Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Pantoro Gold quarterly webinar update. Today's webinar will be presented by Pantoro Gold Managing Director Paul Cmrlec, who will provide an update on operations at the Norseman Gold Project following the release of the company's June 2025 quarterly activities report. Please feel free to submit your questions throughout today's webinar using the Q&A function located at the bottom of your screen. At the end of Paul's presentation, time permitting, he will address as many of your questions as possible, and where appropriate, we will group questions together. Before we get things started, I would like to remind you that today's webinar is being recorded. Paul, over to you.
Thanks very much, Sam, and thank you to everyone for getting online to see this webinar presentation this morning. The June 2025 quarter has been a really successful one for Pantoro . 25,500 oz produced is the best production result since we reestablished mining operations at Norseman at the end of 2022 and where we expect to set the baseline going forward for the next year. The all-in sustaining cost, I think, is a very impressive result at sub $2,000 per ounce. I think that puts us among the most profitable miners on a dollar per ounce basis. We expect to see that sort of cost base sitting as we move forward with the production levels that we're seeing from the mine now. The EBITDA result was fantastic at $80 million for the quarter. That puts us up at just under $200 million for the financial year.
The cash and gold increase once again, over $40 million produced to leave our cash and gold at over $175 million at the end of the year. Importantly, with no debt, so that debt was paid out through the period as well. On the safety and community side of things, first of all, very pleased to see the concentrated effort on site to reduce the frequency rate of incidents. We've seen no LTIs during the period, and we've seen a good downward trend on both the LTI FR and the TR and the TRIFA. We've continued to be very involved with the community, as you can see on the page now. We continue to put a lot of effort into supporting education, particularly around the local people, and also supporting the Naju traditional owners. In terms of the operational summary, I think there's some great highlights there.
We've ticked a few of them already with that first page, but I think we've said for a long time on the all-in sustaining costs that we're expected to be below $2,000 an ounce as we hit that 100,000 oz run rate. I think there's very few other producers that can talk to that sort of level of profitability at the production levels that we're talking. It's a great result, and I think testament to our team on site in controlling the costs as they have escalated across the industry in recent times and maintaining it in a very competitive position. We've continued to ramp up the exploration over the period. You can see once again this quarter, $11.6 million spent. That's the largest quarter for the year.
We expect to see that spend continuing on as we move forward, all focused on that ramp up to aiming to achieve 200,000 oz of gold per annum by FY 2028. The scope for underground mine has really driven the result, as we said, that it would in moving forward. As that production has ramped up and replaced the low-grade stockpile feed in the mill, we've seen that production and therefore profitability ramp up. The open pit mining we expect in this current quarter and the quarter after that to be a real cash generator as well as we move into the productivity phase of the Princess Royal open pit mining center. Finally, on the processing plant, we flagged last quarter that we had a full mill reline during June that was completed successfully over 12 shifts.
I think you can see from the tonnes processed there, it had a minimal effect on the throughput for the quarter. Pleasingly, you've seen the recovery really rise as the grade's risen. That 95.8% recovery has been a fantastic result. In terms of the cash flow, very much driven by the operation. We have had a slight reduction in our total cash of $3.8 million as a result of closing out the Nebari debt facilities early. Upon closing those facilities out, Nebari has exercised a number of the options that they have on the back of their convertible note facility that we were operating with. We've seen some of that cash come back, and we'd expect to see the remainder come back over the coming periods. The Scotia mine, I think, is now showing itself as a great success.
As the available development phases have increased, the development has continued to step up. You can see that we did 2,300 m of development in the last quarter compared to 1,800 m in the previous quarter. We also rehabilitated just over 500 m of this historic decline, which is shown in blue there. The ore volumes have met what we expected for this quarter, and importantly, so has the grade. You can see that the stoking grade at just over 4 grams per tonne is well and truly in line with what we expect from the model in the areas that we're mining currently. Drillings continue throughout the quarter down towards the lower part of the south and central mining plan there. We would expect to see sufficient results to make a meaningful ASX release within the coming month. That drilling is ongoing.
We're continuing to see good visual results from there. You'll see in our quarterly report today, there's a number of holes outstanding for assay, and when they come out, you will see a whole lot of additional results coming from Scotia. The OK underground mine continues on in its steady state fashion, producing just over 10,000 oz during the quarter. Saw it up around that 40,000 oz for the year, and that's where we expect it to be moving forward for the coming year. You can see that the mine depth is still moderate. The base of the decline is around the 640 m level, which is essentially the distance below surface as well. Once again, we're continuing to drill with the drill rig non-stop, both at the base of Star of Erin and below the 600 m level.
