Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2022 annual general meeting for Aeris Resources Limited. Executive Chairman André Labuschagne will officially open the meeting in a few moments. Before I hand over to André, I would like to introduce the board and management team of Aeris Resources who are in attendance today and run through a few items of housekeeping. Those attending the meeting in person today are Executive Chairman André Labuschagne, Non-Executive Director Colin Moorhead, Chief Financial Officer and Joint Company Secretary Rob Brainsbury, Chief Operating Officer Ian Sheppard, Chief People Officer Kim Franks, and Joint Company Secretary Dane Van Heerden. Attending remotely today are Non-Executive Director Michele Muscillo, Non-Executive Director Sylvia Wiggins, and Non-Executive Director Robert Millner.
Given the significant health concerns attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to guidelines and restrictions issued by Australian state and federal governments, the company considers that it is appropriate to hold this AGM as a hybrid meeting in a manner that is consistent with the requirements of the Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2021. The virtual component of this meeting is being held via Automic's online meeting platform. This platform enables shareholders and proxy holders to participate in this live webcast of the meeting, as well as ask questions and submit votes. Questions can be submitted at any time. To ask a question virtually, press on the Q&A icon. This will open a new screen. At the bottom of that screen, there is a section for you to type your question. Please start your question by typing your shareholding SRN or HIN.
This will allow the moderator to identify you as a shareholder. If you would like to ask your question verbally, type your SRN or HIN and then type, "I'd like to speak." Once you have finished typing, please hit Enter on your keyboard to send. Please note that while you can submit questions from now on, André will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. Kindly include the agenda item number to which your question relates. Please note that your questions may be moderated, or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, they may be amalgamated together. Due to time constraints, we may run out of time to answer all questions. If this happens, we will answer them in due course via email or by posting responses on our website. All questions should be addressed to André as the Chairman.
André will either deal with the question personally or ask someone who is better placed to respond. We will do our best to answer any relevant question raised. We ask that you keep your questions short and to the point, so that as many shareholders as possible have a chance to ask a question. For those who are attending physically, there will be an opportunity after each resolution to ask your question upon request. With housekeeping settled, I would now like to hand over to Aeris Resources Executive Chairman, André Labuschagne. André.
Thank you, Mary. Good morning. My name is André Labuschagne, and I will be chairing today's meeting. It is now 10:04 A.M., and there being a quorum present, I declare the meeting open for business. I confirm that the meeting has been properly constituted. When we reach the formal business of the meeting, voting on all resolutions will be conducted by poll. Shareholders attending virtually and wishing to vote on the resolutions being put to the meeting can do so through the Automic Investor Portal. If you are not already logged into the Investor Portal, instructions on how to do so can be found in the Notices of Meeting. A summary of these instructions you can see on the screen. If you have already logged a proxy vote, please note that you do not need to vote again.
Through the online, your votes will already be counted in a poll on each resolution and as per your proxy instruction. If you have any problem, with your shareholding with Automic, please call the support number shown on the screen. To our shareholders, I now declare the poll open. Online voting is now open and will remain open until I declare it closed at the end of formal business. Your votes must have been submitted prior to the poll being closed for them to count. The agenda for today's meeting is as follows. We will proceed to the formal matters to be considered at today's AGM and close of the meeting. After that, I will do a presentation on the business going forward. We now move to the formal business as set out in the Notices of Meeting.
The Notices of Annual General Meeting was mailed to all registered members on or about November 18th, 2022, and is to be taken as read. Voting on all resolutions will be conducted by poll. For the purpose of the poll, I appoint Amy Wong of Automic, the company share registry, who have examined and prepared summaries of the proxies forms received to act as returning officer and to conduct the poll. Those shareholders in attendance that are entitled to vote on the poll are all shareholders, representatives and attorneys of shareholders and proxy holders who hold yellow voting cards.
If you are attending in more than one of those capacities, you will have been issued with as many voting cards as you have separate capacities. If anyone believes they are entitled to vote on this poll in any capacity and does not have a yellow card, a yellow voting card in respect thereof, please raise your hand now and a member of the share registry team will assist you. At the appropriate time, I will ask that you mark your vote for the resolution on the yellow voting card. If you are a shareholder and wish to cast all your votes for a resolution, please place a mark in either for, against, or abstain box next to that resolution. If you wish to split your vote, please write the number of the portion of the votes you wish to cast in the corresponding for, against, or abstain boxes.
