Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Aurelia Metals Limited June quarter activities -eport. All participants are in a listen- only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question- and- answer session. If you wish to ask a question you will need to press the star key or the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Bryan Quinn, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thanks Ashley. Good morning and thanks for joining us for the Aurelia Metals fourth quarter investor update. With me today on the call I have Martin Cummings, the Chief Financial Officer, and Andrew Graham, the Chief Technical and Business Development Officer. Today I'm very pleased to provide a short summary of the quarter four results which reflect our continued focus to safely grow our business before handing over to my colleagues to talk through some more information on the slides that we've sent out as part of the package. I will refer to the slides as we move through the presentation today for ease of all the listeners.
The key messages for Aurelia Metals that I would like to highlight is that Aurelia has delivered very strong results in FY 2025 and we'll talk about the quarters today, in particular and especially in line with our guidance metrics that we put out for the start of the year through the end of the year. I'm actually really proud of the work the team's completed to really place Aurelia in a position where we've been able to fund our growth and build our company to create cash and value for our shareholders. I just want to acknowledge the forward looking statements on slide two and then I'm going to move on to slide three.
Let me start by firstly talking about the highlights, but before I do it's really important we'll talk about this in more detail, but we've really continued to improve our safety performance in FY 2025 from the previous year. We've achieved guidance across all commodities and cost items for the full financial year and we've delivered our growth portfolio in line with our plans to really focus on achieving 40,000 copper equivalent tonnes in the future. Federation has been ramping up with our meters being a little bit ahead of plan and our volumes have delivered in line with our targets in FY 2025. Plus we've actually done a lot of work to get internal approvals completed and the preparation work done for Great Cobar in FY the last quarter to be able to kick off in FY 2026.
As we've committed to the market, we continue to focus on improving our development performance at Peak and in this quarter we exceeded 1,000 m for the quarter. This is a target we've set internally to really ramp up our performance to set ourselves up for success in the future. Importantly, we delivered $110 million of cash balance at the end of the year also and we haven't drawn out any debt while funding our growth plans. Overall, like I said, a really strong year and really reaffirms that we as a team are committed to executing our short and medium term strategy, which is creating value for shareholders and will continue to respond with agility to the evolving market conditions across multiple metrics. I just want to go to slide for a slight guidance across the multiple metrics. The team have been successful in achieving guidance.
Some key call outs, obviously in gold, was really strong in quarter three and we highlighted that to the market and in line with our mining plan sequence for the full year. Base metals has come home stronger the last quarter, particularly zinc and lead, to bring the full year results home. Costs were lower on the lower end of guidance for the full year. There's still a large program of works underway to improve costs, of which we've introduced a third party to assist in FY 2026 with improving mining and maintenance costs, which will be followed by admin and other costs in the back end of the year. Teams are really already working on this, but the extra horsepower they bring, a third party in, will definitely help bring the actual results quicker and most of our management, as you well appreciate, are very busy just delivering the plans.
This extra horsepower will be assisting them to deliver the improvements. Growth CapEx was a little bit lower than midpoint, but obviously some of the development activities that we still are required from Federation will fall into sustained CapEx in FY 2026. Overall, the Federation project will be within the budget approved by the board. The lower spend actually in growth CapEx is also attributable to the fact that in the last quarter our main focus has been to demobilize the project team, finish the workshop build on the site, and really put our attention just on development meters and infill drilling spend. Otherwise, most of the other activities are now completed and there's some work obviously in FY 2026 that we've accrued for in the overall budget still to do with the road intersections.
Lastly, we did not provide information on guidance for the all-in sustaining costs as we are in a transition, as we've reported before, from a gold sort of measurement to a base metals measurement in the future. It's important $2,037 per ounce is still a very good story and it shows a strong result and actually is very much in line with our FY 2024 result. Considering inflationary pressures and the amount of work we're doing on site to build our business, that's a good result by the team. Like I said, we've still got a long way to go to improve this going forward. I must move on to slide five. Safety and sustainability and environment are very much a key drive for us.
