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Text questions can be submitted at any time, and the audio queue is now open. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Mineral Resources Analyst Call, covering today's release of its December 2025 exploration and mining activity report. Your speakers today are Mark Wilson, Chief Financial Officer, and Chris Chong, General Manager, Investor Relations. A 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 icon, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen, and press the Send button. To ask a live audio question, press the Request to Speak button at the top of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the audio question screen. Use the dial-in number and access PIN provided to ask your question via the phone.
Alternatively, for those on a home or personal network, you can ask your question via the web by pressing Join Queue. If prompted, select Allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. If you have any issues using the platform, dial-in details can also be found on the homepage 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 the MinRes team.
Thank you, Josh, and good morning, everyone. My name is Mark Wilson. I'm the CFO of Mineral Resources. Joining me in the office this morning is Chris Chong, General Manager, Investor Relations, and on the line we have our Chair, Mel Bundy. Conscious it's a very busy day today, so I'll just provide a very brief summary of the quarterly results before we move to questions. This has been another successful quarter for MinRes, with all divisions performing well. The quarter underscored the strengths of the business, with consistent operational performance at Onslow Iron and the agility to capture opportunities in an improving lithium market. Following strong operational performance in lithium in the first half and to take advantage of the improved pricing, we're upgrading our FY 26 volume guidance at both Wodgina and Mount Marion, as outlined in the release this morning.
In the iron ore division, Onslow Iron continues to operate at its nameplate capacity, and the development of Lamb Creek is progressing well at the Pilbara Hub, with final exports from Wonmunna scheduled for April. Balance sheet transformation is progressing as planned. Liquidity has strengthened to over $ 1.4 billion, and net debt is reduced by $ 500 million to below $ 4.9 billion. The POSCO lithium joint venture that we announced in November will further accelerate de-leveraging. In summary, today's report confirms that we're entering the second half with positive operational momentum, favorable market conditions, and a strengthening balance sheet. With that, I'll hand back to Josh to facilitate questions.
Thank you, Mark. 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 will then hear a beep indicating your microphone is live. Our first question today comes from Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley. Rahul, please go ahead after the beep.
Oh, hi, good morning, team. Thank you for the call. I've got two questions. First one is on the potential for the Bald Hill restart. Just wanted to perhaps ask the question a different way. I mean, bringing that project on versus bringing Train Three on, what informs that decision to be more tilted towards Bald Hill? And if you can kind of help us understand if you've had any conversations with Albemarle on the potential restart of Train Three. That's the first one, and then I'll come back with a second. Thanks.
Okay. Morning, Rahul, and thanks for the question. In terms of Bald Hill, what we're doing is we're undertaking a study on that at the moment, so we're just flagging that we're doing that. It's really important that we get ourselves comfortable around the state of the lithium market going forward. Just making sure it's such a volatile commodity. We're just gonna be very prudent in our approach to that. In terms of Train Three at Wodgina, we've been saying for a while that we've been running it opportunistically when we can. That was the case through this last quarter. Over the next half, we'll continue to do that. We don't get the clean feed for a third train until final quarter of this calendar year.
We'll continue to run it opportunistically, but the head grade is gonna be a bit lower this half, which is why we haven't just simply doubled volume guidance.
Got it. Well noted. Thank you. And look, the other one was just around some of the financial statement impacts that you flagged. Pretty clear on the revaluation gain in terms of the bonds, but the $ 220 million purchase price adjustment on the Haul Road and gas transactions, can you perhaps help us understand that one a bit more, and then also the RDG assets in terms of the non-cash impairment expense, please?
Sure. So that, those adjustments on the purchase price flow through the P&L, although they'll come through as non-underlying. In terms of the RDG, what we're saying there is, we're just looking for carrying value of that asset, which we'll do, over the next couple of weeks as we move to finalize our interim results. It had a carrying value of about $ 70 million at the full year.
Our next question today comes from Kaan Peker from RBC. Kaan, please go ahead after the beep.
Good day, Mark, Chris, and Mel. Great result. Two questions from me, one, one on Onslow. Just looking at capital intensity from here, beyond Ken's Bore and Upper Cane, should we expect Onslow's sustained CapEx to normalize materially lower in FY 2027? And then I'll come back with a second one on the lithium business. Thanks.
