Welcome to Mount Gibson's 2022 Annual General Meeting. My name's Simon Bird, Lead Independent Director of the company. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today, the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, and pay our respects to them, their cultures, to their elders, both past and present, and the traditional custodians of the various lands on which we operate. Unfortunately, our chairman, Mr. Lee Seng Hui, is unable to be with us today, and in his absence, I've been asked to chair today's meeting. We've chosen to hold a hybrid AGM for the first time this year, giving shareholders the ability to attend in person, and it's great to be amongst familiar faces again after several years, or online via the Computershare platform. I'd firstly like to introduce my fellow non-executive directors.
At the far end, Professor Paul Dougas, Mr. Russell Barwick, with me here today, and Mr. Ding Rucai, and Mr. Alan Jones, who are unable to attend in person today. I would also like to introduce our executive team, Peter Kerr, Chief Executive Officer, Gill Dobson, our CFO, Mark Mitchell, Chief Operating Officer, and David Stokes, Company Secretary and General Counsel. I've been advised that a quorum of members is present and therefore formally declare the meeting open. A copy of the minutes from our last Annual General Meeting are available for inspection at the entrance to this room. I'll begin with the Chairman's Address, then turn to the formal business of the meeting, which will be followed by an update from our CEO. All shareholders and guests are invited to join the Board and Management for tea and coffee afterwards, and we'd welcome engagement with all of you.
To the Chairman's Address. The 2021-2022 financial year was one of significant investment for our flagship Koolan Island operation in the Kimberley to prepare for growing high-grade sales and cash flow. During the year, Mount Gibson Iron substantially completed its major capital improvement projects at the operation while also managing volatile iron ore market conditions, challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, inflationary pressures, supply chain disruptions, and a tight labor availability. Iron ore sales totaled AUD 131 million free on board from the sale of 1.65 million wet metric tons of iron ore from both the Koolan Island and Shine operations in Western Australia. This compared with revenues of nearly AUD 312 million from the sale of 3 million wet metric tons in the preceding year.
The reduction reflected lower sales at Koolan Island while these major capital improvement projects were undertaken and limited sales from Shine, where the deteriorating market conditions warranted suspension of the operation in late 2021 so as to preserve the value of the deposit. The company recorded a loss after tax of AUD 174 million last year, which included pre-tax impairments totaling AUD 185 million on the carrying values of Koolan Island and Shine. These impairments resulted from the company's normal practice of reviewing the book carrying values of assets at balance date in the context of prevailing commodity prices and market conditions. Market outlook. At year-end, the company's cash and liquid investments totaled AUD 125.6 million, a reduction of some AUD 239 million over the year.
This is reflective of the capital investments at Koolan Island, totaling AUD 188 million on advanced waste stripping, upper footwall ground support program, and an upgrade to the processing plant. This result also reflected the lower iron ore sales volumes during the year, weaker iron ore prices, and suspension of the Shine operation. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact our business and our workforce over the year. However, by effectively managing these impacts, the company minimized disruption to our operations, and I thank and commend Mount Gibson's employees and contractors for their commitment and resilience during this time. On a more positive note, the benefits of our capital investment at Koolan Island began to emerge in the second half of the year, notably in the June quarter, during which production and sales of high- grade ore more than doubled.
Unit costs declined in step with the reduced waste- to- ore strip ratio and shipments of high-grade 65% Fe iron ore recommenced. These benefits are expected to continue growing in the 2022-2023 financial year and beyond, particularly as the company regains full processing capacity following the recent fire in the product screen section of the Koolan Island processing plant, which temporarily slowed processing and shipments in this half year. Repairs to the plant are well advanced and ahead of our initial expectations, with completion anticipated in January 2023. Interim processing is being undertaken through the undamaged plant and mobile crushing units, targeting two to three shipments per month in the December quarter, with significant increases anticipated thereafter as the plant comes back into full production.
