The launch slides. I'm Kate McCutcheon. I look after the Metals and Mining Research based in Sydney, Australia. I'm pleased to welcome our next CEO, Graham Kerr of South32. This conference might be Graham's + 20th conference with us. Graham today has chosen a hybrid format. I'll hand over to Graham to present some slides, and then we'll have a fireside chat, and we'll leave some time at the end for audience Q&A. Thank you, Graham.
Thanks, Kate. Appreciate it. Good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you again at the Bank of America's Global Metals, Mining and Steel Conference. This year marks my 11th as CEO of South32, but as Kate pointed, there's many more before that. This will be my last one as CEO, as Matthew Daley, sitting in the front here, will step into the role later this year. I'll be handing over to Matt with the business well-placed for its next phase of growth, with a transformed portfolio supported by a strong balance sheet. Over the past year, we've continued to deliver on our strategy by streamlining our portfolio to focus on higher margin base metals businesses. Our reliable operating performance, backed by commodity price tailwinds, is supporting strong cash flow generation, giving us a compelling platform to invest in further growth in copper, zinc, and silver.
This includes our multi-decade Hermosa project in Arizona, which is expected to deliver first production from Taylor in H2 FY 2028. We recently provided an update on Taylor's construction progress, which reaffirms its potential to deliver returns from its low cost production of zinc, silver, and lead over an initial operating life of around 33 years. I'll provide more details on this shortly. Our portfolio has been repositioned to focus on base and precious metals and aluminum, which are expected to benefit from long-term structural tailwinds around renewables, electrification, and AI growth. Our strong operating performance for the financial year, coupled with higher commodity prices, has seen us generate strong earnings and cash flow, providing earnings momentum and a robust balance sheet from which to deliver growth and returns. Our growth pipeline has the potential to underpin significant long-term base metals production.
At Cannington, we're working to extend its high-margin zinc silver production beyond the current reserve life of around seven years by pursuing both underground and open pit options, with the open pit development recently advancing into pre-feasibility study. Sierra Gorda is progressing multiple options to grow our future copper production, including the fourth grinding line expansion project, which is expected to be the subject of a joint financial investment decision in the coming months. Beyond these, we're advancing our Hermosa and Ambler Metals projects in the U.S. At our Hermosa project, Taylor will strengthen our portfolio by increasing our production of base and precious metals. It's the first stage of what we anticipate will be multiple phases of growth and production and will establish significant shared infrastructure for future growth phases. This includes the Peak copper deposit and elsewhere across Hermosa's highly prospective regional exploration package.
We're seeing strong momentum at Ambler Metals in Alaska, a district-scale base and precious metals opportunities, with permitting progressing for the high-grade Arctic deposit and $42 million to be spent together with our joint venture partner in calendar year 2026 to progress drilling and development studies. At Sierra Gorda, which is our high-margin copper asset, it holds a number of options to grow volumes and extend life. The fourth grinding line has the potential to increase throughput by around 20% and as a brownfields expansion that will benefit from existing power and water availability, is expected to be capital efficient and value accretive. A joint final investment decision is expected in mid year 2026.
We're also working through life extension options we have, including announcing initial exploration target for Catabela Northeast, while we're looking to unlock further value from 110 million tons of stockpiled oxide material. We now turn our attention to Hermosa. Hermosa is a regional-scale critical minerals project in Arizona, a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction. It increases our exposure to attractive commodities like zinc, lead, silver, and copper. Taylor will add sizable volumes of zinc into an expected market deficit that will require the equivalent of three Taylor-sized mines each year to meet projected demand and will almost double our annual silver production. Our recent update reaffirmed its quality and returns potential, underpinned by a substantial ore body that continues to grow.
