Good morning, everyone. Thank you for dialing in this morning, especially those on the West Coast, much earlier than normal. I do have our CFO, Darren Millman, with me in his usual supporting role. We are currently live on the webcast, but also on the normal telephone conference. As you would all be aware, we released three documents this morning: the Rebecca-Roe DFS, the results of the Never Never PFS combined with the Mount Magnet Dalgaranga integration study, and our five-year growth pathway to + 500,000 oz, which also includes detailed FY 2026 guidance. All documents have been uploaded on the ASX platform and will also be available on the website shortly. Firstly, a big thank you to all of those involved in pulling together these very detailed documents, recognizing it's only been 89 days since we closed on the Spartan transaction.
Among the documents released today is the presentation, five-year growth pathway to 500,000 oz that we will be speaking to. Noting that, you'll be happy to hear I won't be speaking to every slide, and we'll also make reference to slide numbers as we do go. My focus on the call will predominantly be on our five-year growth pathway, but also the Never Never PFS, along with our planned upgrades to the Mount Magnet Hub, which will need a little bit of explanation. I will also speak to the Rebecca-Roe DFS results, but focus on the key changes from the PFS released in December 2024, along with key milestones and also an update on permitting.
Based on the level of information we will be going through, we expect this to run a little longer than our typical quarterly or financial results call, but we'll endeavor to make it as efficient as possible, making sure we don't miss any important detail. I do suggest you make yourselves comfortable. I think we're starting off on slide four. I do encourage you to read slide two, as I will be making references from time to time that are forward-looking statements. On slide four, on March 17th this year, we announced the merger of Ramelius, an operator that has a reputation for delivery, and Spartan, an explorer with one of the best high-grade gold discoveries in Australia in the past decade. In combining these two companies, there was a vision to become a leading Australian gold company with highly profitable operations, supercharged growth profile, and exceptional exploration upside.
All this remains true today with our increase to our midpoint of our FY 2030 production outlook from 500,000 oz - 525,000 oz following the delivery of the various studies. With the release of the technical studies today, I can now state with confidence that our pathway to over 500,000 oz is fully funded, remembering we do have AUD 827 million in cash and gold and also an undrawn AUD 175 million credit facility and continued strong cash flow generation. Our new group reserves are 4.2 million oz. Our engine room, that is the Mount Magnet Hub, has 3.1 million oz in the reserve category, which is a 212% increase on FY 2024. Importantly, though, with a 29% increase in grade, driven by the Never Never underground deposit, which is now contributing 1.6 million oz at an average grade of 7.3 g per ton. I'll now jump to slide six.
Without any exploration success, and I reiterate that we are spending up to AUD 100 million on exploration and resource definition drilling this year, we will deliver on our promise by FY 2030, producing 525,000 oz of gold at the midpoint for that 12-month period. The other key takeaways from this slide, aside from it being a base case, are we have deferred the construction and production at Rebecca-Roe, moving initial production from FY 2028 to FY 2029, as we want to focus on the upgraded Mount Magnet plant first and foremost. Our all-in sustaining cost remains very low compared to our peer group, in some years more than AUD 500 an ounce lower than the average.
In FY 2029, Rebecca-Roe comes online with the first- year production, seeing slightly lower grades and a higher strip ratio, as operations from Rebecca-Roe ramp up, grade increases, and the strip ratio decreases, and so all-in sustaining costs will reduce. In the longer term, which we've classified FY 2031 to FY 2035, the outlook is even brighter, with higher production levels and an all-in sustaining cost at under AUD 1,900 an ounce. Put simply, this is a no-frills, no-smoking murals five-year plan that would deliver a heck of a lot of value for shareholders. Onto slide seven of the presentation, this is where we're looking to highlight our sequence plan for both Mount Magnet and Rebecca-Roe, all on one slide, which we believe is both realistic and achievable. A few points to make here.
The upgrade and expansion works at Mount Magnet will start in the second half of FY 2026, but predominantly sit in FY 2027, with the new circuits being operational in the September 2027 quarter. The project team will transition from Mount Magnet to Rebecca-Roe in that December 2027 quarter as plant construction commences at Rebecca. The last point I'll make is that there does remain an opportunity on the Roe mine development to move the timeline forward under a Part V environmental approval process, as opposed to continuing under Part IV, which is not contemplated in the current production profile in the Rebecca-Roe DFS. I will expand on this point further a little later. Slide eight is our FY 2026 detailed guidance. As you will note, we have provided a further breakdown on growth capital here.
