Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Mineral Resources Sell-Side Analyst Call, covering today's release of its June 2024 exploration and mining activity report. Your speakers today are Chris Soccio, Chief Executive, Iron Ore, and Chris Chong, General Manager, Investor Relations. A little bit of admin before we kick off. This is a sell-side call, with analysts able to ask both text and live audio questions. To ask a text question, select the Messaging tab, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen, and hit the arrow symbol to send. To ask a live audio question, press the Request to Speak button at the bottom of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the Audio Questions interface. Press Join Queue, and if prompted, select Allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone.
If you have any issues asking a question via the web, a backup phone line is available. Dial-in details can be found on the Request to Speak page or on the Home tab under Asking Audio Questions. Text questions can be submitted at any time, and the audio queue is now open. This call is being recorded, with a written transcript being uploaded to the MinRes website later today. I will now hand over to Chris Chong.
Thanks, Josh, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the June quarterly conference call. I have Chris Soccio, CEO of Iron Ore, with me. I'll firstly run through a few highlights, and then we'll be happy to take questions at the end. Firstly, in summary, it was a huge quarter for us, particularly at Onslow. We delivered first ore on ship in May, which is just 11 months after breaking first ground at the mine, and clearly it was one of our biggest moments in our 32-year history. We also sold a 49% interest in the Onslow Haul Road for AUD 1.3 billion. Pleasingly, we had a solid quarter across the board, with FY 2024 numbers largely in line with guidance.
On safety, TRIFR was at 2.74. It edged up slightly and largely reflecting the significant construction work occurring at Onslow. Importantly, there were no significant incidents, but as always, safety remains a key focus. In our mining services business, volumes were down marginally to 61 million tonnes, mainly due to lower development activities at Wodgina and Mount Marion. Overall, we hit the midpoint of guidance with FY 2024 volumes of 269 million tonnes, up 9% year-on-year. In the quarter, we commenced our first haulage contract in Queensland, with eight of our 330-tonne road trains deployed. It's our first contract there, and we hope to expand in that region. Now, the outlook for the mining services remains very strong.
Not only is growth underpinned by Onslow Iron Project, but we're also pursuing many huge opportunities with tier one clients. In our iron ore business, it's all about Onslow.
Commissioning on all fronts has gone very smoothly, which is amazing given the scale of this project. We successfully shipped 319,000 tonnes across May and June by 3 mini capes. Our first Cape-size vessel has arrived, and we actually just started loading it and expecting late loading in early August. Our first two transhippers have performed well. We couldn't be happier, and the crews are settling in. Our third transhipper is now at Dampier and will head to the port next month to undertake commissioning and crew training. The fourth transhipper is due to arrive in January and the fifth in March. As we flagged previously, we've already turned our attention to expanding to 50 million tonnes per annum, and we've already ordered transhippers 6 and 7 to support this.
At the mine, we broke ground in June 2023, and we're now moving well over 1 million tonnes a week. Our first next-gen crusher has been commissioned, and the mine stackers are operational. As we know, the haul road remains the critical path, part of our ramp up, but we've made great progress. We've completed all major infrastructure works, including 2 bridges and 4 crossings, and we've sealed 35 kilometers of the road so far and expect to fully seal, fence, and complete the road in October. In terms of our road trains, we have six of our 330-tonne road trains now operating, and we've fitted out 50 of these with autonomous hardware to date. Our port systems are fully operational, including the truck unloading circuit, the product handling sheds, bridge reclaimer, and transhipper loader.
You can see in the pictures on page four of the Quarterly that this transformational, long life, low-cost project is coming to life. In short, we are very happy with the progress, and we look forward to providing more updates as we continue to ramp up. At our existing sites, shipments and costs across Yilgarn and Utah hubs were in line with FY 2024 guidance. At Yilgarn, we shipped 7.6 million tonnes at a FOB cost of $108 a tonne. At Pilbara, we shipped 10.4 million tonnes at a FOB cost of $97 a tonne. Our average realized price during the quarter was $94 a tonne, representing an 84% realization, and discounts for lower grade remain around 14%-16% today.
