Good morning everyone. Thank you for taking the time to dial into our first quarterly call, which we expect to become a regular occurrence now that we are in production and today really is a milestone event for the company declaring commercial production and publishing our first cost guidance on the call. Joining me today is Justin Laird, our CFO, and Matt Dusci, our COO, and on today's call we will walk you through the key achievements of the December quarter as well as providing cost guidance for the second half of this financial year, 2025. At the end of the call we will take questions and to our analysts. Justin and I will be in touch in coming days to invite you on a Honeymoon site tour in March. Given construction activities are largely complete and the site is safe, we'll be hosting regular site visits going forward.
So turning to the presentation, the highlights looking at the three key categories, our key ramp up milestones delivered during the quarter, we remain on track to deliver our 850,000 lbs of uranium per our production guidance for 2025. It's another strong quarter of growth as we continue to ramp up production, our Honeymoon operation in South Australia as well as at the Alta Mesa operation in South Texas. Some of the key highlights which we'll expand upon during the call include 137,000 lbs of uranium being drummed during the quarter and that's up 53% since the September and 215,000 lbs of ion exchange production which is up 96% from the previous quarter. Our NIMCIX column three was commissioned and currently ramping up columns one and two, I'm pleased to report are continuing to operate at nameplate capacity.
The final installation and commissioning of kiln 2 was also completed and is now operating. Commercial production effectively was then declared effective from 1st January 2025. Financially, we're also in a strong position. We retain and remain with sort of 252 million in cash and liquid assets on our balance sheet. Funnily enough, it's a growth of 7 million from the previous quarter and we still have zero debt. During the quarter we sold 200,000 lbs of uranium at a realized price of $77.5 per lb, which is roughly around AUD 125 per lb.
In light of the quarter's strong performance, we're pleased to publish our maiden C1 cost guidance for Honeymoon of between AUD 37-AUD 41 per pound, which equivalent in US dollars an exchange rate of 0.62 equates to about $23-$25 per pound and that's for the six months forecast to 30 June 2025. We believe this is a very strong outcome by any measure and is in line with the forecast in the feasibility study released in June 2021 which simply adjusted for inflation. Finally for the further ramp up and growth initiatives that are underway while we continue to de-risk Honeymoon processing and operations, we're also progressing growth initiatives such as infill drilling on our satellite deposits of Jason's and Gould's Dam and also ramping up and supporting our joint venture with enCore at Alta Mesa.
Looking at our production results as stated, during the quarter we produced 137,000 lbs of uranium drummed which was up 53% from the previous quarter, and 215,000 lbs of product from the ion exchange columns which is nearly double to the previous quarter. The difference between IX production and drummed yellowcake is really due to slight time delays in commissioning and tuning of our second kiln, Kiln two. That issue has now been resolved. We also achieved a number of other key milestones which will help provide step changes in our production profile. These include installation and commissioning of column three, final installation and commissioning of kiln two and completion of the pump installation on Wellfield three. In terms of production ramp up, we remain confident that we will achieve our 2025 guidance.
Ion exchange production is already achieving a run rate consistent, delivering 850,000 lbs of uranium by June 25. Kiln 2, as mentioned, has been commissioned and became operational in mid-January, so if we look at the past two weeks or 14 days, we have recorded an average of 3,900 lbs per day production of uranium. This is a great achievement and not only highlights the production run rate, but also validates our adoption of Ion exchange technology which has increased production throughput and reduced the cost of production, and that's what we set out to achieve all those years ago, five, six years ago in fact, in the past 24 hours, according to our daily production sheet I just received, we kilned 7,000 lbs which implies both the front end and the back end of the processing plant have achieved nameplate capacity for six columns.
However, only just two columns were actually operating. Having said that, we are still in a commissioning phase and the focus is now on consistency and reliability of production. As we ramp up in terms of timing of our next milestones, we expect columns four to six to be completed by June 2025. We will continue to implement optimization initiatives to improve the availability of the drying and packing area. As mentioned, Wellfield 3 is also available for use and we will turn that on when required. In terms of growth, when we look at our exploration, we've got the satellite deposits as mentioned, Jason's and Gould's Dam prospects.
