Thank you very much. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our half year presentation for FY 2023 results. Look, I wanna start by addressing what I think has been a bit of an issue in terms of pressure on selling of the stock. It seems a little perverse to me that a company that has had some challenges, obviously, with weather and some other things which we've noted in the presentation. We have reaffirmed our guidance for the full year. We have also been in line with the market's expectations in terms of our earnings results.
This will probably get addressed in the call, but I thought I'd hit it up front before I get through the presentation, which Richard and I will take you through, as it's causing me a little bit of agitation, so I will address the issue. Yesterday, a note was produced by one of our analysts which referred to, and I'll use the title here, Flash Note: Mount Holland , Risk of Margin Compression from Delays to the Mount Holland project. Some of the detail in there, in fact, pretty much all of the detail there is factually incorrect, apart from that we expect the project to complete in line with our presentation in early second half FY 2023.
Now what I'll refer to t he note actually refers to Richard's note, which was taken from an official presentation from Wesfarmers. For reference, if you went to page 36 of the said announcement from Wesfarmers, the following statements are made, which are not reflective in this particular note. Firstly, the construction of the mine and concentrator at Mount Holland is well advanced, which is actually a part of the project that we're working on. Secondly, key point, delays in refinery engineering have impacted costs and timing expectations for the completion of the Kwinana Refinery. To be very clear, we are not involved in any way, shape, or form in terms of the construction or delivery of the refinery. Further to that, there's a positive comment here. First production of lithium hydroxide is obviously expected later in calendar 2025.
However, the impact of delay expected partially offset by the sale of spodumene concentrate prior to commencement of the lithium hydroxide production. We are responsible for the concentrator construction and plant site construction, which obviously enables that early sale of spodumene concentrate. We expect crushing to commence in April, and the project to complete shortly thereafter. In terms of our the commentary in this particular note, I just wanted to clarify those points, and I'm sure it'll come up as a question later on. One other thing that the note did pick up, which is also a positive, again, if you looked at our group's involvement and our group performance to date. Wesfarmers also said the group was assessing options to expand capacity of the mine and concentrator.
Again, scope that we've been involved in with the client for over two years, it was one of the driving forces for our reason to acquire the Primero business was its lithium exposure as the leader in its space across lithium industry globally. Those comments are all positive comments. Anyway, I've said it. We'll probably repeat it in the Q&A, but it has been causing me some consternation, so I wanted to deal with it at the front. If we go through the details of the result, maybe go on to page three. You know, revenue was up 15% on PCP, EBITDA 7.5%, and NPAT in 3.9%. Cash balances was reduced, this was also well flagged.
It's quite typical of MET-style projects that are large EPCs that have heavy procurement components. It's that upfront payment for the procurement that's then paid. These things have unwound during this half as the projects get close to completion. Perfectly normal expectation in terms of that cash movement. There's capital, the timing of capital, particularly for Karara, again, well flagged. We said we're buying AUD 170 million worth of equipment. The timing of that was expected in the second half of 2022. It's moved into first half 2023. Those things explain the movement in our balance sheet, and there's also been some investment in inventory that Richard will cover off on that on the financial slides as well.
It's a timing piece which we expect obviously to improve as we go through the second half and into FY 2024. The dividend, and again, Richard will comment on this, is unfranked because we have no franking credits remaining. However, we are making the most of the instant asset write-off, given the purchases we've made across our capital business, particularly for these mobile assets, which is a much better outcome for shareholders in the long run. Unfortunately, yes, they are unfranked, but on a PCP basis, it's also a 9% increase. Again, a very positive note as part of the highlights of the results. Order book, better position than we were this time last year at AUD 4.9 billion, and submitted tenders at the moment moved slightly from the last report.
You know, we were unsuccessful on the lithium mining project. We won the drill and blast project for Greenbushes, but we didn't win the mining project. It went to Macmahon, which is really probably the difference in that movement. There's been other things that have come in since. A very solid pipeline of submitted tenders, which again, we'd expect newsflow in due course. And we've reaffirmed, as I said at the start, we've reaffirmed guidance despite the headwinds we've had in terms of some serious weather impacts which are not 1 in a 100 year events.
They're not over in two days. They are constant rain events. Queensland's experiencing at the moment, and it has experienced even in January as well. There it is heavy, persistent rain, not flash flooding, and it's all over in two days. That is really has been an impact on the business and obviously, we hope it goes back to normal very quickly. January was not great. I'll hand over to Richard now, and he'll take you through the earnings and balance sheet slides, and then I'll talk to you again shortly. Thank you.