We put one release out last quarter with a large number of results in there. Again, we expect to get another update out in the near term as additional results come to hand. Open pit mining has progressed very well. If you remember the previous quarterly update, this picture was essentially a clean paddock of ground with some very minor works having commenced. You can see that we've made some great progress in the pit so far. Pleasingly, the tons and grade that we have recovered from those very early stages have been up compared to the model. There are some historic voids in the area, and we're very conservative around modeling those originally. That's, I think, bearing some fruit now. We produced a small amount during the quarter. We processed only 8,500 tons of that.
We closed the quarter with over 20,000 tons in stockpile, and that stockpile is continuing to grow most days now as we continue on with that mining. The Desdemona Open Pit, which is just off of the picture to the right, has now been cleared and grade controlled. That mining will start very shortly, and we'll have the two pits operating through until the end of this calendar year, where we'll then switch over to Gladstone Everlasting. Those open pits will be a continuing sort of feature of the operation from here moving forward. The Bullen Underground Mine rehabilitation for drilling in the main field continues to progress very well as well. We are now doing a blend of rehabilitation and development. We've completed the development for the first drilling platform into the crown reef. That drilling will be full steam ahead through the majority of this quarter.
During the last quarter, we did drill in the Esperano and Norseman reefs. We have some results pending there. Our grade control drilling has been prioritized through the lab while we're setting up. In terms of exploration drilling, the Pasco's Crosslink, which you can see on the lower part here, unfortunately, the P's been cut off on that. On the diagram that you see there has been the real focus for the main field surface results. We've previously released some great results from the Marrow Role reef, as well as these northwest structures that were discovered. Pasco's Crosslink is looking very promising. We're quite bullish about it because it has some great analogues to the Bullen Underground Mine, which was only discovered in the early 1980s. When mined from the mid-1980s through to the early 2000s, it produced half a million ounces of gold at 10 grams a ton.
This is a cross-linking structure very similar to what we see at Bullen, and it's trending from the Marrow Role reef, which is one of the major reefs historically, towards the OK Underground Mine. In fact, the closest hits that we have in terms of drilling to the OK Mine is about 400 m away now. It's shaping up as a real opportunity to access Pasco's and the remainder of this southern main field from the OK Mine, and to be able to do that with a really strong ore body supporting it. In terms of other surface drilling at Scotia, we identified early on our first level actually ended up extending over 100 m beyond where the plan was and showed that depth some great potential. We've started drilling on surface.
If you refer to our quarterly report today, we have shown some core with the holes that are upcoming and some of the holes that we've drilled so far. Again, quite positive about Scotia, not only the depth extensions in the south that we've talked about a lot, but also the potential to further extend it to the south. The last dot point there as well is that we'll have drilling in the Green Lantern deposit during this current quarter. Green Lantern was a low-grade open pit. It basically performed exactly how we expected it to with a number of narrower ore bodies being mined across that open pit. From an underground perspective, there's several higher grade lodes that we think will be suitable for underground mining.
That drilling will start as well, and there's potential there to be able to extend the size of the Scotia Mining Centre, which is shaping up to be very large as it stands. The Scotia Underground itself is currently about a kilometer of strike, and there's real potential for that to double if we can head across to Green Lantern as well. In terms of our guidance for 2026, we've guided 100,000 oz- 110,000 oz of gold at between $1,950 and $2,250 an ounce. That is precisely where we have guided over a fairly long period of time that we expected FY 2025 and FY 2026 to be about around the run rates that we're at now, with that ramp-up starting with additional mines in 2027 and 2028.
I think there are some good opportunities for upside to that production range, particularly if we are able to bring the main field on ahead of schedule. If we can get some expansion in Scotia, we will obviously report on that as the year progresses. For now, we're happy that that 100,000 oz- 110,000 oz ticks the boxes for the long-term plan that we've had in place for about a year now. We'll have a really aggressive exploration program continuing, and it's all focused or most of it's focused on expansion to that 200,000 ounces per annum. Our exploration expenditure for the coming year, we expect to be $55 million. About $14 million of that is rehabilitation and development, both in Bullen and also at Scotia and OK, where there's some development going in solely for exploration purposes to get that expansion.
Most of that focus will be in the main field in the Scotia and OK areas. However, I think a really important feature of our work program moving forward is that for the first time in 30 years, we are kicking off a regional exploration program. It will be focused on the Salt Lake areas initially, with a lot of air core drilling planned, geophysical surveys planned. We'll also have additional on-land early phase exploration moving forward. It's not a huge part of the expenditure for that exploration, but I think really, really important that Norseman has been recognized as having huge regional potential for a long time.
I think it's the last of those mature camp-scale gold operations in Western Australia that hasn't had a big exploration focus over the last three decades, where most of those other areas have seen some really big growth from the exploration that is typically being put into these operations in today's sort of time. Really excited about moving that forward. I think that Norseman's got as much potential as any field to generate some really big discoveries over the next couple of years. Finally, the major project capital that's planned there, the bulk of that is for expansion of open pits and undergrounds and new open pits. We do have other capital works planned, which include getting our core infrastructure in place to handle that really substantial growth as we move forward. In summary, I don't have this point on the page, but something that I should talk about.