They really have the potential to drive growth as well as enable us to leverage our existing infrastructure at the Honeymoon processing plant and further capitalize on opportunities presented by growing global demand for uranium from Tier one locations such as South Australia and South Texas. Our key activities for the quarter included completing the infill drill program for Gould's Dam and Jason's deposits, which did include a number of significant intercepts including 3.25 m at a grade of around 3873, which was measured by our prompt fission neutron tool. We also have engaged AMC Consultants to produce a mineral resource update for the Gould's Dam adjacent deposit and we're advised that we will receive that in the quarter three of 2025.
With our new Chief Geologist Andy Wilde, we've now been looking at other growth prospects around the uranium mine, including the Cummins Dam prospect which is next to East Kalkaroo. That's to find a zone of mineralization of approximately one meter, one km by one km, which remains open. In terms of further upcoming exploration activities, we'll continue drilling on that Cummins Dam prospect and we'll also continue to generate new exploration targets around the Honeymoon operation, identified for high priority targets that could represent additional undiscovered resources for Alta Mesa. We're really content with our business relationship with enCore Energy and the Alta Mesa operation. We've had many touch points with the enCore team during the course of my career. Our Chairman Wyatt Buck and Sachi Davies, our marketing and strategic representative.
Our chairman Wyatt and I had the fortune of attending Alta Mesa's grand opening ceremony or celebration in early October with George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, leading proceedings. A few weeks afterwards, enCore announced Alta Mesa's production ramp up had passed another important milestone with the first of three ion exchange circuits nearing flow capacity. Alta Mesa's first ion exchange circuit was commissioned in June 2024 and the second ion exchange circuit is planned to commence operation this current quarter with the third ion exchange circuit planned to be online by the end of 2025. They're making good progress and during the quarter enCore also announced more strong grade drill results which we announced to the market. The operation also observed increased wellfield recoveries as ramp up continues.
The solution head grades at Alta Mesa peaked at about 1 mg per liter and averaged approximately 65 mg per liter. Alta Mesa is ramping up to an annualized production rate of $1.5 million per annum and our share of that production is 30%. Just quickly looking at the market, just a sort of quick overview. I'm sure most are up to speed, but really when we cast our eyes back in the past year 2024 fundamentals improved significantly on the demand side. International Energy Agency's 2024 World Energy Outlook projected more than a doubling of global nuclear capacity from 417 gigawatts increasing by 916 GW by 2050. The industry also saw unprecedented interest in developing nuclear capacity to support data center growth in 2024. Several prominent companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Google announced MOUs with nuclear utilities to develop nuclear capacity aimed at supporting these data centers.
This phenomenon wasn't really even contemplated some year or two ago. It highlights a strategic shift towards sustainable and reliable energy sources to power the growing demands of data infrastructure. This was further complemented by last week's Stargate project announced by President Trump, a $500 billion AI infrastructure venture. Growing demand for electricity generation has also driven nuclear capacity upgrades, life extensions and recommissioning of shutdown reactors such as Diablo Canyon, Palisades, Three Mile Island and Duane Arnold. Nuclear capacity demand and associated uranium demand is expected to more than double by 2050 and while demand expectations are increasing, the risks on the supply side cannot be ignored. Geopolitical concerns continue to dominate worldwide. These include potential import bans, sanctions, transport issues, potential tariffs and counter tariffs.
It's making headlines daily, all of which will continue to create uncertainty in the market regarding the availability of supply now and in the future. When we now move to financials. As mentioned at the opening, Boss Energy remains in a very strong financial position with a robust balance sheet that is supported by AUD 252 million in cash and liquid assets on hand as at 31st of December 2024, which was a AUD 7 million increase on the September quarter. This is a strong financial position which will support Boss Energy during ramp up with no requirement for external capital or debt during the quarter. We also sold as mentioned, 200,000 lbs at a realized price of $77.5 per pound.
We've been very disciplined with our marketing strategy and the price was consistent with the prevailing market price at the time of sale, which represents our strong exposure to potential further increases in the uranium price. Now, importantly, onto cost guidance. But before Justin goes into details on the numbers, it is worth reiterating that the background for the second half of 2025 guidance provided. Overall, Boss is in the early stages of ramp up and so what we are providing is a forecast based on actuals that we have seen to date combined with planned production. Over to you, Justin.