Thanks, Jules. Good morning, everyone. As Jules noted, for the first half, our revenue was AUD 1.33 billion and a 15% increase on the prior comparative period. From that, we generated EBITS of AUD 80.1 million, which again was 7.5% higher than the prior period. What that really reflects is that a number of our contracts are moving into their full delivery phase. With Karara, we've fully mobilized all of our people and equipment on site, and we're seeing that delivering now in terms of us actually producing more tonnage than we're contractually obligated to. That's a trend that we expect to see continue into the remainder of the year.
Similarly, on the Broadlea contract, Bunbury Outer Ring Road, Smart Freeway, and Olive Downs projects that we're executing in Golding, they're all moving into that full delivery phase, and that's going to see us produce a good return in the second half. With respect to the two large projects that Primero has on at the moment, the Strandline project and the Covalent Lithium project, they're both nearing completion. We'll see, as they progress, we'll see the return from variations and earning revenue coming through as well on the second half. Whilst our profitability has been, you know, impacted in this first half, there are a number of factors which are gonna drive a recovery as we move forward into the rest of the year.
In terms of the impact that we have had to deal with, as Jules has noted, the weather impact in Queensland has been absolutely extraordinary. We've included some data later on in the presentation in an appendix, which shows just the in raw terms, the amount of rainfall that has affected our project areas. On a long-term basis, the rainfall that we've experienced in the last six months is nearly 80% more than the long-term average. In the month of January alone, there was 328 millimeters of rain compared to 440 odd for the prior six months. It really is quite an exceptional level of rainfall that our teams have had to deal with.
We expect, and we hope that that's going to improve as we get into the second half of the year. Talking to our people, last week, the rainfall was significantly lower, and they hadn't lost as many hours as they had done previously. Hopefully, that trend will continue through the second half. We've also noted that there was a number of new work projects that we had expected to start earlier, which were delayed by clients' FID decisions. That's basically meant we've had to carry teams longer, before they were able to mobilize to site. Indeed, the other factor that also has affected us over the period is the tender cycles, the clients are going through has also extended.
I think that's a factor of the uncertainty in the macro environment. A number of operators are talking about cost increases on their projects, and we certainly felt that through some of the extended durations that some of our tenders have gone through, such as the Finniss tender, Talison, Jules has mentioned, and there's also a couple of other infrastructure tenders that have extended their term quite significantly. We also, over this last six months, and indeed the period prior, have been investing in building capacity in Primero's operations in North America. As you would all be aware, there's a significant amount of demand that's coming forward in those markets, as particularly the United States and Canada are looking to secure their own sovereign supplies of materials.
We wanna make sure that we're ahead of the curve there. We've been investing in people and infrastructure to support those people. We're currently working on around about $30 million U.S. of studies for some quite significant opportunities, which will hopefully convert as we go forward. As Jules indicated, there were some tenders that we had lost as well over the period. Whilst it's obviously disappointing to lose a tender when the team put so much effort and work into producing a good outcome for the client, it's ultimately a by-product of us remaining very disciplined in our approach to these opportunities. We're very cautious about how we invest our capital, and we're not gonna go chasing tenders simply to boost revenue.
Particularly, some of the bigger mining projects you would all be aware of, haven't come our way. Ultimately, we're happy with the decision that we made, if not the outcome. The other thing that also is a feature in this year's, this half's results, is the Non-recurring transactions. Probably just worth touching on those. Principally, that relates to the position that we have on Gascoyne Resources. As we flagged at the AGM, I think it was just the day prior to our AGM, Gascoyne suspended its trading and operations and announced to the market that they were going to commence a recapitalization process. We understand that that process is still underway and apparently making progress, but as yet, we haven't seen anything formal from them.
We've taken a conservative view on our position on Gascoyne, and we've written off the receivables, the equity and the production royalty loan agreement that we had with them. We have entered into an agreement with Gascoyne, subject to the successful outcome of their capital raising process. We will make a recovery of an element of our receivables, probably AUD 2 million, in addition to also securing some new equity, which will allow us to partially recover the write-off that we've taken. As I say, we need to see that, we need to see that process close out. I'm just, now just gonna move forward to balance sheet and this is on page five of the presentation.
