Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Regis Resources Limited Quarterly Update, followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key. For Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Rachel, and thanks everybody for joining us on this busy day. Look, I'd just like to introduce around the table. Joining me is Jon Latto, our CFO, Stuart Gula, our COO, and Ben Goldbloom, the head of IR. Look, so we'll run through the March 2022 quarter results and then open up for Q&A at the end. March has certainly been a quarter for us of progress. We saw the LTIFR rate reduce to one, and pleasingly remaining below, or pleased to see it reducing, but also seeing it sitting below the WA gold industry average, which is a pleasing result.
We also saw a number of improvements at both Duketon and Tropicana that have now been completed, and we're now preparing for a strong June quarter to finish off the financial year. At Duketon, the oxygen addition plant modifications have finally been installed and commissioned, enabling increased feed of the previously stockpiled high grade of metallurgically complex Tooheys Well ore. We've improved grade control and model reconciliations at Moolart, allowing us to mine the high-grade open pit with more confidence. Finally, we've returned to stoping in the high-grade main zone at Rosemont Underground. At Tropicana, our total material movements continue to increase with a 13% improvement, sort of over the quarter. Our mining at Boston Shaker pit in the quarter was focused on waste stripping. Pardon me.
Setting up this quarter for improved access to higher ore grade feeds to the mill. Overall, the combination of these improvements will see us deliver a lift in performance for the June quarter, and meeting our FY 2022 guidance. For the March quarter overall, we produced just over 103,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,574 an ounce. That's Aussie dollars. At Duketon, we're steady at 75,000 ounces for an all-in cost of AUD 1,672. Tropicana, 28,000 ounces at an all-in cost of AUD 1,216. Now, I just wanna make some comments here on some of the COVID-related delays and impacts that we did experience. There are a number of different areas.
Look, in the quarter, we completed the installation of the additional oxygen sparging and various process control improvements in Garden Well, and this was great. Unfortunately, while it's now commissioned, these quarters did experience some COVID delays. Some of them were originally scheduled to be completed in the middle of the reporting period, that is, you know, during February, but they were completed much later in the quarter, in part due to labor, and in part due to materials. Further, the final element of our oxygen enrichment program has been the high shear reactors, and those modifications were delayed until mid-April. This project was delayed approximately a month as specialist installation couldn't enter the state following the delayed border opening from February to March.
While these impacts, the impact of these delays on the quarter was disappointing, we are pleased the modifications are now complete and performing as expected. Also, overall, shifts at Duketon during March, now this is during March month, not the March quarter, were reduced by approximately 4% due to COVID-related absenteeism. In most cases, apart from what I mentioned before, and they were delays really because of the special nature of the people that we lost access to. In most cases across our operation, we were able to manage the absenteeism in the short term, you know, these things have a build-up and impact. Looking more closely at our operations now. Moolart improved with production of around 20,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,499.
The lift was, it's greater ore presentation coming from Coopers and from the Gloucester pits. The increased grade control and geological modeling, as I mentioned earlier, has improved the predictability and given us the confidence that we expect further improvements over the current quarter. Garden Well produced 32,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 1,678. As ore produced from Stage 5 started to increase, and we saw that start improving. As I mentioned earlier, the high shear reactor was commissioned in April and is currently running at the required throughput and recovery rates, which we're really pleased to see. These plant modifications, as I said, are now complete, and we have been increasing the high grade Tooheys Well feed and will continue to do this now through the quarter and beyond.
One thing around the Garden Well plant that I wanted to mention was, we had the gold bar outturn. We experienced a short-term issue, and this related to the elution circuit at Garden Well. This in turn resulted. It meant that there was a delay in being able to extract the final step in the extraction of gold and turning it to gold bar. We saw an abnormal build in gold in circuit at the end of March. This was to the tune of about 9,500 ounces higher than what the GIC was at the beginning of the month. Now, this didn't impact on overall recoveries, but it did impact on the timing of gold bar pouring.
