Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Aeris Resources quarterly presentation. Look, the June quarter was definitely a better quarter than what we have seen in the March quarter, and as you would have seen, we achieved most of our guidance from all operations, and we will go through those. And we'll also, in this presentation, touch on the FY 2025 guidance for each of the operations. So at Tritton, we ended up the financial year with 20,000 tons of copper within the guidance. At Cracow, we were sort of mid to top range of the guidance at 46,000 ounces. And at Mount Colin, although we were below guidance at 7,000 tons, there were significant stockpiles, and most of that was due to not having slots to process those tons.
When you look at the key points, we've improved the production quarter-on-quarter and went up to 10,200 tons of copper. Tritton, we have seen in the last two months of the June quarter, an improvement, specifically from tons coming from Avoca Tank and Budgeryg ar. And as you, as you're aware, it is from better grades and better quality tons coming from those two operations. And that is the focus going into FY 2024, which we'll touch on. Cracow remained a strong production for the quarter, improvement quarter-on-quarter, but also achieved their guidance going for FY 2024. Mount Colin, again, the team did an amazing job that Mount Colin ended up with more than 20% improvement on both tons and copper metal at mine.
And as I said, it was only due to not having processing availability that they didn't achieve their target, but that 200,000 tons will be processed in the next few months. On a prime exploration point of view, a lot of exploration currently happening. Constellation at Tritton, we're doing resource drilling and also testing the Stand-Up zone. At Cracow, as always, you need to keep explore to keep extending the mine, and we're targeting some new areas, which is it hasn't been discussed or, or looked at before. And at Jaguar, we have put two holes into the gold exploration at Jaguar, and there's some very interesting outcome from those, and we'll talk a little bit through those. Jaguar is on care and maintenance, as, as we know.
The study on a scoping or pre-feasibility study on that will be finished off in the next month, and or in the next two months, and we will start to communicate the options to restart Jaguar to the market. Some really good outcomes on the Albion Process for Stockman. I'm not gonna go into the detail, but we'll talk a little bit about it, but that will significantly change the economics of Stockman going forward. We haven't put out the guidance for all the actual numbers for FY 2024 on cost and capital, but we were below or at the bottom end of guidance for each of the mines, and we'll talk a little bit more in detail about those. So, a really good cost and capital management from the teams, on all operations, for both Tritton, Cracow, and Mount Colin.
At Tritton, 4,400 tons of copper, and an improvement quarter-over-quarter. As you can see, they've achieved the guidance, although sort of the bottom end. But on the cost, Tritton was 10% on an all-in cost below guidance, if you even use the bottom end of the cost guidance. So very good performance. Some of it was obviously driven by volume, but really good cost and capital management from the Tritton mine. If you look at the guidance, FY 2025, we see an increase in production coming from Tritton, going from to looking at about between 21,000 and 25,000 tons of copper. We have made a conscious decision at Tritton to simplify the business.
FY 2024, we would've mined up to six different ore bodies at any time, trying to achieve the guidance or the production plans. We have simplified it. This year, we were targeting not more than four. Most of the production will come from Avoca Tank, which is running at +2% copper and Budgery. So the focus for Tritton and the comfort around achieving these targets comes from really the focus on two major areas for production coming in for FY 2025. On the cost and capital side, nothing out of the ordinary, more or less in line with the actuals and the guidance for FY 2024. What we do have in the FY 2025 guidance, you'll see on the growth capital, there's a significant increase from around AUD 5 million to AUD 37.45 million.
That is because we're starting a cutback on the Murrawombie, but around November, and so the capital cost of that sits in growth capital. The aim is to finish off the Murrawombie underground by around October, then set up the open pit and start pre-strip off the pit around November. That's why you see the increase in growth capital in FY 25. Constellation exploration, that is going extremely well. I was at the mine last week, and I was quite lucky to see when they intersected a hole into the Stand-Up zone. So the team are currently working on drilling in the Stand-Up zone, which is an area which is yet to be identified, and some good success in some of those holes.
