Good morning, everyone, and thanks for your time this morning. I have Ian Poole and Peter Trout with me today, and we will, off the back of the quarterly report released this morning, refer to the presentation that accompanied it, titled September Quarterly Update and Outlook. Just before we get going, I just wanna take a bit of a step back because in recent weeks, we released a lot of detailed information to the market covering Federation feasibility study, a funding requirement, off the back of that study, our Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve statement for the year, FY 2023 guidance, and an update on the operations. I recognize there's been a lot for shareholders and investors to absorb in that period of time.
This morning, myself and the team wanna focus on what we believe are the key issues that are coming out of the back of that information. With that, I'll just move to slide 3. Those key issues, as we see them, is the operating performance across the three assets. Federation funding and progress, particular, and also the outlook for the business, against what was a difficult quarter four in FY 2022. Just moving on to slide 3. We're fully aware operational performance and financial outcomes, particularly for Q4 and into the early stages of this year with Q1 of this financial year weren't good enough. We take that responsibility to fix those. I just want shareholders to have confidence that we've actually taken those steps and starting to see the results of those actions taken.
Just focus on performance recovery, particularly for Peak. During the quarter and in response to our performance and also external conditions within the sector, we resized and scaled back Peak operation, focusing on high-value ore, but with less resourcing across the business, for the scale and size of the operation that we wanna get to this year. The end result of that has been a quite significant cost reduction and opening up the margin on every ton produced at Peak. At Hera, it's been about tons and nothing but tons.
We were heavily impacted, particularly in Q4 during the year, but with the improvements that we've made since, we've seen, particularly during September, in comparison to June, July, and August, a 60% improvement on mine tons and therefore, metal outputs for the operation going into this new quarter. For Dargues, the physicals have actually been in line and solid. I think we're all aware of the grade issue at that asset, and what we're focusing on now is what we can do with that asset to offset, partially or as best we can, offset that lower grade with an increased capacity through a new approval for the operation. With project development, it is all about federation. I'll reinforce some of the financial metrics and progress in a minute.
Along with the operational recovery I've just talked about, the funding and recommencement of Federation project is our highest priority. Utilizing, as we talked in the release of the feasibility, making the decision to utilize existing infrastructure, it's our highest grade and correspondingly lowest cost, ore body within the group. It will get priority to any of those mills in terms of capacity. It's low risk and really importantly for us, even whilst we have taken a pause on the decline to organize the funding, of which Ian will talk through progress on that in a minute. The state government approvals for the asset have not been affected by our decision to pause the decline, and they are progressing well and through the process. Just moving on to the next slide.
September quarter and our outlook is aligned to these recovery plans, and we're forecasting for the year and estimating for the year 87,000 ounces at AUD 1,900 an ounce. There's a key question here straight up that I'll cut straight to. The question would be, if we started the year at 2,600 for the September quarter All-In Sustaining Cost, how is it that we're gonna get to 1,900 average for the year? Just wanna go back a year and talk to a parallel here. In FY 2022, we finished the year at 2,800 an ounce in the June quarter and achieved across the full year AUD 1,700. This year, we're starting at AUD 2,600 an ounce, but we will trend down and through that 1,900 to average 1,900 for the year.
You can clearly see it's an achievable outcome for the business, all very focused on, obviously, metal output, particularly base metals, as we see the gold grades, particularly at Peak and Hera, starting to decline. With that, I'm just gonna hand over to Peter to talk through the specifics of each of the operations. Thanks, Peter.
Thanks, Dan. Just to reiterate Dan's comment there, at a group level, the September quarter's results were an improvement on the prior quarter, but by no means are where they want them to be. The details of each of the site's performance are provided in the presentation deck, so I'll instead focus on the operational priorities we have at each of the three sites. Turning to slide five of the presentation deck. At Peak, the key change over the quarter was implementation of a new operating plan, which helped us deliver stronger production results from the site. As part of that plan, we've scaled production rates to prioritize the cash margin on the ore that's treated and also made the transition to majority owner mining. As part of this plan, the ore processing team has moved from a continuous to a weekday operation.