The issue was relatively quickly resolved, and the ounces have been stripped in the outturn now, and they've been stripped during April, in addition to the production, the normal rate of production, and GICs are heading back to their normal levels. Now, the reason that this is noteworthy, even though it's really, in the grand scheme of things, not a particular consequence to our overall production, it is noteworthy that these ounces had an approximate value of AUD 25 million that don't show in the March financials due to the timing. We, of course, will see them in the June quarter. Look at Rosemont. We produced 23,000 ounces at an all-in cost of AUD 1,820 an ounce. We do note that mining ceased in the Rosemont main pit as previously noted geotechnical issues.
Pleasingly, we've recommenced stoping from the higher grade main zone in accordance with our plan, and that'll drive higher feed grade to the mill in this quarter. Turning to Tropicana. We continue to deliver as planned or as expected, producing 28,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,216. Mining there largely focused on waste stripping, both at the ongoing prep work at the Havana Cutback, but also in Boston Shaker, as it prepared for good access to high-grade ore. Boston Shaker's in this interesting space now where it's quite tight down the bottom, and it, rather than being smooth ore, it tends to go in surges. We saw during the March quarter a particular focus on waste movement.
As I said, it's now shifting to ore grade ore production. We will see Boston Shaker pit completing this calendar year, and we're currently expecting the last of the ore to be mined in the late in the September quarter or early in the December quarter. The underground mine continued to produce and perform well with no standout points, which is great. That's what we like to see. The Havana Cutback is on track to access high-grade ore in the second half of the calendar year, so that's next financial year for us. As the proportion of Havana ore feed for the mill increases, as we expose more ore, we will be seeing a return to historical production rates of the 450,000 ounces+ per year at 100%.
We remain very excited about this asset. Very pleased with it, the way it's performing, and it continues to grow as a reliable producer and cash engine that we bought it for. On the financials, we sold 76,000 ounces of gold at an average price of AUD 2,260. Now, that AUD 2,260 is after the impact of our hedges. This generated a total of AUD 55 million in operating cash flow, approximately AUD 11 million from Duketon and AUD 44 million from Tropicana. Now, I would note that all of the hedging does get attributed to, for historic reasons, it gets attributed to the Duketon sales. So there is a skew on that impact, and it's one of the reasons why Duketon is low relative to Tropicana.
The reduction in the operating cash flow also was relative to the prior quarter, was primarily driven by a reduction in the gold sales. I noted earlier the timing issue of the gold pause at the end of the March quarter, which saw AUD 25 million in gold sales, effectively the equivalent of sitting in GIC that we couldn't get out before the end of the quarter. As I mentioned, that's all been recovered now, and we've moved on, but it did impact on the quarter reporting. Our capital expenditure was reasonably consistent at AUD 59 million, largely relating to underground development associated with Rosemont, Garden Well South, and the Havana Cutback, and also some other deferred waste mining costs in our other open pits.
Other notable cash movements were AUD 13 million invested in exploration at Duketon and at Tropicana, along with the McPhillamys Project. We also obtained a net tax refund of AUD 10 million in the quarter. We're undertaking some more work to quantify potential additional refunds that may be due. All of these movements resulted in cash and gold on hand at the end of the quarter of about AUD 167 million. Again, I remind you that this excludes those 9.5 million ounces that got caught up in GIC or the extra AUD 25 million. On growth. Our growth projects made good progress during the quarter.
Garden Well South, the primary pumping station was commissioned, and first ore, which came from development, was delivered to the mill. Now, the team are encountering the typical challenges they expect with new startups, but we are anticipating stoping to commence late in the June quarter. Although I would note that our guidance, these stope tonnes are not critical to meeting that guidance, so they don't sit on that critical path. We are still chasing that as an opportunity nonetheless. At Garden Well Main, the potential underground project under Main Pit, we completed the planned additional drilling. However, we saw the study here was delayed. Again, we saw general challenges around access to specialist consultants, COVID and really the labor shortages at the moment, having an impact.
The team there is still evaluating optimum extraction methods. We do now expect the results of this study later in the June quarter. I've got no major news on McPhillamys, but we do continue to see improvement in the engagement with key departments, which is very encouraging, and we see that positive progress is being made. At Tropicana, we saw an updated resource and reserves which delivered a maiden reserve for the Tropicana underground mine area, which is obviously a new area relative to the Boston Shaker, and we're very pleased with that. It's another step forward in a new additional underground mining area to the Boston Shaker underground.
