Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Regis Resources Limited quarterly briefing. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Jim Beyer, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Travis, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the Regis June 2024 quarterly update. Today, I'm joined by our COO, Michael Holmes, our CFO, Anthony Riccichi, and our Head of Investor Relations, Jeff Sansom. Looking into the results, firstly, on safety, we had a very pleasing outcome in our safety performance. Specifically, our 12-month moving average lost time injury frequency rate was 0. It means we had a full year clear of any lost time injury. This outcome is certainly in line. It's an impressive outcome, and it's certainly in line with our purpose of creating value safely and responsibly. Although I would note that while it's a great outcome, and well done by the team, this is a journey with no end, and we will keep working hard to maintain this performance.
Talking about our purpose of creating value, now let's talk cash. I want to start off by pointing out to the cash-generating capacity of our business. Since December 2023, our gold production has been fully leveraged to the gold price, and we've delivered record cash flow and record build of cash and bullion. Given that these results were pre-released, it shouldn't be a surprise, but I wanted to iterate that the business is in a great position, and we're working to continue to deliver ongoing cash build now that we're free of the shackles of our previously long-standing legacy hedge book. Onto our operations and high-level financial metrics across the business. Our operations continued their recovery from the weather impacts of the prior quarter, albeit not with full recovery, and Michael will talk some more on that in a moment.
As we expected, the quarter delivered much stronger production at 106,700 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of $2,247 an ounce. At Duketon, assets recovered very well following the weather impacts and delivered 76,000 at an all-in sustaining of $2,249 an ounce, while Trop has been slower to recover. And ongoing challenges related to additional rain events or labor availability and unplanned equipment downtime has meant that Tropicana delivered only 30,800 ounces at an all-in sustaining at $2,145 an ounce. For the full financial year, despite the impacts related to the weather, we're pleased that at a group level, our production, our AISC, and our growth capital all fell within the guidance ranges that we declared at the beginning of the year.
Our expenditure on exploration in McPhillamys were slightly below. At a more granular level, Duketon delivered production and AISC within guidance, and Tropicana production was slightly below its guided range, but within the guidance range on, on, unit costs, all-in sustaining costs. I'll note that for June quarter, we saw some non-cash inventory adjustment costs as we drew on our stockpiles, albeit at lower volumes to the prior quarter, and something that will continue into the, into this year. Michael will provide more insight into the operational drivers, and Anthony will provide more detail on all-in sustaining cost drivers shortly. From a growth perspective, I'll talk to this a bit more in detail towards the end, but we made significant progress on our organic growth.
Commencing the development of the Garden Well Main underground extensions of Rosemont called Stage 3, and earlier this week, we released the McPhillamys DFS, which confirmed McPhillamys is a long-life, low-operating cost open-pit mine that delivers robust financial metrics and significant leverage to the gold price. So for now, that's it from me, and I'll hand over to Michael, our Chief Operating Officer, to discuss operational performances. Over to you, Michael.
Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Within our operations, we had a mixed recovery from the severe weather events in March that continued to impact the final quarter of FY 2024. At Duketon, the recovery from the weather impacts was relatively rapid, and both Duketon North and South delivered ounces in line with expectations. During the quarter, Duketon South produced 66,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $2,094 per ounce, with open-pit mining producing just over 55% of gold from our Garden Well, Ben Hur, Toohey's Well, and Russell's Find open pits. During the period, we did have some small rain events, which delayed activities in certain areas, but nothing material. The Garden Well South and Rosemont Undergrounds performed well and delivered 29,600 ounces.
We commenced the development of the Garden Well Main mining area, as well as the extension of Rosemont South, called Rosemont Stage 3. We expect to commence first stoping of ore from Garden Well Main and Rosemont Stage 3 in quarter one, FY 2026. So that's in about a year's time. At Duketon North, we produced 9,500 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $3,328 an ounce, with all mined from Eindhoven, Gloster, and Buckingham open pits. Production was up, and costs were down compared to the last quarter, as we drew less from our low-grade stockpiles and ran our mines and the mill towards care and maintenance. As of now, all processing, the process plant and all mining activities have ceased. DNO is transitioning to care and maintenance.