Firstly, on production, we are estimating gold production within a range of 185,000 oz- 205,000 oz at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,800 at the midpoint, which is broadly in line with the March 2025 Mount Magnet plan. As highlighted in the detailed ASX release, there are three areas to note in relation to production, and we mentioned it yesterday on that call. Q-grade overperformance is now normalized closer to all-reserve grades. Production from Penny is moving from the super high-grade Penny North to the lower-grade Penny West deposit, remembering that Penny West still has a respectable 9 g per tonne resource grade. Thirdly, at Dalgaranga, all contribution in FY 2026 will not be significant, and we've also assumed a conservative 80.5% recovery through the Mount Magnet plant until the modifications at Mount Magnet are completed.
As we have detailed in the Never Never PFS and the Mount Magnet Dalgaranga integration study, the focus in FY 2026 will be continuing development of the Never Never underground, along with associated underground infrastructure. From a capital expenditure perspective at Dalgaranga, investment from mine development and PPE perspective at Dalgaranga will be just under AUD 160 million for the year. In terms of the Mount Magnet plant expansion, total cost of that is AUD 223 million, of which AUD 80 million will be spent in FY 2026. For Rebecca-Roe, we took the opportunity just recently to execute on 40,000 put options at AUD 5,750 per ounce, the underlying hedge representing the approximate value of the Rebecca-Roe mill and camp spend in FY 2028, which is approximately AUD 230 million.
As highlighted previously, our exploration and resource definition budget has been increased up to AUD 100 million a year, and I will discuss some of the key exploration targets and their individual spend and also drilling programs in the expanded portfolio shortly. It is also important to highlight some of the FY 2026 cash flow one-offs detailed in the five-year outlook announcement released today. We do that so that the market isn't surprised by them when they happen. The most notable of these is an income tax payment of AUD 118 million due in December, and also the stamp duty payment of approximately AUD 135 million on the Spartan transaction due later in the financial year. Slide nine is our updated all-reserves statement, a summary of that. It's important given that our total reserves now sit at 4.2 million oz, putting us in a much better place on reserve metrics with our peers.
The big change since we reported our reserves and resources on October 1 is obviously the maiden reserve declared on the Never Never underground deposit. 7 million tonnes of 7.3 g to 1.6 million oz, to my knowledge, is still the highest- grade undeveloped mine in Australia. I will now hand over to Darren, who will take the next few slides. Thanks, Darren.
Good morning all. On slide 10, we've incorporated into our technical studies and cash flow projections the synergies, but I feel it's important to highlight what they are and in the quantum. Firstly, there are synergies, and then there are real synergies. We haven't simply applied a percentage factor of supplier spends and thought of a synergy. On slide 10, we have broken down synergies into three main groups and quantified the value on each. The first being capital savings, looking at the difference in cost between a single plant operation versus two separate processing facilities with amounts validated by third-party engineering firms. Secondly, we looked at operational savings, quantifying savings on the processing cost under a single plant operation, offset by additional trucking costs from Dalgaranga to Mount Magnet, and the last being the cash tax benefit validated by third-party accounting firms.
All this adds up to AUD 1 billion validating a synergistic transaction with Spartan . For more information purposes, we've also quantified the additional working capital required by Spartan had it remained a standalone business. On slide 11, slide 11 has been a shareholder favorite, historically being referred to as the jaw slide. We have plotted the historical gold price achieved from FY 2021 to FY 2025, along with actual all-in sustaining cost over this period. On a forward-looking basis, we have plotted the midpoint of all-in sustaining cost and used a gold price of AUD 4,500 an ounce. With the inclusion of the high-grade Never Never deposit, the jaws now become more of a whale mouth, but it's important to remember that lower all-in sustaining costs from FY 2031 to FY 2035 is expected, so the jaws will open wider again from FY 2031 onwards as we enter the heart of the Pepper zone.
Slide 12 provides an indicative look at free cash flow generation going forward on our production outlook at different gold prices. We have purposely sequenced the Mount Magnet and Rebecca-Roe spends to ensure we remain free cash flow generating, and as you will note, it is increasing every year with FY 2026 being a higher capital spend year. Mount Magnet will predominantly feature in today's call, but our Rebecca-Roe should not be forgotten in regards to cash flow generation. As you will note on slide 36, the Rebecca-Roe project will be generating annual free cash flow of AUD 200 million per annum from FY 2030 to FY 2036 at a gold price of AUD 4,500 per ounce.
