Ramelius Resources Limited (ASX:RMS)
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May 13, 2026, 4:10 PM AEST
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RIU Explorers Conference 2026

Feb 18, 2026

Moderator

Right, one last opportunity before we head out to afternoon tea. I notice the room is filling up again, and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the actual company, or perhaps it's this fellow here. Last time I saw this fellow here, he was in orange, hi-vis, had another name stitched above his breast pocket. He was excited. He's a dedicated human being. Would you want one of these while I talk about you? No, not before you indulge. This fellow here, his name is Mr. Lawson. Mr. Lawson is a name that I've heard a couple of times over the last 24 hours. "Oh, I spoke to Lawson about that." "Oh, yeah, I asked Lawson." He's very well respected within the resources industry.

Yeah, and he had a serious chat with me a couple of years ago and convinced me that I should perhaps buy two bananas worth of his then company. So he's here today to talk, not about said company, but his new one, Ramelius. So please make him welcome, and see what you can get out of this conversation.

Simon Lawson
Deputy Chairman, Ramelius Resources

Thank you, Chrissy. It's always disappointing to see people heading for the door just before I get up. Look, I wanted to come today, and thankfully, Ramelius allowed me to do that. I think they're still a little bit wary of my crazy sort of behavior, having bought Spartan into the fold. But thankfully, they were trusting enough to allow me to jump up here and actually talk about exploration, which from a Ramelius point of view, has always been metrics heavy at the front end. Which, you know, there is no argument that Ramelius is one of the, you know, highest margin gold producers in Australia and has established itself consistently for, you know, more than six years, delivering on guidance or beating guidance, which to me is something to be very proud of.

But this is an exploration conference, so I was pretty keen to make sure that people understand that while we are an amazing gold producing company and touching around about AUD 8.5 billion , in market capitalization at the moment, we are poised and executing what is arguably one of the biggest exploration programs I've been involved with since leaving Northern Star quite a few years ago. Look, we have a vision. Everyone needs a vision, and it's crazy to think about these things sometimes, considering a couple of years ago, you know, it was a, you know, the origins of a few cent company to now being part of what is an amazing gold mining company that's heading towards 500,000 ounces per annum as our, as our vision by FY 2030.

As I said, AUD 8.5 billion market cap, almost AUD 700 million cash in the bank at the moment, 12 million ounces in resource, and now with the addition of the new high grade, Never Never, or Dalgaranga reserve, 4.2 million ounces. So, you know, over a third of those resource ounces are in reserve. We are actually producing 195,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of about AUD 1,800 at the moment. So, you know, very high margins. Growing the business, we always put this map in here. You know, there are multiple operations in the Ramelius business, and despite the persistent rumor that seems to be circulating the conference at the moment, we still own Edna May. We have been looking at several options there.

It's in care and maintenance at the moment, but the official line on this stage from, you know, the Deputy Chair, for whatever that means, is that Edna May is still part of our portfolio, and we're looking at, you know, how we can unlock the value for, of that asset. Rebecca/Roe being our growth asset at the moment, and then the key flagship has always been Mount Magnet, but with the addition of Dalgaranga, is now supercharged, ready for the future. You can see there, we stepped our reserves up to 3.1 million ounces. The maiden ore reserve, which even surprised me a little bit, 1.6 million ounces at 7.3 grams a ton, which is pretty amazing, but, I'll show you some drill holes that might lead you down a slightly higher grade path.

Not that I can officially say that, but here we are. Five-year outlook. I mean, if you look at that, very strong and consistent All-in Sustaining Cost across the top of the graph there, with the bar chart of increasing production over time. We're not losing control of our cost control. We are absolutely maintaining that tight-fisted control on low, low-cost, high-margin gold production. Scheduled to be or on track for AUD 1 billion free cash flow. That's just crazy numbers. So I said to the Ramelius Board: "Please, please, can we have some money to go and drill some holes? Because I think this is an amazing business, but I think it can be, you know, supercharged. It can be excellent." free cash flow, as I pointed out there, you can see the growth path.

We've given you a few gold prices just in case you're feeling a little bit pessimistic some days. That is still crazy numbers that we're talking about there in terms of how fast we build that cash, and how fast we execute on the plans that we've got in place at the moment. Mount Magnet in focus, as I've said, flagship operation, always has been for Ramelius, and what a crazy piece of geology. Like, it's just it's been in operation for over 130 years, and for me, there is just so much more to come, and we're proving that with the drill bit right now. Five-year outlook, just to break out. The previous five-year outlook was about the group. This is the five-year outlook just for Mount Magnet.

