Evolution Mining Limited (ASX:EVN)
Australia flag Australia · Delayed Price · Currency is AUD
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Apr 28, 2026, 4:12 PM AEST
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Earnings Call: H1 2025

Feb 12, 2025

Operator

Oh, no, I can hand the conference over to Mr. Jake Klein, Executive Chair. Please go ahead.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

Thanks, Darcy. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. Thanks for joining us. I am joined today on the call by my colleagues, Lawrie Conway, the CEO and Managing Director, Barrie van der Merwe, the Chief Financial Officer, and Peter O'Connor, General Manager, Investor Relations. I'm going to turn to slide three of the presentation, which I think is appropriately titled, "Strategically Positioned for Success." As you all know, it really is a great time to be a gold miner. The tailwinds of a record high U.S. dollar gold price and an Australian dollar trading in the low 60s to the U.S. dollar put the current spot gold price at over AUD 4,600 an ounce. That's over AUD 700 higher than the price we realized in the first half of this financial year and relates to the financial results which you're looking at today.

So the gold price going forward, if it holds, is AUD 700 higher for the second half. As a shareholder of Evolution, times are even better. Our strategy since we formed the company over a decade ago remains unchanged: a focus on establishing a concentrated portfolio of long-life, high-margin gold and copper assets in the tier-one jurisdictions of Australia and Canada. The results being presented today are a testament to the effectiveness of that strategy. What really encourages me is the confidence we have as a team and as a company that these results are sustainable well into the future. With that, I'll hand over to Lawrie and Barrie to take you through the results.

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Thank you, Jake, and good morning, everyone. Firstly, let me start by acknowledging Jake for his invaluable contribution to Evolution over nearly 15 years and the support he has provided to me. I'm pleased that Jake has agreed to maintain his association as non-executive chair from next year, and I look forward to continuing that relationship. Turning to slide four, Jake has just outlined how the execution of our strategy over the years has created a high-quality, long-life portfolio, and we are now seeing the benefits of our operations delivering at the right time. We are getting back to consistent, safe, low-cost production, which enables us to capture the benefits of the rising metal prices.

Just as important, though, is that we have multiple value-accretive growth options that will extend mine life or increase production, while the exploration results over the last couple of years continue to drive our resource growth and provide further upside. With an average mine life of 18 years and options to extend further, as well as our low-cost position in the sector, the cash generation of the business is sustainable well beyond the current record gold price environment. We have an investment-grade balance sheet with the capacity and flexibility to support our strategy and, most importantly, allow us to deliver increasing returns to our shareholders. Slide five provides a snapshot of the first half, and it contains multiple records.

These records are being achieved due to us delivering to plan, with production tracking at 52% of the midpoint of guidance at AUD 1,638 per ounce in the first half year. Delivering these results safely is paramount, and our TRIF is down 39% from 12 months ago. In terms of records, we delivered record operating, net mine, and group cash flows up between 60% and 420% against a 29% increase in the achieved gold price and an 8% increase in the achieved copper price. That definitely shows the quality of the portfolio. On the back of the record results and the significant deleveraging, we've increased our fully franked interim dividend by 250% to AUD 0.07 per share.

As previously announced in the quarterly, our projects are tracking well with the Mungari plant expansion nine months ahead of schedule and 6% under the original budget. Cowal is an asset that has fully repaid all acquisition and investment capital, and year-to-date alone has generated AUD 268 million of net cash. Receiving regulatory approval to extend the operation in the open pit by 10 years has only further cemented it as a truly world-class operation. Moving to slide six, which to me really captures the true quality of the portfolio and the benefit of delivering to the plan in this metal price environment. We're excellently placed to benefit from the upside of the spot metal prices.

Every operation is set up to be a sustainable cash contributor to the group, and they all benefit from the spot price upside as we only have 75,000 ounces hedged for delivery over the next 18 months. Since the release of our quarterly results a few weeks ago, the potential for FY25 cash flow has increased by another AUD 105 million, putting us on track to deliver AUD 2.1 billion of operating cash flow and AUD 1.9 billion of mine cash flow before major capital. The extra three and a half - sorry, the extra 305 million shown on the charts represents a half-year benefit. So annualized, this is over AUD 600 million as compared to where the metal prices were when we released guidance in August.

