Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Regis Resources quarterly results conference call. 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 Mr. Jim Beyer, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Rachel. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the Regis Resources June 2023 quarter update. First, I'd note that I'm joined this morning with our CFO, Anthony Rechichi, and Stuart Gula , our COO, along with Ben Goldbloom , Head of Investor Relations. Look, first up, on safety, remains solid. Our LTI, as measured by our lost time injury frequency rate, is 0.9, less than half of the industry average. We're very, which of course, we're very pleased to continue to improve on. We're also pleased to finish the year with a strong quarter of gold production and cash build. The cash build in the June quarter signaled another step in the transition from the company being in investment phase and moving into a more cash-generative position.
Progress on our growth plans continued with commercial production declared at our two key growth projects, the Havana open pit at Tropicana and the Garden Well South Underground at Duketon. We also released our updated resource and reserve statement during the quarter, highlighted by the underground mines at Tropicana. The joint venture is going to build one of the largest solar and wind projects in the Western Australian goldfields. Megawatt combination wind, solar, and battery facility, which will be integrated into the existing 54 MW of gas-fired power system that's currently on site. For the June quarter overall, we produced just over 122,000 ounces of gold for an all-in sustaining of AUD 1,851. The June dollars per ounce.
The June quarter has seen the underground mine hit record ore production rates, and we look forward to these rates continuing and harvesting returns on these investments. Look, I'd now like to hand over to Stuart, our COO, Stuart Gula, who will provide some more information on the operational performance. Stuart?
Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Looking more closely at the operations, you see that Duketon gold production was higher at just over 90,000 ounces at an AISC of AUD 2,026 an ounce, and Tropicana was just under 32,000 ounces at an AISC of AUD 1,259 an ounce. Duketon North was much higher at approximately 20,000 ounces, at AUD 2,055 per ounce. Pleasingly, production and cash margins have improved at Duketon North, with better access to ore, as the Moolart pits come to the closing stages of their life. What we're seeing is, this year, the majority of mining at Duketon North will be completed by December 2023, at the Moolart pits.
Some mining will continue at Gloucester until the end of the financial year in June 2024, which represents the end of the current reserves. you know, as we deplete mining from our open pits, mill feed will be sourced solely from lower grade open, lower grade stockpiles. Really, it set the scene for two halves at Duketon next year, as the mining from direct feed from open pits starts to reduce in the second half of the year. With costs being rebased to reflect recent inflationary impacts and recent performance, the ongoing economic life of low-grade stockpiles and marginal open pits remain under constant evaluation. At Duketon South, production was also higher at just over 70,000 ounces, at AUD 2,018 an ounce, AISC.
Underground mining progressed well, with Garden Well Underground hitting a three-month average rate of about 50,000 tons a month. Development rates were also maintained at good levels at nearly 3,000 m for the quarter. In the open cuts, we commenced mining at Russell's Find and delivered first ore from Ben Hur, with mining operations at Tooheys Well and Rosemont coming to a close in FY 2023. Mining will now be from Garden Well, Ben Hur, and Russell's Find in the coming year. Tropicana delivered an improved quarter at just under 32,000 ounces for an AISC of AUD 1,259 an ounce. In the open pit, operational efficiencies and fleet availability resulted in the highest quarterly material movements for the year. Work continues on lifting performance in this area as we see room for further improvement here.
Following commercial production at Havana, access to ore improved and is expected to continue improving throughout FY 2024. The underground production issues that were experienced in the March quarter were resolved, we also saw the highest ore production for the year from the Tropicana undergrounds. That's it for me, I'll hand over to Anthony for the financials.
Thanks, Stuart. Onto the financials now. For the quarter, we sold just over 126,000 ounces of gold at an average price of AUD 2,669 an ounce, which includes the effect of the hedges. This delivered AUD 337 million of gold sales revenue. Operating cash flows remained strong. Overall, we generated a total of AUD 150 million in operating cash flows. That includes the hedges, with approximately AUD 104 million coming from Duketon and AUD 46 million coming from Tropicana. Talking on an accruals basis, as we see in Table 1 in the quarterly report there, mine site capital expenditure during the quarter was lower this time around, at AUD 76 million.
Additionally, exploration and McPhillamys expenditure for the quarter was AUD 19 million. Growth capital was lower this quarter, too, at AUD 44 million, following the commencement of commercial production at Garden Well Underground and Havana open pit. With that transitioning to commercial production in the June quarter, growth CapEx reduced accordingly, with costs then reporting to all-in sustaining costs for those mining areas. I'll now point you to Figure four of the quarterly report, which outlines the quarter's cash flows. Cash and bullion closed at AUD 243 million at 30 June. You can see that operating cash flows were AUD 185 million, partially offsetting this was AUD 35 million in hedge losses, owing to the delivery of a further 25,000 ounces into our hedging program. You can see that over to the right of that waterfall chart.