We will continue, however, to explore with the exploration activities in the DNO region as we look for answers that could support a restart in the future. We did continue to draw on stockpiles, and the all-in sustaining cost of $3,328 per ounce includes a non-cash cost component of $438 per ounce. Looking to FY 2025, and with DNO transitioning to care and maintenance, all gold production will be centered around our Duketon South operations. We expect that Duketon South will continue to produce ore from the underground and the open pits of Garden Well, Ben Hur, Russell's Find, and Toohey's Well, and with Russell's Find finishing up towards the end of FY 2025.
As for Tropicana, their recovery from the weather impacts has been slower than expected, but several other issues have also impacted its performance, primarily the open pit performance this quarter. Overall, Tropicana produced 30,800 ounces at an All-In Sustaining Cost of $2,145 per ounce. Operations within the open pits continued to be challenged in the June quarter. Firstly, dewatering of one of the the Havana open pit stages continued into late April, reducing access to that ore. Ongoing rain events have continued to saturate the access roads, impacting road quality and disrupting supply routes, delaying the supplies of mining equipment, parts, and consumables. Poor labor availability also caused by seasonal illnesses and worker absenteeism, combined with unplanned equipment downtime, also reduced open pit mining volumes.
The sum of these impacts was that the Tropicana open pits delivered only 12.1 thousand ounces for the quarter. This underperformance of the Tropicana open pits was a primary driver for Tropicana being below the FY 2024 guidance range. As for the underground, operations delivered 13.4 thousand ounces. At the end of the quarter, Tropicana was still not performing to expectations, however, is forecast to progressively improve in the coming quarter. Looking towards FY 2025, mining will continue in the Havana open pits, the Boston Shaker undergrounds. An assessment of the potential Havana Underground Project is continuing and is progressing to board approval. Across all our mills for the June quarter, Duketon performed to expectations with no unplanned downtime. However, throughput at Tropicana was lower than planned due to reduced availability.
Across all the processing plants, low-grade stockpile material supplemented mill throughput, which will continue into FY 25. I will now hand over to Anthony to discuss, who will discuss the quarterly financials.
Thanks, Michael. First off, to close off on what Michael mentioned. In this quarter, with an improving production profile and less reliance on stockpiles, we saw our all-in sustaining costs improve across the board compared to the March quarter. In the June quarter, group all-in sustaining costs per ounce were AUD 2,247 an ounce, and for the year, our all-in sustaining costs at the group and site levels were within guidance ranges. Moving on to our financial performance, Regis has had another great quarter and delivered a few financial records. We sold just under 115,000 ounces of gold at a record average price of AUD 3,528 an ounce, receiving a record AUD 404 million of gold sales revenue.
With the high prevailing spot gold prices and sales revenue, in turn, we delivered record operating cash flows of AUD 166 million, with AUD 106 million from Duketon and AUD 60 million coming from Tropicana. Now, if I just point you towards Figure 2 in the announcement and the changes in cash and bullion for the period. As we've noted, in conjunction with the hedge book, we delivered a record cash and bullion balance, growth of AUD 109 million for the quarter, ending with, again, a record cash and bullion balance, of AUD 295 million at thirtieth June. Looking back on the hedge book buyout in December, it did in fact turn out to be a beneficial outcome, as we'd expected.
Taking into account the difference between the average buyout price of those 63,000 ounces we closed out, and the average spot gold price we got for selling them into the spot market, we're about AUD 48 million better off for having closed out the hedge book when we did. Capital expenditure was AUD 50 million for the quarter, which included AUD 34 million of underground development and waste stripping costs at both Duketon and Tropicana, and AUD 6 million of growth capital, primarily related to Duketon underground development works, including initial works on Garden Well Main and the extension of Rosemont Stage 3. Exploration and McPhillamys expenditure was AUD 16 million. Now, on to tax. Included in the June quarter was AUD 20 million of proceeds from a tax refund, which was mentioned in the previous quarterly conference call.