As Jules noted, in the half, our cash balance has reduced from where we were at June. You will recall at June, we had a very, very high level of cash conversion. That had to unwind as we moved into this half. It's advanced payments. It's also advanced billings that we've had on some of our projects. Particularly with Strandline and Covalent, moving forward to completion, that has unwound. What we will expect to see as we get closer to June is a recovery in cash as the receivables and final variations are collected along with completion. Covalent is probably around about 85% complete for us at the moment.
And Strandline, we are fully demobilized offsite, except for a couple of people helping with some of the production start up. Yeah, you can see that we're well on track there. In addition, we had some prepayments as well in the first half that were reversed by June. Our expectation is that cash by June will recover to the sorts of balances that we are accustomed to running in the business. The other factor for us that's been a big change over the first six months has been in relation to debt. Of course, that's really CapEx, as Jules has alluded to.
We took on about AUD 75 million of debt in this half, which was related to the investment in equipment for Karara, and also the extended Coban Creek contract. Together with about AUD 34 million of debt repayments over the period, we had a, you know, a net increase in our net debt level to AUD 172 million and corresponding an increase in the gearing percentage to about 28.5%. That's really at the top end of the range that we would normally like to be within.
We are planning that that will reduce by the time we get to the full year to something that we are more accustomed, we and you are more accustomed to seeing in the business at June. There's no significant additional CapEx planned between now and June. It'll just be regular sustaining levels of capital expenditure. Touching on cash flow on page six. You can see net cash flow from operating activities was AUD 41 million. We had, as I mentioned, the unwind in working capital over that period, which has obviously been a big driver. The non-recurring cash impact related to some of the write-offs that I mentioned.
That basically will normalize by June. CapEx, again, as I mentioned, touched on that big chunk going into Karara to support that, and we'll see the return on that coming through from the second half. Nothing major in terms of CapEx in our second half, and we would expect sustaining CapEx to be very similar in the second half. Together with debt levels returning to a normal sort of level by the second half. One final point I'll just make, just in relation to the dividends, Jules touched on that.
We will be paying an unfranked dividend of AUD 0.085 per share, if it compared to the AUD 0.055 per share we paid in the prior period. A 9% increase on a comparable franked basis. As Jules noted, we've made it an unfranked dividend because we don't have franking credits, and that really reflects the fact that we made very good use of the ATO's taxable full expensing program. As that continues into the second half and beyond, we don't expect to have to pay cash tax until late in calendar 2024, which is really the best outcome for the business and ultimately shareholders. We, we thought it was gonna be far better for shareholders to receive a higher unfranked dividend now rather than, forego the opportunity that the federal government has kindly delivered to us. Thanks, Jules.
Thanks, Richard. Moving on, probably don't need to touch too much on the segment overview. Obviously, you're aware of our delivery capability that spans everything from kind of concept to completion in terms of design, construction, operating maintenance, and everything in between. Let's move on to the next slide. The civil business, revenue increased. Obviously some key drivers on a PCP basis, mostly on some of these larger infrastructure projects, Bunbury Outer Ring Road, Smart Freeways, and also some Queensland activity, which in terms of our first half performance in Golding, it's been a lot stronger in terms of the work that we've had to the prior year. That's given us a great footing in terms of the start to the year.
Obviously we need to win and deliver further projects in the second half and building up to 2024. The issue's been obviously some weather impacts, not only impacting the mining business in Queensland, but also the civil business in Queensland, causing, you know, some of those impacts on obviously where we see our margin at the moment versus what we did PCP and even the second half of FY 2022. We are very focused on, and Richard touched on this as well, in terms of pricing projects correctly. You know, we're not here to build revenue. We're here to build improvement in our margins and deliver safely, successfully these projects for our clients.
The competitive landscape has certainly subsided in terms of, you know, the number of bidders that we're bidding against, that depends on who you're up against and their bid approach in terms of whether they need to feed the beast in a revenue sense, and they're not focused on returns. We're very disciplined in that effect and particularly given the pipeline that's coming at us, while some things have moved to the right through delays or, losses in terms of tenders we expected, the pipeline is enormous. We're very confident of securing, you know, new works, very soon that will set us up very well for FY 2024. Ensuring that we're fully capturing, you know, the current environment in terms of productivity cost, et cetera, that, we have to deliver into.
