I would now like to hand the conference over to Troy Irvin, Corporate Development Officer. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thanks for dialing in to Genesis teleconference. In Perth, presenting today, we have Raleigh Finlayson, Executive Chair, Matt Nixon, CEO, and Morgan Ball, CFO. Fair to say, these are unprecedented times in gold. At the current gold price, gold companies from every corner are generating soaring cash flows and have soaring share prices. So how to stand out? The team will cover all the key numbers shortly, but the pulse with these two attributes Genesis will continue to strive for in 2026. Firstly, reliability, that is consistently hitting production guidance, and secondly, growth, that is selling more gold into a buoyant gold price. From an investor engagement perspective, today's ASX announcements mark the start of a busy period. In the coming weeks, we will release an updated corporate presentation, plus half-year financials, with one or even two drilling updates also brewing.
I will now hand over to our Executive Chair. When it comes to the Q&A session, can all questions please be directed to Raleigh in the first instance? Thanks again.
Thanks, Irvin. I'd like to start with providing some additional color on the important announcement we made today, namely the promotion of Matt Nixon into the role of CEO and me stepping into executive chair role. Now is a perfect time for this realignment of roles and responsibilities for the following reasons. We recently completed the underground mining tender and contract award to Byrnecut. A six-month process that Duncan Coutts has diligently led. With that body of work behind us, Duncan now has capacity to take on operational oversight in his role of Executive Director, Operations. Duncan is a mining engineer with over 30 years experience, providing invaluable leadership and mentoring to the high caliber leadership team we have assembled at Genesis, many of whom I'm confident will become future industry leaders.
Duncan was previously COO at Ramelius Resources for nine years, managing Ramelius's operating mines during a period of significant growth. With Duncan taking on operational oversight at Genesis, not only will our results core value remain in very good hands, but importantly, this provides Matt capacity to take on a broader role within the organization. By expanding to the running of the company on a day-to-day basis and delivering our strategic plan, which is due to be published to the market in the current half.
Personally, with the rail tripartite agreement, Tower Hill approvals, and native title agreements now all in place, this affords me the opportunity to look to the future and proactively focus on strategy and kickstart important strategic initiatives like a strategic review on our Bardoc project and unlocking the potential of the recently acquired Focus assets within the Laverton operations, but at the same time, retaining ultimate executive oversight. Importantly, our previous chair, Tony Kiernan, will assume the role of Lead Independent Director, which will ensure the high standards of corporate governance are maintained. This is very much a case of business as usual. Same people, same strategy, with a clear delineation of roles and responsibilities.
The priorities and key objectives remain the same, and very importantly, the culture is completely maintained, noting Matt's key role in development of our five-year strategic plan and core values in March 2024. Matt's promotion aligns strongly with our strategic plan, which includes people first as one of our core values. In that plan, we promise to empower key talents with development pathways and provide a one-stop shop for our people. This is recognition and reward for Matt's performance, meeting or exceeding guidance, since Matt started with us in August 2023. Our team is totally fit for purpose, with the right people in the right roles. This will ensure we fully capitalize on the outstanding growth pipeline we've established, while maintaining our track record of meeting or exceeding our commitments to the market.
Personally, I remain heavily invested and committed to Genesis and its ongoing success. This transition will facilitate further outperformance and aligns us with our commitments to develop our people from within. This in turn, ideally attract similar like-minded people that are seeking career development and progression to join Genesis. Troy and I will be conducting a global roadshow, starting in Sydney and Melbourne next week, and then onto the BMO conference in late February. We will be happy to discuss Genesis's exciting future. With regards to the quarter report, it was another one where we met or exceeded all operational targets while making strong progress on our growth agenda. Importantly, our record production was accompanied by tight cost control, which was a significant achievement given the cost pressures faced across the industry.
This led to an underlying cash build of more than AUD 200 million, ending the quarter with a cash and equivalents of more than AUD 400 million and nil bank debt. With AUD 100 million of debt drawn to fund the Focus acquisition, now fully repaid only seven months post-acquisition. Pleasingly, our results to date has us at the upper end of production guidance, the lower end of all-in sustaining cost guidance at the halfway mark. With our FY 2026 full-year guidance maintained at 260,000-290,000 ounces at between $2,500-$2,700 all-in sustaining cost range. We'll continue to lay the foundation to deliver our Aspire 400's accelerated growth strategy, including a milestone December quarter at Tower Hill.
