Welcome each of you to the Annual General Meeting of Focus Minerals Limited. Focus Minerals would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and pay our respect to their elders past, present, and emerging, and to their continued culture and spiritual connection to this land and to the land on which our project is located. It's been 9:30 A.M. I now call the meeting to order. My name is Wanghong Yang, I am Chairman of today's meeting. In this room, we have company Director, Mr. Kong, Mr. Richard O'Shannassy, and Ms. Gerry Fahey. Non-executive Director, Mr. Wenli Cui sent his apology. Also in attendance are Coolgardie Gold Operation General Manager, Mr. Edward Williams. Exploration General Manager and Chief Geologist, Mr. Alex Aaltonen. CFO, Mr. Zeng. Company Secretary, Mr. Nicholas Ong.
I would like to introduce Mr. Alasdair Whyte, audit partner of the company's audit, RSM Australia. I'm advised by company secretary that a quorum of shareholder is present, and I officially declare the meeting open. The format of today's meeting will consist of presentation by Edward Williams and Alex Aaltonen on the operation side of the business, following which we will deal with resolutions on the agenda for this meeting. We will be happy to answer questions specific to the resolution and operational activities of the company. To enable shareholders to consider the business of today's meeting, a notice of annual general meeting and explanatory statement has been sent to all shareholders, and I therefore take that notice as read.
By agreeing to take notice as read means that I will not read out the text of each resolution, just the headline. Further copies are available at the door if required.
All resolutions at the meeting will be decided by poll. All eligible voting shareholders would have received a green voting card on registration for today's meeting. Please complete the poll voting papers provided and lodge it with the Computershare representatives at the end of official business. If you don't have a green voting card and feel you should have one, please raise your hand now and a Computershare representative will assist you. I will note now shareholder register is available for inspection. For the resolution, proxies were received representing 192,805,701 shares. I declare these proxies are valid in accordance with the constitution. Shareholders should note where a proxy vote has been given to the chairman without voting instruction. In all cases where I am permitted to exercise discretion, I intend to vote in favor of the resolution.
Before I turn to the formal business for today's meeting, I will start the presentation on the company. I would like to say actually 2022 really marked a transformative year for Focus Minerals. Firstly, we successfully sell the Laverton Gold Project for AUD 250 million in cash. That enable us to fully repayment of all outstanding loans, significantly strengthening the company's balance sheet. Actually, this is just a major restructure of company's balance sheet. Secondly, operational advancement achieved at Coolgardie Gold Operation. Focus sold a total of 49,104 ounces at an average gold price of approximately AUD 5,506 per ounce. That delivered a gold sale revenue of AUD 273 million. Realized operational profit of AUD 68.9 million. More important, I think is the Coolgardie Gold Operation has transitioned to the Stage of steady operation since the last quarter, December quarter of last year.
On behalf of the board, I would like to thank the employees, all employees and contractors, and our leadership team for their diligent and hard work. I also would like take this opportunity to thank all of our shareholders for their continued support. We remain fully committed to drive operation excellence, safety, and efficiency across our operations. We are confident that our ongoing operation will deliver meaningful and long-lasting value to shareholders. Okay, I will hand over the operation side of the presentation to our General Manager, Coolgardie Gold Operation. Eddie.
Thank you, Mr. Yang. Good morning, everyone. For us, the key operational theme for 2025 was to create stability. Throughout the year, we deliberately focused on reducing operational risk, stabilizing the plant, stabilizing ore supply, building multiple mining fronts, increasing internal operational control, and creating flexibility across the operation. That stability is required to allow us to confidently create and execute longer term growth. Operationally, 2025 represented a major step change for the company. The processing plant achieved recovery performance averaging 93.5%, which demonstrates a very stable circuit performance over an extended period. Throughput reached approximately 1.5 million tons for the year, which is a strong result for our assets. Open pit operations delivered close to 900,000 tons of ore, while Bonnie Vale underground contributed over 100,000 tons of high-grade ore during its establishment year. What is important here is not the numbers individually, it's what they represent collectively.
At the start of the journey, the business was highly dependent on individual mining areas, which required individual outcomes. By the end of 2025, we had multiple ore sources, stable processing, underground production established, and improved operational flexibility. That materially lowers business risk. The open pit mining performance really tells a story of the operational transformation that occurred during 2025. At the start of the year, Greenfields was effectively carrying the business from an ore supply perspective. By the end of the year, we had transitioned into a true multi-pit mining operation. The most critical period during the year was June. Greenfields pit was approaching completion, while Alicia pit needed to ramp up quickly. We had to replace the ore feed without impacting throughput. That transition we successfully executed and was one of the key operational improvements of the year. The owner-operator transition was critical to enabling outcome.