Instead of running seven days a week, we're running five days a week to match the mine production, and that's reduced a portion of our fixed cost at the site. In September, we commenced demobilization of most of our contract mining employees and their mobile plant, and those cost benefits will flow through into the December quarter as our employed workforce and fleet take over the work. We also saw an immediate productivity and cost benefit in late July when all hoisting at the south mine resumed after replacement of the damaged power ropes, and that did away with a large volume of truck haulage to the surface. I guess it's also pleasing to see that the underground mine is operating more reliably now that we're seeing improved planning through our own team and greater control over the mining activity at the site.
With those initiatives in place, we've got a great platform there to drive further productivity and cost initiatives across the site. Moving on to slide 6 of the presentation deck, which talks to Hera. It was a really disappointing performance at Hera over the quarter, with quarterly metal production dropping as we had some stope extraction issues early in the period that delayed ore delivery to the plant. We also continue to see ore grades trend lower as the mine life draws to an end. The operational imperative at Hera is about delivering ore to the process plant. The performance improvement plan initiated in the last quarter started to deliver results in September when 32,000 tons of ore was mined. Month to date in October at Hera, we're on track to exceed that mine production.
Some of the things we've done to lift the mine production, we're starting stoping from the Upper Hays zone. We've pushed development harder to establish three separate independent stoping areas. We've also seen the benefits of changes made to the ground support regime that have reduced the time-consuming and costly rehabilitation work into remnant mining areas. Other options we're looking at relate to mine planning and timing of ore delivery, particularly higher margin ore that currently sits in the second half of the financial year, and a series of efficiency and cost initiatives to sustain profitable ore production at Hera. Moving to Dargues, which is on slide 7 of the presentation deck. We saw scheduled lower gold grades and also a negative reconciliation in one of the mining areas that contributed to lower metal production for the quarter.
However, mining and processing volumes were consistent with those achieved over the second half of FY 2022. Our site management team continues to focus on delivering the planned gold grades, and they're the main value driver at Dargues. Ongoing work relates to building greater predictability into the mine plan, and our underground infill drilling program is helping provide greater confidence in where the ore zones lie and the grades. We're also working to refine our stope designs to reduce ore loss and dilution, and also looking to commence extraction of some high-grade remnant areas in the mine. Other cost and productivity initiatives underway at Dargues include optimizing our stope backfill placement, looking there to reduce the cement consumption and also the time required to fill a stope, so we can cycle through the stopes quicker.
Also the application to modify the site's development consent, which, if approved, will allow for higher annualized ore processing rates at Dargues. I might hand back over to Dan at this point.
Thanks, Peter. Moving on to slide 8 and switching gears into the Federation project. We released the feasibility three odd weeks ago now, and I won't dwell on it, but I just wanna certainly do wanna reinforce some of its metrics, particularly from a value perspective and priority for where it sits with our business. Utilizing the existing infrastructure has significantly lowered the risk, we believe, in the development of this project. As I mentioned earlier, its grade and cost structure really sets us up to be able to withstand, you know, impacts from the cyclic nature of the commodities as well as the industry. From our perspective, it is the highest value ore body within the group.
It remains open, and even at the 4 million ton production target, at the moment, we're still seeing, pending the price deck of choice between Spot or Bloomberg or whichever price deck people wanna utilize, NPVs of between AUD 200 million and AUD 400 million and IRRs of between 40% and 70% certainly support those figures certainly support the priority of the asset in our group. Just moving over to slides 9 and 10, just to outline progress in particular of the build, albeit we have paused, and I'll come to that in a minute. Progress certainly continued through Q3, Q4, and into the September quarter. As we're speaking now, we are 90 meters underground, and all the surface supporting infrastructure in majority of cases is all in.
Although we have stopped, and that is about funding of the asset, and we drew that to market's attention clearly 3 or 4 weeks ago. I think for us it becomes now, as I've mentioned, about the dual prong approach of operating, recovery, and stability of the business and making sure that we find optimal solution for funding so we can kick away the construction and operation. With that, Ian, you might take over on the funding issues, please.