You'll notice there's been a good trend in the right direction to improve our all-in sustained total recordable injury frequency rate and also our recordable environmental incident frequency rate. I'd really like to congratulate the team for the improvements in the trend for the overall rates. This has been a great outcome. The focus for the 12 months and in particular last quarter, we've really been working with our supervisors and leaders to be in the field, including myself and the other executives, which is just paramount to helping ensure that we really have the right focus on safety for our people and care for our people.
We've placed a large focus over the last quarter on complete risk management, deep dives on high items on the register, and also had team members working on refreshing our failure risk protocols for the company and rolling them out on a soft launch. This has been a significant piece of work and sets up the business for the future to be more looking around the corner at what can go wrong, identify the controls that can proactively prevent something happening, and minimize the impacts, which provides a much more sustainable and reliable business in the future. This year's results are particularly important as the trend shows that even though we were closing dargs at the start of the financial year and this has its own level of complexity and complications when it comes to people, management, and focus.
We've also been ramping up Federation and bringing more people on to set up Great Cobar project. A lot of activity happening within Aurelia and the management's been really able to focus on making sure people come to work and go home safely. I'll just move on to slide six. I want to talk about Peak. Obviously, Peak productivity improvements still remain a key focus for us over the quarter. We've seen a nice improvement in development meters from our Jumbo fleet. There's been improvements in availability at the second half of the quarter and we're working hard on operator recruitment availability in the second half of the quarter. Also, some of the highlights include record meters in June since the recommence to owner operator, and we achieved that actually in the last month. 397 m for the month.
There's still lots of room to improve through getting our utilization of our equipment up to the right sort of number of hours and the rate achieving good rates. Irrespective, the quarter still finished at 1,041 m per quarter, which was in line with our ramp up profile that we've had, we discussed in previous quarters. Cost per tonne were $140 a tonne. Still lots of work underway to improve this through operator availability being a core focus. We did have some good wins through the quarter with some of the new approaches to mine, reducing dilution, changes with some of the stopes, improved recovery of around 10%, which also prevents hauling low grade rock to the mill and helps improve the overall mill recoveries.
Also, speaking of mill recoveries, you'll also note that we've also had some continued good focus and good results on our zinc recovery, which is very important considering as we ramp up ore from Federation. Obviously, zinc is going to play a large part of that processing requirement, and getting to recoveries means we're not leaving money on the table. Still a lot of work underway in recoveries, and the team's doing a great job on that. The mills continue to perform well, and this is important going forward as we continue now pushing the mill to ramp up at full capacity in FY 2026. Obviously, we'll have the volumes out of the Peak south mine and new Cobar side of the mine happening, and we'll also have the Federation tonnes coming into the mill.
It's going to be a large amount of work focusing on bringing these volumes into the mill and maximizing output. On a separate note, as I mentioned earlier, we brought a third party in to really accelerate building our systems and processes so we can improve our productivity through our modern operating system. We put a laser focus on recruiting all the people we need to ramp up the operations and really focus on employing people aligned with our values of the company. I'll move on to slide seven, Federation. The key message there, development for the year was slightly above budget, which is a good outcome as we continue to ramp up the timings associated that we need the development for. We achieved 1,134 m for the quarter. We introduced second jumbo into the mine in this last half. It's still being ramped up.
It's not on full utilization for development. As we sort of open the mine up, it'll be on full utilization. Our focus for the quarter has really been highlighted in previous periods, which is really making sure we push a decline down, get the infield drilling ahead of our production areas to understand the ore body better, and set up mining to be as efficient and productive as possible. At this phase, we've still been focusing on deep flowing meters infield drilling, in comparison to trying to ramp up tonnes faster. This trade-off will remain as flexible in FY 2026 as we build the mine and look at the opportunity we have. Key point, the production was in line with the plan, 106,000 tonnes for the full year, and actually 54,000 of that was processed in this last quarter, which is a good outcome.
Just on Federation, we did spend $66.4 million for the full year. That's in line with our guidance numbers. However, some of the spend from FY 2025, what we spent, moved into FY 2026 as sustaining capital. Like I said, that's all still within our overall board-approved budget that we've reported. I'll just move on to slide eight. The Great Cobar project is underway. We mentioned last quarter that we were basically kicking off doing the preparation work. Once we had approval from the board in quarter four of FY 2025, that's actually progressed quite well. We now have a crew as of the first week of July, with jumbo, loader, and truck all being delivered to site. We've been working on establishing the services.