Bringing mining and maintenance under our direct control gave us the flexibility and responsiveness required to rapidly scale mining activities. You can see the scale-up in the material movement numbers. We increased from relatively low mining volumes early in the year to operating at more than 400,000 BCM per month. Alicia became the workhorse of the business during the second half of the year and ultimately delivered more than half of the total open pit ore. At the same time, we weren't just mining for today. We heavily invested into future production through pre-stripping at Dreadnought and the development work at CNX. A significant amount of waste moved completed during 2025 was really investment into future ore access. The other important outcome for the completion was the completion of Greenfields mining and the conversion into an in-pit tailings storage facility.
That is a long-term strategic infrastructure asset of the business and materially supports future mine life. 2025 wasn't simply about mining ore, it was about building a sustainable mining platform. If the open pit was about scale and transition, Bonnie Vale was about building long-term value. Bonnie Vale is a very important asset for Focus because it materially changes the grade profile and margin profile of the business. Throughout 2025, the priority underground was development. We maintained a very disciplined development focus to ensure the operation was ready for sustainable stope production. Development exceeded 4.2 km during the year. Importantly, the team consistently increased development rates throughout the year. October marked a major transition point where we moved into stope mining. From that point onwards, you can see ore production begin to ramp up, especially significantly in the final quarter. What makes Bonnie Vale particularly important is the grade.
The operation delivered an average grade of above 7 g per ton, which significantly improves the economics of the overall operation. Every meter developed during 2025 was effectively an investment into the future high margin production. Bonnie Vale is now becoming the value engine of the business. Looking at the first quarter of 2026. The stability established during 2025 has continued into 2026. Q1 performance was steady across all key operational areas, despite several challenges, including substantial wet weather, unfavorable underground ground conditions, and the broader macroeconomic conditions that impacted fuel supply and fuel cost. What was most evident during this quarter was the resilience shown by the operation. When individual areas experienced pressure, the other areas compensated. The processing team delivered extremely strong throughput performance, which offset any grade variability and allowed overall gold performance to remain positive.
The commercial team working together with our fuel suppliers to secure fuel deliveries, which enabled us to minimize any impacts mining and production experienced from the threats to supply. That is exactly what operational stability should look like. The business is no longer dependent on a single mining front or a single operational outcome to succeed. Importantly, we are now transitioning to operational stabilization, which will enable the execution of long-term growth plans for the business. With that, I'll hand over to our General Manager of Exploration, Alex.
Good morning. How are you today? Hope you're all enjoying this bit of good weather before the storm comes today. For resource development and exploration, Coolgardie's a growing story. It's a growth story. Coolgardie Project is in the southern part of the Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt, and anybody invests in gold knows that's where you want to be. It's the best place in Australia, one of the best places in the world. One of the things which is a little bit different about Coolgardie, although it's already produced 2.6 million ounces, is that, historically, it suffered a downturn after World War I, which it never really recovered from. Other regions, they went on to bigger and better things. Kalgoorlie, obviously, Leonora, Laverton. There's deposits there that have been running for decades and are producing huge amounts of gold.
Coolgardie sort of suffered a little bit and didn't really make the big comeback that you saw in some of the other areas. Ever since I started my career, people have been saying, "Why didn't that happen in Coolgardie?" It's actually an opportunity. What we have here is we've got a very target-rich environment. In this environment, we're the biggest land holder, and in the yellow here, you can see our tenure, which is almost entirely contiguous and goes right down almost around to Bullabulling. We have a large number of deposits in here. You've seen our resource output in the annual report. What I've done in this particular slide here is I'm showing metal content. What I've done is I've taken open pit and underground, I've added them together, just turning into just total tons, total ounces.
Gives you an idea where the metal is. That's ranked by just some breaks in the data for scale. One of the things I've highlighted on here is, up here you can see Bonnie Vale in orange, CNX down here in orange, and Brilliant in orange. These are all deposits which were part of our original feasibility in 2022, which built our life of mine and was our decision to mine. Let's go mine. Beyond that, we have additional deposits which we've already started to incorporate into our mining. Down here we've got Alicia and Dreadnought. Dreadnought was a resource we put out around about the time of that decision to mine back in 2022. A bit of a review of that one.
