Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for joining us here today for this first half results update for Metro Mining, which will be presented to us by the CEO, Simon Wensley, and the CFO, Nathan Quinlin, who's also joined us here. There'll be an opportunity for some questions at the end, and we look forward to delving into the good news. Simon, I'll hand it over to you.
Great. Thanks, Peter, and hello to everybody. Thanks for all of your support and your interest in Metro Mining. So we've, as you would know, we've just launched our half year results. Obviously, the physicals were quite well flagged in the quarterly results from Q1 and Q2, and of course, the first half contains a quarter in which there are zero or very low numbers of sales. So, with all that in mind, though, I'm very, very pleased with the results that we've brought back in the first half of this year.
Indeed, I think, from my point of view and from the team's point of view, we would say that the hard work that's gone in, into the market, into the business, you know, by all of our team, has paid dividends. The turnaround that we've been trying to implement is now largely complete. So the foundation for our expansion is firm and, it's ready to—we are in the process of launching that expansion. So from that perspective, a pleasing set of results in which almost every element, from revenue through to our costs in every sense, was better than in previous quarters over the last two years, previous halves, and also bodes well for the future.
This presentation is on the ASX and also on our website, so I'd encourage you to have a look at it there during and post the meeting. There's obviously a standard disclosure statement here, which I'd encourage you all to read. And firstly, we'll actually talk to the results themselves, and for this, I'll pass across to our CFO, Nathan Quinlin.
Cool. Thank you, Simon, and thanks to everyone who's joined. As Simon said, it's obviously been a really pleasing half year. For those who have had the opportunity to follow our disclosures over the past few months, you'll be well aware that it's been a very pleasing half year from a production perspective. So obviously, from a Q1 perspective, as Simon has touched on, you know, we're in wet season, so there isn't any production to speak of.
But otherwise, that three months proved to be you know a very very productive period for us as we sort of went through you know some pretty full-on remediation programs on our land infrastructure, as we started to cut into some of that maintenance deficit that we spoke about a little bit last year. And so it's pleasing to see as we moved into Q2 to see the fruits of our labor start to come through. So it's been a very pleasing quarter from a production perspective. So naturally what you're seeing is that manifesting in the financial results for the first half. Very pleasing to see from a gross margin perspective almost breaking even after three months of no production for the first three months.
I would just point out that, and it's something that we have flagged a little bit in the last couple of releases around the changing composition between our FOB and CIF pricing. Makes it a little bit difficult on an apples-for-apples basis, to compare some of the revenue and cost of sales versus sort of 12 months, 12 months post. But from a gross loss perspective, you can see, obviously a much improved position. And then from an underlying perspective, after all the finance costs and corporate costs, almost a AUD 13 million turnaround net year-on-year. So based on the Q2 production that we're seeing and the margins that we're generating, we're pleased to report that we expect to return to profitability in the second half of 2023.
What you'll see, like I mentioned, from just given the first three months with no production, it can be quite difficult to look at some of these first half results and be able to divine exactly what's happened during the quarters. And so I actually find personally that it's a little bit easier to look at these things on a quarter-by-quarter basis, which is what you've got in front of you on these graphs. So looking at, I guess, our key financial markers over the last few quarters, you know, being obviously site costs and FOB revenue and the resulting site margin. What you see there is a pleasing set of data in front of you.
From a site cost perspective, year on year, we're seeing in that Q1 around AUD 26 a ton being produced site cost, so versus 12 months ago at AUD 28 a ton. That's obviously a pleasing improvement. Like any business, we are seeing inflationary pressures on our business, particularly around labor and fuel and those elements. For the most part, you know, particularly for a young operation, you know, the best thing that we can do, particularly around escalations, some of which are more controllable than others, is really productivity measures. You know, for what is ultimately still a young operation, where there is still some really good, you know, pockets of productivity that we can focus on.
