Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Bryan Quinn, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hello, and thank you all for joining us to hear about Aurelia Metals' results for the financial year 2024 . I'm joined today for this presentation by Martin Cummings, who's the CFO, Andrew Graham, the Chief Development Technical Officer, and our newly appointed Regional General Manager for the Cobar region, Angus Wyllie. Before I start on the first set of slides, I just want to highlight, we will be using the presentation release today as our talking points, and we'll refer to the slides as we progress through the topics. Some of the key highlights for FY 2024 are provided in slide 3. The company provided a solid performance this year, both operationally and financially, with good advance on our growth projects and sort of great exploration results setting up for our future.
The operations delivered above budget tonnages at both Peak Mines and Dargues, and cost per ton were also better than our budgets. These two value drivers assisted our company deliver guidance on an all-in sustaining basis and also on a gold equivalent basis for the various commodities we have. What this delivered finally was an uplift in underlying EBITDA of about 45% and AUD 81 million. We also had a 190% improvement in cash flow from operating activities and ultimately a very strong balance sheet of AUD 116.5 million at the end of FY 2024, and approximately AUD 152 million liquidity in total available. It's actually great when our operating cash flows can fund our growth projects and exploration projects, and we have no debt to repay.
Some standard items supporting this was very strong development performance at Peak, which started FY 2024 with very little lead time in front of the stopes, and ended the year with several months of lead time and continuing options also. Mining costs per ton reduced quarter by quarter, which has been a key to really unlock FY 2025 performance going forward, and also helps to look at how we can unlock our future reserves. Our growth project Federation recommenced in August 2023, one month post the board approval. This was an amazing cold start for a project to build a mine, given significant headwinds and rainfall and water delays throughout the year, and we still remain on track for first stope ore in Q1 FY 2025. Ramp up will progress through FY 2025 and deliver commercial production in July 2025.
Trucking will commence once we have sufficient ore to move to Peak for our batch sample. Lastly, our exploration results continue to deliver some impressive results, which I'll ask Andrew to talk to in a few minutes. I'll continue to reinforce the message, though, that we are really working in a highly prospective geological footprint in the Cobar region. What limits us is really our drilling. We have good access with all the landowners we're engaging with, and we really have a great future in terms of what's in front of us for base metals. Just to move to slide four, before I move into details of the results, I'm keen to highlight our performance for FY 2024.
We actually delivered a 92% increase in share price, which is a significant turnaround for our shareholders. As mentioned, we've started FY 2025 with a solid balance sheet and a budgeting process to really enable our growth going forward. This all supports our vision to be a developer and operator of choice for base metals that power the future. We really are in a good position to move forward as a company, based on the performance, as you can see from this sheet, and the numbers on the balance sheet. I'll just turn to slide five.
On a sustainability front, over the last twelve months, we had too many recordable injuries for our employees and contracting partners, and although they were slips, trips, and cuts to hands, we really have a lot of work to do to turn this around and work with our people to really make sure that they leave home. They leave home, come to work, leave work safely and in the same condition every day. It's imperative for us, and we are committed to make that happen. On a positive side, we've made some significant improvements in our reportable environmental incidents, as you can see from the graphs on the page, and we continue to work well with our communities to support them and continue to be a good neighbor.
Actions for FY 2025, to really sort of work hard on our safety, is to improve quality field leadership, reinventing our fatal risk protocols, and frontline leadership training. Like I said, it's actually imperative our people go to home the same way they come to work every day, and it's important that we continue to help them work safely. I just want to point out the photo on the slide. It's one of our team members providing a gift to really help the local community working groups to prosper and to be a good neighbor and be a good citizen and add value to the community. I'll pass on to Martin to talk through our financial results, before I'll talk more about the Federation project, and then I'll pass on to Andrew for exploration update and achievements today. Over to you, Martin.
Thanks, Bryan, and we'll turn to slide six, which is the group finance performance. I'll acknowledge there are a lot of numbers on this slide, but the key message I want to leave with you is that our focus on transforming Aurelia into a stable, efficient, and cash-generative business is well underway. As you can see on this slide, every metric has improved significantly. Bryan's mentioned a few of these, and you've been tracking our performance in terms of cash and all-in sustaining cost during the year. This translated into a 45% higher EBITDA on an underlying basis, now up to over AUD 80 million.
Pleasingly, we had a return to a positive underlying net profit after tax of AUD 0.6 million, and our operating cash flow was up over 100% or 119% to over AUD 100 million. So just turning to slide 7, and I just wanna show visually some of those metrics and the improvements. There's no doubt that commodity prices have provided some tailwinds to our results, but it was not the entire story. For context, our realized gold price this year was up 18%. Our silver and copper realized prices were up 12%. On the other side, our realized lead price was flat, and our realized zinc price went down 11%. So our cost performance made an important contribution to these improvements, as seen by the reduction in the metrics and in our all-in sustaining cost.