Thanks Duncan. So as Duncan mentioned, the C1 cost guidance for the second half of FY25 is estimated to be between AUD 37-AUD 41 per pound equivalent to $23-$25 per pound. We expect that the cost per pound will come down as we ramp up production and the fixed cost is fractionalized. The increase in C1 cost since the EFS essentially represents an increase in line with inflation. The composition of the key drivers of C1 costs such as labor, reagents and power that were set out in the EFS have not materially changed since the definitions of each cost are also consistent with the EFS. But nonetheless we've included a summary of the definitions in the appendix of this presentation.
Capital costs for the second half of FY25 are estimated to be between AUD 38 million and AUD 43 million, which comprises CapEx for the Wellfields projects and other sustaining capital. Wellfields CapEx of AUD 17 million-AUD 20 million mainly reflects infrastructural costs of drilling, casing and screening as well as the new well houses. It also includes the spider lines to connect the well houses to the wells and the main trunk line costs which to bring a group of wellfields into production. We are seeing that Wellfields CapEx has gone up approximately in line with C1 costs since the EFS. A small cost of circa 20% of AUD 2 million, which wasn't included in the EFS, was the first fuel cost for well fields, which reflects the initial reagent usage required to charge the circuit and establish the chemical conditions needed to leach the uranium.
Studies are currently underway to investigate how much of this investment in reagent can be recovered by pumping the reagent out of used well fields and then into new well fields for project CapEx. The remaining cost for the second half of FY25 will be between AUD 19 million- AUD 21 million, which almost entirely represents the cost to complete the project. This is a bit over a third higher than what was estimated in the EFS in terms of the total cost to complete the project. Essentially the main reason for the increase in project CapEx is an increase in labor cost and inflation since the EFS was published. That concludes the financial guidance section. I'll now hand back over to Duncan.
Thanks, Justin. So we can now turn to questions from those joining the call. Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Mark Wiseman with Macquarie.
Yeah, hi, Duncan and team. Congratulations on the ramp up. Really looks like it's going well. I just want to ask on the cash costs, if we extrapolate those fixed costs across the plateau volume, the 2.45 million lbs , it's sort of implying $33-$36 a pound Aussie cash cost. Is that appropriate? Is that the right way to think about the way you're presenting this, or are there some other issues to consider?
Yeah, I can give you a call afterwards, Mark, just to check your math there. I think you're coming out of the cost that's higher than what would be implied by the fixed and variable cost that we've published. But I can give you a call afterwards to go through that math.
Okay, all right, thank you. And if I could just ask about the reusing of reagents in future wellfields, how much of a benefit would that have on overall costs and how long would it take before you would start to implement that?
Yeah, so the first fuel cost of reagents, that's a new cost as compared to the EFS in terms of what proportion of that we expect to be able to recover. We're still working through the technical studies for that. We should be able to come out with the results from those studies the next time that we provide updated guidance.
Okay, great, thank you.
Your next question comes from Cameron Taylor with Bank of America.
Yeah, hi, Duncan and Justin, well done on the result and thanks for hosting the call. Must be pleasing to see the IX columns coming online after many years of hard work. But just on the sales. So you've sold more pounds than you've produced. I assume the difference is from the strategic stockpile. My question is whether this was opportunistic or was it used to meet the contracts? And do you anticipate any further drawdown on that strategic stockpile over the next six to 12 months?
No, thanks, Cam. We did see it was a bit opportunistic. We actually saw the price that we sold. It was higher than the average for the quarter at that $78.5 a pound. So we took advantage. I think, from our intents and purposes, strategic inventory has now blended into being just inventory. And as we're ramping up production effectively, we're going to top up that inventory. Again, question remains at the moment and we're just working through what level of strategic inventory should we hold on hand going forward? It's not necessary to probably to hold the 1.25, so we might whittle that down a bit. But yeah, we're working that out in terms of our working capital requirements.
But the key thing with BOSS is that we, we really didn't want to over commit our sales contracting going into startup of production. We've been here before and in a rising market, one really wants exposure to take advantage of an increasing uranium price rather than lock in contracts. So that's, that's where we're sitting and we're retaining that sort of large stockpile at the moment, getting ready for higher prices.
Okay, makes sense. Thanks, Duncan. And also just on the production result, you had 3.9 thousand pounds of uranium produced daily. You mentioned obviously the last 24 hours of 7,000 lbs. This should come down, should this come down as those tenors sort of decline as you flush the new production through? And also the confidence you have of meeting that, you know, 850,000 lbs for FY2025, does that account for sort of contingency around unplanned outages or any maintenance tasks or is that, you know, 100% of production at full rate?