Accordingly, the company's sales guidance for the current 2022-2023 financial year remains at 3.2 million-3.7 million wet metric tons of high-grade iron ore, weighted towards the second half of the year. Given the substantial investments undertaken during the year and the priority of resuming the growth trajectory in high-grade sales at Koolan Island, the Board took a prudent approach and did not declare a dividend for the 2021-2022 financial year. Going forward, however, Mount Gibson is pursuing a plan to drive substantial production and cash flow growth from Koolan Island, and the Board's intention is to pay dividends, bless you, as and when the company's financial performance justifies, consistent with the approach taken in prior years.
Mount Gibson, it is worth noting, has distributed over AUD 330 million in fully franked dividends since 2011. Looking ahead, the Board has determined the following key business objectives for the 2022-2023 financial year. We'll continue to focus on safety improvements across all the company's work sites, further improvements to our high standard of environmental and rehabilitation activities, and we'll be undertaking appropriate carbon reduction initiatives. At Koolan Island, our focus will be to rapidly recover from the recent processing plant fire and increase the mining and export of high-grade iron ore to maximize the sales revenue and cash flow from the operation. In the meantime, in the Mid West, we will maintain the Shine mine site on a low-cost maintenance state until assessment of the iron ore market conditions supports restarting the operation.
While in parallel, continuing to pursue opportunities for ongoing value creation from the company's existing Mid West assets, including the export infrastructure at Geraldton Port. We will also continue to strive for sustainable productivity and cost improvements across all business units and responsibly manage the group's financial reserves. Finally, we will also accelerate our search for resource acquisition and growth opportunities. By focusing on these priorities, we're confident Mount Gibson can continue to navigate challenging market conditions and deliver strong long-term capital growth together with dividend returns for shareholders. In conclusion, I would like to thank my fellow directors, the employees and contractors of Mount Gibson for their commitment and efforts over the year, together with our supporting shareholders. I look forward to reporting on a much improved performance in 2023 and beyond. Thank you. We'll now move to the formal business of the meeting.
The items of business to be considered at this meeting are resolutions one to three as listed in the notice of meeting. The notice of meeting has been made available to shareholders, and I propose to take it as read. Voting today will be conducted by way of poll on all items of business. [Rod Sams] from Computershare has agreed to be our Returning Officer today, and following confirmation by Computershare, the final results of the poll will be announced to the ASX later today. This release will also be available on Mount Gibson's website together with the CEO's presentation. I'll shortly open voting for all resolutions for shareholders eligible to vote at this meeting. For shareholders attending in person, please ensure that you've received your green voting paper. Please see the Computershare representative out the front if you have not.
Completed voting papers will be collected by Computershare at the end of the meeting. For shareholders attending online, please follow the prompts for submitting your vote. If you have any questions about casting your vote online, please refer to the online meeting guide or contact Computershare on the number provided. Please note that we will invite questions from shareholders and proxy holders in relation to all items of business at the end of the meeting. For shareholders or proxy holders attending online, if you'd like to ask a question, please follow the prompts to submit questions. Again, refer to the online guide or make contact with Computershare if you need any assistance. You will see that a summary of the proxies received for each resolution is now shown on the screen.
I hold undirected proxies in my capacity as chair, and it's my intention to vote all such proxies in favor of all resolutions. Any directed proxies that are not voted at the meeting will automatically default to me as chair of the meeting, and I'm required to vote those proxies as directed. I now declare voting open for all items of business and will give you a warning before I move to close voting, which will be after the question time. On to the first item of business for this meeting, which is to receive and consider the financial report, the directors' report, and auditors' report for the financial year ended 30 June 2022. These reports are all included in the company's annual report and are available on the company's website.
Jemma Newton from the company's auditors, Ernst & Young, is here today and able to answer questions on the audit if needed. We will respond to questions on the financial statements and reports at the end of resolution three in this meeting. Now I move to the resolutions being put before shareholders. Resolution one, we move to consider the first resolution, which relates to the re-election of Mr. Lee Seng Hui. Mr. Lee is due to retire from office and being eligible, presents himself for re-election. The Board, excluding Mr. Lee, unanimously supports his re-election. I move that the re-election of Mr. Lee as a director of the company be approved. The proxy results of the resolution are detailed on the screen and support the re-election of Mr. Lee. As mentioned before, we will respond to any questions on this resolution after resolution three of the meeting.
