I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Bryan Quinn, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and good morning, and thanks for all joining today for the Aurelia Metals Quarter Three update. I have Martin Cummings, our Chief Financial Officer; Angus Wyllie, the Regional General Manager for the Cobar Region; and Andrew Graham, our Chief Technical and Business Development Officer, on the call with me today. We will obviously take questions at the end of the call for any one of us. Look, just to start off with, I'll talk about each page as I refer to the information. I will then pass on to Andrew, who will then pass on to Martin to talk through the cash flows and balance sheet. To start off with, look, a strong production and cost performance for the quarter. We have both Peak and Federation Mine both working to deliver good results.
We had a strong, obviously, gold delivery for this quarter, which is in sequence with our mine plans for the full year. The business delivered a sort of good all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,593 per ounce. That has obviously been supported by very strong realized prices as well to give us a good margin for the quarter. I'll talk to some of the physicals in general when I get to each of the slides. Federation Mining ramping up nicely, obviously still within our approved budget. We are likely to move into commercial production in quarter four, FY25, but definitely ramping up, and we'll talk about some of the details of that at the relevant slide also. Our balance sheet and cash balance of AUD 107 million for the quarter, after really investing AUD 19 million into Federation and also spending our monies on exploration as well, is going very strong.
A huge effort and performance from delivering AUD 44.5 million from Peak this quarter also, with good volumes, good ounces, but also supported by good gold pricing, which is a great outcome for the business. Lastly, although quarter four, FY25, a big milestone was the delivery of the Great Cobar project, which we announced recently. We will talk a bit more about it during the presentation. Really, really leveraging the gold prices to transition our business to copper into the future. Just to remind some of the key points, this MPV of AUD 51 million at our planning assumptions, AUD 164 million MPV based on spot price of 22nd of March. Really, we will be developing the project from early quarter one, FY26, and getting into a sequence of development and various project works over the next couple of years.
I'll talk to the Gantt chart and timing that in the presentation as well. If I could just move on to Slide Four, group production costs for the quarter. As we sort of highlight, gold has been strong for us this quarter. Copper, also both of those two commodities sitting just under guidance at the moment at the end of Quarter Three. Zinc and lead are a bit as they are right now. They're on still track for guidance. We have actually stockpiles of Federation ore sitting both at Federation and at Peak, which will be processed soon and into this quarter, Quarter Four. That'll allow us to still deliver our guidance on those various commodities. We've actually had some stockpiles there based on trucking that is being ramped up at the moment to get the ore to the Peak processing facility.
Overall, if you look at our commodities, we're all truly on track for the full year. Operating costs, no issues there at the moment. We foresee that we'll deliver within guidance for the operating costs. Our sustaining capital run rate was higher at the end of Quarter Two because we purchased two trucks. Quarter Three has been a period of back to sort of normality again. We believe for the full year we'll be still within the guidance as we've stated in the FY25 guidance. Gross capital, once again, AUD 56.4 million at the end of Quarter Three. Still definitely tracking well and truly to be within the guidance of AUD 70-80 million. The key point there really is Federation project has pretty much a decline development, infill drilling, and some workshop modifications still underway.
Realistically, the capital spend is slowing down in Quarter Four as we move towards commercial production and ramping up the operation. Once again, definitely on track for our gross capital and staying under budget for Federation project. Exploration, if you recall, for the first couple of quarters, we had a bit of a slow start renegotiating contracts and establishing the sites to be ready. Quarter Three has delivered more in terms of ramping up. Quarter Four, there is a lot of activity that Andrew will talk about that we are doing in Quarter Four to deliver our exploration results this year as well. In summary, no concerns. Definitely all of the measures are in the right direction for our business to deliver the value we have talked about throughout each quarter so far.
On Slide Five, obviously, very much on a sustainability basis, our injury frequency rate is continuing to trend down. We've had some injuries around hand injuries in this quarter, which are not pleasing to see. Obviously, there's a big campaign at the moment to reduce those injuries by really having our people focus on pinch points and line of fire where they're putting their hands when they're doing their work, wearing gloves. We have a massive campaign on this quarter to really sort of change that trend into having people return home every day like they should without injuries. Obviously, that's a very key focus of the leadership team on site. In terms of our other metrics, we continue to work very well with communities in the Cobar Region.
Definitely a lot of interest into our Cobar Hub, which we have located in the center of Cobar, where our staff meet with people regularly and talk about that Cobar project, recruitment, general sort of information around the community that is relevant to the community. Once again, highlighting Cobar is a great place to work, and it's a great community to be working with. Environmentally, no major concerns. Our frequency rate remains on track and will continue to be on track as we continue to upgrade various facilities over the coming 12 to 18 months as well. I'll just move on to Slide Five and talk about, sorry, Slide Six and talk about the Peak executing the plan and guidance at the moment. Our development rate continues to range up. We are aspiring to get over 1,000 meters per quarter.
