I would now like to hand the conference over to Mark Zeptner, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Travis. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to dial in this morning. In addition to the quarterly report, we've also released a presentation that we'll largely speak to during the call. Both documents have been uploaded on the ASX platform and will be available on the website shortly. Once again, I'm joined by our CFO, Darren Millman. Darren will provide some detail on the financials after I've run through the highlights and touched on the operational performance in our development projects. As always, there'll be an opportunity for listeners to ask questions at the end. For those who have downloaded the presentation deck, I'll be initially speaking to slide three. I'll focus on the highlights and key achievements for the quarter.
I would like to point out that there is a large amount of detail on exploration, operations, and project development within the quarterly report itself. On slide three, operationally and financially, the December quarter was exceptionally strong, with the business generating a record and also sector-leading AUD 174.5 million in underlying free cash flow. After considering our additional investment in Spartan during the quarter of AUD 68 million and the payment of our FY 2024 AUD 0.05 per share dividend, our closing cash and gold position was just over AUD 500 million. Our quarterly gold production was 85,311 ounces, which was a 37% increase on the prior quarter, noting also just shy of our record production, which occurred in the March 2024 quarter. The increase in production was mainly due to the introduction of ore from Cue, which performed extremely well during the quarter and also improved grades from Penny.
I'll talk to these points in more detail shortly. Looking at the costs, we saw a 25% decrease in our all-in sustaining costs, down to AUD 1,491 for the quarter. Now, while we were guiding for a reduction in all-in sustaining costs across the year, the all-in sustaining costs for the quarter was below our expectations and obviously benefited from the outperformance of Cue. Importantly, our guidance for FY 2025 remains unchanged at 270-300,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,500-AUD 1,700 ounces. While we are encouraged by the indicative overperformance of Cue grades, it is still relatively early days, and we will continue to assess this during the March quarter as more data becomes available as mining and milling progresses. Unfortunately, during the quarter, we did record our first LTI since May 2023.
While this is extremely disappointing, the incident itself, which is detailed in the quarterly report, was not of a serious nature. We do strive to ensure that all employees and contractors remain safe and healthy under our watch. The total recordable injury frequency rate, or TRIFR, at the end of December was 8.33, which was only marginally higher than that recorded last quarter. There were several milestones and advancements in our key projects across the quarter, with haulage to Cue commencing mid-November following the completion of the Great Northern Highway intersection upgrade and also the delivery of the Rebecca -Roe PFS, which is demonstrating strong economic returns. For the immediate future, our focus is on delivery of the Eridanus and Mount Magnet Mill upgrade studies and associated mine plan in this quarter and the Rebecca -Roe DFS, which is targeting a final investment decision in the September quarter.
Exploration and resource definition activities during the quarter were largely focused on Eridanus, Penny West, and the Lena Pit at Cue. On slide four, I will draw your attention on—sorry, we're looking here at the quarterly production breakdown for the last 12 months. If you look at the yellow Mount Magnet bars, you can see the previous September quarter, we focused largely on the development of Cue, and now we see that asset in production, along with improved grades at Penny, has been the main driver of increased production in the December quarter. As expected, Edna May production is slowly winding down. Onto slide five, which references quarterly production stats.
The standout here is the mine grade for the quarter of 7.3 grams per tonne, which is more than double that of the September quarter and has been driven once again by grades at Cue and Penny, which were 7.4 and 17.9 grams per tonne, respectively. Now, while the ore tonnes mined reduced, it needs to be highlighted that there still is a fair amount of pre-strip and development taking place at Cue. We expect comparable mined ore tonnes to continue into the March quarter as we progress development before we start to see an increase in these ore tonnes in the June 2025 quarter. Mill throughput levels were maintained during the quarter with the drawdown of existing stockpiles across Edna May and also the Eridanus stockpile at Mount Magnet. Onto slide six, we're showing Mount Magnet's highlights.
Production from Mount Magnet totaled just over 67,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,277. Open pit mining at Mount Magnet is now solely focused at Cue, with the Break of Day, Waratah, and White Heap pits all being mined during the quarter. Productivity has increased during the quarter with the introduction of a third excavator, which resulted in a 44% increase in material movement quarter on quarter. Underground operations continue to focus on Galaxy and Penny. At Galaxy, mining was largely in line with the prior quarter, while at Penny, both tonnages and grade increased, most notably the mine grade, which is attributable to stoping on the 1,252 level, which is central to the high-grade plunge of the Penny North lode. I would also like to highlight the overall mill grade at Mount Magnet in the quarter was 5.1 grams.
