I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mark Schubert, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Everyone, good morning, and thank you for joining Cleanaway's first half results briefing for the 2025 financial year. My name is Mark Schubert. I'm joined by Paul Binfield, our CFO, and Josie Ashton, our Head of Investor Relations. This morning, we're going to cover our strong financial results, our pleasing operational and strategic progress, and conclude with some comments on the outlook. Cleanaway continues to demonstrate strong execution, consistent growth, and a commitment to improving operational excellence. We are confident in our ability to deliver ongoing EBIT growth and margin expansion, and in so doing, create sustainable long-term value for our shareholders. Before I move on, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we operate all around the country and pay our respects to elders past and present. I'm going to take the disclaimer as read and please therefore turn to Slide six.
Our results for first half FY2025 highlight our disciplined approach to execution, operational excellence, and financial performance. I am pleased to report that Cleanaway has delivered shareholders double-digit EBIT growth, sustainable margin expansion, EPS and DPS growth, and improved ROIC. Net revenue grew by 4.6% compared to the prior corresponding period, reflecting the resilience of our business and the effectiveness of our pricing discipline. Underlying EBIT increased by 12.2% to $ 195.2 million, driven by the growth in Solid Waste Services and Liquid Waste and Health Services. This growth was moderated by Industrial and Waste Services, or IWS, which, as expected, continued to experience the challenging market conditions that emerged in the second half of FY2024 and persisted into the first half.
Having rapidly restructured this business and taken the opportunity to further reposition its focus on Tier 1 resource contracts, this business is showing signs of recovery and is on track to return to its first half FY2024 earnings run rate in Q4 of this financial year. Our group EBIT margin expanded 80 basis points to 11.8% versus the PCP, and that's evidence that our operational excellence efforts are delivering tangible and sustainable financial benefits. Net operating cash flow was down 28.4% due to the resumption of tax payments. Net operating cash flow before the payment of tax was up 10.7%. Underlying net profit after tax and underlying EPS were up 13.7% and 13.5% respectively, with our ROIC continuing to improve, up 40 basis points to 5.7%. Our directors have declared a $ 0.028 per share dividend, fully franked up from $ 0.0245 per share in the PCP.
Pleasingly, we are on track towards delivering FY2025 underlying EBIT towards the midpoint of our $ 395 million and $ 425 million guidance range. This excludes the financial impact of the recent fire at St Marys, which I will come to shortly. The step up in EBIT in the second half will be driven by strong growth in solids, a full half of our operational excellence benefits supporting further margin expansion, the $ 5 million contribution from the recently announced LMS joint venture, and Industrial and Waste Services returning to its first half FY2024 earnings run rate in Q4 FY2025. Looking ahead to FY2026, we remain confident in delivering our midterm EBIT ambition of over $ 450 million while continuing to improve returns. The momentum within our business is strong. We're now moving beyond the design and implementation phase of our strategic initiatives and embedding them as the foundation of how we operate.
We're progressively strengthening our ability to drive scale efficiencies across our branch network and national infrastructure. Now moving on to Slide seven, the health, safety, and the environment. Now, before I talk about what is on this Slide, I do want to pause and acknowledge a tragic accident that occurred last Friday involving one of our Cleanaway Equipment Services drivers in Wingfield, South Australia, who sadly lost their life in a single vehicle incident. Any loss of life is simply heartbreaking, and on behalf of the entire Cleanaway team, I offer my deepest and heartfelt sympathy to our teammates, friends, and family, as well as to our Cleanaway team. I'd also like to thank those involved in the day responding to the accident, and obviously, we'll take all steps to learn from this tragic event. So this is why safety and the environment are the foundations of everything we do.
We are two years into our five-year HSE strategy, which is focused on risk prevention, capability build, and cultural transformation. This year, we started reporting our Serious Injury Frequency Rate, or SIFR, as an additional measure of safety performance aligned to good industry practice. This ensures we differentiate and prioritize our learning for serious injuries, because often the causes differ to lower severity recordable injuries. With an increase in serious injuries in first half FY2025, this metric is allowing us to respond quickly and pivot the plan as new data insights emerge. Our focus remains on critical risks, critical controls, and assurance, and on building leadership capability and on improving our approach to investigations and learning. If we shift to the environment, we continue to implement industry-leading processes to mitigate environmental risks and ensure compliance, with our efforts reflected in record-low environmental notices for the first half of FY2025.
The St Marys fire incident reinforces the importance of rigorous safety and environmental controls in our facilities. Most importantly, no one was injured, and our team managed the firewater runoff. Initial assessments indicate that the recently installed fire pumps and hydrants contributed to reducing the severity of the fire. Following preliminary assessments, Cleanaway estimates that as a result of the fire, we will incur net costs in the range of $ 20 million-$ 40 million, assuming recovery of costs under the company's insurance policies. However, it will take some time to confirm the application of our insurances to the losses that will be incurred. The timing of the receipt of insurance recoveries is likely to occur beyond FY2025, and the financial impact of the fire will be treated as an underlying adjustment.
So if we move now to Slide eight, Cleanaway's purpose is making a sustainable future possible together, and it really does drive everything that we do. Our new 2024 sustainability framework brings this to life through four pillars. They are working together, recovering resources, protecting the environment, and reducing emissions. It reflects our commitment to sustainability and how we help our customers safely and responsibly meet their waste and resource management challenges. We continue to evolve our culture and the way we work together to create a workplace where everyone feels they belong and takes pride in the essential work they do for local communities. Our branch-led operating model, which is our approach to connecting and enabling our 300+ branches and 8,000+ team members, continues to gain momentum, driving enterprise standardization and efficiency and therefore enabling decentralization.
Voluntary turnover continues to decline, and our efforts to improve onboarding and foster a culture of respect and inclusion are supporting the continuing decline in voluntary turnover of new starters in their first 12 months. We remain committed to creating opportunities for women in the waste management sector through our driver academies, our structured leadership programs, inclusive hiring practices, and ongoing efforts to support and attract talent at all levels of the organization. Our scale and expertise continue to drive Australia's circular economy, particularly through resource recovery. In first half FY2025, we commenced commissioning of the Western Sydney MRF. We solidified our position as the leading CDS operator on the East Coast with the Tasmania CDS win, and we progressed our FOGO capacity expansion at Eastern Creek.
Through our protecting the environment pillar, we are committed to responsible waste management and compliance, not only within our own operations, but also in supporting customers. A key example is our growing work with Tier 1 resource companies, assisting in the decommissioning, decontamination, and remediation of retired assets, critical multi-year projects requiring specialist expertise. We also remain on track to meet our 2030 net emissions targets. During the half, we increased the volume of landfill gas captured MRL, which not only reduced our emissions but also generated additional ACCU revenue, reinforcing our commitment to sustainable operations. And then right at the end of the half, in line with Blueprint 2030, we entered into a joint venture agreement with LMS Energy for landfill gas processing at Lucas Heights. It's a capital-light investment for Cleanaway. We bring the landfill gas, and LMS brings the generation infrastructure.
It will generate $ 5 million of EBIT in the second half and $ 10 million in FY2026. Beyond then, we expect the joint venture to generate approximately $ 15 million per annum, assuming ACCU and Energy Board Pricing. And with that, I'm going to hand over to Paul for the financial performance.
Thanks, Mark. So turning to Slide 10, we'll provide you with a summary of the group's financial performance for the half. As Mark has highlighted, the group's strong and consistent underlying financial performance reflects the intense focus on margin expansion and executing against our Blueprint 2030 strategy. The group delivered net revenue of $ 1.66 billion, which was 4.6% higher compared with the first half of 2024. The increase was driven by volume growth, contracted price increases, and price discipline from the Solids business, new projects and high volumes from liquids and Technical Services, and a strong contribution from Health Services following the restoration effort in 2024. This was partly offset by a decline in IWS due to low volumes resulting from customer site closures and customers' deferral of non-critical maintenance activity.