Matt will provide an update on this outstanding progress on this flagship asset in a second. We look forward to unveiling details of our longer-term plan later in the current half, including the mill expansion strategy and a refresh of our strategic pillars following significant growth since our inaugural plan was published in March 2024. I'll now pass you on to Matt to run you through the operations.
Thanks, Ral, and good morning, all. I'm pleased to highlight another consecutive quarter of record gold production for Genesis, with just over 74,000 ounces produced at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,635 an ounce, generating AUD 231 million of mine operating cash flow and net mine cash flow of AUD 167 million after investing AUD 64 million into our growth assets, including Tower Hill, Ulysses Underground, and Jupiter Open Pit. Importantly, this was underpinned by strong safety performance, with zero LTIs sustained during the quarter and an improved serious injury frequency rate to 4.2.
This consistent delivery has the company well-placed to meet our FY 2026 guidance, as Ral reiterated, with just over 147,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,578 an ounce produced during the first half. In parallel with the strong production performance across the Leonora and Laverton operations, multiple significant development milestones for the Tower Hill project were achieved during the December quarter, which paved the way for operational readiness activities to be advancing ahead of schedule and site establishment works to be able to commence in the current March quarter. These milestones included receipt of Stage One mine development and closure plan approval and Native Vegetation Clearing Permit, agreement reached with the PTA, Arc Infrastructure, and Aurizon to enable shortening of the Leonora rail line, and execution of a mining agreement with the Darlot people.
Also noting, we're very pleased to execute a second mining agreement late in the quarter with the Ngaanyatjarra People, ensuring that development pathways for all Genesis tenure in the Leonora and Laverton operational centers is now formalized through these mining agreements. To facilitate acceleration of this world-class asset, capital investment into Tower Hill has been brought forward into FY 2026, resulting in a revised full-year Genesis growth capital outlook of AUD 220 million-AUD 240 million, previously AUD 150 million-AUD 170 million. I look forward to articulating further details in our in our updated long-term plan later in the June half.
The Leonora underground mines delivered 289,000 t of ore at a grade of 4.6 g/ton for 42,783 ounces, a 24% improvement in tons and 34% improvement in ounces quarter-on-quarter. Gwalia mined just over 32,000 ounces at a grade of 5.6 g/ton from 178,000 tons as stoping continues through the Heart of Gold. Ulysses development and ramp-up continued positively, with a record 1.6 km of lateral advance and 10,500 ounces mined at 2.9 g/ton from 111,000 ore tonnes, which was a 46% improvement on the September quarter.
As announced earlier this month, we completed a competitive tender process for provision of underground mining services at our Leonora operations that attracted several Tier One contractors and culminated in issuance of a letter of intent to Byrnecut Australia, who will plan to mobilize in early May following completion of the concurrent contract term by Macmahon, to whom I would like to express our appreciation for the dedication and contribution of their people to Gwalia, Ulysses, and the Genesis business. The Leonora open-pit mines delivered 330,000 t of ore at a grade of 1 g/ton for 11,000 ounces. As focus continued on cutback activities for recently identified shallow lateral extensions at Admiral and pre-stripping works for Stage Two at Hub, with all volumes to increase significantly during H2, particularly in the June quarter.
Impressive total material movement was achieved at both open pits for a total of just over 6 million tons hauled during the quarter. Over at Laverton operations, the Jupiter open pit continued to ramp up well following commencement earlier in FY 2026, with mining productivities across our new Genesis Mining Services fleet improving as more floor space was opened up in the central saddle section of the pit. Just shy of 3,000 ounces were mined at a grade of 0.7 g/ton from 133,000 ton of ore and total material movement of 3.5 million tons.
At both the Leonora and Laverton mills, throughput performance was excellent, with 365,000 tons processed at Leonora at 4 g/ton and 92.8% recovery for just over 43,000 ounces recovered, and 759,000 tons processed at Laverton at 1.5 g/ton and 83.8% recovery for just over 31,000 ounces. 38% of that Laverton mill feed during the quarter was third-party ore at a recovery of 79.2%, noting Genesis ore recovery remained consistent at 91.2%. As we close out the FY 2026 ore purchase agreements with one final campaign to complete during the March quarter.
Pleasingly, and aligned with our consistent future-proofing strategy, as well as supporting current mill expansion studies at both Leonora and Laverton, we closed the quarter with group stockpiles of 1.4 million tons at 1.2 g/ton for 53,000 ounces. To round out the excellent quarter, AUD 11.9 million invested into exploration activities continued to yield encouraging opportunities across the portfolio, including testing the upper 1,000 m of Gwalia that hosts the historic workings, and commencing the maide n Genesis drilling program at Beasley Creek, testing for ore body extensions as well as infill for inferred resource conversion. We look forward to providing a geological results update in the coming months. I'll now hand over to Morgan to talk through financial performance.