At Peak, mining rates were about 17% up, and we delivered that at a lower dollar spend than the previous year, and that translated into the material reduction in unit rates we've been presenting in the quarterly reports. But it's a similar story with processing at Peak, with tons around 16% higher and spend slightly lower. There's still more opportunity to improve our costs, and we'll be going after them during FY 2025. And at Dargues, it was a great year cost-wise, with all-in sustaining costs 13% lower and below AUD 2,000 to AUD 1,976 an ounce. Dargues provided fantastic returns as the site transitioned towards the end of life, and I'd just like to commend the team there for their dedication to deliver that outcome.
So just moving on to slide 8, and we do present this chart regularly, but it is worth revisiting it on an annual basis. We started the year with around AUD 39 million in the bank, and we completed our refinance in August. So essentially, on a pro forma basis, we started the year with around AUD 111 million of cash. Our sites generated AUD 75 million of cash after sustaining capital, and that effectively funded all of our growth capital investment at Federation and our exploration programs from that operating cash flow. Our corporate costs reduced again this year, and our care and maintenance costs were in line with plan. And I will note, within the corporate interest and other column is the tax refund that we received in January of just under AUD 18 million.
But in summary, the key message is that we kept our refinance proceeds intact this year, whilst investing AUD 65 million into our growth project. And our loan note remains undrawn and provides us with over AUD 150 million of liquidity to continue with our growth ambitions. And finally, I'll just cover off guidance on slide 9, but noting there is more detail on our FY 2025 guidance in appendix 2 of this presentation. So firstly, on gold production, we're guiding 40,000 oz-50,000 oz of production this year. That is lower, obviously, with the cessation of operations at Dargues this quarter, and so we were expecting our gold production to fall.
We're guiding around up to 5,000 oz from Dargues with the final couple of months of production, with all of that concentrate being shipped by the end of September. As a comparison, Dargues produced 35,000 oz of gold in FY 2024. But offsetting some of that that reduction is the impact of strong forecast gold production from Peak. Our mining activity is higher in the North Mine this year, with higher volumes of copper gold ore coming from Chesney and Jubilee. We're also getting some benefit of higher grade from the South Mine in Perseverance Deeps and the S400 area. And our copper production will benefit from that higher copper gold ore with guidance up to 2.5-3.5 thousand tons.
In terms of lead and zinc, apart from volume reductions in the South Mine, we are expecting some grades to fall this year as well, which will drive a slightly lower lead and zinc production from Peak. As you know, we will expect our lead and zinc production to increase as Federation mining rates ramp up over the next couple of years, and for FY 2025, we're targeting ore mined of between 100,000-140,000 tons. After we've built some run-of-mine stockpiles at Federation and at Peak, we expect to process around 85,000-125,000 tons of that ore through the Peak mill. The forecast contributions from Federation to group production on the slide, and that revenue will be capitalized along with the associated operating costs up until the point where we declare commercial production.
As I've mentioned previously, based on our plans, we still see that happening sometime around the end of this financial year, which would mean that from the 1st of July, 2025 , we would commence reporting Federation as an operation. That's something we'll monitor throughout the year and keep you updated on. And for cost guidance, we've made a change to the way we guide this year. With Dargues' closing and Federation starting to produce, but still being capitalized as a project, we've chosen to provide cost guidance in raw dollars instead of on a unit metric basis. The summary here, and there is more detail, obviously, in the appendix. So these operating costs include both onsite costs for mining, processing, and administration, but also include offsite costs for transport, refining, treatment charges, and royalties. We will report cost metrics within our quarterlies.
Capital guidance is also provided, with Federation guided at AUD 70 million-AUD 80 million for the year, and as I mentioned, this does include capitalized revenue and some operating costs relating to pre-commercial production. I'll hand back the call to Bryan, who can talk a bit more about what's been happening at Federation. But just before I do, I'd like to acknowledge and thank both our Aurelia team and our colleagues at Ernst & Young. Year-end processes are always intense times, so your efforts are very much appreciated. Thanks very much, and back to you, Bryan.
Thanks, Martin. So as Martin sort of highlighted, and I'd spoken earlier about, Federation Project is advancing towards first ore with 3,000 tons on the ROM at present. And we are really sort of putting all efforts to make sure that we're setting the mine up for success, both initially for the first ore, and obviously developing for a ramp up for the rest of this year. It's important we continue to advance all the other project work for the Federation, including civil works, which are due to be completed by Q2 FY 2025. That's ROM pads, haulage roads, and other sort of infrastructure. We'll also have power station upgrades to continue and ventilation work to upgrade as well.
