We'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Dan Clifford, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Melanie, and good morning to everyone. I have Ian Poole, Peter Trout, and Adam McKinnon with me this morning. Earlier today we uploaded three announcements across the quarterly report, Federation Exploration and Operations update and also the eagerly anticipated set of work done on the Great Cobar pre-feasibility study and also the December 2021 quarterly update and outlook presentation that we'll be referring to throughout the talk this morning. To make a start, H1 was on plan. Our activities were all aligned to what we're heading for for the year, but also the threats as well. When that threat loomed, the only option for us was to absolutely front foot that, and that we did.
With COVID-19 and the Omicron, I'm immensely proud of what our site teams through and through have delivered in terms of protecting the businesses and our shareholders' investments into us, the business with that threat coming at us. I look back over the last couple of years and I don't think anyone would be surprised to say that I think as a business, we got quite match fit in regards to this and how we managed this threat. With Omicron coming on over the last couple of months, whilst it's been, it's not been without impact to us, the actions that we've taken within the business has contained all of this, and we may remain well within the commitments we've made to the market through the course of this year.
This morning, we're gonna cover off on that performance in light of those comments, particularly resourcing, but also covering off the consistency of our metal production and the tailwinds we've got with our forecast position on gold equivalent with both production, grade, and commodity pricing. We'll look through our solid footing as we look forward with the business with some minor adjustments to our production, improved cost outlook, and a really strong cash build. We'll move on to a discussion with Great Cobar and Federation, of which have for us, and we've talked about this quarter-on-quarter now, represent huge opportunity for our business. Absolute classic example is organic growth, and we are again moving towards step-by-step to execution of these projects. Just moving into slide six of the presentation deck loaded this morning.
Just wanna start with a couple of comments around our sustainability performance. If we look at our injury frequency rates, again, halved over the last 12-month period as we push our business forward towards what we believe as a management team good looks like. That will continue as a business as we mature. Group environmental incident frequency did see a slight uptick during the last quarter, particularly through November. Two minor contained water-related issues at either Peak or at both Peak and Hera contributed to that small uptick. Overall, over a year, still very constant and consistent delivery of improvement across the business. Moving over to slide seven. We've for a long time as a business now, we have been focusing on those fundamentals of injury frequency rate and environmental performance.
More so this year, the business has really focused on the durability of the foundation in which we bring this business forward. During the quarter, we've taken significant steps forward in terms of ground truthing. I like to call it ground truthing what we see, think, and feel about how our business is being run. We launched our first full employee survey across the business. This survey is and can be internationally benchmarked in terms of responses, and we got a 75% strike rate on people contributing to that ground truthing of working within Aurelia. We launched our diversity inclusion working groups, and we've assessed how we're performing in that area so we can get the experience of working within this company to be significantly improved.
Also, when it comes to code of conduct and how we want this business to perform, how we conduct ourselves in the business arena, 50%, over half of our workforce now gone through our code of conduct. Added to that, we're deep in year one of our response to climate change within the business. Again, I use that ground truthing term of understanding what our risks and opportunities are as we establish that foundation in the business. Hand over to you, Peter.
Thank you, Dan. I'll talk to slide eight on the presentation deck with our operating results. Picking up on a theme that Dan stated earlier, it's really pleasing to see the consistency coming through from our operational performance. It's something we've been working on in recent years to improve. You'll see from the December quarter's results, we again delivered around 27,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of just below AUD 1,400 per ounce, consistent with the prior quarter. This is a real credit to our site teams. They've worked incredibly hard to deliver safe production over the last quarter while dealing with the challenges of a tight labor market, restricted mobility of people, and changing protocols to manage the threat of COVID-19, both for our workforce and our local communities.
We recorded lower quarterly lead and zinc metal production, which was partly offset by higher copper output. This reflected a single lead zinc mill feed campaign and two copper ore campaigns at the Peak Mine over the quarter. Production at Peak was constrained by underground mine ore delivery. It was 8% below the prior quarter in processed ore tonnage. Our underground mining performance was mainly impacted by labor shortages, with around 10% of roles unfilled over the quarter. We have initiated a series of changes to mitigate these impacts and are working with our mining contractor on a longer-term resolution. Moving to Hera, our processing rates through the concentrator were again constrained by very high base metal feed grades, and this led to record monthly base metals feed grade and concentrate production rates over the quarter.
