For questions, this webinar is also being recorded. We will be able to send the video out later to those that have registered and those that are new subscribers. Now, without further ado, I'll hand it over to Simon to discuss the report and provide some color on Metro Mining's operations and outlook. Over to you.
Thanks, thanks, Kylie. Hello, everybody. Thanks for spending the time to join us today. As Kylie said, we published our half-yearly reports this morning, and we wanted to give this opportunity to talk through them. The results are significant because the underlying performance of this business has turned around significantly when we look at the year-on-year results. I think, you know, that's been flagged, I suppose, as part of our operational and quarterly updates. That's obviously attributable to a large extent to our expansion, which was implemented last year, and indeed, you know, a pretty good, strong market that's underpinned the first half of the year. I guess it's even more significant given that, of course, you know, we did not operate for a couple of months in this first half. To be able to post a strong underlying earnings for the half is an even more notable outcome.
I guess one of the most significant aspects of this result, and of course, you will have noticed several one-off items here, is that what these results signify is recognition that the risk profile of this company is changing and has changed significantly. You know that the reversal of the impairment and the recognition of the tax losses, this really goes to the strength of the current business, the growth in the company, and the outlook, the sustainable future potential earnings of the business. Nathan, as CFO, is the architect of the results, and I will pass this over to him to go into a bit more detail of the underlying aspects.
Excellent. Thanks for that, Simon. Hopefully, everyone can see what I've shared up on the screen there, which you would have seen accompanying our release earlier today. As Simon said, this is a pretty significant and sentinel moment in the story of Metro Mining, and one that we're very appreciative of those listening in now in real time and those who will join us in their own time watching this later. We're very appreciative of you following along to what has been a story that we continue to be extremely passionate about, and a story that's had a few chapters.
This chapter in particular is one that we're very proud of and one that we're very excited about and one that is really important, as Simon said, when we look at not only what's been a very pleasing six months of operational performance and financial performance, but also from an impairment reversal perspective and gross tax losses. These are accounting adjustments, ultimately, and these are for now, non-cash adjustments, but it's really what they signal that I think is the most critical takeaway from these adjustments. They really represent the culmination of a turnaround of the business. It's something that we've spoken about over the last few periods.
What you ultimately see here is a true change in the risk profile of the business and a change in, I suppose, confidence going forward around predictability and the sustainability of the strong performance that you're seeing in these six months about our expectations of this being the new normal for this business. What you're seeing here in terms of these reversals and the recognition of these tax losses is these are no trivial things. To go through these processes and to recognize things such as impairment reversals, there's very high watermarks to achieve to be able to seriously contemplate recognizing these types of adjustments. They don't just look at the performance of the last six months.
Really, what they're looking at is understanding the business and the structure of the business and our expectations around our ability to forecast profits and productions in a sustainable way that truly reflects an absolute paradigm shift in the risk of this business. When we're looking at these adjustments, it's really through that lens that we should be understanding and appreciating that these ultimately reflect not just the reversal of historical losses, but ultimately our confidence in the future of this business. It is very pleasing to be able to, at the half-year, deliver such strong results that have enabled us to do this. Even outside of that, like I said, these are ultimately accounting adjustments, as important as they are. What we look at in the past six months and what we're most proud of is what's been a really strong performance in the first half.
There are a couple of pretty clear headlines there in terms of record first-half shipments for H1 of 1.9 million tons. That's also been supported by a strong pricing environment that's delivered a really strong underlying EBITDA of $23 million and a significantly positive operating cash flow in this first half. As Simon mentioned, this is a six-month period that really only features three months of production. To be able to produce such a turnaround within this sort of first six months, year-on-year, is something that we're extremely pleased with. As you can imagine, it goes a long way to adjusting the risk profile of this business. We are very pleased with the six months, and also really encouraged by what this ultimately means for us going forward for the second half of the year.
This is traditionally our most productive time of the year, and we're carrying a lot of momentum into this second half of the year. There is a lot of excitement within the organization about our full-year outlook and, like I said, the momentum that we're carrying in. Very pleasing. Thanks, Simon.
Yeah, great. Thank you, Nathan. I mean, I think maybe Kylie, it might be worth going straight to questions. I guess people will have had a chance to go through the results and have a look at this sort of summary page. You know, let's give over as much time as we can to people's questions, and then we can cover them off.