This forms part of what's in the budget for the rest of this year. On a priority basis, our work really is gonna be focused on developing the decline to get to the next set of stope levels, and also infill drilling to unlock the potential of its reserves and our production targets. I want to put a big thanks out to the team members for looking for solutions, also for our reducing costs. As I've mentioned in previous updates, we have had obviously headwinds with both rainfall and delays to our development and infill drilling. We've also had, obviously, inflationary issues and obviously higher costs on many of our fixed price activities.
What's been encouraging is to see that our teams have continued to come up with solutions to reduce costs, to descope items that we don't need to take forward as part of this business in Federation and for the Cobar region. And really, the team has been focused on preparation for ops readiness, to ensure that we kick off FY 2025 at budget and also the first ore, really as a new mine with a great future. This is actually ideal for us to have the right culture at Federation and the Cobar region, to have a team that's really looking for ideas, to look at how do we improve cost, how to make sure it's safe, and how to make sure we can maximize our productivity out of this fantastic ore body we have in front of ourselves.
With that said, we are still tracking to be within our budget approved, based on the fact that we have obviously descoped and look at how to reduce and improve costs, and even against those various headwinds I just discussed. It's a good sort of wrap-up for the team who's been involved with that. I'll just pass on to Andrew to talk through exploration, and then I'll take over from Andrew after that. Thanks, Andrew.
Thanks, Bryan, so as well as our financial results and guidance that Martin has spoken to today, we also released our annual mineral resource and reserve statement, as well as our production target. If I step back from the presentation on the slide eleven, to those following along, when I think about Aurelia, there's a couple of things that really excite me and I think differentiate us from others. Firstly, you know, as Martin talked about, we've got a strong cash balance and no debt. Secondly, and Bryan's talked about this previously, you know, we've got processing infrastructure within the Cobar Basin, both at Peak and Hera. But also, and I'll talk about this now in some detail, we've got a very strong resource base and very strong exploration potential.
So turning firstly to the resources, we reported that we have got a 26 million ton resource today, and that will really underpin the business going forward. We've talked about Peak's transition to copper, and you can see in the resource and reserve statement that transition playing out in numbers. We've got a copper resource at Peak, for example, of 16 million tons at 1.8% copper and 0.9 g gold. You know, very, very good grades. So it'll really underpin that transition to copper that we're going to see at Peak. And you couple that with Federation, resource holds at about 5 million tons of extremely high-grade zinc and lead with gold ore, and the two of them coupled together to really underpin a future for our business.
There's some other interesting items in our resource and reserve statement worth touching on. Firstly, we declared a maiden resource for Queen Bee this year, 560,000 tons at 2.2% copper, so very, very good grade copper. And I've got no doubt that that will grow as we do more work on Queen Bee. Also, for those who follow along the Nymagee results over many years, the resource there has grown from 1.9 million tons last year to 2.3 million tons this year on the back of drilling. And if you want to see more information about that drilling, we reported that in February this year.
Probably a good lead into exploration and, you know, I'll put on my explorationist hat now, and you'd always love a bigger budget for exploration, particularly given the prospectivity of the tenement package we have, but also, you know, the track record we've got of exploration success and discovery. But, you know, I think where we're pitching exploration for this year is good. You know, as in the guidance that Martin touched on, we've got a very healthy budget for this year, but it's prudent given where the business is going forward. So this year in exploration, there will be a mix of extensional work around our known ore bodies, as well as laying the foundations for the future and future discovery. So as summarized on this slide.
Clearly, we're gonna be drilling at Federation, especially targeting that northern offset, really exciting northern offset that potentially gives us that western extension of Federation. And we talked about that. If you look back in our release in April this year, certainly more information on that. We'll also clearly be following up the success we had at Nymagee, with further drilling. And that drilling is due to start very shortly. You've seen, I mentioned, it allowed us to grow our resource to 2.3 million tons. And I've set a challenge really for Todd and Allan and the exploration team for this year, that we want to see that grow to a target of 5 million tons. And really give us a chance to have a standalone economic mine development there at Nymagee.