And also do some infill drilling to upgrade the resource, inferred resource, to indicated resource, with the aim of putting out a feasibility study in FY, in the first half, FY 2025, to update the market on Constellation as a production plan. And the aim, at least, environmental, all the approvals to start it up has been submitted, and the aim is to bring that mine into production within the next 18 months to 2 years, as it will be, the aim is you do Murrawombie pit, when you're done, you start the Constellation pit forward. When you look at Cracow production, they achieved their numbers according to the budgets and guidance. Costs well managed. They were 7% below the bottom end of FY 2024 guidance.
So once again, they hit all the numbers and improved on the cost targets set internally for them and, and according to guidance. Looking at the FY 2025 guidance, and my apologies, that should be FY 2025, production, again, around that 45,000 ounces of gold. Cost and capital, more or less in line with what we've seen in FY 2024, with the one change, the growth capital in FY 2024 was AUD 16 million. That was for the tailings dam lift, which we did, and obviously in FY 2025, we don't need to do that. The main focus for Cracow in FY 2025 will be the exploration and targeting these new areas, which has been highlighted before. The exploration budget, which we put in place, is targeting Apollo and Coronation West, which is two new structures.
So we are trying to start to look outside the western mine field to see what is the opportunities to extend the mine with new, new structures going forward, and, and, the team are busy working that through as part of the FY 2025 plan. On Mount Colin, continued their strong performance, as I said earlier, from a tons mined and copper mined, they were more than 20% ahead of their plan. The challenge for them has been, or for us, has been that we didn't get enough processing slots to get all the tons which we mined through the process plant at Ernest Henry. So we ended up the year with around 200,000 tons of stockpiles between Mount Colin and Ernest Henry.
Now, that will be processed in the next few months as part of this. The big difference between guidance for FY 2024 and 2025 all sits in, this mine will finish in November, so you could see significantly lower cost, although we're still targeting around 7,000 tons copper coming out of Mount Colin between now and November. So still generating good cash, and then it's the team are working on the Barbara feasibility study. The approval process has been submitted, and the aim is to start Barbara as soon as we can once you've done Mount Colin. And in a perfect world, you would wanna move from Mount Colin to Barbara as soon as Barbara is finished, but the approval process will drive that timeline. At Jaguar, that's in care and maintenance. The option studies are underway.
We should have results on those in the next month, and be able to talk to the market within the next two months. That, which is basically just a holding cost of around AUD 4 million for the Jaguar mine into care and maintenance. One of the key things we've done while we're in care and maintenance, to hold on to the geologists, and a lot of work has been done around the gold exploration, specifically around Heather Bore. So in the last two months or three months, we drilled two holes into Heather Bore. It is a structure nearby Northern Star's Thunderbox. It's a shallow 0.5 kilometer line, and normally, the two holes, I'm not a geologist, but the geologists are telling me that picture on the bottom left has got all the right signatures.
We're waiting for the results from the assay, but, there's been some excitement around what they've seen. There's obviously fluids going into that area, and some of those core can potentially hold gold, going forward, but we're still waiting those results. So as we said before, although, Jaguar is a very good, base metal business, there is significant gold targets on their tenements, which, we're quite keen to test, as we go forward. On Stockman, you would have seen the announcement, for those who've seen it, really exciting outcome for us. As we said before, we were doing metallurgical test work on an Albion processor, changing the flow sheet. And you can see there from the original flow sheet for copper, which was running at about 77%.
So if you use the updated flow sheet using a clean concentrate with a bulk concentrate, the recoveries can go up to 92%, zinc up to 93%, gold improved, nearly double, and silver the same. So really exciting news because this, you know, obviously most of that all go straight to the revenue line, and we are now in the process of updating these numbers with new adjusted capital and operating costs to see what's the impact of this change in flow sheet on the economics of the Stockman project. I'm convinced with these improvements, we should see a significant improvement in the economic value for Stockman. At the same time, we have progressed some more independent studies on groundwater and also further approvals. We have, in the last few months, received extension to the mining lease.
