I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Bryan Quinn, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you all for your attendance today for our release of our 2023 full year financial results at Aurelia. I'd like to introduce some of the Aurelia team who are presenting today and also online. Martin Cummings, the Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Graham, General Manager of Growth, Matt Nuttall, the General Manager of Peak Mine, North and South, and Angus Wyllie, the General Manager of Dargues Mine. But the results provide a very clear picture of an improving performance over the last six months with a volatile backdrop of economic uncertainty as it relates to prices for some of our commodities.
We recognize the ability to operate strongly under all situations is actually fundamental for our company to be successful and to also manage the risks accordingly for these periods. We provided feedback throughout the year, informing the first half of FY 2023 was not a good result, with the second half providing step change improvement and helping towards setting up the FY 2024 to be a stronger year. It's very clear the management team in place now understands there is a step change performance required, and FY 2024 is a priority.
Achieve 12 months recordable injury-free, which is an incredible achievement. Dargues was also able to achieve record mine and mill tonnage and revenue for FY 2023. Hera Mine in the Cobar Region was ramped down and placed on care and maintenance, and the team was very busy with establishing funding arrangements for the Federation project, which resulted in delivering a low credit risk counterparty, Trafigura, which has assisted our liquidity to access our high-grade Federation ores in the near future.
Lastly, we have delivered some very good results in growing our resource and reserve in FY 2023 with reduced capital expenditure, and we recognize this will be a focus in FY 2024, since our resource base is among the largest in the region of Cobar. But it's very important we convert this over the coming years, and we've actively budgeted capital for infill drilling and reviewing opportunities within our existing resource base.
To assist cash flow in the second half of the year, Aurelia board orchestrated an organizational reset program, which really focused on safety performance, reducing capital spend, paying down debt, and instituted a Working Smarter campaign, which uncovered AUD 25 million of cost benefits.
These actions were all important to set up FY 2024 to be a year where we focus strongly on operating discipline and driving down costs, while having a clear growth plan, which will set up Aurelia to emerge as a stronger base metals company. The cash flow generated in the last six months was effective in paying down our debt and strengthening our balance sheet, which we recognize is important to set up the organization for our growth pipeline, to moving into self-funding beyond the Federation project.
We continue to study and execute on our suite of excellent growth projects in the Cobar region, including the execution of the Federation project. We continue to look how to optimize all these projects using technological solutions, with the result being, ultimately lower cost, improved returns, and improved volumes and grades.
Look, we do recognize China's growth has slowed and government policy changes are not finalized to understand what direction the government will take, and this obviously has a short-term impact on our base metals, demand and pricing. We are strong believers in the medium-term fundamentals, returning with population growth, urbanization, rising living standards, will all promote significantly larger global economy in the medium term. We also recognize, on top of this, that decarbonization focus will also accelerate the demand for critical base metals like we have.
Irrespective of this medium-term outlook, really, our focus on driving our costs down and targeting the lower half of the cost curve is paramount to combat our inflationary pressures, with the ultimate priority to delivering maximum margins through the cycles for our shareholders and stakeholders.
Our drive is actually to position ourselves lower than all of our peers, which we believe we are well on our way to achieve, knowing that, many of them are faced with headwinds of no new economic discoveries, costs to buy assets, refinancing costs, lack of development opportunities, and permitting challenges, and, and local stakeholder oppositions. So I'm a firm believer that Aurelia is positioned well on all fronts in the Cobar region with our large resource, infrastructure grow, grades, permits, and good relationships that will support us, to accelerate going forward.
Knowing there's a clear short-term plan for the future in critical base metals and our strengthening balance sheet, we're positioning to be a catalyst for potential integration in the Cobar, Cobar region, where it makes commercial sense, using our high-quality infrastructure and access to our resources.
As you all noted, we've updated our vision of the company, and we're now inspiring to be a development operator of choice for critical base metals, powering a low carbon footprint, and providing superior shareholder value. This deliberate reshaping of our company and the life of our portfolio means we will be well positioned to benefit from these trends going forward. The best outcome for delivering superior returns will be increasing our productivity and lowering our costs from existing and future assets.
This requires us to focus on developing a culture to embrace innovation and continuous improvement, and it is right-sized for our company to maximize returns to our shareholders. It's also important that we continue to generate options for our future by leveraging other levers, including exploration success, and continuing to build our hub-and-spoke model for the Cobar region, which will provide significant synergies in tier-one jurisdiction with significant resource potential.