Underlying EBIT of $ 195.2 million was 12.2% higher compared with the PCP, continuing to outpace revenue growth and is showing the strong operating leverage of the business. EBIT growth has been driven by the continued delivery of operational excellence initiatives, resulting in margin expansion of 80 basis points. We expect the underlying EBIT margin to continue to improve in the second half with the accelerating realization of operational excellence benefits and the restructure by IWS now complete. Net finance costs of $ 58.9 million are stabilizing and largely reflect the impact of a higher benchmark interest rate compared with the same half in 2024. Underlying NPAT of $ 94 million was 13.7% higher compared with the first half of 2024, again growing the rate higher than the underlying EBIT.
Underlying EPS of $ 0.042 per share increased in line with the underlying NPAT, and return on invested capital, or ROIC, has expanded by 40 basis points to 5.7%, reflecting the strong earnings growth and a higher average capital base. The balance sheet is strong with group leverage at 1.95x . As Mark has mentioned, these financial results continue our track record of delivering double-digit profitable growth and puts us on track to continue to deliver double-digit EBIT growth in the second. So turning to Slide 11, net operating cash flow of $ 164.5 million was down compared to the first half of 2024 due solely to the recommencement of tax payments following the end of the Commonwealth Government's temporary instant asset write-off scheme. In the period, we paid $ 94.2 million in tax.
On a like-for-like basis, excluding the tax paid, net operating cash flow was $ 258.7 million, or 10.7% higher compared with the first half of 2024, albeit this was partially driven by the phasing CapEx. That strong earnings growth, together with strong cash conversion, enabled the board to declare a fully franked interim dividend of $ 0.028 per share, 14.3% higher than the PCP. So turning to Slide 12 and CapEx. CapEx was $ 157.8 million for the half, almost $ 74 million lower than the first half of 2024. The lower level of CapEx relative to our guidance for approximately $ 400 million for the full year is largely phasing and consistent with our guidance provided in August 2024. However, it does continue to reflect a reduction of almost $ 50 million in CapEx relative to the prior year.
In H2, we expect to be deploying growth CapEx of approximately $ 10 million to service the Defence contract that we secured in December of last year. The major growth CapEx continues to be Western Sydney MRF, currently in commissioning, Eastern Creek Organics, also on track and well progressed, and Customer Connect, the digitization of our call-to-cash cycle. We delivered release one of Customer Connect during the first half, on time and on budget. We paused, and we took the learnings from this phase, and we reviewed our plans for release two, the core of which is the rollout of new performance software to our frontline team. This resulted in a decision to invest the further six months in the rollout phase of release two in order to better manage the change management risk of deploying the software to drivers and operations and admin staff across almost 200 locations.
Due to the delay, the project cost has increased by approximately $ 30 million, and the expected benefits will be deferred by six months. As a result, we now expect realizing the full-year EBIT run rate of approximately $ 12 million in 2028 rather than 2027. Turning to Slide 13, for the full year, we now expect net financing costs to be between $ 120 and $ 125 million, reduced from our initial guidance of approximately $1 30 million due to the timing of capital spending and improved working capital management. I'll quickly run through the drivers of three components of our net finance costs. The first component, net interest costs, increased mainly due to higher average benchmark interest rates compared to the first half of 2024. If you remember, the cash rate last increased 25 basis points in November 2023.
The second component is the interest expense on our leases, remembering that the interest rate on leases is fixed. This was higher due to higher rates on new and replacement leases. So as older leases roll off at lower rates, they've been replaced by new leases at higher rates. The third component is a non-cash expense. It's the unwind of the discount on non-current provisions, principally our landfill remediation provision, and this was lower in the current period. The quantum of the unwind will typically reduce in lower interest rates environments. Pleasingly, overall net finance costs are stabilizing. The first half of 2025, net finance expense of $ 58.9 million, $ 2 million higher year on year, but importantly, largely flat, half on half. I'll just pass you back to Mark to take a look at the segment performance.
All right. Thank you, Paul. Let's now turn to Slide 15 and to our largest segment, which is solids. All right. So solids revenue growth accelerated year on year, coming in at 7% for the period versus the 5.2% revenue growth delivered this time last year. Growth was driven by higher volumes, contracted price escalation, pricing discipline, and a full six-month contribution from the CDS in Victoria. The outlook for the solid segment is positive, with the re-signing of national term contract with Coles, securing the work in WA and Queensland for Defence, and winning the Tas CDS due to start on the 1st of May. EBIT grew by 11.4%, reflecting the growth in CDS, our metro municipal operations, and operational efficiency benefits. Increased commodities and carbon volumes and higher OCC and ACCU prices also contributed. Stable earnings from landfills and our regional and organics operations provided further EBIT support.
C&D delivered an improved contribution, albeit market conditions remain challenging. Overall segment growth was tempered by softer consumer activity, which impacted Metropolitan C&I operations. The solids result is particularly pleasing, and it really is a great example of the effectiveness of our Value Creation Staircase, which I'd like to walk you through for solids. Firstly, our footprint delivered organic growth. Then our operational excellence initiatives supported a 60 basis points increase in EBIT margin. The result then benefited from our strategic infrastructure growth by, for example, the big CDS, and then we saw our integrated sustainable customer offering form the foundation of our Defence contract win and the renewal of our national term contract with Coles. Moving into a little more detail on the operational performance of solids, let's look at our collections business, where C&I delivered 5.6% revenue growth, of which price contributed three-quarters of that growth.
While regional volumes were up on the PCP, metro C&I volumes were impacted by softer consumer activity, which saw a shift towards lower margin services such as re-lift. Metro muni delivered revenue growth over and above that derived from contract mechanisms through the rollout of FOGO bins. We're also seeing, importantly, the initial benefits flowing through from the implementation of our branch-led operating model at our New South Wales branches in the previous half, with an increase in margins. Moving to Slide 16, landfill EBIT grew by 1.1%, and we continued to experience softness in volumes driven by market conditions in the C&I and C&D space and from landfill diversion activity such as FOGO. This was mitigated by strategic pricing, improved density, and strong cost discipline. At MRL, volumes have stabilized and cost pressures have eased, and we anticipate volume growth in the second half of FY2025.
At Lucas Heights, a new multi-council post-collections contract helped offset the impact of a competitor internalizing volumes, while pricing discipline and density improvement at Kemps Creek partially mitigated volume declines. Our CDS operations achieved strong growth, driven by a combination of organic volume growth in Queensland and New South Wales and the benefit of our first full six-month contribution from the Victorian scheme. As mentioned, C&D markets remain challenging, but this business continues to evolve and adapt. During the half, the team reduced costs, grew their revenue pipeline, closed the C&D site at Willawong, opened a resource recovery site in New South Wales, and expanded resource recovery in South Australia and Victoria. The planned transition to FOGO processing at Eastern Creek's organics is progressing. The facility is now processing both FOGO and mixed waste. Though, as expected, capital works temporarily impacted processing during the first half of FY2025.
In resource recovery, our Materials Recovery Facilities, or MRFs, are seeing volumes grow in line with increased CDS volumes and fiber collections. Additionally, and importantly, our Business Teams are driving yield improvements by strengthening the recovery rates of commodities. Moving to Slide 17, the 60 basis points expansion in our solid segment EBIT margin demonstrates the tangible impact of our operational excellence initiative. Branch optimization is playing a key role, integrating multiple elements, including our SWAT teams and our branch-led Operating Model as shown on the Slide. Our SWAT teams, along with our Business Teams and PIP programs, are deployed to branches identified as operating below their potential. In first half FY2025, our SWAT deployments delivered an average EBIT margin expansion of 10 percentage points. By the end of FY2025, about 50% of our C&I collection branches identified as operating below their potential will have benefited from a SWAT program.