So as I said before, most of the major approvals is in place for this project, and we are aiming to have a feasibility study in the next 3-6 months, updated with these new flow sheets and capital costs associated with them. In the meantime, we're also doing some minor capital works as part of our contribution to the community at the Benambra School, and some of those improvements are nearing completion as part of the process. At a corporate level, we've ended the quarter significantly, well, better than the last quarter, with cash and receivables at AUD 33.4 million, with cash sitting around AUD 24.8 million. As part of that, we've also paid an additional AUD 10 million in environmental bonding. So cash, if it wasn't for those bonds, would have been an additional AUD 10 million.
The trade and payables is steady at AUD 33 million, of which AUD 30 million of those are trade creditors, which is more or less, which is actually lower than the previous quarter, but that's the sort of level the creditors should sit at. So we believe that with the creditor position and, and the trade payables, and the other, 73 is that level, which we're very comfortable with, and it's been sitting at that sort of level for the last 2 or 3 quarters, or at least 2 quarters. Debt position maintained at AUD 40 million, and as we said before, we are in the process of refinancing debt and bonding facilities, and we have received some advanced term sheets. So discussions are still underway on the refinancing of the finance, the debt, and bonding as we move forward.
Focus for the next quarter, it's all about finishing off Murrawombie Underground, getting into the Murrawombie Pit, and getting it ready for November start. Constellation drill program, the key for us is, right now it's an inferred resource scale, and to indicate that you can put a reserve around it, and once we get a reserve, we can put the feasibility study out to market and let the market see the significant value Constellation will add in the future of the Tritton business. At Cracow, it is all trying to step out and trying the new areas, Apollo and Coronation West, and then a controlled closure of Mount Colin in the next six months is very important for us as part of that closure plan.
Getting all the tons, the 200,000, which is currently in stockpiles, plus what we'll be mining, through by November, and then progressing all the studies between Barbara, Jaguar, and Stockman to a point where we understand where the value of those projects sits for the future. On the exploration of Heather Bore, obviously wait for those drill results. It might be interesting to see what we get from those, those samples which has been submitted. And then we continue working on the refinancing of the debt and bonding facilities in this quarter and, and probably in the quarter after. This is sort of just a summary. As you all know, 3 operating mines. We've seen some improvements on all 3 operations in the last quarter.
The development projects are progressing well, and we can see as we move forward, and the target for FY 2025, the guidance around 40,000-48,000 tons of copper equivalent, which is a little better than what we have done this calendar year, or financial year. Apologies. That sort of summarizes the quarterly results. I see there's one or two questions. If you want to ask questions, you can type it on the Q&A, and I'll have a look at those and answer the questions. Or, you can put up your hand, and I'll see if I can unmute you as part of the process.
I've got a question here from Peter Cooper: "Of the 200,000 tons of Mount Colin ore not processed, June 30, was any prepayment received by Ernest Henry at 30 June, and what was the amount?" Peter, I'll have to come back to you on the amount, but yes, we are getting paid for tons, which is at Ernest Henry. But we're getting paid for about 50% of the value of those tons at the mine. So that's roughly, it was about 150,000 tons at Ernest Henry, at around 2% copper. We got paid half of that, roughly, as part of the prepayment for those tons. I've got Paul Kaner. Paul, I'm gonna unmute you if you wanna ask a question.
Yeah, Terry. Thanks, Andre. Just on Murrawombie, that cutback, just trying to get a sense of how much of that growth CapEx guidance at Tritton is earmarked for that, Murrawombie pre-strip?
That is about AUD 30 million, Paul.
Okay, great. And that's, that's starting in November.
Yes.
So [crosstalk]then yeah, just sort of following on from that, I'm just curious on how you sort of plan to fund that pre-strip in November, just considering your current balance sheet position.
That is all funded from internal cash flows generated through the business.
Yeah, too easy. No worries. That's it for me. Thanks, Andre.