We're doing quite a lot of ECI work for our clients at the moment. You know, a lot of that again is sometimes it's paid, sometimes it's unpaid, but there's those additional big costs that we're seeing in the business at the moment. Again, as I said, the pipeline's very strong. We've got a current order book of AUD 600 million and active tenders of AUD 800 million. We're in pretty good stead for contract win in the near future. If we move on to mining. Mining increased year-on-year, that's driven by extra activity in Curragh. It's also driven by the Karara project as well, which is now sort of fully operating at the full capacity, all the fleet and people are there.
I think it was doing that sort of towards the end of the second half of last year. On a PCP basis, you know, big difference between where we were, first half last year to first half this year. That will help contribute to an improvement in margins looking forward. Some of the impact just on a PCP basis, we had Baralaba, which was a equipment rental plus maintenance style contract, which was quite a high margin mix. Then Stanmore as well, which was part of the portfolio at the time, was a higher margin contributor at that particular point in time. We do see things obviously improving from here. Weather, big factor, again, based on what we're seeing from sites at the moment, that's improving as well.
A couple of good contract wins. The drill and blast business have won some work across Queensland and obviously in Lithium as well. They've got a big, big contract award for Greenbushes Lithium. We didn't win the mining contracts, but the drill and blast contract extends the relationship there for another seven years, plus two, if we get the extension. We've been there since 2010 or 2011. We've been there for a very long time, know the area very well. Again, it's a fantastic opportunity for that part of the business. Going over the page, some of the new things that we have won, we had some equipment that we still had available on the East Coast, which is now deployed to Jellinbah.
Anything that we've owned, obviously we supplement it with rental, equipment in our mining business. Anything that we've owned is essentially deployed. We've got some spare capacity and equipment in WA, which we're in the process of bidding into, a number of opportunities and should be deployed again very soon, which will again, in turn, improve, returns for that business. We do have a very disciplined approach. You know, putting, winning an opportunity at, to Greenbushes, you know, a tier one fantastic client, long term opportunity, but it would have required a capital investment of AUD 250 million. When you look at those things, you know, we need to make sure that we are getting an appropriate return for the level of capital that we're gonna put into a project.
That's one of the key drivers around the discipline and maybe why we haven't won that project versus other things that are around. There are a lot of areas for us to be able to deploy capital to. Really we need to see, you know, better than average returns or average historical returns to justify an investment in CapEx and particularly when we've just, you know, had a pretty significant investment in the Karara opportunity as well. That's, that's our view going forward. The order book in mining in general, as you can see from that chart, is very strong and also long term. Let me go on to net.
As Richard also said, the two large EPC projects, one that I dealt with at the start in Covalent, coming to completion, Strandline's essentially finished now. We're just working through the final contractual payments and variations. It's about, you know, helping them ramp up their productivity on site. Key thing with Primero again and the MET business, we are the leader in terms of our global lithium knowledge, particularly on the concentrated side of things, design EPC. There is a huge amount of activity going on really as Richard said, across North America, Canada, and in Australia as well. Pretty much anyone who's building a project are talking to us about their projects. Recent awards, again, another positive, Pilbara Minerals.
We've worked for Pilbara Minerals as a miner, as a civil constructor, and also through Primero before we owned it. Now whilst we've owned Primero, we're also working for Pilbara Minerals. Again, opportunities are coming at us to help fill the order book and look forward to a very positive FY 2024. RCR and DIAB business is also both very busy at the moment. A lot of opportunity across mobile crushing plants, various hoppers that we've built in the past for clients. Extraordinary amount of activity at the moment. Very strong, active tender pipeline. We'd expect to see, again, news flow in the second half around our MET business going forward. Some of the things have been impacted. You know, we do work on a lot of ECI studies.
A lot of them are paid. At times, we do spend more than the amounts that clients have given us for those ECI studies. There are some additional costs in the business at the moment, but they're all going into projects that will become real projects. Again, that aids our future recovery of those additional overhead spend at this point in time. We get it through once the project's kind of been awarded and successful. That sort of caused some of that minor margin impact. I think that's kind of all I wanted to say on that slide. Active tenders, as I said, very, very positive. There's AUD 1 billion in there at the moment. News flow expected this half.