To my knowledge, there is no other mid-tier gold company out there globally that can demonstrate 107% production growth, be increasing free cash flow generation year on year, and once they pass a heightened investment period, be generating over AUD 1 billion annually in free cash flow. A reminder, this is not a new phenomenon at Ramelius. In FY 2025, we ranked second in our peer group of free cash flow generation, generating just under AUD 700 million for the year. We're just behind Evolution Mining, and considering Evolution produced more gold than us, we have come in at number one on underlying free cash flow per ounce producing basis metric. We're very proud of this metric as it speaks to the quality of our ounces, the high grade, high margin business that it is, Ramelius.
If you refer to slide 49 of the deck, you will see a comparison to our peers on this metric. Finally, for me, Ramelius' five-year outlook is fully funded with growing balance sheet after FY 2036. The Ramelius board has recognized this with a new capital allocation framework to be released in the first half of calendar 2026 in recognition of a growing free cash flow with a focus to maintain and grow returns to shareholders. Just pass back to Mark.
Okay, we're looking at Mount Magnet now. We're on slide 14, and this slide is a key slide from a COO or an engineer's perspective. You may have heard me say in the past that this is the best Mount Magnet mine plan since I started with the company back in 2012, and I think on this occasion I can say the same thing again. For those who have followed the company for some time, 100,000 oz out of Mount Magnet used to be a good outcome. Over the past few years, we've elevated that production to over 200,000 oz, almost 250,000 oz in FY 2025. With the inclusion of Dalgaranga, we're even above 350,000 oz within reach of 400,000 oz, possibly from one hub. I'll talk a little bit more on what that means in terms of Australian gold hubs shortly.
As you can see in the bar charts, the contribution from Dalgaranga is obvious as the mine ramps up. As discussed earlier, we're looking to have the expanded Mount Magnet plant operational at 4.3 million tonnes in September 2027. The all-in sustaining cost is peer-leading for the next five years, averaging less than AUD 900 post FY 1900. Post FY 2031, the average all-in sustaining cost reduces to less than AUD 1,600. With gold obviously moving around a bit, but I believe currently trading around AUD 6,000 an ounce, that's a margin of over AUD 4,000 an ounce. If gold prices hold into the future, Mount Magnet margins will increase to over AUD 4,500 an ounce . Truly incredible. Great time to be a gold miner. In terms of reserves and resources specifically at Mount Magnet, this slide also captures the impact of Dalgaranga.
We've gone in terms of total ore reserves up to 3.1 million oz, but importantly, there is a 29% increase in overall grade compared to FY 2024. In terms of the mill, obviously there's a lot of work, there's a lot of detail in the releases, but the metallurgical aspects of the Dalgaranga ore body were key to all of this work. We have mentioned before that we wanted to make sure we made the right decision on the final plant design, whether it be at Mount Magnet or Dalgaranga or a combination of the two. As you can see, no matter which way we went, the final option requires a 53-micron grind size to maximize recoveries at 93.3%. We might have mentioned a 75-micron in the past. That'll give you something closer to 90%. We think it's worth going after that extra 3.3% on the Never Never and Pepper ore.
We also ran test work with residence times of 24 and 48 hours. Important to note here at the very right-hand side of the chart, there is no material difference assuming you're at 53 microns. That's another very important point. With this information in hand, we moved to assess the best option between Mount Magnet and Dalgaranga. On slide 17, happy to share the final option that we have selected. Did originate from the Mount Magnet operations team in consultation with our technical team at birth and also external consultants. Firstly, while upgrades are underway, we will, as we've said before, be running Dalgaranga ore through the current Mount Magnet plant, which is currently approximately 2 million tonnes per annum capacity at a 175-micron grind. We'll take the hit on recovery for Dalgaranga, which, as mentioned, is just above 80% for that time period.
The ultimate plan is to reconfigure the Mount Magnet circuit to enable it to run at 1.3, so downgrading the throughput, but at the optimal 53-micron grind size processing Dalgaranga ore. Later in the mine life, we do have the ability, and this is the flexibility that this plant option gives us, to increase capacity back to 2 million tonnes per annum by relaxing the grind size back out to 175 micron. That's post-depletion of Dalgaranga ore sources if and when that occurs. This is circuit one, as labeled on the plan. In parallel, we will install a new circuit, circuit two, with a nameplate throughput of 3 million tonnes per annum and a grind size of 175 microns, which basically suits the current grind size for Mount Magnet ore.