A large focus in the three months leading up to July has been recruiting in London Valley as discussed and really looking at how we start Great Cobar on the right foot as an owner-operator sort of process. We've got obviously just over 2 km to develop in FY 2026, and our capital we've reported in line with our guidance is very much there to be spent to deliver the project. All on track, very exciting opportunity as we sort of get ourselves moving towards tapping into this nice copper and gold in possibly two years. We have the owners team on board for the project, working with the mining team to ensure we progress this development. We'll obviously report back on a quarterly basis as the project commences and as the project progresses.
Importantly, as I said, the people and the equipment are on the job, and now it's about getting the job underway in line with the project. What I'm going to do is I'll hand over to Andrew, who's been actively working on the studies for the Peak plant project, which is on slide nine. He'll cover that and the exploration slide, and then he'll hand it over to Martin for the following slide. Over to you, Andrew.
Thanks, Bryan. Because Bryan's mentioned we'll touch firstly on studies and projects. There's a photo included there on slide nine of the thickener being constructed in Vietnam. It's a TAKRAF thickener, so their DELKOR brand, and really just important to flag that construction of the thickener, which is critical path to the tailings and water management project for the processing plant, is on target, on schedule, which is good. In some areas we're ahead of schedule, but working on the basis that that will be delivered on time, which is great for that first project. The other two studies will go to the board imminently; they're being completed. The tertiary ball mill project and also the materials handling project for the plant, as flagged at investor day. We previously guided that range of $20 million- $25 million for those two projects.
It'll come in substantially under that, which is great and really just highlights the fact that the plant expansion that we're talking about is really very, very capital efficient, using all the latent capacity that we already have within that excellent Peak processing plant. A key milestone for us for the quarter was the permit application has been made to the Cobar Shire Council to take that plant capacity up to 1.2 million tonnes. We don't expect there to be any issues in that permit, so fairly low touch kind of expansion. It's all within the footprint that's already permitted with a few, as we touched on previously, a few very targeted pieces of equipment. Great that that's in process now formally with the Shire Council, who is our permitting authority.
Flipping over the page then into slide 10 just on exploration, in reality I probably could have led with any one of a number of photos in this one. I actually think of Todd McGilvray, our Exploration Group Manager, who made the comment to me previously that we'd had a very good quarter, and we certainly have. Two releases have gone out to the market, which you will have seen, both in relation to Nymagee district, one highlighting some Federation west drilling particularly, and also then highlighting Nymagee drilling itself. The photo I ended up running with in the pack here is of Nymagee. This is some of the drilling we were doing at Nymagee Main. It's very, very good copper mineralization, which you'll see in the photo, but also in the intercept it's listed on there, you know, five odd meters at 3% copper, excellent in anyone's language.
Also importantly, further down that same hole, substantial lead and zinc, you know, combined in excess of 15% lead plus zinc. Getting some very, very good results there from imaging. We also through the quarter got the results back from a downhole electromagnetic survey that we did on that Nymagee Main area, which has given us some very interesting targets to follow up. At the moment as I speak, we've got drill rigs working at Nymagee North, which is several hundred meters further north than the drilling I was just talking about. We'll continue to drill there for the next little while and the intent is to move the surface rig back down onto Nymagee Main and test some of those deep targets because as I mentioned, could have easily showcased Federation West, some very, very strong results through the quarter there.
We've actually taken the rig off Fed West at the end of the quarter. The second rig they're working at Nymagee before it goes to Peak. Part of the reason we've done that is really to allow the geology team there at Federation to think a bit about what the drilling means that we've seen and plan the program for FY 2026. That's all I've covered this morning. I'll just throw over now to Martin to talk about the balance sheet.
Thanks Andrew.
Turning to slide 11, as you know we've pre-released our cash, but we finished with around $110 million for the year.
Our loan note this quarter did amortize.
Slightly down to $23.6 million U.S., but that really with our cash results in total liquidity now of over $145 million. We're well set up to execute on these growth projects. For Peak mine, cash flow was lower this quarter at $14 million with our higher base metal sales but lower gold sales. As Bryan mentioned, that was driven by our production mix. Pleasingly, operating costs were down 12%.