Thanks, Paul. David, I've got... I'll unmute you. David Coates, I'll allow you to unmute you, if that's all right.
Great. Can you hear me, André?
Yes, I can.
Looks like it. Cool. Nice quarter, and thanks for the presentation this morning. Couple quick questions. So, one is quite sort of broad, and one is fairly specific, so I'll start with the high-level one. Constellation continues to sort of look to be, like, the real kind of key opportunity among many for organic growth and development across the portfolio. But what would you-what's your kind of, I guess, without choosing any favorites? What would the sort of next kind of couple be after Constellation? You know, you've got Jaguar ahead of bore, you know, restart, you know, Barbara's potentially coming in, depending on the timing of the permit. You know, which ones are you really sort of focused, I suppose, after Constellation?
Look, Constellation is obviously a big focus for Tritton. Outside of Tritton, the Barbara, if we can get the approvals on time for a start for Barbara post Mount Colin, it's not a big capital spend. It'll be something we really consider to push hard, because it can add another 8,000-10,000 tons of copper metal to the business in this copper market we're in. And depending on the outcome of the studies for Jaguar, you know, that is an easy start. It's in care and maintenance. The guys are looking at various options. One of the options we're looking at is, you know, low volumes, high grade, low capital, or a bit more capital, but go for higher volume. Those are the two studies.
But once we get those results of those studies back, we'll know which way we're gonna head, well, specifically with those. But right now, obviously, I think the priorities would be keep working on Constellation. If Barbara comes and approvals gets in place, is push that as hard as you can, because it's quick and easy, it's got an easy route to into production, although there's some development to be done. But the Jaguar restart will be a decision on that would be made on the back of the studies we're going through right now.
Great. Thanks, André. And then, yeah, the next question is sort of, sort of more micro, related to Stockman. The Albion Process and the recoveries there are related to, if I'm reading it correctly, the production of a bulk concentrate.
Correct.
Is there anything specific about the marketing of that that is different to kind of what had been considered in the past?
What has been considered in the past, I mean, considered in the past would have been just a concentrate which would have been sold, copper and zinc, at those low recoveries. So we, we're working through the saleable products for what comes out of the Albion Process. And, and right now it would be considered to either turn it into metal or to sell it as a product which will go to other smelters, who can deal with it. So we're in discussions with the smelters. But there is a process route for it, which looks a bit different to what was originally. It was all would have been a concentrate. The Albion Process can be turned into various different outcomes, other than just a concentrate.
Okay. All right. So it's kind of being evaluated, but,
Yeah
... you're confident about the markets at the moment?
Yeah, no, there's definitely markets. We're selling similar products and some of the final products is products we would use actually at Jag as a way of, as part of the recovery process.
Okay. Uh-
All right.
Thanks, André. That's it for me.
Then we got Yaritza. Apologies, I've got your name not right, but I have unmuted you. You wanna ask some questions?
I just, I just want to, like... I just joined this to understand, I invested in the stock, just wanted to understand how company is doing. That's it. Yeah.
What is doing? The stock price doing?
Yeah, yeah. Trying to understand how the company is doing. I'm just trying to-
Okay. Sure. Sure, sure.[crosstalk]
Well, that just joined.[crosstalk]
All right. No, no problem at all.
Yeah.
So look, as you've seen the quarter, the last quarter has been better than any of the other quarters in this financial year. Each one of the operations has improved over the last quarter, and we see that if you look at the guidance we're putting out, there's more confidence on both Tritton, Cracow to maintain what they're doing, and then, the Mount Colin mine starting to slow down. The key for us is the delivery of all these projects as we move forward.
Yeah.
I'll,
Which-
I'll... Then, Daniel Rhoden. I see there's another question from Daniel.
Yeah. Hi, Andre, and thanks for the quarter.
No problem. Thanks, Daniel.
I just wanted to, I guess, unpack on some of the costs that you've outlined in your AUD 525 guidance. Mining costs at Tritton and Cracow seem to have increased, you know-
Yeah
... a fair amount year on year. Is that, you know, you're seeing, I guess, operating cost inflation come through, or is that, I guess, more reflective of you entering a you know more challenging operating conditions at both those assets?