There was some good work done around partially bottlenecking of the filtration circuit to maintain reasonable throughput rates with the higher base metal feed grades. Other December quarter highlights at Hera were Redpath successful mobilization, and commencement of underground mining activities at the start of January. We also started development to the Upper Hayes deposit, which will contribute several months of additional mill feed to extend Hera's mine life by several months. Moving to Dargues, the operation delivered to expectations over the quarter, with consistent quarter results for all mined and processed feed grade and gold production. We also saw better gold recovery and concentrate grade as a result of a higher gold to sulfur ratio on the ore feed and optimization of the flotation circuit. We resumed underground infill drilling for mineral resource estimation and mine planning purposes.
We also identified an opportunity to develop a new scoping area in the upper section of the deposit, which will see a continuation of sustaining capital expenditure into the June quarter. On that note, I'll hand over to Ian to talk through our financial performance.
Thanks, Peter. Another good quarter for Aurelia as it tracks its FY 2022 operating guidance. Aurelia finished the December quarter with AUD 95 million of cash on hand, an increase of AUD 29 million compared to the September quarter, and is well positioned to continue to fund its exploration program as well as the Federation and Great Cobar growth projects. In the quarter, there was a 38% increase in sales revenue, largely volume related, although realized prices for all Aurelia's metals remained robust. Compared to the September quarter, the realized gold price was unchanged. Realized copper and lead prices increased by 12%, and zinc decreased by 2%. Dargues operating cash flow of AUD 9 million was positively impacted by increased sales due to the realization of concentrate stocks which had built up in the prior quarter.
Peak's operating cash flow of AUD 32 million was also positively impacted by increased sales of gold and the realization of lead and zinc concentrates, which had built up in prior periods. During the quarter, spend was AUD 2.3 million on the Hera Federation Village, which is enabling works for the Federation project. AUD 1 million on studies for Federation and Great Cobar projects, and AUD 700,000 on environmental approvals. During the quarter, exploration spend was AUD 4.3 million on infill drilling and exploration at Federation and AUD 1.8 million on drilling at Great Cobar. Aurelia continues to strengthen its balance sheet and made debt repayments of AUD 4.1 million relating to the term loan, which is scheduled to be fully repaid by September 2023. Aurelia also cashed back AUD 5.5 million of its bank guarantees used for environmental bonding.
I'll hand back to Dan, who will update you on the FY 2022 operating guidance.
Thanks, Ian. We slightly amended our outlook for the year, particularly in light of being halfway through the year and also the in-depth consideration of where we are with Omicron and COVID-19. Gold, we've guided to the lower end of the original range, this predominantly coming from Peak. As Peter alluded to, we are having some resourcing issues there. Also in looking forward this year, a smoother quarter-on-quarter production in Q3 and Q4 than what was previously indicated in the first half of the year. Lead and zinc are at the upper end of the range. Copper's in the range or remains unchanged.
In light of both metal prices, productivity, and activity levels we see going forward, we're reducing the all-in sustaining cost guidance to AUD 1,350 to AUD 1,550, down from AUD 1,500 to AUD 1,700. I mentioned we've factored in COVID into this. It's really important to note here for us that we, as I mentioned earlier, have seen the impacts of this coming through not only in our operations but in society in general. We've factored these in. We see that, particularly in New South Wales, that we've gone through the Peak and we're making that assumption as we go that our labor constraints, supply chain constraints start to alleviate as absenteeism or absences from work alleviate as the wave goes through.
Important to note that, we are still very confident on where we're heading for the year. Half one was exactly on plan and, we look forward to continuing that through the course of this year. Back to you, Peter.
Thank you, Dan. I'll move to slide 13 of the presentation deck and talk to the Great Cobar project. During the quarter, we finished the Great Cobar pre-feasibility study, and the study demonstrated the technical and economic viability of developing a new satellite mine at Great Cobar, with that operation to feed the Peak process plant over a period of approximately five years or so. This baseload feed from Great Cobar will also underpin feed from other sources so that we can better utilize the available process plant capacity at Peak. In our approach to Great Cobar, we followed a similar methodology to what we've done for our Federation project. We now have sufficient information from drilling and studies to provide confidence to invest in an exploration decline. It in itself provides an economic return on the cost of accessing and producing from an initial mining area.