They, you know, to the extent that we can control our costs, you know, that's really where we expect to be able to, I suppose, respond to some of those inflationary pressures over the remaining part of the year. From an FOB revenue perspective, you can see a pretty dramatic increase, you know, 12 months on from where we were at. FOB revenue is obviously from a perspective of sort of revenue, gross revenue line, less the freight commitments that we have in delivering. So like I mentioned, we're producing about half FOB basis, half CIF basis at the moment, but from an apples -to -apples basis, 12 months ago, you're seeing a pretty dramatic increase there in our FOB revenue from AUD 25.5 a ton up to over AUD 40 a ton now.
There is a little bit of, there is a little bit of foreign exchange movement in that, about 10% movement. Obviously, 12 months ago, the Aussie dollar was a little bit stronger than what it is, so there is about 10% of that movement is tied up in, in foreign exchange. But what we're seeing is, versus where we're at 12 months ago, and starting to work through some of those contracts that were really crystallized at a point, at quite a low point in the market. We've now worked our way through those contracts and are starting to see the benefit of those increasing bauxite prices that Simon will no doubt touch on. From an ocean freight perspective, like I said, only about half of our production at the moment is exposed to that ocean freight.
On a like-for-like basis, we have seen a decrease from around $18.6 a wet ton 12 months ago, to $16.5 at the moment. Like we've said in a couple of previous announcements, from a freight perspective, very little, I suppose, exposure for us as a business. We look to lock those freight positions in well in advance, and I think at the moment, most of our COAs go out well in advance of 2023, out into 2024. So from a volatility perspective, we don't see this as a major area of risk for us, just given we've otherwise locked those positions away. And then what you can see is obviously the resulting site margins.
So a really pleasing site margin realized in Q2 of 2023 of $9 a ton, which is really pleasing. So that's where we're starting to see the confluence of managed costs, through greater productivity and greater economies of scale, and starting to realize some of those pricing benefits that have come through in the last 12 months. So, yeah, good sign for things ahead. Thanks, Simon.
Great. Thanks, Nathan. Yeah, I will touch on the market a little bit. I think we talk about. We keep showing this graph pretty much at every quarterly or release, and it's an important graph because it's got a lot of history in it. We can see the traded, the actual delivered prices for traded bauxite into China, so the clearing market on the coast of China, effectively. So Guinea price has risen significantly since the start of Covid. There's a lot more spot action in that market, and the Australian price has taken a bit more time, but it's continuing to rise steadily as our contracts and those of the other Australian suppliers roll over.
So, takes a bit more time for that, you know, for the pricing to flow through. But you can see, as in the previous graph, and Nathan touched on that, we are seeing prices run through and, we do have different styles of contract, linked to different things, but, you know, it's linked. This is a sort of an average or aggregate view of what's going on in the marketplace, so. And I think we'll continue to see that rolling through. The Chinese economy is still in a little bit of an uncertain space, and certainly from a construction point of view, is not as strong as people might have hoped.
But I have to say, having just come back from China, that the other aluminum areas, such as transportation, particularly EVs, batteries, you know, and indeed the, you know, the renewable energy, so solar panels, wind farms, et cetera. As you travel outside the big cities, you start to see whilst construction is weak, that you are seeing enormous amounts of development in these sort of, in these areas for the low carbon economy. So aluminum is still relatively strong compare, you know, considering the fact that construction is a little bit down on where people might have expected it to be. That's resulting in continued strength in the alumina space. And so Chinese imports of bauxite are up again.
Even though last year was a record in 2022, they're up again about 10.6% to the half year. And alumina prices, our customers' prices are rising again as aluminum demand flows through to alumina. Bauxite market prices, as you can see, are firm. You know, they're steady at the Guinea level. Australian prices are still rising, and Indonesia's bauxite ban has been confirmed, and there are no further shipments in the market from Indonesia. Domestic bauxite prices, so the Chinese bauxite prices that some of our customers also use to blend imported bauxite is also rising considerably. So again, it's a sign that demand is strong and bauxite supply is tighter than the demand.