This tax refund was made available for the last time for Regis through the ATO's loss carryback tax offset provisions, which allowed the company to effectively recognize carry forward tax losses immediately, and in turn, we received a cash refund. We don't expect any further tax refunds of that kind. So they are the main messages on the financials, and now back to you, Jim.
Thanks, Anthony. Pardon me. As I mentioned up front, we had a great financial quarter, and aside from delivering significant financial performance across the board, we also made significant progress on delivering into our growth strategy. So from an underground perspective, across Duketon and Tropicana, our underground reserves grew at a rate that outpaced depletion for the third consecutive year. And in the release, I just draw your attention to figures 3 and 4. In fact, at Tropicana, not only did we exceed underground depletion, we also exceeded open pit depletion in the underground reserves, which is a great outcome. Now, given the style of mineralization we see at both of these assets, this is a trend we expect will continue into the future, which gives confidence in the sustainability of our undergrounds, well beyond their existing reserves.
Now, just take a step back for a moment and understanding what our broader strategy is, certainly at Duketon. We really, as I think people have seen in our past presentations, show our target of at Duketon of 200-250 thousand ounces per annum, and we're driving to establish that region as a production center that can sustain that out beyond 2028. To do this, we're targeting to establish 4 or 5 underground mines, and between these mines, we target to hit and sustain production of that 200-250 thousand between them. Of course, you know, it goes without saying that if we find new pit reserves on the surface.
Not sure where you'd find pit reserves underground, but if we found pit reserves on the surface, this will add and top up the production by utilizing spare mill capacity. Delivering into this strategy, we announced the approval and have commenced the development of Garden Well Main and the extension of Rosemont, and that extension is called Stage Three, which Michael talked on before. Garden Well Main will add additional annual production ounces, while Rosemont Stage Three is more of a major extension to the life of Rosemont underground. Now, while we're there, we're currently drilling at Garden Well, both South and Main, and Rosemont, to convert inferred resources into indicated resources, and thereby continuing the expansion of our mineral inventory down plunge of the existing mineralization and reserves.
Based on our local geological knowledge and other exploration data, to date, we're confident on delivering further underground growth at the Garden Well South and Main, and Rosemont. We also continue to drill across several prospective additional underground mine targets, and have a good line of sight over our potential fourth and fifth underground mine area that I was talking about. If you have a look in our release, we highlight the opportunities, these potentials at Ben Hur and Toohey's Well, which are two. One, Ben Hur is a pit in production at the moment. Toohey's Well is an old one that's that's been done, and then the other one that's in our release is Merlin, which has both underground and open pit potential, a little bit earlier stage, though, than the other two.
So moving on from Duketon, we now our large growth the final growth pillar, and after the end of of the quarter, we completed and released the details on the McPhillamys DFS. Take you back on a little bit of a journey. McPhillamys was acquired by Regis back in 2012, and in 2017, we released the PFS in conjunction with the reserves, maiden reserves. Since then, we've continued to progress the study works, and very pleased to have reached this major milestone and de-risk stage of the project. With the DFS that we released, we updated the ore reserves to 56 million tons at 1.1 grams per ton, for a contained 1.89 million ounces.
Now, the project itself is a proposed plant with a capacity of up to 7 million tons per annum, and that'll recover 1.7 million ounces over just under 9.5 years of processing in the current plan. The average annual production rate will be about 187,000 ounces per annum, and when at full production, after ramp up, and its maximum production, which occurs at the back end, when we've got the higher grades coming through, is up to 235,000 ounces per annum. Now, the average life of mine, all-in sustaining cost, is estimated to be just less than AUD 1,600 per ounce. That's Aussie.
So with these impressive operating metrics, and looking at a $3,500 gold price, which is about $167 an ounce less than what it is at the moment, $150 an ounce less than spot, the project delivers a pre-tax NPV of $1.3 billion. It has an IRR just under 25% and a payback period of 3.5 years. Now, on top of the current contained gold that we talked about in that, 1.7 million ounces of recovered, there is. Exploration has intersected gold mineralization down plunge of the current design pit. Now, this includes 3 meters at 8.4 grams per ton.