Essentially, what we have here is we've got a tight rich environment and a lot of these deposits have been barely mined or just started to mine. A few really big ones. For example, there's a pretty nice big one over here called Lindsays, historically mined a lot, but we haven't as yet formally taken it into our feasibility decisions. There's other ones in the area. There's an area there, Bayleys, some of their production, 500,000 ounces at over 15 g. Big numbers, good grades, a lot of opportunity here for us. Essentially we started with seven years and we did our reserves at AUD 2,200 gold price, and we had 436,000 ounces of production in that, and it was based on just four deposits, and we've got dozens of deposits.
What I'm kind of trying to get to is, it was the starting point and now we're moving into the next phases as we basically fully assess this gold field, as part of the gold field. We've already started some mining. As you know, Greenfields is mined out. It's now a tails facility, so it's moved from production source to a strategic part of our facility that supports our mining. That's actually been removed from this table. I've also pulled Alicia out of this deposit list because that is nearing the end of its Stage 1, and when we investigate, if we want to do a Stage 2, it can go back in. Yeah, our current resources from that original number, we've still got 5.66 million tons, 2.1 g per ton, 380,000 ounces.
This was all built on less than half of our measured and indicated resources. Increasing measured and indicated resources is part of the business and that's what we'll be doing in the res dev. We'll be quite deliberate about what we target to make sure we deliver value and speed of turnaround turning it into ore reserves. Next slide. One other thing I wanted to point out is these highlights, ellipses I put on this. These are areas which we're currently targeting for resource development. Bonnie Vale, as previously alluded to, it's high grade. The reserve is 5.11 g per ton extension and looking also beyond extension for potential increase of production rate is part of the story there.
When we finished the reserve, we acknowledged that it was open and now we're now following that up with deeper and also along strike. Accounting for depletion, we have 42 million tons at 1.89g for 2.6 million ounces, and more than half of that is in the indicated and measured category. More than half, 1.5 million ounces of measured and indicated resource. We've got a good feedstock to feed in the future conversion to ore reserve, but also we've got this big chunk of inferred, which can also be targeted. One of the good things about this inferred is the grade is actually a bit higher than some of the measured and indicated. That's kind of showing you a little bit about some of the future things we can follow up and that is worthwhile following up.
Right now we've got extensive resource development at Bonnie Vale. The reason for that is it's one of our high-grade sources, but it's also open on strike and at depth. We're dropping holes in there, working towards an extension of the life of mine, but also open to the opportunity to expansion of production. At Undaunted, this is one that was out on a slide deck from last year that's now moved beyond the first phases of the resource. It's in the approvals phase. This is likely to come into our mine production in the next 12 months. I just put it up here just so you could see the scale of it. You've got 300m of strike and this is the pit shell that we're optimizing. Final economic shell will be used for the approval. We're also targeting Greenlight. Greenlight is right next to CNX.
In the previous slide, CNX is right here. That will probably go into a Stage 2, or at least we are investigating it. Greenlight is just adjacent to that. It is 100 m along strike. Bringing that one into a future production play. 7,500 m into that shallow ore body from surface outcropping, all the things that you want, not a cutback. Patricia Jean, just over 7 km of RC and diamond going into that. Patricia Jean is just up here. It is in a good area. It is potentially got an extension into Jolly Briton. Exactly how that pays out, we will find out. Potentially a CNX type deposit down there on the immediate south of that. Stage 2 cutback going feasibility works out of CNX and then additional project work later in the year. What is this leading to?
We'll be updating our mineral resources. That will be a major update for all these things that we're hitting in resource this year, but also finalizing work that started in previous years. That will basically feed into updating our ore reserves and life of mine. That's basically building out the future and then allowing high grade selectivity about what goes into the mine plan in the future. Selectivity by not only grade, but also production profile and how fast we can get these things approved and mining. I hope that sets the Stage for what you can expect to see for the remainder of this year. Yeah. Okay, thank you for your time.
Thank you, Eddie. Alex. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, next. The company has received questions from several shareholders regarding our company and operations. I prefer first provide answers to questions we received prior to the meeting, and then take some questions from the floor and from those who are online. Online participant are able to type and submit their questions as the meeting progress. Okay, first about the question received prior to the meeting. Cash balance and capital management and dividend payment, shareholder return are among the most frequently asked topics, and the Board takes them very seriously. As disclosed in our annual report, we have lodged a submission to the ATO regarding our tax assessment on sale of Laverton Gold Project. We are expecting the tax assessment outcome imminently, and we'll disclose to the market when ATO decision is delivered.