So look, I still see an upside in this graph, which is the $20 differential between Guinea and the Australian price, which should close, continue to close, to roughly $8-$10 over the next sort of 6-12 months. So where are we in terms of the half year? We produced about 1.3 million tons in that Q2 of this year. That was even at that point, a record. We've continued that momentum through July and August, producing about another 1 million tons in the two months. The 560,000 tons produced in August was the first month of our stepping up, and that again is a record.
You can see here that, look, we're planning to target roughly 650-700 or, you know, sort of, 600-700 over the next three months, with a reflection of, I guess, increasing sort of, weather impacts in December. So look, that top line will deliver us the 5.5 million ton sales, and we will, you know, get a real sense of that in September and October. And you know, I think it reflects the incremental expansion strategy that we've put in place. So we haven't sort of waited for one, you know, big bang expansion.
So the elements of our supply chain have been expanded in sort of an order that makes sense from a capital expenditure point of view and from a practicality point of view. So, you know, right the way from, you know, right now, we're seeing that pretty much all of our mining and hauling equipment is already expanded. The existing screens that we've been relying on have been performing above expectations, so that's, you know, testament to our maintenance and upgrade strategy that we've been putting in place. The BLF is already expanded to that 7 million tons, and then from a tug and barge and transhipping perspective, that is steadily rising as well, with additional tug arriving this month, which we've chartered. There's new barges arriving.
There's one barge we've chartered in August, and another one arriving at the end of September. Transshipping perspective, you know, the floating crane has been doing pretty good tons, above, you know, at the top end of its range, and we're supplementing that now with geared vessels. So that will be our base case as we move towards the end of the year. The new transshipper will arrive at some point in Q4, and I'll update the market when we have a more firm view of the dry docking and the mobilization to Australia from China.
But certainly as we sit here with all of the work planned for the quarter, for the Q1 of next year, when we are implementing the screens and commissioning all of our equipment, we're gonna be ready at the end of March, at the 7 million ton rate for 2024. The next slide. Yeah, so just a summary, I think, and we can get on to questions. So look, you know, resource and an operating mine, so this is not a, w e're not in a greenfield perspective. We've now been operating for 5 years and have a 15+ reserve life, but with additional upside from resources. Market and customers are in place, so contracts in place for this year, 5 million tons plus 6 million for next year.
So the next couple of years already underpinned by baseload customers. We have a low risk and a low-cost business model, so it's a simple mining operation. The transshipping has now been in operation at the site for almost a year, and we're seeing the benefits of that. And, you know, we're shipping, you know, into Cape size vessels, so the only Australian operator that can do that. At 7 million tons, we project we'll be at the bottom end of the cost curve. We've got a very good local, dedicated workforce and a very high level of indigenous participation, which we're very proud of, and we've got, you know, a good management team and a board that are capable of, you know, implementing projects like this one.
So this is, you know, the right team to prosecute this expansion. Look, I think we've, you know, now have this transformational expansion underway. It's, you know, we're a few months into it, and it will steadily be put into place in time for Q2 next year. It's a highly value-accretive expansion. It's relatively low cost, it's brownfield, and the technologies we're using are not high risk in any way. Now, you know, we have all the funding plus the cash flow that we're generating from this year, so we're very secure, you know, sort of next, you know, six months from a funding perspective. So we're very, very clear that we have the, you know, the firm pathway to deliver on the expansion.
Look, that's really a summary where we're at. I, you know, probably open up to questions, Peter.
Thanks, Simon. I'm gonna kick it off. I think that this half has shown a tremendous turnaround, and you and the team obviously to be congratulated, and the share prices recovered quite well for a little dip in the last month or so. The market's happy to see that as well. But it struck me as we were walking through this presentation just now, that shareholders probably, and other people watching, should be reminded that this is not a complicated mining operation. It's not a drill and blast and a complicated flow sheet. It's really just a screening process and load high quality bauxite through a simple loading process and shipping it, and you're receiving good prices for that product now.
So, talk to us, talk to us a little bit about the process of going from the ore body that you're mining and as that's a long life on it, to the barge.