This is the highest grade seen under Ramelius ownership at the Mount Magnet Mill. It has to be pointed out, the processing team did exceptionally well in managing these higher grade of ores, with net recovery levels being maintained above 96%. Before I move on from this slide, I'll refer you to the pie chart. We only incorporated 20% of the high-grade material from Cue and Penny into Mount Magnet to generate AUD 161.3 million in cash flow at Mount Magnet. Quite amazing, with plenty more to come. Onto Penny, slide seven. We mined 48,000 tonnes, average grade of 17.9, as mentioned. We milled 39,000 tonnes at 20.5 grams and produced a little over 18,000 ounces of gold. The mine itself generated operating cash flow of AUD 73.1 million at a very nice all-in sustaining cost of AUD 7.90 per ounce.
Our exploration last quarter was focused on the Penny West ore body beneath the original pit, with some extremely high-grade hits in this area, as noted on the slide. The drilling today pretty much confirms the location and thickness of this lode, with the additional drilling information to be used to refine stoping blocks. Onto Cue, slide eight. The graphic shows the Break of Day Pit Starlight lode, which is where most of Cue's production in the quarter came from. A total of 101,000 tonnes was mined across Cue in the quarter at a grade of 7.4. However, we were able to selectively stockpile and allow processing to focus on the highest grade material, with 48,000 tonnes being milled at an excellent grade of 15.8.
The free cash flow from Cue alone in the quarter after growth capital spend of AUD 4.4 million was AUD 56 million, and an all-in sustaining cost actually below that at Penny of AUD 723 per ounce. The high-quality blend of Penny and Cue has generated these great results at Mount Magnet this quarter. Slide nine on Edna May. Gold production at Edna May totaled 18,261 ounces in the quarter at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,209, which, as you can appreciate, is highly cash generative. Indeed, across operations at Edna May, we reported free cash flow of AUD 32.5 million. The all-in sustaining cost was lower than the previous quarter, with the free-carried low-grade stockpiles currently being processed exceeding grade expectations. In our minds, there is no reason to think that this outperformance on grade won't continue through to the end at Edna May.
At the end of the quarter, there remained approximately 400,000 tonnes at a grade of 0.8 grams per tonne, which will provide feed for the Edna May Mill through the bulk of the March 2025 quarter. Slide 10 on guidance. We note both production cost and also capital guidance for FY 2025, where there has been no change since our initial guidance issued in August, and we are tracking well to achieve these targets for FY 2025, having produced a little over 50% of the ounces required in the first half. Slide 11 doesn't normally appear in our quarterly presentation deck, but I think we need it in this time around. And there's probably two key points to make on this slide. Firstly, at Penny, we passed an important milestone in the quarter.
The operation has effectively paid back our initial investment plus the capital and is effectively AUD 31 million in the black, courtesy of AUD 71 million in free cash flow generated by that operation in the quarter. Secondly, if you include stockpiles at the mine, Cue generated AUD 83 million in cash flow in the quarter, which represents an excellent start to paying back the initial investment in Cue of approximately AUD 206 million. At current gold prices, we expect that initial investment to be paid back in the second half of this calendar year. That covers the highlights and operations from me. I'll hand over to you, Darren.
Thank you, Mark. It's a pleasure to be here today. I will be initially speaking to slide 12. On slide 12, we show financial highlights for the quarter.
From a financial point of view, it was an exceptionally strong quarter for Ramelius, with AUD 174.5 million of free cash flow being generated, our best on record by quarter margin. This demonstrates the increasing margins of the business, not only due to the gold price, but also improved mill grades. These high cash flow generating ounces will not only continue for the remainder of FY 2025, but also into FY 2026. During the quarter, we sold 80,000 ounces at an average realized price of AUD 3,683 per ounce, which included a mix of spot and committed forward sales. This resulted in total sales revenue for the quarter of AUD 295 million. The Australian gold price continues to increase over the quarter, reporting an 11% increase from the September 2024 quarter.
We further unwound our forward contract hedge book, which now sits under 100,000 ounces or less than six months' production at an average price of AUD 3,183 per ounce. The all-in sustaining cost for the quarter was AUD 1,491 per ounce, which was down on the prior quarter, mainly due to the impact of stronger grades from Cue and Penny in the quarter. The resulting all-in sustaining cost margin of AUD 2,192 per ounce, which is the realized gold price of AUD 3,383 per ounce, less the all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,491, represents an all-in sustaining cost margin of 60%. Cost guidance for FY 2025 remains unchanged at AUD 1,500-AUD 1,700 per ounce. While this reduction in cost was expected, the overperformance of Cue grades did have an impact on reducing the all-in sustaining cost for the quarter. As Mark mentioned earlier, it's early days at Cue.