As announced in June, we'll ramp production down at Yilgarn and we'll cease shipping by the end of the year. Going forward, we'll continue exploration into early next year on some good DSO targets. We'll also continue to rehabilitate some parts of our mines. In the meantime, the focus is on redeploying equipment and as much of our workforce as possible, and that process is well underway now. In the Pilbara hub, we acquired the Iron Valley assets from BCI Minerals, firstly, that reduces the mine gate royalties paid to them. Assuming we had completed the acquisition this quarter, the royalty rate would have been 15% versus 7.9% now. Secondly, it also provides greater flexibility going forward. Now, just touching on our lithium business, we delivered a good quarter, which was broadly in line with guidance.
FY 2024 production and shipments at Wodgina and Mount Marion were records. Our marketing team did really well as well. Our received price across three sites increased up 15% over the quarter, averaging $970 a ton, or on an SC6 basis, over $1,200 a ton. However, the current market is not as strong as we had thought. Prices have been impacted by softer EV demand from U.S. and Europe, and we're in a seasonally weak period for China car sales right now. Having said that, we believe current prices are unsustainable in the medium term, and we expect cost curve support around here. The long-term fundamentals remain strong, and we're just in the early stages of global EV adoption. We've operated through two pricing cycle downturns before. We will continue to watch the market closely.
While focused on improving performance and generating cash, we wanted to retain the flexibility to match the market. Now, we are conscious of bringing on too much production into the current market, particularly if there's no benefit. We want to preserve value. At Mount Marion, we had a solid quarter. We shipped 95,000 tons of SC6. FY 2024 SC6 shipments were 218,000 tons at the upper end of guidance, up 46% year-on-year. FY 2024 SC6 FOB costs were below guidance at AUD 740 a ton, while production was in line with the prior quarter at 89,000 tons. The product grade was a bit better than expected, largely due to higher quality feed and improved plant performance.
As flagged in the March quarter, our focus remains on reducing costs, and we're also continuing to study further plan improvements, such as WHIMS and a flow plan to boost grade of 3% products and improve recoveries. In regards to our underground work, we completed the box cut, and the decline is now down to about 100 meters. Our underground studies are ongoing, and meanwhile, the exploration results that we reported in the quarter continue to support the underground mine plan, so we're very pleased with that. At Wodgina, the quarter was impacted by a crusher belt failure in June, which saw the plant shut down for 6 days. Despite this, quarterly production was a record, up 28% quarter-on-quarter, as recoveries improved with higher quality feed, as expected.
FY 2024 SC6 shipments were 201,000 tons, up 41% year-on-year, but 4% below the end of the guidance. And consequently, SC6 FOB costs were $974 a ton, 3% above the top end of guidance. As we had mentioned in the last quarter, we did not toll any Wodgina spodumene into chemicals, and we've now sold all of our lithium chemicals inventory, and across FY 2024, we sold 24,000 tons, which is above guidance. In terms of train three, and as flagged previously, we will need to see sustained demand and higher prices before turning it on. At Bald Hill, we had a good quarter with production increasing 19% to 35,000 tons.
We're continuing to optimize and reduce costs there, and we will come out with production and cost guidance at our full year results in a month's time. In our energy business, we flowed the North Erregulla-2 oil well. We saw average production rates of 675 barrels of oil per day, which is a good flow rate for onshore wells in Australia. The oil assets indicate that it's a medium to light crude oil and with negligible sulfur. We progressed assembly and upgrade of our MinRes rig, which is in the field now, and we're preparing to drill the North Erregulla-3 oil appraisal well in August, which will go down to about 3,500 meters. For the Lockyer gas development, we're waiting for WA government decision on the partial exports into LNG.
In the last quarter, the parliamentary inquiry was delayed to mid-August now, and so we'd expect the WA government decision sometime after that. Turning to the balance sheet. In relation to the sale of our 49% interest in Onslow Road to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, we expect to receive further approval soon. So the first payment of AUD 1.1 billion will be received this half. We expect FY 2024 net debt to be around AUD 4.4 billion. I'd like to take the opportunity just to remind people that our unsecured US bonds have no financial maintenance covenants of any kind, and the earliest maturity is in May 2027. Overall, we have significant liquidity of AUD 2.8 billion at 30 June. This includes cash of AUD 900 million.