If we look at our group pipeline, it probably hasn't moved much in the last couple of periods. Very strong pipeline. A lot of opportunities coming at us from, you know, if you look out 2024, 2025, 2026 across infrastructure, across mining, across replacement iron ore, across the lithium space, it is a very broad brush of opportunities. And, you know, there are very few contractors that have the capability that we have and that we've built through our acquisitions and the growth that we have, particularly in MET as well. You know, we are the go-to partner for these clients.
For me, you know, obviously, there's a couple of projects that we've missed in civil, but there is so much activity going on, and there just aren't the contractors to be able to deliver it for these clients. I'm very, very positive about the outlook that we have going into, you know, the remainder of this half and really into FY 2024 and 2025. Order book AUD 4.9 billion, mentioned that previously. We've got revenue locked in this year at the low end of our guidance range of AUD 2.6 billion. It's either in the order book or it's in the sort of RPO repeat business or the DIAB or just thinking of the, you know, sorry, Urban. That was the thing I was thinking of, Urban.
Basically, it's essentially contracted. As we've said, we have reaffirmed guidance for this full year, and we're paying a dividend that is unfranked, but 9% better than the recovery and PCP. All in all, very positive. I won't necessarily go through the slides. I think we can just deal it in Q&A in terms of if anyone's got any comments around weather or anything else. That concludes the presentation. I'm happy to go to questions now. Thanks very much.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your question, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from William Park from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jules. Hi, Richard. Thanks for the presentation. Thanks for taking our question. Firstly, just wanted to touch on Covalent Lithium project. I can appreciate your comment around the refinery component, but will there be any minor delays to the concentrator project? That's first question. Secondly, what are some of the additional potential costs that could be incurred if there's a minor del ay?
Well, look, we don't expect a delay as you've reported in the note. Sorry, someone's coughing in the background. You know, obviously, there's a slight change in timing. It might be weeks, if anything else. What people need to remember is this project, you know, client-supplied items like the airstrip, for example, wasn't complete when it was originally expected to be complete. Then the CASA certification wasn't done for the airstrip in time. What happens is the plane goes out there, you've got low-level clouds. The plane can't land. It has to fly back to Perth, and those guys have to bus out there. Those productivity impacts can be mitigated by an acceleration directed by the client to finish on time. The consequence of that cost is not a cost to us. We've had variations for the line disruption. We've been paid them.
I think to get the context right of the style of contract is that, yes, we're responsible for delivering a project within a certain time frame, assuming the things that are in our control are being dealt with. These are client control issues. If it's principal supplied equipment because there's been global procurement delays, and shipping delays, not our issue. If it's been access to site issues, again, not our issue. Let's be clear, you know, as I said at the outset, the announcement is a positive one for us, not a negative one.
I appreciate you clarifying that. Can we sort of move on to civil? You were talking about losses on some of the tenders that you've been bidding on. Can I just talk to sort of the competitive dynamics that you've touched on? Can you sort of expand on that from pricing point? Are you seeing? I mean, you talked about you're seeing more bidders, you know, in your procurement process, but is it just the number of competitors that you're coming up against? What's the price? Or is it more on the pricing side that you're seeing some pressures from competitive standpoint?
No, there's not more bidders. You know, as I said about in the comment on Golding has probably had the best start to a new financial year for many years in terms of their order book. They were quite successful winning projects. It has historically been more competitive on the East Coast than on the West. You know, we're up really only against one or two other players on any of our bids at the moment in the West. What we're doing is being very disciplined around, you know, the real cost to those bids and making sure we price it appropriately, you know, rather than getting stuck in a fight with a client over costs and other things, because things always change on projects.
You know, we do have all of our civil projects are generally have rise up to full, well, sort of rise up to full schedule of rates style. If the quantities change, obviously we get paid for that. It's really making sure that the cost inputs, because we are the most experienced, particularly in that remote construction work, are right. We believe we're pricing right. The number of competitors, you know, we're on two large bids for a tier one recently, we've got one competitor on the bid list. If that competitor has to feed the beast or has other rationale around being the lowest price, as I've said to this particular client, you know, we're here to make a fair return for our business. You know, we're trying to improve our civil margins.
We're trying to get them to a level where it's a strong, sustainable business, but we won't take risks on aggressive pricing. If we lose a job, we lose a job. You know, I think, as I said, with the amount of work that's coming and we're bidding at the moment, it's not a real issue. It can impact timing sometimes and the, you know, it can impact the short term, but not necessarily the long term. I'm more than comfortable with the decisions that we've made there.
