills will be potentially displacing some low-grade stockpiles that we might be feeding in opportunistically at the moment.

So the basic -- the answer to that question is we would expect the underground tonnes to increase later on this year as our third underground mine starts to come into production. And I didn't -- I couldn't pick up what the second one was, the second question.

Apologies for my line. With the updated reserves, when does that take your open cut life out to now at Duketon?

The updated reserves.

For the one we have for the year ending December '24.

Yes, we won't -- I mean, we'll be -- if we I mean, we will stick to the rhythm and the pattern, if you like, of updating our reserves with a cutoff at the end of December each year. But if by chance, let's say, the drilling and the work that we're doing at South Star -- Southern Star, if we get some work done early and we can sort of satisfy ourselves have proven that up in reserves, given that, that's something new, we'd come out as soon as we know that.

But we would not update the whole across the business reserves until our rhythm, which is usually has us coming out in May, late May, early June. But if we drill this out and we find that it's -- we've got the numbers, then we'll let people know straight as soon as we can that what the numbers are they can expect for it to contribute to future production.

Otherwise, we just stick with our regular rhythm of reserves release.

Okay. But at the moment, those open cuts sort of run into FY '28.

Is that fair?

Yes, yes. In fact, I think if you look at it and the way that it runs, it's sort of certainly bled into -- well, it's not a good word to use, but it's progressed as well.

Stockpiles and open pits at Duketon would continue contributing in FY '29 as well -- into that year.

Okay. And last one, when you talk about bringing in higher cost ounces, what are those exactly this year?

Are those stockpiles? Is it a change to mine design?

It's a combination of stockpiles and also some of our satellite pits that we've got that we've known about for quite some time. We may not have included them in reserves or they might be there on the periphery.

And we've looked at it and said, geez, these things have got -- we could mine it. And I'll just give -- for example, we might be mining it at $3,800 an ounce.

And we look at that and go, well, that's not something we'd normally consider to be part of our regular plans. But in the current price environment and given that we're in and out within 12 months or a similar period, we might go, all right, well, we'll do that.

We'll develop it, we'll bring them in and we'll turn it over and we'll just keep going rather than not dealing with them at all. So -- and there's -- none of them are -- they're all relatively small, but like all things, small things in numbers build up.

Just following on from Kate's question. Is it fair to say production profile-wise at Duketon, it's pretty flat over the year.

I mean, obviously, you talked to the first 3 to 4 months having Duketon North ounces coming in, but it sounds like there's a bit of a ramp-up in higher-grade tonnes through the underground in the second half. So does that mean it's pretty flat over the year production-wise at Duketon?

Yes. Yes, it is.

Yes.

Yes, copy that. And also, McPhillamys, I mean, you gave us a bit of an update there, but can you just provide some color on what your expectations are on timing?

I mean that hearing in December, is the court declaration expected pretty soon after that? Or is it likely to be well and truly into calendar year '26 where you know where you stand on that ministerial decision?

I wish I could answer that question from a basis of factual knowledge, but I can't. What I can say is that if we -- the judge will hear the various opinions in the middle of December.

We know that the judicial system sort of heads into Christmas and whether we get a judgment before Christmas is possible, but I suspect unlikely. We think that it's probably not unreasonable to expect a decision 3 months.

Now that could be wrong. And some -- and I was involved in something a few years ago where it took 12 months for a decision to come out.

I'd like to think this isn't quite so complex, but you just don't know. But we would like to think that we might get a response before the end of the March quarter.

And then if we are successful, then what happens is the decision gets set aside and then whatever the reasons were for the judicial review to be considered successful, they all have to be sort of righted and fixed by the department and then the minister has to sit down and reconsider it and make another decision. Now because this is -- these are all serious things.

But what we could be looking at is the department itself, if we -- if the judicial review sets aside the decision and they have to go back and deal with the issues that resulted in the decision being set aside, that could take months. We don't know.

That could take 3 months, that could take all year. It's really quite frustrating.

So we will just -- we'll do our best to push on -- and at the same time, as I said, we hope for the best, and we hope for a speedy decision on that front and a reasonable level, we consider to be a reasonable one. But at the same time, we have to be pragmatic, and we have to consider whether there is an alternative pathway.

And we -- as we said when the previous minister made the decision almost a year ago, we think that finding an alternative tailings solution, it could take 5-plus years. So we're looking at that, but there's no guarantee that we can find an outcome for it.

We've got some ideas, but our #1 focus is getting the judicial review being successful. But unfortunately, we just don't have a -- there's no gazetted schedule of time or anything like that, that they're obliged to run, which is frustrating.

Okay. Yes.

So all it does is cancel the old decision and then the new government, new minister has to make another decision. Understood.

Yes, no worries. Thanks, Andrew.

Sure. And apologies if someone asked me this earlier, I did miss a bit of the Q&A.

And I suspect you'll tell me to wait until August anyway in your response to this question. But you've clearly locked in FY '26 guidance that will give you a lot of confidence about the cash generation over the next 12 months.

Wondering what the right way is to return some of that excess cash to shareholders potentially. Obviously, you've not been paying a lot of cash tax.

So I suspect there's not much in the way of a franking balance. So buybacks an option, unfranked dividends.

Is that a preferable option? And yes, what is the thinking currently on any timing of cash returns?

Yes. Well, obviously, that's going to be a key agenda item in upcoming Board meetings as we finalize the financial accounts, get our profit sorted out and look to see what our capital management is.

I think we were pretty clear in the last quarter's results that the Board would be seriously considering its capital return options, and they can take the place -- take the form, if you like, of frank -- well, I can't take frank because we've got no franked credits, as you point out. They could be unfranked.

It could be a share buyback. So it's definitely on the agenda.

Obviously, it's a decision that has to be considered in the context of organic growth opportunities and what our requirements are. But in this strong cash-generating environment that we're in, I think it's a good healthy discussion for us to be had with real options to consider.

So that's a pretty -- I guess that's a cute way of saying, yes, it's on the agenda. I obviously can't give any guidance because it's a decision that we have to make as a Board.

But it's probably safe to say that the Board recognizes we had a strong history of that in the past. We had to stop through capital reinvestment requirements in the hedge book.

And the hedge book is gone, the price is up. So it's well and truly top of the agenda.

Yes. I understand, Jim, and I appreciate the color there, given that it's obviously still a discussion point.

Maybe if there's any context you can give on how you think about what exactly is excess cash. I mean, obviously, you've got a strong net cash position, no debt.

Obviously, you want to keep your options open in the future for investment and reinvestment. But yes, any sort of guidelines around what might be excess?

Matthew. Yes.

Well, as you say, we're in a strong cash-generating position. We've got to consider our reinvestment in organic growth and our other investments.

Good answer is I can give -- that's -- frankly, that's a decision that's still up for discussion. Nice try, but...

That's fine. I thought I'd have a swing.

It's a nice problem to have.

All right. Thanks, Darcy, and thanks, everybody.

Good to get the questions rolling there. Hopefully, that's been able to add a bit more color.

As always, if you've got any follow-up questions, please get in touch with Jeff, and we'll see what we can do to answer them. So thanks, everybody, for joining us, and all the best for the rest of the day.

Thank you.