We expect this momentum to continue, which further improves our flexibility in phasing our capital investment and still be able to continue to increase dividends. With that, I'll now hand over to Barrie to take you through the detailed financials.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Thank you, Lawrie, and good morning, everyone. At my last results presentation with Evolution, it is great to be talking to a set of record financial results, as slide seven shows. Underlying Profit After Tax, a record performance of AUD 385 million is up 144%. Underlying EBITDA of AUD 1 billion is also a record and up 77%. This performance was driven by on-plan, consistent production, higher metal prices, and good cost control. Our EBITDA margin increased by 16% to 50%, clearly showing that we are banking the benefit of the high gold price. Both operating and net mine cash flow for the half were all-time records, while we continued investing in our long-life, high-margin operations like the Mungari 4.2 plant expansion that will be delivered early and under budget. Since December 2023, gearing reduced 24% from 29.7% to 22.6%. That was after paying out dividends.

As we said before, as gearing comes down, dividends are increasing. The AUD 0.07 per share FY25 interim dividend, which is 250% higher than the FY24 interim, clearly shows that we are honoring this commitment to our shareholders. Turning to slide eight that talks about our investment-grade balance sheet. Our balance sheet is in great shape, as these charts show. Net debt is AUD 345 million lower than in December 2023 after paying under AUD 140 million. As our margins increase and we bank the upside from higher prices through consistent on-plan delivery, we have seen a very favorable step change in all our key balance sheet metrics, which was already at investment grade before. EBITDA leverage, the number of years of cash profit that we need to cover our net debt, reduced from 1.9 last year to 0.7 this year, a 63% improvement.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

With expected cash generation and profitability in the second half, as Lawrie outlined earlier, this will reduce further very quickly. Our interest expense is covered 22 times by EBITDA compared to 11 times for the first half of FY24. This clearly shows the benefit to shareholders of having 75% of our debt with a tenure of between 5 and 11 years at a 4.5% fixed interest rate. The foreign exchange exposure on our U.S. dollar-denominated long-term debt is fixed at 71.5 U.S. cents to the Australian dollar, and with a current exchange rate at about 62 cents, the hedge is more than AUD 200 million in the money. Our average borrowing cost is a very low 5%, and the interest rate on the variable-rate term loans reduces as gearing comes down, meaning they are 20 basis points cheaper from 1 January, 2025.

Turning to slide nine, our policy of paying around 50% of group cash flow is unchanged, and the interim dividend represents a full payout of the dividend policy after allowing for deleveraging at pace and continued investment in the business. Therefore, following this record financial performance, the board declared a 24th consecutive dividend, AUD 0.07 per share, fully franked. It amounts to a AUD 140 million payout in total and is equal to the total dividends declared during FY24. It will be paid on April the 4th. Aligned with shareholder feedback, we are reinstating the dividend reinvestment plan, which will remain active until further notice. This provides shareholders with the opportunity to acquire shares at a 5% discount to the volume-weighted average share price for the five days following the record date.

We are on track to reduce gearing to 20% or less by the end of FY25 while continuing to invest in our long-life, high-margin assets. The early and under-budget delivery of the Mungari 4.2 plant expansion is testament to our major project execution capability and means that approximately AUD 80 million of major project capital and AUD 25 million of major mine development capital will be brought forward from FY26 to FY25. This is reflected in the updated guidance table in the appendix. All other elements of guidance remain unchanged. The chart on the top right clearly illustrates that in times when gearing reduced, dividends increased. Gearing peaked in FY23 following various acquisitions to establish our high-margin asset portfolio that are now generating significant cash flow. Gearing is reducing rapidly while dividends have started to pick up.

We expect this trend to continue, particularly considering that the current gold spot price is about AUD 700 per ounce higher than that achieved in the first half. The half-one annualized dividend on the chart shows what it may look like if the final FY25 dividend were to be the same as the interim dividend. On a personal note, as this is my last results presentation with Evolution, I want to thank the company for the many highlights over the last two years. It was a very fulfilling and exciting experience, and I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to spend time here. Evolution is a great company and very well positioned for the future with a clear and consistent strategy and excellent leadership and people. I wish you all of the best for the future, and we'll now hand the call back to Jake. Thank you.