Thanks, Dan. Just on that, let's go to slide 11. The board of management, in conjunction with its advisors, are progressing funding options for the Federation projects, and these options include debt and equity at both a company and an asset level. The focus is really to bring on the Federation at our highest value ore body as quickly as possible. I will move to slide 12, which is just the financial outcomes for the quarter. During the quarter, Dargues contributed AUD 3.3 million of cash flow after sustaining capital. Hera was negative due to its operating performance. Dargues, Peak's negative cash flow was materially impacted by an AUD 13 million build of inventory during the quarter.
As Dan advised earlier, the concentrate sales will be maximized during the December quarter to release this working capital. There was also an investment in growth capital of AUD 11.6 million during the quarter, AUD 7.4 million related to Federation, the outcomes of which were shown on the earlier slides. Our site development works were suspended during October until the funding solution is finalized. AUD 4.1 million related to the Peak tailings storage facility, the stage five lift, which is expected to be completed in the December quarter. There was also AUD 3.7 million spent on exploration, AUD 1.8 million at Dargues, which was to improve confidence and extend the mine life. AUD 1.2 million at Federation and AUD 0.5 Million at Burrabungie, which is near the Peak Mine.
The company also paid down a further AUD 1.1 million in cash backing for the environmental bonds. There's now AUD 35.9 million held in restricted cash in line with our syndicated facility. We also paid down AUD 4.1 million of our term loan during the quarter. The balance of our term loan now stands at AUD 16.7 million, giving us a closing cash balance at the end of September of AUD 46.5 million. I'd now like to hand back to Dan.
Just with that, sorry, we might open up to the Q&A, please.
Certainly. 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 request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up a handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Dylan Kelly from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, team. I understand it's a tough quarter and some of the numbers we've seen before. I'd like to dig into your points, Dan, about how you've implemented this recovery plan, and in particular, how do we gain confidence about those plans being able to stop the large cash losses and stabilize that cash outflows? Just to dig into some of them, do you mind if we just step through the assets? Like, firstly at Peak, look, I noticed that ROM for the period was about 162,000 tons. That seems like a bit of a step up there. How do we get confidence there around the ability to maintain, you know, higher volumes?
Is it simply a function that you now have owner-operator there, you've got your kit up and running. How do we gain some confidence there? Second point is around mining costs. I noticed that they stepped up to about AUD 25 million for the quarter. Peter, I think you made an interesting point there. You talked about how switching contractors out means that cost should come down. How much can we really expect there in terms of that coming down from that sort of high benchmark level?
Dylan, that's Peter here. I'll take your question. Firstly, on the first query about how to have confidence about the performance going forward, I think you can see from the performance in Peak during the quarter, that got a lot of our attention, managing that transition over and making sure we had the planning and execution to support that. We actually pushed a bit harder given that we had an overlap with our own workforce and the contractor workforce to build a bit of a buffer as a risk mitigant in that process. I'm not looking to sustain 160,000 tons a quarter going forward, but we're certainly looking to deliver with more consistency from within the planned mining areas.
You know, to just to zoom in on something there, the plan compliance at Peak was above 90% for the quarter, which was a significant turnaround from the greater control we've got over those activities. In terms of the reduction in costs from the change out, we'll. For example, in September, we saw a 20% reduction in the workforce numbers. That will continue to flow through into the current quarter, and we've built those numbers into the guidance that's being provided over the course of the full year. It's not a one-off big bang. It is a stage transition, and we'll see those costs come out progressively.
Okay. The final point just around benefits of having the hoist restart, should that have a material impact in cutting some of the mining costs back down? Because I've noticed that, from what's called the March quarter before was running at about AUD 17 million a quarter. It's gone to AUD 21 million, then up to AUD 25 million. What sort of order of magnitude can that be sort of normalized at rolling forward?
Certainly lower than what we've been for the last couple of quarters. You consider when we had the hoisting system out at the south mine, we had 8 trucks running from underground over 1,000 meters below surface up to surface. Taking those trucks out of that long haul and resorting to the hoist is a significant productivity and cost improvement for us, and that will bring those costs down. We are also seeing escalation in costs elsewhere. Energy costs are clearly up, labor costs are up across the board and consumables. I don't expect we'll be back down to the low numbers we had in prior periods. It's about the margin we're chasing here through the restructuring of that operation, and that's the key focus.