No, no, it does take into account sort of planned shutdowns and any potential disruption. So personally I feel really confident that we're going to hit our guidance of 850,000 lbs by June 2025. The results of like 7,000 lbs over the past 24 hours is indicative of how well the plant can operate. And in fact, the last two weeks at just shy of 4,000 lbs per day is another indication. So our job now from an operating perspective is making sure we get consistency in production throughput. Your question as to, you know, what will happen in terms of production with regard to tenors and well fields.
The plant's been designed as a low grade plant. So in fact what we're achieving now, say the 4,000lbs daily production or yesterday's 27,000 lbs, sorry, 7,000 is just running off two columns. So the additional columns are really to take into account some of the lower grade that we may encounter from other wellfields. But where we stand now, the wellfields are performing above expectations.
Fantastic. Thanks, Duncan.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from James Bullen with Canaccord.
Good morning, gentlemen. Congrats on the result. Right. On a production perspective and particularly on a cost control perspective, you got a 3.3 million lbs export license. Could you just provide us with a bit of a reminder around what it would take to bring those satellite developments in, the sizing of the back end of the plant in particular. And once you've got that updated resource study, how quickly could you move on those satellites?
Thanks, James. Essentially, yeah, so we've designed a plant as is to produce 2.45 million pounds per annum. That's the current design and what's been built. So if the satellite deposits prove to be economically viable and we have the right tenor coming through, essentially what one can do is grow the capacity of the processing circuit. So by that you take the current six columns, you could add two more columns, you could almost duplicate the precipitation circuit and you'd look to include or add another kiln to the back end of the processing plant. So that would give you the required throughput to meet 3.3 million lbs as endorsed by the Federal government. So I guess it's a question now in terms of timing. Right now the next step as mentioned is for the consultants to come out with a mineral resource upgrade. We've already, as mentioned.
For those who don't know, we self performed our mine build, which means we've got our own engineers, designers, etc. So rather than an EPCM, we took that on board ourselves. So we've retained that knowledge, which I think is quite a differentiation in the. And with that sort of team we can sort of employ those resources onto looking at the feasibility study of bringing in those satellite deposits.
Timing's difficult to estimate because it's really a function of getting government approvals in Australia that is getting increasingly challenging, particularly for uranium, which is one of the most heavily regulated sort of forms of mining in Australia. The good news is we've got a plant that's now back in operation and we've got flora and fauna studies for the past 10 years. So we're in good stead to sort of try and fast track the process. But estimating I'd say two, possibly three years.
Understood, thank you, Duncan. And I hear what you're saying around wanting to have maximum exposure to a rising price. But at the moment we've got terms sitting at about $80 a pound. We've got spot volatility sitting there at $69 a pound. Are you tempted to come into some short term contracts?
Yes, we are. I mean essentially the 200,000 lbs that we sold during the quarter December quarter was sold at spot. So we're able to affect that sale within a I think it was a seven-day period for contract and two weeks to actually do the sale book transfer of the of the product. So, no, that's one of the other advantages that we have with Sachi Davies. We've got a trader in our team that's recognized as one of the leading world uranium traders and doing a terrific job. So we've got the flexibility sell on spot or sell into contract. But for the moment we're retaining our exposure to the spot price.
Understand? Thank you, Duncan.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from George Ross with Argonaut.
Hey, guys. Congratulations on the result. That's excellent. Most of my questions have been answered just to double check here. So with that second kiln calciner now installed, basically the back end of the plant is the bottlenecked, correct?
Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, we sort of experienced delays in that final installation and commissioning of the second kiln, where we were taking a thickened uranium peroxide product and converting that to U3O8 through calcination. So unlike other sections of the plant, like the Ion Exchange columns, for example, where commissioning of each column can be done independently almost in batches to the other columns without any impact to operations, the back end of the processing plant is more integrated where it's a continuous circuit and that can sort of impact production. So during December, we lost approximately two weeks at the back end of the plant for this reason. And that was really related to the final installation and integration of kiln two ventilation issues and some of the baghouse or dust collection. So the pleasing aspect is all of those issues have been resolved.