We're resourcing up with people and equipment to deliver that. Obviously, we were sort of on track. We've had a few operator availability issues and some maintenance issues in the last quarter that we're getting on top of. We have a very focused development improvement project that was kicked off in March. As the report highlights, March was a record month for us in terms of developed meters. We anticipate trying to leverage that and continue on to really get above this 1,000 meters per quarter as a focus for the team. Our unit costs, mining unit costs, were a bit higher this quarter on the back of lower volume, operator availability. We also had our new contract kick in this quarter, which has increased our energy costs under the new contract.
To deal with that, one of the things actually that has been a focus of our technical team has to be to lower the dilution coming out of the mine, therefore bringing quality tons to the surface and removing dilution. We have seen some uplift in our recoveries and our grades as a result of that coming through the plant, which is fantastic. We are in an active recruitment process to try and get more operators being available to obviously get our tons as well. One additional point I will make, we are kicking off in Quarter Four a cost per ton focus project with bringing in external support to make that happen. That will obviously still work towards reaching my aspiration of around AUD 100 a ton over the near future or medium term. Second batch of ore came from Federation.
Once again, we're getting some really good recoveries and performance out of the ore at Federation. One of the things, one of the points that have been asked in the past is around, are we going to continue batching or blending? At this point in time, we are going to continue batching the Federation ore to maximize recoveries and recalibrate consistently the ore with the geological model to make sure we can keep that moving as long as we can. If the processing plant, obviously at Peak, becomes a constraint, then obviously we may consider blending if we need to. Right now, the focus will be on keeping it as batch campaigns.
Like I said earlier, the March quarter gave us an all-in sustaining cost at Peak of AUD 1,353 per ounce, which is in the right direction and a very good margin as well from a point of view of the business. One notable point, which is worth highlighting at Peak, is the gold grades did go up. That was not a high grading. We were basically mining in line with the sequence for the mine. We anticipated those sort of numbers would occur over the full year results. As a result, in quarter three, that is when the results have come through. Definitely no sugar hit there. It is basically part of the overall sequence for the 12 months. On Federation, which is slide seven, development has also this quarter continued to deliver another record for the quarter, which is great for Federation as we continue to ramp up.
All of the major service work is completed, like I said earlier. It's just really now finishing off the service mobile workshop extension that was planned and executed over the last couple of months. That's expected to be finished this financial year in line with our sort of moving commercial production at the end of Quarter Four. Infill drilling programs have continued to be a key focus. A second rig has basically been moved to Federation in April and will be obviously spinning as well, which will obviously focus on infill drilling beneath the current stope areas into FY27 and FY28 while our current rig continues to do the infill drilling in front of ourselves. The overall project remains within the approved budget, as we've said before, which is a great outcome considering most projects I refer to don't deliver that sort of result.
We did get the increase in our haulage volume approved as we committed to focusing on from the 200,000 to the 600,000 tons. That is all being done in Quarter Three. As a result, some of the tracking delays we have experienced in February by getting trucks back on the road to move the ore from Federation to Peak will be sorted out because we will have additional trucks running additional hours now in this quarter to make up the ground that we lost over a week or so in February. Overall, like I said, ramping up development, mining activity is going well. The infill drilling program is increasing in intensity as we committed to in previous quarter.
Really now it is about hauling the ore and getting into the Peak processing facility and maximizing the returns out of the ore in line with our plans for quarter four in the full year. I might just turn to slide eight and just talk about the delivery of our growth projects. In the previous presentation last week, we talked about obviously the Great Cobar project being approved. We talked about how it fits into the sequence of all the projects so people can understand where we are and what we are trying to deliver at Aurelia Metals and how it sort of works towards targeting our 1.1-1.2 million tons of processing capacity over the coming years.
To be clear, as you can see in this Gantt chart, Federation project will meet its commercial production, and then it'll basically be moving out of project and fully into operations in FY26 Quarter One. In the background, we're working on our water management upgrade that we had approved recently. That work is well and truly underway. From an engineering and working with the manufacturers, that's kicking along nicely. The project team's working on that. The Peak plant optimization is still in study work. We'll see the study work for that come out in the coming quarter or so. Then we'll be able to understand and communicate what that looks like to the market as well. Lastly, the Great Cobar project, obviously very exciting news for us, which I'll talk about in more detail in a second.
This is sort of showing the sequence of cash flow and the sequence of timing where we really will look at onboarding in Quarter Four, FY25, and buying the equipment in Quarter Four, FY25, when we've identified the equipment. It will be available ready so we can actually kick off our development in Quarter One, FY26, and start the development activities and start pursuing our Great Cobar project into real life. That is obviously the sequencing. That is how we've tried to show people what's going on with really Federation ramping off and the other projects sort of moving into execution in a controlled way and how we're going to manage the cash flow against our operating performance. As I said earlier, what that's going to give us is the 1.1-1.2 million tons capacity.