Our geological and operational teams at Mount Magnet are performing their reconciliations on both tonnes and grade that have been mined and milled to date at Cue, incorporating recent grade control drilling with final results during the March 2025 quarter. Looking at Mount Magnet in isolation, the all-in sustaining cost was AUD 1,277 per ounce. While total cost did increase with the planned maintenance shutdown and increased open pit mining activities, this was more than offset by improved grades and production. At Edna May, the all-in sustaining cost was AUD 2,209 per ounce, which is a decrease from the prior quarter and better than expected with the overperformance of low-grade stockpile grades. In the past, we have made the point that Edna May all-in sustaining cost includes a non-cash charge for the drawdown of existing stockpiles.
For this quarter and going forward, this was not the case, with the mill feed now being made up of largely low-grade stockpiles, which carry no cost on our balance sheet. On slide 13 and 14, we show a breakdown of free cash flow metrics for the quarter and historically. Gold sales of 80,000 ounces generated operational cash flow of AUD 193.6 million and AUD 161.1 million coming from Mount Magnet and AUD 32.5 million from Edna May. A total of AUD 15.9 million was reinvested into mine development, resource definition, and exploration in the quarter, which focused on Eridanus, Cue, and Penny West. The resultant free cash flow for the quarter was AUD 174.5 million, or over AUD 2,000 per ounce produced. During the quarter, we had two material cash flows outside operations.
Firstly, Ramelius participated in the Spartan capital raise, increasing our position to 19.9% with the additional AUD 68 million invested. And secondly, we paid our FY 2024 final dividend of AUD 0.05 per share, which, after taking into account our dividend reinvestment plan, resulted in a cash payment of AUD 43.4 million to our shareholders. The resultant cash and gold position was AUD 501.7 million, which, coupled with AUD 175 million debt facility and value of listed investment held, leaves us with over AUD 1 billion in available liquidity. On slide 15, we summarized our key focus areas in FY 2025. We wanted to continue to improve safety performance group-wide and deliver FY 2025 guidance in line with our core value of we deliver and do it safely.
We wanted to complete the Eridanus underground open pit studies, the Mount Magnet processing facility study on mill upgrades, and also update our Mount Magnet mine plan, which will be delivered in the March quarter. At Roe Rebecca, we combined Definitive Feasibility Study to be delivered in the September 2024 quarter and increased exploration programs at Mount Magnet, Cue, Penny, and Rebecca Roe. Operator, with that, we'll now open the line for questions, if you could, please.
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 then two. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Alex Barkley from RBC. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, Mark and Darren. A question on the Cue pits. I get reconciliation is high, and that's a positive. How long do those high-grade pits, Break of Day, and White Heap last, if you could remind me? And then has that understanding changed at all since last year's integrated Mount Magnet plan? Thanks.
Hi, Alex. Thanks. It's Mark. Just looking at the, I suppose, on the Cue, we possibly flagged that we might get a bit of outperformance on grade, or maybe words to the effect of if we're going to get outperformance anywhere, it'll be Cue, especially in the top parts of the pits. And the reason why we do reconciliation and we do additional work before jumping to conclusions that the whole camp's going to overperform is because you potentially have supergene enrichment in some areas. But just looking at Break of Day, we've got 130,000 ounces and White Heap in reserve. It's got 40,000 ounces. So we should be enjoying these grades. There's higher grades. Obviously, we're mining the highest grade pits first for some time. But mind you, we are in that oxide zone.
How the grades perform in the fresh rock, we're not jumping to conclusions on that just yet, but they will be in very good grade at Cue for some time.
And just adding to that, Alex, so we're looking to update the Mount Magnet entire plan in March, so that'll also incorporate any changes we feel appropriate and timing of the release of that ore in that plan as well.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Just one more question on your quite ample cash and liquidity you called out. Is there any consideration to buying back your hedges, or would that pending your project studies or potentially approval? Is there just a timeframe or parameters around how you'd think around the hedges? Thanks.
You thankfully answered my question, so yeah, that's right. When we put out the Mount Magnet, obviously potentially Eridanus, larger open pit, we've got the Mount Magnet mill upgrade, and obviously we've also got the FID decision around Rebecca, Roe. And that's all coming in the first half of the calendar FY 2025. So I think once we have that full picture, then we'll be looking at all capital allocations and obviously something that we may consider is reducing this hedge book. But at the moment, we're producing margins of over 60% with having this hedge book. So it's not a high priority, but it's definitely something we will look at. It's coming off pretty quick at the back end of this year.
Yeah. We're below 100,000 ounces now, but we're not to write a big check and buy it out, but we need to see the capital profile for the business, particularly over the next few years, to make good decisions on that, Alex.
Yep. No problem. Thanks very much, guys.
Thanks, Alex.
Once again, to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We'll pause for a moment to allow parties to enter the queue. Once again, to ask a question, please press star one on your phone. At this time, we're showing no further questions. I'll hand the conference back to Mark for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Travis. One question, some sort of record. 22 minutes past the hour. Everyone must be happy with the information we've provided. Thank you for listening in. Have a great day, guys.