Please note that the sum of the split votes must not exceed your total holding. If you are a proxy holder, a summary of the votes to which you are entitled has been attached to the voting card. If the summary of the votes includes discretionary votes, these are yours to cast at your discretion. If you wish to cast the discretionary votes, please place a mark in the corresponding for, against, or abstain boxes. If your summary of votes does not have any discretionary votes, you do not need to mark your voting card and will simply need to hand it to the returning officer at the end of the resolution. After all resolutions has been read and voted upon, please place it in one of the ballot boxes that will be circulating in the room. Are there any questions in relating to the voting process?
With no questions, proxies have been inspected and all those validly lodged have been accepted. Proxies I have received representing 68% of the issued capital of the company or undirected proxies or open votes that have been nominated, which has nominated the chairman of the meeting as a proxy, will be cast in favor of each resolution of the notice of the annual general meeting. We will now proceed to the resolutions set out in the notice of annual general meeting. The first item of business is to receive the company's annual report for the year ended June 30, 2022. The financial report and the reports of directors and the auditors are now laid before the meeting. There will be no vote on this item as it is a discussion item only.
The company's auditor for June 30, 2022, financial year, Marcus Goddard of PricewaterhouseCoopers is present to take questions relevant to the conduct of the audit and the preparation and content of the independent auditor's report. Are there any questions or comments on the financial report or reports of directors and the auditors? We will take questions first off the floor, and then we'll do online questions, and then questions in the Q&A thereafter. With no questions and comments on the financial reports, we will now proceed to the resolution set out in the notice of the annual meeting. Resolution one, to consider and if thought fit pass, to pass with or without amendment Resolution 1, the adoption of the remuneration report and the ordinary resolution as set out in the, for as an ordinary resolution.
If you wish to discuss the resolution, please raise your hand or if attending virtually, submit your question via the Q&A. The proxies re-received in relation to this resolution are shown on the screen. Are there any questions? I now put the motion. Those physically in attendance, please mark your voting instructions on your yellow card, voting card. Those attending virtually can vote via online platform. You are ever reminded not to click next until you have selected your vote for all resolutions. We'll now move to resolution two. To consider and if thought fit, pass the following resolution with or without amendment as an ordinary resolution of the company. That Mr. Colin Moorhead, who is in attendance today, who retires by rotation in accordance with rule 28.6A of the Constitution and being eligible to offer himself for re-election, be re-elected as a director.
If you wish to discuss this resolution, please raise your hand or if attending virtually, submit your question via the Q&A. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are on the screen. Any questions? With no questions, I now put the motion. Those physically in attendance, please mark your voting instructions on the yellow voting card. Those attending virtually can vote via the online portal. However, as it was mentioned before, not to click next until you have selected your vote for all resolutions. We'll now move on to resolution three. To consider and if thought fit, pass the following resolution with or without amendment as an ordinary resolution of the company.
That Mr. Robert Millner, who is joining virtually, having been appointed by the board as a director of the company on July 1, 2022, in accordance with rule 28.2B Of the Constitution, and offer himself for appointment as required under rule 28.3 of the Constitution, be appointed as a director. If you wish to discuss this resolution, please raise your hand or if attending virtually submit your questions via the Q&A. The proxies received in relation to the resolution are on the screen. Let me get that off. Any questions? I now put the motion. Those physically in attendance, please mark your voting instruction on your yellow voting card. Those attending virtually can vote via the online portal. However, as we mentioned before, don't click on next until you've selected all the resolutions.
Resolution four and five involves myself, relates to myself. I'll hand over to Colin Moorhead to deal with resolution four and five. Thank you, Colin.
Thanks, André.
It's just down there.
Yeah. Resolution four is as follows: To consider and, if ought fit to pass, the following resolution, with or without amendment, as an ordinary resolution of the company. That for the purpose of Listing Rule 7.2, Section 13B, and for all other purposes, approval is given for the establishment and operation of the company's Long-Term Incentive Plan and the issue of up to 34,537,280 securities under the Long-Term Incentive Plan within three years from the date of this resolution be an exception to Listing Rules 7.1 and 7.1A. If you wish to discuss this resolution, please raise your hand, or if attending virtually, submit your questions via Q&A. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are on the screen. I now put the motion.