We'll move to consider resolution two, which is the adoption of the company's remuneration report. Pardon me. Corporations Act requires that at the AGM, a resolution that the remuneration report be adopted is put to the vote. The remuneration report details the company's policy on the remuneration of non-executive directors and senior executives. Over the last two years, the company has taken steps to include greater transparency as to the relevant metrics guiding the Board discretion as to the exercise of short-term incentives and long-term rewards. It also extended the long-term incentive vesting period from one year to two years. The vote is advisory only and does not bind the company or directors. I move the adoption of the company's remuneration report. The proxy results for this resolution are shown on the screen and support the approval of the remuneration report.
Again, we'll respond to questions on this resolution after the third resolution at this meeting. Resolution three relates to the company's Loan Share Plan established in August 2016 for executives as part of their long-term incentive plan. The Board is seeking approval from shareholders to have the discretion where it considers the circumstances appropriate to waive vesting or disposal restrictions under the plan. The Board currently only envisages exercising such discretion where the employee has left office without fault on their part, such as in the event of a redundancy. The need for requesting shareholder approval is because under the Corporations Act and ASX Listing Rules, there are restrictions on the level of termination benefits that can be granted to employees without shareholder approval. This resolution therefore seeks to obtain shareholder approval so the Board can exercise its discretion in compliance with these requirements.
The shareholder approval is only active for three years and was last approved by shareholders in 2019. I move the approval for potential termination benefits under the company's Loan Share scheme. The formal resolution and summary of the proxy votes received before the meeting are on the screen behind me. These proxy results show support for the approval of resolution three. Thanks, David. I now invite any questions from shareholders regarding the financial reports or resolutions one to three. I'll start by inviting shareholders who are present in the meeting room if there are any questions. Thank you. I take it you're waiting to ask questions of Peter when he makes his presentation or speak to us over a cup of tea or coffee. David, can you please advise if there are any questions that have come through online?
No, there's no questions.
Okay. David, there is another avenue for shareholders to ask verbal questions as opposed to written questions online. Have you had any verbal question requests?
No. No verbals.
Thanks, David. Seems there are no further questions. Seems there are no questions for today. With that in mind, if not already done, I would ask that online shareholders please finalize any outstanding votes on resolutions one to three by selecting the Vote icon and casting your vote. Could I also ask shareholders attending in person to complete the green card if they haven't already, and raise your hand so they can be collected by a Computershare representative who's coming around the room.
Oh, yes.
All right, Scott? Have all persons, everyone attending been able to vote? Thank you. It appears the voting process has now been completed. I will therefore declare the poll closed. Final results, as I mentioned, will be published on the ASX this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formal proceedings for today's Annual General Meeting. I'll now invite our CEO, Peter Kerr, to provide his update on the business. You'll have the opportunity to ask general questions of Peter after his presentation and, obviously, speak with all of us afterwards. Thank you very much.
Good morning, all. Thanks very much for coming along. It's the first time for a few years that we've seen you, and good to see a few familiar faces as well as including some who've previously worked for us and existing employees and people involved in our business. It's a hybrid meeting, so we are giving the opportunity for people who are listening online, virtually to answer or to ask questions, and so I'll deal with those at the end if I could. Right. Just a snapshot of the company, I think will be familiar to nearly all of you here. Our market cap is just over AUD 500,000. Our share price is in the low AUD 0.40 range, which is down from where it was and largely reflecting two key issues recently.
One, obviously the iron ore price having come off. We'll talk a bit about the fundamentals that we see in the market, but also the recent disappointing fire we had in the process plant at Koolan. Although we're making good run of the repairs at this point in time, and I'll give you an update on that as we go. The shareholder structure is broadly the same as before. Our largest shareholder, APAC Resources from Hong Kong, holds just over 37%. Institutions in Australia and New Zealand have around 14%-15%, and we're obviously working closely with many of those holders, encouraging their presence.