Yes, not a problem. All right. For question number one, can you discuss the progress that the company has made on its ramp-up to 7 million tons per annual capacity? Are you satisfied with the growth to this point from an operational point of view?
Yeah, no, great question. Look, we implemented the expansion last year, and we saw a commissioning and then ramp-up through last year. We then took the time in the first quarter of this year to address some of those interface issues that had been pulling us up in that last half of last year. We spent a fair bit of money on particularly the barge loading facility. We spent a bit more money on Ikamba to sort of iron out some of those issues. We put a fair bit of attention on the transfers and some of the older equipment that were still part of the original flow sheet. This year's been about trying to test that, not so much the top-end capacity. I think we saw the short-term outputs pretty much last year, but how could we maintain those on a consistent basis?
Unfortunately, we had a few events occur in the latter part of Q2 of the last quarter of Q2 and just into the beginning of July around weather and particularly around an impact on our channel. That constrained our ability to actually achieve those. I think since then, we've seen really good success in the outcomes. We'll produce another production update at the beginning of next month, as we have been doing for this year. You know, just pleasingly seeing a lot more consistency in those production levels. What we can control, obviously, is that output. We're focusing a lot on the tug and barge cycle at the moment and the interface between the barge loader and the transshippers. That is where our sort of bottleneck is.
As we head into the second half of the year, as Nathan said, we're seeing already consistent operations up around that sort of 30,000 tons per day. That's exactly where you know we need to be heading for that sort of 7 million tons capacity. Yes, I am pleased. Outside of some of those external events, we're starting to see not only the throughput, but the consistency of throughput starting to come through.
All right. We also have another question coming in. At the AGM, you indicated that the board has further growth aspirations for Metro Mining. Could you comment on the outlook for Metro Mining in 2026 and what the growth strategy means for investors and shareholders?
Yeah, thank you. Yes. Look, for those people who are looking at a bit further forward, I would point you to that AGM presentation. I guess it's the one time of the year when we have a bit more than just a 15 or 20-minute slot to go through more deeply, I guess, aspects of our business and not just the operations, but the market. At the AGM, we did start to talk a bit more about sort of the medium-term growth. It starts at home. I think that's very much we see a lot more value growth potential at Bauxite Hills. That's where we're going to be starting and obviously achieving our targets for this year in terms of capacity is the foundation. What we're seeing, I think, already is that we're already seeing continuous improvement coming through in all areas of the business.
The flow sheet, we assess, I think, that our flow sheet is capable of about 8 million tons. That does include a little bit more production and operations through the first quarter in terms of output, trying to eat into that wet weather window that we've had. The other aspects include also improvements in this tug and barge cycle and indeed improvements in the mining side. All in all, we see certainly, and there's also some, I guess, some capital to operating cost opportunities for us as we go through there. High, fast return, low capital projects that will help us to continue to take us down, take us down, get our real costs down. Next year, certainly targeting increased output over this year. Indeed, also looking at targeting that target of, you know, $30 U.S. landed in the Chinese ports is what we've set ourselves as for 2026.
That's the target we set ourselves in 2022 and 2023 when we launched the expansion. We'll see proof of concept on some of those pathways in the second half of the year, and we'll be certainly intending to build on them. I guess the other aspect, though, and maybe this is sort of also where the question was coming from, is looking at a bit more now in terms of growth inorganically as well. We laid out a framework in the AGM to talk a bit about that. Brookside opportunities, there aren't that many that I think would fit, sort of would move the needle for us and also fit our risk profile. We obviously would clearly pursue any Brookside opportunities that we would want to see. I think we've also got opportunities to leverage our core competencies in other areas.
We have already started embarking, looking very deliberately and very cautiously at some of those other opportunities where we think we can deploy those core competencies, particularly around logistics and marketing, remote operations. I think those are the sorts of things that really we can deploy out of all the lessons and the skills and capabilities that we can take out of there. We have set ourselves some limits as to what that would look like, and the board is committed to keeping to those kind of limits. I think that will be a very deliberate and considered step if we make one. I would encourage people to go back and have a look at that AGM presentation to get a bit more color on that.
Wonderful. Thank you, Simon. We've got quite a few questions. I will bring those back to you, Simon, and maybe you can send some emails through to them. Thank you so much for all of your work today, guys, and letting everybody know what's happening. Thank you, Simon and Nathan. Yes, we will get those questions further. Thank you for your time, guys.
Great. Okay. Thanks, Kylie.
Great. Thank you, everybody.
Thanks, everybody.