Thanks, Matt, and morning, all. Further to this morning's release, I'm pleased to comment on some of the key financial outcomes for the quarter. As you heard from Matt, we maintained our run of increasing gold production quarter on quarter, and in the December quarter, we sold 71,000 ounces to an average gold price of AUD 6,057 an ounce, up 20% Q on Q, generating AUD 430 million in sales. Cash, bullion, and investments increased by AUD 41 million to AUD 404 million. This is after the company fully repaid the AUD 100 million in corporate debt that we drew down just 7 months ago as part of the Focus Laverton acquisition funding. It's really pleasing to have had the liquidity and balance sheet flexibility to optimize our capital management approach this way.
Matt and Raleigh have referenced our cost performance, tracking to the lower half of guidance year to date. Despite ongoing cost pressures, it's been very encouraging to see the way that the whole Genesis workforce has embraced and contributed to our internal cost reduction initiatives under the Project TALO banner. TALO being an acronym for Think and Act Like Owners. Support for the TALO project has been across the entire business from the shop floor upwards, and this is particularly pleasing given the strong macro backdrop and rhetoric, potentially resulting in people not chasing those one percenters. Despite this backdrop, our view is that now is the exact time that we should be focusing on these initiatives, and we are practicing what we preach. We set an ambitious internal cost out target under Project TALO, and we are on track to achieve this. A few additional corporate matters.
We've finalized the stamp duty position in relation to the Focus Laverton acquisition, and we will make this AUD 13 million payment in the June quarter. Given the company's growth, performance, and profit generation, we will utilize our remaining tax losses during FY 2026, and therefore, it is likely that we will start paying income tax installments in the coming months. You will note that we have estimated our unaudited NPAT for the half year at AUD 235 million-AUD 245 million. Not surprisingly, given our growth, and with some help from the gold price, this compares favorably to the corresponding period last year, up 300%, and in fact, is above our full year FY 2025 NPAT of AUD 221 million. We anticipate releasing our half year accounts on the nineteenth of February. I'll now pass you back to Travis for Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from David Radclyffe from Global Mining Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Raleigh and team. Couple of questions from me. First off, appreciate the long-term plan is still in the works, but maybe could you talk to what, if any, the potential impact is on the Tower Hill timetable from bringing forward the capital that you announced today, especially if we think about the stage one pit and the opportunities here?
Yeah, thanks, David. Yeah, look, as you articulated, five-year plan in this current half, obviously all the final details coming together. You would have read in the quarterly, activities underway there. Obviously, the original plan was first all in FY 2028. There is scope to bring that forward, but, that will be fully articulated in the plan, which is, just around the corner, so not long to wait now.
All right. So thank you. And again, maybe pushing that a little bit, too. In terms of the potential expansion studies that are going through now, have you started to think about the long lead items there and maybe committing to some of them, given that the market could tighten again? Just coming from the thought here that, you know, hopefully, that doesn't become a bottleneck to actually delivering the expansion plans when you announce them.
Yeah, 100%. Now, look, we're obviously in the final throes of the expansion works at Leonora as well, so that's a couple of items on the radar. We're keeping very good tabs on what those long lead time items are. So again, that'll be updated in the full plan, but there's a couple of things that we will move on reasonably quickly. So again, watch out for that in due course.
All right. And, look, if I could squeeze just one last one in. In terms of the Ulysses underground, it's still ramping up, but I noticed that the grade is still running reasonably below reserve grade. So any color you could provide here maybe on the current thoughts about the volume and, and grade profile for the Ulysses underground?
Yeah, David, Matt here. Just to, I guess, summarize, where Ulysses is at as we ramp up, as you highlighted. When I look at the split between development ore and stoping ore, particularly underpinned by the, you know, 1.6 km through the quarter, development ore is still a heavy percentage of that feed. As more levels open up and stoping starts to become the dominant production feed, that's where we see the grade increase towards that reserve grade.
Okay, cool. And then, so the ramp-up is what? Still effectively a 12-month process from here or less?
Improving quarter on quarter. David, obviously, we want to be pretty aggressive with this piece, you know, 111,000 ore tons for the quarter. You know, Ulysses, in the, the longer term Leonora strategy looks to provide 500,000-600,000 TPA. So you can see we're well on track for that, you know, 150,000-ton run rate.