Furthermore, we spent AUD 78 million in cash on CapEx, AUD 20 million on exploration in McPhillamys, and corporate and finance costs were AUD 12 million. Finally, regarding the AUD 300 million term loan facility, during the quarter, we engaged with our lenders in respect of a deferral of that loan, which currently matures on the 31st of May, 2024. We'll provide an update on those discussions in due course. Thanks, and back to you, Jim.
Thanks, Anthony. Look, first off, just to cover on guidance. Look, at Regis, we've got a strong focus on delivering and ensuring that we're delivering profitable answers and not just any answers. Considering this, the company undertook a detailed reassessment of the life of mine cost base to reflect recent significant inflationary impacts and outlooks, and also realized performance over the last 18 months, and also including the recent reserves and resource update. This has resulted in some production answers previously considered profitable and in our plans to be excluded from forward plans, specifically, that's at Duketon. With this context, we look at the FY 2024 guidance, we have gold production ranging from 415,000-455,000 ounces of gold.
We have an AISC ranging from AUD 1,995-AUD 2,315 per ounce. Clearly, at first glance, this appears a significant increase over the AISC of FY 2023. However, from a true cash flow impacting expenditure perspective, I point out this is not the case. If we consider the two key drivers of this AISC increase, it hopefully becomes a little clearer. Firstly, at Duketon, there is the inclusion of low-grade ore, which we are feeding in. I think Stuart mentioned that earlier. As a result, we have a quite a significant drawdown on our stockpiles. This results in an inventory adjustment to the AISC that equates to AUD 200 per ounce across the group's production.
I emphasize that this is a non-cash cost and relates to money spent historically, that is basically brought to account while we draw down these stockpiles. It's a nuance of the AISC, if you're following it in accordance with the World Gold Council. The key here is that it doesn't actually reflect cash spend in the period. If you're using AISC for cash flow, then exclude this cost as it's an accounting recovery. The second area relates to the change in definition of capital at Tropicana. In FY 2023, all of the material movement at Havana pit was deemed as growth capital, and we reported as such because the pit wasn't in commercial production. Now that it is, these costs are now defined as sustaining capital, our team and our all-in sustaining costs go up.
From a cash spend point of view, it's pretty much the same, and it's just a classification shift. While we're talking about Tropicana, I just want to take an opportunity to touch on the picture of beauty that we actually think this is going forward. At Tropicana, we'll see the revenue increase this year. Last year, the production was 131,000 ounces. And given the like-for-like on gold price, our range now is 135,000-150,000 ounces, which is what we were anticipating from Tropicana, was an increase in production as Havana pit came in. We're expecting the revenue to be up. Again, as I say, gold price being the same.
The total material movement, that is the TMMs, which is all of the movement of the cutback, remains pretty flat. This is, as I said, is one of the key expenditure drivers. In reality, we'll see a bit of an increase in revenue with the cost of Tropicana overall remaining pretty much as they were. It's just how they're defined. However, the interesting piece is that from next financial year, we expect to see the total material movement in the pit start to drop. It's currently sitting in the low 30 million, roughly, BCMs per annum. Over this year, we'll be breaking the back of the Havana cutback. We will see the total material movement, as I said, a key cost driver at Tropicana, start to fall away.
After this year, production remains the same at Tropicana in this high 400,000-500,000 ounce per annum. The cash spend in that, in the future, in next year, starts to drop away. We can see the site continue to grow in its cash-generating position, gold prices permitting. Over the next couple of years, or within the next 18 months or so, Tropicana will shift into significant cash-generating mode. I hope I've been able to paint a bit of a picture there as to why we love the future of Tropicana. Back to guidance. On growth capital, we see that dropping, and we see it dropping to a range of AUD 85 million-AUD 90 million for Russell's Find work, with also some allocations for underground decline capital associated with exploration purposes.
Be that, ranging from AUD 48 million-AUD 55 million for the year, that's across, both, and, McPhillamys. About a little bit over half of that, about 55% is actually res dev, resource development work to prove up, more reserves. At McPhillamys, the guidance range is AUD 22 million-AUD 25 million. I'd also note that in this expenditure, about AUD 9 million is for what I would call long lead preparation and field work required prior to construction. If we don't do that now, then once we do FID, you need to do a lot of in-field monitoring before you, under the conditions that we were, the IPC was approved. We've got a bit of work to do, we're getting, included that in our budget.
Turning now to growth, and on the growth front, our projects made good progress during the quarter. At Garden Well Main Underground, and I draw your attention to Figure five, which shows progress of the decline and also the initial target zone, along with some of the results there. Now, in back in June, we released our resource and reserve statement, and we included an exploration target for this Garden Well Main area, and that target was 800,000- 1.3 million ounces of gold, we believe is the exploration target in that area. The underground exploration decline, we've now completed over 900 m, which is about 70% of the current plan, with the first results being reported.