We entered into a $600 million final customer prepay, not dissimilar to what FMG has done in the past. And we see this as good diversification of funding. It's non-dilutive, it's non-debt, it's a non-debt form of capital, and it'll be treated as such in our accounts as per other peers, and that's how other, and that's how our rating agencies view it, too. It's cost competitive and unsecured, and we've structured the repayment profile to align with our cash flows, with amortization over three years, starting in FY 2026, which is when Onslow will be at the 35 million ton run rate.
As previously announced, we entered into a AUD 1.1 billion bridge facility with J.P. Morgan, and we expect that to remain undrawn, and we will cancel it upon receipt of the first AUD 1.1 billion payment from the road sale. We also upsized our undrawn revolving credit facility from AUD 400 million to AUD 800 million, reflecting a larger business size. I'd also like to highlight our Onslow carry loan receivable of around AUD 500 million, which we will earn interest on. This gets paid back from 80% of our JV partners' free cash flow, so effectively we receive 92% of MineCo free cash flow. We know we are at peak leverage over the next six months, and that will start to deliver very quickly as Onslow ramps up and cash flow grows.
Our Onslow ramp-up targets are unchanged. We are targeting 20 million tons per annum by the end of the year and 35 million tons in June next year. To highlight the earnings potential for Onslow for us, at the 35 million ton run rate, and at spot prices today of around $100 a ton, U.S. Onslow generates EBITDA for MinRes of $1.3 billion. So clearly, the payback on our capital is very rapid. So with that, I'll hand back to Josh to cue questions. Just as a reminder, we've got Chris Soccio, CEO of Iron Ore, on the call, so feel free to ask him any questions on Iron Ore.
Thank you, Chris. If you have not yet submitted your text question or joined the live audio queue, please do so now. I will introduce each caller by name and ask you to go ahead. You'll then hear a beep indicating your microphone is live. Our first question today comes from Kate McCutcheon, from Citi. Kate, please go ahead after the beep.
Hi, good morning, Chris and Chris. Just your comments on not bringing online new lithium supply onto the market now, how should we think about train three now? Should that sort of be on ice for the foreseeable future, and volumes at Mount Marion and Wodgina and Bald Hill year-on-year? How do we think about that in line with those comments of being disciplined?
Yeah, thanks, Kate. Thanks for the question. We'll come out with guidance in relation to FY 25, clearly in a month's time at our full year results, towards the end of August. In terms of train 3 at Wodgina, sort of mentioned that in the remarks, that, you know, we are, we are- you know, whilst we have that capacity available, you know, we're cognizant of the current market, and so we don't want to necessarily add supply into the current market for no overall benefit. So, you know, depending on where prices go, we'll make an assumption, but, you know, assuming today's prices, you know, it'd be reasonable to expect that we, we wouldn't turn it on. We just don't want to impact the market.
Okay. And while we've got other Chris on the line, just about Onslow, it seems like you pulled forward that 50 million tons. What sort of work needs to happen next year to get ready for that?
Morning. The 50 million ton case is still under development at the moment, so a lot of it is going to be around approvals. So to move above 40 million tons, we need to seek new mining approvals, and there will be some investment in capital that needs to be done. So really, the next six months is around defining those pieces of work and ensuring that all of the timelines line up to deliver the 50 million ton per annum case.
Thank you. Our next question today comes from Rob Stein from Macquarie. Rob, please go ahead after the beep.
Hi, Chris and Chris. Quick question on the net debt figure that you've quoted. Just to confirm, that doesn't include the prepayment liability? And I've got a follow-up.
Yeah, thanks, Rob. Yes, it does include the AUD 600 million prepayment.
It does?
It does, yes.
Sorry. Yeah, okay, cool. And then, and so then in terms of, just some further information around that prepayment, can you give us a tonnage, and potential, you know, a discount just from a modeling point of view, so we can adequately reflect the cash flows across 2026-2028?