Yeah, morning, Kaan. Obviously, we'll provide guidance for 2027 middle of the year, but we've been pretty consistent in terms of where we see capital intensity at that site, around $ 2 a ton. So, yeah, we don't expect it to change materially in the short term anyway.
Sure, thank you. And then, on the lithium business, with Mount Marion, maybe if you can provide some indication of the recovery uplifts with the flotation plant and maybe the underground restart. What are the key gating items for the PFS?
... and what lithium price environment is required to proceed? Thanks.
Yeah, so we're working through that study at the moment. There's a lot of design work going into the work around the float there at Mount Marion. That work's expected to be completed in the coming months, so we'll have more information on that when we're in a position to, you know, finalize that work.
Our next question comes-
Sorry, Kaan. Sorry. Sorry, Josh, let me just... I missed the underground piece for Kaan. Similarly, in terms of underground, you know, we've already spent a fair bit of money and done a fair bit of work on that. We need to go back to the board and ultimately, that underground expected to feed about a third of the feed at the mine. We haven't made a decision to take that back to the board yet.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mitch Ryan, from Jefferies. Mitch, please go ahead after the beep.
Morning, all. Thanks for taking my question. Just with regards to your POSCO deal, can you please remind us of the effective date of that? I guess what I'm asking is, is there's a cash box structure that would see, that would not see you capturing the full uplift from the current price trend?
Hi, Mitch. Yeah, there is no effective date, so we capture the full uplift.
Okay. And then, second question: With the increase in the lithium production guidance, can you provide some guides on associated material movements at Wodgina and Mount Marion? I guess, is there increases to capitalized stripping that will come through in this financial year?
I think you can assume that if we move to take advantage of an increase in the prices, that we might have a slight increase in stripping costs, but we're not expecting our overall CapEx guidance to shift. Yeah, not materially.
Our next question comes from Ben Lyons, from Jarden Securities. Ben, please go ahead after the beep.
Thank you. Good day, Mark. First one's just on Onslow, please, just on the price realization. Does that include... Like, does that absorb the cost of the hedging that was put in place across the whole iron ore business, and the delivery into the prepayments? Is that all sort of captured in that realized price? Thanks.
Yeah. Morning, Ben. Nice to talk. Yes, it does. It, it absorbs all those impacts on the, well, certainly on the hedging. There is no impact on the prepayments because that's done at market.
Yep. Cool. Thank you. And then just quickly on the lithium business, maybe just interested if you can provide any observations from the commercial team. At present, obviously, your price realization was really strong across the December quarter. Just if there's any customers out there who might be prepared to put in place sort of floors in contract structures to support, like, a Bald Hill restart or a third concentrator at Wodgina. Thank you.
Yeah, it's a really interesting question around the market, Ben. It's moving quite quickly. It's volatile. Price is up and then down from day to day. It's, as you know, not a very sophisticated market in terms of depth. You do have the traders playing a more active role than we might have seen them in years past. And you've got the complexity where you've got not just spodumene, but you've got hydroxide and carbonate, with different parties focused on different product needs. So what I'm describing is a complex commodity environment against which to contemplate putting in place any sort of formal structures like that. Not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying it's more complex.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rob Stein, from Macquarie. Rob, please go ahead after the beep.
Hi, team. Just a quick one on Bald Hill restart. Can you give us a feel for how the, the labor force of the business could be remobilized, the speed of that, the cost of that, given, you know, obviously one of Min's competitive advantages is it does have a services business. So, can you just give us a flavor for the speed at which Min could act there?
Good day, Rob. So, you know, just to repeat what I said earlier, we're just doing a study at this stage, but we just wanted to let the market know that, you know, I don't want you to get ahead of yourselves in terms of baking numbers in or anything like that. But to answer your question directly, one of the great strengths of MinRes is their agility and our ability to move people and kit. And, you know, if you're a single asset operator in this environment, we've had to respond quickly to price movements. It's much more difficult for those guys than it is for us.
Having said that, there's still a huge amount of work that would have to be done to mobilize and get that plant going again, and Chris is on record saying that could be up to four months if and when we make that decision.