It also has 52 meters at 4.5 grams per ton, including within that, 26 meters at 7.6 grams per ton. It's 26 meters at 7.6 grams per ton. This indicates the exciting potential down plunge of current mineralization, which we really have yet to fully explore. These are the first serious holes that have been put in this down plunge mineralization. It's very exciting. We also have 400,000 ounces of resources down the road at Discovery Ridge, and of course, we've got the intercept across the road from McPhillamys at Kings Plains. That's a property that we hold there, where with one hole in it of 85 meters at 1.5 grams per ton.
We believe there is significant value embedded within McPhillamys and in the surrounding area, and this will, can only enhance the scale and improve the current economics. As discussed before, we continue to progress our application for a modification to our development consent, and the Section 10, Federal Section 10 ATSIHP Act application is still being considered by the Commonwealth. On obtaining the approval of the mod and the satisfactory resolution of the Section 10 application, the project will be ready for final investment decision, which is expected to be in FY 26. McPhillamys is one of the largest undeveloped open-pit gold projects and a great investment option to have in our portfolio. Now, on to our outlook and our FY 25 guidance. At Duketon, the production range reflects the reduction in ounces produced as DNO transitions into the previously well flag stage of care and maintenance.
This leaves all Duketon production coming from Duketon South open pits and underground, and well within the sustainable target range of 200-250,000 ounces per annum, which we've been talking about. The guidance for this year is, for Duketon, is 220-240,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,520-AUD 2,800 an ounce, and growth capital, AUD 110 million-AUD 120 million. Now, I would point out that that all-in sustaining cost includes approximately AUD 190 an ounce of a non-cash element that relates to stockpile drawdowns. Reminding people that all-in sustaining costs is not necessarily cash costs of the period.
The all-in sustaining guidance range reflects this overall reduction in production, along with the increased proportion of underground ore being mined and increased mining depths within the open pits. The growth capital expenditure reflects the costs of the previously announced development of Garden Well Main and the extension of Rosemont at Stage 3, both of which are key projects of the Duketon Underground strategy. Turning to Tropicana, since the severe weather events in March, which Michael talked through before, of this year, recovery of the open pit mining activities has been constrained by the ongoing supply disruptions, poor labor availability, and reduced equipment availability. This has led to a gold production guidance for this year of 130,000 ounces-140,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining between AUD 2,300 and AUD 2,600, and minimal growth capital, sub AUD 5 million.
Mining activities at Tropicana are yet to normalize, and the FY 2025 production guidance reflects the flow-on impacts that the lower than expected or delivered mining rates have resulted in, for example, access to open-pit ore production. So this drives the need, and the reduced availability of ore coming out of the pits has driven the need to pull down on lower-grade stockpiles to supplement mill feed. This also results in those all-in sustaining costs, having a $90 an ounce non-cash element in the AISC. So what does that mean for the consolidated group? We've got 350,000 ounces-380,000 ounces of production, $2,440-$2,740 in all-in sustaining cost, of which about $150 of that is non-cash.
We've got growth capital of AUD 110 million-AUD 125 million, most of it associated with the undergrounds at Duketon. Exploration, AUD 50 million-AUD 60 million, and McPhillamys fitting AUD 15 million-20 million. So to summarize the June quarter, we delivered another quarter of safe performance. Our mines delivered a solid operational outcomes. Underpinned by a record gold price, we achieved record free cash flow performance. We continued to deliver on our growth strategy by growing our underground reserves ahead of depletion for a third year in a row. We commenced the development of our third underground mining area of Garden Well Main, and we also commenced the major extension of Rosemont via Stage 3. And we released the McPhillamys DFS, the culmination of 12 years of work that confirmed a strong value accretive growth option.
I would say this DFS, as I mentioned, it's a culmination of many years of work for people who are with the company and people who have also moved on from Regis, and I'll just take the opportunity to thank all of the people that were involved over the many years to get the project to this state. And while I'm on it, I'd also like to make a comment on Duketon North as we progress that to care and maintenance. There would be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who over the years have contributed to the very successful status of the Duketon North operations. A site that is heading into care and maintenance, but over the period since its production, has produced over 1.2 million ounces of gold.