No, in fact, it's not operating conditions. For Tritton, it's a little bit of volume. We are planning to mine a few more tons than before, but the biggest increases in both Tritton and Cracow is actually power costs. Power costs over the last two or three years at both these mines has significantly increased, some of them even doubled. So the bulk of the increase in cost you see between, for both of those operations is actually electricity charges.
Yeah, okay. No, thank you very much. That, that makes sense. And exploration costs in the guidance actually seems a bit low to what I was expecting, you know, but—and I think where I'm probably going with that is, you know, I guess specifically at Cracow, you know, you've got a fairly low reserve life, and that's supported by quite large-
Yeah
resources, but that is a fair bit of exploration to be able to firm those up into a production plan.
Yeah.
Um, so-
But-
Yeah.
What you don't see, Daniel, is actually we split the exploration around 50/50 between growth and sustaining capital. So within the sustaining capital, there's about another, you know, for Cracow, would be another AUD 4 million-AUD 5 million sitting in the sustaining capital, and the same for Tritton.
Uh-
So we allocated, you know, trying to allocate what is just resource increase and what is really growth, growth capital. So the, what you see in the exploration is probably double.
Okay. No, that makes a lot of sense. No, thank you for that clarification. And I just wanted to, probably last one from me, for the time being. Probably a couple of years ago, there's, you know, Tritton's always had this, great plan to 30,000 tons per annum of copper production.
Yep.
You talked today about, I guess, the simplification of the mining plan to reduce the number of operating fronts at the asset. Has that changed your view on that production target? You know, I think that production target was always underpinned, obviously, by Avoca Tank, but the supporting deposits as well.
Yeah.
If you're removing those supporting deposits, does that kind of change that, you know, north 30,000 ton per annum copper target?
No, look, we're still targeting that higher production, which is sort of around the increase of production, but that was always on the back of two things. One is Avoca Tank, and the other one is the start of Constellation. Because the Constellation start, you know, we're gonna do an open pit, which will be 1.2 or 3 million tons at around 2% copper. That will drive with Avoca Tank and extensions at Avoca Tank. The areas we're walking, I shouldn't say we're walking away from, we're trying not to go back to, is all these small, little stopes in Northeast license and South Wing, which are our stopes, which takes a lot of effort and doesn't give us your returns, but it produces copper.
So we've reassessed all of those, and that won't make a material difference in trying to get to the higher production. The key is these high-grade deposits of Avoca Tank, Murrawombie, with the start of Constellation, is still the drive to get the production up to the levels we're looking for.
Awesome. That's perfect.
Yeah.
Yeah, sorry, I might slip in one last one, Andre, if that's okay?
Sure.
At Barbara, for the approvals up there, my understanding is you're trying to amend the existing mining lease to include underground mining there.
Yeah.
And you're working with the regulator to, I guess, to permit that. When are we expecting a decision whether it's going to be included in the existing mining permit or whether the regulator will require a new mining permit to be issued for the, for that project?
So it is not really the mining permit. It's already got a mining lease on it. So what we-- You submit your operations plan or your plan to restart, and that can either be seen as a minor or major amendment. If it's a minor amendment, then it's a 2 or 3 month approval process. If it's a major, it's probably 6-12 months to get that in place. So we're still waiting for that feedback, but there's other ways we're trying to look at how do we start it as soon as we can. But it is really just that approval process, if we can convince them that it is a minor amendment. Now, that is underway. We, at this stage, not sure we ...
to learn, but there's other ways you can start the operation, 'cause there's a development process needs to kick off. But there's already a mining lease approved, it's really just getting the operations and plan approved is where we're going.
Yeah. No, sorry-
But-
Yeah, thanks for that clarification. That's, and that major or minor approval is expected in the next couple of weeks, do you think?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would say in the next month we'll know which way we're going.