Our results today, to date, are there to be to note and be impressed by. Some of them are quite helpful for us. They support the exploration target that I mentioned before of 800,000-1.3 million ounces. We see the potential growth at Garden Well Underground, which is why we are progressing this as fast as possible. We're already seeing the drilling supporting the potential extension north of some of the existing scoping area associated with the Garden Well South area, 'cause that's where the first drilling off the decline was done. We're excited about the potential value for the company, this work has potential to deliver. At Tropicana, we've been progressing work on the Havana Underground Pre-Feasibility Study.
The PFS is expected to be completed during the December quarter this year, December 2023, with the potential to start the main access decline in the second half of next calendar year, 2024. Figure six shows the conceptual layer, and as you can see by the impressive thicknesses and grades indicated, why we think this is a great potential and remain confident in the possibility of a third underground production zone at the Tropicana asset. At McPhillamys, we await a response on the Federal Section 10 application. We remain confident this will be cleared, pardon me, and following this, we'll be able to complete the final geotech drilling required to complete the detailed feasibility study.
This really is, this, the wait for this Section 10 application is something that is holding this work back, and we are doing what we can to get that decision clarified, or provided. Completion of the DFS and the final investment decision with this impacts is now expected to be in the June quarter, mid-next year. Wrapping up, what the June quarter brought us was strong cash build and gold production, commercial production at Havana, declared at Havana and open pit and Garden Well South, and a significant exploration target. Look, it's also worth highlighting that in under a year's time, the company will have completed its hedge book, and During this year, we see Tropicana cash flows increasing off the back of the production and the. Thanks, Rachel.
I'll now hand back to you for questions.
Thank you. Press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Levi-
Jim and team, thanks, thanks for your call. A couple of questions around the asset guidance. Like, your AUD 200 an ounce, do we model them just for this year, or how long does it go on for? I guess is our first question.
Now, look, that result, we'll just deal with that one quickly.
Yep.
That's AUD 200 an ounce over all of production, right? It's not just 200. I look, the significant number of the ounces are coming off stockpiles, both at Duketon North and at Duketon South. I think some of that would, well, Duketon North, as we've indicated, notwithstanding, options that we're looking at for Duketon North, that will end this year. We will still see some of these low-grade stockpile ounces being treated in the future. It just won't be to the same volume. I wouldn't anticipate it would be to the same order of magnitude, but it'll still be there.
Okay, yep. Thanks. I'll have a go at that. Then, so at Tropicana, so this idea of what was growth capital last year is now sustaining capital. Is it, so it's the same number, so the, you know, 16 or whatever it was last quarter, annualized? Did I hear you say that it only goes for this year, and then there's literally no capital again, or what's FY 2025 look like? This is the tricky...
Yeah.
The tricky part of the industry is giving us, not using all-in costs.
Yeah, I mean, the easiest, we've always said, the easiest way to work out all-in costs is just take the change in the cash balance from month to month, and you can. That's a debate over a beer at another time, perhaps. Back to your question on growth capital. Yeah, at the moment, it's probably, it's running at a little bit over 30 million BCMs a year, over the coming commitment that's been made there, which we think sort of demonstrates, it's another way of illustrating that we see this thing.
Thanks, Jim. Thanks for your time.
Thanks for your time.
The next question comes from Andrew Bowler with Macquarie.
G'day, Jim and team. Just a question on the Duketon North stockpile. You talked about open-pit mining in some areas of the stock. You know, is there some that are of higher grade that potentially could, you know, come into a mine plan given that-
Consumed by the end of this financial year? There are some low-grade stockpiles that would even lower. It doesn't take much to, you know, change our mind and put them back on the plan.
Just to confirm, the base case is, you know, production finishing this year at Duketon North?
That's finished completely. Then, the mill feed in the first half of the year will be and low-grade feed. Then, in the second half of the year, the feed into the mill will be a combination of what we get out of Gloucester, which will also then be finished by the end of June on its current plans. Then, during that second half, it'll only be Gloucester feed and low-grade. Then, by the time we get to the end of the year, then it's just, it's not viable to continue at the current outlook that we've got.
No worries. Just another one from me. Can we just think about the outcomes of that life in mind cost reassessment? In terms of, you know, your findings from that, was it mainly open pit that saw a bit of a cost increase compared to prior expectations? Are the undergrounds, you know, relatively on track as to what you thought previously? I guess, you know, how about March flow through McPhillamys, if it is mainly open pits that are a bit more expensive?
It is a little bit of both, probably more to the open pits. We had a lot more, we had quite a few marginal ounces in the open pits that when we applied the inflationary impacts and projected them out a bit, that we said: Look, they're just, you know, there's too much risk incurred in early mining, you know, 'cause you've got to strip them to get to them. We just had to park them. That's not to say that if there's a sudden surge in gold price, you know, these aren't sterilized. There's still optionality there for us. In the underground as well, there were a couple of areas where there were...