Look, this business, the business model, the operating model that we have is not that common in Australia, but it's incredibly common overseas. It's a scalable, you know, operating model where you've got a near coast or near infrastructure operating mine, close to surface resource, so very little stripping. There's no, certainly no geotechnical risk. We're using our drilling, our grade control drilling, to plan our production. We then screen and blend to meet customer specifications, but that's a relatively straightforward process. And then, you know, we're transshipping it to large vessels. So again, you know, it's a relatively well-known operating model from other parts of the world. It's very scalable. It's, you know, relatively easy to monitor.
So, and the technologies involved are all relatively well established. So, you know, from both a current operating model, but also from an expansion point of view, you know, it really does, you know, doesn't offer a great deal of risk. So look, you know, we obviously operate in North Queensland and, you know, in a place that's relatively remote, but that's really about organization, planning, logistics, in keeping the mine and our resources flowing. You know, and getting people in and out of sites and all of those things. So, you know, it's a. It is a relatively straightforward model and I think, you know, from that perspective, you know, the risk of us being able to sort of deliver on what we've talked about, you know, is relatively low.
Simon, the bauxite we're mining and sending off to China, tell us a little bit about where we fit in, in world bauxite supply and what makes your product more attractive for those customers?
So look, the bauxite that we mine is, has got a very high alumina content. So alumina is the product that gets made out of our bauxite, and so the most important aspect of our bauxite is how much alumina is in it. And we have a Roughly a 51%-52% alumina product that's mined from a very well-established bauxite province. So the Weipa Bauxite Plateau has been mined for bauxite for more than 60 years. So, not only is there a well-trodden path of mining there, but also customers have had, you know, all over the world, have had experience in processing this kind of bauxite. So, the high alumina aspect of it is absolutely critical. The second most important aspect is how close we are to the market.
So we're, you know, within just over a week's sailing from our key market. So, you know, from a logistics planning, logistics cost point of view, from a risk perspective, you know, our customers see us as a highly attractive supplier. And that goes along with, I suppose, you know, the Australian context of a very large, well-established, predictable mineral producer and exporter, which has been going on for decades. So not just obviously bauxite, but coal and iron ore and all of those other things. So, you know, it's a well-known and low risk environment.
From our point of view as Metro, we try to differentiate ourselves in terms of, you know, our customer service contract, our contract flexibility, our contract structure, the fact that we are able to deliver in very large vessels, which is sort of unique for bauxite out of Australia. And also, you know, our customer service, technical service, very good local technical team in China that helps our customers optimize the products that they, you know, we're often blended with other bauxites, and that takes a bit of knowledge and technique to do so, and we provide that through our team in China. So look, it's a varied sort of proposition and, you know, we're increasingly seeing a lot more interest and demand for our product.
As I said, having just been in China quite recently, there's a lot of interest in contracting out past our current sort of contract length, which goes into 2025, 2026, 2027.
I'm mute. I was muted. On that, Simon, is there. We're commencing the ramp up quite successfully, and plans are in place and infrastructure seems to be coping smoothly with that. Is there capacity to increase that production beyond 7 million tons into the future?
Well, in August, we saw about 100,000 ton step up from the previous month's sort of averages. So that was pleasing to see. We should see a similar kind of step up again in September. That'll take us into that zone where we're producing at that, sort of roughly around that sort of 6 million ton rate. The 7 million ton rate won't be possible until we've got all of the new screens and the second transhipper is commissioned, but we'll be ready to do that. We are already looking at whether we can get beyond seven. I think the market is certainly there, Peter, in terms of demand.
That, that's very clear to me, and so we're looking at that at the moment, and certainly, I'd say, look, incremental mining equipment, so a few more trucks and trailers, required. And indeed, I think the biggest bottleneck is probably the barge sizes. So we're gonna look at whether we can increase our average barge size, which is currently around 7,000 tons per barge. We're gonna, we're exploring the design of, tailored barges for our system of, you know, 10,000 tons. That'll give us about a, you know, so 40% uplift on each barge going out of the river, so no need for any further tugs or, and our transshippers can certainly do that kind of tonnage.
