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Earnings Call: Q4 2021

Jul 30, 2021

Speaker 1

Good day to all attendees, morning, afternoon or evening. Welcome to the ARRIS Resources June Quarter Call and Presentation. ARRIS' Executive Chairman, Andre Laberchein, will be making a short presentation, after which there will be time for questions. Before we get started, please keep yourself muted during the presentation. This will avoid any background noise.

This is an interactive presentation. You can change your screen at any time using the controls in the top left. We will take questions at the end. I'll now hand over to Andre Laberchen, Executive Chairman of ARRIS Resources. Andre?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Peter, and good day, everyone, and welcome to the ARRIS quarterly presentation. I guess, firstly, I think it's just such a great feeling to start FY 'twenty two with 0 debt, dollars 97,000,000 in the bank and it's really allowing us to look at FY 'twenty two in a through a very different lens. So first off, I just want to thank all the shareholders, the executive team and the team at the various mines at Eneris and also back for their patience over the last 8 years. But I'm looking forward to a very different FY 'twenty two and hopefully, you as shareholders and investors would see it the same way. With that, I'll jump into the presentation and sort of kick off with a normal let me just see why this is not there you go.

Let me just touch on the highlights of the last 12 months. As everyone, I assume, on the call will know, did the Krakow deal. That integration was done and very successful. And as we have announced a while back, we achieved the guidance of 70,000 to 75,000 ounces at nearly 74,000 ounces for the year, and we bettered the all in sustaining cost at 14.83 an ounce at Krakow. Through the year, we as we said, we a lot of focus has gone into exploration, and we've seen significant uplift in resource updates.

The new tailings dam is nearing completion, and that would be commissioned in August. And after the equity raise the other day, we are accelerating exploration at both the operations to significantly enhance and improve the life of mine plans for both. At Tritton, once again achieved the revised guidance, very close to the original guidance of at all in sustaining cost of £3.70 a pound We started Badgerigarh, the development is in place, the drilling is underway. And at this stage, what we're seeing is very successful, and we'll start the mining in Badgerigarh in FY 'twenty 2. The key excitement, of course, for everyone was the discovery of Constellation.

That drilling is continuing. We keep on seeing it looking better than what we thought and has bring a lot of excitement to the business in terms of the future of that mine. At a corporate level, what a great result to close with over $100,000,000 between cash and receivables. We as we announced yesterday, and that's sort of the reason for this being on the last day of the announcement. We're now debt free after 9 years.

We're very lucky to get ANZ on board as a new financier and a support and supportive banker. And really, it's moving away as we've seen with FAG was, as we said, very supportive, but it was expensive debt to now be debt free, but also being able to use the new facility of ANZAC to release cash to be able to do the final payment on the debt. And as you know, we've raised the $50,000,000 so a very exciting FY 'twenty one. On the ESG side, as the company grow, we are putting a lot more focus on it from a safety point of view, very disappointing 2 lost time injuries for the quarter, both was unfortunate soft incidents, but still not acceptable and a lot of focus is going to get better at the safety, but overall, a 30% improvement over the last 12 months. On the environmental side, there were no incidents.

We took the opportunity with the wet weather around Tritton to plant 600 trees and shrubs, and that's all part of the environmental rehabilitation plans moving forward. On the COVID side, happy to report no significant impact at the 2 operations. We have seen a bit of an impact at Tritton with the latest restrictions specifically around Orange and the short lockdown they had, but it's being managed and we haven't seen any significant impact other than a bit of a longer delay in the sampling results coming back. But as always, we continue to look and review all the guidelines as per the government directions. As you some of you might have seen, we're very active on social network on both LinkedIn and Facebook.

So please join a whole lot of these things. So a lot of work is going into supporting the communities with water. We're supporting events. We're keeping the community up to date on development at the various mines. We had a push for better at the business.

That's all for support. And as far as I know, the corporate office won. So that's a good result. On the electric side, that loader you see there is our electric loader, which we got involved with a few years ago to sponsor the body that is being reworked a little. But we are working on a strategy as Tristan grows on a strategy as how do we slowly and starting to move to better and lower emission strategies going forward.

Our first sustainability report will be due in the December quarter. Very proud to say that, that is a great piece of work the guys are busy doing. Moving on to the operating results. So the highlights for Tritton, there was a significant improvement on both grade and tonnes coming from the Tritton mine from the March quarter. As you remember, March quarter was quite low and driven by the back the peaceful issues we had.