That'll phase us into the 50% copper gold and 50% zinc lead ore in the future, once we have all these things in place, which will be very much a great business. If I move on to just Slide Nine, just to reiterate what we discussed last week on the Great Cobar project. Once again, I talked about the financials upfront and talked about it'll be capital investment of just over AUD 91.8 million over a three-year period. What it will include is developing the two declines from Jubilee or Boddy down to the Great Cobar. We are going to own and mine that to maximize synergy with existing operations. We'll still be mining in New Cobar and Chesney, which is located in the north in the New Cobar mine site facility.
We'll be looking at the green line on the picture shows the shaft that will be ringed in 2027. We'll be looking at a new power supply and servicing structure work in 2028. We'll basically be looking at our first ore in 2028 with an initial mining rate of 500,000 tons ramping up over a period of time. That'll be sequenced with our existing ore that we're getting out of the north mine in Chesney and New Cobar, etc., as well so we can actually maximize the volumes coming out of this particular facility. As we've highlighted also in that update provided recently, this particular project gives a significant option value beyond the base case. We sort of provide information in that presentation on some drill holes data we do have beneath the resource that we've put into this current Great Cobar project.
Once we get ourselves down towards the ore body, set up our drill platforms, we'll be setting up drill rigs to really understand and unpack the potential of what Great Cobar is likely to be beyond what's in the current model now, which is all offside for the base case effectively. If you want more information, obviously, there was a release provided on the 16th of April, which is called the Great Cobar Project Approval, which I'm happy for you to refer to that for more information on that detail. I'll pass over to Andrew to talk about exploration.
Thanks, Bryan. Just firstly, on Great Cobar, certainly a key milestone for the development and technical team in getting that approved to execution.
I'd just like to acknowledge Justin Woodward, our Group Manager of Technical Services, who led that study as well as a very large team internally, largely internally resourced with external assistance, the key milestone getting to that stage. Anyway, flipping now to exploration on Slide Ten. We also, last week as well, with the Great Cobar approval, released some exciting drill results last Thursday from our ongoing exploration drilling at Federation West. Now, you might recall the discovery announcement in June last year, Hole 215, which is offset to the northwest of Federation. We hit about 4.6 meters at that stage, good grade zinc, lead, copper, gold, and it's about 140 meters from existing workings. What we've been doing this quarter is following that up with drilling. Last week, we released some of that drilling. It's an ongoing program, so we don't have it all just yet.
Certainly, two holes to flag: 12.5 meters, 20% zinc, 9% lead, 1% copper with gold; 17.5 meters, it's 11% zinc, 6% lead, 0.4% copper with gold. It feels a lot like the drilling that I was releasing to you in time on Federation ore body itself. Really exciting to have that within the couple hundred meters of the planned workings there at Federation. Also, just as we went to put out that release, we also intercepted a further massive and semi-massive sulfides in Hole 222. Score photos of that in the release of last week. Certainly, have a look at that. We'll bring you those results once we have them. Now, based on the success we've been having at Federation West, we've decided to keep that surface drill rig at Federation West for the remainder of the financial year.
It'll certainly give us a better understanding of what we've got in that area. Hopefully, it'll also give us some more great results that we can bring to you as we get those assays in. As I mentioned, 140 meters from planned workings. If it does start to build out, it's certainly readily minable from our workings there at Federation. Now, staying within the Nimijie District, we are partway through the Nimijie drill program that we've spoken about previously. This has been paused because the rig is staying at Federation West. We are in the process of mobilizing a second surface drill rig to the Nimijie District, which will be there hopefully next month to allow us to then continue that Nimijie drill program. We also, through the quarter, got results back from the downhole electromagnetic survey that we completed at Nimijie.
That will help guide that further drilling. At Peak, we've definitely been very busy, both underground and on the surface. At Gladstone, which is in the New Cobar mine, we targeted drilling a gap in the resource from underground. Gladstone sits kind of between Chesney and New Cobar, but further west. This quarter, we'll continue to drill that, this time the surface part of the program, to better understand what we got there at Gladstone. We wrapped up our program at Young Australia. There's a long section in the release just to orientate yourself to where that is. It's a third of the ore bodies in what we call the Proteus Corridor south of Chesney. It's alongside Mount Pleasant and Burrabundji. We also were active at Queen Bee, continuing surface drilling.
You may recall we put our results on Queen Bee drilling previously, targeting depth extensions of those. Queen Bee sits about 10 kilometers south of the Peak processing plant. Through the next quarter, we intend to then bring the rig back down to Queen Bee to target some of the satellite prospects. Excitingly for the team, the quarter also saw that rig moved to Tharsus. Tharsus sits north of the Cobar town. It is the first time that has been drilled since the 1990s. Fingers crossed we get some good results out of that. We should be in a position to provide you some results through the fourth quarter of our activities at Peak. Once we get those assays in, I'll pass on. I think it is on to Martin at this stage.
Yeah, thanks, Andrew. I will just turn to Slide 11.