Perfect. Thank you very much, guys. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. The next question comes from Levi Spry from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning. Thanks, team. And thanks for your time. I know it's cheeky, but, you know, the milling strategy, as you get closer, maybe you can just help us talk about how maybe some of the inputs have been refined on the Tower Hill timing, on gold price, on Laverton, on the focus ground. Just, as we, you know, get closer to the unveiling of it, is there anything you want to point out in terms of refining the goalposts?
Yeah. Thanks, Levi, and noted, cheeky. Yes, look, at the end of the day, we've got that plan just around the horizon, but tied to Tower Hill. You know, as far as the plan that we're going in with, as far as the cutback, you know, 1 million ounces at 2 g. There's no change there. We're not chasing a gold price, changing cut-off grades, any of those sorts of things. It's, you know, it's purely the potential timing. Obviously, we're lining up the rail agreements and obviously getting the approvals to stage one. In the last quarter has enabled us to potentially fast-track some of that. So that's obviously the one change.
As far as across the portfolio, drilling's commenced at Beasley Creek, so obviously very early days on the Focus ground, which we acquired in June, but you know, really only upside to the plan on that front. So you'll see parts of that feed into the plan when we unveil it this half. But there's still a lot more scope ahead.
And then as far as the mill goes, I think as we have articulated in the corporate presentation, if you have a good look at the reserve ounces and, ore tons, by area, so over Laverton and Leonora, it gives you a bit of a guide to, you know, what type of sizing of milling we're chasing, which, you know, heavily ends up with that sort of 400,000 ounce run rate, which is not a massive surprise considering our Aspire 400 target that we've had out in the market for a while. So, all very close. Appreciate people very keen to know what that looks like, but, you know, we're in the final throes of getting it pulled together and obviously articulate it to the market.
Yep. Nice one. Thank you. Look forward to it. Thank you.
Thank you once again. To ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. The next question comes from Daniel Morgan, from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Raleigh and team. Just looking at Gwalia and the contractor change to Byrnecut. I'm just wondering if you can articulate, you know, what are the key benefits from making this change that you are seeking or expecting to get? And just what are the expectations of managing disruption from this change? Thank you.
Yeah, look, I'll kickstart and I'll throw it to Matt to add some more color to that. But, you know, this has been a process. I'm just go back a step. Obviously, when we made the Focus announcement, we also announced Duncan Coutts' appointment to the board as a direct director at that time. Obviously, this was with the planned announcement we did today on the succession of Matt, the CEO, in mind. Over that period of time, since then to now, and Duncan's been solely focused on the tender process. It's a competitive process with a range of tier one contractors. That's run its course all the way through to the announcement, which we made a couple of weeks ago.
You know, Byrnecut is certainly familiar to myself, familiar to Matt, familiar to Duncan in previous mines and previous companies. Certainly a tier one contractor moving forward. So, we won't dive into much more detail about the final outputs of that tender. But, as I said, we're talking about a sort of early May transition. So I'll throw it to Matt to give a bit more color on the tender and the outcome with Byrnecut.
Yeah, thanks, Ral. Thanks, Dan. Ultimately, yeah, just to emphasize, really strong proposals from all tier one contractors received, and ultimately, the proposal from Byrnecut received through that competitive tender process highlighted Byrnecut as the optimal selection for Gwalia and Ulysses ore bodies, ultimately to take us forward following completion of the existing contract term. We maintain our production and cost guidance for FY 2026, as we've highlighted, as we work through that transition in the June quarter. From an opportunity point of view, you know, I, I look at productivity both at Ulysses as a new, shallow, unconstrained mine, and also at Gwalia, with Genesis right-size schedule approach versus previous strategy, particularly late in the piece for Byrnecut, who have operated at Gwalia in the 10 years prior.
For higher, you know, fixed cost type operations, productivity is a game changer both on output and cost profile.
Thank you. And then maybe just a question to the team, just on the broader, you know, months ahead on the, you know, fresh ore outlook and grade across the various operations, you know, maybe trying to put together all the levers from the various sites and big changes coming ahead. Tons and grads.
Yeah. So obviously, awesome disclosure just around the corner, as I've, as I've mentioned. Just a couple of, I suppose, things that you can look out for. Obviously, Tower Hill timing, I've talked about on previous questions, so to look out for the timing around that one. Some other ones that have been pleasing, just on the, on the Admiral, area, you know, that should have been completed by now. We've having ongoing drill success. Drill being the operative word, not, not gold price. So we're not changing our assumptions on gold price. It's purely the, the drilling success we've had in there, which is extending the life there. Bruno Lewis sits in the wings. There most likely be some drilling that'll come out in due course on that.