Successful in-drilling programs at Taylor have extended the initial mine life by five years to around 33 years, with the deposit still open in several directions, providing further upside potential. In the December 2025 quarter, we completed the exploration decline of the co-located Clark deposit, which highlighted the potential to use Clark's decline for additional Taylor body ore access. Subsequent work has confirmed this opportunity, which is expected to unlock value by enabling first production ahead of shaft sinking, improving operational flexibility, and increasing ore handling capacity by 25%. Which together with surface infrastructure de-bottlenecking has the potential to support high metal production. As a result of this change in scope and our expectation of delayed completion of the shafts due to contractor underperformance and productivity challenges, Taylor's schedule has been updated.
First ore mined at Taylor will now come from Clark Decline in mid FY 2028, with first production expected in H2 FY 2028 and nameplate capacity expected in FY 2031. As a result of the scope changes, revised shaft construction costs, materially higher inflation, industry-wide cost increases in key inputs such as steel, piping, concrete, and electrical and U.S. tariffs, our estimated gross capital expense for Taylor has been increased by approximately $1.1 billion. Even after these updates, Taylor continues to show its quality as a long life, high margin project that will substantially increase our production of zinc and silver and deliver returns for decades to come. Based on our updated assumptions, we expect an annual steady state EBITDA of around $650 million and an NPV of around $3.1 billion.
This is all before considering the substantial growth potential from near mine exploration targets such as our Peak copper deposit and the highly prospective regional land package. Our unchanged capital management framework has supported the transformation of our portfolio while balancing investment in our business and delivering shareholder returns. Our balance sheet is strong and is supported by cash generation due to consistent operating performance and commodity tailwinds, leaving us with well-placed to continue delivering returns while investing in our pipeline of high-quality growth options to increase our exposure to base and precious metals. In summary, we've done a lot of substantial work to transform our portfolio and upgrade it for both now and for the future. Today, we have a portfolio of high-quality operations leveraged to attractive commodities that are generating strong cash flow coupled with great growth options in copper, zinc and silver.
Before I close, I'd like to thank you all for the trust and support over the past 11 years. I know South32 will be in very capable hands with Matt, and I look forward to seeing the next phase of growth unfold. Thank you.
Thank you, Graham. There's a lot of growth projects to talk about. Maybe we'll start with Hermosa. This morning, all the presentations have been focused on the dearth of copper supply. If I think about zinc, Hermosa will be one of the first major zinc projects that the Western world has brought online in some time. What do you think is different about the outlook for zinc now or what has changed?
Yep. Look, absolutely, Kate. A good question. Maybe I'll start with, to your point, I think one of the things the teams has done well over the last decade, when we were first demerged from BHP, we had very little growth options, short life on things like Cannington and GEMCO, which are about six years. I think the team's done a really good job extending the life of our existing ore bodies, but also creating a suite of options in those commodities we find attractive. To your point, we like copper like everyone else. We like zinc, and obviously silver at current prices are super attractive to us. Underpinned, obviously, by a strong aluminum business. Look, zinc from our perspective, probably has a very similar kind of story behind copper. There's a story of strong demand. Demand continues to grow.
If you think about where zinc's used today, galvanization in places like India and China is still way behind the Western world. As you think about new applications that are coming for the demand of actually zinc, you know, you're actually starting to see that it's getting picked up in things like wind turbines, et cetera, which are probably a new market. I think the other one for us is the ability to recycle zinc is very different from copper, so you can't do the same amount of recycling. I think the threat of substitution when you go from, you know, copper to aluminum, it doesn't actually exist in zinc because the replacement of galvanization of the zinc is like a 4x additional cost. I think on the demand side, that positions zinc very strongly.
If you talk about the actual supply side, you know, it's probably been a commodity that hasn't been loved for a long period of time. I think what you have seen over many decades is a lack of investment around exploration and project development. A number of mature projects, you know, continue to sort of get older, deeper, the grade continues to decline. You're starting to see that supply-demand gap actually grow. In fact, we think over the next decade, you need three, if you like, zinc deposits the size of Taylor to come online to actually meet that gap. Obviously for us, we've got the added bonus of silver. If, you know, if you add what we're gonna pull out of Taylor versus what we're gonna bring out of Cannington, it'll double our silver production across the group.