So, you know, I think there is a bit of stretch beyond seven. We have a mining license approval up to 10, but we're certainly already. You know, but let's implement this six to seven first and.
Yeah.
But we, you know, our engineers are already turning their attention to a bit of creep above that.
Yeah, that was a question from an impatient, but happy shareholder. Still staying on the supply-demand story, what do you see happening globally in terms of greenfields, brownfield sites coming on, expanded capacity? And do you see new players coming to the market? For instance, you know, India's a bit ramping up their industry. Do you see new market participants coming in?
Well, let me address the bauxite supply side first. So look, there are existing bauxite suppliers in the market. They tend to be in the Atlantic basin, so they are already challenged by distance, the tyranny of distance, and therefore shipping time and shipping cost. So Brazil and Jamaica, for example, are marginal, potential marginal suppliers into this market, but they require very high prices to even be competitive here. So if the prices are at that level, then I'm not gonna be. And that encourages the very high tail of a cost curve to enter the market, then then I'm not gonna be too disappointed because it's a sign that market prices are continuing to be very high.
More locally, Malaysia and Vietnam have small bauxite resources that can come to market, but again, tend to be in small vessels and again, at the margin. So, you know, there's not a lot of additional supply other than out of West Africa and out of Australia that I think can really supply this kind of expansion that we're seeing. In terms of alumina demand, obviously, about 90% of the traded bauxite in the Asia Pacific goes into China. Middle East has a growing alumina refining industry. There's one large refinery there, which will probably get duplicated. India is also a growing market.
I think they are proceeding with first must come power generation, so they're investing heavily in power generation at the moment. Then comes aluminum smelting, and they will backward integrate into alumina refining. They do have some bauxite resources, but they're not particularly large or particularly high quality. So, you know, we do see, I think, more, less so in the next two to three years, but maybe in the five plus year timeframe, we see India as a very prospective customer for our bauxite.
There's a question here about bauxite pricing, and I think it refers to the chart you had there. What do you see as the reason for the AUD 20 differential in LT and HT bauxite, when historically the difference has been around 10?
Yeah, no, it's a great, it's a really great question. Look, I think it's mainly to do with the contract structures that exist. I touched on the fact that Guinea has a much larger sort of spot pricing structure. So the tightness in the market much more quickly reflects into the price, and so you see individual cargoes setting that pricing, that marginal pricing structure. In Australia, the major suppliers tend to be much more fully contracted, and so the rollover that occurs, that could be quarterly or half or even 12-month contracts, and we have had and continue to have some of those contracts in our portfolio. So there's a much slower rollover, if you like, of aggregate pricing in those contracts to.
So as you see pricing, demand and supply result in tightness and pricing go up, it's a smaller proportion of the aggregate shipments that end up getting affected. So over time, it will reflect, and you will see that gap closing. But it will take still more, you know, a few more months to get there as these sort of annual and semi-annual sort of type contracts roll over and those prices get a chance to be reset to a much more value in use representative level.
The wet season on site, how wet is too wet to load? And do you have a specific cut-off date, or will you sort of played by ear, so to speak, as to how much you can load with the changing weather conditions?
Look, in general, it's not the rain that completely stops us, it slows us down. It tends to be more the prevailing wind and wave conditions that make it effectively unsafe to operate the transhipping. And so the rain, what we're doing with the newer trucks and trailers, plus the screens, the wobbler screen we're putting in, makes us sort of more resilient. So we'll see less productivity decline with wet weather going forward from 2024. And it, we really mind the conditions, so it's, you know, if we can mine further, we will mine further into the season.
But it's really when we see the trade winds sort of swap around and we see the monsoon troughs in the northern, you know, Indonesian equator region starting to drive waves from the north and northwest. And that creates wave conditions that at the moment, you know, make it difficult to do the transhipping operations. You know, the new transhipper, the offshore floating terminal, has operated in monsoon conditions more often, and so we know it does have a greater resilience to waves, but it will still have a-there'll still be an upward cutoff. So look, in general, we work with all of our contractors and all of our teams on site to try to maximize the amount of time that we spend operating.