Yes, the way to think— Thanks, Rob. So the way to be thinking about the modeling of it, you know, we can't divulge anything around tonnages, et cetera, just around, you know, we've got confidentiality agreements in place, et cetera. But the way to be thinking about it is from FY 2026, if you took our Iron Ore revenue, and you took out AUD 200 million in 2026, 2027, and 2028, you'll get a reasonable basis of, you know, where we'll land in relation to that. Does that answer the question, Rob?
Baseline price assessment, if that's okay, which this was done?
What was that question? Sorry, can you repeat that, Rob? Just missed it.
Can you give us, so what sort of pricing should we think from an Iron Ore price point of view? So do you need to-
Sorry.
Make an adjustment on price back? So, for example, if it's done at $100 and the price is $80, you know, you potentially leach a bit of money back to the customer. How do we think about that?
Yeah, no, we're fully exposed to the market spot prices, Rob. So, you know, whatever, if, say, it was AUD 100, and we received AUD 100 million, or, you know, as an example, it was AUD 500 million of revenue in FY 2026, you take off AUD 200 million of revenue in our Iron Ore business.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rahul Anand, from Morgan Stanley. Rahul, please go ahead after the beep.
Hi, Chris and Chris, thanks for the call. I've got two questions. I'll pick up the first one and then come back with the second. First one's around pricing. So obviously, good performance on the iron ore price. So, just wanted to check a couple of things. Firstly, is this all driven by mine control, great control in the mine and the lump mix, or are there any QP impacts here that we need to be aware of? And then also, how many tons in the iron ore sales and the lithium sales are currently subject to quotational pricing adjustments? That's the first one. I'll come back with the second.
So with regards to the pricing, it has actually been around good quality control and mine planning and presentation of the material. So, there's been good variability and good physical characteristics. So there's been nothing else that's been driving those realizations other than good operational discipline. With regards to the QP pricing, look, the mechanisms are pretty standard, so there's nothing untoward in that space. Andrew-
Got it. So just on perhaps. Sorry, yeah, go ahead, Chris.
Sorry, Rahul, I just wanted to add in, in terms of provisional pricing impacts, they're pretty negligible for both lithium and iron ore in the quarter.
Okay, so there's no strong volumes to finish off, sales in the end of the quarter, which would need to be repriced in, say, August?
No.
Okay, brilliant. Okay, look, my second question then is on Wodgina. Obviously, you had costs coming out there to be above guidance, and, you know, you had a small crusher failure that you talked about, but I doubt that took very long to fix. I just wanted to get a bit of a baseline and an understanding on how we should be thinking about Wodgina costs going forward. I know there's a bit of ramp up there still to come into next year for the two trains, but how should I be thinking about this year's cost and where you've finished? Is that the run rate that I should be thinking is the right one?
Yeah, thanks, Rahul. It's largely dependent around our recoveries, and you've seen our recovery, recoveries improve from Q3 to Q4, as we've gone into more stage two of fresh feed. So I expect that recoveries to continue to improve. Clearly, a decision around train three is important, so just on a fixed cost basis, if we don't turn on train three, costs will be elevated. But, you know, we're gonna. I'm not gonna give you a guide to where it is today or what it'll be next year. We'll come out with that in our full- year result, Rahul.
Our next question comes from Ben Lyons, from Jarden. Ben, please go ahead after the beep.
Oh, thanks. Good day, Chris and Chris. I really need to clarify the net debt amount, please, if we can get that out of the way up front. Further to the question earlier, it appears you've included the cash from the prepayment, but not the debt in your net debt calculation of AUD 4.4 billion. Is that correct? So it would be 5.0, if you actually reflected the fact that you have to repay this facility, just in iron units rather than cash. Thanks.
Hi, Ben. Thanks for the question. Yes, to clarify, the AUD 900 million cash, we have a AUD 600 million cash of the prepayment in that. As for the opening remarks, you know, it'll be in the current liabilities as a prepayment, but it won't be in the borrowings or net debt, and that's how it's accounted for.
Okay. Fascinating accounting treatment, but moving on, can you please clarify how much CapEx remains at Onslow, given you've only sealed 35 Ks of the road to date? Thanks.
Yeah, look, again, we'll come out with that detail in our full- year result, Ben, but, you know, we've given guidance for FY 24 in relation to CapEx, and that's not gonna be too far away off the mark.