As mentioned, in the last two weeks we averaged about 3,900 kilned U3O8. Interestingly, we had a few issues similar with kiln. One that was reported, I think it was in the January quarterly. Sorry, the March quarterly. But yeah, that's really now under control. So the next step for drying and packing areas is to really focus on optimization and if there is any other bottlenecking to achieve that 2.45 million lbs run rate.
All right, so that's that $3,900 that you're producing at the moment. That's pretty much maximum drawdown that you can now pull out at the back end of the plant.
No, no, we can produce more. I mean, so for example, past 24 hours we did 7,000 lbs out that back end of the plant.
Yes. Okay, so there's plenty of capacity there. Just any idea when we might get a bit more visibility on Alta Mesa performance?
We're told, and we need more detailed information there, but we're told by their March quarter, or it may evolve into the June quarter, but it's imminent, and that's to do with their new listing requirements being on Nasdaq. So they're going through quite a disciplined process and arduous task of sort of being in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, et cetera, new reporting requirements, so the reporting requirements with Nasdaq are more stringent than what they've been experiencing on the TSX. But we all look forward to receiving that information more regularly.
Understood. Understood. Thanks very much, guys, and congrats again.
Thanks, George.
Your next question comes from Regan Burrows with Bell Potter.
Hi, Duncan. The team, congratulations. I'm sure you're feeling quite happy with the results this morning both on production and cost. Just a couple of questions from me firstly, and it may be a little bit of a dumb question, but obviously the gap between production through the IX columns and then production, drum production, that was impacted by the kiln being connected. It looks like you got spare capacity now in that back end of the plant. Is that sort of. Are we inferring that, I guess that gap can be caught up over this coming quarter and do we have sort of a situation where drum production is greater than production going through the Ion Exchange columns this quarter just to sort of catch up to that gap?
Regan, I'm going to hand this over to Matt Dusci, our COO, to respond.
Yeah. Hey, Regan. So, you know, like Duncan said, you mean, we've been working through that. This quarter was really important because we'll see a step change in product and ultimately that will be driven by the additional IX columns and also the b ringing on a kiln two. So, then that was being demonstrated by t he last 14 days of production in.
January, where we're running around about that 3,900 and with instantaneous simultaneous daily rates of up to 7,000. So we're feeling comfortable from a debottlenecking perspective on the processing plant as we achieve the 1.5 and work towards the 2.25 as part of that process. For that quarter, we lost 15 days i n production associated with the kiln and we also had production challenges with p ower, but feel very comfortable in this c oming quarter that we'll achieve those production rates.
Okay. And I guess if you take that tenor. That came through as materially higher than the previous quarters. Obviously, whatever's coming out of Wellfield 2 is considerably better, I guess, is the inference from that. I mean, you're in a good position to beat guidance on those numbers. I mean, $3,900 per day gets you a little over 700 for the second half. And I think you need what, 625 to make guidance. I mean, you're obviously very, very confident that everything's going well.
Yeah. So, what we now have with column t hree coming in line is a little bit of flexibility to either pull down t he tenor and start pushing volumes through. So there's flexibility there also flexibility. If we're having any challenges on reliability, et cetera, that we can increase tenor. The trick for us now going into this quarter is all about just working through reliability rather than debottlenecking. So feel comfortable from an instantaneous run rate or instantaneous flow that we can achieve. What we need to do now, it's just about providing a little bit of stability to the operating plan.
Great. And I guess if I could just squeeze one more in. You mentioned, obviously IX 4 to 6 to be connected sort of Q3 and Q4 calendar year, this year getting 5 and 6 going in the last quarter. I mean, are you comfortable with getting two columns connected in one quarter?
We are, Regan. We've learned a lot from the first column, of course, and the second column was quicker to install and integrate into the processing circuit. Third column was even quicker. So we are. We've actually incurred the capital costs for the equipment in terms of the steel required. The remaining three columns are lying down in our yards on site at Honeymoon. So yes, we are content with that. So really when I look at it, it's that by the end of Q4 2025, columns four and five construction with commissioning in Q1 2025. So column 6 will be ready in Q1 2026.
Great. I'll leave it there. Congratulations, guys.
Yeah, and Regan, congratulations to you too with your newborn.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Brad Seward with Euroz Hartleys.