So thanks to everybody that was involved in that, over those many years. All right, well, look, that sort of covered off our message from the quarterly. So I'd like to hand back now to Travis, and help out where we can with any questions from the listeners.
Thank you. Thanks. 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 Papaioanou from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Alex.
Hi, Jim and team. Just appreciating that year in Tropicana has had some challenges, so I'm just trying to think: how should we think about costs beyond FY 25 when things normalize?
Well, look, you know, we obviously don't give, and haven't given a guidance out beyond where we are, but I would certainly make a comment that this year is an unusual. Well, not an unusual year, but a less than normal year for us in the way that the costs are rolling out. Obviously, there's a combination of the production levels are probably a little bit lower than we were initially anticipating, and that's part of the gold production levels are a bit lower than anticipated, and that's resulted in obviously lower production. No kidding. But what's also happened, and we sort of talked through the reasons for that, which we believe very firmly, that the operation can work its way through.
The other thing that's impacting on the costs for this year is as a result of the underperformance of the mining during all of that wet weather periods in areas, not just the production of ore, but in the, in the movement of waste, which is effectively, you know, the waste associated with the Havana cutback. That's probably. We've had to. We see an increase in the TMMs, for this year, this current year, to help sort of, I suppose, catch up, if you like. So we certainly would like to believe that we will see production levels at Tropicana lift in the future years.
Of course, as the cutback starts to wind down at Havana, that the total material movement will wind down or the waste will wind down, and that will take the pressure off that current all-in sustaining costs. That obviously has a fair bit of pressure on it. So we don't see this as being a permanent shift. This is just, at the moment, it's a difficult year, and obviously the team there are doing a lot of work to see what can be done to improve on this situation. But as it stands at the moment, that's what we decided to run with in terms of our outlook.
Yep. And in terms of weighting of that recovery, would it be fair to say that production would be more 2H weighted with those recoveries hopefully happening in 1H?
Actually, it's interesting. When we look at our guidance, we're anticipating that H1 will be probably a little bit stronger than H2 across the board. So it's sort of, it's almost counterintuitive to think that, you know, the issues that have flowed in, in the March and flowed through into the June quarter at Trop would sort of continue. But in actual fact, what we're doing now is we're, you know, in simple terms, we're getting to the ore to produce from that we actually should have got to back in June, which is, you know, we didn't get to that ore in June, which is why we didn't meet our guidance, and we're getting to that now.
And then it takes, like it does in mining, it's gonna take, you know, maybe another six months or so, and we start to, you know, we see a dip at Tropicana, and that dip is because of the waste that we haven't been able to move. It's sort of. It's simple, but it's almost counterintuitive, but we're actually anticipating a slightly stronger first half for the business than we are a second half and then recovering at the back end of that second half into next, into the following year. Does that make sense?
Yep. Yeah, it makes sense. Clear. Thanks for the extra color. I'll, I'll ask one more, if I can. Do you expect some of those non-cash inventory adjustments at Tropicana, specifically into FY 26 as well, or are they just to FY 25 for now?
We expect as long as any of our operations are pulling material off stockpiles, there will always be a component in the AISC that is non-cash, and we certainly expect that to continue at Trop and at Duketon. It's kind of interesting that, you know, the way the AISC is calculated, as much as it's sort of thought of as being the way that you should be calculating free cash flow, you know, the irony is these stockpiles have been built up over the years, and now we're drawing down on them. They're actually free issue. They only cost, only the cost of milling, but in the AISC point, you have to account for them as a cost, even though it's non-cash. So, the short answer to your question is, yes, we expect it to continue.
To what extent and to what proportion of the all-in sustaining costs will just depend on what proportion of production comes from stockpiles.
Yep, understood. Thank you. Well, that's it for me. I'll pass it on.
Thanks, Alex.
Thank you once again. To ask a question, please press star one on your phone. The next question comes from Matthew Frydman from MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Sure. Thanks. Morning, morning, Jim and team.
Good day.