I referred to the assays pending on a number of our deposits earlier. You'll note in our quarterly report that we have gone ahead and installed a photon assay facility on site that's currently in the commissioning phase. By the end of this quarter, we expect to be wholly self-sufficient with all of our assay and being able to do all of that on site. We should see a much faster turnaround on all of the exploration work and the production sampling that we're doing moving forward. I think we're in a fantastic position now. To be debt-free and to have just under $200 million of cash, I think is an enviable position that most companies would love to be in. We're essentially unhedged. We have 1,000 ounces a month remaining through until the end of this year on those call options.
They were part of the zero cost collars that will run out over this year. Outside of that, we're seeing this high gold price applicable to most of our production. I think it's a really exciting year coming up with not only that production continuing to increase, and you've seen from this quarter that we should see some really, really strong cash flow on the back of that as well. With that $55 million exploration program, we expect to see some great, great results from that that should make investors happy. That's what I had for today, Sam. Very happy to answer any questions.
Sure. Thanks, Paul. The first one says, "Congratulations on getting to the $100,000 run rate. Could you talk a little bit more about your aim of $200,000? Did you say FY 2028 for that ambition?
Yeah. I'll just flip to a slide in the appendices here. This is the plan that we put out in September last year. It's unchanged. You can see here that we have long had the plan to reduce the open pit feed material as we move forward. Those are the sort of grey colors and increase those with additional underground mines. I guess there's a couple of links to that increase. First of all, additional material coming from Scotia underground. I think you'll see some really solid growth on Scotia in this current FY compared to FY 2025. You can see in FY 2027, we expect to continue to see that growth. That's really the result of having multiple production areas available. You'll also see from FY 2027, we expect to be kicking off additional underground mining in the main field.
We've sort of covered the surface areas and the underground areas through this presentation. We will be aiming from the Bullen decline to switch on at least one additional decline. The reason I say at least one is this crown reef you're looking at in the long section here is 2.5 km long. All the areas in gold, you can see that have been developed. There's good high-grade results existing, very similar to the high-grade results if you take in the upper areas if you take away the stope grades from here. 2.5 km of strike, you're talking at about at least three declines if we can probe all of that strike width. At least one to start with, but you can see more coming from there. That surface butterfly area still in the main field, we'll be aiming to get an additional development there.
Basically, focusing on this Pasco's Crosslink, Marrow Rowa, northwest structure area moving forward. The reality is that we think we're in a position to make a call on those sort of late this year to get that development moving in FY 2027 and to be up at the run rate in FY 2028. It's all focused around reducing that open pit feed, increasing the underground feed, and therefore increasing the grade as we move forward. I think it's a very realistic target that doesn't require any major infrastructure upgrades.
Thanks, Paul. The next one regards the photon assay facility that you referenced in your last slide. Can you please provide further details on the photon assay facility? The decision behind installation, will it be owned and operated by Pantoro , and do you foresee using 100% capacity?
Okay. There are a few questions there. First of all, 100% capacity, yes. In fact, that unit covers all of our requirements on a single-shift basis. We've got the capacity to double the assay from where we are. We have done it under an agreement with a laboratory operator, an established operator that's got all of their reporting systems in place, which I think is really important to keep that independence from a JORC reporting point of view. In terms of the ownership, it's not actually possible to own those machines. You can lease the machines under agreement. We've elected to do that via a laboratory operator to maintain that independence.
Thanks, Paul. The next one regards production guidance. Were you insinuating in the FY 2026 guidance slide that there is upside beyond 200,000 oz?
Certainly not for the FY 2026. The guidance for FY 2026 is 100,000 oz- 110,000 oz. There is potential upside on that. It really revolves around when we kick off additional mining in the main field. There are opportunities that we think can be converted fairly quickly. There is potential upside there, but people should be planning for that sort of 100,000 oz- 110,000 oz. If you refer to the various presentations that we've put out for conferences and other upgrades over the last few months, you'll see the tables that we've put in there in terms of what different grades do for the overall production rate with the plant as it stands, or if we pick it up to that sort of 1.4 million tonnes per annum, which we can do very easily.
There is some good upside to that 200,000 oz if and when we have the additional underground feed rolling into that plant to keep it full.
With regards to the Scotia underground, it's good to see the ramp-up to 40,000 tons per month. Is this level sustainable for all of FY 2026? Do you expect it to exit at 50,000 tons per month as per previous guidance?