So we have a very clear and strong plan, obviously integrating the Dalgaranga high-grade ounces into that plan, but already processing, you know, one of the highest grade mines in Australia at Penny and Cue, which has been overperforming from the open pit. And as that Break of Day and that whole Starlight system starts to come to fruition with drilling, we will be showing, I suppose, what I can see as being a very long mine life, with a you know, high-grade production profile to it. So you can see we build quite quickly the 360,000-400,000 ounces by FY 2030. That is what we're gonna do. Without delivering another ounce, that is what we can achieve right now. Exploration upside. This is where we think we can get things from.

You can see the ounce profile there in the dark blue bar chart. We're building very quickly without finding another ounce. We think these little boxes at the top here are where most of the upside's gonna come from, so that's what we're focused on at the moment. I won't go through it in huge detail, but just understand we're spending AUD 80 million-AUD 100 million, and we're currently drilling with 12 rigs on the surface and four from underground. So from an exploration perspective, you know, I did cop a little bit of grief about pushing aside a little exploration company for the right to stand on this stage, but what I really wanted to show people is that with drilling and with mindset and purpose and the right people and capital, you can achieve some pretty amazing things.

So I think "watch this space" has been used many times. What we're looking at, at the moment, is sitting sort of 12th, in the, let's just say, in our peer space, in production and, and cost. You can see there, the little blue chart, blue bar, that's where we're at the moment. We're planning to move to number five, in that peer space without having to find an extra ounce at this stage. So I'll just keep saying that, but we are finding extra ounces.

Now, I apologize to Jake Ball from Ramelius. I forced him to give me a picture which showed the footprint of, of Mount Magnet. He wasn't happy with this diagram, but the key takeaways here are the red square is Checkers processing plant, and without going more than 10 km from that plant, we are starting to find growth opportunities. Windbag prospect, great name. Drilled under that. I'll show you some pictures in a second, but we drilled under that and literally hit gold straight away. These things have been sitting there since they were stopped, for whatever reason, industry, and we were able to trolley a rig out there and find gold right away. Galaxy Coral [audio distortion], people will know the Mars and Saturn are actually being mined at the moment. Hesperus is a target that was worked up by the exploration team there, near mine exploration, and it's just expanding. You can see the grade improving with depth.

You know, a lot of people have said it's very low grade. It underpins the foundation of our production profile without finding another ounce. What we're hitting is over 250 gram intercepts below Eridanus. So I challenge you on your low-grade perception. Bartus, which historically had produced some very high-grade production, we haven't even got there yet. There's a 2 km trend that remains relatively untested. Mount Magnet itself, Mars and Saturn in the middle there in the dark blue, Hesperus on the left-hand side. Just to give you some context, that's the Hill 50 mine, which produced, you know-- What is it? 360,000. What is it here? Let me just make sure I've got my numbers to make sure that, I don't misquote.

But it's something over 1,500 meters of extension right down to depth, and I suppose the point I'm trying to get across here is there's no reason why Mars and Saturn, that sit immediately adjacent to it in the same rock types, can't go at least 1,000 meters. And what we've done is put out an exploration target for the first time, just to really illustrate to people, "Hey, we just produced 420,000 ounces at 2.6 grams a ton from these mines." We're just simply saying that we're gonna produce 12x-14x that in resource just from doing some drilling. So that's not in our resource tables, obviously, at the moment, but that's our intention, that with that exploration target, to deliver that outcome.

56,000-meter drill program, AUD 16 million spend, that's what we're committed to. You can see in the red lines that we're, that's where we're drilling. That dashed area is where that exploration target is, 6 million -7 million tonnes at 2.6, 2.1-2.6, for 500,000 ounces. To me, that's nothing to be sneezed at when those are your active mines right now. Ounces per vertical meter. I was pretty surprised by this because I've been quoting some pretty amazing numbers for Dalgaranga, but when you look at this, 6,500 ounces per vertical meter across the two mines we're currently underpinning our production profile with, that's pretty exceptional, and that's not counting all of these drill hits that are not even in the mine plan at this stage further down. So we are, you know, sitting on top of what could be a very extensive system that we're currently mining.