Our other major shareholder is Shougang Fushan, a listed Hong Kong entity within the Shougang broader organization, one of China's largest steel producers, holds 13.5% odd at the minute. The Board and Management team were introduced before, and you've met. In relation to our ore business, our clear focus is at Koolan Island up in the Kimberley. Obviously at Koolan, it is Australia's highest grade direct shipping hematite iron ore operation. We're fortunate from that perspective. It's not an operation that is monster in size like you might see in the Pilbara, but it has a lot of advantages for it, given its location and particularly the specifications of the material we produce and the fact that the ship loading facilities are right next to the open pit.
Our infrastructure is relatively limited as far as transport goes. Last year we completed or we've continued into this year, I should say, and effectively now completed a major overburden or waste stripping program. That's taken considerable effort, and it has incurred for us a lot of costs that we didn't expect, particularly with ground conditions in the open pit. It's been very trying at times given the COVID influences and in particular in WA, the shortage of skilled labor. We have, however, managed to hang on to our good core team and employees at Koolan Island who are doing a very good job at this point in time. There are some improvements to go, but we're actually very happy about what's happening on the island at this point.
Our sales guidance for 3.2 million-3.7 million wet metric tons for this financial year stands. That's obviously going to be weighted towards the back end of the year. That's where we sit. We have made the decision to continue to build high-grade ore stocks from the open pit, and that's where our investment funding is going into at the minute because we want to be able to process and ship those stocks as soon as we're able in next calendar year. In the Mid West region, we'll talk a little bit about that. We're basically holding the Shine Iron Ore Project site on care and maintenance. We're doing exploration around the Mid West for base metals on areas that we actually own and have remained quiet for quite some time.
We're looking at the prospectivity in some particular areas where we see geological structures actually that have been successfully drilled by others in similar locations or distances away. We hope to have some news in the coming year on some success out of that exploration work. It's been a long time since Mount Gibson has actually had an active regional program in exploration, so we're very pleased to have picked that up a bit. The Mid West Rail Refund is continuing. That's a refund of historic rail charges we paid for accessing the rail during the Tallering Peak and Extension Hill project years. That's capped at about AUD 35 million subject to indexation, and we've received AUD 28 million of that AUD 35 million to date. That accrues at about AUD 2 million per quarter and is paid half-yearly.
In the Geraldton Port, we are actively using our infrastructure as best we can, and our team there, it's a very small team, I'll show you a picture of them later, is generating some income from those infrastructure assets as we review our options for what we can do in the Mid West. In relation to the financial year just gone, these are really the key highlight points. Our sales, as Simon mentioned, were 1.65 million wet metric tons, which was lower than we were targeting, but impacted by the aspects I talked about before. Most of that was at Koolan Island, and our revenue was AUD 312 million FOB. We report our revenue and our costs in what are called FOB terms.
That's when the ship is loaded at the port in Australia rather than on delivery into China, which is what some other producers do. Our net loss after tax was AUD 174 million, and that was really driven by the impairments and accounting write-downs that Simon mentioned before. That's basically a feature that we will need to evaluate every balance date, looking at what the outlook for iron ore is, market consensus forecasts and the like, and consider with respect to our carrying values. Our cash and investment reserves were just over AUD 125 million at year-end, and we obviously have been dipping into those heavily with the work that's being done at Koolan and will continue to do so as we did last quarter and this quarter too.
That's all on the objective of building those high-grade stockpiles for crushing and selling in the next six to 12 months. Out of mining at Koolan Island, we are seeing good increases in high-grade iron ore production. Obviously we had an increase in the September quarter, which I'll talk about in a bit more detail in a minute, but we're going to see further increases of that. The grade that's being extracted from the pit at the minute is consistently 65% Fe. We have very little in the way of lower grade material. There's some, and some stockpiles that were made in prior periods. At this point in time, our extraction out of that pit, and you'll see that in a photograph I'll show you in a minute, is well and truly at that 65% level.