We'll do that by refurbishing and repurposing various pieces of equipment from the Dalgaranga plant, including the larger SAG mill and gravity circuit. As you can see, we will be adding some new items, such as a new crushing plant, oil mill, and some tankage. Total CapEx on the Mount Magnet plant upgrade is AUD 223 million, increasing throughput from 2 million tonnes, potentially all the way up to 5 million tonnes. We believe this is quite capital efficient, as opposed to the option of having two separate processing facilities at Mount Magnet and Dalgaranga with the same 5 million tonne processing capacity. The cost of this option, and it is detailed in the releases, is AUD 327 million, so we are banking a CapEx of just over AUD 100 million on the option we've chosen.
One of the reasons why the Mount Magnet option is superior is the leverage to lower power prices, and that's further exacerbated by the Mount Magnet hybrid power station that we're partway through installing. You can see here a picture of our solar farm, which will continue to expand, but probably more importantly, we'll be soon adding 14 MW of wind power in FY 2026. These renewable sources will predominantly power the Mount Magnet mill over time and have, as I mentioned, further enhanced the overall economics of the Mount Magnet option, which already enjoys an advantage having pipe gas versus trucked gas that Dalgaranga would require. In terms of our mill benchmarking, we've always believed that Mount Magnet and further to that, our Edna May Mill run at a very competitive cost per tonne through the mill, and that's borne out in this slide here.
As you can see on the chart, Mount Magnet running at an average of around 1.9 million tonnes per annum is one of the lowest cost mills of that size compared to peers. As we look to increase tonnage, that cost per tonne, as you would expect, will decrease. As evidence, it might be a little hard to see as the arrows you go from the blue dot to the yellow dot at 4.3 million tonnes and ultimately onto the orange dot at 5 million tonnes. What you actually have as a result is the option we have chosen has both a CapEx and an OpEx advantage over the alternative, plus a number of intangible benefits that we have listed in the release. These include doing CapEx projects at one location rather than two, having one ops team rather than two, etc., etc. Where does that put Mount Magnet?
We're onto slide 20 now. Here we actually have an overview of the top Australian gold production hubs. As you can see, once in full flight, the Mount Magnet Hub will be producing 360,000 oz of gold at an average of AUD 1,585 per ounce. Based on comparative FY 2025 stats, it will be the fifth largest gold production centre in Australia with the second lowest cost profile. Truly amazing from modest beginnings with Ramelius' involvement in the project back in 2011, and also remembering that there's 100 years or so of mining history at Mount Magnet. Moving on to slide 22. The Never Never production schedule. Point I'll make here is, as opposed to Penny and to a lesser degree, Cue, Never Never has grade, but it also has life, 11 years in the first instance.
The Never Never mine will provide the horsepower we need to become a 500,000 oz producer. As you can see in the schedule, at peak mining, we'll be mining approximately 1 million tonnes per annum with grades increasing in time as we get into the heart of the ore body, especially when we get to the point of combining ore from the Pepper zone with Never Never. For comparative purposes, Penny over its life of mine to date has contributed 456,000 tonnes at 12 g. Never Never is expected to contribute 9.3 million tonnes at 6.45 g over its current life of mine. We no longer have to require high-grade supplementary feed for the Mount Magnet Hub. We have a high-grade base load and high-grade prospects on our own ground to add further ounce. Not surprisingly, the PFS results for Never Never are pretty impressive.
At first glance, this is inclusive of Pepper, I also point out, will contribute to the Mount Magnet Hub from a PFS point of view, 1.8 million oz in gold produced at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,128, an NPV of AUD 3.5 billion at a gold price of AUD 4,500 , and free cash flow ranging from AUD 4.6 billion at a gold price of AUD 4,500 up to AUD 6.4 billion at a gold price of AUD 6,000 an ounce. This is based on only what we know today. With 75,000 drill meters planned for Dalgaranga in FY 2026, there is scope to derive significant additional value from places like Four Pillars, West Winds, and Applewood, and in time, look to extend Never Never at depth, remembering there's some very good deeper hits at Never Never to follow up on.
Moving ahead to slide 27, which looks to highlight simplistically the upside potential we see on our five-year plan, which we claim is a base case in which production year and in which production year that upside could eventuate. We do remain optimistic that there'll be an extension to our existing Penny North high-grade deposit to the southwest. As everyone would know, Penny is our highest grade mine in operation, so any extension will add value and production ounces as early as FY 2027. See slide 28 of the deck for our detailed underground drill program, which, as Tim mentioned, Tim Hewitt, our COO, mentioned yesterday, has recently commenced. Cue underground is the next target with potential additions to production in FY 2028 and FY 2029 on success based on known high-grade mineralization below the existing mine plan.