Okay. And depending on the release of that, that'll update, I guess, that FY 25 guidance.
Yes
... to include. Yeah.
At this stage, Barbara is not in the FY 25 guidance.
No. Perfect. Thank you, Andre, and thanks, thanks for your time.
Thanks, Daniel. Appreciate it. I got one last question on Q&A, and Adam, I'll come to you soon. Previously flagged labor shortages that has impacted on production, has that been resolved? What's your African labor availability? To make this, labor is always a challenge. It's still a challenge. We still always recruit, out there recruiting. We have seen a bit of stabilization in the workforce. I must say, as part of this plan for Tritton trying to simplify the business, we also would see a reduction in required workforce. So it's not that we're dropping labor numbers, it's really just the people we have is enough to mine what we plan to do for FY 25. But there's always a rotation of labor in the industry, and I don't think that will go away soon.
Adam, I'm gonna unmute you. Adam, you're on screen if you wanna ask your question.
Thanks, André, and apologies, I missed the start of the call, so you might have gone through this already.
No problem.
Just wondering on the Murrawombie open pit, could you talk through the open pit mine life there?
Yeah
... maybe, you know, the IRR for that project? You know, you got AUD 30 million in pre-strip there, but how much of the cost is getting integrated into the operating cost for the mining line item in Tritton, the guidance? Thank you.
So within the guidance, there's no operating cost for the pit. It's also a pre-strip. The AUD 30 million is a pre-strip for FY 2025. The mine is really just a 24-month plan. So you're gonna do a pre-strip for about nine months, and then you're gonna produce about mining 1.2 million tons, around 1.2-3% copper, in FY 2026, roughly. Some of it will roll over into FY 2027, but not a lot. So it's a fairly short life. What we are planning to do as part of this, is use the waste to do closure of the old heap leach pads, because it's sitting right next to it, and that could be about a AUD 9 million saving on rehabilitation costs, going forward. And that's part of the discussion on this environmental bonding we're having.
I don't have the IRR and NPV numbers at hand. Obviously, it's driven by the price you use, but it is a project which will push Tritton and be a bridge to bridge Tritton into Constellation in FY 2026. I can come back to you on those numbers.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. Maybe just on the debt refinancing, you got a process underway there. You've still got an additional AUD 10 million you can draw down if need be. Could you remind us of the, you know, the necessity or the timeline that you're expecting to refinance this debt? Thank you.
Yeah. So look, it's underway. We're in the process of various term sheets. We are probably would refinance these, be targeting towards, within this quarter. There has been a requirement from ANZ to refinance the bonding. We don't necessarily have to refinance the debt. The debt is not. It's just something we, we intend to do as part of improving the balance sheet, the bonding refinance with ANZ. We're in discussions with ANZ to, on the timeline for those bond refinancing, but it is, it is all underway. Okay, are there any other questions? I don't see any other hands. I don't see any other Q&A on the, on the register. I'll give it another 30 seconds, and then I'll, I'll, I'll close the, the meeting. David Coates, you've got another-
Great. Can everybody hear me?
Yep, I can.
So just a follow-up, a little bit related to Adam's question there. Can you just remind us of the mechanics of the bond and rehab financing? So, would the—does the way you refinance that potentially release us on that AUD 10 million bonding back to you? How does that potentially work?
Look, but if we get the full bond refinancing back, so in other words, you can finance all the bonds, yes, you should get AUD 10 million back. And it depends on the size of facility you get. So if we can get the full facility for the bonding, you'll get, I think we've currently got AUD 14 million in cash back bonds, if not more, we should get most of that back. If not, you'll get, you know, if you refinance what's cashed back less, then you'll refinance a smaller amount as part of the process. But there is a material opportunity for us to get some of that cash back, which is currently in bonds.
Great. Well, we're looking to seeing the outcome of that.
Yeah, me too.
Thanks, Andre.
Thanks, David. Thanks, everyone. I don't see any other questions or any other hands popped up. Thank you for your time, and thank you for joining the Aeris quarterly presentation.