The proximity of assets improve people career opportunities, equipment optimization, working capital benefits, optimization of plans and growth projects, blending and logistics benefits, and supply chain and procurement cost-saving potential. The hub-and-spoke will also provide the benefit of reducing overheads, with the opportunity to streamline some back-office work.
Of course, we need to complete the federation project to unlock some of these synergy benefits and finalize the project study on Great Cobar, which is our next potential high-grade copper project, which will be worked on in the financial year FY 2024. I'll now hand you over to Martin to talk to the FY 23 actual results and the FY 24 guidance. Thanks, Martin.
Thanks, Bryan. So as Bryan has covered our operational performance, but I'll just quickly recap on the outcomes on slide five. So last month, we released our June quarterly report, and that was really highlighted by the achievement of both production and cost guidance. Our gold production was above our guidance at 86,000 ounces, and our copper, lead, and zinc were all within the ±5% range we provided. The achieved AISC of AUD 2,315 an ounce was also within guidance, and it really was a very pleasing result, given the lower base metal price environment in the second half of the year.
And within Aurelia, this was also a period of extreme change in the business, with completion of the underground mining transition at Peak and the closure of the Hera Mine. I'd just like to recognize the effort of the team at Hera, who took the mine to closure and the plant to care and maintenance both safely, and in doing so, generated cash flow higher than we had planned. Now, let's turn to the group's financial performance on slide six. You recall back in February, at that time, we released a disappointing set of results for the first half.
While we weren't able to recover that for the full year, we have delivered a much improved result in the second half. Firstly, on sales revenue, and that was about AUD 70 million lower in the year at AUD 369 million, primarily driven by lower metal volumes sold, from lower tons processed at Peak and the impact of closing the Hera mine in March.
But looking at the revenue variance by metal, the main impact was from the 10,000 less tonnes of zinc that we sold during the period, impacted further by a lower realized price of about AUD 200 below the prior year. So the total impact to revenue from zinc was around AUD 48 million out of the AUD 70 million. For the other metals, lead sales were down about AUD 13 million, with around 6,500 tonnes less sold, but that was offset somewhat by receiving a slightly higher average price.
Our gold sold was just over 8,000 ounces lower, but given the strong gold prices in FY 2023, revenue was only about AUD 3 million lower, and copper was largely in line with higher sales, offset by a lower realized price.
Our EBITDA improved from the half from AUD 12 million to a full-year result of AUD 56 million for both statutory and underlying, noting that was lower than the prior year, but a material improvement. The lower impact from revenue, so the impact from the lower revenue I just went through was the main driver, but we also did recognize higher ore inventory charges during the year.
Improving our EBITDA margin from 15% really is now a key focus for FY 2024, and that will be driven by improvements to efficiency and cost reduction programs that are now underway. A statutory net loss for the year of AUD 52 million was released. A large part of that was the depreciation and amortization expense of AUD 103 million, which is lower than the prior year, driven by lower production, but also from a lower asset carrying value at Dargues, which resulted in lower depreciation charges this year.
The other items that represents the difference between statutory and underlying loss after tax relates to two impairments that were booked during the year. So the first one we put through in December, which was an impairment of the Hera asset, and we reduced the carrying value of that by AUD 5.4 million pre-tax. And then at year-end, we booked a further impairment expense of AUD 15.4 million pre-tax relating to the carrying value of our exploration assets.
The bulk of that impairment relates to exploration around Dargues, and about half of that Dargues impairment relates to exploration expense that was incurred pre-acquisition. Finally, group cash flow was a reduction of AUD 38 million for the year. But importantly, that movement includes full repayment of the term loan, which stood at AUD 20.7 million at the start of FY 2023, and we also added a further AUD 26.1 million to restricted cash during the year to take that to 50, just under 57 million for the full year.
So in total, AUD 47 million in debt reduction and cash backing was funded from our operating cash flow during the year. Our cash balance was further bolstered late in the year from receipt of proceeds relating to the institutional placement and entitlement offer, which totaled just under AUD 24 million, net of fees, leaving us with a cash balance of AUD 39 million at the end of June.
So turning to slide seven, and really, this slide is the key message I want to leave with you in terms of the results, and that the FY 2023 year was truly a year of two halves. On almost every metric, we were able to stabilize and improve business performance in the second half, which sets us up to achieve further improvements in FY 2024. On safety, as Bryan's outlined, Dargues was able to achieve 12 months recordable injury-free in FY 2023, which left the site with a site TRIFR at the end of June, remarkably, of zero.