It wasn't significant, but it was enough to sort of knock the production off a little bit to what we were anticipating. We, you know, there were blocks where it just suddenly became not, you know, a little bit too far out to mine out to them for dedicated drives. You know, where you've got ounces and scoping all in the core, down, that still is consistent, and they're good and productive. We did have, you know, a couple of small lenders that you might try to be a little bit more brutal with those and cut them out of the plan, knowing full well that if the gold price- The flow-on impacts to, are there any flow-on impacts to McPhillamys? Look, yeah, general inflationary flow-ons, yes.
Anything that makes us concerned about the viability of that project at the moment from an operating cost point of view? No. Not really.
No, that's all for me. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Andrew.
Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Daniel?
Hi, Jim and team. Maybe just worth going on mute at your end because there's a bit of feedback coming through the line. Is that possible?
Give it a try.
Just while asking the question. My first question is: Why is CapEx at Duketon classified as growth CapEx if production is declining? The AUD 90 million you're going to spend on Duketon is growth, but won't this come through in future periods as non-cash? i.e., you know, that's about AUD 300 an ounce of this year's Duketon production or AUD 200 an ounce of group production. Therefore, isn't the AUD 2,200 an ounce cost guidance at Duketon, like, isn't that a fair AISC representation? 'Cause, you know, you sort of got AUD 200 non-cash this year, but you're spending CapEx anyway. That sort of feels sustaining. Can you just run through that?
Yeah, look, Anthony. We can all chip in on this. This sort of feeds into the nuances of growth capital and AISC and how you deal with it. Your question, the first part, the first element of your question, which was: If Duketon is declining, why is there growth capital? Yeah, good question. If you go to the, well, Gold Council and the definitions is, growth capital is what you spend on anything that is a new project or a new contributor to production that wasn't in your original plans. From that point of view, we look at things like Ben Hur, for example, which is a whole new operating area.
There's a road, a whole road that needs to be put in to go down there, and there's also a definition of the a chunk of the pre-strip and pre-mining that's counted as growth capital as well. We use those definitions. They're certainly be clear, they're not the definitions and the approach you use for normal statutory accounting. There are nuances in there that we see reported in different ways, in different places. We take a view that at the end of the day, if we're giving people what the AISC is, and this is what we've taken the view up to this point, if we give people what our AISC is and also the growth capital, you put them together, you're getting a pretty clear picture.
It doesn't really matter where they're being defined. Where we've just come unstuck this year on that is that we've got these historic stockpiles coming in with these, you know, long-dated old costs from the past that are now coming through and hitting the AISC, which obviously now, view it shouldn't. You know, basically, the bulk of the growth capital that we're spending this year is on the prep work and the initial work on getting Ben Hur to a point where it can be into commercial production. That's how we define, you know, the trip point between is it growth or is it sustaining? Is it in commercial production? That's what we did with Garden Well Underground. It's actually what we've been doing with all our pits over the years, so certainly for the last four or five years.
Yes, sure. I guess the other part of the question is kind of: Is there a period where we get some cash harvest at Duketon? Because it, you know, it almost feels like we get the guidance each year, which we have today, and there's growth CapEx to keep the business going. Is there a moment where, you know, next year after, where you come out with a growth CapEx number, which is, you know, very modest, like you have at Tropicana? Like, when do we get that cash harvest period at Duketon?
Well, Daniel, the number one thing that will drive our cash harvest at Duketon will be when we're rid of the $150 million worth of hedging. If you take that out of the numbers and exclude that from the reduction in revenue that gets allocated to Duketon, you'd actually see that the business is not a bad cash generator.
If you look at this year, you know, in our cash growth, our cash balance from the beginning of the year to where it's ended up at AUD 246, I think it was at AUD 243, sorry, at the end of June, you could stick another AUD 100 million on top of that if we didn't have the hedging. We look at Duketon, and we know that it's in a good cash-generating position. It's not spectacular. It's not as great as it used to be, maybe five or six years ago, when it was, you know, low strip ratio and good grades, great recovery, easy mining and oxides and the like. But it's still pretty solid.
You know, if you always know in mining, you've got to continue to invest to keep going. You know, if I look and see, when do I think, I actually think that Duketon's in a reasonable cash-generating position at the moment. I certainly think it will be better next year because Duketon will be in, sorry, Ben Hur will be in commercial production. You know, our hedging will be off the cards, which I think the impact on Duketon's revenue this past year of the hedging in total, can you figure that out for me while well, just estimate it. Thanks, Anthony.
I think it's a little bit unfair, even though we fall in the same trap, to consider that Duketon hasn't been generating cash, it's just been absorbed by these delightful hedges. Will we have growth capital going forward? Kind of, part of me wants to say, "No, we won't," because that's not part of our plans. Eventually, the growth capital drops away on our plans. The other part of me says, "Well, I wouldn't mind it if there's a little bit there," because when you're spending growth capital, it actually means you're bringing more reserves online. What we just want to make sure is that's a reasonable cost per ounce.