Thanks, Barrie, and on behalf of the company, we thank you for your efforts and wish you all the best for the future. Turning to slide 10, and just before opening the lines for questions, you may have seen this morning that in addition to the record financial results released this morning, and as Lawrie mentioned earlier, we also announced that I will transition to the role of non-executive chair of our company from the 1st of July 2025. Having had the privilege of being both the founder and an executive of Evolution since our journey began almost 15 years ago, I've decided that the time is right for the business and for me for this change.

I'm excited that in addition to being the Non-Executive Chair, going forward, I will continue to lead our efforts on converting our Mt Rawdon operation into a significant renewable infrastructure asset generating clean power for Queensland. This move has all been carefully planned, well-considered, and has been really in the works for over two years as I've worked with Lawrie and the board. As you have seen in the financial results, Evolution is in great shape, and Lawrie and the team are doing an excellent job at delivering safe, reliable production. Really important to both the board and me and to the whole company, we continue to retain our core culture and values.

I personally could not be proud of what we have achieved at Evolution to date, and I look forward to continuing to being a part of Evolution's exciting future. Darcy, can you please open the lines for questions?

Operator

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question today, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you'd like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question today comes from Jon Bishop from Jarden Group Australia. Please go ahead.

Jon Bishop
Director of Equity Research, Jarden Group Australia

Good morning, guys, and thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations, Jake and Barrie. Well done. Good innings from you, Jake, in particular. Just a couple of questions from me just around the reinstatement of the dividend reinvestment plan. I mean, you're obviously enjoying some ballooning cash flow at the moment. I'm just wondering what the sort of logic was behind that, given the Phase 3. Let's dare to dream the current commodity prices, hang in there, and your cost controls remain. It looks like all of your capital calls are eminently manageable, given your balance sheet at the moment.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

Thanks, Jon. The only reason the dividend reinvestment plan was reinstated was based on feedback from shareholders. There is no relationship to the balance sheet, which is, as Barrie said, very strong and very robust. So it is entirely related to feedback from shareholders.

Jon Bishop
Director of Equity Research, Jarden Group Australia

Okay, that's fine. Look, the second one, this is well and truly out of my comfort zone, but I'll ask anyway. In terms of reconciling the numbers to the actuals that you've delivered today, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect in the depreciation charges, which I can only reconcile given your comprehensive quarterly disclosure relates to the depreciation of the Triple Flag stream. I'm just wondering whether there's been something different with the accounts to the half year or whether this was just a misunderstanding of the disclosure provided at the time of the transaction in December of 2023.

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Morning, Jon. We've missed you on the last couple of calls, so we'll have to work out when your holidays are now when we schedule our results. But it's good to have you back with the accounting questions. I'll hand it to Barrie, but it is relating to the D&A associated with the structure. When you look at our quarterly report and we put the D&A per ounce, that is on the actual operating asset. Barrie, do you want to add?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, I mean, Jon, so the D&A per ounce per the quarterly should get you to the D&A we've got in the accounts. Say again.

Jon Bishop
Director of Equity Research, Jarden Group Australia

Yeah, yeah, that reconciled almost perfectly, which is down to your disclosure, not my capability, but there was just the delta, which obviously then impacted EBITDA and right the way down to impact seemed to be that delta on what I'd understood to be expense through the P&L from the stream.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Yeah. I mean, we can maybe offline, we should just step through exactly where that stream amortizes because it eats in a couple of places. There's impacts on revenue. So part of that balance sheet liability amortizes to revenue. And then there's a bit going through interest as well. So I think let's catch up offline, and then I can step you through that.

Jon Bishop
Director of Equity Research, Jarden Group Australia

Okay, perfect. I've asked my two questions. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Thanks, Jon.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Mitch Ryan
SVP and Equity Analyst of Metals and Mining, Jefferies

Morning, Jake and team, and congratulations both, Jake and Barrie, just reiterating Jon's questions. Look, I'm going to do the same line of questioning as Jon here. I'm still struggling on the Triple Flag stream and the accounting associated with that despite having raised it a couple of times. So can we just step through where it's coming through line by line? So in the revenue line, I see in note two, I see 35 million coming through of the stream revenue coming through at Northparkes, plus another 72 million at the corporate development. Are those the two in the revenue?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Correct. That's all of it in revenue, of which that AUD 36 million is cash, okay?