The group as a whole went six months without a recordable injury. That resulted in a 41% reduction in our TRIFR for the year, and a 52% reduction in our TRIFR from December through to June. And again, all while significant change was occurring in the business... Our group all-in sustaining cost per ounce reduced 24% from December to June, and the second half all-in sustaining cost was under AUD 2,000. And as I mentioned, this is during an environment where base metal prices were falling. That lower cost contributed to a significant increase in EBITDA of 267%, from AUD 12 to 44 million in the second half.
And the culmination of that improved performance is shown in that bottom right corner chart. At the end of December, we had cash net of bank debt of AUD 11 million. And to just explain that, that comprises AUD 23.7 million of cash that was on hand, and our term loan balance that stood at 12.6. Our restricted cash balance at that time was AUD 41 million. So in the second half, we repaid that term loan in full.
We fully cashed back our performance bonds, and along with the proceeds from the institutional placement and entitlement offer, grew our cash on the balance sheet to AUD 96 million. But just turning to slide eight and continuing on the theme of the balance sheet, I just want to recap you on the transformation that has occurred now that sets us up to restart development at Federation. Our new Trafigura facility we announced in May consists of a loan of $24 million, or AUD 36 million, and a performance bond facility of AUD 65 million.
This facility is very competitively priced at 6% above the US dollar benchmark rate for the loan, and a straight 6% margin for the performance bonds. But equally importantly, it is extremely flexible, with no financial governance, no establishment fees or early repayment fees, and no requirement to draw down on the loan immediately, which will save us on interest costs. The repayment profile has been set to support the capital spend of Federation, with the majority of repayments backended to year tthree and four of the four-year term.
We satisfied all the conditions precedent under the facility in August and achieved financial close. So now we start FY 2024 debt free, with a significant pro forma cash balance of AUD 132 million, which we'll note is not far off our market cap today.
I prefer to this as pro forma cash, as the balance includes some items that have or will be received this half. Firstly, the restricted cash. As I mentioned, the facility has reached financial close and the performance bonds have been replaced, and that cash is in the process of being returned to us within days. The next part on the chart is the proceeds from the retail entitlement offer. So that was the second part of the equity raise, and that AUD 16 million was received in early July. And finally, one further amount that we've added is the tax refund that we expect to receive this year.
So, once we submit our FY 2023 tax return, AUD 21 million under the loss carryback tax offset for tax we paid in the FY 2020 and 2021 tax years, will be returned, and we're carrying that amount as a receivable on the balance sheet at 30 June 2023. So, in summary, with pro forma cash and the $36 million undrawn under the Trafigura loan, takes our total liquidity to AUD 168 million. And really means we're truly positioned to support our excellent growth opportunities at Federation and beyond. But now just turning to slide nine, and we've outlined our guidance for FY 2024.
Gold production is guided lower at 60,000 to 65,000 ounces this year, with the reduction driven by the closure of Hera in FY 2023 but also reflects some lower gold grades expected at both Peak and Dargues.
Our base metals production is very strong in FY 2024 and will come solely from Peak, with strong zinc and lead almost offsetting the impact of the Hera closure completely. Our copper production will also be slightly higher. Our all-in sustaining cost guidance is AUD 1,850 to 2,050 per ounce, which continues our cost reduction journey that we started in the second half of FY 2023. I want to note that this guidance does factor in current base metal prices, which are lower than the realized prices we achieved in FY 2023, and the particular impact is for zinc.
We do expect production to be slightly lower in first quarter as per our budget, and that's as Peak ramps up its mining rates. That will likely result in a slightly higher all-in sustaining cost for the first quarter, but then we expect it to trend down lower from quarter two. Federation growth capital is largely in line with the profile we outlined back in April, with AUD 70 to 80 million incurred in the year. As we released earlier this month, Redpath are now back underground, with the development restarting on the 1 August 2023.
We expect spend to be relatively low in the first quarter, in line with our, capital plan, and that will trend up over the year as activity ramps up on-site. We've also allocated funding to explore our extensive tenement portfolio in FY 2024, with AUD 10 to 15 million included in our guidance, and that is a slight increase on FY 2023.