Okay, understood. Just so I understand.
Sorry, Dan.
Go ahead.
Dan, just a comment. Just noting Peter's comment about mine volumes this quarter. Just make sure we're across what we're guiding for FY 2023 that we released, you know, 550,000 tons-600,000 tons for the year. You know, this quarter's annualized rate over 630. It is above what we're planning. Don't be making an assumption that mine tons will remain at this run rate because that's not the structure of what we've set out to achieve for the rest of the year. It's not about performance, it's about the way we're gearing the business in cost structure and getting similar tons to what we mined last year with, as Peter said, 20% less resourcing.
Understood. Just moving into Hera. Obviously, there's quite a lot of sticker shock looking at an all-in cost like that. Can you just walk us through the decision-making process as to what to do with such high costs and such losses? I understand you make some points about just targeting on volumes. Is that enough just to cover up what looks like a short-term issue? Do we have that much flexibility in the current development plans to make this up in the short term?
I think I mentioned before, Dylan, there's not a lot of flexibility in the operation at Hera, given the advanced state of the mine. That's why bringing in the Upper Hays deposit has given us a bit of relief there by having a new mining area we can go into and set it up from the outset without having to do rehabilitation works, for example, to get in there. I think when you look at the cost for Hera, just drill down into the underlying drivers there. The ore processed was 11% down on the quarter, and that was driven by the fact we had a poor July and August, where we had a number of uphole stopes where we couldn't pull the full height, which led to time being consumed trying to recover those stopes and ultimately had to abandon some ore in those.
That actually set back the stoping sequence as well as delivered less ore at that point in time. The other one to look at is the grades at Hera. The grades are trending back down towards the ore reserve grade and in general are about 25% down quarter-on-quarter. When you combine those two factors, we're about 30% down on all metals at Hera. Timing of sales didn't help us in that regard either. We lost on the by-product credits going into that. It's a lower dollar denominator of the dollar per ounce number.
Clearly the focus at Hera is getting that volume up to trade off against the declining grades and get our costs under control so that we are not having to persevere with higher costs to chase low margin material. One of the things that we are looking at actively at the moment is what changes can we make to the mine plan that bring forward that higher margin material from the second half of the year into the current quarter.
Okay, understood. Finally, I'll pass it on just with Dargues. I see, what is it? 3.3 grams per ton. Obviously, disappointing in terms of grade expectations there around timing for potential permit extensions to increase that throughput rate, as well as any thoughts that you might have around potential upside in that grade. Has the infill sort of given you some sort of confidence there that or grade control drilling giving confidence that we might see an uptick in that in the short term?
It doesn't, Dan. I think that we will see a little bit of an uptick, I think. I think that what our real focus on is that, as you mentioned, apart from the drilling that Peter talked about, so we have that confidence, so we know where it is and that effectively eliminates loss making ore. The approval status as I'm pretty sure you'll be aware, approvals in New South Wales can sometimes be complex. Submissions are made. It's a matter for us now of handling the remaining process. I think we can't estimate it. We estimate it be somewhere between three and six months at this point to get to there, but it's very difficult to say at the moment.
What I can say is, though, that we've been on public submission, and particularly for a sensitive area like Dargues. We went through public exhibition with only one submission in response to our application, which is a remarkable turnaround to where the asset was when it was first commenced in terms of approval. We believe it's low risk, meaning that it can hopefully be on the faster side. As we've said before, quite difficult to pinpoint a particular month at this point.
Okay, understood. I'll pass it along.
Pardon me, Cath.
Dan,
Are you there?
Hello?
Pardon me, Cath.
Hello.
You're next in line for the question. Please go ahead.
Yep. Dan, this is pointed at you. This is Cath, I'm a shareholder calling in. How are you?
Good, thank you.
Okay. Now, very, very concerned. You've wiped out AUD 300 million of market cap since you've joined the board. You've promised. I've listened to every podcast in the last four quarters. There's got to be some accountability from a management level here. My only point at you is that the stock has deteriorated significantly in the last six months. The operations have just gotten from bad to worse. I'm just really, really concerned, not just my clients and myself as a shareholder, leakages in the markets and the media and social media regarding capital raising and the way you've handled that, which has destroyed you know, the hedge funds obviously shorting your stocks. As you can see, the short positions are growing. What's the accountability? You know, what's going on internally?