It can, which also continues to grow, and that whole area is continuing to grow as we put more time and money into the exploration and development of it. As I've said before, each time we look at the Tropicana asset, we see more and more potential to grow the reserve base, with each of these main areas still open at depth. With a strong history of reserve replacement, we're looking for this asset to be producing good cash flows for the JV for another 10+ years. Regis will provide an update on our group resource and reserves, specifically around Duketon, and the consolidated rest of the group later in this current quarter.
Now, the last point today is about Jon Latto, our CFO, who has given notice after three years in the role and will leave later next month. I'm very pleased to advise that Anthony Rechichi has been appointed to the position as CFO. Anthony is a chartered accountant and is an experienced CFO who spent 15 years working with ASX-listed companies in the gold sector. Prior to joining Regis, Anthony was CFO at Wiluna Mining Corporation for five years and spent more than 10 years with Resolute Mining in senior finance and accounting positions, including the last couple of nearly two years as GM Finance. Before moving into commerce, Anthony commenced his career with PwC. He's a great addition to the Regis team. Now back to Jon.
I'd just like to take this opportunity on behalf of the board to sincerely thank Jon Latto for his financial leadership of the company over the past three years, and in particular, his focus on improving the financial systems and procedures and his role in leading the financing of our acquisition in the Tropicana joint venture last year. Thanks, Jon Latto. Jon Latto will finish with Regis later next month, and Mr. Tony Bevan has been appointed the interim CFO, while Anthony Rechichi will then transition into the role by the end of the September quarter. Wrapping up, as an overall comment on risks, look, I think, even more comes out this morning on the risks around COVID. It's clear the broader general labor shortages and the ongoing COVID-related impacts and inflationary impacts on our input costs remain a risk to overall performance.
I don't think my comments are any surprise, and they're certainly not the first to make that observation. It is a common ongoing theme across the industry at the moment and something that we are all working hard to manage. On the positive side, we see good progress at our growth projects at Garden Well South and also our assessment of Garden Well Main as a potential future production source. Pleasingly, there's a huge amount of work that's been done at the end of March and very early in April to position Duketon and Tropicana to prepare them for a strong June quarter. Look, I'll hold it up there. I'll hand it back to Rachel, and happy to work on any questions that anybody might have. Back to you. Thanks, Rachel.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Peter O'Connor with Shaw and Partners. Please go ahead.
Hey, Jim, Jon, Ben. Jon, was it something I said or something I wrote?
Oh, no.
Okay, good. Tax refund. Just remind me, what are you digging again for, and what sort of quantum could that be?
Sorry, Peter, what are we digging for, did you say?
The tax refund. You said there's potentially more to come.
Oh, yeah. Look, we are still working with PwC to quantify what that is. I think in the last quarter we said, you know, it'd be somewhere in the region of circa sort of AUD 12 million. You know, we expect it to be at least that. In fact, it could be north of that. But we are continuing to work with PwC on it.
Okay, thanks. Jim, we've been discussing it this morning, the COVID impact, but just to take it on the call, is it site-specific in WA? Is it broad-based WA? Is it gold? Is it lithium? Is it iron ore? It just seems to be mixed messages we're hearing from your peers over the last few days and today. I know you've talked through your experience, but, I mean, how do you see this play out in the June quarter?
Mixed messages. Mixed messages what? In terms of some people not seeing any impact at all?
Yeah, look, some saying they're not FIFO, so it's not a deal. Others saying, you know, they're withdrawing guidance for this quarter 'cause it's all too hard. Just that way, mixed messages. Yeah, just I'm wondering what your perspective is.
Yeah, look, I mean, I'm seeing different messages but on the same theme. I think we're all seeing impacts. They're either in the short term. Certainly in March, as the border, when the borders opened up, we lost a number of people. Because of the contact rules in WA, we lost a lot of people, not because they had COVID themselves, but because they were deemed to be close contacts. It's a bit like a nuclear sort of reaction. One person gets it, but 10 people around them are deemed as close contact. I'd point out, in New South Wales, I know, 'cause we're dealing with some of the coal mines over there, just related to water and the like, that they didn't.