Those physically in attendance, please mark your voting instruction on your yellow voting card. Those attending virtually can vote via the online portal. Are reminded not to click next until you've selected your vote on all resolutions. Resolution five: Approval for the issuance of performance rights to Mr. André Labuschagne under the Long-Term Incentive Plan. Resolution five is as follows: To consider, and if thought fit, pass the resolution, with or without amendment, as an ordinary resolution of the company. For the purpose of Listing Rule 10.14 and sections 200B and 200E of the Corporations Act, for all other purposes, approval is given for the grant of performance rights to Mr. André Labuschagne or his nominee and the issue of transfer of shares to or for the benefit of Mr.
Labuschagne upon the vesting and exercise of those performance rights under the Long-Term Incentive Plan and on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory memorandum. If you wish to discuss this resolution, please raise your hand, or if you're attending virtually, submit your questions via the Q&A. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are on the screen. I now put the motion. Those physically in attendance, please mark the voting instructions on your yellow voting card. Those attending virtually can vote via the online portal. However, are reminded not to click on the Next button until you have selected to vote, your vote for all resolutions. I will now hand the chair back to André.
Thank you, Colin. That concludes the resolution to be voted on today. As noted, we are conducting a poll on all resolutions, and I note that the poll is already open. Can all shareholders voting online please now ensure that they have submitted their votes. I will allow another minute or so before the poll is closed. If you have any questions in relation to the submission of online votes, please send them through to the Q&A function now. For those shareholders attending physically, I now invite Amy Wong to collect your voting cards. Just put up your cards if Amy needs to pick it up. There you go. Take mine. Thanks. There being no further questions, I declare the poll closed. The staff of Automic will now process the poll and the results will be announced to the ASX once they are available.
That concludes the forward part of the business. I'd like to thank all shareholders and all staff at the meeting for their attendance and declare the meeting closed. As advised earlier, the results of the poll will be announced to the ASX once they are available. I will now go onto a presentation to shareholders to give shareholders a bit of an update on where we are with the business, touch on the last 12 months and leave shareholders with the plans for the next 12 months and going forward. 2022 was actually a very interesting year for the company.
We must say, a challenging time with the operations with grade and COVID-19, but the guys at the mines have done an amazing job to keep going, deliver close to where we were hoping to be, but obviously didn't achieve on the guidance as we set out at the beginning of FY 2022. That said, though, we've committed a lot of money into capital investment within the business with Budgerygar exploration. We kept investing, setting the company up for the future. As we announced on the July 1st , although that was the financial year, but we worked on the transaction close to seven months in FY 2022, the close of the Round Oak acquisition. That acquisition, which was approved by shareholders, was a major step for the company going forward and setting ourselves up for the future.
As we stand today, you know, two and a half years ago, we only had the Tritton Copper Mine, and we were a AUD 10 million market cap company. Since then, exactly July 1, two years ago, we bought Cracow, and we discovered. In November that year, we discovered Constellation. The share price or the market cap went up to over AUD 300 million. That allowed us to start to look for bigger and better opportunities to keep growing the business. As you all know, on the July 1st, we closed the transaction of the Round Oak assets, which included the Mt Colin Mine in North Queensland, the Jaguar copper zinc mine in West Australia, and the Stockman Project in Victoria. We ended up now with four operating assets, the operating cash flow.
We got a long life, +10-year reserve life asset in Stockman, a significant resource and reserve upgrade as part of that. Production has gone from about 33,000 tons copper equivalent production in FY 2022 going forward this year between 57,000 and 71,000 tons of copper. A significant increase in production. We do believe that copper is a good commodity to be in, as everyone, I'm sure on this call would recognize. This gives us a very strong copper-dominant portfolio going forward and an excellent platform to look at organic growth at each one of these mines, but also further look at how do we grow the business into the future. Just touching base, we probably can update this with today's price.