Maybe just carrying on from some of those, non-cash inventory questions. In FY 2024, you guided to an expected, non-cash impact of $200 an ounce on your AISC. You actually ended up delivering, I guess you can say, only a $91 an ounce impact. Can you talk through maybe some of the, some of the drivers at the end of the day that caused that difference? Is that a deferral of expected stockpile drawdowns into FY 2025? And then in FY 2025, you're guiding to a $150 an ounce. Can you talk around, I guess, your confidence around, you know, whether that's the right number?
And also, I'm if I'm thinking back, I'm guessing that those inventory impacts are because the stockpiles are carried at cost rather than at any sort of NRV value, or is there any adjustment there that we need to think about the value of those stockpiles as you realize them in a higher gold price environment? Thanks.
Yeah, look, I mean, the bottom line is that if you, if you produce more ore to, from your pits and your underground, you can feed into the mill, and you're not drawing as much off the stockpiles, then your non-cash component will reduce, right? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, usually what you produce from your pits and your undergrounds are a much better grade than your, than your long-standing stockpiles. So overall, it's a better, it's a better thing. And basically, it was just driven by, by less stockpile use. So, you know, and going forward, you know, if I had.
You know, we've made on our schedules what we think will be the balance between across, in fact, across both Duketon and Tropicana, what's considered to be the balance between underground production, open pit production, and therefore, what's needed to be drawn off the stockpiles for, to get to, to supplement, to keep the mills full. If either one of your ore sources, be it underground or open cut, overperforms and delivers more, then that's less. And as I said, that's usually pretty clearly on a basis of, rather than putting in, I don't know, you know, 0.5 or 0.6 gram dirt, you're putting in 1.3, so, or 1, or whatever the grade happens to be that you're feeding in. So it's a better thing to do, and that stockpile material is always there for the future.
It's not like it evaporates or deteriorates. So we make an estimate based on what our schedule is saying, and if our reconciliations go a little bit better and we're able to produce more ore from the same benches, or we're able to produce a bit faster, then that has an impact on how much you draw on stockpiles, which then has a subsequent impact on what your non-cash element is. But it's usually as a result of getting, pardon my grammar, but more better material.
Yeah. Thanks, Jim. Yeah, I think that's not strictly correct from a grammar perspective, but I get what you're saying.
But you knew what I meant, right?
Yeah, I knew what you meant. I knew what you meant. Maybe can I ask quickly also, on the Tropicana underground study, you mentioned, you mentioned it in your opening remarks, but sorry, just maybe just remind me around the context of that study. That's around the Havana underground, if I'm thinking correctly. Can you just, sorry, reiterate when you expect the outcomes of that study to be delivered, and then any sort of further color on when development of that Havana underground might commence? And I guess what your, you know, as sort of partner in that asset, what your kind of hopeful outcomes for that study are, you know, in terms of maybe scale of that operation and potential CapEx.
You know, is there, is there, potential for a CapEx-light development, given the kind of existing underground infrastructure in place already, in your view? Thanks.
Yeah, so Matt, the Havana Underground is the ongoing extension, of course, of the Havana open pit. In fact, anyone that's been around for a little while with our story, they'll know that the last cutback that we've—with the cutback that we're doing at the moment at Havana, was actually a trade-off between going underground or doing another pit. And as the gold price rose, it made more sense to do another cutback. So yes, there's an evaluation going on of opening up what would effectively be another, you know, a third underground area at Tropicana, sitting underneath the Havana pit. The evaluation on that is currently underway. It is expected that that would be presented, that would be approved, if you like, later on this year.
Exactly whether it's late this year or early next year is, you know, still being finalized. But, when I say this year, I mean this calendar year, so later on this calendar year. As soon as, once that's done, we will be able to inform the market of, a number of things. What it's-- What ultimately, what scale it's deemed to be at. You know, I mean, it looks a little bit bigger than what we're getting out of the Tropicana underground area, but probably not quite as big as what we're getting out of, the Boston Shaker, region, area. And that would work, you know, a little bit of access work, and there's already some development. There was a link drive that we talked about last year, has been pushing out to get drills closer to that area.