Perfect. Then just, sorry, speaking about the services business more broadly, in the current iron ore market, things are obviously pretty, pretty resilient. There's been a few production issues globally. How are you seeing demand for your services, crushing plants, specifically across different regions? Obviously, there's been speculation that that's occurred in Brazil in the past, that there's been inbound interest, but has that matured at all?
... I think I'll repeat what I've said previously. Onslow is a wonderful credential for this business across all aspects of the mining services, not just the crushing. Clients come to us because we deliver, we deliver month after month, and you can assume that we're regularly fielding inbound inquiries from all sorts of clients, existing and new. So they're conversations that are ongoing. These things take time to come to maturity. They don't happen overnight. But yes, you should assume that we're very happy with the level of inquiry we've got.
Our next question comes from Matthew Frydman from MST Financial. Matthew, please go ahead after the beep.
Sure, thanks. Morning, Mark and team. Two from me, please. Thanks. Firstly, on the lithium guidance, I'm just trying to get a sense of, I guess, how much conservative- conservatism, I should say, is built into that, as it does imply that the volumes of both assets are gonna be softer in the second half. I mean, at Wodgina, you already spoke about the lower grade being the driver there. But maybe looking at Mount Marion specifically, you know, my recollection is the installed capacity there is about 600,000 tons per annum, SC6 equivalent. You're saying in the second half, it's probably gonna be running at about half that rate. So is, is 600 still the right number without a float plant?
I guess what's the timing to get back up to that, to that level of production? Thanks.
Matt, hi. The answer with Mount Marion is that we operate out of different pits there. We cycle through those pits. We've had the benefit of working for some time now out of the central pits, which have higher grade, and they go through the plant, the ore goes through the plant more effectively, so the recoveries are up out of those pits. And we've used the cycling through these pits to help us manage our capital needs as well over the last 12+ months. We're now coming to the end of that central pit, and particular part of it anyway, and moving back into the northern pits, where we have higher strip and lower recoveries with more complex ore to treat. So that's why we're softer on our guidance for Mount Marion.
As you said, for Wodgina, for Wodgina, we have lower head grade, basically. You know, the guys at the site there have done an incredible job. I just want to call out, they've taken recoveries up to 70% on average for the quarter. Done an incredible job through a whole range of initiatives. But again, this half, we're expecting it to be a little bit softer because of the head grade.
Okay. Thanks, Mark. I understand. And then secondly, on Onslow shipments, obviously flat quarter-on-quarter, running at about a 35 million ton per annum rate, annualized. But you did call out that you had some transhipper maintenance, you know, program that you implemented and also some downtime. I was wondering, what's the cycle of that maintenance program? Is that sort of a quarterly or six-monthly sort of period of downtime that you now expect going forward? And now that all of them are back online, as you say, you know, towards the end of December, are you pushing above that 35 million ton rate at the moment? Thanks.
Yeah, so the current quarter is the most challenging in terms of weather. We're seeing that this week. We've had a couple of days where we've been impacted by high swell and wind, which is what we expect. You know, we plan for that. We allow for 55 days a year for downtime in one form or another. In terms of the maintenance programs and so on, you know, one of the things we've talked about previously is getting a sixth transhipper into the fleet, which we expect to have up and running by the middle of this year.
And then the seventh transhipper early into the new financial year, which will give us cover to be able to roll through that, maintenance program and, and smooth out what is a little bit lumpy at the moment. We're regularly doing maintenance on these, on these vessels. It's just, it's par for the course. We just wanted to call it out because it had more of an impact in the quarter than, than it has previously.
Our next question comes from Paul Young, from Goldman Sachs. Paul, please go ahead after the beep.
Yep. Morning, Mark. Hope you're well. Probably more of the same, sort of question. Just on Onslow, though, just on shipments performance and just the mine's performance and tracking performance. You know, you've had a couple of weeks in January that were actually, I think, north of 35, so looks like it's performing pretty well. Do you have any comments you can share with us or info around just how your trucks are performing from speed, maintenance, and just testing the bottlenecks along from the mine to the port? Because, you know, from the site visit, it was pretty clear that, you know, the bottlenecks only sort of kicked around that sort of high thirty mark. Just some additional color on how that's all going. Thanks.