We see our Branch-led Operating Model as creating a platform right across Cleanaway on which to build sustained value creation, which is achieved through ensuring each branch has the right capacity, the right capability, the right culture, and the right cadence in place. Branch Operating Model adoption is scaling rapidly. I'll talk through the adoption of the health business shortly, but as an example in solids, 78% of the branches are now operating under the BOM, or the Branch Operating Model cadence, up from 17% in December 2023, with a goal of being at 100% by June 2025 as we enter into our midterm ambition year. One of the Branch Operating Model's key benefits has been the delivery of improvements in labour efficiency, such as what we've seen in our muni operations.
However, there's still work to do in metro C&I operations where softer consumer spending has altered service patterns, making labour management more challenging, and this is where the Branch Operating Model plays a critical role. It equips our branches with the data-driven tools and capabilities to navigate an evolving environment with agility. By focusing on key value drivers such as shifts exceeding 10 hours, lifts per hour, lifts per km, and voluntary turnover, we can pinpoint areas for improvement and take swift and targeted action. Moving on to Slide 18 and our Liquid Waste and Health Services segment. Liquids and Technical Services, or LTS, revenue grew by 4.9%, with EBIT up 4.4%, building on the strong momentum from FY2024. This growth reflects sustained demand for LTS's advanced technical expertise in delivering high-value and complex projects with particularly strong activity in New South Wales and Victoria during the half.
Volume growth in Scanline, which is LTS's used cooking oil collection business, was offset by lower used cooking oil prices. Despite the current market conditions, we remain confident in the medium-term outlook for used cooking oil pricing, given its role as a feedstock for renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel. Hydrocarbons revenue was slightly lower, while EBIT increased by 12%, reflecting a favorable product mix shift towards increased sales of high-margin, high-quality Group II base oils. EBIT growth was further reinforced by disciplined pricing and operational improvements, particularly in relation to transportation costs. During the half, we internally announced the integration of our LTS and hydrocarbons businesses to leverage synergies across branch networks and customer bases, creating a stronger, more efficient business. A strategic review of the combined business is underway to optimize assets and operations with financial benefits expected in FY2026. Moving on to Slide 19 and Health Services.
Health Services delivered 10% revenue growth, a significant upward to EBIT, and showcases how a disciplined, data-driven, and branch-led approach can create sustained operational improvement and earnings growth. The turnaround in SIFOT, which is Service in Full On Time, from the mid-70s to the mid-90s, highlights the transformation of this business. A key driver of the turnaround has been enhanced data and reporting. SIFOT was once manually calculated and is now tracked daily, providing real-time insights. Previously, branches relied on end-of-month data, limiting responsiveness. Today, Health Services leverages analytics and near-real-time reporting, enabling faster, data-driven decisions for sustainable improvements. We've shifted from a branch model with limited customer profitability insights to one where the key metrics are clearly defined, tracked, and acted upon. Branch managers now have the training and the tools to drive performance and customer value. But the most fundamental change has been cultural.
Health Services has moved from a siloed, short-term EBITDA focus to a future-oriented mindset, balancing short and long-term EBIT goals, while improving asset sharing with solids to enhance fleet efficiency through things like the use of bulk tank fuel, combined workshop maintenance efficiencies, and the sharing of trucks. As a result, Health Services are on track to deliver more than $ 15 million EBIT in FY2025, creating a stronger, more resilient, and efficient business that will continue to drive long-term value. We move to Slide 20 in our IWS business. As mentioned, IWS continued to face challenging market conditions in line with the second half of FY2024. In response, we completed a restructure, delivering $ 10 million in annualized cost savings through headcount reductions, asset disposals, and branch consolidations.
This restructure also realigned East and West coast operations, sharpening our focus on Tier 1 resource companies while shifting away from smaller metro-based ad hoc services. With the business reset, we are on track for IWS to return to its first half FY2024 earnings run rate in the fourth quarter of this financial year. Decommissioning, Decontamination, and Remediation, or DDR, presents a multi-decade growth opportunity across mining, oil and gas, and heavy industry. Our integrated capabilities, including Liquid and Solid Waste Services, are driving increased tender invitations. During the half, we finalized our internal strategy and multi-year action plan to capitalize on this long-term opportunity. Finish, I'm on Slide 21. I'd like to take you through an update of our strategic progress and the outlook for the second half of the year. Turning to Slide 22 now with an update on our strategic progress.
Starting with our Value Creation Staircase, this articulates how we create recurring, sustainable growth for shareholders. Over the past 18 months, guided by our Blueprint 2030 strategy, we have delivered sustainable EBIT growth and EBIT margin expansion. With FY2026 only four and a half months away, the exciting part is that we are only at the start of our value creation journey. If we take operational excellence, for example, as the initiatives implemented over the past 18 months become fully embedded, their impact will accelerate, driving lasting and structural improvements. Similarly, on strategic infrastructure growth, we will continue to selectively invest in accretive and strategic infrastructure. And finally, enabled by Customer Connect, with greater customer service and value-for-money pricing, we see our integrated at-scale capabilities and offerings providing a competitive advantage that will be hard to replicate.
Turning to Slide 23, as our actions continue to show, Cleanaway today is about driving sustained improvements and earnings growth. Our operational efficiency initiatives are driving margin expansion through improving how we work, through developing solutions and pursuing opportunities. The realization of operational efficiency benefits is accelerating, underpinning our confidence in this program of work, delivering more than $ 50 million in FY2026 and continuing to deliver sustained benefits in FY27 and beyond. This table lists some of our key operational efficiency initiatives, their progress over the half, and the indicative potential to deliver benefits over time. Having updated you on a few of those that are already listed, I want to call out Customer Connect and Fleet Transformation. The efficiency and customer service opportunities Customer Connect will unlock have not diminished.
While the delay and increase in budget is disappointing, it's given us the opportunity to add extra steps into the change management process, which, in addition to reducing deployment risk, will support the realization of the expected benefits. Our Fleet Transformation program delivered meaningful benefits during the half through the renegotiation of our fuel contract, the optimization of our fuel spend, and the implementation of our fleet ownership model through increased 3PL usage and the right sizing of our asset bay. This program will continue to deliver significant safety, financial, and operational benefits. Over the next six months, our focus will be on continuing the implementation of our revised ownership model, advancing our in-cab technology, and undertaking a significant review of R&M spend.
At the back of the presentation are a number of case studies showcasing operational efficiency initiatives in order to provide more color on these projects. I encourage you to take a look at those Slides as I help bring the initiatives to life. Move on to Slide 24 and the outlook. We remain focused on continuing to drive operational excellence in the business, to deliver a strong finish to the year and lay the groundwork as we accelerate into the all-important midterm ambition year FY2026. The margin expansion delivered today is a clear demonstration of the underlying momentum in our strategy and the improving operating leverage of the business. Currently, we are tracking towards the midpoint of the range between $ 395 million and $ 425 million.
The expected step up in EBIT will be driven by growth in solids, supported by growth in MRL volumes, the return of IWS to its first half FY2024 earnings run rate in the fourth quarter, and a full half of operational excellence benefits from our Fleet transformation Business Teams and SWAT programs, and the $ 5 million contribution from the LMS joint venture. The EBIT guidance does not include the costs associated with the St Marys fire, where our initial estimate is between $20 million and $ 40 million net of insurance recoveries. Net finance costs are now expected to be between $120 million and $ 125 million, down from the previous expectations of around $ 130 million. CapEx and our depreciation amortization outlook remain unchanged. All right, closing as we always do with our scorecard on Slide 25.