From the prior quarter.
We did have some higher sustaining capital for capital development in the south mine. We did make some of those maintenance investments in overhauling our mining fleet. I guess it's really important to sit back and look at the fantastic year that Peak had. It generated $96 million of cash flow. Our growth capital, as Bryan said, was lower at $15.2 million with $10.8 million for Federation. The commencement of our investment in Great Cobar was $4.3 million and $100,000 for Andrew's expansion studies. That took our growth capital for the year to just under $72 million, and as you know, we guided $70 million- $80 million for the year. Bryan also mentioned that the project team's now demobilized with only minor surface works left to complete at site and our road intersection upgrades. Andrew just touched on exploration.
Their spend was a little bit lower this quarter at $3.8 million, but the overall spend for the year was right on the midpoint of guidance.
Our corporate costs were lower this quarter.
We also did receive some proceeds from the sale of some biodiversity credits. That resulted in the waterfall of a net inflow of $1 million across those two items. The other item in there is a favorable working capital movement of around $11.6 million. Around $8.8 million of that was due to the timing of some year-end supply payments, which will unwind this quarter.
We don't report finished goods in this.
Chart, but it is also worth noting that we had around $3 million of unsold gold on hand at the end of the quarter, and we also had some concentrate produced that we weren't able to transport and get sales away by the 30th of June. All in all across that, there shouldn't be any major impacts in the coming quarters. Our financing cash flows include some more cash backing with $3.8 million for Nymagee, and that does take our restricted cash balance now to around $18 million. I talked about this in the investor day, I am looking at refinancing our performance bond facility this financial year, and that should enable that cash to be returned to us. Finally, our financing cash flows do include some of the leasing for the Great Cobar equipment.
In summary, our operating performance this year has enabled us to deliver all of our guidance metrics, and we finished the year with incredibly strong balance sheet. Thanks for your time.
I'll hand it back to you, Bryan.
Thanks, Martin. Thanks, Andrew. Look, just on the last slide, our focus remains very much on improving our margins, providing cash to strengthen the balance sheet, and growing our business portfolio in the copper and base metal space as we sort of highlight in line with our strategy. To be clear, our priorities don't seem to change much quarter on quarter. We'll continue to ensure our people come to work and go home safely every day. As you've seen, we're making some good inroads there. Every day is a new day. We don't want to be complacent, we need to work hard at making sure that continues on, especially as we've got a lot of project work and a lot of new people joining the company.
There is a laser focus on cash management for the growth journey, and we've proven we can generate cash to fund our growth in FY 2025. We'll continue to have plans in place to improve our cash. Federation ramp-up and understanding the geology as we progress is important for our business, especially as we want to ramp up to our full capacity over the coming periods. Great Cobar will be the same focus as we have for Federation. We'll basically be managing that project and all the contingency allowances very tightly and actively looking for opportunities to improve the cost of the project. As we did for Federation, we're ramping up our focus on exploration opportunities in FY 2026.
We're keen to build our portfolio of organic options that will feed the future Peak expansion that we're working on and also look at what options we have for Hera restart in the medium term. Lastly, and most importantly, we're spending a lot of time looking at how to ensure our people have a good employee value proposition, relevant development and training, and we're recently looking at all those things in more detail and changed our actual bonus system accordingly, focused instead of annual focus for the workforce. Importantly, as I described earlier, it's all about having the right people with the right mindset to live our values and deliver the performance we need for this business, and it will really make a difference for the company.
With that as it is, I'll hand it back to you, Ashley, to move into questions from any of the people online, and then I'll wrap up after that. Thanks, Ashley.
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. Your first question today comes from Adam Baker with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning. Barrow and team, just firstly, just didn't see any commentary about Federation entering commercial production on the 1st of July. Just checking if this has still occurred.
Hi, Adam.
Look.
That's something we will assess. I think we were saying we made the assumption in our outlook that we would be commercial from the 1st of July. As we step through towards the end of the month, we'll make that first assessment then that the mine's ramping up in line with the plan.
Thank you. Secondly, good to see the uptick in zinc recoveries at 83%. Just wondering the drivers behind this, whether it's just purely the high grade lead zinc ore going through the mill, or has there been any optimizations to the flow sheet. Second to this, do you think you'll be able to maintain these rates of recovery moving forward now that Federation is going to form part of the processing mix?