As you'll know from our release last week, we finished the quarter with cash of AUD 106.7 million. Of course, our loan note remains undrawn. Obviously, the standout this quarter was Peak with AUD 44.6 million of mine cash flow. That takes the operation to around AUD 82 million for the nine months of this financial year. The cash flow this quarter is AUD 24 million higher than last quarter. Obviously, the notable increase was from our higher gold production. As Bryan stressed, we were mining high gold grade areas in line with our plan. They did come with lower base metal grades, which was reflected in production. Our gold revenue of just under AUD 33 million was higher, around AUD 28 million of that was from higher production, and around AUD 4.5 million of that from higher prices quarter on quarter.
Our realised price coming through for the quarter was just under AUD 4,400, which is obviously lower than where we sit today. Base metal production, as I said, was lower. That was around AUD 9 million. As we get the trucks restarted and catch up this quarter, move that 27,000 tons of stockpile from Federation, we do expect that our base metal production and our revenue will lift this quarter. On operating costs, they were about AUD 4.5 million higher this quarter. The largest movement was in state royalties. With this higher price environment, it was around AUD 1.5 million additional royalty cost this quarter. We have also had some higher power costs coming through from our new contract that started 1st of January. I will stress that we did know about this. It was reflected in our guidance that we put out.
We also started our second charter flight from Brisbane to Cobar in January. We have seen some inefficiencies in charter flights in the quarter as we transition people across to the charter and off their commercial flight arrangements. Otherwise, costs have been fairly stable. As Bryan said, we've now got our cost reduction project team in place. We will look to offset any inflation, but also lower those costs in the coming quarters. I did not include it on the chart, but in the report, you will see there was a small cash flow for Dargues. We have now finished and finalized all of the shipments. There was an AUD 400,000 adjustment there. Now we are reporting Dargues closure and care and maintenance costs within the care and maintenance area. It was just under AUD 1 million for Dargues for this quarter. Federation spend, consistent AUD 19 million.
As Bryan said, most of the activity now is mining with the surface infrastructure in place. We continue to track within guidance and budget for the project. Just a few other comments on the chart. The tax cash flow. Just to let you know, we are now paying PAYG instalments on tax of around just under AUD 500,000 per month. We did also recognize some proceeds from some asset sales during the quarter. They sit within the working capital area. There was around AUD 900,000 to do with sale of some non-core equity holdings that we had. We also put through a sale of some biodiversity credits that were excess of around AUD 2.7 million. Nicely, this was able to offset some additional cash backing that we had to do this quarter. We had an AUD 3.3 million cash backing requirement. That went through in January.
As I have mentioned in previous quarters, we will see some small amounts going through for cash backing given our current facility for Trafigura is at its limit. We are cash backing those. As part of an upsize of the performance fund facility, once we put that in place, we will be able to get that cash backing back. At the end of March, that was just under AUD 15 million. In summary, a fantastic quarter cash wise, obviously highlighted by the cash generation at Peak. Our balance sheet is stronger, AUD 10 million increase in cash, and really gives us the confidence to commence the Great Cobar investment. Thanks for your time. I will hand it back to you, Bryan. Thanks, Martin. Thanks, Andrew.
Look, just to summarize our key focus areas and wrap up for quarter three and looking into quarter four and beyond, very much focused on expanding our margin, taking advantage of the nice price environment, but also keeping a clear focus on reducing our cost per tonne, making sure that our cash flows are obviously being maximized in terms of how we run our business and grow our business, and obviously developing our copper growth options, which we talked about earlier. If I look across the spectrum for focus areas, as I sort of have talked about previously, operational performance to safety deliver FY25 is obviously first and foremost to make sure that we do deliver what we said we're going to deliver and generate the value that's in our budget to grow our business. Obviously, I want to call out the operational team and the regional operation team.
They've worked very hard up until the end of quarter three, obviously, to really make sure that we are delivering the value and obviously listening to some of the results from quarter three from Peak and also the ramp-up work at Federation in the operations. Definitely want to call out the team there for the great results and great focus. Federation ramp-up to commercial production is obviously the focus area for this quarter. Once again, we are sort of starting to demobilise our project team. Red Path are doing a great job. Call out for them as far as the development activities are concerned. Also, once again, delivering record meters. Hopefully, we can continue to build up our performance as we go into quarter four and beyond.
I want to call out three groups there, Red Path, the Federation project team, and also the Federation operations team, really sort of bringing that together nicely as we move into FY26. Our productivity and cost focus, which I referred to earlier and Martin just talked about as well, is something we're going to take very seriously and put dedicated resources on focusing to really see what we can do to improve our margin. Our BI team will be working very closely with our operations team to deliver that with an external third party helping make sure we can maximise the value of that opportunity. Our Peak plan optimisation studies will be getting worked on to bring to final investment decision. That's the last piece of the various optimisation studies we've talked about.