Yeah. Previous guidance has actually been that we'll do 450,000 tons per annum. I'm not sure what previous guidance is being referred to there. I can say that in this new financial year, we have just over 500,000 tons of ore in that plan. Yes, that's sort of between 40,000 oz and 50,000 oz per month is where our plan for this year sits.
Given the strength of the balance sheet and an expectation of strong free cash flow again in FY 2026, what are your thoughts on capital management? How much cash is enough, and at what point would you consider the balance sheet to become "lazy"?
Look, we've obviously spent a bit of time talking about this as a board. I think we're all comfortable that we want to be well into the $200 million range, you know, around those mid-$200 millions or better before we're looking at distributing that cash. That's really just to ensure that all of these additional underground mines that we expect to start up, that we are fully covered and do not need to go back to the market under any circumstances. Beyond that, we've talked in the last update about the potential for both buybacks and potentially dividends once all of our usable tax losses have been realized. At this stage, the end of this financial year is where we'd expect to see those tax losses exhausted. I guess it's moving a little bit just depending on where the results land over the next few quarters.
It's certainly at front of mind to meet shareholders' expectations with deployment of some of that capital.
Could you please provide a breakdown of open pit versus underground development spend in FY 2026 guidance?
Yeah. Look, in terms of, I think you're talking about the major capital there, about $40 million of that is ongoing major infrastructure and expansions in the Scotia underground. There's roughly, I think it's about $12 million in the open pit capital, and that's really around getting Gladstone up and rolling. The Princess Royal Pits have seen all of that capital now. The remainder is some of that upgrade work that we've talked about during the presentation.
Given the additional detail slash commentary on 200,000 oz target, can you provide broad commentary on FY 2027, FY 2028 CapEx? Should we expect continued capital spend in line with FY 2026 guidance?
I think that's a reasonable assumption at this stage. Obviously, as you've just seen in the description there, we're looking at at least two additional underground declines being started from effectively a zero base, if you like. I think there's a real ability there on that crown reef to have more than two declines. We'll manage the spend so that we remain strongly cash flow positive. Obviously, if that ongoing expenditure assists in meeting our ambitions earlier, we will continue it. I think it's fair to assume that.
Following question in regards to the mill, are there any plans to increase the capacity of the mill?
I think we've laid out for a long time now that the mill is sitting at 1.2 million tons per annum from an original sort of nameplate of 1 million tons per annum. We've done that initial sort of upgrade, and we've maintained that for over a year now. In terms of going forward, we've made pretty clear that we can do upgrades up to between 1.4 million and 1.5 million tons per annum very cheaply. There's a requirement to change some of the major pumps, in particular the tailings pumps, but also the mill discharge pumps, and some other minor upgrades that are in the range of $2 million to get that expansion. We are ready to do that at any time. In fact, we have the larger tailings pumps already, and they'll be operational in the first half of this year.
Our intention really is to remain at this run rate until we have that additional capacity to be filled with the underground material, which has much higher margins than the lower grade open pits. We're not proposing to accelerate the open pits. We see them staying at the sort of reduced rates, as you see on this slide. As that additional underground feed becomes available, the processing plant will be pushed to its maximum capacity to maximize that profitability.
Thanks, Paul. Probably time for one more. Is there a focus on converting current inferred resources into indicated?
Yeah. Look, certainly around the existing Scotia and OK mines. You'll see from that release that we put out last quarter, there's quite a bit of drilling going on outside of the indicated line on the long section that we put out. Yes, that's all sort of there to be converted. Obviously, in the main field, we're going into that crown reef now where there's quite a bit of inferred material. There's also a lot of that material that's not in there yet, and that's really focused on stepping up. All of our, not all of our, the majority of our work at the moment, as has been the case since we restarted Norseman, is on adding reserves to the plan so that we can increase that ramp-up. Again, it's really important to understand that we need to do it in an ordered fashion.
We've got a huge amount of prospects on this land tenure that's 70 km from north to south. It's important that we prioritize the areas. We're prioritizing the main field at the moment before we step onto the next ones and get that conversion and the mine plan in place for those additional areas. Post the main field, we expect to go to Princess Royal as an example where, again, there's quite a bit of high-grade inferred material. That'll be a conversion and the third leg, I guess, for increases in production once the main field's up and running. Those programs are constantly just looking at increasing the availability of the ounces for the mine plan.
Thanks, Paul. I'll hand back to you for any closing comments before you wrap up today's session.
Thanks very much, Sam. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in and listening to the presentation today. I think the company's in a fantastic position now. Obviously, we've been in a real development phase for a long period of time and probably took quite a bit of criticism early on as operations ramped up. As you're seeing across the industry now, the majority of the developers are having very similar times to what we had in going through it. It is really pleasing to be on the other side of that and to be generating some great cash flow while we're also delivering growth. Thank you very much and look forward to updating again on next.