The resources there were deemed a critical industry and if you were a close contact, you could continue to go to work as long as you weren't exhibiting symptoms. Now, we couldn't do that. You couldn't do that in WA. As a result, during March, we had about 1,000 shifts that were lost across Duketon due to people being either with COVID or more to the point being in their room, wondering whether they're a close contact and having to isolate. Now that sounds like a lot, right? 1,000. Now, it represents about 4% of the shifts that we'd actually work, but it's still a lot. You know, 1,000 people, your mining engineers are short. You're some...
You can always figure out how to cover them in the short term, but these things can have a compounding impact if it continues. We're keeping a very close eye on that. You know, we're conscious of the fact that the rules for mask wearing and controls are changing later in the week, and the rules for close contacts have shifted. I think the risk is still there now, probably more around potential for people to possibly catch it rather than be tied up because they're a close contact. We're watching that closely. I think more broadly, you know, there's a lot of activity going on in the state. There's a, you know, a boom in inverted commas, a lot of movement of people going on.
The borders have been a part of a problem of getting people to relocate up until recently. They're down now, but I think it's probably safe to say that it wasn't like dropping the floodgates. You know, people haven't rushed across here, you know? Frankly, people on the East Coast who stopped working in WA probably found other jobs. They weren't sitting around waiting to come and take the honor back of working for us. There's labor availability. We had materials became harder to get ahold of. We needed specialized stainless steel for our IsaMill installations. Normally you'd be able to find that pretty easily. We couldn't. It took us a few weeks to find it because there just wasn't any supply.
We're seeing. We've certainly experienced those impacts during March. I'm not sure they're going to go away. They'll might take a different form. Labor is still, particularly, it's getting a little bit easier. You know, we saw a 10% kick up in applications as soon as the borders went down, but you still, you know, it all takes time, and there's risk, and there's demand for good people. There's plenty of challenges around. There's no doubt. I mean, you know, the risk is there. We'll do our best to manage them.
Jim, just on that, when you talked about Garden Well Main study and access to consultants, is that do you need, like, bums on seats in WA or is this desktop work and is it a dollar value issue that you're just not getting people 'cause of what you're paying or the industry's paying?
It's sort of that bit relates to a bit of a boom going on. You know, we all know the story of a couple of decades ago, all the geos were driving taxis, and now you can't get them for love nor money. It's the same with consultants. You can't turn them on and off like a tap. You want to, you know, you wanna use specific consultants that you trust and rely on. Just because you want them doesn't mean that they're necessarily available at the moment on your timeframe. You've just gotta, you know, that's the sort of thing that as well causes delays in some work being done.
Plus one, cost. Can you give any more granularity about the cost pressures that you're facing, be it diesel, consumables, freighting material in?
Yeah. Look, I mean, diesel's a great one. Look at how much it's gone up over the last three or four months. It's gone from what was probably circulating at about AUD 1 a liter or something, and it's up at what, AUD 1.38 or something at the moment, I think. I think, Jon, an AUD 0.10 a liter movement is the equivalent of about AUD 20 an ounce. Was it? I've just
About $25 an ounce, yeah.
About AUD 25 an ounce. You know, you've got diesel price pressures. I know that other consumables, grinding media, I just can't remember off the top of my head what that's gone up, but I know that it's increased and cyanide's increased by at least 50%. There's a lot of things that are putting pressure on across the industry. You know, it's not just us. The pleasing thing for us is that all the modifications that we've done, you know, while it was for pretty modest capital. We've actually been able to improve the dissolved oxygen efficiencies in our circuit.
As a result of that, we can now back off on some of these chemicals that we've been using for the last three or four months to keep our recoveries up. We can now back off on those. We're pleased with that. That's a bonus that we're seeing from completing the commissioning of the oxygen modifications that we've done for oxygen enrichment through the circuit.
Thanks, Jim.
Thanks, Pete.
Again, once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand them back to Jim Beyer for closing remarks.
Yeah. Thanks, Rachel. Look, we know it's a particularly busy day. People are moving from one of these to the next, I'm sure. Thanks everybody for joining us. Please, if you've got any questions, feel free to drop us a line. Ben and Jon and myself will do our best to answer them. Thanks, everyone. Have a good day. Once again, thanks very much, Jon. Good luck with the future.