Our interest here particularly stems from the deeper intercept of six meters at 60.3 g per tonne. See slide 29 for the target areas, noting we have already drilled a number of holes and are just waiting for the assays to be returned. The Galaxy mine has two operating areas with depth extension potential, as well as recent drill results at Hesperus and Perseverance South, suggesting the potential for new underground mines relatively close to surface. The impact to production here, given existing mining plans, would be as early as FY 2029 and then beyond. Slide 31 shows our drill plans that are upcoming, utilizing new underground drill platforms put in this year as part of our increased exploration budget.
Finally, we have Dalgaranga in the area below the Gilbey's Pit, which you can see on slide 32, where there is underground potential to the south with three key prospects: West Winds, Four Pillars, and Applewood, which will be the focus of this year's resource extension drilling, as well as obviously carrying out a lot of grade control with drilling into Never Never and Pepper. We'll now jump onto the Rebecca-Roe DFS, initially speaking to slide 35. Firstly, I want to recognize the hard work from the technical team in preparing the updated technical studies that we refer to as the Rebecca-Roe DFS that has formed the basis of financial investment decision approved by the board. Now, if I can just touch on the key changes rather than running through the whole detailed document, changes from PFS to DFS, remembering the PFS was delivered back in December 2024.
As discussed earlier, we have pushed construction back by just over a year to allow us to focus on the Mount Magnet plant upgrade firstly. We have declared a maiden reserve on the Bombora underground of around 260,000 oz. This follows on from the technical work, geotechnical and hydrology work undertaken that was identified as needed doing from the PFS. We also have consolidated mine villages from two separate villages into one larger camp and increased the overall room numbers to 460 to account for construction peak periods as part of that. We have also slightly increased the throughput of the processing plant from 3 million tonnes to 3.25 million tonnes. Not unlike others, we have also seen some mining cost increases both due to total material move going up, but also higher mining contractor rates.
Somewhere just above 5% is the sense that we're getting in terms of those cost increases. Factoring in all items, we have seen a modest cost increase in both operating and capital costs. However, the project, as you can see from the numbers, remains highly profitable and importantly is perfect for us to take advantage of our hub and spoke model in what we believe is an underexplored mining region relatively close to Kalgoorlie. Slide 36 does have these results. On the back of strong economics display, the Ramelius board has made a positive financial investment decision subject to certain milestones being met. This is a real endorsement of both the technical work undertaken by the team, but also our commitment to moving this project forward. A few points quickly to highlight here: 26.3 million tonnes at 1.4 g per tonne for 1.1 million oz of recovered gold.
PP&E gross capital of AUD 340 million. AUD 1 billion in cash flow generation at a AUD 4,500 an ounce gold price. Production over the life of the project averages around 130,000 oz a year, but closer to 140,000 oz between FY 2030 and FY 2036 at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,625 an ounce. Whilst we can acknowledge that Rebecca-Roe will be a higher cost operation compared to Mount Magnet, as most are, it does compare pretty favorably to our peers at this cost level, without naming names, which generally sit between AUD 2,600 and AUD 2,800 per ounce. We have a few key milestones on slide 38 for the Rebecca-Roe project I'd just like to run through.
Probably a little known fact, we haven't really made a large fuss of it, but Rebecca has received environmental approval under Part V of the Environmental Protection Act, giving the company confidence around this Part V process. We are requesting Roe's application also to proceed under Part V to potentially advance the Roe project earlier, and we should have clarity from the regulators on that request in the coming months. We're also working with our traditional owners, the [Karla] Aboriginal Corporation, to complete a native title mining agreement, which we're at the final stages of. We're on the last slide. Firstly, we are a reliable team. We've demonstrated that with our last five years of delivery to guidance, both from a cost and production perspective. We believe that's a peer-leading track record. Our balance sheet proves our position as a sector leader in cash flow generation.
We're confident that this will continue for the next 10 years. In terms of dividends, our dividends are well above mid-tier gold producers, with our Board committed to going forward, maintain and grow shareholder returns in the future as our cash flow, particularly as our cash flow generation increases. We have mentioned that we have a production growth plan with significant growth that importantly is fully funded. This has all led to our inclusion in the ASX 100. Last but not least, we have exceptional exploration upside at all of our sites, with a real focus in the short term of both Mount Magnet and Dalgaranga to enhance our base case production profile. Thanks for listening. That concludes the presentation. Let's please move to Q&A if we could, Harmony. We'll initially go to the audio questions or the phone questions first.