G'day, Duncan and team. Thanks very much for the opportunity and congratulations on a really strong quarter. Just a quick question for me on the CapEx over the remainder of the calendar year. Given you guys have already incurred the capital costs of columns four, five, and six, are we expecting to see any material capital projects moving past this financial year? And then the way I sort of read the point that you made on four, five, and six being put into production, are we assuming that we should get full production rates by early calendar year 2026 or are we sort of assuming that's a little bit later?
No, it will be a bit later. So our guidance, which we haven't officially come out with yet but we're sticking with the feasibility study that by the second year, I'll call it our financial year 2026, we're aiming for AUD 1.6 million to be produced in that period. So it's really just sequentially bringing these columns into production and that's largely dependent of course on the well fields that we're also bringing online. So effectively, once the plant's up and running, effectively which it is, we're now going to focus on well field construction and bringing new well fields online. Right, yeah a bit of sort of new adoption there but you know, just again that sort of.
I picked up in your question a bit on the capital costs and why it's gone a bit over budget, but you know really it's largely due to labor, so our federal government's restrictions on renewing work visas came into effect at the beginning of 2024 and many of our highly experienced sort of foreign nationals that took part of the civils under Australian leadership sort of didn't have their visas renewed, so there has been a bit of an increase in labor costs except. Etc., and that's really the part of construction that one keeps a very close eye to that can sort of, you know, sort of increase.
So the fortunate thing is really CapEx is largely completed. The next three columns are now a focus, but as mentioned, they're also integrated in a batch process, so columns one to three can continue operating as columns four to six are installed and stored.
Thanks very much Duncan, really appreciate the opportunity there and looking forward to having you at the Rottnest conference.
Thanks Brad.
Your next question comes from Dim Ariyasinghe with UBS.
Thanks, guys, congratulations on the result and thanks for the call today. Look forward to many more. Maybe this first question just on the CapEx if just help me understand it because it is a bit different from what we're used to. Is there any way you can tell me in simple terms like what that sustaining CapEx looks like and whether we can infer what it could look like for future years I guess post all these capital additions.
Dim, thanks for your question. In terms of CapEx, so Project CapEx, as we said, that represents the cost to complete. Then it's just wellfield CapEx as the other component for the all-in sustaining cost. We haven't provided an explicit updated all-in sustaining cost, but what we have done is provided you the components. We've got the fixed and variable cost for C1. Then in terms of comparing wellfield CapEx to the EFS, we've not noticed. We have noted that the wellfield CapEx has gone up approximately in line with the C1 cost. We're not seeing any new material wellfield CapEx since the EFS was completed. We expect that all-in sustaining cost to increase more or less in line with the increase in C1 cost.
Okay. Okay, cool, thanks. I'll have to come back with a couple of lines with that and then maybe just a second one. Just trying to get a better gauge on sales versus production going forward. Can you remind us what you've said on that working capital build? Like, am I right to assume like maybe four months of AUD 2.5 million as a starting point? How do you feel about Tim?
I think that's fair. So typically, well for uranium operations, basically the uranium producer retains ownership and responsibility for the drummed uranium from when it leaves the production site until it arrives at the conversion facility. So to take into account for example potential shipping delays or logistical requirements, I think it's fair to assume three to four months of working capital should be kept on hand. So when you sell product under contract to a fuel buyer, they initially essentially give you a six month sort of indication of when they would like the product and then three months before they are definite about the timing for that product, they give you further notice. So we're always aware well in advance of when we have to deliver the material to the fuel buyer.
But having that three-month window or four months is fair for working capital requirements. And you'll notice a lot of producers sort of keep that up their sleeve just to what you don't want to be, what you don't want to occur is being put into a position where suddenly you don't have the material. Call it in the U.S. or France and suddenly you then have to go to the market and buy off the market at the prevailing price. So yeah, keeping three months is probably sensible. And that would equate to a minimum of say 800,000 lbs .
Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Thanks Craib. I'll pass it on, and congratulations.
Th anks very much. Dim.
Your next question comes from Guy Keller with Tribeca.
You know guys, I don't really feel the need to congratulate you given that I always had faith in your abilities to deliver. Can you just give us a little bit of an expected timeline as to when your future guidance may come out?
In terms of our All-In Sustaining Costs? Our future guidance will come out in the June quarter. Really? As when? We'll confirm our production guidance for that year as well. So June quarter, okay.
And that'll be for fiscal 2026, correct?
Yeah.