I'll just point you to some more detail that supports the guidance, and that is in the appendix of the presentation. In summary, I know there's a lot of the Aurelia team are listening in on the call today, so I just want to thank you all for your contribution to the significant amount of information we've released today. It truly is appreciated. Thank you for your time, and I'll now hand over to Andrew.
Thanks, Martin. Today, following along, we'll flip across to slide 11 at this point. But just getting back on a little bit of what Martin touched on. You know, over the last six months, when I stepped into the interim role, the key piece was a step change in what we were doing. And as Martin has gone through on slide seven, we certainly achieved that in the second half, you know, across the board, be it safety, production, costs, whatever. It was a real step change in the business, and it set us up very, very well for FY 2024 and the future.
The other key element, which Martin had a lot to do with, was outlined on slide eight around funding. And certainly relative to our peers, but definitely looking at ourselves, we're in excellent shape now to be funded to deliver what it was that we wanted to deliver. And when I turn to slide 11, effectively that's what we want to deliver. And Bryan touched on it at the start, we formalized it down with a change of vision, but we've been talking about this slide, you know, for the last six months.
Aurelia is a base metals business. We are at the moment producing a lot of gold, but over time, and we're not talking a lot of time, we will organically shift into base metals, and we can see that in the updated chart on slide 11.
It is a similar chart to one I've used many times before, but we have picked up the FY 2023 actual here on the left. And you can see we produced a lot of gold through 2023, on a review basis. No surprises there. You know, Dargues operating Peak was producing good gold, Hera producing good gold. And let's be honest, when the Aussie dollar gold price is more than AUD 3,000, as it is at the moment, that's a great place to be. In that we're generating substantial cash.
We have generated cash from that gold through last year, and we will continue to do so into this year, as you can see by the guidance that Martin has outlined. That said, we do transition. We transition very quickly to being a base, a very well-balanced base metals, producer. 2026 is what's approximated there on the chart on the right, and we will update that in due course. But you can see just visually, we shift from being very gold heavy to being a very well-balanced, but very base metals, balanced, business.
With a good mix of copper as well as zinc, and, and those who've followed along commodities, you know, both is off relative to where they are. Copper is still a good price relative to where it's, been historically. And both have a, a strong future in our minds, based on, the shift to, electrification and decarbonization. Now, what supports all of that? I'm gonna flip across the slide.
So the other thing we've released today, as well as our full year result, is our updated mineral resource and reserve statement, and also our production target statement. Which, you know, there's a lot of information in those, and I certainly encourage you to get into those and have a bit of a read to fully understand what is the Aurelia business.
And I say that because, you know, you flip to page one of our mineral resource statement, 27 million tons, and we have a very, very substantial resource of very good grade inventory. But it doesn't really tell the story when you look at it in that sort of total piece, because what you're doing is averaging out copper ore with zinc lead ore, with gold ore.
So I would certainly encourage you to think about it and have a look at a more granular level. So certainly, at the level of the assets and in respect of Peak, dig down even further, because Peak ultimately is copper ore as well as lead zinc ore. And we've outlined that in the mineral resource statement and the reserve statement. And it gives you a better understanding of what Peak particularly is and what Aurelia actually is. So just stepping to that on slide 12, and a few highlights for us. One, just to call out straightaway on Peak.
So we haven't done a lot of drilling this year. We talked about that through December and January. Part of that was on, you know, on cash preservation. We did curtail a lot of drilling. We did continue to do drilling at Peak, particularly underground near mine drilling, and we've seen the results of some of that come through today. You know, a substantial uplift in resource for Chesney, for example, largely copper ore. And similarly, and for us, quite excitingly, the release of a maiden resource for Burrabungie.
It's not huge, 220,000 tons, but very, very good grade for us going forward, 2.1% copper, certainly economic as those tons start to fill out. And one of the tasks for us this year is continuing to think about how that fills out and also what it means, particularly to the south, for other opportunities. So when you look at Peak, you know, one thing to flag is it is transitioning to being very copper dominant.
I think on our resource statement, we've got 16 million tons, 1.8% copper and 0.9 grams gold. You know, if an exploration company had something like that, everyone would be very excited about it. We have that in a greenfield setting, you know, within very, very short trucking distance of a fully operational, fully permitted processing plant. So I think it's very, very well set up to transition from the ores it's feeding today, largely gold heavy, largely zinc, into that very, very large copper inventory over time.