The other attractiveness for us around Taylor is at the moment, we've got a mine life of about 33 years. We grew that since the FID by about five years by simply some infill drilling. We've got a lot more infilling drilling still to be done. We've also got a lot of extensional drilling to do because Taylor's open in multiple directions where it's not closed off. I think from our perspective, love the commodity, love the jurisdiction, and love the fact that we believe it can be a mine that's around for 40-50 years.
Okay. Let's stay on Hermosa. You mentioned in your opening remarks some of the things that have changed since the FID, including tariffs.
Yep.
You mentioned the upside around the mine life extension there. What are the key things that you didn't anticipate when you FID that project?
Yeah, I think buying and developing a project always comes with risk and opportunity. If you think about the risks for us at the time of buying it, obviously there's a lot of uncertainty around the geology and the resource. There was an early surprise in the early years around the amount of water we thought was gonna be vastly more than we expected it was going to be. Obviously you build and study a project over probably five to seven years by the time you do it. Permitting risk in the U.S. is generally talked about. If we sort of tackle these one by one and then I'll come back to where we're at today. If you have a think about permitting risk, we're on track to get our recorded decision in the back half of this calendar year.
We can actually build Taylor today and run it for 10 years. Cause that's all state approvals, and we already have those. The federal approval will allow us to build the next tailing facilities in about 10 years. It'll allow us to actually connect power, if you like, across the Coronado National Forest, which gives us cheaper access to power and potentially renewable power. It also allows us to start exploring more in-depth things like peak, and there's probably about another 15 targets we wanna explore on the property. That's the importance of the federal approval for us. We were the first project in the U.S. mining industry that got into the FAST-41, and it's been a fantastic process for us. It's a dream process. It doesn't change the amount of work you do.
There's probably a lot more scrutiny on it, but it certainly accelerates the program, and it puts you in a really good position to handle litigation when it comes because of the depth of work that's done. Permitting has been a big tick for us, which is a risk at the start. Water, funnily enough, was one of the delays and one of the capital costs increase when we actually went to the FID decision for Taylor. It turns out now that we actually got the water wells running, we're probably only going to have about half the water we thought we're going to have, which is great going forward, so less free handling and less worrying around the risks. I think that's a positive. The resource, like I said, continues to grow at Taylor. If you think about something like Cannington, I'll show my age.
I was there when we actually built Cannington. You know, we talked about Cannington have a 15-year mine life. You know, it's probably been going now for about 28 years. We're talking about another seven to eight years easily and probably extending it another four or five potentially on that. You know, Taylor has the ability to go longer and stronger than that. Also at a very good production rate of about 4.3 million tons through that operating mill. Over time, we think we can probably grow that by 1 million tons as well. I think it has all the optionality how you make money in our industry. It's a large resource, it's expandable, it's in a good commodity, and it's got growth options in built. That's before we even think about Peak, Clark and the other things that are around it.
I think the resource has been an upside. What has been a challenge for us is sinking the two shafts. The shafts have gone slower than we actually expected, not because of geotechnical conditions or water. It's been more a challenge around contractor performance, productivity, that's sort of been more challenging for us. I think, you know, if you asked me about how the surface infrastructure was going four weeks ago, I would have said that's going really great. The surface is sort of broken up into four packages. The first three packages, which the last one we led in February, have all come in exactly on the FID estimate.
The last one that's come in, and also for the underground workshop, steel, concrete, et cetera, we've seen inflation hit in a big way, where we're seeing cost increases, for example, on installed steel about 2.5x . Concrete, electrical, all range between 2-2.5x . Quantities are the same. The price has just spiked. While not directly attributable to tariffs, 'cause our exposure there has been about $60 million, it's been more the general inflation environment and tariff impact on steel, et cetera, that's had a big increase in our capital cost. We think we've got that covered now with 80% of the project actually being committed, or contracted or priced.
You know, probably the 20% left, there's a large chunk of that which is owner's cost and about a $230 million contingency and some minor equipment for the underground. Obviously we need to execute and finish that project as well now.