Yeah, good question. Look, I think we did have good grades coming through, better grades coming through this quarter of zinc and lead coming out of the mines. We actually have worked recently on the filter press filters at the back of the plant to improve also the throughput of the back end. I don't see why we can't continue to achieve the recoveries, if not improve the recoveries as we sort of unlock this latent capacity we actually have in the plant. Obviously, the work Andrew's been doing on the optimization of the plant, we'll continue to look at all the aspects of how we do it. It's also important that if we can minimize dilution coming from the mines and make sure we're bringing the right ore to the mine, feeding it through the mill, that's going to make a big difference as well.
Was there anything to add to that, Andrew, at all?
Yeah, Adam, I'll just flag I think the team's been making better use of the regrind, which has been good, and the other bit that's going to come, which Bryan just touched on, once the water management project comes through, which will be in the second half of the financial year, we should see an uptick in recovery just from getting cyanide water out of flotation, which is depressing our recovery a little bit. I can't see any reason why it won't continue. Certainly, the Federation has processed exactly as we had hoped through the feasibility study, which is awesome. As these other projects start to flow through, we should see improvement further.
Thanks Dan.
I'll hand it on.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Daniel Rodden with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
G'day guys and congratulations on the report. Just wanted to, I guess, you know, labor availability has kind of.
Been flagged again as a bit of.
I guess trouble in the quarter to understand the complexities of the operating region, but I guess what can provide a bit of commentary on what you're doing around initiatives around availability. I guess Federation has now done any rotating into Great Cobar, but that late force availability. Is there any updates on improvements there?
Yeah, good question. Federation definitely hasn't been affected by that. Redpath or the contracting partners down there have maintained the labor we need. I'll just bring it back to Peak. We made some changes in this last quarter. We've moved to an operator both on the production, drilling, and also blast and charge. Effectively, we've moved out of those two contracts into owner operator for both of those. Recruiting for those roles has been obviously part of the operator availability, and getting those people on board has been taking a bit longer than we'd hoped, obviously. Once people find out their contracts, they no longer have a role. They don't hang around for very long. We had a few gaps pop up in that change management. Those roles have been recruited for, if not recruited for already.
It was just a period of time in that changeover process in this last quarter. In terms of Great Cobar, last I had reported to me that we had all the roles filled. We had a couple of extra operators starting, I think, last week to fill the last couple of roles. Like I said, it's going to be an ongoing issue in the industry as you know, people look for higher salaries and better opportunities where they can earn more money. Hopefully, with the employee value proposition rollout we're doing this month, we'll be able to settle that down and hopefully provide good outlook for people. As I mentioned, we've instigated a quarterly bonus now for the crews which focuses on safety meters and tonnages. That will, I think, be really encouraging people to feel they got some control over how they get a quarterly bonus for their output.
There was some change. There was some work we did during the quarter which probably caused a few of the operator availabilities from the change management side of things. I think that the team's working well to recruit the right people, not just anyone as well, which takes a bit longer, obviously.
Yep, yep, understood.
Thank you. I'm probably just nitpicking a little bit.
On the trade credit unwind sixth quarter, are you able to define what level of unwind you're expecting into Q1 2026 and is that kind of approaching a normalized working capital change? You had two or three quarters of working capital builds. I think the expectation is that it probably was going to unwind in Q1, but just trying to get a sense of past that, next quarter. Are we at a normalized run rate after that?
Yeah, Dan, as I've said in my notes, probably $8 million of that you could have expected to be paid this quarter but wasn't. We will go into as Great Cobar ramps up and Federation ramps up in line with our spend outlook. I expect our sort of trade creditors balance to probably lift a bit. Counter to that, as I said, we've got some unsold product so I don't see it from a cash perspective being significant. I think ordinarily maybe a slight increase in working capital just given the high level of spend this year, but I think around normal levels where it's been tracking. It shouldn't be too huge I guess, is the answer.
Yep, yep, understood. Final quick one just for me. I know, probably just because you brought it up in [Nan] in the opening remarks, but I know we've spoken about it historically, just the, I guess, mix of metals going forward, how are you thinking about changing, I guess, the reporting going forward basis? Are you thinking about pivoting away from gold equivalents and what would that change look like?