It's a bit of a you know, frankly, a long-winded answer to your question, but I needed to deal with this question of the concerns that, you know, Duketon is a recreational mining. It isn't. It's just shadowed by the impact of the hedge at the moment. As I said, by this time next year, we'll be clear of that, and we'll be seeing that, actually, there's an additional AUD 150 million, gold price being the same, disappearing from our, effectively from our costs.
Well, I do think the hedge book that you have been dealing with is a very good thing and a credit to your team, that you've been dealing with it and reducing that liability. Obviously, it's great that it ends at the end of this fiscal year. Just lastly, McPhillamys.
Daniel, I can tell you, so are we.
Yeah. McPhillamys, I see you are targeting FID in the June 2024 quarter. Can we expect an updated feasibility study?
Oh, yes, certainly. I mean, we're working. We can't finalize that at the moment. As part of the EIS application process over the last three years, we had to modify the site design quite a bit, in particular, where the plant key elements of the plant went, and also, modifications to the tailing dam footings. We need to go in and do geotech work, some drilling there, and we want to do a little bit of other exploration work as well, but mainly geotech, to allow us to get to a high confidence estimate for foundations for the HPGR and crushers and tailings dam, and all that kind of stuff. If you look at... We can't get in and do that until we've got clearance on the Section 10.
That's really the hold-up for us. Once we've got that geotech work done, then we can firm up on the capital costs. Once we've firmed up on the capital costs and the last remnants of the scope, we'll be in a position to complete the final, you know, the DFS, that will feed the final investment decision. I'd imagine that those numbers will be, you know, put out in the, a public arena, sometime in the middle of the first half of next year. You know, late in the March quarter or early in the June quarter, that, something like that, you know? It's very difficult for me to...
I mean, it's sort of a bit of weaving there, but it's difficult to put a hard date on it until we know that we can get clear of the Section 10, 'cause we actually can't go and drill on the ground until we're clear of it.
Okay, thank you very much, Jim.
All connected by a piece of string, if you understand what I mean.
Thanks very much, Jim and team . That was my questions.
Look, just coming back to that question on the impact of the hedging. You know, of the last year, the impact of the hedges was about a reduction in our revenue of effectively about AUD 115 million, and AUD 75 million of that could be attributed to Duketon. You know, these are sort of ballpark numbers. You know, in reality, what we generated at Duketon, without the hedging, we would have generated another AUD 75 million in cash. It's not a bad generator.
Thanks, Daniel.
Your next question comes from Matthew Frydman with MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Sure. Thanks. Morning, Jim and team. A couple more questions.
Hey, Matthew.
If I can on all-in sustaining costs. Hi, Jim. I know you've obviously just given some pretty extensive detail, but I'm interested in maybe trying to think about it quite simplistically, to try and really understand the cash generation of the business year on year. Firstly, that non-cash, that AUD 200 an ounce, if we back that out and, you know, invent a metric that maybe we call it cash all-in sustaining cost, it'd be fair to say that that number would be more like AUD 1,795-AUD 2,115 an ounce, or in other words, you know, somewhere between AUD 0 and AUD 300 an ounce higher than what you did in FY 2023. Would that be a fair way to think about it?
Yeah. Yep, as it's classified as all-in sustaining, remembering that some of the other increases well relates to what last year we defined as growth capital at Trop, which I think equated to probably a bit over AUD 100 million, is now basically rolling into AISC. From a cash flow point of view, it, we spent it last year, and we'll spend it again this year. It's just-
Right
in a different bucket.
Yeah. Right, that leads into my next element of the question, which is that difference, if we assume the middle of your production range, that difference of additional capital that's gone into that bucket is around AUD 135 million, which is obviously almost exactly the difference between the growth capital that you spent in FY 2023 and what you got into in FY 2024. Again, seems fair to say that it's almost 100% reallocation of the difference in that capital. There's nothing that's really been gained or lost there in that reallocation.
It's, it is, yeah, it is, pretty much. I mean, we saw some movements around, but broadly, you know, when you do it by big numbers and keep it simple, what you've described is pretty much what's happened.
I'm a pretty simple guy, Jim, so I'm trying to keep it as simple as I possibly can.
Oh, I know.
And so-
I think it's important.
All else being equal, you know, obviously we've got gold price. You've got ongoing impacts of hedging in FY 2024, as you talked about. You know, in terms of your controllable sort of metrics, and given that you are in fact guiding to slightly softer gold production year on year on top of that all, at a high level, how do you actually see your cash generation in FY 2024 versus FY 2023? I mean, is it flat? Is it down slightly? Is it up slightly? Again, you know, gold price notwithstanding.