We significantly had a bit of a run fairly this morning. A market cap of AUD 352 million. Cash at the last quarter was AUD 52 million. As shareholders would have seen in one of the announcements the last few weeks, there was an additional AUD 28 million paid by Washington H. Soul Pattinson on the final close of the working capital with the acquisition, which would have put that number close to AUD 80 million. Significant cash to ensure that we keep investing in setting these businesses up for the future. We have also welcomed on the July 1st, Washington H. Soul Pattinson as a 30% shareholder, and see them as a long-term supporter of how do we grow this business going forward.
On the board side, we have put a lot of effort into the last two years to improve the skill sets on the board, we've seen some significant changes on the board over the last two years with first, the join of Colin Moorhead. That was in 2020, with Colin joining after we bought Cracow. With Sylvia joining last year, Colin Moorhead from the July 1st. A significant change, we do believe a much stronger board supporting the future growth of the business as we go forward. The senior executive team, been together for a long time, Rob and Ian and I, Kim Franks joining us in the last two years, to help us to look after the 1,000 employees in the business going forward.
Just touching on the FY 2022 highlights. I already sort of mentioned that. Production from the two operations, 18,000 tons, 18,500 tons from Tritton, nearly 54,000 ounces from Cracow, generated good operating cash at AUD 93 million and closing the net cash balance of AUD 138 million. That said, though, part of that was the capital raising for the payment of the Round Oak acquisition of AUD 80 million. On the growth side, the first mineral resource was put out on Constellation. Constellation now nearly a 7 million ton ore body with significant upside. We'll talk a little bit more about that. Budgerygar has been brought in production and we're currently mining the Budgerygar ore body, and that was all part of the focus to move from low grade Tritton down deep to better quality grade coming into the production profile.
On the exploration side at Cracow, we're drilling at Golden Plateau, what we see in there, starting off with tracing one structure, we're looking at multiple structures at very good grades. Then obviously, as I said, the acquisition of the Round Oak assets. I thought it might just be a good time to just sort of touch base on why did we do Round Oak. It was on strategy. We always said we wanna grow the business through multiple assets. We always said we're interested in base metals, and we always said we wanna upgrade the portfolio of the assets, and we believe that this is exactly delivering on that strategy.
Increase in scale and diversity of mine life, multi-commodities, multiple mines is always a much better opportunity and allows you to invest through multiple operations into growth, and this brings that back into the fold. As I said, that production increase going from 33 tons to over 60,000 tons of copper equivalent is a significant increase for us. Then you've still got the Stockman project, which is a 10-year mine life, currently a 10-year reserve life, with significant potential to extend that life. Certainly, the cash flow, you've got four operating mines generating operating cash, which allows us to allocate capital funds to where it's best suited to grow these businesses into long life assets. As I said, copper dominant, we always said we wanna be in the copper space. We're still around a 60% copper dominant producer as part of the new portfolio.
On sustainability, we could have talked about it the last AGM. Since then, we have made a clear and conscious decision. There's four focus areas for us to work through. One is water and containment. Some of the long-term shareholders will remember the 2019 challenge we had when we nearly ran out of water at Tritton, where the Burrendong Dam was at 1% or 2%. Needless to say, today it's 130%. It was a challenge. We understand the importance of water and how to manage it, and there's a lot of focus. On the carbon and climate change, that is just part of what we need to do.
We, as a mining industry, we need to get better at it and really look at the renewable energy options, especially when you do new projects and going forward. Diversity and inclusion goes without saying. That's what we need to drive as a business. On biodiversity and land, we have got a lot of land. We're in the area where we need to focus on the new projects which we need to build. Biodiversity offsets and management of those is gonna be critical to get that up and running. Touching base on the operations now. Interesting, I would have stand in front of shareholders 10 years ago now saying we got four years life in Tritton. 10 years later, we say we got eight years life. That's all to do with Brad and his team finding Constellation.
They keep ongoing extensions of Tritton, Murrawombie and the current operations, and we now sit and easily say there will be more than eight years of life coming out of Tritton. Cracow, when we bought it two years ago from Evolution, we said we know there's two years, but we think there's more. Today, after two years, we're still saying we think there's more, and we're now estimating if we bring the Golden Plateau deposit into production, that you look at around four years. Jaguar, before it was sold in December by Washington H. Soul Pattinson, it had about two years mine life. They discovered the Turbo deposit. The work we've done so far on Turbo has significantly increased the tons and the grade, and we're now seeing Jaguar easily extending beyond four years. Mt Colin is a very firm two years.