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 speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. If you do wish to ask a question via the webcast, please enter it into the ask a question box and click submit. Your first question comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, Darren, team. Firstly, congrats on the update. No doubt a lot of work has gone in from the whole team. So well done. First one from me, just more on the cost and CapEx piece, and thanks for setting out sort of the underground mining costs and growth CapEx piece. Just noting in the Mount Magnet study, you've highlighted that you need further tailings from 2028. Are you able to just step through what the plan is there and what the associated capital cost and timing of that would be if it's not included in that five-year CapEx outlook, please.
Yeah. Hi, Hugo. Yeah, it's all included in that five-year plan. I guess I'm probably referencing slide 22. It's more, I think, classified as sustaining capital in that instance. I think our plan is probably out till 2028 from memory, and then it'd start to kick in some rises for that to occur. It is included in the profile. I can dig in further after the call if you want to try and find that.
No, it's definitely in there. Yeah, it's definitely in there, Hugo. I think we get to 2028 on sort of a super sell over the current, and then beyond that we move forward. We've accounted, we like to think we account for everything. We're reasonably conservative in my plans. Base case, everything should be in there.
Yeah, and it's still PFS level as well.
Yeah, fantastic. It's great. The tool in there, and then in and around the recycling of Dalgaranga plant and then taking some equipment across to the Mount Magnet expansion. What equipment would that leave you with, and is there a scope to potentially monetize that to, you know, potentially further increase the cash piece and de-risk the CapEx further?
We're taking the SAG mill and the gravity circuit, remembering that the Dalgaranga plant, the front end, does not really fit the purpose. It doesn't leave a lot, and there's no ball mill there because remembering that Spartan to process hard rock needed to install a ball mill. There's obviously the gold room and the tanks, and we'll be taking those as well. We'll take what we can. It won't leave a lot. I think one point to make is that the mill is fully permitted, and there's a footprint there that on the basis of significant exploration success, you retain that option. We will take what we can, and the most significant part of that is the SAG mill.
It may not be well understood, but that SAG mill is considerably larger than the one we have at Mount Magnet and much better suited to running at 3 million tonnes per annum than the current one at Mount Magnet. The fact that the Mount Magnet circuit as it stands is basically going to treat Dalgaranga ore, and the Dalgaranga circuit in parts is going to treat Mount Magnet ore might sound a bit odd, but there's some really sound logic behind it.
Fantastic. Thanks for that. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thanks, Hugo.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrew Bowler from Macquarie . Please go ahead.
Yeah, Mark and Darren. Just looking at the Never Never underground outputs of around about a million tonnes for ad, I'm just wondering how notional that figure is. Is there a potential to flex that up as the strike extents increase as you head more into Pepper, or is that something you've looked at closely? That sort of million tonnes per annum is a pretty sticky number coming out of Never Never.
Look, I'd like to think that our guys, when they give us a number in both in terms of production and then also in terms of grade, it's a number they can deliver on. There's been a lot of work. We've had to put in extra work into the ventilation piece to make sure that you can get the number of pieces of kit down the hole. When you actually hit the wider parts of the ore body, you can capitalize on that. When you start looking five years out, whether this mine can go, I know Spartan had aspirations to go to 1.25, 1.3, potentially. It's just not in our guys' nature to put that on the table in the first instance. We'll see how we go when we get there, but possibly. A similar thing applies to grade.
You know, we have a 9 g resource at Penny West, and we've got a 7 g reserve. The reason I mention that is because you've got some parallels here. You have a 9 g resource, and you've got about a 7 g reserve. Is that conservative? Potentially. I'd rather have a number that I can deliver at least rather than coming back and explaining why we're not delivering to a reserve.
Understood. Obviously, this study is based on Never Never only and Pepper as well. What's the potential for a restart of the Gilbey's Pit now that you're looking to truck material away to Mount Magnet? Is that decision to go with the unified processing option of Mount Magnet pretty much preclude a restart of Gilbey's, or is that something down the track that could be explored?