In the Mid West I talked about, and during the year we obviously commenced the Shine operation or we started that actually in the previous financial year. We made the decision when the iron ore price fell substantially over a month and a half, that there was no point continuing those operations given the lack of economics for them. Safety and COVID-wise, many people should quite rightly take that as expected. There's a lot of work involved in improving the safety trends and making sure from the perspective of an operation that's quite challenging, that our safety performance is good. You'll see some basic stats. We report those in our annual report and our sustainability reports.
We're on the right trend, and we're seeing some very good work being done by the teams at Koolan Island and in Geraldton. Diligent COVID management as well meant that while we did have some impacts and at times we had up to 15% absenteeism in the business, that basically has dwindled to less than 1% currently. You probably see that from reference in the communities. There are some news about news reports about increased COVID incidents recently. We're yet to see that on the site, but managed in accordance with our testing and other regimes. Iron ore price. Just like to say a few words about the market, and this is a slide that we'll build up with a bit of information as we go. This chart shows the iron ore price back five years.
The three colors, the black line is the 62% Fe iron ore price, the nightly news price, or in the newspaper you see. The yellow line is the medium grade 58% Fe price published by Platts. The red line is the one that's relevant for us, which is the 65% Fe price. This is the price in U.S. dollars delivered to northern China. It's the price that often reported by analysts and journalists. You can see that obviously, longer term, if you look back a bit, levels were below where they are currently now. But in the last 12 to 18 months, we've had some pretty volatile times with very high prices for a short period. A dip and then back up, and then we're now seeing that settle, for the moment anyway.
That box on the top right is just a closer in view of what's happened in the last few weeks. $98 yesterday for the high-grade 65 index. Popped up a little bit last night. It's sitting at $99. But important for us at Koolan, we obviously need to see that remaining as strong as it can for our economics on the island. In relation to where it might go. Actually, I'll cover one thing first before we do that. This chart that just sits inset on the top left is the relationship between the high-grade and the low-grade, so the red and the yellow lines to the standard grade iron ore. We often talk about high-grade premium, and by that we mean grade-adjusted premium.
If you're selling 65% iron, you should get more by definition than the price you get for 62% iron. What actually happens is you get more again, a premium. That premium is currently sitting at around 6%. You can see from that red line, at times in the past, depending on the profitability of the steel sector in China and other influences, environmental constraints where high- grade material is better. You can see that premium has been up above 20%, 30%, even close to 40%. At the moment it's sitting low because of the profitability, weaknesses in the steel sector in China. We might see as steel demand picks up, which we think it will in China in the coming 12 months, that that premium starts to lift a little bit.
If that's the case, then that's a benefit for our output at Koolan Island. In relation to what it means for us in Australian dollars. I just put up the exchange rate there. We've all seen, and I think everyone's aware that the Australian dollar has been considerably weaker in the last little while. It's moved back up, I think currently sitting around $0.65 . Did get down to a few cents below that. But when we convert that iron ore price, the U.S. dollar charts into Australian dollars using that FX rate, you can see that it's still at a pretty attractive level for us, which is really important. It's a natural hedge in effect for what we're doing. Recently that price is AUD 151 for the high- grade material delivered in northern China.
The way our pricing works is we in effect have that as a gross price. We take off shipping freight, shipping freight at Koolan to China, currently sitting at around $15-$16 per ton. We take off some penalty adjustments because we do have some silica and sizing penalties that sit in the material, and then that becomes our realized FOB price, which we report each quarter. It's important for us that we are seeing some protection in that Australian dollar being a bit weaker as the iron ore price came off recently, and we'll see where that takes us next year. News about potential COVID easing in China and news about then property market and property construction in China is going to be really key for us.