We've obviously discussed that being around the mill and the materials handling being the last part of our optimization work we're doing to get to 1.1-1.2 million tonnes. That'll be sort of work we're focusing on in this quarter. The Great Cobar project readiness, obviously, the approval being done. The team is, and as actually Andrew called out, there's a lot of people involved from our internal organization to really be part of that project to bring it to the forefront of the approval process led by Justin. Now it's really moving into execution and having our execution project team getting that readiness to commence development in July is a handover happening in the background as we talk.
As we said, that'll be really focused on recruitment and getting equipment, getting the area set up, and making sure we have a project that can deliver and taking the learnings out of Federation project as well. Lastly, ongoing exploration programs that Andrew just referred to. Lots of work going on this quarter, especially around Federation and Nimijie and also exploration activities happening up around the Peak operation as well. As you said, they're the sort of key focus areas that will allow us to continue our business in the right direction. They haven't changed substantially. They're still very much where we need to be to deliver our business value and our growth going forward. I might pause there and pass back for questions.
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 Daniel Rodden from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks, morning, guys, and congrats on the good quarter. I thought I'd make a good offer last week and start off with my question on Federation and see if you could provide a bit of color on the, I guess, the orientation interpretations and how, I guess, you're tracking with that and what your understanding there is on how it's going to impact, I guess, the ramp-up and operations of Federation, please.
Yeah, sure. Thanks. Thanks, Dan, for the question.
Obviously, as we've sort of highlighted last quarter and again this quarter, our reef field drilling is sort of informing our scope design and development design as we continue to move down in the decline of depth. One of the reefs is obviously very much focused on making sure we understand what FY26 looks like. That sort of ramp-up is definitely in line with that. The second reef we brought in will continue to obviously drill to define FY27 and 28. I guess what I can confirm is for the drilling we've done and for the information that we've received from the drilling, the contained metal definitely won't—for the drilling information will definitely support our ramp-up process that we've put forward. Yep. Yep. Okay. Awesome. I just wanted to unpack a little bit.
You've given, obviously, since the Great Cobar kind of release the other week, and I think you've given some nice timeline information here. I just wanted to unpack, I guess, New Cobar and, I guess, the longevity of the asset there with the expansion of the Peak mill to the 1.1, 1.2. That New Cobar feed, I guess, where does that fit into the longevity of the portfolio? What's the timeline there that you expect that to be, I guess, in operation for? What's the longer-term kind of outlook for some of that data material? Yeah, sure. If I just provide a brief answer, then I'll pass that to Andrew to any specifics you might want more on. Look, in terms of the focus, so the New Cobar, obviously, we're currently mining out of there now, as you know.
We're mining a lot of Chesney out of there now. We'll continue to mine Chesney over the next couple of years as we move more across into the New Cobar mine and less into the South mine. Into FY28, we'll basically be starting to bring ore out of Great Cobar. As a ramp-up process, we'll still have the sort of New Cobar ore deposits, including Chesney, blending in with that Great Cobar ore. The intention will be that we'll get to 500,000 tonnes out of Great Cobar once the development and the ore body has been obviously driven and drilled out. Then we'll basically have less of the Chesney and other areas of the New Cobar mines involved and be very much focused on Great Cobar.
Once we get over towards the ore body, we'll be setting up drill platforms to drill down into these known areas where we have holes that show resource, good drill results underneath the current planned ore bodies. Not forgetting, I think your question was how long. Currently, the mine lasts eight years. We'll be drilling down to understand what's beyond that. Obviously, once we know that, we can obviously build the mine plan accordingly. That will include reviewing the volumes coming out of the mine. That will involve reviewing what other capital we may need to increase the volumes if there is, obviously, an opportunity to mine more out of Great Cobar and so forth.
I mean, realistically, right now, the base case that we've sort of talked about is to get across there, drill while we start to develop and the ore body and obviously start production up to 500,000 tonnes while we understand what's around the deposit to understand what potential there is to grow up further beyond that. Andrew, was there anything you want to add to that at all?
No, I think you've largely covered it, Bryan. Just one thing to recall. When Great Cobar was first talked about, the PFS study stage, there was a bit more pressure to get to Great Cobar ore sooner. Certainly, some of the exploration success we've had around Peak in that brownfield step-out type drilling has allowed us to time Great Cobar and push it out a little bit, which has worked very well.
To have Federation, as Bryan's talked about today, being built, ramping up, and then allow us to move into Great Cobar, develop that while we have a good source of material. We are not like a lot of mining projects that are hanging on that tonne coming out of the ore body. We have the benefit that we will continue to feed out of New Cobar with New Cobar and Chesney in production and then transition our way into Great Cobar. It is a good place to find ourselves. As Bryan mentioned, exploration potential at Great Cobar is fantastic. It does not take away from the fact that there is still exploration potential in the broader New Cobar mines as well. Drilling that, understanding that, looking at what our inventory is in a couple of years as we get into Great Cobar will allow us to optimise that.
It may be that we push beyond 500 out of that whole New Cobar operation. These are the sorts of things that will make those decisions with information in time.