Thanks, Andrew. We will try to exploit the Never Never Pit on the top of the Never Never ore body, and that's in one of the documents. That's important. It adds a few ounces, but it's quite important from having another access, another ventilation access into the top of the ore body. In fact, we'd like to have that now according to the team. The reality is that even if we wanted to mine another cutback at Gilbey's, there's a number of things preventing that. One is that it's still got a considerable amount of water. Probably more importantly, our portal access into Never Never underground is in the wall of that pit. The third thing is that it's somewhat restricted on both sides, a cutback that is from the waste dump on one side and an old tailings dam on the other side. We see that as pretty impractical.
We'll access pretty much that ore where we can from underground, particularly to the south. Based on drilling success, we do see potential for a second access into a southern part of the mine whilst we're concurrently mining in Never Never and Pepper ultimately.
No worries. Appreciate it. That's all for me. Thanks.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you. Once again, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Alex Barkley from RBC. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Morning everyone, and thanks for the call. Just firstly, understanding that cumulative free cash flow growth chart you've got, page three of your main release, is that before CapEx? I know you talked about FY 2026 maybe the cash balance falling, but that looks like you've got some rising free cash flow scenarios. Thanks.
Yes, Alex, it's Darren. We've got the, I was using different AUD 4,500, AUD 5,250, and AUD 6,000. That's what we've modelled. What it doesn't include is exploration, dividends, and acquisition costs. Some of the one-offs in FY 2025 that we'll be paying in FY 2026 aren't included in that piece. If you look at the actual FY year growth pathways to 500 release, we actually make commentary, I think it's on slide two or page two, using a AUD 5,000 gold price. We are expecting the cash balance to get down at a low of AUD 500 million from the current level. That's sort of what we've modelled. Obviously, gold price is a little higher than that at this stage. That's probably a good reference point for you, Alex.
Importantly, it includes CapEx.
Yeah, okay. It's just one-offs. Yeah, no problem. You called out a AUD 200 million working capital build. Was that around stockpile increase? I think you called out, and was it to be used in FY 2028? I couldn't understand.
Okay, yeah.
What period did that release?
Is that the synergy reference, Alex? Working capital?
Yeah.
Yeah. What we've done there is we just wanted to, obviously, if Spartan had taken their own path, then there would be a need to build up substantial stockpiles before their plant was to be recommissioned at a 1.3 million tonne level. We just wanted to calculate there, okay, what would that have looked like? Basically, the mining costs are approximately AUD 7 million a year, or sorry, AUD 7 million a month. We just wanted to flag that on what that had looked like. We haven't included that working capital number as synergy. Just more for information purposes.
Yeah, it's not included in the AUD 1 billion.
Yeah. Okay. You've taken it out. That's all good. Last question. You talk about milling nameplate 5 million tonnes per annum, but sort of processing 4.3 million tones. Is that something around extra residence time or just being conservative, or what kind of ore blend you're looking at? What's the difference between those two numbers?
Essentially, you can go to 5 million tonnes, but remembering we have a 3 million tonne train, circuit two, and then we have the second train, circuit one, which will be processing for some considerable time, the Never Never and Dalgaranga ore, which notionally is going to be coming in at 1.3 million tonnes per annum. There are some other sources. There's a starter at the, I think it's the Four Pillars. We call it Gilbey's Underground. We've got the Never Never Pit as well. It's primarily Never Never and then ultimately Pepper. Whilst you have those ore sources in, it makes sense to be down at 1.3 million tonnes because you want that 53 micron. If you ran it at 2 million tonnes, which it could, you obviously need to relax your grind size and you'll take a big penalty.
We're talking about 13% recovery, which is massive, to run that at a higher throughput. It's 4.3 million tonnes because of the ore sources that you have and the need to get to 53 micron. If you didn't have that restriction and it was all, let's for argument's sake, call it all Mount Magnet dirt, you would run both circuits at the max and you'd get 5 million tonnes per annum through.
Yeah, I think for our modelling purposes, Alex, with the depletion of all the Dalgaranga dirt, we've modelled come FY 2037 is when we'd step up from the 4.3 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes . Obviously, we're spending a significant amount on exploration, so expect that to extend. We've purely modelled on what we know today on reserves and resources. Yeah.
Okay, thanks very much, guys. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thanks, Alex.
Thank you. There are no further phone questions at this time. I'll now hand the conference back to your speakers to address any webcast questions.
Yeah, I've just got a few on the webcast here. You mentioned share buybacks at some stage. Do you have an idea of when that would happen? We had quite a good chat with our board last week while at site reviewing the option, which they finally approved for Rebecca-Roe and for Mount Magnet. One of the other decisions or conversations was around capital allocations. The board very much gave the message to management we want to maintain and grow our shareholder returns. That could be in the form of dividends and/or share buybacks. In the first half of the calendar year, 2026, we'll be releasing our new capital allocation framework in which that will all be shared to the market. That is something that we're both mindful of, especially as our free cash flow generation will significantly increase.