This provides us with a lower risk approach to establishing underground drill platforms that will allow us to unlock the potential of the deposit and shorten production lead times, assuming further success in our drill programs. In the PFS at Great Cobar, we evaluated four mine design options around an initial mining block, and that initial mining block was based on the higher confidence indicated portion of the 30 June 2021 mineral resource located near the path of the exploration declines. The design we've selected uses the same mining methods employed at the Peak Mine. It's also important to note there's no process flow sheet changes required to treat the copper gold feed from Great Cobar, which we expect to produce a high-quality copper gold concentrate and a doré product.
The PFS project economics, when considered on a standalone basis, are highly leveraged to metal price, and provide Aurelia with greater exposure to copper prices as part of our copper ready strategy. As a result of the PFS, a maiden ore reserve of 840,000 tons has been declared at Great Cobar, and this forms part of the Peak Mine's ore reserve. The ore reserve at Peak at the end of December 2021 has increased by 19% to 3.2 million tons, and this allows for mining depletion from the prior estimate and the addition of Great Cobar. The PFS also identified some great opportunities to realize more value from Great Cobar, and I'll hand over to Adam, who will take us through those.
Thanks, Peter. As you mentioned, the PFS identified significant value uplift opportunities from further mineral resource growth, mine life extension, the potential processing of the high-grade lead-zinc mineralization in the deposit, higher metal prices, and the potential discovery of additional economic mineralization in the proximity of the deposit. In the last quarter, the company announced some very strong results down plunge of the project PFS area, including 5.4% copper over 13 meters and 4.2% copper over 12 meters. These results extended the mineralization by up to 100 meters below the previous mineral resources, but due to the timing of the data cut off, were not included in the PFS analysis. In the last quarter, surface drilling at Great Cobar continued, testing the zone up to 300 meters further down plunge again.
Due to the extended assay turnaround times now being experienced across the industry, full assay results for this particular program remain pending. Moving to slide 15 of the investor presentation. Aurelia has now completed more than 31,000 meters of diamond drilling at the Federation project in the first two quarters of FY 2022 as the project moves closer to operating status. Latest assay results for the program continue to see the incredible grade profile of Federation confirmed. With this set of results, announced today, the best we've seen to date.
Some of the outstanding results include 18 meters at 34% lead zinc and 13.1 grams per ton gold, 57 meters at 24% lead zinc, 30 meters at 24% lead zinc and 3.9 grams per ton gold, and an incredible 18.6 meters at 48% lead zinc and 1.3 grams per ton gold. It's worth noting that these results include some bonanza grade base metal intercepts, including 5 meters at 62.7% lead zinc and 10 meters at 61.6% lead zinc. For context, these are higher combined lead zinc grades than the bulk concentrate product currently being produced at the nearby Hera mine.
The recent results have also confirmed the presence of a new high-grade gold corridor at the southwestern edge of the main deposit, including 5 meters at 47 grams per ton gold and 3 meters at 23 grams per ton gold, with the area remaining open or sparsely drilled along strike. Drilling data cutoff for the Federation feasibility study is scheduled for the end of this month. Although notwithstanding the extended assay turnaround times previously mentioned, intensive drilling to upgrade and extend the Federation resources will continue throughout the March quarter. I'll hand back over to Peter.
Thanks, Adam. Federation is just an outstanding ore body and deposit, and we're very excited to see the contribution that it can make to the future of our production hub at the Hera site. The latest drill results are particularly encouraging because many of the intercepts are located outside and immediately adjacent to the mining area that was delineated by the March 2021 scoping study. The long section on page three of the announcement shows where these recent results sit in relation to that scoping study mining area. As such, we expect the latest results to contribute positively to the feasibility study mine design. The feasibility study program continued across multiple work streams during the December quarter, and the study remains on track for completion in the middle of this calendar year.
In addition to the study program, we also reached an early project milestone with stage one of the Hera camp expansion completed to schedule and budget. This facility is now ready to accommodate the additional workforce required for the on-the-ground work that will commence in the coming months at Federation. There's a photo of the camp expansion on slide five of the presentation deck, slide 15 of the presentation deck. In terms of site works, we've engaged contractors to undertake the civil works, box cut excavation, and development of the exploration decline at the project site, which will give us a better insight into the geology of the deposit and allow us to bulk sample as well.
Regulatory permitting activities for the full project approval also remain on track, and we're assisted by the Commonwealth Government's confirmation that the full mine development does not require approval under the EPBC Act. Dan, I'll hand back to you.