Thank you. Just one last one from the revenue guidance. Given that you've secured AUD 2.6 billion, which is the lower end of the guidance already, how should we sort of think about the guidance range? Would it be fair to say you're taking a more conservative approach given some of the pressures that you've mentioned on the call?
I mean, look, we have to call out the facts. I mean, it's very unusual for us. We've talked about weather and 100 and, you know, weather events in the last result. But it's a different kind of impact because it's a more, it's a longer sustained kind of impact. It's, but, you know, it's disrupting operations on a more daily basis rather than two days and then you're clear for the rest of the month. It's been that kind of impact. We have to call it out, which is what we did in the circumstance. Now, there is risk that is still there. Obviously for us to reaffirm guidance, we're comfortable enough that we can still manage the outcome that we've committed to.
Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from Nicholas Rawlinson from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jules and Richard. Thanks for taking my questions. Could you please quantify the EBITDA impact from weather in the first half and, maybe overhead separately too?
Nick, I don't think we would go into that level of detail, because it's not something that we would typically do. I think, you know, big picture, there's probably been, you know, a circa AUD 30 million-AUD 40 million revenue impact from weather across the Queensland operations. You know, some of that we'll recover through revenue shifting to the right, but some that we won't recover because it's, you know, it's mining contract volume related. You know, it's certainly not non-inconsequential. As we noted, it appears to be getting better over the last week or two. There's still a lot of water on the ground, but hopefully that will begin to dissipate now, as we move into further into the summer months.
Thanks, Richard. Just on MET and specifically the FEED studies for Primero. How many projects is that across? Is it right to assume that they're at very little or no margin?
Mid order of magnitude, the FEED study's probably is across 10-15. It's engineering work and they're all a bit different. As Jules noted, some of them are fully reimbursed, others are only a partial reimbursement, say, on an ECI. For instance, the work that we're undertaking in North America is all at standard industry engineering margins which tend to be, you know, well north of 20% standard for an engineering business. That's good for us.
It's not so much about what you make out of those studies now. It's about the opportunity and the positioning that it gains you to pick up, you know, to pick up the big money contract, as those projects progress through to FID. It's really strategic positioning. It's securing a foothold now. Hopefully not having to go to market and compete and entering into a negotiated contract with the client.
Yeah. I just would've thought that maybe those FEED studies were holding back margins in the MET division, but maybe I got that wrong.
In some of it.
Okay. Like, given they're all in lithium, or lots of them are in lithium in North America, are you expecting there'd be a very good chance that they'd get developed?
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think just to answer that, you know, the FEED studies are paid. It's some of the ECI work or the level of work we need to do versus what we might have been paid by the client. They say, "Well, you know, you're in a competitive process. We'll pay you X for the FEED, but we've spent double on it," for example. Because of the opportunity, such a good opportunity, and the way it's come about, we've ended up spending more money. You know, that's not the norm. Because i t does revolve around some pretty large opportunities. It's just, you know, one of those things. Generally, most of the FEED studies are paid.
Great. That sounds pretty exciting. Just on mining, what should we think of as a sustainable MET margin now as the contract mix has changed a bit?
Good question. Look, I think, you know, there's a number of factors driving it. As we noted, you know, we had some historically high margin contracts ending in terms of Stanmore's Isaac Plains and Boggabri. We've had new contracts commence in this period in terms of Jellinbah, and we're hitting full straps, you know, on Karara. There's quite a mix of events, you know, sort of going on there. What we're expecting to see over the second half is margins really returning to that sort of long term norm in the mining business. I think that's gonna be steady state for us. It's just that we've been dealing with a bit of flux over the past six months as the portfolio mix has changed.
Great. Just the last one from me on civil. Understanding you're hostage to your customers' decisions, but can you elaborate on the ECI work you're doing and when you're expecting awards to flow, whether that's ADU or elsewhere?
Look, new flow is this quarter probably, I would've thought.
Yeah.
On those things. I mean, some of the ECI works for 2024 and 2025. The buildup of, you know, just to use OneView, one of as an example, is their project pipeline from FY 2024 on, all of the projects that they're working through at the moment are probably 70% earthworks component versus mechanical. They're very, you know, they're in new areas. Obviously, there's replacement tunnels need to be found. There's grade needs to come through, but it's going through some pretty heavy country, so they're a lot bigger projects than we've seen for some time. They're probably not until 2024, 2025. There are a lot of things that we're working on in the meantime. As I said, with the number of competitors significantly reducing it, that's not so much the issue.