Our next question comes from Paul Young, from Goldman Sachs. Paul, please go ahead after the beep.
Thanks. Morning, gents. Chris, another question on the prepayment. Just to clarify a few things, I guess, first of all, I've seen you've upsized the credit, your revolving credit facility to AUD 800 million, and then you put the prepayment in place. Can I just confirm, you know, why you're putting this prepayment in place or why have you? Is that because of your... Is it just a downside scenario you're preparing for? Or is it more the fact that you're, you know, you need this additional funds for the for stage two of Aspen? Just trying to clarify why we put this prepayment in place.
Hey, Paul, thanks for the question. It's really around diversification of funding, right? We've got growth ahead of us, as you know, and, you know, we can fully fund it now, right? We've got significant liquidity ahead of us. As you know, we don't want to dilute equity shareholders, and this is another non-dilutive way of raising capital for us, right? We're in a growth phase, and as I said, we're gonna be at peak debt and leverage over the next sort of six months. But post that, and as we ramp up towards potentially 50 million tons, you know, we're gonna be delivering very quickly as Onslow starts to turn on, then we expect, you know, it to be free cash flow positive around towards the end of the year in terms of Onslow.
Yep, okay. All right, and yeah. And then maybe further, Chris, sorry to interrupt. Just further to just on the accounting treatment, it sounds as though this is, you know, being we classified, say, FMG a decade ago, when they did their prepayments, as deferred income on the balance sheet. We're effectively recognizing the revenue, but not the cash receipts from customers through the cash flow statement. That's simply how we're accounting for this?
Yes, it's exactly the same way to be treating it. Yep, we might not call it deferred income, we'll just call it-
Yeah, pretty much.
prepayment in account, but yes, it would be the same accounting treatment as, as done by FMG and others.
Thank you. Our next question today is a text question, which has come in from David Feng from CICC. David says, "It's great to see that your lithium pricing performed much better than your peers. Could you remind us of the pricing methodology for lithium? E.g., what referencing indices should we refer to, and is there any provisional adjustment terms?
Thanks, David. Thanks for the question. Yeah, I think the best way to be thinking about our realized price in our lithium business is, you know, there are five index prices around spodumene, and if you took an average, that shouldn't be too far off the mark. Now, there might be at times where we might try to link it to chemicals, but, you know, that'll be a dynamic, and we'll take a view on that. But I think for now, the best way to think about it is just look at the spot indices as the best reference.
In terms of discount to the like, as you know, with Mount Marion, you know, you need the grade adjusted, but for our 3% product, there is an additional discount there that you need to take into account. But beyond that, just look at the indices that you can see in the market.
Back to audio questions for the next one. We have Mitch Ryan from Jefferies on the line. Mitch, please go ahead after the beep. Hello, Mitch, you're live. Please go ahead with your question.
Sorry. Thank you, Chris and Chris. My question relates to the mining services volumes. I'm just trying to reconcile the numbers to the commentary. On the back of the envelope, rough calculations on both should have added at least 14 million tons of volumes in the quarter, but yet that declined by 8 million tons. That's sort of a 22 million ton decrease. On the other side of the ledger, you've called out Wodgina and Mount Marion. They clearly cannot account for all of that 22. Can you provide some more color around that, please?
Hi, Mitch, thanks for the question. In relation to the mining services, the change quarter-over-quarter was really largely mainly Wodgina. We had the CSI doing development work around, you know, the cutback of stage two. That completed in May, so it really drove the-
But that decreased by 22 million tons?
Not 22, no. Maybe I-
But didn't you add AUD 14 million at Onslow? You add-
I think-
You added 14 at Onslow, didn't you? You moved at least 13 of place.
Yeah. Hello, Mitch, it's Chris Soccio here. I think you'll find, and I'd ask you to check your numbers. I think you'll find that that 14 million tons could be mining movement, and that's not attributable to the mining services business.
Okay, righty-o. I'll take offline, but yeah, obviously I thought that was, that went through the mining services division. Thank you.
Yeah.