Thanks, Peter. I'm gonna do a quick wrap-up before we head into question time. Do it in reverse order. I think you can see the excitement with the team with what we've got coming in terms of execution across these projects, these organic projects within the business. The point I really wanna draw out here is, as we close through these feasibility studies, these are pre-feas or final feas, drilling continues. The upside that's pouring out of these results is giving us even further opportunity across all three of our assets. Through the year, including last year and this first half of this year, we've really secured a strong footing, and that's put us in a fantastic position leading to the execution of these projects.
Declines, box cuts, surface work, civil works, ventilation work, across particularly Federation and Peak in the not-too-distant future. With the strength in the balance sheet, the operating performance and our outlook, we really are in good shape to take the business home. Even amidst these threats that are coming to the business, we're very confident on where we've got the business positioned and where we'll get it to by the end of this year. To that, Melanie, I'd like to hand over to questions, 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 handset to ask your question. The first question comes from Dylan Kelly with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, team, and congrats on literally a great result. Amazing to see some of the numbers falling through, particularly cash flow. Great to see. Look, there's a lot to get through, so I'll try to be punchy here and I'll circle back with more questions. Just in terms of the guidance changes, particularly on costs, can you just walk us through the different moving parts on that? I understand, you know, the sector right now is heading in the other direction in terms of increasing cost guidance. You guys are going the other way. What's this in terms of? Is it mostly base metal prices? You know, lower TC's? Yeah, can you just marry that up in t hat you're trying to strike with that and perhaps, say, labor or development crew availability at the moment?
Dylan, it's Dan. I'll give a round out of that. I think it's pretty evident for us going into the year that we had. We took a view on base metal pricing going into the year that we probably positioned or pinpointed in about April or May. Since then, we have seen base metal commodity prices rise. That goes to the tailwinds of a reducing all-in sustaining. Added to that, we're seeing some great grades come out of particularly Peak and Hera in regards to base metal grades. You can see the combination of guidance for base metals being at the upper end or on range, the commodity prices, and to a degree, somewhat, some of the activity levels underground when we're short staffed, has driven that all-in sustaining cost down by that bracket of AUD 150-AUD 200.
Okay, understood. I suppose if Hera's pushing out at, what, AUD 46 an ounce, that also, even though it's a small amount, it still, nudges it in the right direction. Okay.
Yeah. It's important to note with Hera, too. Peter didn't mention it, but you know, we've pushed that plant so hard, it's producing metal outputs well above its nameplate capacity. There's a reason. That's the key reason why its throughput's down. We've got to throttle it back. On a per ton basis, it's coming out above nameplate. That absolutely helps in all circumstances. You can see what that's done for. The forward view on gold equivalent as well, not only off the back of the half one performance, but what we see coming forward in half two. It has been a great outcome for us.
Good to hear. Does this open the door to perhaps trucking some ore up to Peak when you start getting into some of those higher grades? Is that still a bit of a minority cases where it's too high grade for the mill to handle?
I think at this point, the economics would say we're probably better off building stock a bit, to be honest with you, particularly if we've got any headwinds on labor availability. At this point we do that. I think as most investors will be aware, we're looking at that. We're driving towards that flexibility with the approval status of the Federation project to give us that flexibility of trucking up the road or leaving it on that site.
Okay. Fair enough. Second question is just to do with Great Cobar and the study. Just trying to understand the options. So the options that you looked at in terms of the volume, I mean, 450,000-500,000 tons. How do we think about that in terms of the strategy of filling Peak's mill? Is this gonna be like a 50/50 split, 60/40 between Peak and Great Cobar and the existing sort of Peak North operations there? Can you just walk us through that and then we can just come back into timing.
Hey, Dylan, it's Peter here. When we looked at the different options for Great Cobar, there were two major constraints. One was ventilation, airflow, and the second one was the capacity to cycle through the stopes and sustain a consistent production rate. The option we selected gives us the best ventilation quantity, and it will get us up to that 500,000 ton per annum rate through Great Cobar with the sequencing and turnover of the stopes with the mining methods we've used. In terms of its composition for the overall feed, it will vary on a year-on-year basis, depending on what's happening at our other deposits within the Peak complex. We've commented before that we're driven by value, and so we're looking at any particular period at the best NSR material to go through the plant.
Balancing that off with the logistical challenge of campaigning separate lead, zinc, and copper feeds through the process plant. We find it best if we can build a reasonable stockpile of material and feed it through for more than a month to minimize the losses we have when we stop the plant, clean out, and change over to another feed. I guess that's a long-winded explanation to say it's going to vary, period to period, Dylan, depending on what's happening as part of the overall operation.