Look, I mean, obviously, gold price notwithstanding, it's interesting, it's similar, I guess, when you run it all out. The key thing to keep in mind is that this year, the impact of the hedging is much more significant because there is last year, the impact, as I said, was about AUD 115 million off the overall revenue, which was 100,000 ounces. This last year, we've got to sell at 120,000 ounces at AUD 1,571 per ounce Australian. The impact of our cash flow is AUD 150 million this year. If you sort of look at it all, you know, yeah, broadly, it's a similar year. You know, slightly lower in product out.
The costs, our gross costs have actually adjusted as well downwards, related to some volume reductions at Duketon. Pretty flat at Tropicana in terms of the, the big cost drivers and whether they've changed, they haven't. They're pretty much the same. Yeah, similar in the year-on-year.
Yeah. Great. Thanks, for stepping through that with me, Jim.
I mean, to be honest, sorry, if you did, if we were comparing it truly year-on-year and saying, "Well, what would it look like if the hedge impacts was the same as last year?" Actually, this year would be a better year for cash flow because there's, you know, AUD 40 million extra in cash flow that we're losing because of this last surge in the hedging. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's pretty clear. I think obviously important to kind of step through that, given that obviously the guidance at a headline level looks like a very, very big step up in all in sustaining costs year-on-year, which probably the market wasn't expecting. Thank you for that.
Yeah, yeah.
I think.
Well, you're right. I mean, it's, and it's sort of, it's been a bit of a complicated story and one that we... You know, this call is important for people to get the opportunity to go through these questions like you and the other folks have, because, yeah, high level, where you can't explain it as you go, it doesn't look particularly good. Actually, when you peel it apart, all things considered, it's... I mean, we always want it to be better, but it's not too bad considering the overlay of the hedging. That's why, you know, to be honest, that's why I spent a bit of time talking about how things look clear of the hedges and where we're actually going.
You know, we're not, we're not on a downward spiral, we're actually, you know, holding steady. In fact, accounting for the hedging impact this year, we're improving a little bit. Next year, we really start to come out and really see the value of our investment, which has been pretty good to date, but it's really in Tropicana is gonna start hitting its straps.
Yeah. Got it. Thanks, Jim. Maybe just to round out that cash discussion, you know, you've got a AUD 70-odd million tax refund in the second half. How do we think about second half of FY 2023, I should say? How do we think about cash tax outflows looking forward?
I'll give Anthony his minute in the sun to answer that question.
Thanks, Jim. Always shoots across the table when you talk about tax, Matt, I'll go for that. Look, the FY 2023 tax refund, you know, AUD 67 million, it's a big number. Difficult to repeat that year-on-year, you know, for FY 2024, the expectation is that we're likely to take another refund again. It's not gonna be anything like that sort of size that we saw in FY 2023. With the expectation that we move to a tax payable position again, in the financial year after that, FY 2025 onwards.
And then back to similar levels of taxation, you know, not unusual in this sort of business, but it does tend to be around 30% of our pre-tax profits.
Got it. Thanks, Anthony. That's pretty clear, and you actually did keep that to a minute, so I'm sure Jim will be happy with that. Maybe.
Hang on a minute.
Maybe just finally, anyone's open to answer this one, but maybe just finally, if you can, chat through the comments on the debt refinancing. Wondering, I guess, what your goals or what your ideal outcome would look like there in those discussions, and how do you factor in consideration for funding McPhillamys going forward or, you know, or any other elements of your capital requirements?
Well, we're fighting each other to answer this question, but I'll let Anthony do it 'cause he's really driving the program there.
Look, at this stage, as we, as we sort of alluded to or we've written in the quarterly report there and I mentioned earlier, the existing debt facility matures on the, in a year's time, 31st of May next year. We're looking to extend that facility to push that out further, so it's no longer a current liability. And we're working with the lenders on that at the moment, and basically what that does is, among other things, besides, giving us a, you know, the extension there, it gives us time to finalize funding. McPhillamys feasibility study and investment decision to then determine the funding requirements for McPhillamys.
We can regroup on that, on what we've done by extending that debt facility to work out what we really need and how we need to profile it over time, factoring in the McPhillamys requirements.
Got it. Thanks, Anthony. Maybe just one other cheeky one quickly. I risk being abused probably by the Regis board and management team by asking this. Would you contemplate hedging as part of a revised debt facility?
I'm sorry, we're going to answer that question with the mute button on. You asked us to put the mute button on, didn't you? At the end of the day, there is a time and there is a time and a place for hedging. You know, there may be a time in the future where we've got to do it to, you know, as part of the bank's requirements to manage the commodity price risk on repayments.
It might also be something that, you know, some of this material that's extremely low, or that is low grade and quite costly, there might be something there that makes some sense in the future to ensure that we don't start down a track of some, you know, some minor ounces that then blow up in our face. There are that, quite frankly, would be minor amounts that we'd touch on. So, you know, would we consider hedging? Not really. Not, not significant. Having said that, though, there's certainly, you know, some risk management that may need to be required around the debt, and we'll deal with that at the time. I'm sure everybody would understand that piece.
Got it. Thanks, Jim and Anthony. Cheers.