We're doing some work this year to think a bit about how that's best processed at Peak and through the Peak plant, and is there anything that we can do to improve that? And Bryan touched on the fact that we'll do a study on Great Cobar through the year.
We have done a pre-feas previously, but thinking about with all that we know now, is there something we can do around that to make it even better? On Federation, I did mention we didn't do a lot of drilling this year. One of the things we did curtail was further drilling at Federation. So we certainly had a resource and a reserve and a production target that absolutely supported the development of the project. So moving forward with that development is our priority. Efficiency will come from drilling from underground, and we're.
You know, as mentioned on the call, we're in there at the moment with Redpath, who are progressing it deeper. Once we get to having those drill cuttings in place, we will be drilling from underground. We also have in the budget a plan to do a limited amount of surface work as well, testing those extensions to the northeast and the southwest. But we were pleased. We did work through an enormous backlog of drilling. Remember, we had five drill rigs working Federation. We had to work through all of that core, which we've done.
It largely upgraded material in categories, supported the inventory we had, and we've had no real change to our production target there at this stage. I want just to call out in the MROR, Nymagee. Those who track along our MRORs would have seen that previous years. You know, 1.9 million tons of 2.2% copper. Again, for an exploration company who finds that, everyone will be very excited.
So, we have that within the portfolio, and we do have a plan this year to do further drilling around the imaging and start to then think about how we bring that on as mineable tons. Finally, just to touch on Dargues, we have disclosed previously this life of 12 to 15 months, and that is reflected through the MROR, but also through the production target. We're pretty confident in that inventory. And the real challenge for us now is just continuing to operate as we have done at Dargues through that residual piece of its life. I'll pass over now to Bryan, who I think is going to cover through where we're up to on Federation.
Thanks, Andrew. As Martin highlighted, Federation commenced on the 1 August 2023, its first cut in line with the plan. There's a significant amount of work also going on with project changes that have been released, and also along with the plan. The amount of commitments that have been made on the critical long lead items, including ventilation fans, roadheaders, and raise boring, is all very much underway. The photos on slide 13 really just show a couple of photos. One of the long shots I took about two weeks ago when I was in the mine, having an inspection.
I guess the key thing for Federation now is that the team has established itself. It's getting into a routine. It's moving well through the development phase and ramping up nicely. There's currently around 40 to 50 people working on site through Redpath and our team, and we're really focused on now building our team and getting it set up for success. So, I guess the key takeaway for Federation is after very much the funding was approved, the board approval, the project has really kicked off in line with expectations that we set out earlier in the year.
We'll continue to optimize and evaluate scope as we progress. Obviously, just to reinforce, the total capital for this project is AUD 1.3 million, of which in our guidance, we have between AUD 70 to 80 million being guided on for this year. So, in summary, we're actually well placed with the resources and infrastructure.
We have a good balance sheet supporting our growth plans. We have a refreshed vision that Andrew also talked about for the company, which really drives our focus towards base metals going forward, as per the graphics that Andrew provided on slide 11. And it's really going to allow us to get ahead of our peers in terms of how we get returns out of our business, going into the next five years or so. If I can just talk to slide 14, what's important, I've got six dot points there.
I put out a CEO's 100-day plan just 90 days ago, and those points are still very much in order. Obviously, point one, which is really going to finalize the revised vision and strategy. So we've sort of talked about that.
That's well and truly kicked off, and we're launching that, and we're rolling it out through the organization, very much focused on being a developer and the preferred developer and operator of choice for critical base metals. As I said, you know, powering a low-carbon future, and but really focused on maximizing and providing superior shareholders returns. In terms of continuing hitting our operational targets and strengthening our balance sheet, you know, we're really... We've two big projects underway at the moment.
One, really focused on unit costs and volume potential from Peak, with also making sure we apply very strong capital discipline. And obviously, doing that while we try and fill the mill as quickly as possible at Peak. So there's a large piece of work and a project underway.
The team's fully engaged at Peak to deliver that. And I believe we're gonna have some good, good runs on the board as we progress through that project over the coming months. The second or the third priority is delivering Federation project. So obviously, the contract has been remobilized, as we discussed. Projects are now moving along quite well on the surface and sticking to the timeframe we've committed to. And obviously, the next big milestone for us will be the Raise Bore contractor being mobilized in December 2023.