But it has to be safe, and it has to be, you know, sort of, cost-effective, if you like, for us to, to be able to do that. So that, that, that balance is always, is always in our mind. But look, in general, over the next few years, we're certainly looking to reduce the impact of that, of that wet season by investing in these technologies that have more resilience, et cetera, et cetera. But again, you know, to emphasize, it needs to be safe and it needs to be cost-effective.
We're getting there. Just a couple more here to round off. Labor has remained tight across the industry. Simon, can you provide an update on how Metro is coping with the employment situation, and if you're comfortable with the expansion plans and your labor market?
Yeah, good question. Yes, it is tight, and it's tight, you know, generally across what you might call, you know, the mining sector skills. You know, highly skilled equipment operators and plant fitters and these sorts of things. So look, we've put in place. You know, we're a smaller company. We've got one mine site. It does allow us to be a bit more agile and a bit more responsive, so we've tried very hard to be that, to be agile and responsive. We've changed hourly rates. We've also put in bonus schemes in place, and we've also, you know, tried to reflect on, I suppose, the available workforce, that we have a very attractive place to work. It's a small mine site.
Everybody knows each other. It's a good culture. We're driving change and productivity. It's, you know, it's a good feeling. It's a good place to work, and, we're trying to get that, that message out there. So that helps retention and also gains, you know, we gain employees a lot, a lot from the word of mouth, from other employees who, who talk about working at Metro. So our turnover's been relatively low. We've been sort of, below 10%, which is, you know, pretty low for a, a FIFO operation in the mining space, and that, that's, you know, we're, we're keeping up with that.
From an expansion point of view, pretty much all of the workforce we need to run the expansion, other than the crew for the new floating terminal, other than that, we pretty much have all, everybody that we need now on site. So we have the equipment there, that we're running already, and so the crews are pretty much at full capacity. So we're not going through a big push for, you know, for those particular roles. But obviously there's a new transhipper to staff when she arrives later this year.
Just a couple more to round us out. What was your monthly run rate at the end of August, in terms of production?
Yeah, we're getting close. Well, so our monthly run rate was, so we hit 560,000 tons, I think, Nathan, in August, and we're steadily—that was steadily rising through August, in terms of run rate. And, you know, we're expecting to hit, you know, the 6 million-ton run rate, if you like, annualized run rate in September. So we're seeing, you know, for example, we just did, I think, a 25,500 ton day yesterday, so that's again indicative of a 6+ million ton sort of run rate. So we're steadily seeing, you know, as we put—we're pushing the envelope in all parts of the supply chain, right the way through to the vessels. We're starting to see that 6 million ton rate coming through on more and more days.
The last question is sort of two parts. What are your plans for the balance sheet now that you're returning to profitability, and when does the dividend policy kick in?
Well, look, plans for the balance sheet, obviously, we need to get through, the expansion will be in place. Obviously, we've got to get through this next wet season. There's still more capital to spend on the wobbler and on the dry docking of the floating terminal, its commissioning and so on, and the installation of the screens. We've got that cash in hand, you know, ready to spend, so we'll do that over the coming wet season, and then we'll start next year at that 7 million tonne rate.
You know, we need to then build up cash, and our intention is to start paying down debt around the middle of next year, and so we'll fairly rapidly start to pay down debt over the following sort of 18-24 months. So the dividend policy, I guess if things go swimmingly well, we might consider that next year, but I doubt it. But look, it all depends on the cash flow generation next year.
Perfect, Simon. I think that's, we've answered pretty much all the questions there, and, if anybody has any further questions they'd like answered, please send them through to me. Simon will get them, and he's looking forward to making sure everybody has their questions answered. I think we can safely say it was a great result well described and explained today. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Nathan, and thank you to everybody who joined in. There will be a recording available at the YouTube site and the website as well for Metro Mining. Thanks, gentlemen.