Okay. Further to that in terms of when this is gonna be a possibility of presenting to the mill. Forgive me if I don't get this correct. Timing is permits by the end of this calendar year, 18 months development times. Where does that place us in terms of first ore sometime in 2024?
I think, if you look to the back of the presentation deck, Dylan, on slide 20, we've given the timeframe there around Great Cobar, and as you've said, we're looking to get the full permitting for the full mining operation at the end of this year. We've already submitted the EIS and gone through the public submissions and feedback process. The exploration decline itself is currently permitted. Looking to start that off the middle of this calendar year, and then roughly an 18-month period to developing and access the deposit with, first stoping production around the start of calendar year 2024.
Okay. Understood. Thanks for pointing that out. That's useful. I'll circle back with more questions, guys.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Sam Berridge with Perennial. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, guys. Just a question on costs at Peak. I see your all-in sustaining costs were up marginally quarter-over-quarter, but obviously the by-product credits are up materially, suggests that your gross dollar million costs before by-product credits were quite a bit higher. It looks materially so. I mean, you spoke to sort of staffing issues and whatnot, but just curious if anything else is impacting that and what's the read-through for the quarters going forward?
I think, Sam, it's Dan. I think the biggest driver for us at Peak at the moment is the lower throughputs. The actual dollar spend in operating costs and sustaining capital aren't materially higher than where we plan to be for the year. I think at this point, in terms of what we're seeing for Peak, cost per ton will be higher than what we planned for the year on the basis that we suspect throughput will be under.
I've got that. I might just speak a little bit more offline. Moving on from there, just with those, you know, cracking grades from Federation drilling coming through, I mean, is there room or is it even worthwhile considering a, like a DSO component for that ore feed as part of the feasibility study? Or are these zones too small at the moment, you're best off just to blend it through?
Look, I think we at this point in time, it'd just be blend through.
Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Just lastly, on Dargues, you know, good gold guidance still sort of requires a bit of a tick-up in grade, it seems, in the second half from that deposit. I'm just sort of curious whether there's any sort of stopes, you know, individual stopes and stuff coming through, that you've seen that, you know, give you some confidence that the grades for the second half are gonna be achieved.
Yeah. We've done the drilling out. We're deep into the second round underground drilling out the LOM, in fact, Sam. We're confident we'll see a stronger second half on average contribution from Dargues we've seen in the first half. As we drill through, we see some ups and downs, but we're still confident that we've got a stronger second half out of Dargues.
Gotcha. All right. That's great. Thanks, guys. That's all for me.
Thank you. Your next question is a follow-up from Dylan Kelly with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Sorry, guys. Me again. Just in regards to the timing for the Hera mill being refitted. Just looking at slide 21 of the deck. Is there a window in 2023 when we start talking about development into the early production of trucking or back up to Peak in the current situation? How should we be thinking about that?
Both options are wide open to us, Dylan. We're, you know, still finalizing feasibility now, and we'll test those once the final decision is made on what that configuration, that mill looks like. But in the planning we've been going through now for a fair period of time, we're working towards making sure that optionality sits there. It'll become, for us, with a longer mine life coming, you know, with this drill out, particularly in Federation, what's the best cash flow situation in the early stages of the development and commissioning the operation.
Whether that material can and depending what the final decisions we make on mill configuration, we go through the existing Hera plant produces a bulk con versus the economics of trucking it up the road for a separate plant. There's costs associated with better payability, and there's simplicity with leaving it through the Hera mill with a bulk con, but you get lesser payability. It becomes purely economic. We're making sure both options are open to us to get the best cash flow outcome in the early stages of the project.
Okay. I understand. I suppose my mind is coming back to this point around, you know, filling the mill at Peak, and how we model this going forward. From 2023 onwards, should we be assuming that the mill's running flat out?
Oh, that's it. That's our intention. I mean, we've year- on- year over the last, what, two to three years or three years, in fact, year- on- year mill feed or throughput has been lifting double-digit numbers. That's our absolute intentions to get to that. You know, what we see with Great Cobar coming on is significant baseload at good grade for copper to come through to that plant to support further discovery, I guess, of lead, zinc, gold, ore bodies in and around the existing Peak operation. Absolute intention is to choke it.
Okay. Fair enough. Do you mind if we just circle back into Dargues, any comments from Sam's question regarding, you know, expecting an uptick in the second half? Great expectations. How come it's sitting at sort of like a sub four at the moment? Do you still have a bit of dilution coming through? What's happening on the ground there in terms of expectations in the model versus what you're finding? And also just on the same point, what's been holding it back, and what's this opportunity that I think Peter highlighted before, that you've got some stopes that are a bit higher up in the sequence? Could you just give us some color on that?