Because I don't think, you know, it's gonna be very difficult to turn this mine around unless you get Federation up and running. I'm frightened. I'm just not sure where you guys are at as a team to turn this around. I, you know, I know the analysts are gonna talk it up and turn it around and, you know, and put recommendations. I just want your point of view, what your accountability to the market decline of AUD 300 million in market cap, and how you're gonna solve the issue. I'm not talking from a mining point of view. I'm talking from a company point of view and management point of view.
Okay. No, I'll handle that. I think. Thanks for that. I think clearly a very pointed question. For me personally, I am responsible for it, very. There's no doubting that. There's you know, every day we're at this is to try and recover value in the business and get ourselves back on track. The management team is going hard at it, at every angle to recover the performance in the business and regain the confidence of the market. You know, I think particularly in the last 2-3 weeks, once the funding gap becomes open, understood the way it has, now there's nothing I can be doing about a leakage in the market.
As I mentioned on those calls earlier, we did have discussions with major shareholders in relation to equity, of which you know, we got the feedback. We decided that it was most important for all the shareholders' benefit, considering the feasibility had been completed, to release that feasibility, unfortunately in an unfunded situation. I think we've done the best we can do to getting that information out and making sure that people clearly understand it. I am accountable for that, and I wear that. I'm an investor as well, and you know, I feel the pain as much as all our shareholders do in terms of the value loss within the business.
What I can tell you is we're focused on getting those operations that we've got now into a cash flow positive state and secure the best funding that we can, the best combination of funding that we can to restart the decline. I think that's about all I can say on it.
Fair enough. It's just that, you know. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. That's all.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Adam Baker from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hey, Dan and team. Just interested in your comments around funding at Federation. I was just wondering if you've had many inbound inquiries around that asset, and if you could maybe give us some more color around your comment about Federation being funded at both a company or an asset level, that would be great.
Yeah, I'll take that one, Adam. I think, you know, we're investigating all options to fund it as Ian said, equity, debt, a mixture of. I think it would be remiss of me to be mentioning specifics in that. There's no doubting we've been engaged in multiple streams of work to work out the most effective way to fund the business or the asset going, particularly the asset, going forward. I think it's really we will consider all options that are available as long as we believe they're the best outcome and the best cost of capital for the shareholders.
Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. For Hera, just interested, you know, unless you can kind of turn the operational performance around at this asset and stop the kind of cash bleed, is that something that you might look at potentially putting into care and maintenance, you know, while Federation is kind of in limbo, just to stop that cash bleed? Or are you comfortable you can still think you can turn the operational performance around?
We're confident we can turn it around. Just let's just come back to the point that Hera is in the last two years or year of its life, really. Pending commodity prices and cost structures
It is on our critical watch list. It has to be. We're confident that we can, with a recovery in volume and therefore metal output to the business, have it in a cash flow positive state. If we can see a position where on a prolonged basis, it's been in negative situation, whether that be because of volume performance or a commodity price movement, then yes, it will go into care and maintenance.
Understood. Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Dylan Kelly from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Just circling back, Peter, to your comments around Hera before and some of the operational issues. Could you just clarify for us what were the issues with the uphole stopes? You know, was there just a significant amount of under break? Do you think these issues are resolved? Is stoping to continue broadly using that method for the short to medium term?
The specific issues related to pulling the single shot uphole rise, which is a 20-meter high drill and blast pattern that has to come out in a single blast that opens up a void that we can fire other rings into. We had two stopes there where those uphole rises did not pull to the full length, only about half length. There was an issue with the delay sequencing and timing around the rise blasting. We had to do there is bring a longhole rig in to try and recover full height in those stopes. We weren't successful in doing that. We got a decent chunk of the ore out, but we had to leave some behind because we didn't have the height and hence the void to fire into.