Mitch Ryan
SVP and Equity Analyst of Metals and Mining, Jefferies

It's not cash, yep. And then in the cost line on page 22 of the accounts, we've got sort of AUD 57 million of purchase of metal. And then the other one is the interest on streaming of AUD 18.8 million coming below the EBITDA. What is the other amounts that I'm missing other than those four?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

No, those are all the amounts impacting the stream. So you've got all of that there. If you use those numbers, anything not reconciling that you're struggling with?

Mitch Ryan
SVP and Equity Analyst of Metals and Mining, Jefferies

Okay, so there's nothing else in the D&A?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

There's nothing else, no. The D&A is just the total assets that we amortize, and that's as per the quarterly.

Mitch Ryan
SVP and Equity Analyst of Metals and Mining, Jefferies

Okay, perfect. Thank you. And then my second question just is again on the DRP. With that reinstated, can you just remind us of the historic levels of participation in that?

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, Mitch, the last one back in 2017, we had participation just under 20%.

Mitch Ryan
SVP and Equity Analyst of Metals and Mining, Jefferies

Okay, thank you very much. That's it for me.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Rahul Anand
Executive Director and Head of Australia Materials Research, Morgan Stanley

Hi, good morning, Jake, Lawrie, Barrie, and Peter. Look, I've got a couple of questions pretty similar to the first two, actually. I'll come back to the DRP again, apologies. Just curious to understand, perhaps you've talked about the drivers being shareholder-driven, and I can understand there's a saving on the brokerage fee and perhaps a small discount, but the shares are available on the open market. So I guess what it does for the company, however, is it does accelerate the gearing process of the balance sheet.

So if we take that as a given and that the balance sheet is de-gearing quicker, are there perhaps organic growth opportunities, perhaps one for Barrie and Lawrie that you can bring forward and perhaps bring forward a bit of growth into the company? Or perhaps if you want to revisit this, then inorganically, what would be your focus at this time? That's the first one. I'll come back with a second.

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, look, Rahul, if you look at it and just answering Mitch's question, the last uptake is around 20%. That is unfortunately not going to fund much of our organic growth. So it's not linked to that. It is, as Jake said, over the last sort of six-to-nine months, investors have asked us about DRP and when we had stopped it, and we've taken that feedback on board and aligned to their feedback in reinstating it. Our balance sheet, as Barrie has said, is deleveraging quickly at spot prices AUD 700 above what we achieved in the first half. It is not to fix the balance sheet. And with that balance sheet, we have the capacity to fund our growth projects. Jake.

I just want to add one more thing, Rahul, because maybe you can bring some growth opportunities forward, and I want to reiterate our view that the capital needs to be allocated to appropriately and judiciously, and whilst we are in this great gold price environment, we are going to be good custodians of capital. We will invest in organic growth, which we have multiple opportunities, but only in ones which deliver us good rates of return at a long-term gold price, which is materially lower than this, but hoping for this gold price to continue.

Rahul Anand
Executive Director and Head of Australia Materials Research, Morgan Stanley

Got it, okay. And look, just a second one's a very quick one, perhaps for Barrie. Barrie, just confirming, obviously your borrowings are at AUD 2 billion, your cash is at AUD 500 million, yet the net debt's at AUD 1,293 million. I suspect you're in your net debt calc, you're basically taking out the present value of those currency swaps you've got in place, is that right?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

That's exactly correct, so you'll see on the balance sheet, there's derivative assets, and if you take off those derivative assets, then you get to the net debt. I mean, the simple way to do it is to just translate the $950 million of USPP debt at 71.5 cents, and that won't change. I mean, that 71.5 stays the same, then you add the term loans and knock off the cash, and that gets you to the 1,293.

Rahul Anand
Executive Director and Head of Australia Materials Research, Morgan Stanley

Okay, got it. Perfect. And just if I can sneak a last one in, just on CapEx, your run rates at pretty much all the assets, barring Mungari, where you bought more CapEx forward, were running, I guess, below guidance, yet there is no change to guidance as such. Is it purely just timing, or is there a risk here that some of it slips into next year as well as you progress through the year?