Looking at the list of deliverables on the scorecard, it's pleasing to report our significant progress against so many of them. On safety and labour, while they both remain yellow in their status, this does not fully capture the progress achieved through their respective multi-year strategies. These initiatives are driving fundamental culture-based changes that will support lasting improvements in both areas. Of course, the change in Customer Connect to yellow reflects the six-month delay. Importantly, the financial metrics remain green, aligned with our confidence in our ability to maintain our trajectory as we continue to focus on safe and strong operational performance and service delivery, strategic infrastructure growth, and delivering value to shareholders.
Before Paul and I start taking questions, I do want to take the time to sincerely thank our employees for all their hard work, especially our frontline teams, as they collectively have made these strong results happen. And with that, I'd like to hand over to the operator for questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. And if you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Amit Kanwatia from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning. If I can just start with the first half 25 EBIT, I mean, the EBIT of $ 195 million, that is below kind of what market was expecting.c Maybe I can appreciate if you can speak to what did not go well in the first half relative to your internal expectations for guidance to be at the midpoint now.
Yes, Amit, I think fair to say we regard ourselves being pretty much firmly on track in terms of tracking to the midpoint of the guidance. In terms of the second half, we see quite a good step up. So we can see the additional income from the LMS joint venture that we called out before. IWS, we see returning to recovery. We've won the Defence contract, as you're aware. And also, too, you can see the operational efficiency benefits really accelerating in the second half. So in many ways, as far as we're concerned, we're on track.
I think there's always a split there, too. It always looks like a staircase. It's never sort of flat to the split 50/50.
Sure. And I mean, if I just think about that comment on the operating efficiency, and then, I mean, you've got a target for 26, which is $50 million-$100 million. What's the run rate at this point, and where do you think you are tracking for that target into fiscal 25 and then more so for 26 as well?
I don't think we're giving FY2026 guidance today. Probably do that in August, and then we'll really answer your question for you. But I think what we are saying is we're really confident of how FY2026 is shaping up, the momentum coming out of FY2025. If you think about some of the things that are going to happen as we go from where we land in 2025 into 2026, you're right to think it'll be, firstly, the organic growth, the GDP plus growth that we've seen in previous years continuing on, followed by the ops excellence. In there, you've got LMS, Customer Connect, branch optimization, fleet, then into the growth capital benefits of that strategic infrastructure. That'll be things like Defence. Western Sydney MRF will be running. FOGO will be in operations for the full year. DDR will be making a contribution. And then we'll stitch it all together for customers and grab some market share as well. And that's how we see us flywheeling out of 2025 and into 2026.
Right. Okay. And just last one, on the finance cost, I mean, you've given the guidance for fiscal 2025. I think there's a comment in there on the cost unwind. Can you provide a sensitivity to the lower interest rates on that discount unwind? How should we be thinking about that?
Yeah. Look, in terms of falling interest rates, Amit, every 25 basis points is worth somewhere in the region of about $ 3 million for us in terms of cash interest. In terms of the unwind on the discount of the long-term non-current provisions, essentially, those rates are fixed semi-annually. So there is no benefit in this half from that because we've set the rate for the half already. It's calculated based on government bond yield rates for the respective timing of those cash flows. So if you look forward to 26, you'll see us reset those rates that will most certainly be lower than we would expect. And therefore, you'll see that unwind come down a bit further.
It's very hard to quantify in the sense it's not driven off the cash rate. It's driven off government bond yield rates. So you would expect in a lower interest rate environment that unwind will be less in quantity.
We didn't update any numbers yesterday on that. Yeah, that's true.
Right. So it's fair to think that it's a $ 3 million cash benefit every 25 basis points plus that benefit from that discount unwind, which is on top of the cash.
Yeah, correct. And also, too, as the lease book resets at progressively lower rates, again, so you'll get reduced interest rates from that component of interest as well. But that's all taken the time to actually break that interest finance cost out so you can understand how the change in the rates will impact each of those components.
All right. Thank you. I'll leave you. Thanks.
Thanks, Amit.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Cameron McDonald from E&P. Please go ahead.
Good morning. A couple of questions from me. Just in terms of the staircase that you referred to, Mark, are we right in thinking that health in the first half would have been break-even to maybe small single-digit contribution? And so you've then got the bulk of that earnings coming in the second half. And then what's the profile of that into FY2026? Is it sort of circa $20 million contribution if you're making $15 this year?
No. I mean, health's pretty much at the run rate that we want it to be right now, and it was in the first half. That's also why we tick the box in the scorecard. So if you look at the scorecard, we tick the box on, what is it? Completed the Health Services business transformation. So when we go from 25 into 26, I think to the crux of your question, we see health. We don't see the step up in the benefit of health flowing through between 25 and 26. It kind of just holds its current position.
Okay. So that assumes you completely restructured everything on the 1st of July for health. So it was a full contribution, effectively $ 7.5 million in the first half. Is that what you're telling us?
Yeah, there or thereabouts. And I think that's consistent with, if you remember, and I just can't remember this summary, but these went together. But if you remember, we were saying stuff like, "We expect to hit the Q4 run rate in health that we want for FY2025." Yeah? I know that feels a lot like what we're saying for IWS now, and that's true. But that was the comment.
And we hit that run rate in last quarter of FY2024, and that provided a platform for the FY2025 run of health. Don't break up that power by itself in terms of profitability, but you're not far off the market.
Yeah. Okay. And then just in terms of the Eastern Creek Organics, can you remind us? That was sort of $ 40 million worth of CapEx that was originally planned to be spent.
Yeah. That's right.
And then so what's the return profile we should be thinking about from that perspective as that ramps up?
So that project won't be complete until 2026. So you'll start to see a progressive ramp-up during FY2026, and it won't be hitting its full contribution probably until the start of 2027. So that project won't be complete, as I say, until well into 2026. Yep.
Can we get some sort of granularity around this Defence contract in terms of its scale and quantum?
Yeah. Well, we'll go as much as we can. It used to be a contract that Veolia had for the whole of Australia. Defence tendered it out. We won Queensland and WA, which if you think about the map of Australia, Queensland and WA are the key states. For example, the evident point for that is the upcoming Defence exercise, Talisman Sabre. That is in Queensland, and it's in the second half of this FY. Paul said to you before, "We'll spend about $ 10 million of CapEx to support that project," and it starts in March this year. That's probably all I can really say, I think.
How long are you contracted for?
I don't think that number's out there. But yeah, I would say it's a midterm contract, so the call is greater than five years. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. That's great. Thank you.
The nature of that contract, too, is it's underlying sort of services that we're contracted to provide. But then one of the key things is that as Defence engage on specific exercises, so you have additional ad hoc work, and that's obviously really important in terms of the profitability. Is that clear?
Yeah. No, that's helpful. Thank you. Final question from me, just in terms of the decommissioning stuff that you've spoken about. Have you got all of the capability and equipment and infrastructure that's needed to support that, or should we be thinking about additional CapEx? And secondly, my understanding is that Exxon actually put out some initial decommissioning tenders at the back end of last year. Did you pick up any preliminary work off the back of them?
So the way you should think about that is I'll answer the first part. So a lot of the work that we're doing at the moment, where we've got three DDR projects or sort of two or three projects underway at the moment, that sort of existing equipment is being used in those as we sort of learn and ramp up. I think it's very limited capital spend at the moment. I think in terms of depending on the nature of the work that you win, there might be some limited capital investment to make that really efficient. But you do that where you could see line of sight to repeatable work of the same type. For example, if it's cleaning tubulars, you might sort of invest in some capability to do that.
I think on the Exxon side, so there's a lot of tenders out there, and what we see is we are consistently approached by often the primary tenderer or primary tender to subcontract in to provide certain services for them, almost to the point of we're sitting behind all the tenders as a tender, if you can imagine, for certain scopes. That I think I've said to you before.