Yep. Graham, well, South32 will have all this building mine expertise and permitting expertise in the U.S. In what scenario are you able to make the stars align so that team could possibly roll into the Trilogy.
Yep
JV, into your Hermosa project?
That would be the ideal world. I mean, particularly already, we are having some transfer of skills around the permitting side. Working with our JV partner there and trying to leverage some of those skills about how we accelerate that. That's an easy win to get today. I think the fact that you have to build an all-weather road that connects the Dalton Highway to the Ambler District is something in between that we didn't have to do at Taylor. I think the execution of that road, the permitting of that road will take a bit more time. It's got really good momentum now with basically AIDEA, which is the Development Corporation of Alaska, investing money into the design but also the permitting. We've got an MOU with the two large First Nations corporations up there about how to take the road forward. That's all positive.
Heading in the right direction, I think building that kind of all-weather road will take a period of time. There's probably a bit of a gap between when we'll finish building at Taylor to when we're probably ready to start building at Ambler. How we fuel that gap, I think, is gonna be Matthew's challenge.
Good. Let's pivot and talk about aluminum.
Yep.
It's been the best performing commodity year to date, and we've seen the highest consensus upgrades. You've got tailwinds from higher pricing. Hillside was a really key cash contributor during the quarter, and it's about 60% of your group emissions. How is that relationship with Eskom, and how do we think about the future of that asset post-2032?
Look, I mean, maybe a couple of comments on the commodity. You know, aluminum for us has always been an attractive story around demand.
Demand's never been an issue, and I think that demand continues to increase. It's always been more about oversupply coming out of China. We're a firm believer in that cap of 45 million tons is real. We certainly don't see the government deviating from that. Some people ask us, "Do you think price will make a difference?" The answer is no. I think, you know, they wanna use their energy in a very considered way, and exporting energy is probably not the intent of what the government's trying to do. I think that cap will keep tension. You'll see new developments in places like Indonesia. You'll switch from a world where for the probably the last couple of decades, 80% of the development of new smelting capacity has come out of China, where now it's gonna switch to ex-China.
While you will see some capital compression that the Chinese can take to Indonesia, it's not gonna be to the same magnitude, and certainly you're not seeing subsidized cheap power that you are seeing in China. I think that reinforces you need a stronger aluminum price to sort of induce new supply. In the short term, obviously the Middle East, what's going on in Europe is sort of pushing prices up and, you know, potentially that's got another 18-24 months to play out, which for our side will continue to see attractive pricings, and to your point, will generate strong cash. I guess our one downside is we'd love both Hillside and Mozal to be running, 'cause they are both strong cash flow generators in this environment.
If we talk about Hillside and take a step back, I actually just came from Hillside's 30-year anniversary. At that 30-year anniversary, the original opening of Hillside had, you know, the passed away President Mandela opened that and talked about the economic transformation of the country. We were really pleased that President Ramaphosa came down for the opening, as well as two of his big cabinet ministers and a whole lot of other important people that form part of the ANC and KZN's politics. The one message that came out of that from the president and the energy minister was a strong belief around how Hillside has to continue to operate, and a key component of that's gonna be affordable, lower carbon power.
We have some great photos of the energy minister and our CEO, Noel, if you like, on the stage having a hug. I think the sentiment was really positive. From our side, Hillside can run for another 30, 40 years. It's technically, despite load shedding, runs at its technical limit. I think it's some of our best people across the business. Makes a really big difference in the local economy, so it's well supported by people there. I think the key is can we get another power contract? The power contract expires in 2031. We've been working with Eskom on this on joint working groups now for about five years. It absolutely feels like it's heading in the right direction, but obviously getting pen to paper is the next opportunity.
Okay, got it. Let's go back and talk about the other hot commodity, copper.
Yep.
Let's talk about Sierra Gorda. Two questions for you there. Are we still on track for that FID for the fourth grinding line by the middle of the calendar year? How do we think about Catabela Northeast? That exploration target, it seems to have a much higher grade than the current resource, but it seems to be a bit deeper.