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

The short answer is we're tracking into the guidance range. Sustaining capital has traditionally been second half weighted for us, and in terms of the major mine development, that runs over the full year, and as we get into the second half of the year at Mungari, that's where we'll need more mine development to get ready for the plant commissioning, and the projects are all tracking. Certainly at Ernest Henry, a couple of those projects were always planned to be delivered in the back half of the year because there was at least a 50-week lead time on some things, so you will see the second half CapEx trend above the first half, but we're still within the guidance range, as Barrie explained earlier.

Rahul Anand
Executive Director and Head of Australia Materials Research, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Very clear. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Levi Spry from UBS. Please go ahead.

Levi Spry
Mining Analyst, UBS

Yeah, Jake, Lawrie, Barrie, thanks for your time. Just fleshing out the, I guess, the CapEx question that you led us to there, Jake. Can you just remind us what's happening with the Ernest Henry extension feasibility study, what you've said on in terms of scope and CapEx, and then maybe the same for Northparkes and talk to how potentially any of it could be potentially brought forward? And you mentioned your long-term price. Can you just remind us what that is?

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, Levi, a few things there. So long-term price, we've assumed AUD 3,300 an ounce and AUD 14 ,350 a ton for the copper. In terms of the Ernest Henry extension feasibility study, that's progressing as the study's been progressing and getting further drill results from Glen around Ernie Junior and the main ore body, the team's way to extract that. So as we go through the next few months, we'll finish that work. The CapEx, as we'd said when we moved into the feasibility, was around AUD 450 million-AUD 500 million. And then in terms of Northparkes, E48 is the project that we're doing the study on now, as well as doing some development as No Regret Capital. And that's AUD 45 million-AUD 50 million of capital on the E48. And by doing the E48, we pushed E22 out to FY27 with production starting in FY29 at this stage.

The feasibility study finished, but given we're not going to be actually seeking approval or doing anything for a couple of years, that's why we haven't put the results out. The thing that we have confirmed previously is that at 100% level, noting we own 80% of the asset, the feasibility still comes within that AUD 600 million range for E22. That's sort of where they all sort of sit. The only thing I'd add to it is at a group level, what we said in June last year when we did the site visits at Cowal and Northparkes, and as Jake just mentioned, that we will have the discipline about when we invest in these projects and doing them when they only need to.

Our total capital over the next few years still sits within that AUD 750 million-AUD 950 million range, where you'll have some ups and downs, but as an average, that's not really going to change much for us.

Levi Spry
Mining Analyst, UBS

Great. That was excellent. Thanks, Lawrie. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hugo Nicolaci
Resources Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Morning, Jake, Lawrie, Barrie. Congrats on the record result and echo the comments Jake and Barrie and some of the others made. Congrats on the tenures. I'll save some of my streaming accounting questions for later as well. Barrie, sorry to make your last record result discussion about accounting, but if I can ask one also around the D&A piece, just reconciling your full year D&A guidance and what that implies for the second half. I presume the step down at Cowal is driven by the major shutdown there, but be able to just give us a bit more color in regards to the lumpiness in D&A at Red Lake and Northparkes and how much of that is stockpile builds and other things and how we should expect that to normalize into FY26.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, I mean, so this year is a bit. There's a couple of steps in the D&A within this year because you've got the Cowal underground coming in, so that adds quite a bit. And then in the first half, especially when you compare to last year's first half, we did produce more. So since depreciations on a unit of production basis, I mean, that in itself would lift the depreciation. You've got the new Northparkes depreciation that's in that wasn't in last year. I mean, that's in the base, and you should expect that to continue into the second half of the year. I mean, obviously, it's driven by the gold ounce production, which this year at Northparkes, we are producing a bit more gold than the average run rate due to those high-grade bits. So into the future, you may see that pull back a bit.

And then at Red Lake, it's just a function of the continuous accounting practice of updating your estimates and making sure you depreciate the assets according to their useful lives. So hopefully that gives you a bit of a feel for the key moving parts in the D&A and a bit of a glimpse into next year.

Hugo Nicolaci
Resources Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Got it. So just on that last comment on Red Lake, if your D&A rates come down this half versus the second half of 2024, do we take that to mean that your useful life assumption is now longer? And if so, is that built around gold price or some of the operational efficiencies you've been able to achieve?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

On which operation specifically is that?