We're starting to see some more positive reports, although a lot of it informal rather than formal government announcements. That's what is being picked up by the investment community and analyst community at the minute. Even so, at these levels, our margins are attractive. Just a quick run through of the start of this current financial year. The September quarter report that we recently put out, and we've touched on a few of these points already. First on the top left, our high-grade mining is picking up. We mined 900,000 tons or just over actually of high-grade material in iron ore in the September quarter, and that was in line with our plan. We've continued through with our plan despite the fire that we had, the accidental fire in the process plant.
Obviously our objective is to, while we do the repairs in the process plant, which are going well, we want to try and ship at a level as best we can, utilizing the front end component of the plant, some mobile facilities that we have, and then build that straight back up as soon as we can when the main plant comes back online in January next year, as Simon mentioned. The repairs aspect on the damaged part of the plant have been managed on site and in conjunction with engineering firms in Perth.
We've been able to secure key components that actually have compressed the timeframe for repairs quite considerably by sourcing used items that we've been able to refurbish, given the supply chain constraints in actually ordering new engineered items at this point in time. Our cash reserves at the end of September were AUD 60 million, and we will ultimately draw on the HSBC facility we have because of our decision to keep going full speed with iron ore mining. Well supported by HSBC, and we should be seeing full recovery of that quite quickly. Repayment of that facility is of bridging nature and build of our cash reserves in the first half of next year. Our guidance is maintained as we mentioned, so that's for 3.2 million-3.7 million tons of iron ore, considerably higher than where we were last financial year.
Our cash costs, before royalties, our target is AUD 70-AUD 75. When you compare that cash cost to our realized price, the set down that I just went through a moment ago, you see there's still a reasonable margin in there at these levels. Hopefully, as we tick up a bit in the iron ore price, that margin comes straight through to the bottom line. Our safety focus is a given, and we have released some updated safety statistics for island, for the Koolan Island operation and the Geraldton Port, where we just wrapped up 13 years without an LTI. Which is a terrific performance for the team that runs those sheds in Geraldton. Couple of pictures for you. This is the Main Pit at Koolan Island from a drone from the western end looking to the east.
The sea channel is on the right-hand side. That's the channel which the vessels move through. You can see in the top right, just under the words, Main Pit there, that's the wharf facility and ship loader. That infrastructure has been working well. Things to note in the pit. The waste stripping activity, the overburden removal program's effectively complete. Our strip ratio is on the precipice of falling quite considerably and will be reaching the point where from early next year onwards, basically, half or more than half the tons of our iron ore, of our material movement rather, is iron ore. It makes quite a fundamental change for the business. You can see along the base of the pit, it's dotted in yellow. That's the 30 m wide high-grade hematite ore body. It's consistent.
The grade is consistent through that zone. That yellow area is about 1.7 km-1.8 km in distance, and so it's a considerable amount of iron ore. That will fund our reserve or in effect is our reserve for the next four and a half years. The high-grade nature of it, I've talked about. Geotechnically, you know that it's been challenging. The left-hand wall, it looks very neat there following the work we've done. We've put considerable money in actually suspending drill rigs and men off that wall, and some women as well. Did a terrific job over the last really 12 months to July. You can see that the lines there that look like horizontal lines, that's the overlapping mesh. That wall is protected from a rock fall perspective.
There's drilling into it right through the entire zone. That gives us the comfort for the safety factors of us being able to mine at depth and continue that pit down another 70 m or 80 m below the floor now where it sits. In terms of the strip ratio, in the September quarter, we were 4 tons of waste to every ton of ore. This half year will be about 3.5 to 1. Then from January onwards, it drops to 1 to 1. Looking forward for the next four to four and a half years, from here forward, the average is 1.3 to 1, which is the lowest it's ever been at Koolan. We've been through big investment in overburden removal, and it's been key.
We've done some work in replacing and refreshing our primary mining fleet, so trucks and excavators, to set us up for the following years. Just another picture on the other side. This is from the eastern end, looking to the west. You can see the eastern end isn't quite as deep as the western end, and that's deliberate at this point. You can see the geotechnical work and the wall support work being done on the right-hand side, and the black color at the base of that right-hand wall being the high-grade ore body there. So the pit is looking good from our perspective. In terms of crushing, this is a picture over the crushing facilities to a ship that was being loaded just a few days ago. The fire occurred in one part of the plant, so what's called the product screen area.