And just a question for Justin. I mean some of the feedback from the early analyst responses has been just on that CapEx side as well, where they seem to be unders on that, which is hardly surprising given that they're all way too high on costs as well. But do you in sort of having conversations with these guys, is it just the inflation side of the CapEx that you think they've got wrong and that they've undercooked that or is it there something that, that the consensus has missed with respect to what you guys have put out?
Yeah, I mean really as I said, so what we have seen is an increase in wellfield CapEx in line with what we've seen with C1 costs. To the extent that wellfield CapEx is higher in this half is just a timing thing. So what we are doing is trying to pull forward that wellfield CapEx to de-risk future production. So to the extent that wellfield CapEx for the half is higher than expectations, that's mainly due to a pull forward of CapEx to de-risk future production. But actual costs we're seeing for wellfield CapEx are in line with the increase in C1 costs that we've seen.
And also, just have you got any sort of—I guess—metric on the learning efficiencies that you guys have? You mentioned before that putting column one, column three was cheaper and quicker and you learned a lot. Is there any sort of financial metric around that as to how much potential savings on a percentage basis you've seen through that process and whether that can be inferred? four, five and six, Guy.
We haven't analyzed it but really if we sort of dived into the numbers it would be a saving on labor costs and more efficiency in that regard. So like the first column for example it's you know checking like refiberglassing some of the look in windows and connections in terms of attaching the circuit boards etc. So yeah it's a saving in labor costs but I haven't actually distilled those numbers down but we'll look into that.
Sorry guy. The other component to that is our ability to bring those on, so it's also a timing thing for commissioning. It becomes easier getting it up to nameplate recoveries, all of those also things into that.
Okay, I think that's all I've got. Hopefully you get a lot of these guys out on site in a few months' time and able to eyeball it and see exactly what you guys have done.
No thanks, guy. I mean, seeing's believing. Yeah, we will conduct regular site visits going forward. Again, the site's safe and look forward to hosting as many as we can. But particularly just to start with our analysts and supportive analysts. It's quite unique to have an ISR uranium operation Australia. And you know, given that we're one of three uranium operations in Australia, we're very happy to showcase our mine. So very much look forward to hosting regular site visits. Thanks.
Yep. Your next question comes from Mitch Ryan with Jefferies.
Morning, all. First question, just can you clarify when you guide to 850,000 lbs produced? When I reconcile that to table two, am I looking at IX production or uranium drummed?
That's uranium drummed.
Perfect. Thank you, and then can you help me? It was one of the first questions here, but I'm just trying to look at the C1 costs from Table five. So if I look at the fixed costs and annualize that on a US dollar basis, take the top end of 15, annualize that, I get just under, I get $18.75 million of costs, and then I divide that by steady state run rate, that sort of all fractionalize that, that comes down to $7.65 per pound. And then I add the variable cost of take top end of $10. I'm getting sort of $17.65 a pound of cash cost, which would actually be below your EFS. So, you know, it's actually going the other way. What am I missing here?
Yeah, I'll step you through the math. Thanks, Mitch. I'll step you through the math later. But essentially what it is, you take the fixed cost multiplied by the second half guidance, which is AUD 625,000, that gets you to the total fixed cost for the second half. And then what you then do is kind of divide by kind of future run rate, pounds produced for a half, and that then gets you a fixed cost per pound for the half. And then you add the variable cost per pound, and that will then get you the, I guess a steady state C1 cost.
So I can 1765.
Yeah, you must be going wrong somewhere in your math somewhere, Mitch. That's not what I'm getting. So I can walk you through it later.
Okay, perfect. And then just within that, 625. Can you give a bit of color of the weighting of production in the second half? I assume as column three operates fully for the fourth quarter. You know, it's going to be more fourth quarter weighted, but any color on that would be much appreciated.
Yeah, it is. It sort of just gradually creeps up. We'll just keep incrementally growing our production rates. But, yeah, at the moment, if we keep a run rate in excess of 3,500 lbs on a daily average, we'll comfortably make guidance.
That's it. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Mitch.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Craib for closing.
I'd just like to thank everyone for joining today's call and thank you very much for the questions. We very much look forward to hosting quarterly updates going forward. And once again, thanks to all our stakeholders and shareholders for the positive support and sticking with us. Really pleased to have shared today's results. And thank you too, to Justin and Matt. Thank you.