Yeah, good point. Thanks, Andrew. Yep. No, awesome. Thanks, guys. I was just, yeah, trying to get a gauge on how you're thinking about if you were to expand to Peak kind of beyond that, how you're thinking about the feed strategy there. That was a very comprehensive question. Thank you. I might just ask one more if I can, just to freshen this up. Federation, you've kind of maxed all of it back to calculate your mining costs there are quite low. I just wanted to understand if there were still costs being capitalized from the mining operation perspective that's not flowing through quite yet.
I haven't got the calc in front of me, Dan, but yes, we are still capitalising all of so how we're doing it, I think I ran through last month, is when we're taking up any production, we're taking up an offsetting amount of mining and admin costs down at Federation to basically offset the revenue and that going through the P&L. And then what you're seeing in growth capital is the residual above, which is effectively that non-commercial portion we're reporting within growth capital. Okay. Understood. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on. Thank you very much. Thanks, Dan.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul Kana from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Bryan, Martin, and Andrew. Thanks for taking my questions. Just touching further on Dan's question there on Federation and that ore body orientation.
I mean, it might be a bit too early to tell, but how is that sort of changing with depth? Or do you expect what you're sort of seeing in the upper levels to continue down dip?
Look, I think the key point there, Paul, is that we're drilling to understand exactly that. We've seen the orientation change. The drilling we've done for the stope levels for FY26 confirmed that orientation change and confirmed the contained metal. We have to, just this second, drill reef being installed will continue to understand that further and obviously allow us to design our mine accordingly. We'll get to a certain point where we'll have probably more clarity on if there's anything additional to that.
Realistically, we're just basing on the fact that as we're drilling, we're sort of identifying that the contained metal at the levels where we are now in FY26 is what we had planned. We just need to continue drilling. That's what the actual reef is there for. Andrew, is there anything additional to that one at all?
No, I think that's all on that, Bryan.
Yep. Too easy. Just secondly on Cobar more broadly, I guess just the labor and housing situation. You've got Poly that's sort of ramping up and MAC there as well. How's your turnover at the moment and any sort of key positions that you're struggling with at the moment?
Look, I'll answer that briefly, Andrew, to Angus.
Obviously, no doubt we have lost people to other companies and lost people to other places as well in terms of turnover more broadly as the New South Wales region has continued to attract and Queensland region has continued to attract people into various locations. At the moment, obviously, we are looking at an employee-based proposition to see how we can retain people in a more sort of robust way that we are rolling out over the coming months to really hopefully decrease that turnover to get more stability. We are recruiting. We are finding people. We are finding good people to replace the people who are leaving. Obviously, if we can retain good people, that is obviously first prize. Yeah, we have had operator availability with some turnover challenges like most places.
We are getting people who have left who are coming back as well and rejoining based on wanting to work back with us again. It is sort of one of those things. The key thing for us, Paul, is we have got a strategy to really look at an employee-based proposition to sort of make sure that we can attract and retain people going forward as we build our company. We are also going to be recruiting and have started the recruitment process already for the Great Cobar additional people as well, which is going very well at the moment, actually. Going very well with who is sort of putting their hands up for opportunities. Angus, any comments?
No. As you said, Bryan, I think, yeah, we are actually tracking quite well with recruitment for Great Cobar. We have got a team focused on that as a project.
Yeah, we've certainly got turnover. Yeah, no different to anyone else in the industry. I think we're probably doing better than most in our ability to attract people. As we go forward and roll out the updated employee-value proposition in the near term, we hope to see that stabilize even further.
In terms of your question, Paul, around housing, obviously, we've got what I guess we call it a camp in town now for people working at Peak who are a five-hour drive, which is working very well, just 70 rooms. We've also got our camp at Hera, which isn't fully utilized yet. We've got facilities to place people. We've also got housing in Cobar, which we're bringing and offering to people who want to relocate to the Cobar region and work in the Cobar region. That's ongoing.
As Martin talked about, we have put a second charter on now to accommodate the ramp-up at Federation and also for the Great Cobar people that we may bring in on fly-in, fly-out as well as residential.
No, that is great. I appreciate the color. Lastly, maybe one for Andrew, just looking at some of those Federation West intercepts and cracking results there. Just looking at that cross-section, could you maybe provide a little bit more color on where the ore body remains open and where it is closed off based on your current drilling?
Yeah, no problem, Paul. Perhaps that long section is not the easiest thing to understand. There is a lot of work still going on to try to understand that question you just asked around where it is closed off and where we have potential. Certainly open at depth.
There is work going on with that and drilling currently. The bit that we are really trying to understand is what else is in that region. Obviously, this has opened up a new possibility offset, as I say, that 140 meters from the line of the existing Federation ore body. What is the potential to extend that along that orientation? That is part of the reason we are keeping the rig there for the rest of this financial year, to really try to help us answer some of those questions and really understand it better. It was great and a really good piece of work to get that initial discovery hole. These follow-up holes have been fantastic. Better thicknesses, better grades. It really allows us to start thinking about this growing into something.