It's a matter of if one competitor does very low on price, it's you could have 10 competitors there, but if one does something stupid, and it's really making sure that the client understands, you know. The majors can... They're aware of the lack of delivery capability, acutely aware of it, and it's a matter of making sure that we then have that capacity secured for them to deliver future projects where we kinda get to name our entry fee, if you like, rather than being a competitive bid scenario.
You know, much the way that Primero's been involved with Stanmore or Covalent, and they've been involved for two and a bit years. You know, if you're involved at that point through the whole project, they can't award it to anyone else. It's very similar in the civil business, particularly in WA Resources, where, you know, we have the expertise, we have the ultimate capability, those conversations should develop in that sense.
Okay, great. That's it from me. Thanks, Jules. Thanks, Richard.
Thank you.
No worries.
Your next question comes from Jakob Cakarnis from Jarden Australia. Please go ahead.
Morning, Jules. Morning, Richard. I just wanted to speak on the labor issue, if we could. Just wondering, some of those disadvantages that you saw from having labor stood up but nowhere to deploy them due to the weather, were they tethered to particular contracts, so they were waiting around? Or was that a kind of safety stock, if you like, of labor that you were looking to deploy on new works?
Sorry, you're talking about the labor that's been impacted by the weather?
Correct. Yep.
No, I mean, they are on contracts, so generally if they can't work, they sit in the crib or they get sent home, and they're paid. You know, we don't lose them. We don't lose people through that, you know? They're not redeployable anywhere else. It's basically that whole sort of Central Queensland area has had significant impact, the guys get paid and stay. You know, they just don't go to work.
Okay, cool. Another thing that we've spoken about that you didn't really touch in this result was labor availability generally across the board. Are you seeing that improve? I know that we've seen some processing times for skilled visas maybe catch up a little bit from where we were through the back end of fiscal 2022. Do you wanna just talk about that, given the opportunity you're still seeing in the order book?
Look, I think it's no surprise that labor availability is still very tight. In certain skill sets, you know, whether it's, you know, the fitters, which have been an issue for many years, you know, mobile mechanics. I know that Seven guys called that out, and if we had 200 tomorrow, he'd put them to work. You know, for them to deliver equipment, that's necessary. For us, it's more project driven. There is still, you know, high demand for people. We have a very large, you know, following through our business in terms of the work that we do, the types of projects that we do. We generally don't have a huge issue mobilizing. If we had a large civil project at the moment, we can find the people at the moment. Yeah, certainly the visa processing, getting in offshore people has been slow, but improving.
Thanks, Jules. Just one final one for Richard. You spoke about some of the characteristics of why the cash flow might get better into the second half, which all are pretty plausible. Am I right in thinking that those improvements in cash would be used to steady out the debt balances? I mean, is there any other way, you guys would look to deploy that capital?
Obviously, the big chunk of our debt is equipment finance debt, and that's all on, you know, scheduled repayments. We wouldn't be looking to accelerate any of that. We will have, you know, a continuing balance of bank-related debt, which again, as you know, historically has been connected to some of the acquisitions. Look, we'll manage that and deploy that as we think best. I don't think there's any particular need for us to look to accelerate. Certainly none of our scheduled debt repayments and none of our bank facility debt levels either. They're all, you know, at a very comfortable level for us. You know, we'll keep ourselves very liquid, and therefore able to respond to any opportunities that come our way, Jakob.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Gavin Allen from Euroz Hartleys. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jules and Richard. Thanks very much for that. I always seem to be last on these things. I'm not sure why that is. A lot of my questions have sort of already been asked. Just thinking about Karara, clearly you've had a full half there, and that has ramped up over 2023. Should we think about that production profile as being steady or does it continue to increase over the second half of 2023? I guess that's the first one.
Secondly, you talked about AUD 1 billion worth of MET being tendered and the outcomes expected, hopefully in the next six months there. Went on, my other question, talking about civils and perhaps that's in the next quarter or so. In terms of the sort of AUD 2.3 billion you've got in mining tendering, how do we think about, you know, you know, outcomes being revealed on that tendering? Thanks, guys.
Okay. I might start with mining because I go the first question or the last question first. Mining, the larger chunkier parts are decisions probably within the next few months, but not commencing on site, given equipment lead times, for, say, 12 months thereafter.
Right.