Another question here from the webcast. Can you please discuss any upside potential at Rebecca-Roe, if any? We're obviously spending, I think, AUD 10 million out there on exploration, probably more so in the Rebecca area, the Jennifer Lode, which is the sort of the high-grade lode in the center of the Rebecca Pit, the Rebecca deposit, which is the main deposit on that Rebecca lease, has got underground potential, plus a number of other exploration targets. We've got our own potential, plus there's a lot of smaller resources, a bit of a patchwork quilt of ownership around us. There are potential hub and spoke opportunities that we mentioned on the call.
I think I did mention also in the call, if we get a positive outcome on permitting, then we can bring the Bombora Pit, which is part of the road section of the project, to bring that forward, which will actually add value to the project and give us a bit more production flexibility, where at the moment, it's a year later than Rebecca because of that permitting assumption that we've made. There was a second follow-up question. I think I basically answered it in my answer to that previous question. There's another question coming through. On slide 16, you show 53 micron was the target grind size for increasing recovery of Dalgaranga, with ore leaching at 24 and 48 hours, yielding the same result. Is there scope merit to reduce the leach residence time, or is the mill the bottleneck still?
One of the things I didn't mention on that mill plan is that we share the leach circuits. If needed, the beauty of having that combined circuit is that you can actually increase your leach time. What the test work is telling us is that we don't need 48 hours at 53 microns, but if for whatever reason we wanted to increase that grind out to 60 microns or 65 microns, we can play, and we've got flexibility with that circuit, which is the beauty of it. Also, if one circuit's getting a, we're doing a shutdown on one, we can still be operating the other. There's a lot of flexibility within that circuit, and only time will tell when we actually start processing the Dalgaranga ore in terms of how it performs in the plant as opposed to test work. There's always subtle differences between the two.
Will there be a recorded webcast of this event? Yes, I believe so. We will make that available on our website. What are the near-term plans for Edna May? That one always comes up every call. We'll get to that later this year in terms of the board considering our options there, and we'll come back to the market early calendar 2026 in terms of our plans for Edna May. Significant engineering works proposed has RMS capacity or requires substantial outside engineering input. We are building a project team under the stewardship of Alan Thom, our Chief Development Officer. We're building that team up. We'd like to think in some cases we're getting in the front of a few others who are looking at expansions and new mills.
That's one of the reasons why we haven't dared try to do an upgrade at Mount Magnet and build a mill at Rebecca-Roe at the same time. The idea is to build the project team, which we're partway through, get that commenced in the new year at Mount Magnet, and then roll that team pretty much into Rebecca-Roe and try to keep that team to basically do two projects. We haven't built a mill from scratch. We've upgraded mills. We've done refurbishments. We're confident that we are using, and we have been using, tier one engineering consultants all the way through. What is the timeframe on the Iridanious cutback now? How does the capital profile look? From memory, the answer to that one is we've pushed Iridanious cutback because we have Dalgaranga ore coming in down the road.
We pushed it back from April 2026 start to later in the year, something like about October and November. We pushed that back a little bit to cater for more ore coming down the road from Dalgaranga. We don't need to start that quite as early. The capital profile is pretty similar. I think it was about AUD 350 million, AUD 370 million. It just bumped up a little bit from the AUD 350 million that we would have had 12 months ago over three years starting in FY 2027. Any Penny, any qualitative statements you can make about extensional drilling at Penny and Cue? How much excess capacity do you have at Mount Magnet or how much potential low grade? There is a slide out just on that last question. First, in years 2028, 2029, and 2030, we actually put on those bars the low grade that is being processed.
That's the real potential, particularly in those last three years, where as it is, the production ramps up significantly, that you are able to potentially displace significant quantities of low grade ore. In terms of Penny, the drilling's just started. We've released all the results that we do have. At Cue, we've put in a number of holes. I think they're shown on the section on slide 29. There are some green boxes on there. We're just waiting for results to come back. I can't really comment on those just yet. Mindful of time, the market's going to open soon. There's no more questions on the webcast. Nothing else from you, Harmony.
Thank you. There are no further questions via the phone lines.
Okay, thanks for listening in. It was quite a long call this morning. There's a lot to get through. Thanks for your attendance. Have a great day.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.