We'll include those results into the inputs into our resource when we go to rerun that through this year as well as any other drilling we do between here and the end of the financial year. It is probably a bit too early to answer your question, Paul. Certainly, it has all the makings of being something quite interesting for us.
I appreciate that, Andrew. Look, I'll pass it on.
Thanks very much. Cheers. Thanks, Paul.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Adam Baker from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Bryan and team. Thanks for the question. It seems all the questions are on Federation today, so I might continue on that theme. Just some pretty good results from Federation West, as you outlined. Just wondering how you're thinking about the exploration budget.
It seems a AUD 10-15 million exploration budget is pretty conservative considering some of the results that you're getting and considering your balance sheet position in pretty strong position here. Could you ramp up that exploration expenditure heading into next year?
Look, at this point in time, we haven't actually worked through what the budget will be for next year. We'll run through a strategy review of the exploration team, Andrew, in the coming weeks. We'll obviously understand what the right level of spend is based on location and based on the drill rig availability and based on what makes sense for us. I probably can't answer that question right now. That's sort of work in progress as we review that strategy going into FY26. Fair to say that obviously, the amount of money we're spending now is giving us the information we need.
If we make a decision to move faster on some of these things, we'll definitely include them in the revised budget in FY26. Not forgetting, the balance sheet position is strong. We do have various projects, as you're aware, in FY26 as well. We need to sort of make sure that we're balancing our overall cash with the project exploration and our operating costs also. We're just going to be mindful of the overall picture.
Okay. Great. Maybe just the timing on the resource updates for Federation, but more broadly, are there expected to be any other resource updates outside of Great Cobar?
Andrew, any comments on that one?
Yeah. Look, as I mentioned earlier, the intention is to cut off for the resource on drilling at the end of the financial year, end of June.
is then a process of several months to be able to pull that together into a resource that we can disclose. That will then include an update across the entire portfolio resources and reserves. Targeting being out for the full year result in October.
Thank you. I might just sneak in a vote in, Bryan. Commercial production for Federation, it seems you are indicating that it could occur by June. What do you need to see before you are comfortable declaring commercial production here?
Once again, we are looking at commercial production in terms of the sort of revenue getting in. That is the first thing against the cost. As we sort of said, the costs really now are focused on deep mine development and infill drilling.
The rest of the costs of the project have kind of now nearly subsided apart from the small amount of money spent on the mobile workshop upgrades. Realistically, the volume coming out of Federation will give us the revenue, obviously. Costs will basically be the offset sort of get to that point. That is why we are confident in quarter four we are at that buy position. We will remain under budget for the total project as a result of that. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Paul Hissy from MA Financial. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Just a quick one. Martin, can you just back out the AUD 17,800 realised copper price for me for Peak for the quarter?
Yeah. We had some shipment finalisations.
What we do with our realised price is we factor in total revenue divided by copper sold. Sometimes we do get realised prices that look a little bit quirky because of that. It was just to do with a rebell on a shipment from the December quarter.
Yep. Understood. Okay. Thanks. That's all from me. Thanks, Paul.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ashley Chan, private investor. Please go ahead.
Hi guys. Thanks, Bryan, Martin, Angus, and Andrew for updating the quarterly report. I just got a couple of questions on three different areas. Just on staffing and recruitment, how many full-time equivalent employees do you have currently? What is your target for end of 2026? For the end of FY26?
Yeah. I don't have that number in front of me right now.
Angus, do you have that number in close to you at all, the FY26?
I can only approximate. Really around Great Cobar, we're aiming to add 30 FTEs for the Great Cobar project. That takes us to around 350 FTEs at Peak. That's really where we're targeting at the moment, that increase with Great Cobar.
Okay. That means, I guess, for financial year 2026, you'll have to do sustainability reporting to ASIC. I guess, is that underway? Have we got a process in place for that?
Yes. Great Sustainability Lead, John O. Thompson, has been working towards that and has a timeline and a process in place. Yeah. Excellent.
The second question is more for Bryan and Martin on capital management. From your presentation, you can see that there's basically about AUD 50 million CapEx in each financial year for 2026 and 2027.
You have AUD 100 million in cash, and you're going to have positive free cash flow from Peak and Federation, even accounting for the capital expenditure. When do you think a decision or when you'll be having a look at a decision or putting together a recommendation on the timing for share buyback?
Look, I think hi, Ashley. It's Martin. Look, right now, as I think we talked about last week, focus on those capital projects that you talked about. As part of our capital management planning, we'll continue to look at those kind of returns, whether it be dividends or buybacks. Really, the focus over the next couple of years is primarily on delivering these capital projects in any price environment. What I can say is that it's in our mind. We do think about it.
What we want to say publicly about that is that we're committed to capital projects for now.