My second question relates to how we should be thinking about the Onslow capital intensity, to take it to 50 million tons per annum. I think to paraphrase Chris Ellison, it was sort of just only a matter of adding a few transhippers. So should we think that the capital intensity steps down materially, relative to, you know, to take to 35? There was a capital intensity per ton, but it should be materially lower than that for the next step.
So he is accurate in terms of the complexity of delivering the project from 35- 50 will be simpler. However, the capital intensity will be roughly in line.
Our next question today comes from Kaan Peker, from RBC. Kaan, please go ahead after the beep.
Good morning, Chris and Chris. Since we've got Chris on the line, just wondering if I could ask a few on the iron ore, or Onslow. At Ken's Bore from memory, there's meant to be three NextGen crushers. When are the other two expected to be commissioned?
Good morning, Kaan. So the second crusher will be starting up within a month, so that's train 2. So we started train 3 is already operational. Train 2 will be on within about 6 weeks, and then the next crusher, train 1, will come about another 6 or 8 weeks after that.
That would essentially get crushing capacity up to around that 45 million tons-50 million tons ?
It won't get us to the full 45-50 million ton. There will need to be some minor modifications to those plants to get the additional volumes, but it's definitely more than sufficient to get us to the 35.
Sure. Thank you. And, I think Chris mentioned the transhippers that were ordered, the additional ones, for the expansion. When are they expected to be received? Just sort of a timing that you could point to.
Hey, Kaan, it's Chris here. Yeah, it's towards the back end of 2026.
Okay. Thank you. If you don't mind, just another one there on Onslow. Just with the infrastructure, I think there was sort of two bridges, one pass over that was needed. Are both the bridges complete, and it's just waiting for the pass over to be completed now?
Yeah, all of the major infrastructure is basically coming to a conclusion. So, from the truck maintenance facility into the port, the road has been completed, and all of those major pieces of infrastructure have been opened, in actual fact. So it's really from the truck maintenance facility back to the mine now that we're in the largest construction phase.
Our next question comes from Matthew Frydman from MST Financial. Matthew, please go ahead after the beep.
Yeah, thanks. Morning, Chrises. Can I ask a couple of questions on Onslow to Chris Soccio? Firstly, on your price realization at Onslow during the quarter, obviously a 20% discount, that was the biggest discount across, across your book. Obviously, Onslow doesn't benefit from any lump product there, but is that maybe also reflective of some early discounts for that product, given it's a new product in the market, or are there other factors driving that? And do you expect that to improve as the asset ramps up?
Thanks, Matthew. Look, it's just a new product into the market at the moment, and so, we really do need to start to get this into the blast furnaces and see how it performs. We are confident that we will start to see better price realization with the Onslow product as the steel mills start to realign with this. There's, you know, not so many tons in the market with good quality CID. We've had our first feedback from the blast furnaces and, and so far, we haven't had any negative feedback, which is actually quite positive. Sometimes they tend to overstate any difficulties they've had. So from the first tests, it's been interchanged in the blend and sintered well.
So, a lot of these prices were sight unseen, so it's going to be a process as we establish this product in the market, and we do believe that we'll improve the realizations as we go.
Got it. Thanks, thanks for that, Chris. And then secondly, Chris Chong made some comments in his opening statements around the, I guess, the benefit to the Onslow ramp up that's been provided by reallocating resources from the Yilgarn shut. Can you give us any sort of quantitative measures around the movement of people or equipment or the actual benefit on the ground that that's given to the ramp up of Onslow? And was that a driving factor in terms of, you know, making the decision to shut down Yilgarn? You know, do you expect it will provide a material benefit to the ramp up of Onslow in FY 25?
The ramp down of the Yilgarn and ramp up of the Onslow project has kind of been coincidental. It wasn't a planned or staged. It's really the Yilgarn coming to a point in its mine plan and resource base that has really driven the timing of the announcements and the suspension of exporting in the future. Moving capable people out of the Yilgarn, and we've got a number of long-term employees working in that region. So the Onslow project is only going to benefit from those people moving from the Yilgarn into Onslow. And also, they'll start to get quite a different on-site experience at Ken's Bore with the resort-style accommodation as well. So it works quite well to be able to reward some long-term employees as they move from the Yilgarn into the Onslow project.