The next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning, Jim and team. Thanks for the update this morning.
Mm-hmm.
Most of my questions have probably been asked, but, just, I guess, coming back to the cost piece, we've obviously focused on the, I guess, allocation and non-cash movements. Able to maybe just comment to how you're seeing kind of the underlying costs move, I guess, in terms of labor and cost inflation, but then more broadly, how that's flowing through to the mining and processing costs at each asset? Thanks.
Okay. if you're asking about... Sorry, I'm just gonna, you're asking about what the impact was of the inflation on our, on this year's costs?
Yeah, essentially.
Sorry, I just wanted to-
Essentially just trying to understand how the underlying costs are kind of moving in guidance. I think you kind of touched on it initially with Matt, but, yeah, just getting into how you're actually seeing those mining and processing costs move into FY 2024 on the current plan.
Yeah, look, I mean, across our overall business, our actually, our open pit costs are dropping a bit. As I mentioned, sort of alluded to before, pardon me, the overall mine physicals are dropping. We are seeing, you know, at the end of the day, last year's all-in sustaining costs was significantly above where we'd anticipated it would be early in the year, you know, driven by in no small part to inflation. We are seeing that, you know, we're not seeing this, the major step changes in inflationary costs, so it's not, it's not increased assumptions in last year. What has driven down our gross expenditure has been the mine physicals input.
The other costs, you know, I guess the diesel, I think we sort of were looking at a little bit lower than last year because we saw some pretty big spikes in diesel through last year. I think, you know, our diesel price was, Anthony's telling me our diesel price was about AUD 1.50 on average last year, and this year we're assuming it'll be around AUD 1.05. Obviously, our guidance for sustaining hangs off the diesel price, we've assumed that that's and we've seen that come off quite considerably. I mean, I think back in December, we were paying over AUD 1.70 a liter, and if you're using 100 million liters at, on this site, you can it's pretty easy to see what kind of impact that has.
You know, in general, overall costs being driven down by lower volumes in the mining, slightly higher inflation, you know, not material at Tropicana, just through general inflationary costs. Processing and costs are down a bit, sort of off the back of some cheaper processing that'll occur up at Duketon as we process some of the easier material. I know, it's, there's a lot of moving parts there, mate, but hopefully, that gives you a little bit of bit more color.
Yep, I appreciate the color there. That's all from me. Thanks, Tim.
Thanks, Hugo.
Your next question comes from David Coates with Bell Potter Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jim. Morning, everyone. Thanks for the.
Hey, David.
O n a good final quarter. Just obviously been through quite a bit of the detail already. A couple of things that I'd like to ask, haven't been asked, but I think is just with DNO, seemingly coming to a close at the end of FY, closure costs, and what's your sort of current sort of notional plan for that? What kind of closure costs are you looking at, and any thoughts about what to do with the mill, first up?
Yeah. Look, DNO, it has a closure cost of, you know, circa AUD mid 30 million. We have no intention of closing Duketon at all at this point in time. It's really going into a care and maintenance. Part of the reason for that is, yeah, we've got our extensive exploration program, beavering away out there. A little bit more, what's the right way to describe it? A little bit more, near-term potential is we're still reviewing Commonwealth. We've mentioned Commonwealth in the past. It sort of went a little bit outpost, this year.
It's still a potential, and it's really going to depend on how, with our mining contractor, we can work out whether there's better ways to do things that don't involve as much overheads and historical costs that we've done in the past, even equipment. There's a couple of other, sort of, I guess, satellite opportunities that sit up in that Duketon North Operations that mean that we aren't yet willing to call out, it's time to go, completely go home. You know, that process plant there and the camp is, we consider that it gives us significant optionality for that part of the world, and we have no intention of walking away from it. We certainly don't look to...
If we found another deposit, I don't know, up in the northwest corner of the Duketon Greenstone Belt, and it made sense to move it, we might move it, but, you know, moving is always a lot easier on a spreadsheet than it is in reality, but that's an option, too. No, we certainly the short answer to your question is, we don't plan to close it. We plan to put it on care and maintenance, and that's because we've still got plenty of optionality there that we're reviewing.
You know, hopefully, over the coming months, we might get a picture there that gives us something that's a little bit more, some answers that we're more confident of to drive on, to come back and revisit it and put it back into service after we've finished with it this year.
Nice one. you've actually touched on another question I was going to ask again, which is, you know, what has, I guess, tipped some of those, you know, answers out of the mine plan, and it sounds like specifically, Commonwealth was impacted by cost. The second part of that was just like, you know, yeah, what, you know, has the exploration up there kinda not as, you know, met expectations? Yeah, what sort of live options, I guess, remain up there that you could potentially, yeah, take advantage of all that infrastructure you've got up there?