That said, though, the cost for the quarter is higher. The main impact of that cost is increase in mining and development activity, and that's setting up the next level of production at Tristan for FY 'twenty two. And then catching up on the backfill was a significant cost for the quarter. The Murrawambe resource drilling, we'll talk a bit more about it in slides coming up, but it keeps on delivering at Murrawambe when we thought we're seeing lower grades and we're seeing the potential end of Morrow. The drilling came back and had some very spectacular results.

On the guidance for FY 'twenty two, in last year, we said the guidance for TRITON would be 21,000 to 22,000 tons of copper, so we're maintaining that level and the all in sustaining cost between $395,000 and $430,000 The main reason for that increase in all in sustaining cost is driven by the lower tons, but also lower production of byproducts as a result of the lower grades we're mining in FY 'twenty two. At Krakow, they had another cracking quarter, nearly 20,000 ounces of gold. The team there keep on getting better and delivering great results. There was a slight increase on the cost side in absolute numbers. That was driven by additional costs associated with development and ventilation, allowing us to get access to better quality stopes.

So that has been a result of the cost. But overall, we achieved the guidance and the tailings dam at number 2 will be commissioned in August. It's nearly done. The guidance for FY 'twenty two, originally when we bought Krakow, we had a forecast of 57,000 to 62,000 ounces. We now that we get a better understanding of the resource, the drilling we've done so far, we've lifted that back up to 67,000 to 71,000 ounces more or less in the same range of as this financial year.

So a really great result as we get to know the asset better. Getting back to Constellation, look, this has just been one of those spectacular outcomes where we've seen every nearly every draw or withdrawal has got a result. Originally, we thought it's a small high grade deposit up in the higher end. What we're seeing, it's getting thicker and better, and we'll talk about some of those results. We got it now traced 1100 meters down there, but the strike has also increased to more than 200 meters.

And the 2 EM plates identified down the bottom, we're busy, and we'll be drilling those soon. Looking at this shallow RC drilling program has delivered very, very good results. And as I said, the first, I'll remember, we drilled was 3 meters, I think, at 20% copper and since then, we've seen this ore body getting thicker. And as we drill it, you can see some of those results, 8% copper, 8.2% and 4% coppers. That cycling is now over 200 meters.

The whole concept here is in terms of the mine planning is to drill this out as quickly as we can to a resource, start to put a mine plan around it. You'll start off with an open pit mine and then go underground. And the whole aim is how quickly we can fast track this plan into the life of mine plan for Truthen. Just looking at Badgeri Gaya. So we've had got the access development in.

That was about 600 meters of development. Drilling is underway. We got 2 rigs, 45 holes has been done. We're waiting still for quite a few results. But the results we've seen so far in the intersections, we've seen some of them outside the regional design.

So it does show that there's potential and the results we've seen is according to expectations. So this mine will become will be in production in FY 'twenty 2. Murrawambi, as I said, originally when we started this, we thought we're going to get 1.3% copper out of it and about 3 years life, this thing is now going for a long time. In the last 6 months, we thought that hanging wall, we're not sure what's the grades and as the guys drilling it out, it's getting better and better. So Marrawombi keeps delivering in terms of expectations and will continue in the life of mine plans.

I guess this is sort of just a touch and this has been in previous presentations, but it's really just trying to show you that I know the market is waiting for a life mine plan and we are working on it and we'll share it with you as soon as we practically can. But if you look at that, Badri guys coming into production soon. Avoca Tank is in this year, plans to come in. Marwongia has got an open pit. With the underground still strong, we're working out how do you mine those 2 together.

And then all those exploration projects, we've got to allocate $15,000,000 to exploration this year, and a lot of those projects will become into development ready within the next 12 to 18 months. So a whole range of pipeline of projects, which all will become plan of the future life of mine plan for Tristan. So we'll share that with the market as soon as we can. Things move around a lot, so we have been working on it for a long time. Looking at Krakow operations, the whole thing with Krakow was when we got in, it's about how do we push the mill to 650,000 tonnes.

I mean, May this year, the guys had 57,000 tonnes, which is a new record for the plant. So it showed that it can do those sort of tonnes. The whole focus on how do you increase underground mine life with additional tonnes, you can start to look at productivity, cost, cutoff grades and the whole idea is how can you use all those parameters to actually create a bigger resource. And we are busy working. You'll see in the next slide what we're doing, but it's all about creating that additional resource by relooking at old areas and new areas.

And we're spending $9,000,000 in FY 'twenty two just on the near mine exploration. Then in the new space, we call it new space, but it's greenfields exploration. It is about prioritizing the targets. We've got Ballymore, which we're going to do some surveys on. We will start drilling in Boyard in the next quarter and start to see how that comes.