Once this position is clear, the Board will consider adopting a dividend policy that suits our circumstances and also cater for potential growth opportunities. We aim to strike the right balance between reinvestment for long-term growth and deliver returns to shareholders. Any formal policy and dividend declaration will be announced to the market if and when finalized. The second category of questions about exploration. I would like to take this opportunity to address some questions on exploration progress. Over the past year, we have been focused on optimized production and much of the drilling are grade control. This year, we will see more investment, as just presented, investment on exploration and resource development for life of mine purpose. As you have heard from Alex about in their presentation, we anticipate the drilling will contribute to mineral resources update and will share the periodic update on resource inventory with the market.
We have also received questions regarding an update to 2022 Life of Mine Plan. The 2022 Life of Mine Plan outlines a 7-year production plan, was prepared as a part of Coolgardie's restart process, which included Greenfield, CNX, Bonnie Vale and Brilliant deposit. Since then, we added Dreadnought and Alicia pit into production. We constantly update our mine plan and with the acceleration in drilling program, the life of mine plan will continue to evolve. As we bring along new pit into production, we will share the update with the market. The next set of question relating to the disclosure of forward guidance on all-in sustaining cost and gold production.
As just mentioned by Eddie in his presentation, considering production reaching stability since late last year, and as we emerge from a lead from toll treatment, we will be in a better position to provide guidance when we have operate over a longer period of stabilized production. When we have a longer-term statistics from production and with the extra effort in exploration we hope to be in a position to provide all-in sustaining cost and production guidance from financial year 2027. There are also a couple of questions concerning the recent fuel crisis and its impact on the company. The fuel crisis has impacted the mining industry in general. Focus Minerals made some changes to our mining schedule, however, the shortage has no impact on our processing capacity. I would like to emphasize we are not experiencing any fuel shortage now.
I also would like to address some questions regarding recent share price performance. As a listed company, Focus Minerals has no control over its share price. It is ultimately determined by market forces, investor sentiment, broader sector dynamics, and macroeconomic factors. We believe that the best way to support our share price over time is through continued strong operational performance and disciplined capital management. We are committed to building a high-quality, profitable gold producer. Some questions about communication received. Yeah, we have received by Focus to be more in line with the general practice by other gold producers. We are committed to improve our communication with shareholders. This is the first year we have a virtual meeting. Shareholders from any locations can participate in AGM as it happens.
Also, as discussed before, we will provide periodic exploration and resource updates, as well as forward-looking guidance on production, life of mine, and all-in sustaining cost. Lastly, we have received questions on Shandong Gold's long-standing relationship with Focus Minerals and our strategic direction. I will address them collectively as they are interconnected. First of all, Focus Minerals operates as an independent ASX-listed public company. Its board is responsible for making decisions in the best interests of all shareholders. In line with our governance obligations, Shandong Gold has been a highly supportive major shareholder since 2012, providing critical capital that strengthened our balance sheet and enabled exploration and development activities. Whilst we are not in a position to comment on individual shareholder intentions, we firmly believe Shandong Gold will remain supportive to Focus Minerals as a successful long-term operator in goldfield regions in Australia.
This is the answers to questions we received prior to the meeting. Okay, I will now take questions from the floor before taking questions from online participants.
Okay. My name is Xiaomeng Zhang. I'm a long-term shareholder of Focus Minerals with about 600,000 shares. Firstly, I really appreciate the company hard work and effort, which brings the current achievement, and I wish the company the best. I think the company can do better at a certain aspect. For example, provide the market and shareholder more details. My question is, what's the company's production for later of this year as well as financial year 2027? I think that's a basic question for almost all the gold producer listed in ASX. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. As I just mentioned, we will to start the gold production guidance and all-in sustaining cost disclosure helpfully from financial year 2027, which just gave us some number time to have more confidence in our current operations. We start operation and particularly in the mining site operation, we really experienced a lot of challenge. The past statistic, I don't think current and past statistic is enough to support us to give our recent forecast. The intention is we really need more time, some longer time and build confidence on our current operation, and we intend to give the guidance and for gold production and all-in sustaining costs in financial year 2027.
Thank you.
Wanghong, thank you my man. Just regards that statement you've just made there, you mentioned announcements in May 2027 financial year.
Yeah.
Can you give us a little bit more of an indication as to which quarter? Financial end of 2027 is 13 months away. Can you give us a little bit more accurate than 13 months away?
Okay.
I'll hand over this question to the secretary for the timing.