So really, what I want to do is drive home the point here. With exploration spend in this great geology, with people, you know, good people running those programs, you can absolutely change the future. Hesperus, one hole under there. I'll draw your attention to 35 meters at 3 grams a tonne sitting underneath that pit. You know, again, some people would say that's low grade. I challenge that perception. It's sitting within 10 km of our plant, right next to our operating Mars and Saturn mines, so there is very big potential for this to grow extensively, and we're obviously drilling with you know, 12 rigs, so we will be prosecuting these targets. Windbag, as I mentioned, 45 meters at 2 grams, one hole straight underneath an old open pit. What do you know? There's still gold there. Less than 100 meters from surface.

Challenge us not to put an open pit over that. Eridanus, underground potential, again, people say it's low grade. There's some incredibly high-grade gold down there. It could be mined as a discrete underground mining method, post the open pit. So to me, there's just huge potential right in front of us. I'm gonna move a bit quicker now because I'm running out of time. I'll move to Cue now. Huge system, well drilled out by Rob Waugh, but I think he was really only just getting warmed up on the geology here, and we're able to really get after this, spending, you know, AUD 16 million is our budgeted spend over here. We're already making discoveries. This, well, Austin North, to me, looks quite exceptional, just under shallow cover.

Some really good drill hits there, considering they're very close to surface, and we really are only just touching the top of that particular prospect at this stage, right next to the Break of Day resource, which in itself is exceptional. On the left-hand side there, that is a long section. It shows the potential outside of the Break of Day pit. White Heat, amazing unmined drill hits underneath it. We need to get after that. We're drilling that area at the moment, so there's just huge potential. I'll get to Dalgaranga. There's a cross-section on the right-hand side here. You can see really good drill hits, gets better with depth. Every MD says it. You don't have to, you don't have to believe the mouth that's saying it.

You can see the drill hits in front of you, and we're actively going after that target at depth, so it's almost ridiculous how much potential there is before I even get to Dalgaranga. Penny, a lot of people think that this one's got a bit of a limited mine life. I think there's a much bigger system here. We've already made a discovery just to the north of it called Magenta. Has very similar geometry. I think there's a lot more to come from this little mine, and we're getting after that pretty hard at the moment, so, you know, expect more. That's Magenta just to the north on the left-hand side there. That could turn into anything, but there's some very good drill hits there already, and as I said, we're getting after it. Dalgaranga, everybody knows this one.

I've got two minutes left. What I want to really drive home here is that we just put out a reserve that was 7.3 grams a ton, which in itself is pretty good. 1.6 million ounces, 75 km away from a plant. We're literally going to be putting ore through that plant from Never Never. If we're not already now, we'll be in the next sort of 24-48 hours, which is pretty crazy. It's two years ahead of what we would have been able to achieve at Spartan standalone, and we're hitting grades in grade control drilling consistently over double what that reserve grade is. So I'm pretty excited about this. As I've shown ad nauseam, 4,500 ounces per vertical meter in a very compact, voluminous ore body, very consistent grade.

One thing I'd love to talk about with the geologists in the room or anyone who's interested is when you drill an ore body, generally, you end up creating a low bias to the grade in your statistics because you drill more lower-grade holes. As we keep drilling at closer spacing into Never Never, the grade goes up. This is our mining schedule at this moment without finding another ounce or without changing resource. 1 million ton per annum at the grade across the top of the screen for over 10 years at this stage. And we haven't really even gone into the corridor there, but we're spending up to AUD 19 million just at Dalgaranga as well. Very busy exploration team, working out how many more of these high-grade ore bodies we can find.

I suppose just to really drive it home, we have supercharged this business with the combination of Spartan with Ramelius. People and safety. Focus on safety has never changed, never will. Proactive safety culture. We want to retain and attract top talent. We want to build internal capabilities and enhance, support our leadership. We want to deliver, and I know that Phil said this just before, deliver six straight year of production and cost guidance on track or better. Deliver enhanced high-grade production profiles with a focus on displacing low-grade tons. So we have a base case. We're going to achieve our goals, but our game now is to find more high-grade, lower-cost ounces to displace that plan. Deliver high-grade ounces to mine schedule through targeted exploration, and as I said, AUD 80 million-AUD 100 million.

Environmental approval for Roe, we're waiting on that, and that basically fully permits Rebecca/Roe for development. The rest of this year is about getting Never Never underground on schedule to deliver high grade to Mount Magnet hub, commence the Never Never open pit to provide additional ore sources, and commence the modification of the Mount Magnet plant to 4.3 million ton per annum, and drill--

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