So those are real great opportunities for new exploration targets and new tons to come or ounces to come into production and $4,000,000 is allocated to that. On the resource updates, most of the areas we've drilled so far has resulted in an upgrade. We are waiting for some results to come back and you'll see in the next slide some of those one of the areas we're busy with. In the we will put a new reserve update out in August, so a whole new resource and reserve statement will come in and will be shared with the market in the next few weeks. This slide just shows you all the different areas, which has opened up because of the relook at cutoff grades and costs and associated.

So you might find a lower grade coming into the reserve, but it's more tons. The fact that the mill can do those tons, you're still targeting your 70,000 ounces out of the mine, but it might be with some more tons. But it all goes about its high margin tonnes. So the drilling the red areas is where we're currently drilling. You'll see one of the slides.

We are going to start to drill Golden Plateau soon. We are going to do the Black Areas and Roses Pride and bring the Roses Pride into production plan pretty soon as part of our life of mine. This is just one of the examples. This is just one of the examples of the underground resource drilling. So this was focused on extensions to the Crown Teparelli Royal Deposit.

Some of them, we're still waiting for results. But you look at the Crown, all of those intersections is outside of current resource envelope, and we've seen some pretty good results, which will definitely result in that becoming a future mining area for Krakow. At a corporate level, as I said earlier, what a nice way to close FY 'twenty two, FY 'twenty one, especially coming from where we've been in the last 8 years with over $105,000,000 nearly $106,000,000 between cash and receivables, being able to say we've paid our debt back all back in July, having ANZ there with $35,000,000 in a contingent instrument. Now that is all used for environmental bonding, so they're basically guaranteeing the bonding. What that did is it released $20,000,000 of restricted cash, which was actually cash backing those bonds, and that's been that's the money we used to repay PAG.

We also got a working capital facility with ANZ of $20,000,000 which is nice to have, but with the funding we have, surely, I can't see that, that would be necessary to use, but it's good to have that as a backup. And they can do FX and gold unsecured hedging lines for us if required. Just touching on the hedging side, those the hedges at if you look at September quarter, the first two hedges, 833 tonnes and 667, that finishes in July. So basically, today is the last day for those hedges. And then we've put new hedges in place.

It's about 25% of production, sorry, at between $11,900,000 $12,900,000 So we participate in any price movement between $11,900,000 $12,900 a tonne. That said, though, the current copper price sits at $13,100 a tonne. What a spectacular price. But the reason why we've done these hedges, this is double the price it was 6 months ago 12 months ago. We do have a bit of capital we're going to spend in bringing all those projects onto into production for Tritton, and we believe it's just prudent management to put some hedges in place.

We're not intending to put any more in place, but it's a good baseline to work from. On the M and A side, look, the key, as you've seen through all those projects we talked about at Tristan and Cracow, the organic growth is a priority, but I do see organic growth as our responsibility to do in any way. So there's a huge amount of upside for both those businesses. And as I've always said, we remain focused on M and A. We have been in quite a few processes since we bought Cracow, but the challenge now for us is you've got to average up.

So whatever you get needs to add value with the market cap now today close to $500,000,000 It does allow you to look at better projects. So that is the aim for us to see what is a better fit. And as we grow the business, we grow with better quality acquisitions or mergers. I guess in summary, FY 'twenty two was a great year, big transformation, good exploration, very great support and thank you to shareholders on the line for the $50,000,000 placement and there's always been the focus on M and A. Looking at FY 'twenty two, Tritham guidance, as we said, about the same in terms what we always had.

The big thing for Tritham is moving Tritham from, I call it a survival mode. 18 months ago, we nearly ran out of water and it was really just all about how do we survive, where today it's all about how do we grow the business, how do we bring these new mines into production, how do we accelerate our exploration success we've had and actually see how do we create this significant longer life for Tristan. We're at Cracow. We already seen the work the guys has done on the exploration side, the fact that we can lift the guidance and manage our costs in the way the guys are doing it. We're going to allocate a lot of money in exploration, dollars 13,000,000 originally.

Remember, we said we're going to do $13,000,000 over 2 years. We're now basically saying we're going to put it all in another 13 in this 12 months. And it's all about getting that reserve back up that you replace with your mine and slowly start to build that up, but also from a resource point of view, see how you get a significant better resource with all these opportunities. The tailings dam, Paul, you just put yourself on mute. Thanks.

On the tailings dam, that's already by mid August. It's going really well. There was a few delays for due to rain, but everything is in place. And as I said, it's all about M and A as part of our growth strategy. I guess that brings me to the end of this presentation and open for any questions.

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