We've got a range of programs, obviously, at Peak. We're gonna continue Kairos, Chesney, New Cobar depth extensions. We're gonna follow up the successful drilling we had at Jubilee North. So plenty of activity going on in and around Peak. And in addition, we'll advance some of those targets that we chatted about, Queen Bee, Young Australian, the next one along to the south in the North Mine there at Peak, and also a host of targets around the Nymagee District. So look, in short, our mineral resource, ore reserve, and production targets certainly demonstrate the strong mineral inventory that we've got at great grade. And we'll continue to work on converting the potential of our tenement package into future discoveries. That's all I was gonna cover. I'll pass back to you, Bryan.
Thanks, Andrew. So as I continue to reinforce every quarter, our ambition in the short to medium term is to fill our mills with quality ore and maximize our shareholder value. What we have that differentiates us, I believe, is we have the great infrastructure that you've heard us talk about, and we're looking at how we can optimize that to even create more value. We have really good talent in our team and joining our team to help us deliver that, who are hungry to deliver that. And we also, as Andrew just mentioned, have this great exploration potential and really good geological prospectivity in under our footprint, which we continue to unlock and deliver value against. And as Andrew said, if we drill more, we'll unlock more.
But we need to be obviously mindful of doing it in a smart way. And what's important, we have a strong balance sheet to support all this. So really, looking into FY 2025 as a focus area, you know, really our first focus in right in front of us right now is to get our Federation first stope ore this quarter, and then the ramp up. And make sure that's done safely, with the right sort of quality checks to make sure we get this bulk sample across the Federation, from Federation to Peak and start doing the business. That's one big step towards filling these mills, at least at Peak, at the starting point. We continue to. Number two is we really continue to see operational performance improve.
You know, we've got a very much a large focus on improving our unit cost in mining and processing, and through the operating model of the region now, by having one Cobar regional model, one management team overseeing it all. We believe we can really get synergies and benefits to really help drive that performance through sharing equipment, people, skills, talent, and actually, you know, basically having a much more efficient process in that region. As I spoke about, you know, attracting and retaining talent is a priority in the industry right now. Obviously, we've seen a reduction in turnover, which is great, and also in unplanned absenteeism, which is great, but we need to continue to make sure we've got the right attraction and retention processes in place.
Because obviously, people will enable this plan to be unlocked, and we really value that and have the right culture going forward to make sure this business is successful, beyond what we've actually started in this last twelve months or so. Number four, really on corporate optimization and great Cobar investment decision is work that is very much on the forefront of our minds right now, to get those projects and sort of assessments done over this next period of time, in FY 2025, to really understand what is our potential to increase our value even beyond what is our base case, and obviously set up our future through Great Cobar investment decision also into FY 2025 and beyond. And as Andrew spoke about, number five is really to make sure that we set up exploration to deliver further organic growth options.
Aurelia has had great success so far in unlocking value through these organic growth options, and I think we have the right team, the right focus, and also the right vision to really sort of unlock that going forward for our future in base metals. So look, with that said, they're the focus areas. Underpinning all that, obviously, is making sure we do things from. In terms of making sure it's safe for people, making sure we have high environmental standards, making sure we're working and dealing with our communities and our neighbors in a very respectful way to bring them with us, and obviously making sure we're always thinking about the health of people in our organization as we build our company as well. So all that said, I'll pass now over to Jodie, so we can open up for questions from people online. Back to you, Jodie.
Thanks very much. If you do wish to ask a question, please press the star key, then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the star key, then two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Thank you. Your first question is from Paul Kaner, from Ord Minnett. Go ahead, thank you.
Yeah, hi, gents. So thanks for taking my questions. A few here, if I may. Just firstly on Federation and that grade for FY 2025, what sort of grade should we sort of expect for that ore that's mining?
In terms of the breakdown of the grades, obviously we'll have. I won't go through the specific numbers. We can get some more details on that soon. But really, our focus is gonna be zinc and lead, and obviously with gold and a small proportion of copper coming out in this next period of time for the first 12 months as we ramp up.
Yeah, Paul. Martin here. Some of the comments, I mean, there is a decent proportion of what you call development ore this year, so the grades are slightly lower than what they would be once we're in full ore. So yeah, you know, combined sort of lead, zinc, we're looking, you know, around 10%-12%.
Yeah. So I should have been a bit more specific. In terms of the zinc grade, I was sort of after how that's gonna look relative to reserve, I guess.
Yeah. Yeah, a bit lower. Yeah.
And obviously, we're at the top of the ore body. You know, so obviously as we get into the ore body, it's gonna be obviously more and more value add, so.
Yeah. No, understood. Understood. And then just moving on to that sort of gross CapEx guidance for Federation of AUD 70 million, AUD 80 million, could you just maybe just break that up a little bit more? Sort of, what are the big, big-ticket items there?
So the primary spend from now is mine development and pushing the decline down. Surface-wise,
The infrastructure on the surface and other works is around AUD 14 million.