Hugo Nicolaci
Resources Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

On Red Lake. So if I look at your D&A at Red Lake in the first half, it's down considerably versus, say, the June half of FY24. So I assume that the asset life is now longer on your estimates.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

I mean, it is driven by all those factors. It is kind of what's in the reserve and the resource base and then what you produce. So that'll just move around according to that. But there's not a significant change in expectation of the overall life there.

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

And just on that, Hugo, it will also depend on the areas this year versus last year are different in terms of what we're getting out of Cochenour, Campbell, and Balmer.

Hugo Nicolaci
Resources Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Got it. That's clear. And then one more if I can, just maybe on the corporate cost piece. How are you expecting those to sort of move going forward into the second half and beyond there? And anything in particular to call out that might be moving that around?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, I mean, if you look at that year on year, there's the usual inflation piece that comes through there. And as we said, more of the life of mine planning work centrally, so that drove that cost up and that part will stay. There is a one-off in there related to kind of working on the cyber incident that we had earlier this year. So there's some one-off costs of about 4 million that won't recur into the future. So if you think about corporate costs going forward, you should normalize for that.

Hugo Nicolaci
Resources Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Excellent. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.

Daniel Morgan
Mining Equity Analyst, Barrenjoey

I heard Jake, Lawrie, Barrie, team. First one, just to you, Jake. So congratulations on your career and your move. Can you just talk about your future commitment to Evolution? Are you still expected to be chair for years to come, or is this perhaps a precursor to stepping down in time? And then secondly, you have been the key driver of a lot of the deals over the past decade. Can you just talk about, are you still planning to be active in future dealmaking, or is this now going to be more the remit, firstly for Lawrie and the management team to bring to the board? Thank you.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

Thanks, Dan, and thanks for your comments. I haven't yet planned my retirement as the chair, but I'll speak to the board about that. But no, my commitment is as it's a significant shareholding of mine. It's an asset that I have as my shareholding in this company. It has really become an integral part of my life, and Lawrie and the team are not going to get rid of me easily. So my commitment is high, but I think the time is right to take a step back. Kira, Lawrie, and I will continue to collaborate on deals and various other things. But I am very confident that the D&A that we have in this company will still be able to identify and execute deals which are accretive to us and which improve the quality of our portfolio.

So strong level of commitment, but recognizing that we have a great team in place who are going to be able to take this forward as well.

Daniel Morgan
Mining Equity Analyst, Barrenjoey

Thank you, Jake. And then an accounting question, which I guess probably for Barrie and probably comes with when you release financial results. Just on the cash flow statement, the lease spending of AUD 27 million in the half, which is in the financing portion of the cash flow statement, what is this for? I presume equipment, and is this included in all-in sustaining cost numbers? Thank you.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, I mean, so you're right. It is mainly equipment, and some of that equipment coming through our contractors that mine areas like the Cowal underground. The payments reflected there is kind of the principal payments on the leases that sits on the balance sheet, and then the interest is accounted for separately. When you look at the all-in sustaining cost, because that's a balance sheet item, it won't reflect in the all-in sustaining cost because it's made up of principal repayments and interest there.

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Just to be clear on it, Dan, that is an accounting standard. So it's not where we're actually leasing and acquiring equipment. So Cowal Underground is a very good example. We've got a dedicated mining contractor there that has equipment that is only really available for use by us, and therefore under the accounting standard, we must treat it as a lease that's embedded within the mining contract costs that we pay. So the costs that we pay to the contractor does hit our all-in sustaining costs, then the accounting, the way you have to treat it under the leasing standard, creates what Barrie says, which are really non-cash versus what we book in the AISC.

Daniel Morgan
Mining Equity Analyst, Barrenjoey

Okay. Thank you for your perspectives.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Citi. Please go ahead.

Kate McCutcheon
Analyst, Citi

Good morning, everyone. Just a quick operational question. There was a lot of rain and weather recently. Has there been any impact on getting concentrate in and out, or any impacts from that this month to sort of flag?

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

Kate, thank you for the question. The first non-accounting question we've had pretty much. Lawrie.