It's in a cash harvesting phase. It generates good money. Those funds will be used to invest in other growth projects, also to create a pipeline in North Queensland. The Stockman Project, as I said, that's a 10-year reserve life. We are seeing that we aim to have that in production by FY 2025, with up to 30,000-35,000 tons of production coming out of Stockman. I'll just touch base very briefly on each one of the mines, just to give you a feel for the plans going forward. The Tritton project has always been mining Tritton at depth on that bottom slide, on the middle slide, which you can see we've always mined Tritton down the bottom.
In January this year, we made a decision to move away from high tons, low grade out of Tritton Deeps to focus on the higher-grade deposit, part of the deposit at the bottom of Tritton. At the same time, we did the development for Budgerygar. You can see on the top right of that same slide. That is now in production. It's all about mining around 1.1% copper down at Tritton Deeps, replacing it with 1.7%-1.8% copper from an ore body pretty close to surface. At the same time, we are busy developing the Avoca Tank deposit. That development drive will hit the ore body by December, and then we will start to set it up for mining and should see mine tons coming out of it in the last quarter FY 2024.
That again is all about the grade which currently sit in that reserve is 2.5% copper. You're looking at potentially going again, replacing that 1.1% with 2.5% copper with very good gold grades, by the way, coming out of Avoca Tank. Murrawombie. We started Murrawombie a while ago. We thought there's two or three years in Murrawombie. It keep on extending, and even 12 months ago, we thought there's maybe 12 or 18 months left at Murrawombie. The exploration team drilled a hole 250 m below the current workings the other day and intersected some significant grades a further 250 m down. There's a high likelihood that Murrawombie will still keep continuing production as we going forward.
Those are the capital investment, where a lot of money has gone into Budgerygar, a lot of money has gone into Avoca Tank, but once they are set up, we can see better grades coming out of Tritton for multiple assets going, multiple mines going forward. The Constellation deposit, as I said, that was discovered in November. Currently, a resource of 6.7 million tons of 1.85% copper and pretty good gold grades. It's still open at depth. You can see it, depth, you can see on the right-hand side, everything in red is still to be tested. Those gray blocks are all EM plates, which shows the potential continuation of that ore body. It is very wet currently, as it is right all over Australia. We will get back in there and draw that out.
We're busy putting a Pre-Feasibility Study together for the extension of that ore body and actually bring it into production. The total exploration pipeline. Just wanna touch pretty quickly on this. The Constellation deposit was found using EM technology, airborne EM technology, and then ground-based, and then we drilled the first hole, and it was a spectacular discovery. Now that northern top left-hand side, northern side of the tenements has never been tested. Brad and his team has currently done a EM survey. We're waiting for the results. We are looking for the repeats of the Constellation top ore bodies as we go further north. In this tenement package. As you can see there's other known deposits like Kurrajong, which we're planning to drill if it gets dry again, and to bring that into a resource later this financial year. Go to Cracow.
That's a beautiful photo, which you can see a very good infrastructure, very different setup than both all the other mines. It's very, very beautiful. The Cracow mine is a mature operation, high grade, with very good quality infrastructure. The way we've been mining for the last two years is declining grade because you're basically mining all the inland areas. The main focus for us is to reinvest. It's a very clear strategy for us. The cash flow we generate out of the Cracow getting reinvested in exploration to set it up for the future. A lot of work's being done on the Golden Plateau drilling. We're also starting to focus on the southern mine field, which has never really been explored, to see what we can discover and find further south of the current infrastructure.
Touching on Golden Plateau, you can see there that purplish color was the resource structure we thought would have been a low-grade structure, which we're going to drill. As the geologists got their head around the structure, we're now seeing crosscut structures and wherever they cross, there's some significant grades. You can see some of those grades in that slide at 16 g, 7 g, 4g, 9 g a ton. These are significant grades that we're seeing, and we're expecting Golden Plateau to be better than what we thought when we originally got into it. The Jaguar operation, that's a new acquisition from Round Oak. Very different, again, in terms of the area. It is currently mining the Bentley operation at depth. The new discovery, as I said earlier, the Turbo lens, which was discovered in 2021.