Good day, Paul. Nice to talk. Yeah, very, very happy with the way each part of that operation is performing. From the mine, you know, the strip's still low, the mine's performing well, going through the crushing well. Stockpiles are healthy at the site, at the mine end. The haulage is going very well. No constraints on speed. The road's performing well. We're getting it into the port. So it's actually all running as we would expect, and very happy. You're absolutely right that, you know, one of the things that we are focused on, laser focused on, is how do we keep squeezing every ton out of each day? We're looking at the way that we maintain each of these assets, the cycle times on that maintenance program, all those sorts of things. Today, the transhipper has remained the bottleneck.
That's why we're bringing the fifth, sorry, the sixth and seventh transhippers on later this year, as we push towards 40.
Yep, makes sense. Thanks, Mark. And then, just on costs, you know, you said you achieved $ 52 for the half, and I probably presume a lot lower for the December quarter. I know that's sort of the partly denominator, but is there anything you can call out on anything else where you're happy with the cost performance, whether it be on, you know, just diesel or any other parts of the cost, considering, you know, the risk now is actually to the downside on your unit cost guidance?
Yeah. Again, we're very, very happy with costs. I mean, I got asked about this a while ago, and I said that I felt that we had a pretty good grip on where our costs sat, and I think this quarter has shown that. We're guiding to the low end of guidance. In the second half, we're assuming slightly lower shipped tonnes, and we're also assuming yeah, some rise and fall impacts as we move into the new calendar year. But yeah, very, very happy with where the costs are across the board.
Our next question comes from Lachlan Shaw from UBS. Lachlan, please go ahead after the beep.
Yeah, morning, Mark and team. Thanks very much for the update. Two on lithium. So firstly, you know, congratulations in being able to sort of comfortably lift guidance. I wanted to ask the strong performance in the first half, is that more, just, you know, really getting on top of things from an underlying operational point of view? Or is part of that a response to market? And then I'll come back with my second question.
Good day, Lachlan. Yeah, as I said earlier, we're really squeezing hard at Wodgina on the recovery side. So we've lifted that up to average that 70%, and now we're pushing to go higher. So that's improved performance at the site. And very happy how that sets us up going forward with that asset. In terms of Mount Marion, we've had the benefit of better feed stock effectively, which has gone through the plant well. We have been able to run the third train at Wodgina opportunistically, probably more than we'd expected, which has helped provide those extra tons in the quarter. But yeah, very happy with the way each of those assets are set up.
That's great. Thanks. And then the second question was actually on Wodgina, third train. And, you know, previously you've talked to, you know, ideally or thinking about getting the stripping there in into place and perhaps, you know, sustainable three-train operations from late calendar 2026. And I think you've also kind of highlighted that you could perhaps go a little earlier, but there, there's a potential trade-off there in terms of recovery, given the quality of ore feed. You know, how's that sort of trade-off and thinking evolving at the moment? And I suppose also, you know, just in terms of the transaction, you know, POSCO coming in upon, you know, successful completion subject to regs in mid-year, how's all that piece coming together around sort of sustained three-train operations at Wodgina? Thanks.
Yeah. So we're continuing to operate that asset in partnership with Albemarle. I mean, we're operating it, but, you know, that JV is functioning very well. We're pushing to use the third train where we can, and we've factored that into our increased guidance for this half or for the balance of this year. The truth of it is, as I said, we still can't get to that clean ore until this fourth quarter. It might be a little bit earlier, but it'll be at the front end of that quarter, not into Q3, I wouldn't have thought, just because of the logistics and the shape of the ore body. So we'll keep pushing as best we can with the three trains running from time to...
the third train running from time to time. And that allows us to put the guidance where we've put it. Yeah.
Just a quick reminder of the instructions before we move on. To ask a text question, select the messaging icon. Type your question in the box towards the top of the screen and press the send button. To ask a live audio question, press the Request to Speak button at the top of the broadcast window and follow the instructions. If you are already on the audio line, you can rejoin the queue by dialing star. If you have any issues, dialing details can also be found on the homepage under Asking Audio Questions. Our next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Mitch, please go ahead. Mitch, you are live again for your second-round question. We'll just give Mitch one more second if he's still there. As we are not hearing from Mitch, we will wrap up there.
There are no further questions in the queue, and so that does conclude today's call. Please reach out to the MinRes team if you have any follow-up questions-