That's why in some areas we're looking at that going, "Is that how we want to play, or do we want to play more as the primary contractor and get in front of that?" I mean, we think maybe just to give you sort of some view of the addressable sort of spend, we think if you take the onshore component of the offshore work in Australia and the onshore component of the onshore work, that's sort of $ 500 million of addressable revenue potential each year for as long as we can see forward. So it's quite an exciting space. We've got a really good strategy as to what we're going to do there.
Great. Thank you. Cool.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Lee Power from UBS. Please go ahead.
Mark. Thank you, Paul. I guess a couple of people have had a crack at this question, but I'm going to try again. So if we think the $ 410 million midpoint of guidance, you kind of need another $ 20 million progression in addition to kind of what you already delivered in the first half. If we break that out, what do you think of that $2 0 million is just cycling what's already embedded in today? What of the $ 20 million is kind of new operational excellence initiatives, and what is just the market growth?
I might give you an unsatisfactory answer, but I'll answer it how I want to answer it, how I think about it. So the difference is $ 20 million, you're right. So it's the current run rate, plus you add the LMS. We've given you that number. Yeah. IWS makes a stronger contribution in the second half as it gets up to that Q4 2024 run rate, and we've actually even given you that number. If you go and calculate it, so you can calculate IWS's contribution, then you get the Defence contract comes in. Yeah, it's a limited thing. It only starts in March, and then it's sort of this organic growth, margin excellence, including landfill volume increases at MRL, so that's how we get the next 20. We're really not worried about it. We can see line of sight to it from where we are today, and in fact, I think we really like the way the business is accelerating into sort of the last half and the last quarter so that we're in that flywheel that I mentioned before, entering the lap that is FY 2026.
Yep. Yeah. Because it seems I mean, I hear what you're saying. You've mapped out a whole bunch of stuff and given us a lot of information. But then the boundaries of guidance kind of haven't changed. So I guess what I was trying to work out is, is there something that you think in the second half of 2025 that is less in your control that is potentially swinging it, and that's why you've kept the broader guidance and haven't narrowed it, albeit you obviously say you're tracking to the midpoint at the moment?
That is the key message. We have come out, and we've been explicit in the sense of saying that we see ourselves tracking towards the midpoint. So we had the choice to reduce the range or to be more specific, and we've chosen to be more specific.
Okay. That's perfect. Excellent. Thanks for the color. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Russell Gill from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. A couple of questions. Firstly, just on the St Marys fire, the 20 to 40 range, presumably you booked that as a provision in the second half. Can you give us a sort of breakdown on, I guess, what sort of remediation, replacement cost versus the lost earnings impact, and then at what point will the operation be back to full earnings capability from a timing standpoint?
I'll say a few things, and then Paul can get into the financial detail. But I think it's early days, is what I'd say. Obviously, you've got the investigation underway. The focus is on the cleanup, that sort of thing, and really understanding the cleanup costs, both what we've done off-site but also on-site, and also sort of the additional cost of working going forward.
The way you should think about the 20 and the 40 is that you get $ 20 million, which would really be the deductibles on the insurance, and the 40 would reflect a conservative approach if the policies don't respond as expected. So that's how we get the range that we do. I'll get Paul to talk through.
Yeah. I guess in many ways, we're almost not ready to talk about this in the sense that results we've come on us quicker than we would want in terms of that particular range. So we look, for example, at the equipment that was at St Marys. It's got a book value of sort of $ 10 million, $12 million for insured for replacement cost. We haven't done the work yet to know how much of that equipment is salvageable.
Actually, within the shed itself, the fire systems worked as we expected and essentially made sure that a lot of those assets were protected. So we don't yet have a clear view as to what that asset write-off would be, what replacement cost would be. As Mark said, in terms of the other sort of significant elements of the cost, the cleanup is largely complete off-site, but really has yet to start on-site because obviously we've had to preserve the site for Comcare in terms of their investigation as well. So it is early days. It is very much most of the $ 20 million reflects the deductibles on the insurance policies. We expect them to respond. We don't have concerns there. The $ 40 million would be situations where we have just unexpected gaps in coverage. So very early days.
We'll obviously keep the market updated as we progress through the work on that space. In terms of getting back to sort of full capacity, we probably won't return to that site for at lEast six months in terms of cleanup and remediation. But we have a number of other sites locally that we can basically deploy that work to and expect to probably be up and running again within that sort of hopefully three to six-month type of window.
So just from a lost earnings standpoint, you can, I guess, redeploy volume so there's not a, I guess, a net business interruption style cost that needs to be either covered by insurance or taken below the line?
I think there will be additional costs of working in the sense that there will simply be inefficiencies because obviously that site was set up specifically to deal with those waste streams.
So we're going to be splitting that volume between probably at lEast two and possibly three or four sites. And the equipment, which was bespoke for the work that was being undertaken, again, won't be so specialized. So there will be an increased cost of working in that sense.
And that dynamic is captured in that 20 to 40?
Correct. Yeah.
Okay. Secondly, just on if we think forward to FY2026, and you did talk a little about this, just how important the two dynamics are. One, your Customer Connect delay looked like it was expected to contribute a little bit of benefit in FY2026. Wondering if we could just call out what that potential benefit could have been. And then secondly, how important the macro is to actually hitting these medium-term targets and how much is within your control.
Obviously, macro terms, you might get some benefit to the net interest line, but you're guiding to, I guess, the EBIT line. So just get a feel for how much is within your control and how much is outside your control on the macro over the next eight months.
Yeah. Well, the answer to your question on Customer Connect is actually in the Slide deck on Slide 30. We buried it right down the back for you so you couldn't find it. If you look there, you'll see that profile. So it's $ 3 million in FY2026 versus the five previously. You can just see the whole thing sort of shifting backwards by six months. So not too concerned with that.
As I said in the sort of the voiceover, much prefer to do it in a really complete way with our drivers than sort of rush the change management or do it in an incomplete way and therefore not land the benefits long term. So that's that piece. I think on sort of the macro, I mean, I think obviously if you say the macro is the GDP plus growth piece, well, obviously we've got some exposure on the macro there in terms of the Value Creation Staircase. I think what I would say, though, is we're really pleased with where the competitive landscape is at the moment in the first half of 2025. We've re-signed Coles. We won the Defence contract. We won CDS. We can see MRL volume stabilizing in spite of that soft C&I.
Like I said before, we expect volume into MRL to increase in the second half. That's because we can see line of sight to it. We know what's going to come. That's not macro-dependent, some of that volume increase. On the third part, in terms of that competitive landscape, I mean, I think what we'd say there is there's pockets of sort of increased competition, but it's largely rational to the market at the moment. I've made that comment because I just feel like perhaps in the last sessions that we've had, it was kind of overplayed this idea of we're only going after revenue. We're going after contracts and we're being successful in that.
Right. I'm going to try this one. Just on the DDR, you put out some, I guess, a bit more information. You hinted that the internal teams have started to, I guess, budget and plan this. You put out the $ 500 million, I guess, TAM revenue opportunity over a very, very long period of time. In terms of the capabilities in the organization on what you might need to add to the organization or what percentage market share you think you could attain of that 500 based on your current capabilities, just if we can get some sizing around that and in terms of the timing of when this stuff starts dropping over the next couple of years.
Yeah. We're not in control of the timing, that's for sure. We have one of the longest funnels of opportunities that I've ever seen. Sort of, we have every project mapped in terms of timing and value and where we might play, which on Slide 32 is probably a good place to go to kind of help answer it. On the left-hand side, you've got the addressable market, whether that's oil and gas or mine closure or sort of industrial energy or Defence sites. On the right-hand side, to answer your question around where are we kind of playing, and if that is the value chain there on the right-hand side from at the top advisory and project management through to the bottom resource recovery, you can see we've grayed out dismantling and demolition. That's not a capability we have today. Our approach on that would be to use others for that piece.