Yeah, I think we talked about that probably 12 months ago. As you can see, the all-in sustaining cost per gold ounce is.
A.
Bit volatile just given where there is higher grade gold coming through the production and where there isn't. I think ultimately a base metal per pound metric as we transition towards that 40,000 copper equivalent tonnes milestone that we talked about at the investor day, you know, we've transitioned to a cost metric that aligned to that production profile. There's obviously, and I know your report sort of does it a few different ways, a few ways we can construct that and how we treat byproducts. A copper equivalent metric per pound is kind of where my head's at right now.
Awesome. Sounds good. Thank you, guys.
Probably just the other bit to add, Dan, is with all of the metals in the denominator, it definitely gives you a smoother kind of profile than having the swings in by-products.
No, agreed. I appreciate your responses, everyone. Thank you. I'll hand it over.
Thanks, Dan.
The next question comes from Paul Kaner with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi Bryan, Martin and Andrew, thanks.
for taking my questions.
Firstly, just on Federation, obviously we got more commentary there on the ore body at the investor day. You've changed the mining method there in the upper levels given the change in the ore body knowledge. I know what you sort of do down deeper is largely predicated on more drilling, but what's the current mining method being assumed at depth, and is this different versus the previous feasibility study?
Yeah, look, thanks Paul. The mining method that the guys have assumed is obviously once we receive the infill drilling information, they're obviously putting the shapes around that from a mining profiling point of view and that'll be depending on the lenses and on the direction and on the location and they will be sort of, you know, stopes probably similar to what we're seeing. Like I said, once we have the drilling information and the block models sort of, you know, updated with the result of that at depth, as you called it, we'll be able to describe that probably in more detail. The infill drilling really is defining like the upper areas has really helped us define the most efficient and also best recovery of high grade ore process. As we go down we'll obviously want to continue that. We're very mindful.
We don't want to obviously put tonnes out on the road that are low grade, that really obviously cost us money and affect our recoveries. The infill drilling will sort of, you know, guide us in terms of how we set those block models up and also look at how we set up the shapes for the ore recovery. Right now the assumption is more of the same based on the information we have for the next two years from the actual ore drilling we've done.
Yeah.
I guess in sort of FY 2028 for example, we've got zinc ticking up, you've got other commodities ticking up I guess. What's the mining method assumed where FY 2028 really is to FY 2026 and FY 2027 method?
Yeah, the original design has the area getting deeper, sort of broadening out. The original assumptions have them broadening out into different, obviously bigger lenses. That would assume that we are going to get some obviously bigger stopes as well in that mining method. Like I said, the FY 2028 outlook was kind of a view of the information we have, which hasn't been infill drilled or in any more detail than what was in the feasibility study. That's still the assumption. Once the infill work is done in FY 2026, that'll form what FY 2028 looks like in more detail. The assumptions are still the same assumptions; nothing's shaped at this point in time until we get that work done.
Yeah, no, that's very clear. Thanks for that, Bryan. When should we expect the updated resource reserve, and within that, how much extension or drilling has been done at Federation relative to infill? I guess what I'm trying to get at is just trying to figure out if there's any potential mineral inventory additions or depletions that sort of come.
With that updated resource, yes, we'll be releasing our [MRAW] later in the second quarter of this year. The drilling has been done. We're actually now getting all the assays in. Over the coming months, the block models will be formed up, and we will obviously be doing the Emerald process along the lines of that. Andrew, anything you want to add to that at all from a technical point of view?
Yeah, Paul, just the comment about infill or extensional. Within Federation itself, most of the work has been infill, but by default that's in some areas become extensional, and we've gone under mineralization that wasn't previously in the model. Whether you can be definitive about saying it's infill or extensional, really it's infill drilling that's had some success. That will flow through into Emerald October. We're looking through that process. We'll assess what, if any, of Federation west can also come into that inventory as well. Those two pieces for Federation are the focus for this year.
Yeah, that's great. Thanks for that extra color there, Andrew. That's it from me, guys, thanks.
Thanks.