Had a very successful campaign of drilling over there over the last 12 months, so that's continuing to get bigger. So we're excited about Bruno coming into the production profile. And the obvious other one is Jupiter just ramping up.... early days at the moment, but team doing an outstanding job there on production rates, and the grade continues to climb, strip ratio continues to fall on that asset as we go forward. So there are a couple of in sort of important levers. Obviously, Ulysses ramping up, as Matt alluded to before. And even at Gwalia, obviously contract change out short term, but a bit of a sneak peek on some of the, you know, talking about some of the uppers drilling that we're doing at Gwalia.
You know, potential step change there with some more ounces higher up in the mining sequence. So they're all little snippets. Won't give much more detail there 'cause we are so close to unveiling that ten-year plan shortly.
Okay. Thank you very much, Raleigh and team.
Thank you once again. To ask a question, please press star one on your phone. The next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning, team, and obviously, congrats, Matt and Raleigh, on the role transitions. Apologies if I've missed this earlier in the discussion. Just first one, looking at the recovery piece at Laverton, are you able to just elaborate a little bit more on some of the third-party ore impacts around the recovery and then just give us an update in terms of the expected timing and volume of third-party ore purchases into the second half?
Yeah, absolutely, Hugo. Matt here. Ultimately, the recovery piece, different ore types from the two OPA partners are coming through in the December quarter campaigns, whether that's some refractory element, or some of the, gold locked up in I guess, their rock types. Summary would be no, no impact, either during the December quarter or moving forward on Genesis ore recovery, highlighted by that 91%. And to your point on the second question, sorry, just remind me, Hugo. Second question?
Next, next.
Uh, apologies.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sorry, my timing.
Yeah. Yeah, sorry, Hugo. Thank you. Just to close out in the March quarter, forecasting one final campaign from Brightstar. Looking at 130,000- 140,000 tons to complete at the end of March quarter, which closes out both OPA third-party ore commitments.
Great, that's helpful. And then you touched on a little bit, so maybe picking up on the refractory ore piece. Just if I look at the resource base, you've got about 4 million ounces or close to 20% of the resource is that refractory ore type. Just want to get an update whether we should think about that starting to factor into that sort of next 5, 10-year outlook, or maybe are there opportunities to monetize in deposits like Aphrodite and some of those others if that's not in the sort of medium to longer term thinking?
Yeah, thanks, Hugo. Perfect segue. Thank you. And look, really, I'm gonna sort of use that question to partly answer the timing around the succession today. Obviously, Matt being promoted to CEO gives me absolute scope to start thinking, forward-looking, thinking about the strategy and a couple of strategic initiatives that I talked about in the opening around, you know, obviously reviewing the Focus acquisition ground and how that dovetails into Laverton. It's obviously a fresh in the portfolio, only acquired in June. The other part of that is a strategic review of the Bardoc project, and all options on the table. The first thing, obviously, is, you know, refreshing the sort of DFS numbers, which haven't been looked at for a couple of years.
It hasn't been a, obviously, a core focus for us to date. But a refresh of that plan and obviously look at all the options, some of which you tabled, will be something that I'll be starting to, to focus on, obviously, with Matt stepping up and, and Duncan taking on a, an operational oversight role. So, yes, more to come. There'll be more color provided on that in the, in the strategic plan when we release it.
Thanks. That's, that's helpful. And then one more, if I can, just in terms of just clarifying the timing of that update outlook, it sounds like you're in the, the final throes there. Is that something we should expect sort of by the, the April quarterly or, or possibly, you know, a little bit earlier than if you're in that final process?
I love your work. Current half, I think, is what we've said, so, yeah, good try. Look, it'll be around there. Like, it was somewhere in that period. Like, we've obviously got resource reserves to update, finalizing of the milling strategy, which is obviously a key component of that. And obviously, dovetailing in some of the work we've doing on the Focus ground, and plus the timing of Tower Hill, other key components, but current half is what we'll stick to for now.
Thanks for that. Can't blame me for trying. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. At this time, we're showing no further questions. I'll hand the conference back to Raleigh Finlayson for closing remarks.
Thanks for joining us on the December quarterly call. A quarter highlighted with safe, record production and free cash flow generation. Appreciate a very busy morning, so we'll leave it there, and thank you very much.