And the fourth, the Peak improvement program is really focused on yeah, how to get more efficiency out of Peak in terms of overall efficiencies. You know, basically focusing on lowering your costs and getting more use of our mill effectively over the next 18 months before the Federation ore arrives. There's a big piece of work on Cobar province model, which really focuses on, for us, how do we optimize the flow of material in the Cobar region for ourselves in terms of, you know, using our assets?
As we sort of ramp up our overall business with Peak, hopefully moving forward with better returns, Federation coming on board, the Great Cobar study being completed and any other sort of commercial options we look at as well, that sort of fills our mills and delivers superior value. So Andrew is sort of leading that work and looking at the whole growth model in that region.
And we're going to be open to opportunities that come up in terms of commercial opportunities with other players in the fields. We do want to be the catalyst to obviously integrate that region and deliver superior returns to our shareholders. And lastly, optimizing the management structure of the organization. It really to manage the risks and the opportunities of the organization is going to be a really big focus.
Getting very much an organization fit and ready for our future is already well underway, including parts of the several key roles, as we sort of settle the organization into the future phase we need to be in. I also want to call out a big thank you to the relay team, as Martin did, for their response over really the last six months of stepping in and improving the performance of the company and really helping us set up for financial year 2024.
As Martin said, I know there's a lot of people online from the company. We're going to do a staff call out after this as well, but to sort of provide a sense of the feedback and engage with our teams. But I really want to call out to those people. They're the ones sort of making this change and coming on a journey with us to improve our business. So that's all. So I'd like to now hand it over to questions and answers to the adjudicator, please.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the headset to ask your question. Your first question comes from William Taylor, from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good day. Good morning, Bryan and team. Thanks for the call. Just a couple of focus points for myself. Just touching firstly on FY 2024 guidance, certainly a stronger outlook than, than we had, which is good to see. Focusing on Peak, could you just provide some detail on, I guess, the, the levers that are at play for the all-in sustaining cost expectations? So I guess aside from the by-product pricing and sustaining capital, are there any other, I guess, inbuilt expectations on, on cost initiatives, that you've built in?
Martin, would you like to answer that one?
Yeah. Thanks, Bryan. Morning, Will. I guess the key focus for guidance this year is deliverability. So we've built guidance across all of, you know, underpinned by our budget across our business, a budget that our teams are supporting and, and that has an element of deliverability in it. So we haven't gone too aggressive on the cost structure at either Peak or at Dargues, but we recognize the opportunity. So, we've taken probably a different route, and, and rather than, build that into guidance, we've built it into our incentive plans to actually go after those savings.
So, so really, you know, the key to Peak next year will be getting the development rates back up where we want them. And that will in turn open up the headings, to increase all mined. And obviously, we are looking at at mining and milling rates which are in excess of FY 23. Ultimately, the medium-term goal is to drill that mill at Peak. The Federation is an important all source for that, but Peak right now is focused on those operational improvements. You know, Peak is a very sensitive site to volumes, and you will have seen that in the model.
So, you know, anything we can do to increase that will have a natural benefit back to all-in sustaining costs. But, but in summary, we haven't been super aggressive on our costs, and we've also factored in that lower zinc price. So yeah, we're, we're quite comfortable with it.
Okay, excellent. Thank you. And I'm just thinking about, I guess, to Andrew's comments about how we should think about Peak in terms of the copper and the lead-zinc components of the operation. Are you able to provide any indication as to what the kind of tonnage that would be between, I guess, either between the copper and lead-zinc or and/or between the north and the south mines over FY 2024?
Andrew, do you want to go ahead?
This fits well with Matt or Martin, but, well, it's worth noting on the pack at slide 17, I'm not sure if you've come across that. We do provide slightly more granular detail supporting some of that guidance, which does include some information in relation to Peak. Matt, probably something you want to just chat to how 2024 plays out? Just flagging, Will, that, you know, we do continue to chase the high grades of the zinc material, particularly in South Mine, in the near terms, speaking quite generally, before we transition to really chasing North Mine copper.
And part of that is just straight up on NSR. You know, it's worth chasing that material now. We know it's there. It's continuing to grow as we drill. We will continue to chase that, which is why we're putting Federation, for example, ahead of Great Cobar, and that we know we've got good material at Peak that we'll continue to chase, and then we'll develop the North Mine. I might just jump over, throw over to Matt, over here from Peak. He, he might just talk a little bit just about what he's targeting for the year.
Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. All right, Will. So yeah, New Cobar, the northern operations, we've seen a reduction in FY 2024 from FY 2023, mainly driven by having mined out developed stocks in the Jubilee, which is the upper part of the New Cobar system.
So production over there is going from about 120,000 tons last year, down to 65,000 tons this year. That'll be offset by an increase in lead-zinc production from the South mine. So as Andrew said, while we transition over the long term from lead-zinc to predominantly copper, in the short term, FY 2024, we're actually producing more lead-zinc than copper from FY 2023.
So, that decrease in copper from the northern operations will be offset by an increase in lead, mainly in the Kronos, going from 124,000 tonnes last year to 195,000 tonnes this year. It'll take up most of the difference. Kronos will remain steady in a lead zinc feed at around 80,000 tonnes. We do have a small copper stope in the Hulk, identified in the recent drill program, will come in at around 20,000 tonnes at 3%. We are kicking up the S400 production, although that is predominantly a gold lens. So last year, 20,000 tonnes, this year, 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes at 4.7 grams.
That ore body really is stope by stope, on whether it goes to the lead zinc side of the plant or the copper side of the plant. So, it's 0.7, 0.6, and 0.5, copper, lead, zinc, respectively. So, some of the stopes will are slightly higher in copper and go to the copper feed. Some are slightly higher in lead zinc and go to the lead zinc. It is also a very good blending material.
The other big change this year, which is reducing copper, is a wind down of the Perseverance Deeps. 67,000 ton last year, winding down to 40,000 to 50,000 ton this year, and that may just creep over into FY 2025, and that will see the end of production at Perseverance. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Andrew.
Wonderful. Yeah, thank you very much for that. That was great. And just squeezing in one last quick one, just on Federation. Is Redpath fully staffed now for the project? And with respect to the long lead items, are any of them sitting on the critical path for the project at present?
In terms of, in terms of Redpath, they've got the resources now to do the development work they need. So all the equipment's there, all the shifts are basically resourced to do the work. That's on the critical path right now, obviously. In terms of the long lead items, obviously, they are on the critical path. That's how the project runs. But there's nothing which would suggest that we have any scheduling impact on project rationale.
Okay, wonderful. Excellent. Thank you very much. I'll pass on.
Thanks, Will.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We'll now pause for a moment to allow participants to register their question. Your next question comes from Daniel Roden from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good day, Bryan, Andrew, management team. Thanks for taking my question. I just wondered if you can touch on the Federation capital profile. Guidance in FY 2024 of AUD 70 to 80 is probably a bit lower than where I was pitching the CapEx for the year. Is there any read-throughs on that capital profile that we can take through? Or is that kind of largely within expectations?
Martin, would you like to answer that question?
Yeah. Good day, Dan. So, if I take you back to April, we talked about capital of AUD 143 million. If we work backwards, it was around AUD 108 million got you to commercial production, and around AUD 73 million that got you to first ore. And at the time, we said the first ore, that stope ore, is achieved about 12 months after the restart. So, on that basis, you will recall my comments earlier that said the guidance of 70 to 80 was largely in line with that capital profile. You know, noting that we said 73 sort of in this year. So, so no read-throughs. On track as per April.
Yep. Okay, Matt, thank you. And I guess I've just got touching on your comments as well about, you know, obviously, different crossings change, capital crossing has changed over, I guess since the, recommencement of, of the project. Like, is that, you know, that's probably, still too early to obviously make any changes, but has that changed how you're viewing the development timeframe, also schedule, and like where you're, you know, expecting to go into development, any of the, you know, mine frames that you're, working towards? Is that impacting any of that?
Look, I'll answer that first. There's no change to the plan at this point in time. The project is basically focused on delivering this, you know, on schedule and on cost. If you're referring to the Federation project, there's no change to the plan.
Apart from as we go, normal due diligence work, we'll continue to revise the scope and optimize the project to maximize the value. But there's no sort of diversion of the plan based on the current short-term pricing. Martin, any other comments from you? No, probably the only other comment would be back to those doughnut charts that Andrew talked to then. So, you know, we are gold dominant at the moment, and we have a very balanced revenue profile of the group.
So, you know, this year, you know, the lower base has been supported by the higher gold. So, you know, at the portfolio level, you know, the portfolio is working for us. But no, we're not gonna make changes based on any sort of short-term price action at the moment.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, thanks, guys. I appreciate your time. Thanks.
Your next question comes from Bill Murray, from W. Murray Super Fund. Please go ahead.