Paul, your next question comes from [Peter Gormandi] with Sran Partners. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my question. I just have another follow up from Paul and Adam on Federation, and I'm just wondering if you can confirm what the geometry of the ore body looks like vertically.
What the geometry. I think we've provided information at the investor day on the geometry as we've seen it so far based on the infield drilling and mapping, etc. I'm just not sure if you're looking for something additional to that or Andrew, if I missed something in that question.
I just wondered if you had any further information on how that changing shape is looking from underground, or is that in the resource and the reserve update?
Indeed, yes.
Any additional information, like I said, the drilling, we've pounded a lot of meters in infill drilling to really get confidence in our numbers, and obviously that information is getting assayed and worked on in the coming months. In terms of directional change of the ore body relative to what we've described, I don't have any new information at this point in time. Andrew, do you have anything you want to add to that?
No, look, I'll just reiterate, Peter. I think through the fees it was modeled as an east-northeast trending mineralization. That way, what we're seeing as we're getting more detail, that 12.5 m spacing infill is really, it's still that east-northeast trending mineralization, but within that there's a set of effectively sort of north-northeast oriented ore bodies. We're getting a really good handle on that now through infill. I think you mentioned a little bit about sort of vertical nature; it's still exactly as we'd model, and we got drilling all the way down through the ore body. We didn't expect it to suddenly become flat lying or an ugly angle or anything like that. It's still kind of near vertical and very easy from a mining perspective to be able to stop it.
Okay, yeah, that's great. Thank you. Thanks for taking the question.
Thanks Peter.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Next question comes from John Thompson, a private investor. Please go ahead.
Hello John.
Hello John.
Apologies. We'll go to your next question. This is from Ashley Chan, a private investor.
Hi Ashley.
Oh, hi. Hi Bryan.
Thank you very much. Again, well done on another report, and thank you for taking my question. I guess I have the standard question.
On hitching.
Now that you're sort of ramping up. You've got $100 million in cash and expenditure from your investor presentation of about $55 million through the year. Are you expecting that you will for full year with your existing hedge program as you ramp up successfully and have $100 million cash in the bank that you'll just let your hedges expire? The second question I had was I noticed for this quarter the only new hedging you did was gold hedging. When we look at which now comes almost to 20,000 oz, which is about half of the gold production, I'm just querying about the mix of hedging, why you always hedging gold and compared to say copper where copper is relatively unhedged, I think you only have 620 metric tons of hedging, 4,000 tonnes for lead and 5,000 for zinc.
Predominant hedging fly gold rather than being weighted equally among gold, zinc, lead and copper as per the production profile for FY 2026.
Ashley Martin here. I'll go to the first question. You're right. As we go through the capital spend.
This year, I am just looking at.
Hedging still as a bit of insurance as we go through this process. The strategy hasn't changed from before. We only have hedging on out to June at this stage. As you'll note from the outlook, we do still have a decent amount of capital to spend in FY 2027. We constantly look at our hedging levels, rerun sensitivities to spot prices to our internal prices, and make an assessment there. The strategy hasn't changed, but for now, no hedging on for that period. On the second one, in terms of the relativities, it's probably just more a point in time when the report was cut. We do look at hedging across the board in base metals and in gold. We also look at hedging lines available.
We did do a little bit of hedging, 6,000 oz in the back end of the quarter, and we are still looking at lead, zinc, and copper as well just to balance it out because I don't want to go too heavy on one metal as you pointed out. It's probably just a point in time assessment rather than a change in strategy to target gold.
Excellent.
Thanks, Martin. Much appreciated.
Thanks Ashley.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Quinn for closing remarks.
Yeah, thanks Ashley. Thanks everyone for joining us today for the fourth quarter report back. I just want to thank our shareholders and employees for the continued support. Obviously, we are in a state where we're trying to create a business for the future in base metals and obviously taking advantage of using our gold to fund us to get there as well as the base metals. The business has a lot of potential and this will be delivered throughout people and supported in line with our long-term growth story. Hopefully, we'll aim to exceed expectations on generation of value and cash whenever we can, and the entire management team is focused on that as we speak to try and make sure that we set FY 2026 up for success and deliver our plans and the guidance numbers we've given the market.
Thank you very much for attending and we look forward to the full year presentation to the market in late August. Appreciate everyone called in today. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.