So there's a bit of work going on at the moment. It would entail, or it does entail a new portal, and some of that works, very early works, has already started. Not a major commitment of capital, I would add. But once it's been fully approved, it's the, you know, its development will commence and, you know, I don't think it's unreasonable for us to think that that's gonna happen in this, It's reasonable to think that approval will happen in this financial year, or that decision will be made in this financial year. Once it is, we will then be able to inform the market more clearly on, or clearly on, cost and timing and scale.
Got it. Thanks, Jim. That's very clear. Maybe if I could just ask one other one. Your—I guess this is probably more relevant for your Duketon business, but clearly you're doing more in terms of underground activity, underground mining activity, and you're hoping to do more over time. I mean, that's true at Tropicana as well, but obviously you're not the operator there. How does the business think about, I guess, internalizing some of that capability and some of that mining expertise and function? I know other gold mining businesses like to have operational control, you know, over their underground mining in particular, because they can allow them to be more nimble and more flexible and more responsive to gold price and mine plan, et cetera. Is that something that you've given thought to?
you know, what would that look like in terms of, you know, buying Regis-owned underground equipment and, you know, Regis-shirted operators, et cetera?
Yeah, look, I mean, at the end of the day, the way that you operate and how effective you are, whether you're self-perform or whether you've got a contractor in place, basically ends up being how good you are in your relationship with whoever's doing the work. You could self-perform, or you could self-perform, or you could use a contractor. We have Barminco on site. We have a 3-year alliance running with those guys, which is basically an approach that involves a much higher degree of integration of the way the teams work together. And we're quite pleased with the way that that's. We only basically signed up for that, what, Michael? 3 months ago, 2 months ago.
Barminco had previously been in place before that, but under a different arrangement, and we're quite pleased with the way that that's unfolding at the moment. You know, there's always a discussion as to which is the way you'd prefer to go, but right now we, you know, we need to make sure that we've got the right skills in our organization from everywhere, from basically Chief Operating Officer, which we do, have the right skills there, all the way down to, you know, the site managers on site who've making sure that they've got the right sort of experience that's required for an operation that's clearly going to be stronger from an underground perspective.
We think we're building, we're certainly building that, and we'll continue to build that as we move to, you know, at least another one, hopefully two more undergrounds. So right now, we're working with Barminco. It is effective. We, you know, I mean, having said that, you always want everybody to be more productive, but I think the main thing for us is everybody's working very constructively together to the same outcome. So if you've got that running, whether they're working with a Regis logo on them or whether they're working with a shirt that's got a Regis and a Barminco logo on them, because that's what they've got, I think as long as you're getting the improvement that you're after, then, you know, that's, that's really what you want to do.
Of course, the big advantage of having a company the scale of Barminco is that there's other expertise for us we can draw on there, that we may not have internally. You know, Barminco is a big global organization. So, you know, we see at the moment, we've gone from being a straight up, you know, scheduler rates contractor to being more integrated, and we like the way it's unfolding at the moment.
Got it. Thanks very much, Jim. That's very helpful. Thanks.
No worries, Matt. Thanks for the question.
Thank you. The next question comes from David Coates, from Bell Potter Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Jim. Good morning, team.
Good morning, Dave.
Good morning, Jim. Thanks for the presentation this morning. Just 2 questions on Duketon, and I appreciate, you know, you haven't provided guidance on this, and, you know, we're sort of forward-looking. Part of the cost guidance for FY 26 includes the non-cash stockpiles, which we've talked about. I'm just wondering, as underground's become a more important part of the mill feed, you know, is this where we should be- is it sort of broadly where we should be expecting costs to kind of settle? Or, you know, are there sort of, is the grade profile of the underground, you know, potentially expected to increase and help bring, you know, those costs down a bit together with maybe the production and economies of scale increases, as well?