Yes. Yeah. So around, yeah, over half of the spend this year will just be on pushing the decline down .
Infill drilling.
Yep.
Yeah. Great. And then, I guess, taking all of this into account, how should we sort of be thinking about the ramp up in FY 2026, or is it a little bit, I guess, too early to say right now?
We're still targeting the full production rates during calendar year 2026. Yeah, so calendar, not financial. And that is when we hit that sort of 50,000 ton run rate. You know, it's really, as we've talked about before, pushing that decline down and getting those additional levels open, over the next sort of 18 months, and track up to that full production rate.
Yeah. Great. And then just squeeze one more in. Just moving to that R&R, and maybe one for you, Andrew, just looking at those maiden resources for Queen Bee and Nymagee, obviously some pretty good grades there and tons as well. I guess, how should we think about that in the context of future mining?
Yeah, it's a good question, Paul, and morning. Look, I think in my mind, neither of those reflect the possibility that they have, and they are what they are. We've done limited drilling, particularly at Queen Bee. We've done some more drilling at Nymagee over many years, but you know, there's plenty more work to do on those, so I think the grades are a good guide as to what can be expected. We obviously want to grow out those tonnages. You know, 560,000 tons of Queen Bee doesn't make a mine, but you know, we're all very, very confident here that that will grow with further work. We're also going to do some work around the lenses that we've drilled to see if we can add some additional tons to vertical meters as a lateral extent, which then makes the mine development much more possible.
Similarly, Nymagee, look, the goal it's been talked about for many years. The goal is to really grow that inventory this year, to a point that we can make some sort of decision on. You know, now, we won't be making a mining decision this year, but, you know, it'd be really nice to know whether that becomes our next feed source beyond Great Cobar, for example. And it has the potential to, we've just got to do the work to prove it. So, I think the real key takeaway for people, you know, we've got a very exciting tenement package with work and targeted work, we will get the next ore body and the next ore body. First couple of cabs off the rank at the moment, Nymagee and then Queen Bee, but there'll be plenty of other ones.
Yeah. Right. And sorry, just one more. If following on from that, if we think about your exploration budget then for 2025, what's the main focus in FY 2025 and how are those dollars, I guess, split up?
Yeah, it's pretty well spread, as you would expect. So we're putting a fair bit of work into Federation, a fair bit of work into Peak. So the lion's share of the budget really comes off those targets, as well as a big chunk, 50, on Nymagee. We are keeping some of the budget aside to ensure that we can continue to advance some of our regional prospects. But you know, I think you could assume that the split is really focused on that ore that will make it to a mill, within the life of mine kind of plans, with an appropriate amount then put in for regional work.
Yep. Understood. Now, that's it from me. Thanks for taking my questions. Cheers.
Thank you. Once again, if you do wish to register for a question, please press the star key, then one on your phone and wait for your name to be announced. Thank you. There are no further questions at this stage. I will now hand back to Mr. Quinn for closing remarks.
Thanks, Jodie. Look, as highlighted in all the slides and the ASX release pack, sent out today, it's been a very solid year, a good performance, for Aurelia in what I'd call a transformation year. The business really setting us up for success going forward, in our mode of growing the business, and like I said earlier, really aiming to fill our mills with quality ore. And what I'd say is we have the infrastructure, we have the geological prospectivity, and we actually have the people to do it now. So really, I think, we're in a really good position to go forward. I want to thank the opportunity to really thank the shareholders and for supporting us along this journey the last 12 months.
Our employees, you know, if I can do a call out, you know, obviously Dargues, coming to the end in August this year, really sort of delivered well over the last twelve months. And obviously now we've moved that business into care and maintenance and towards closure. And so some big wins for the company there by getting our Dargues successfully finished and maximizing our recovery out of that operation. Also, to the Cobar regional team, really pushing this last 12 months to get these additional tons out at lower costs and really taking the initiatives to set up Federation for success.
Like I said, with several headwinds at the doorstep, they were able to push through and really have continued to make the business set up so we can really advance through first opening and obviously into a ramp-up phase. Some big call-outs also to our exploration teams and our other teams who have worked, you know, tirelessly through the year to help set up us for the future. We're a small organization with, I think, lots of potential, and really it's now a matter of us, you know, following our growth roadmap, doing the things that we said we're gonna do and deliver our commitments. Hopefully you can continue to observe that over the next twelve months as we report quarterly against those commitments. So once again, thanks for everyone joining us and listening, and I'll pass back to Jodie to wrap it up.
Thanks very much. That does conclude the conference call for today. Thank you all very much for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.