I think otherwise we've got a strong offering across certainly the advisory and project management piece, certainly hazardous treatment, remediation, resource recovery, and on the decom at the front end. I think try to split that sort of $ 500 million for you, so that's the onshore component of the offshore work and the onshore component, which is obviously onshore in its own right. I think it's important also just to have in your mind that this is an integrated offering where you combine the capabilities of IWS, our Liquids team, and our Solids team, and you get them working in a way together that we can then present something that others can't from end to end, and obviously then just plug the gaps if there's a little piece that we can't do that we need to subcontract.
And like I've said before, also we've got some fantastic sites with licenses to do some of this work. A lot of the work that we're planning on doing coming up is up in on our site there where we've got fantastic licensed space. And that's certainly where those three projects will be occurring coming up.
And then just on the fact that you had to restructure the IWS business to, I guess, bring earnings back up in the near term to maintain this cadence of EBIT growth, I guess that doesn't impact the ability of the future or to win this future work in the future, given you had to restructure those teams?
No, exactly. It goes the other way in that it actually allows us to free up resources, both people and assets, to position IWS as the spearhead for Cleanaway into that DDR space. So we're definitely of the view that we would prefer IWS to be servicing Tier 1 contracts, recurring revenue, rather than fighting it out for ad hoc work in a metropolitan branch in Melbourne. That's really what we've done. We've removed the FTE. We've gone really excessively. We've consolidated and closed the branches. We've got that $ 10 million run rate off that. We're back on track for the first half of FY2024. As you say, exactly as you say, that's provided the capability to now go and flow that across to the DDR, which is really exciting.
Great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Peter Steyn from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning, Mark and Paul. Appreciate your time. Perhaps just wanting to chat to you a little bit about your commercial performance. You've obviously highlighted a couple of big contract wins. But perhaps you could give us a bit of a sense of, in the nuts and bolts, how you're going with your ability to secure new work, renew current work, just getting a bit of a sense of your competitive position in light of some of the conversation before.
Yeah. So I think that's fair enough. I think there's definitely new work in there. So if you take some of the new work, it'd be things like sort of Defence win is new work. And what we've won in Defence is our view is we're the chosen one. They would have been the ones to choose.
Just given the footprint with Defence, our capabilities for those locations and sort of, as Paul mentioned, the amount of ad hoc work that will come through those. So I think that's new work. And it really does demonstrate the integrated offering. I mean, that is a full, that's a full Cleanaway sort of service agreement. I think you take Tas CDS as another example. That is new work. That really does cement us as the number one operator of CDS schemes in the country with now all of the New South Wales, two of the zones in Victoria, and the whole of Tasmania. Obviously, the role we're playing sort of Queensland on top of that. So I think that's new. I think the Coles re-sign is important.
Coles is a really important customer for Cleanaway in terms of their scale, but also their sort of view of our sustainability. And we're stronger as a company because of our relationship with them and the conversations that we have and sort of making each other better. So I think that's awesome. And what we've achieved on landfill diversion, I think them re-signing with us says they are pleased with what we do and want that to continue on all of company basis. So the whole of Cleanaway supports the whole of Coles on a daily basis, which is great. And I think that kind of goes to those are good evidence points of the strategy in action, which is when you add the strategic infrastructure growth and the sort of optics when you put it together with great customer service, then you get market share.
You're both maintaining your existing business, but also growing. So I think commercially, we're really happy with how it's looking and our ability to structure the whole of Cleanaway to these large contracts that want that cross-functional response. That sort of answers your question or?
Yeah, broadly. I suppose I was also keen to just below these larger headline grabbing contracts, just get a bit of how you're seeing your broader performance across the board.
Well, I think, I mean, if you go to Muni, and we're very thoughtful about Muni. I think we've talked about that before in these calls. I think the days just going after Muni are over. And we very critically look at Muni contracts, renewals, that sort of thing. And we screen those quite thoughtfully in a new Muni contract in a location where we've already got a depot.
Doesn't actually necessarily screen highly, particularly if that council is not sustainability-focused at all of our price. That's probably not where we're going to play, so we're very thoughtful about that, and we actually see a long, long funnel of growth, CapEx opportunities that would have a higher return to shareholders than investing in 10-year Muni contracts that are lower risk and lower return, so we're very thoughtful about screening Muni, so to that effect, you say, "So what?" and I'd say, "Well, therefore, we've won some. And there's some that we've bidden away that we've lost them, and we're happy with that," so we won't leave a council high and dry in terms of not bidding, but we'll certainly, if we're less inclined to win it, then we'll put that through our pricing.
Yeah. Bottom line, I suppose, is you're very comfortable with where your win rates are at. They're generally strategic and making financial sense, and you're not feeling any fear from a competitive perspective in execution. That's what I'm taking from that.
Yeah. I think the other point too, Pete, is you look at existing book, and churn this year is actually down on previous years, so we're actually seeing a lot more stability in our book as well, so I think we mentioned in the voiceover, some weakness in Metro C&I, and what we're seeing there basically is not loss of customers. It's simply customers that have less waste because they're typically facing the consumer with less cash in their pockets, hospitality in some of those sectors, and we're seeing them having fewer services, so we're not losing the customer. We're simply seeing the fact that customers are changing the waste generation that they have. Perfect.
While we're just talking about this, could you give us a bit of an update on where things are at just in terms of the inherent competitiveness of the Victorian market? You've spoken about the performance of MRL specifically, but just that broader perspective, Mark, and how that's starting to play into your thinking on energy from waste.
Yeah. I mean, I think we think about the big Solids business. We've got Vic/ Tas because I've got Tas as well. Probably couldn't be more pleased with any SBU more than I would be with the Vic/ Tas team in terms of the really strong turnaround that that team has done on a full end-to-end basis of every part of the operation. I think I've said before in this call, they're doing a healthy business, and that's flowing through to cost of services and EBIT and that sort of thing.
So I think competitively, we're at a really nice place because we've got fantastic assets to offer customers on an end-to-end basis. We commented on, yeah, and with that, Peter, obviously, I think we should do stuff before. Sometimes we find a regional town where it might be hyper-competitive for a period of time where another competitor will do a sales campaign. That's just life. That stuff goes on every day of the week around the country somewhere, and our teams know how to respond to that. Victoria is really no different to anywhere else. I think MRL, we're definitely seeing cost stabilization team. A lot of the work the team did to reduce costs, find different ways to do the same stuff smarter, is coming through. Really strong focus on funnel of C&I customers, funnel of landfill customers, and they're working that hard.
And that's having the benefits probably never been clearer for us how that funnel looks and how it comes towards us. And I'd say that actually across Cleanaway, the amount of work being done around funneling of customers so we can manage them well on the way in and not miss out is really having benefits. So how does that flow into energy from waste? I think energy from waste, not much has changed there. You notice we didn't even mention it in the call. That's because not much has changed. We still see ourselves as the originators of these projects. We know our customers want low-cost access. We know we don't need 100% ownership to do that. We're just using origination to get the access that we need at the appropriate time. It's very heavily policy and government-driven, everything that's going on in that space.
Things can just get delayed just because it's an election or whatever. I think the government in New South Wales, sorry, government in Victoria, announced the increase of the cap. Our view would be that's nice. It doesn't actually change anything because there's only a certain amount of muni waste that is going to need to go to an energy waste facility anyway, but it's been doubled. So it just means there'll be more cap allocated. We're just working through long lead time approvals synced to policy and need developments. But I think you wouldn't be thinking Cleanaway is going to be doing any sort of FID on any EFW projects until 2027 and beyond. That's the kind of mindset that we've got just given where the policy developments are.