Yeah. Yep, okay. Look, I think while we continue to run for at least the next 18 months to, I think, what Michael was talking about, that Garden Well Main might be coming into production was sort of at least another 18 months out, I think, from first stoping. I mean, I wouldn't see too much of a change in the all-in sustaining costs coming up from the undergrounds. You know, primarily, you know, underground cost per ton, you know, when we look at Rosemont, we've got narrow, high-grade mining, which tends to be a little bit more expensive, but of course, it's a higher grade. And at Garden Well, we've got a slightly lower grade, arguably, but it's a more, I wouldn't call it a bulk mining method, but it's certainly more efficient than.
It's certainly more efficient than the narrow vein stuff. So, you know, broadly, it kind of tend to balance out. And if the grades are expected to remain fairly similar, which for the same ore bodies, you know, we talk about sustainability and continuity, that's not unreasonable to expect. So I'd be looking and thinking that, you know, in line with our expectation of progression of sustainability of the ore bodies, we're probably not gonna see too much of a change in grade unless we change the mining method, which we don't have any plans to do. The new deposits, I can't say yet because I don't know which one and what grades we might be bringing them in.
But you know, our underground mining costs at the moment are probably reasonable to think that they'd be projecting, but we'll have to see what the new ones as they come on, what we're seeing. You know, we've given some guidance on how we see the all-in sustaining costs. I think they were included in when we put out the info on Garden Well Main and also on stage three, we gave some indications in there as to what the all-in sustaining costs would be. Our views haven't changed from that. You know, more broadly, I guess, while we continue to mine open pits, over the next few years, while we run those reserves down, you know, none of them are getting easier.
They do get a bit deeper and further, further to haul, so I don't see any improvement on the open pit side. So yeah, you know, obviously, over time, the proportion from underground will, will lift. I do think there's some-- you know, I mean, I think there's some. If I look at our costs at the moment, you know what? There's, there's almost- there's nearly AUD 200 in our all-in sustaining costs of non-cash costs. And as we. They'll, they'll stay there. That, that sort of cost will stay there for as long as we're pulling down stockpiles, to keep the mill full.
Once we run out of stockpiles, obviously, that cost won't be there, but it's a non-cash cost, so it's, you know, it sound like a beating drum to keep hammering that, but I think that's really important that people consider that when they're looking at our cash flow, cash flow calcs, 'cause it's actually works out to be something like, you know, AUD 40 million or AUD 50 million that appears to be a cost, but is actually non-cash for our business.
Yeah. I appreciate, I really appreciate that, Jim. And just a little bit, along the same kind of thing, open pit exploration focus at Duketon. You know, top priority targets or most promising targets. Can you give us a quick, you know, two-second, two-minute view on that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I mean, I guess we've, in the last couple of years, we've gone and worked all the brownfields targets, I guess, for want of a better description, for open pits. You know, they. We've found deposits, but they're just too scratchy to become reserves. They're too far away or they're too much pre-strip, so we park them up. Our greenfields exploration has come up with, you know, is identifying some really good targets, and I think Merlin was actually something that popped out of that. And, but there are other much earlier stage exploration, but, you know, they're at least a couple of years away. We'll keep pushing on with those. I mean, if you stop looking, you stop finding.
So, you know, we have to keep looking and undertaking our exploration across Duketon. And people got to remember that, that we've only really had two-thirds of our holdings on the Duketon Belt. We've only really had for, you know, three or four years. So it's still relatively early days, given the very limited exploration done there. But plenty of, plenty of priority targets are now being identified or vectored into, as the exploration geos like to say these days. But nothing we can hang our head on at the moment. But, you know, we're well positioned. We've got great, great milling capacity there and yeah, plenty of experience operating on the Duketon Belt, so we just need to get our exploration geos to find stuff.
Awesome. Thanks, Jim. Appreciate that as well. Top.
Thanks, David.
Thank you. One last time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone. We'll pause for a moment to allow parties to enter the queue. At this time, we're showing no further questions. I'll hand the conference back to Jim for any closing remarks.
Thanks, Travis. All right. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. We do appreciate it. I also recognize it's a pretty busy morning across the front in this space. As always, if you've got any follow-up questions or anything that you'd like to ask about on our release, please feel free to give us a call, and we'll do our best to answer them. Thanks very much for joining us, and have a good day.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.