Chunky amounts in there, but there's also some smaller opportunities which would use equipment that we have in the West as an example, which we've either deployed to large civil projects or to smaller mining projects. Those sort of things come up that would be smaller, potentially better margin opportunities but that news flow is likely to be sooner than the large end of mining. In terms of civil, some of the things that have obviously happened have been projects moving to the right, whether that's approvals, or whether that's other things that have delayed cost profile that have delayed clients' decisions. Some of that's moved to the right.
Again, we're in the midst with submitted tenders at the moment, and we expect decisions on that pretty quickly, and we'd be then mobilizing, you know, within months and seeing, you know, increased activity in the final quarter of this financial year. That's kind of a civil set. On METs, a couple of very large opportunities and a whole bunch of smaller ones. Again, timing, as we understand it, is all really over the next few months in terms of the current pipeline. It's, you know, we're seeing new opportunities every single day across that business as well, really across all the businesses.
I think your final question, sorry, your first question, Gavin, is really about Karara.
Yeah.
At Karara, you know, delivered tonnage is obviously constrained by the client's physical infrastructure and the size of their plant. When we are now, excuse me, delivering tonnage to the plant, which is pretty much at the plant's capacity. So, m ore than we're contracted to do, but the client's very happy for us to overperform at this time. That's gonna be a good contributor for us through to June and beyond.
Gotcha. Makes sense. That's all for me. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Evan Karatzas from UBS. Please go ahead.
Okay, thanks. Yeah, similar situation, a lot of my question's been asked. Maybe just a couple quick ones. That AUD 30 million-AUD 40 million of revenue that you lost due to weather in Queensland, is there any chance you could split that out between, I guess, what's work lost in mining and what's sort of been pushed to the right, if you can, please?
Not in precise detail, but I'll tell you, Evan, that, probably, you know, something like about, you know, a fifth of it would have, would be civil related that would have slipped to the right.
Okay, great. Yeah, I mean, that's helpful. Maybe just final one, I mean, you mentioned CapEx normalizing through the second half. Can you give us just a rough number what we should be expecting for the full year in FY 2023 for CapEx, please?
I think in the second half, you look at our run rate for sustaining CapEx, and you'll see something similar in the second half. We don't have any growth CapEx or material growth CapEx planned in the second half, as we've delivered into all of the operating contracts. It's really just sustaining CapEx that you'll see repeated in the second half.
Okay. Around that AUD 40 million level. Is that right?
There or thereabouts in the second half, yeah.
Okay, great. Great, great. Thanks.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Matthew Chen from Moelis Australia. Please go ahead.
Oh, thanks. Just after a bit of color in terms of the, I guess time or where the order book kind of falls in fiscal 2024 and 2025, like further out, if that's possible. Thanks.
Probably with limited exception, virtually everything that is in the order book. I guess I'll refer you to the slides first. We do provide a bar chart there for each of the segments and the key projects showing how they deliver over their remaining term out to 2024 in civil and well beyond that in mining. With the opportunities that we're tendering at the moment, the active tenders, a good chunk of those will also be multi-year opportunities, two to three year opportunities. As they land, you know, the level of visibility that we have over the future revenue is excellent, and something that, you know, is a real strength for the business.
If you looked out to those, the majority of the sort of 25, for example, would be mining related activity plus things like Broadlea, which is a multi-year civil contract. Most of multi-year civil contracts, it's really gonna be mining FY 2025 on. As Richard said, the opportunities we're bidding at the moment would be multi-year opportunities.
Great. Thanks. Just to clarify, half and half, I think the order books kind of come off a bit, I think you called out a specific contract, but I just missed it at the beginning. If you could just give a bit of color around that, please. Thanks.
The order book? No, I don't. The order book's down slightly because obviously that will be replenished with new awards. We didn't win the Talison mining contract, which would have-
Right. That's what it was. Yeah.
added another AUD 1.2 billion or something to the order book, but we weren't successful in winning it. Obviously, you know, we don't control the news flow. At the end of the day, you know that we're bidding AUD 4.1 billion worth of actually submitted tenders. If those decisions are made, you know, that obviously then improves our order book as soon as we're able to announce we're successful, if we are successful on those opportunities.
Great. Thanks.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Pemberton for closing remarks.
Okay. Thanks very much for your time, everybody, and look forward to seeing you all on the roadshow rounds in coming weeks. Thanks very much.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.