We have since fired uphole rises and stopes and pulled them to full height, so that gives us more confidence going forward that we can extract all that ore as planned. I'll also highlight, Dylan, that there are a higher proportion of stope tonnes coming from uphole stopes in the remainder of the mine plan. There are still some areas we have access to the top and the bottom from development, but clearly as the grades fall away, it becomes uneconomic to put a top-level access drive into every stope.
Okay. Makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Glenn Risson, who is a private investor. Please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen. Glenn Risson here. My question is concerning Dargues and the final dot point on your presentation there about underground infill drilling providing better ore body delineation. It seems to me in the eight quarters since we've owned Dargues, I think it's eight, that something like this about struggling or working to delineate the ore body has been in there. Are we getting any closer to an answer, or is it just, we'll try this one next, or what?
Glenn, it's Peter here. Yes, we are getting closer to an answer. I will point out that the infill drilling has progressed from platforms higher in the mine to deeper in the mine. It's not just drilling from the one location and plugging more holes in. It is, as the mine development progresses deeper, we are moving that drilling down, getting those drill results in before we actually design the development, so we can be confident the development's going in the appropriate locations. Our experience has told us that at Dargues, the ore body is discontinuous and having close-spaced drilling and, you know, the optimal drilling here is less than 10-meter spacing on diamond drill holes, which is a big ask, takes a lot of time and effort.
Initially, when we walked into the operation, we didn't have that information, and a lot of the development was going in places where the proved the ore didn't exist. This work is very important, so we put the development in the right place, and we can get greater confidence in the tons and the grade to be extracted, particularly as we come down now to the deeper sections of the mine. The other thing we're also doing is we are testing the limits or the boundaries to see if there are other areas we can bring into the mine plan. As is usually the case with these things, we have some wins, and we can bring more material in, but there's also some losses, where the closer spaced drilling proves up a lack of continuity that had previously been interpreted.
It will be an ongoing exercise at Dargues until we hit the final mining level.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We will just pause for a short moment to allow for questions to register. You have a question from Anthony Wallace, who is a Private Investor. Please go ahead.
Hi, Dan. I was just wanting to sort of get a bit more a clarification, if possible, with regard to a possible equity raising for Federation. You know, with the share price at its current level, that would encompass a lot of extra shares on issue and a lot of dilution for shareholders. What other options or what are you looking to sort of negate some of that impact of the dilution and obviously a resulting drop in share price?
Thanks, Anthony. It's Dan. You know, when it comes to equity, that is on our mind constantly, the whole dilution piece. If I just take a step back, original intentions here and ambition with the business was to self-fund.
We misstepped with Dargues and we've owned that result. It put us in a position where we've been looking at the multiple options and combinations really, because at the end of the day, it comes down to what is the best cost of capital that we can get to take the business forward. When we look at those IRRs, it deserves investment. There's no doubting that. What's the best way to do that? I think we've looked at options that are all debt funding, for example, and very expensive. There's no doubting it. Is that the right option for us to do, to fund it all with debt or all with equity?
There's another option that we will look at, and I think it's very valid on the basis of utilizing the existing infrastructure, and that is that we could opt for a slow ramp-up of the asset and less of upfront capital, considering we're using existing infrastructure. That's also an important part too. It's not only where do the funds come from, whether it's debt or equity, but it's about reducing the amount of funding required as well. I think we're looking at all of those options, but we are well aware on the equity front, what dilution can do. It's on our mind every time we think it.
Okay. Thank you.
That concludes our Q&A session. I will now hand back to Mr. Clifford for closing remarks.
Thanks, Sari. Thank you everyone for your time. Just to wrap up on a couple of things, just on our priorities. It's about the asset recovery plans, achieving the results. I think, well, I know we are confident that we can see those results coming through, particularly at the back end of September, of the September quarter, particularly in September. That's about ensuring that all our operations, as one of the questions from shareholders came about ensuring that they are cash flow positive, all our operations. Because if we can see that they're not, then we will need to take that action in terms of parking the asset. In parallel with all of that is the funding and recommencement of Federation. I think those are the three key priorities for the business and the takeaways from today's call.
Thank you for that. Next thing we have as a business is the AGM late in November. I look forward to seeing and hearing people at that session. Thanks, everybody.