Our next question comes from Lachlan Shaw from UBS. Lachlan, please go ahead after the beep.
Yeah. Morning, Chris and Chris. Thanks for your time. Two from me. Firstly, on Onslow, and just on the sort of FOB cost guidance. We're seeing a number of your peers guiding to sort of 4%-5% inflation in the next 12 months. Just wondering, are you still comfortable with the AUD 45 per tonne FOB, including infrastructure charge, at Onslow at 35 million tonnes minimum?
At the moment, we are. So we, we've been able to control our costs, and we're performing well within the operations. Obviously, we need to get to nameplate, to obviously realize those prices, but we're still confident that it's an accurate guidance.
Okay, thank you. My second question, then, so just on, on Wodgina. So what's the update on Train 4 studies? I'm assuming that if Train 3 ramp up is delayed, then Train 4 is, too. And then secondly, can you just confirm that the pre-strip to enable, in theory, full Train 3 operations, you know, when does that pre-strip complete? Has it completed yet? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Lachie. In terms of Train 4, you know, the guys are actually meeting up with Albemarle in London over the next couple of weeks to actually map out a longer term plan around Wodgina and what we'll do there. So wait and see in relation to that. But, you know, we're still wanting to do sort of early works and approvals around Train 4, sort of low-cost options, and, you know, we want to be able to respond to the market in time, because, you know, going forward, we still see deficits over the longer term, and we want to be able to capitalize on any price spikes going forward.
And don't forget, you know, when we make a decision on Train 4, when that happens, it'll still be sort of an 18-month construction build and timeframe, so it's some time away. In relation to the cutback at Wodgina, yeah, a large majority of Stage 2 has actually been done now, and we're continually opening up. You know, and we'll match that opening with our decisions around, you know, train 4, et cetera, going forward, too.
Our next question comes from Matt Chalmers from Bank of America Securities. Matt, please go ahead after the beep.
Hey. Good day, Chris. Thanks for the call. Just one quick question from myself, just regarding the haulage constraints that you flagged at the Yilgarn pipeline. It's, you know, heading towards being shut by the end of the year. But I just want to understand if you foresee any continued issues with the haulage going into, you know, the first half of 2025, and whether that 4 million ton target is at risk at all?
Obviously, the movements along the Great Eastern Highway have always got some restrictions, and we have to cross the rail line running from Kal to down to Esperance. So look, there are some challenges, and these are ongoing and have been present since we've opened the Parker Range operations. So there may be some challenges to that 4 million ton. However, we continue to run multiple scenarios and in each of these cases, the Yilgarn is still cashflow positive and contributes until we suspend the exports around the end of the year.
Our next question comes from Glyn Lawcock from Barrenjoey. Glyn, please go ahead after the beep.
Good morning, gents. Firstly, just on the prepayment again, my parents always told me there's no such thing as a free lunch. So on the AUD 600 million prepayment, like, what is the gentleman on the other side, the company on the other side, getting in return? Is there a, a, a bigger discount, or are you paying interest? Like, there must be a rub on the other side. I'm just trying to make sure I understand what it is. Thanks.
Hey, Glyn. Thanks, thanks for the question. Look, there's nothing we can disclose in terms of who the other party are or is. You know, as I said, we've got commercial agreements in place, not to. It's not similar to other prepayments, Glyn, and the terms are not dissimilar as well. That's all I can really say.
But there must be something. It's not... but it's not free, is it?
Yeah, absolute, yeah, no, and it is very cost competitive. So if you look at where our bonds trade, et cetera, you know, it's not materially different, I'd suggest.
Okay. So there's some rub on the other side. And then maybe just a question on Onslow and the build-out. And Chris, you mentioned similar capital intensity, which is AUD 85 a ton on the first 35. That would suggest another AUD 1.3 billion for the remaining 15 to get to 50. Is that about right? It seems like, I would've thought you've already built the haul, right? So that AUD 500- odd million should come out. You don't have to repeat that. So I would've thought the capital intensity would be cheaper. And is that sort of what we should expect over the next couple of years, you know, spend?