Could you give us a little bit more information on the Chesney and Burrabungie operations, or not operations at this point, but where you see those going forward?
Thanks, Bill. Andrew, would you like to talk to that, or, or pass it to Matt?
Matt, you might want to go first, and I can have a bit of a conversation about Burrabungie and what we're seeing.
Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. Yeah, good morning, Bill. We, the Chesney is in our production profile for FY 2024, and we will recommence development there from September. So, jumbo transferring over there next week. Pleasingly, in Chesney, between the life of mine early this year and the budget pack, we've identified Eastern Gold Lens sitting behind previously mined copper stopes in the upper Chesney.
So we'll start development in that area, bring that online, and then there are some further development in FY 2025, both in Chesney Upper and Chesney Lower. Production this year from the stopes, targeting 24,000 tonnes at 0.4 grams gold and 2.2% copper. We actually have a diamond drill over there this month, so we are drilling more, particularly at depth at the moment.
Thanks, Matt. I might just pick up from there, just on the drilling. We had a drill over at Perseverance Deeps, and when that comes off in the next week or so, we will move it to Chesney. The intent is to drill along strike and also at depth, testing strike extensions and then also, you know, the strong potential at Chesney continued depth. That's a real focus for the very near term and for this year.
You know, we drilled Burrabungie from surface last year, and we did some work from underground, more recently, which is really around trying to look at the connection between Chesney and Burrabungie. You know, it suggests that they're not connected.
They are separate lenses, which is what we expected, but really just trying to understand what's around it. We certainly haven't got to the bottom of Burrabungie. The other piece to note, and I sort of say briefly, is the work to the south. So beyond Burrabungie, you get to Mount Pleasant, and then you get to Young Australian. Both had some historic drilling. Both have items there that are interesting. So we have in the plan for exploration for this year to do some surface work on Mount Pleasant, which is a sort of mixed potential along to the south.
And then in the following year, we have some money in the forecast to do Young Australian, which is again, the next one along. So look, as always, with Peak, the end is not in sight for any of these ore bodies. One of the things we're doing a bit this year is trying to close out certain parts, and things like Burrabungie, Mount Pleasant, Young Australian, and Chesney find, you know, that upside potential, which, you know, Peak is certainly known for.
Yeah. A couple of additional questions. At Federation, you had some good gold hits. Would you intend to sort of attack that initially in the production schedule?
Yeah, I'll just pick that one up, Bryan, if you like. The...
Okay. Yeah, we did, we did have some good gold intercepts. Trying to understand the gold and what controls that, so if it's the base and what controls that, has been a focus of the team and will be a focus when we do the underground drilling. That isn't a gold hit and a gold lens per se. It's associated with parts of the basement. So thinking about how it fits within the total sequence of mining is something that my planning people will do. But yeah, the intention is to do more work on gold at Federation.
We did some quite scientific work with UTAS over the last 12 months in trying to understand that and raise bore, replace, and other techniques. We will apply some of that this year in trying to better understand that gold. But yeah, certainly as you flag, good to have those very high-grade gold intercepts, and we'll definitely add to the NSR of that material.
And finally, just on Hera. It's a relatively modern plant. When that eventually closes, is there any potential of moving it up to the Peak area?
Yeah. So basically, the intention there is, under Angus' leadership at Dargues, we will be looking at the optionality of what we take, what we remediate, what we take up to the Peak area. So Angus is very much involved with what is the sort of projects we'll be doing in the Peak region and looking at what makes sense to bring up, versus what makes sense to sell, versus what makes sense to just demolish in some respects. So that's an ongoing project in the next 12 months, in detail, actually. So thanks for that question, Bill.
Okay, that's all. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Quinn for closing remarks.
Thank you very much, everyone, for joining today. Thanks for the questions that came forth in the session just now. Hopefully, the information you've been provided really gives the investors and others on the call to understand where we're going as a business in terms of our guidance.
Acknowledging the turnaround that's been happening over the last six months in the business, we look forward to providing further updates, obviously, throughout the year, on the quarter-by-quarter deliverables. We're quite confident we have a solid plan in place now.
The team owns the plan; they own the budget and are very committed to delivering against that. And hopefully, we can find some upside as well as we progress through the year. But thank you all very much. I appreciate it and look forward to speaking to you all next time. Thanks very much for the Aurelia team, both on the call and more broadly, for the ongoing support and deliverables.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.