All right. Okay. Third question is just on Great Cobar. You have the opportunities of exploration, which we understand and operate. You also mentioned operational opportunities, which will enhance option value for Aurelia. What does it mean? Great Cobar creates further operational opportunities.
Yeah. It's a good question. I'll answer that briefly and pass it on to Angus. What we mean by that is that we've currently used the, from a project point of view, used the rates of development and rates of cost from the Peak South line and parts of Chesney to come up with an average number that we put into our models for the Great Cobar project.
We basically understand the conditions in, obviously, Great Cobar are better, both roof-wise and hopefully water-wise, conditions-wise than the South mine. What we are basically saying in our release on improvements is that we are going to focus very much, as we have said in the report today, on cost per tonne improvements starting effectively in quarter four onwards to really go after this AUD 100-AUD 110 a tonne type number. That is my aspiration to get to that sort of mining cost. That will substantially bring more value back into the organization than the current numbers we have put into the model, obviously, for Great Cobar. That is what we talk about when we talk about improvements. It is really around the cost per tonne improvement to get us there.
It's our development improvement, development cost per metre improvement to develop the declines to get down to the actual drill platforms and to the ore body as well. It's basically having a program very focused on those two things, which we believe in. To do the economics, it actually gives us substantial uplift in value as well. Angus, anything you want to add to that at all?
Yeah. I suppose just around the synergies, the clear example, yeah, we'll have the New Cobar-Chesney team working with the Great Cobar team under the single shift boss. For example, something like the truck, we'll have a dedicated truck focused on Great Cobar, but this also allows opportunities for that truck. If there's moved the dirt at Great Cobar, it goes and moves the dirt from a scope at Chesney and provides synergies in that aspect.
All right. Thank you.
On the exploration side or the small sort of operational, just on you made notes that there is potential from, say, 12-15 meter depth up to 2 kilometer meter depth. Just forgive my ignorance. It is possible to mine that deep. Are there other similar mines in the area? What are the analogs for mining up to 2 kilometers if you were to discover anything?
Andrew, do you want to answer that one? I'll pass on to Angus as well.
Yeah. Look, I think the obvious analog in the region is CSA, which is, I can't remember exactly how deep, but about 1,600 meters or something like that. Absolutely possible to chase these things at depth. What was in the study takes us nowhere near that kind of level.
If we did have exploration success at depth, there's certainly an ability to continue to mine and pull that material. Also, we flagged as well as the depth extension potential, definitely potential to the north. We're saying A lands, plenty of potential at depth. B and C, there's potential they join up, and there's potential then that they expand and also go to depth. There's also potential beyond those to the north, as well as along the entire decline that takes us to Great Cobar. It'll be a fantastic ability to drill off that and look for other possibilities in the region.
Angus, do you want to comment just on the depth piece? Yeah. Look, actually, just on our current operations, the Perseverance Deeps area goes down to 1.7 km below surface.
We're not mining at that level at this point, but we obviously have in the past. Certainly no issue there. In reference to CSA, I think they're well over 2 kilometers deep at this point, if that gives you some scale. Thanks, Angus. I think, Ashley, we have operating procedures which allow us to do that in terms of any sort of stress activity. We actually have operating procedures at our Peak Mine to manage those things accordingly and technology to help us as well. It's not unfamiliar territory for us.
Excellent. Thanks. I guess for Andrew, for the B zone and the C zone and testing whether it's contiguous or not and any extensions at depth, has there been any post-2004 drilling between the B and C zone or under the A zone, beneath the A zone?
That you can comment on. I can't recall exactly which drilling was in which year, but there really hasn't been a lot of work done on those for a lot of time. That drilling we did through end of 2021 into 2022 was three holes from surface into the extension on A zone. They were deep holes, and that was expensive drilling. You're sort of AUD 300,000 a hole. Hence, we didn't want to continue with that. It was great to be able to demonstrate that A land continued, and it presents enough inventory for us to want to get across there knowing that the mine will make money. The goal will be to be underground and drill from underground, much, much shorter holes, much deeper drilling. We will continue to test all of that.
We have a plan to put an exploration drive in off the level when we get to Great Cobar, effectively just straight out to the north there to allow us to drill off that platform. We also plan to do similar platforms as we head up and also down that initial development of Great Cobar. Definitely something, give us time to get across there, and then we'll pepper that with drilling from underground and really look at what it looks like.
Perfect. Thank you. Thanks. That's all my questions. Thank you very much again.
Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, please press star one. We'll pause a moment for any final questions to register. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand back to Mr. Quinn for closing remarks. Yeah. Thanks very much.
Look, thanks for everyone dialing in today and the questions. Hopefully, those questions have been helpful for others listening into the call as well. Once again, thanks also to the Aurelia team in total. It's been a big quarter. We have another really big quarter ahead of ourselves as we move into some of these project works. Once again, thanks for dialing in. Thanks for your questions and feedback. Thanks for the Aurelia team for delivery. Appreciate it. We'll speak to you end of this quarter. Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.