Yeah, so the capital intensity is generally pretty low. So when you compare it to our peers, it's pretty hard to go beneath about $85 a ton. And we will need to build our capacity on the marine side of the port as well. So there's still a couple of significant pieces of work. Despite the fact that it's low complexity, there is still some investment that we need to make to get it to the 50 million ton per annum rate.
So I don't see any substantial expenditures occurring in this first half while we still work out all of the approvals and what we are going to execute to deliver the 50 million ton per annum case, and we'll be in a much better position in about six months' time to give you clear guidance around the investments and execution.
Thank you. Before we move on to our next question, we'll just remind everyone of the instructions. If you'd like to ask a text question, select the Messaging tab, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen, and then hit the arrow symbol to send. To ask a live audio question, press the Request to Speak button at the bottom of the Broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the Audio Questions interface. Press Join Queue, and if prompted, select Allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. If you have any issues joining via the web, a backup phone line is available, both on the Request to Speak page and under Asking Audio Questions on the Home tab.
Our next question is from Paul Young, from Goldman Sachs. Paul, please go ahead after the beep.
Yeah, thanks again, guys. Chris, just a question on, back on the approvals for stage 2 at Ashburton. Can you step through, you know, what approvals specifically are required? Do you need further heritage approvals? And where you are in that process, and just the timeframe about when you might expect to receive those approvals.
So the two main critical path items are going to be on the marine side approvals. So obviously, to go and build a second loading point, and any associated dredging that is going to come with that. And then it's going to be the expansion of the mine plans above the 40 million ton per annum rate that we've got today. So they're the two key ones. So that's gonna come down to mine plans, and which areas that we'll open up, and then obviously generating those plans and submitting the request for approval.
Okay, thanks, Chris. Just to expand on the timing then. So it sounds like you're working through those mine plans, and you haven't submitted yet. Can you just maybe give us some color on the timeframe around these approvals?
There's a couple of moving parts, depending on what we execute, so it's gonna be pretty difficult to give you any sort of concrete guidance. So in the annual results and in the FY25 guidance, we'll be able to give you a lot more detail then. So we are getting quite close to determining the execution pathway, and then we'll be able to give much better guidance around the associated approvals with that.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Mitch, please go ahead after the beep.
Thank you. Just sorry, a question of clarification. Chris Chong, you said the company will be peak net debt in the next six months. I just wanted to clarify, does that assume the capital spends to take it to 50 million tons per annum at Onslow? Or because that has not yet received board approval, that's excluded?
No, it hasn't received board approval, Mitch, so look, we'll wait. But just let us, give us some time to work on it, and we'll wait for our full year result in a month's time, and you'll get more color around that. I don't want to front run what our CapEx might be for next year now. And obviously, it's all dependent on.
Okay.
Commodity prices. But overall, we do see, and I could say, is we see our leverage reducing quite significantly over the next 12 months.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate the clarification.
No worries. Thanks, Mitch.
Our next question comes from Kaan Peker from RBC. Kaan, please go ahead after the beep.
Hi again, Chris and Chris. Just on the expansion to 50 million tons, will that be using that Onslow haul infrastructure? Will there be additional CapEx required for that? And I'll circle back with a second one.
So, the only additional capital required on the haul road would be more rolling stock, so more road trains. So, in terms of the road itself, it will be completed and will be sufficient from the 35- to 50-million-ton-per-annum case.
Sure. Thank you. Then just on lithium, changing tack a bit, but on the Goldfields process hub, can you just provide an update on this? Does the strategy around regional consolidation and that hub-and-spoke model for targeting regional deposits still stand?
Hey, Kaan, it's Chris here. Yeah, absolutely. That hub-and-spoke approach hasn't changed at all for us. You know, we clearly picked up a large package around the Goldfields, and we're exploring and seeing some pretty good results. But we'll come up with more detail in the full year results. You know, at this point in time today, you know, we've got Bald Hill running. We own that 100%. And so we're looking at ways of using that potentially as, you know, treating other third-party ores. But the hub-and-spoke approach is more of a medium-term plan. I think the nearest term plan is, you know, optimizing our current assets and expanding it as efficiently as possible.
Thank you, all. That does conclude today's call. Thanks for your time, and have a great day. Please reach out to the MinRes team if you have any follow-up questions. You may now disconnect.