Where some maintenance work resulted in the accidental ignition of some rubber mats within the product screen. That has resulted in the product screen and the adjoining parts needing to be replaced. That work's going well. We expect that to be back online in January, and we hope to be then commissioning mid to late January next year. Interim processing arrangements have been done through the front end of the processing plant. The jaw crusher and the scalping screen, and we've been able to make some improvements over the last few weeks and actually build that volume. We're less reliant on the mobile facilities that we have on site, and we're seeing some good recovery in the main plant aspects. Our plan is to be two to three shipments per month in this current quarter, the December quarter.
Rising to four to five shipments per month from early next year onwards. Given our break-even cost, in effect, our break-even point is about two and a half shipments per month at this point in time. You can see the margins that we'll build in reaching that four to five shipments per month figure. A shipment at this point in time is worth around AUD 9 million, maybe a little bit more than that, per cargo. That's the basic numbers we're working with. The high-grade stockpiles that we're building and we're accumulating ahead of the plant are being done on the basis that we will process that as quickly as we can through next year and lift that shipping rate and try and recover and get to, as best we can, the upper end of our guidance.
We've given our guidance range as that 3.2-3.7. We'll see how we go. For those familiar with the site, you know that we're also going through the northern Australia wet season, so we can have unexpected delays and lightning disruptions as we do that. We'll see how we go over the next few months. Turning just quickly to the Mid West. This is a picture of Geraldton Port. It's a picture of the port users because there were quite a few vessels in on that day. The team on the bottom left is the Geraldton Port Services team. They're the crew, small crew, who've racked up 13 years without a lost time injury. Congratulations to them. We have the two sheds, four and five.
Five is currently vacant, not being used, but there are some possibilities for what we can do with that shed. Shed four is currently being used to house and outload the material from other producers in the Mid West, and we're receiving income covering our costs and a contribution to what we're doing in that part of the world. The opportunity for us in the Mid West is really focused along these key points. Shine, looking at the economics of Shine and whether at a price north of where we are today, we could put Shine back into production. The Rail Refund Stream will continue, so that is dependent upon the volumes railed by other parties. At this point in time, that's the AUD 2 million per quarter rate we're seeing.
The infrastructure I talked about, we've got some arrangements that are producing some income. While we look at the future options, perhaps leverage our assets there into other projects or look at other opportunities. Exploration I talked about at the bottom there. That's the key for us in terms of a regional program around that Mid West area, particularly through areas closer to Geraldton than Shine, through what's Tallering Peak and to the north, where we're focusing at the moment. I wanted to finish up with a couple of general slides about the things that some people take for granted, but that we put considerable effort into. First of all, community and industry involvement. We have made very hard efforts at trying to employ as many local people as we can at any operation we've run over the last 20-odd years.
Up at Koolan at the minute, about 20%, actually slightly above that, of our workforce reside in the Kimberley. It's key to us. Helps us with diversification of people and supporting the local Kimberley community. We're seeking to increase that. Our gender balance is actually pretty good by mining industry standards, but actually some would say quite low. You know, we're sitting in the high teens as far as female representation in the workforce goes. Certainly higher in some levels and some components, and we're working closely to try and build that. We have great people at Koolan Island, and then when you get a good culture running, it feeds on itself and hopefully attracts good workforce. Traditional Owner relationships are key. You don't see a lot as an investor of what happens behind the scenes.
The Dambimangari people at Koolan Island, it's a relatively small family group, family community, are the Traditional Owners. They receive revenues from us, but they are also critical to our business, and we seek to employ and train as many of them as we can in our business. That level was up at about 18% of the Koolan workforce last year. Really good for Indigenous population and within that, a large component of the Traditional Owner group as well. We obviously contribute as a smaller company, significantly to spend in the community. We try and source locally, and our royalties obviously are a big win for the Western Australian Government as well. Even though we're a fraction of what the big players do, we still pay considerable royalties.