Our financial year starts from this January. We're now halfway of six. Financial year 2027 is six months away. As Mr. Yang said, we need more time. There is some incompetence in supply chains, and we need to advise shareholders of what's coming. The last thing we want to do is to provide unreliable forecasts to shareholders and investors. By then, we're confident that we'll be in a position to tell shareholders the next, like I said, the four months in financial 2027 of what is coming.
Okay, between now and the end of the calendar year 2026, you expect to make announcements?
Probably towards the end of the year, we'll be in a position to advise what's at five months.
Okay.
Six months.
Any more questions? Okay, thank you. We move to the question from online participant. Actually, most of the questions we have received has already been addressed by the question which we have generally answered. There are two questions. Let me read it. There is a question regarding Brilliant open pit approvals and our intention on JV development. I would like to say that the question is Brilliant open pit is undertake approvals. This is a complex pit with surface ownership issues. State Battery and Maritana is the company look to JV development and/or acquire Maritana interest before development. This is really very detailed of the operations. About Brilliant open pit, it's true. Like what the question described, it is a very complex area.
Can I just say something, Wanghong?
Yeah. As I said, our intention for that area, that area has been with us for many years. Our intention is we are still focused on our own development, is not in a position to speculate on a potential JV.
Just on that subject, Brilliant is entirely in our tenure. There's other deposits further to the north, which may be this person is talking about, but Brilliant is entirely within our tenure and it's not impacted by anyone else's tenure. There are other deposits further north, but it's not related to our project.
There's another question?
Positive.
Okay. Okay. Also, there are questions about Bonnie Vale mine grade in quarter one of 2026. It's a great question. Okay. For this question, I would like to advise that grade variability is dependent on where we are mining the deposit at that point in time. The grade of Bonnie Vale deposit differs from level to level. We will report the mine grade as we progress. Thank you. Any more questions received? Okay. Okay, thank you. Okay. I believe we provide ample opportunity for Q&A. I will now move to the formal business for today's meeting. Financial statement and report. A copy of financial statement and report for the year-end 31st December 2025 has been lodged with ASX and has been sent to all shareholders who request a copy. This item business does not require a resolution by shareholders.
The company and audit partner are present at this meeting should specific questions require attention. No related questions has been submitted to company or the auditors concerning the financial statement and report. Are there any specific questions regarding this financial statement and report? Thank you. There being no question, I will now move to the resolution. I have by table the proxies which have been received for this meeting as shown on screen. Resolution one, adoption of remuneration report. This is a long body resolution. I propose the motion from specific proxy that I hold as Chairman of the Meeting. Is there any discussion in respect to the motion? Thank you. As noted, all voting will take place by way of poll. Please complete your voting card in relation to resolution one. Thank you.
As I have an interest to the outcome of resolution two, I will now pass the Chair to Richard.
Good morning, everybody. Resolution two concerns the re-election of Director Mr. Wanghong Yang. I don't propose, as indicated, to read the resolution in detail, but it is an ordinary resolution. I propose from the specific proxies that I hold as Chairman of the meeting to move the motion for the resolution to be put to the meeting. Is there any discussion in relation to the resolution? Thank you. I'd ask you to complete your voting card in relation to resolution two. Thank you. I'll now pass the Chair back to Wanghong Yang.
Thank you. Resolution three, re-election of Director Mr. Lingquan Kong. This is the ordinary resolution. I propose the motion from specific proxy that I hold as Chairman of the meeting. Is there any discussion in respect to the motion? Thank you. Please complete your voting card in relation to resolution three. Thank you. Resolution four, re-election of Director Mr. Wenli Cui. This is ordinary resolution. I propose the motion from specific proxy that I hold as Chairman of this meeting. Is there any discussion in respect to the motion? Thank you. Please complete your voting card in relation to resolution four. Resolution five, replacement of constitution. This is a special resolution. I propose the motion from specific proxy that I hold as the Chairman of this meeting. Is there any discussion in respect to the motion? Thank you. Please complete your voting card in relation to resolution five.
Resolution six, increase in non-executive director remuneration. This is an ordinary resolution. I propose the motion from specific proxies that I hold as chairman of this meeting. Is there any discussion in respect to the motion? Thank you. Please complete your voting card in relation to resolution six. Thank you. Would all shareholder please pass your poll voting card to Computershare now. Thank you. I declare that the poll is closed, and we will arrange for the result to be announced to ASX today. As there is no other formal business to be discussed at this meeting, I declare the meeting closed.
10:20 A.M
10:20 A.M. Thank you all for attending the company's annual general meeting. We look forward to meeting with you again soon. Thank you