Yeah. Look, I mean, the cost did drop some ounces out, clearly, and I sort of alluded to that. You know, we saw even at Ben Hur, there were some marginal ounces that we've had to decide to leave in the ground and wait to see how things look, maybe a little bit closer to the end of the mine life again. There was the underground impacts I mentioned, Duketon North. You know, what's the exploration like? Is it been disappointing? Well, every month that you spend money on exploration, don't find anything, I describe it as disappointing, but the exploration geologists.
Take a different stance?
take a slightly different view. Yeah. Look, I think having, you know, sort of being a bit of a smarty pants about it, the reality is there are some very exciting work that they're finding and areas that they're finding along the Rosemont Trend, which is more down around the Duketon South area and running through Baneygo and up through Rosemont. That continues up onto that, basically, that western side of the Greenstone Belt, which is sort of some pretty encouraging finding there. There isn't anything immediately to write home about sitting around the Duketon North operation from an exploration perspective, but it's actually because it hasn't been an area that it's an area that's now coming... You know, you might think, why not?
Well, you know, why haven't we been focusing on that, given the life? I mean, we've always had a view up until, you know, a few months ago, that there was quite a few options to keep feeding some modest grade material in, and we had a bit of time up our sleeve. Our exploration geo has also prioritized where they, now, where they find the biggest see the biggest potential economic and targets, and that's basically sitting on the western side. They'll be back. We haven't written that Duketon North area off.
We just haven't been putting as much effort into that as we had, have into the areas where we think there's far more attractive targets, which is why one of the things that I was saying is, if they do come off, that could be a possibility that we move the Duketon North mill to those, 'cause it's probably just a little bit too far away to truck it all the way to Duketon North.
No worries. Thanks, Jim. We ask this question or I ask this question, okay, but given, you know, the sort of, you know, you're still clearing the head this year and still got a bit of capital at Tropicana this year, but, you know, sort of FY 2025, you know, starts, you know, the cash flow starts looking better. In the meantime, you know, probably a little bit of a tough period to, you know. Well, not tough, but, you know, just a few things to negotiate. You're feeling, yeah, you know, the valuation that the market potentially might be attributing is making you an M&A target?
Well, there's always those aspects, particularly when people understand what the true value is relative to what the market might be seeing. You know, our task is to focus on internally to continue to deliver into our plans, make sure we understand where our value lies and deliver it, and do our best to let the market know that we're, you know. Obviously, there's impacts even today as we see, and I think quite, as has been pointed out by a couple already, the picture isn't quite as bad and isn't as anywhere near as bad as the impression might be, and we've got to make sure that we're out there sort of educating people as best as we can, so that they understand what the true picture is.
I think it's crystal clear that our business becomes a much stronger and much more significant cash flow generator, in the, you know, over the next 10-12 months. Tropicana, in fact, lifts its production, as you can see in the guidance. It's already lifting. That's strong. The cash costs will start to drop away there, as we said, and the hedge book drops off. I mean, it is a very strong picture that people, you know, probably need to be looking beyond the next quarter. It's a little bit...
You know, mining can be a long-term game. This is certainly showing that, over the last couple of years, as we've worked with the hedges, positioned the business, refocused on, reposition underground as a, as a growth area for us to sort of settle Duketon into what could be, a, you know, a new plane of production. Tropicana and then, you know, our great growth project is the next cab off the rank. There's plenty of value there, just need to see beyond the impact of the hedges, frankly.
Under. Okay, look, thanks so much, Jim. Thanks for your time this morning. Bye, mate.
Thanks, Dave.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. The next question comes from Alex Papaioanou with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jim and team. On the hedge book, has the board discussed options to close the hedge book faster, like some of your peers have done? especially given consensus forecasts for higher gold prices to come.
Look, I think Matthew that asked I commented on, you know, the board discussing hedges. We discuss the hedge book all the time. What's the best thing to do? What, there was discussion probably three or four months ago about taking our windfall cash from the tax and buying out part of the hedge book and being unhedged for the next period of time, and then taking the gains from that. Now, we elected not to do that, and, you know, our back-end analysis tells us months ago, we'd be no worse and no better off today. There's always a risk, and of course, that's the...
You know, if you have a view that the gold price is going to go to AUD 3,500 ounces, then knock yourself out. If you think it's going to drop a little bit, because there is a cost of delivering into them early, then, if the cost is going to drop, then obviously that would be the wrong call. Yeah, do we discuss it, and the board discuss it? Yes. Keeping in mind that the hedging applies to, it's 120,000 ounces. There's a lot of our other ounces that are unhedged.
I think we'll continue to look at that going forward, and whether that means we run the full course of the hedge book out to finish in June next year, or whether there's something done earlier is certainly something that we have and will continue to give consideration to.
Perfect. Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Thanks, Alex.
There are no further questions at this time, and I'll hand back for closing remarks.
All right, thanks. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. As always, if there is any questions or any follow-up, please feel free to give us a call, and we'll do our best to help you out. Thanks again. Appreciate it. There's been a lot to absorb during this one, this-