Yeah. Thanks, Mark. Appreciate that. I'll leave it there. Thanks, gents.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Owen Birrell from RBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Look, I just wanted to, I guess, further to Lee's question around the guidance range. I know you sort of highlighted the fact that you've narrowed your focus to the midpoint of the range, but you haven't narrowed the guidance range itself. I'm just wanting to get a sense of where you see the downside risks coming from. What sort of drags are you seeing that will possibly see you miss that midpoint and towards the lower end of that range to the 395? What are you seeing in terms of inflationary pressures? And are there any major contracts that you see rolling off during this path that are at risk for not being renewed?
I mean, just on the last part, and then I'll come up with this part. So I think on the last part, major contracts. I mean, the major contracts. It's not the major in the scheme of Cleanaway, not really, but is it major kind of. Is Health Services Victoria. Obviously, that's the government's pre-tendering the entire hospital system. That tender's kind of closed, and they're deciding, and we'll find out sometime soon, hopefully. And that has somewhat of an impact on health in the second half of the year. But again, it's kind of built into all the numbers that we've talked about today. So in the spirit of transparency, I won't answer it like that. I think it just in terms of. I know you guys are all banging on about sort of narrowing the range and all that sort of thing. Maybe I'll say it this way, and I've said it before, but I'll say it this way.
I think also, we could have narrowed the range. But I think my view would have been it would have been a bit taking the figures at the low end of the range, having them put $ 20 million-$ 40 million below the line. So that's one of the reasons why we didn't do it. So just maybe just understand that it would have looked like, "Look over here, but don't worry about this over here." That's just not who we are. So we just thought we'd leave it and allow you to focus your attention on the whole picture.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Oscar Gee from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just on the operating cash flow, how should we think about the cash tax paid in the second half? Should we expect it to normalize into the second half, or will that be more FY2026?
Yeah. The way it works is having not paid tax for a number of years, we then have to do sort of a top-up for 2024 in December. December 2024. Of course, the top-up was in fact the whole tax payments for $ 93 million. If you use that as a bit of a benchmark, that's roughly about $ 8 million a month. We resume paying installments in the month of March. In the second half, you'd expect to see something in the region of about $ 30 million-$35 million of tax in the second half. That will continue month by month into FY2026. We'll pay a top-up in 2026 relating to the 2025 year.
So assuming the total tax payment is roughly the same, you'll see probably another, say, $ 50 million-$60 million going out in December of next year. And then essentially, we are just simply back on track again in terms of simply $ 8 million a month or there and thereabouts as we go through. So this operating cash flow figure is really heavily impacted by essentially an aberration in terms of the catch-up tax payment. And hence the fact we called it out and I guess focused on the after-tax component. Does that make sense?
Yeah. No, that's very helpful. Thank you for that. And then just on the capital expenditure, you've guided sort of last year to the $ 50 million reduction in your CapEx moving forward. Looks like you'll meet that this year. Are you still confident you can meet that into FY2026 and beyond, or are you expecting some step-up?
Yeah. Look, I mean, I think clearly the business is growing and growing very strongly. But we think we can maintain that sort of CapEx envelope broadly in line with that approximately $ 400 million. So from our view, the step-up in 2026, we haven't finalized our CapEx budgets yet. But I guess the key message is that you can be confident that we'll apply really stringent discipline to those capital decisions. And we've clearly demonstrated that in this result. But we're not sitting here thinking that the $ 400 million for 2025 is an aberration, far from it. That's the sort of run rate you'd expect to see going forward.
Great. Thanks for that. And just one final one. You've spoken a bit about the performance at MRL. Looks like you guys are expecting it to be stronger into the second half. You flagged the performance improvement focus at the FY2024 result. Can you just provide a bit more detail on some of the initiatives you took there and how you're seeing that affect this half and the second half?
Yeah. So I mean, I think it's a carry-on on things that we talked about before. So it's thinking about how do we minimize the cost. That could be sort of how we organize ourselves as a team on the site. It could be around how we use tarps rather than daily cover. The tarps have all arrived. We've done sprays as well there rather than tarps even. So we've got all the US technology and big strong focus on density.
It's those sorts of things I think also impacting that is fleet, where we've really had a strong focus around how we use our fleet into MRL in terms of recontracting that work to be done by others where it can be done on a high return basis by people like that rather than us doing it ourselves. And that's redeploying that into other capital projects. So all those sorts of things are ongoing. I think we can see also the expansion of waste codes work has really paid off. That's things like we say expansion of waste codes. The example there is asbestos, for example. And we can see some increased volumes of that waste stream coming in to be safely dealt with. So it's all the work that the team and the foundations of the team's lay all coming to bear together alongside increased volumes. Great.
Thanks for that, Mark. And maybe if I can just ask one more. There's been some talk that the landfill level in New South Wales may be increasing significantly. To the degree that that happens, do you see any risk of losing volumes in New South Wales and potentially being diverted to other states?
No. Yeah. That is against EPA policy. EPA has a written-down policy around the movement of waste outside of the metropolitan area. So basically, their policy is that if the waste is generated in the metropolitan area, then it needs to be disposed of in the metropolitan area. And if it's not, then the metropolitan levy applies. So they're well attuned to that. We watch that carefully as well. And we certainly notify them where we see any sort of customers trying to take the piss on that element. Great.
Thanks for that, Mark. All right. Cool.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jakob Cakarnis from Jarden, Australia. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mark. Hi, Paul. Just wanted to focus on Slide six, where you say restoration to be complete in FY2025. If I then go and have a look at the accounts specifically around the Solid Waste business, you've reported an underlying EBITDA margin that's flat on the prior year, and it looks like it's flat half on half in the second half. Am I right in understanding that a lot of the operational and productivity disruption was in that Solid Waste business? And I guess how much of that restoration is going to be realized run rate through FY2025 and the continuation into '26, please?
So if you look at the restoration topics that we called out, essentially, it was Queensland. We basically said that we completed in the 2024 year. It's the health business. So basically, again, you'll see a green tick on the scorecard there. We're saying that's largely complete and obviously flows through to the Liquid Waste and Health Services sector. I guess the final one is labour. labour, we've scored ourselves as being a yellow. So still on track or still in progress. In terms of labour, and obviously, the most significant labour force there is within the Solids business. I think we've done some really great work in terms of labour. You've seen voluntary turnover come down really significantly, down to 16.8% in December with a leading run rate of about 15%. Turnover less than 12 months down to 32%. Vacancies pretty much at record lows. Shifts greater than 10 hours again coming right down.
We've seen some really nice benefits come through in terms of municipal. So we've seen some margin expansion in that business, largely driven by labour efficiencies. If there's one area, I guess, that we have a question mark or where we feel we haven't cracked the labour nut yet, and that is within the Metro C&I business in particular. In responding to Pete's question about volumes in Metro C&I. We're seeing that being a little bit softer. That's not loss of customer. That's simply the customer down trading. That does have an impact for us in terms of route- density. And therefore, the branch team needs to be really quite agile in terms of how they schedule their labour and deal with routing.
That's where you see the branch-led operating model kick in and us providing tools to those branches to better able to help them to manage that labour challenge that they've got. So the only thing that we don't think we've completed yet in terms of restoration would be labour. And that's labour within solids and really quite narrowly within Metro C&I. And it's largely being driven by route- density issue and the knock-on impact to labour productivity as opposed to anything else. But again, we can see a route there to fix that challenge as well.
I think it's the restoration dividers and things like that as opposed to restoration as the three things we had in the state. You know what I mean? We didn't use restoration in that. We use those three items you're just talking about. It's another something else out of the financials.
We're very unsure of your comment about solid EBITDA being flat?
Yeah. Okay. I'll change tack a little bit. In the original operating excellence, was the cost opportunity in the LTS and Hydros business originally part of that package, or is that incrementally announced today?