Yeah. Dylan, that's Peter here. I don't want to get into a commentary on every single stope's performance at Dargues. It's like all of our sites, we have unders and overs with all the each stope and how it performs. I will say that the, you know, we've got more information now that feeds into our grade control model, which is what we use for our short-term planning. Over last quarter, that model has reconciled very well. We have encountered areas where there's more geological complexity than the wide-space resource drilling suggests, and we have losses in those areas. At the same time, there are other areas where we find upside, and over the course of a quarter, a year, they will vary. What we're doing is, with our infill drilling program and our development, trying to get the best information possible to inform our mine plans.
Out of that has come this upper levels opportunity to go in and establish another mining front, which puts us in a good position to lift capacity if we need to down the track. It also gives us a bit more operational flexibility, so we're not locked into a tight retreat sequence in stoping areas where if we do have a hiccup, it does have downstream consequences on the mill feed. As with all of our underground operations, there's a bit of a balancing act around all of this, and key to it is trying to get the best information ahead of time so we make good decisions.
Okay, understood. That's clear. I'll circle back, momentarily. Cheers.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. We'll now pause a moment to allow for any further questions to register. The next question comes from Anthony Wallace, who is a private investor. Please go ahead.
Hello, gents. Great results. Thanks very much for your presentation. I just wanted to ask a question about some marketing and public relation activities for the year. Then, I was talking to a market analyst there before Christmas, and he saw, I think, Daniel Macquarie presentation and said he was really impressed. He said you guys are just off the radar a lot for you know, articles and conferences and things like that. Are you looking at increasing some of that marketing this year?
We absolutely are. Yeah, we resourced through half one of the year to, you know, as I talk about sustainability and non-financial performance of the business. You know, a lot of maturity and foundational building to doing, and we've done that during the course of the year. We've appointed senior position within our business to really accelerate our performance in that area. You will have seen that come through at the back end of the year.
Yeah.
That being said, though, Anthony, it's been incredibly different, difficult, I should say, to actually get in front of people due to obviously travel restrictions, not only domestically but also internationally, which is a key part of our investor relations work. To counter that, we've done and I think I wouldn't be alone in saying in this comment probably, the actual efficiency of online conferences now is incredible. We've loaded up with every opportunity we can across one-to-ones across Europe, North America and APAC, and we're starting to see some entrants on the register now from those jurisdictions. The answer is yes, we are working towards, you know, maturing and accelerating our performance in that area. It's right on our radar.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Clifford for closing remarks.
Thanks, Melanie, and thank you everyone for your time this morning. I understand it's a busy period for a lot of you. Just some closing comments. The pursuing and delivery of and the constant strengthening of our foundations is really what's driving us. This point in time, we've got a great problem to have, and that's this fantastic opportunities for optimization with our portfolio as we get these feasibilities coming together. Some cracking exploration results that don't make the cut for those feasibilities. They're leading to further resource extension with the feasibilities coming through now. You know, I think, you know, we've just seen it with a milestone with Great Cobar now with reserve conversion.
We've got mine design work as a part of this and constant assessment of the capacities within the business and the execution of these opportunities that really when you think about it, that's ultimately what delivers value for our shareholders. That optimization exercise for us, and I mentioned earlier about the upside that's pouring out of these every time we put a drill bit around these three assets has been great. Added to that, you know, there's taking a view on the adaptation of the business and being agile to adapt our business to suit these opportunities and the upsides that have been delivered to us. That's a great advantage of the team we have and, you know, being small mid-cap business, we can move very quickly on these.
That's the key highlights for us for the quarter. Looking forward, we've got half year results in February. We look forward to that. As Adam and Peter have pointed out, with the delays in assays, exploration results, there's gonna need to be some patience around that for everybody. You know, we can't be putting out results until we've got them externally assayed. That's just life for us at the moment. Just in a final comment, I think the market will be aware this is Adam McKinnon's final quarterly presentation with us. On behalf of the management team and I think on the shareholders' behalf in particular, thanks to Adam for your dedication to the business.
We look forward to seeing you on the airwaves with other businesses, and the value you've added to the organization has been immense. Thank you very much and good luck. Thank you everybody for your time. We will be back with a conference in February for our half year results. Thank you, everybody.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.