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Jake, you can answer this one. No, look, Kate, we've had no impact on concentrate at either of Ernest Henry or Northparkes with weather. And certainly for Ernest Henry, the weather isn't so much on site. It is around Townsville, and it happened to coincide with the major shut for Ernest Henry, so we weren't producing much anyway.

Kate McCutcheon
Analyst, Citi

Okay. That's good timing. And then just on the moving to Cowal on the OPC, that still has to go to board FID, correct? Can you just remind me on the timing there and the critical part?

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Yeah. So, two items. We are on track for federal consent conditions by sort of the end of this month or early into the month of March. That's on track. Once we've got the final regulatory approvals locked away in the June quarter, we expect to take the project to the board for approval.

Kate McCutcheon
Analyst, Citi

Okay, and then as the Ernest Henry extension study, you said March quarter, would the market be expecting that in April? Would that be fair?

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

I think you and some others would like it then. It will finish in March and need to go to the board. But what I'll say is that when talking to Levi's question, as the study's progressing, we've just got to make sure, given we've got early June coming into the main ore body and the drilling is telling us what the entire ore body looks like, we want to make sure we get the design and everything right around continuing below the 1175, given the infrastructure that's required. So that's probably the stage that the team's up to right now. And if we need to take a bit more time on that, we will. But it's still tracking sort of through the end of this quarter at this point.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

I think what's really encouraging from my perspective over the whole portfolio is that the optionality and the opportunities in each of the assets is really giving us a chance to sequence things in a way which is beneficial to the overall portfolio. It doesn't have, as Lawrie said earlier, too much lumpiness in our capital and allows us to schedule that out and smooth it out, so it really is a portfolio with a lot of opportunity from the organic growth that we have in it.

Kate McCutcheon
Analyst, Citi

Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. And yeah, all the best, Barrie, as well. And thank you for your help since you've been the CFO.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

Thanks, Kate.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Al Harvey from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Al Harvey
Mining Analyst, JPMorgan

Yeah. Morning, team. I suppose, yeah, just reiterate congrats and good luck to Barrie. I suppose just on that, I think Barrie was meant to be finishing up at the end of March, only six weeks away. I just wanted to see if there had been any update on the search for the next CFO.

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, so Barrie will be here partway through March, and the search for his replacement is ongoing and progressing well.

Al Harvey
Mining Analyst, JPMorgan

Great. Thank you. And maybe one for Jake, just on Rawdon Pump Hydro. I suppose there has been a bit of news flow in the last few weeks about the Queensland government backing away from renewable energy targets. Just wanted to get a sense of how you think this might impact the pathway for the project and maybe can just give us a bit of a refresh on expectations around timing and news flow on that project.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

Thanks for that question as well, Al. We're getting away from the accounting questions onto interesting ones. I could talk for hours on this, but there is no doubt that storage is the key component to any solution to renewable energy. Mt Rawden Pumped Hydro is the most advanced and cost-effective pumped hydro system or project that is available, to the best of my knowledge, around the country. We are advancing it at the moment. Yes, the targets for delivering on the government targets are probably out of date, frankly, and it's going to take time. But I think the momentum is building towards a renewable grid. Mt Rawden can and should be an important part of that. So I think the Queensland government is committed to renewable energy. It may just be time frames that are different.

Certainly, we've had no indication that the project is anything but important to the Queensland government.

Al Harvey
Mining Analyst, JPMorgan

Yep. Thanks, Jake.

Operator

Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone or wait for your name to be announced. Your next question today comes from Matthew Frydman from MST Financial. Please go ahead.

Matthew Frydman
Metals & Mining Analyst, MST Financial

Sure. Thanks. Morning, Jake, Lawrie, Barrie, and team. Another couple for Barrie, I guess, given it's his last result. Thanks for your time at the company, Barrie, by the way, and apologies for some more uninteresting accounting questions. But just wondering if you can unpack the AUD 72 million of corporate revenues. It looks like you made maybe AUD 15 million bucks of EBITDA and a half on buying and selling bullion. Is that right? Is that the way to interpret that? Thanks.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

I think that the important bit is that that's all related to the Northparkes stream. So if you look at that segment piece, then the unwind of the stream revenue sits in the Northparkes segment, and then the revenue at spot associated with that metal sits in the corporate. So it's all Northparkes. As I said earlier to Jon Bishop, we can step through it in more detail. There's no other corporate trading activity other than the Northparkes metal stream.