In our local communities, our program focuses on youth and sport in our local communities. Been very well received. Builds our reputation. Finally, a word about what we're doing on energy and power and ESG matters. This is a theme that no doubt everyone's aware of. We, as a management team, receive ESG-related queries, mainly environmental and carbon emissions-related queries, constantly. Our position is as described on the top left of this slide. We support and acknowledge the measures to try and reduce emissions. Iron ore is part of the supply chain for making steel, so obviously there will be downstream emissions from the construction of steel. We don't control those, but we can try and control what we're doing on our sites. We're looking at, obviously, our efficiency of mining equipment, how we're making our power.
We're looking at some options to see whether some small solar banks can work for us at Koolan and some other ideas as well. Just helps us add to what is an industry-wide focus and effort at the minute in some way. High-grade iron ore is also key. High-grade iron means fewer impurities, which means less energy consumption in a blast furnace and less emissions. From that perspective, there are a number of studies out trying to quantify the benefits of the high-grade material, and we're fortunate to have that high-grade material at Koolan, which helps us with that emission aspect. We also invest in substantial offsets in our environmental rehabilitation work. That picture on the bottom left is the old Extension Hill waste dump, which is very hard to distinguish there in the middle ground of that pic.
We're very proud of the work we're doing. Naturally, as our material movement drops at Koolan, we will be consuming less quantities of fuel. We will be emitting less, and our energy demands are not huge, given that we're not a big processing plant facility. It's mining and crushing and sizing. In summary, these are the key points. We're obviously been around for a while. We've had trials and tribulations with what's occurred at Koolan. We've managed those with stamina and in the most methodical way we can. We're now in a position where we have a large quantity of high-grade material, with the waste overburden largely stripped away. That's setting us up for significant financial returns, at least over the next four or five years. We're on the cusp of increasing our shipment rates.
That's our real focus and task right now. December, January, February, March, through to the next six months as well. Really, we want to be turning out that four to five shipments per month rate. Our bigger objective, of course, once we have Koolan confirmed as operating as we want it, will be to grow the business. We've got a runway effectively of several years to try and use the cash flow we create, aside from potential returns to investors, to grow and build something that gives us longer mine life and something to continue the company. Mount Gibson started producing in 2004, and we'd like to continue that work. Team is obviously relatively small, very stable. Hopefully, you can have a view that we're trying to operate in a very credible and coherent way.
Our cash and investment reserves will be a function. That will recover with the shipments that we're trying to produce as we get through these fire repairs into early next year. We'll have to be looking forward to reporting on that as we move through each quarter in calendar 2023. With that's the end of a short update. I'm happy to take any questions, first of all, from the floor, if anyone has any. If you don't, also, we're having tea and coffee afterwards. I'm also very happy to talk to you then.
Yes.
Yeah.
Um, just one-
Would you mind just speaking into the microphone, sorry, mate, because it goes online as well.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I'm just wondering about the small investments you've made on behalf of the company. Can you elaborate on them, please?
Sure. Over the last couple of years, we've made a handful of small investments, no more than a couple of million each at times, in predominantly junior developer and operating base metals companies. We haven't publicized those investments. They've been, in effect, below the radar. The purpose of them has been for us to build relationships, look at financing and partnering opportunities. As circumstances have transpired, we've sold out of some of those since that time because things have occurred. We've made good returns and we've in effect divested those shares. The ones we still hold, those discussions are still running and offer some potential for part of our growth ambitions.
you can't tell us what they are or who they are?
No. No. They're confidential at this point, because they're not at a point where they need disclosure other than what I've described to you on the base metal front. Anything else? Is there anything online, Dave?
No, no questions online.
Okay. Well, thanks very much, all. Please do join us for teas and coffees, and happy to stay around and talk to you. Right. Thank you.