The drilling we've done so far since we owned this asset has shown significant potential for further growth of that, of that deposit. We're also investigating the old Jaguar mine, copper zinc mine, to see if we can restart that mine because we do believe there's some potential going back into the old mine. Looking quickly at the Jaguar deposit, as you can or the Turbo deposit down deep, you've got the Jaguar deeps, which only had one drill hole through it, and you can see pretty good grades through the Jaguar deposit. This year for Jaguar, we're specifically focusing on using the cash we generate out of that operation to reinvest it, to set it up with ventilation, because you know we need to get deeper, fix up the pumping system and really setting it up for production of the Turbo deposit going forward.
You would have seen we put an announcement out on the Turbo deposit. It's now over 1.26 million tons at very good copper and zinc grades, which we're seeing out of those deposits. North Queensland, that photo is basically the full footprint of the Mt Colin mine. The Mt Colin mine is a small underground mine. We're mining it with contractors, which is Barminco. We then haul it to Mount Isa mill, and we treat it at the Mount Isa mill. Very simple process. An office set up a camp, and the whole plan for us going forward with this asset is look at that model of using small underground and toll treating for various and create a pipeline of projects going forward to duplicate these projects going forward.
As you can see there, quite a large tenement package. We will start to look at where is the priority areas to go and target for further exploration. Also starting to talk to neighboring explorers around us to see what they have which can fit this model. Barbara, of course, is a mine which has been mined before by Round Oak. We are going back. It was mined as an open pit. We're busy drilling it out as we speak to confirm the resource, and the aim is to move from Mt Colin to Barbara by moving infrastructure using the same contract and the same model to keep producing out of the North Queensland assets. Stockman. That photo you see there is the old tailings dam, which is already in place and being managed by the government.
It is being used through historical mining. It's not new to the area, I think is a takeaway point. On the Stockman, we already have a mining lease approved. We've got the infrastructure lease to use that tailings dam already approved. There's a work plan, which is project work plan has been approved. There's various other approvals we're working through. It's a project with 10 years mine life at significant good grades at 2.9% copper equivalents recovered. In ground, it's over 4%. A lot of work is being done on further work on recoveries and plant setup as we're going forward. A key takeaway as well, a lot of infrastructure is already in place. There's about AUD 10 billion worth of road infrastructure already there, which we don't need to go and replace.
When you stand back from this, we know that there's some skepticism from some investors around, "Can you get this up and running?" It's a historical site. You've got your lease approvals. You've got your tailings dam approvals. The rest of the approvals we're working on is similar to any other approval you need to get for any project you're going to start around Australia. Simple model, two underground mines. You look at the infrastructure, it's pretty small, 200,000 tons and 300,000 tons per annum mines. You think about what we have at Tritton. We've got Murrawombi doing 500,000-600,000 tons. You've got Budgerygar doing 200-300 tons. The development to get to those are pretty short.
If to get to Avoca Tank was 2.6 km to get to Budgerygar was 600 m, that should be fairly simple to set up as an underground mine. At this stage, it's designed as conventional flotation plant. Ian and the team are working on various options to make sure we use twenty-first century technology to build this plant. As we work forward on this, we will have a Definitive Feasibility Study plan for the end of FY 2023. That will look at various other technologies available for both production and the treatment processing side. You look at that, once it's up and running, this mine has got the potential to deliver between 30,000 tons and 35,000 tons of copper equivalent production.
You add that to the current 60 odd thousand tons, you'll get pretty close to 100,000 tons of copper equivalent production if you get Stockman up and running, or when you get Stockman up and running. I'm not gonna spend too much time on this slide. Shareholders would have seen we are giving a lot more detail on guidance for specific commodities. There's a big focus in the company on costs, and every team at the mine is doing a very good job at this stage to manage their costs according to the budgets. The biggest driver for us is to manage the cost, manage the cash flows, and keep investing in these projects because we need to set this business up for the future as we discussed before.
A lot of organic growth at each one of these mines, and take those opportunities to create a significant business. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from any shareholders on the presentation? There's no questions. I wanna thank all shareholders. I wanna thank all the employees of this company and the board for leading us to where we are today. I'm looking forward to FY 2023 to be a great year and setting us up for the future. Thank you very much.