No. I think if you talk about OpEx Excellence, OpEx Excellence is a group-wide initiative. When we announced it, I must admit that wasn't something that we'd considered at that time. But clearly, it falls into that same bracket as taking the existing asset base and working through how we can make it work more effectively and efficiently. So it certainly is an outcome of that form of thinking, although it wasn't envisioned at the time. If those sort of initiatives, Jakob, really take us from at lEast $ 50 million up towards $ 100 million in terms of OpEx Excellence. Yeah.
I suppose for others that are trying to bridge from what looks to be an exit rate in 2025 to 2026, something like that's important to understand. But yeah, appreciate that. Thanks for the color, guys. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Samantha Edie from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Mr. Schubert, Mr. Binfield, and the greater team. Thanks for taking my question. I just had a question on Slide 30 of the prezo that details the speed bump in Customer Connect. So just for modeling purposes, can you give us some detail on the $ 30 million cost increase in terms of the timing and also the CapEx? And is there some of the $ 30 million? Is that included in the EBIT impacts you detail in that Slide also?
Yeah, no, it is. So essentially, the additional CapEx is roughly $3 0 million. Also, the additional spend is roughly $ 30 million. Probably half of that you should think as being capital nature. The other half you should be regarded as being expense because it's related to SaaS software. In terms of timing, again, we expect to have the project complete within the first half of 2027. And in terms of the capital spend, you should sort of view that as being relatively even split over the remaining time periods.
Okay. Cool. Thank you. And then I've just got one other question. So fire risk has always been a part of waste management. So are you seeing that the risk of fires is increasing because of, for example, batteries going into the waste streams? And then can you also talk to how you might work with the industry and regulators on reducing the problem and recovering your costs going into the future? Yeah.
What I'd say there is we're definitely seeing more fires. But what we're seeing is the fires that we're having are lower severity. If you look at that pie chart on the HSE Slide, you'll notice that medium and above fire percentages have dropped. I know that's sort of ironic to say at the same time as we had the St Marys fire, which is obviously classed as a large fire. I think, well, I don't think any of us think at the moment that St Marys is related to batteries at this point in time. That's certainly not the hypothesis, but that's at the early days of the investigation. Most of the fires we do have are due to batteries, however. And there's a lot of work going on among the industry to kind of work on that.
The issue we have on batteries is that the primary work that gets done is education of the community to sort of explain to them why you don't put a battery in the bin. Education is a weak control because it's administrative by nature. Therefore, what we've had to focus on is spending sort of $ 20 million, $25 million, $ 30 million a year upgrading our fire systems so that we get early detection and automation of response. I think in the case of the St Marys fire, the fire system that had been installed recently was the fire system that was used to fight the fire, and if you'll closely look at the videos, you'll see a big red pump with everybody standing around it as it was running, supplying the hydrants that were then used with the fire monitors.
And so that's the sort of equipment that we've been installing progressively, starting with our highest risk sites through to our lower risk sites, with the idea being that we'll try and keep the fires will happen, but we'll try and keep the fires small.
Okay. Thank you. And then just given that you've had a few of these incidents over the past years, is there any impact on your ongoing insurance costs and deductibles?
Well, insurance costs and deductibles certainly have been coming down progressively over time because I think we've talked about on these calls in the past that we've gone from sort of when I joined, I think, 20 instances a year sort of thing where insurers were notified of a potentially insurable event to a number of years where we had zero. And that led to deductibles coming down.
Obviously, now we've had this event. So obviously, I expect to see some response from the insurance market around that. But obviously, part of that also will be determined by the work we do around the cause and really understanding the nature of the event.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Nathan Lead from Morgans. Please go ahead. Good day.
Sorry. Hi, Nathan. It's Josie. Unfortunately, I've got to take Mark. He's got some pre-arranged media commitments. So just to let everyone know, Mark's going to drop off the call, but Paul can stay on and continue with questions.
Sorry about that.
No problems. Good night, Mark. Yeah. Okay. I'll fire away then.
So first up, MRL, that the comment was made on the call a number of times about how you're confident the volume is going to be increasing. Apologies if I missed the explanation there, but could you just talk us through why you got that view? I mean, there was the comment about the asbestos increases, but is there anything else driving that?
We're just seeing a little bit of increased activity. So we've obviously got a bit of a pipeline in terms of being able to see projects that we've either secured or are on the horizon. And that's giving us a degree of comfort that we can see that what has been a relatively steady decline in volumes over probably the last three halves, we've now seen that stabilize and turn, and we have an expectation that volumes will be higher in the second half.
MRL, is it still one of your highest EBITDA margin assets?
Yes, it would be. It would be.
Okay. Great. Second question for me is I'm just interested in the LFG monetization there. Was that tendered out, or was it just a direct deal? Why did you choose to outsource instead of doing it internally? And do you have other options or opportunities on that front?
Yeah. Great question. It absolutely was tendered. So we looked at doing it ourselves. The fact is you're talking about just for Lucas Heights alone, the replacement engines would be probably in the region of about $ 50 million. So we looked at a situation where we would tender it out. LMS were a successful player. They came back with some really quite innovative thinking. They also, too, Nathan, this is all these guys do. So they really understand the situation well.
They're experts in the field, and we felt they could bring some real value to the project. In terms of the profit split going forward, essentially, the way that you should think about this is that we contribute the landfill gas. They contribute the generation infrastructure, and in terms of the profit split going forward, we both enjoy sort of a baseline of infra-type returns, but any upside beyond that all goes to Cleanaway. So essentially, we've got a situation here where we significantly de-risk the return. We've got greater expertise in place, and it's a capital-like solution. So we're sitting here thinking this is a really nice deal, frankly, for Cleanaway's. In terms of other alternatives going forward or other projects, importantly, the reason why the EBIT uplift for Lucas Heights was so significant is that those rights are currently owned by someone else.
They revert to Cleanaway 1 January 2026, so with the other landfills, obviously, we own those rights already, albeit there are a number of situations where we think involving a third party such as LMS will help us improve the efficiency, allow us to potentially improve the returns, and do it in a capital-like manner, so again, I'll give you a specific example. We currently have eight engines at MRL. We actually have the capacity to have a further eight on site. We have enough gas for a further eight. That gas is currently being flared, so we do take value from the ACCUs, but we don't enjoy any of the upside in terms of electricity generation.
So you can see a situation there where if you had someone such as an LMS come in and partner for those other eight engines, again, you have the ability to generate additional profit through electricity generation. But you have to share it, of course.
Yeah. Share him. Okay. Great. Hey, just my third one is just can you give us an update on the Lucas Heights? I think it was Life Extension? Was it Lucas Heights or Kemps Creek?
Yep. It was Lucas Heights. Lucas Heights. Not a huge amount, but there's a lot going on on-site in a sense. Lots of stakeholder engagement, planning, and approval process well underway. In terms of a solid milestone, there really is nothing I can give you. But this is a project that we're absolutely committed to t he state government are absolutely aware of the waste crisis that they've got emerging in New South Wales and are very supportive in terms of us pursuing that project.
Brilliant. Okay. Thanks, Paul.
Thanks, Nathan. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Nicole Penny from Rimor Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, Nicole.
Hi, Paul. Thank you. Could we confirm on Slide 18 regarding the strategic review of Liquid Waste and health for asset optimization appearing more than an internal focus? Is one of the potential outcomes perhaps more asset sales and divestment going forward?
No. I think the focus there, Nicole, is all about looking at the current footprint of those two businesses and simply seeing where it makes sense to combine activities, simply where we can do things more efficiently, more effectively. So no expectation of asset sales or divestment.
Thank you. And then lastly, could we expand on Slide 23 regarding the landfill gas contribution and forecast, please, and confirm whether this assumes no change to carbon credit accounting from the current regulatory landscape?
Yeah. That is correct.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Very good.
There are no further questions at this time. And that does conclude our conference for today.
That's lovely, wasn't it? Yeah. Thank you very much for the time and engaging. And look forward to catching up with you over the next couple of weeks. Thank you very much.