Matthew Frydman
Metals & Mining Analyst, MST Financial

Right. But you sold the metal for AUD 72, and it cost you AUD 57 to buy, if I look at your COGS. So is that right? You made AUD 15 million on buying and selling?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Effectively, yes. But you need to account for other elements of the stream as well, like the interest, etc., to get down to the P&L result.

Matthew Frydman
Metals & Mining Analyst, MST Financial

Okay. Sure. Maybe thinking about the cash generation of Northparkes at a higher level then and trying to maybe kind of summarize some of these questions and discussions around the various streaming impacts. But if I look at the segmentals for Northparkes, so AUD 125.6 million of EBITDA, less AUD 22 million of CapEx. So ex-streaming impact, you'd say that's AUD 104 million of EBITDA and CapEx. And then looking at your net mine cash flow from the quarterlies, Northparkes, I think it was minus AUD 2 million in the September quarter and AUD 49 million in the December quarter. So AUD 47 million of actual net mine cash flow after stream deliveries. And then on top of that, remind me we need to apply, I guess, a tax benefit, as you say, from the elevated depreciation and interest expense.

Can you give us maybe a rough sense of what that sort of tax and, sorry, that tax benefit from the streaming impacts below EBITDA was for the half, maybe circa AUD 10 million? Does that sound about right?

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

I mean, so the way you've stepped through the cash flow piece up to net mine cash flow, Matt, I mean, the right place to look is the quarterly and that net mine cash flow determination because it ignores all of these non-cash funny accounting pieces. So that is the right place to look at both streams. If you look at the amortization from the stream and the tax benefit associated with that, I mean, the first thing is we get a bigger benefit in the early outer years. And I mean, I'd estimate on a full year basis, it'll be about AUD 15 million-AUD 17 million on a full year basis for FY25 of benefit to cash tax.

Matthew Frydman
Metals & Mining Analyst, MST Financial

Okay. Thanks, Barrie. Yeah, that's the sort of quantum I was thinking about. So yeah, so AUD 47 million in net mine cash flow plus, as you say, maybe half of that AUD 15 million-AUD 17 million coming in the first half.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

That's close enough, Matt.

Matthew Frydman
Metals & Mining Analyst, MST Financial

Okay. That's great. Okay. Thanks. That makes it a lot clearer. Thanks very much, Barrie. Thanks for your time. And also well done to Jake for his time as Executive Chair. Cheers, guys.

Barrie van der Merwe
CFO, Evolution Mining

Thanks, Matt.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Jon Bishop from Jarden Group Australia. Please go ahead.

Jon Bishop
Director of Equity Research, Jarden Group Australia

Remarkably, my other question wasn't asked, so I'll ask it. Can you give me a clue as to what the treatment and refining charge market is looking like? And I know you've given us periodic high-level guidance, but just to remind us of the timing of the impacts or the benefits in the current market to both Northparkes and Ernest Henry.

Lawrie Conway
CEO, Evolution Mining

Yeah, Jon. So for both of them, they're on life-of-mine offtake agreements with benchmark pricing. The benchmark hasn't been settled for this calendar year yet, so that will flow through at some point. In our guidance, we had allowed for it to come off. We were tracking around 80 and 8. For the first half, we had allowed for it to come off in the second half, knowing where the market was going. We haven't seen the settlements yet. So what you would expect is when we go into FY26 is when we would update our All-in Sustaining Cost guidance number based on what we see as the settlements. We don't expect it to be any material change in what we'd allowed for in our All-in Sustaining Cost guidance for this year, knowing that it would be a half at last year's rate and a half at the new rate.

Jon Bishop
Director of Equity Research, Jarden Group Australia

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Unfortunately, that does conclude our time for questions today. I'll now hand back to Mr. Klein for any closing remarks.

Jake Klein
Executive Chair, Evolution Mining

Thanks, Darcy. Thanks, everyone. No closing remarks. I think it's covered in full. Other than to say that there are complicated accounting issues, what I would encourage anyone writing research on Evolution is if you are uncertain about the accounting treatment, please contact us. We will take you through it in detail rather than going out there before having it. Thanks very much for your time and for your efforts, and thanks.

Operator

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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