Yeah. A couple of good questions. I'll start with, what's the one thing we'd love to own? More of Sierra Gorda. Not because we don't like our partner, KGHM, but we just think it's an asset in the right jurisdiction, it's the right commodity, and it has lots of opportunity to improve not only today's performance around productivity, but also how you can grow that business. To your point, you've got the fourth grinding line now, which is on track to be approved by both joint venture partners mid-year this year.
We've completed the technical review from both sides jointly. You know, we've had good, strong dialogue. It'll be self-funded by the joint venture. You know, it's pretty much a no-brainer to actually do that project. That's the first, if you like, piece of growth. On top of that, we've got about 110 million tons of oxide material sitting on the surface, which obviously that's an opportunity for us to sort of take that to the next step. Catabela itself is the current pitch. Before we talk about Catabela Northeast, it's worth noting that Catabela itself is still open at depth, so there's an opportunity to grow that. To your point, we have had a large discovery next door called Catabela Northeast. The grades look attractive.
You know, at about 0.45, it's about a 1.1 billion ton resource. It's still open at depth in multi-directions. Our plan over the next 6-12 months is to do more step-out drilling to really understand the potential of what we have there. You got Catabela, you've got the fourth grinding line, you've got the oxide material, you've got Catabela Northeast, which looks like a very large resource, and that continues to push towards Spence. You know, there's obviously the question about do you do something together in that shape? That's something that we think over time is worth pursuing as well.
Okay, got it. Under your watch, the portfolio has been transformed and cleaned up. You've got less assets, you've cleaned up the commodity mix, you've changed the regions where earnings are coming from. Is there anything that you still see as non-core in that portfolio, or is that something you're handing over to Matthew?
Yeah, look, I mean, I think there's always more to be done. To your point, when we started from the demerger from BHP, obviously we had no growth options, but we also had some challenging assets. You know, we've actually sold out of South Africa Energy Coal, we've sold out of South Africa Manganese, Australia Manganese, Cerro Matoso, Illawarra. We've brought in more exposure to green aluminum. We've brought in Sierra Gorda, brought in Hermosa. To give you a sense of that portfolio change in numbers, when we started the business, it was probably 50% box, thermal and met coal, and 50% predominantly aluminum.
You know, where are we today? It's probably about 80% exposure to base metals, including aluminum, but growing still all the time. Also geographically, it used to be about 50%, well, probably about 45% Australian, 40% Southern Africa, and the rest was in South America. If you look at where we're gonna be in the next couple of years, more than 50% of the earnings will come out of the Americas, and it's a very changed portfolio. You know, there's still things to be done on that space. I mean, I think longer term for us, you know, we look at our manganese business. We like GEMCO. It's the best asset in that industry. Has been for a long time.
Been a place that's been inundated with a number of cyclones over the last couple of years and more rainfall than we've ever seen probably in a year, than we've seen in a decade, we've had in a year. We're dealing with some water issues on the island at the moment. It's a Tier 1 asset in that industry. Our South African business, there's always the question about is that better held in someone else's hand around consolidation? Potentially. At the moment, you know, our partners in that Anglo are not interested in pursuing that. We're sort of working our way through how do we make most of what we have. I think the challenge for Matt and the team going forward is how do we continue to add more copper and zinc units, because everyone's chasing pretty much the same thing.
Yep. Got it. I'd like to hand over to the floor for Q&A, just cognizant of time. If you'd like to ask a question, if you raise your hand and we will get a microphone to you. While we're waiting for questions, Graham, you're due to step down as CEO and hand over to Matt. What are the key takeaways or advice that you're leaving for him as incoming CEO?
Yeah, look, I think that's an interesting question. I mean, I guess what I've been focused on is how do I set Matt up for success. You know, as you've been in the role probably 12 years almost now, and obviously was involved in the setup in the early days demerging from South32. I think, you know, for me, it's a different portfolio than what we started with. It's a different business than what we started with. I think as we go forward, you know, there's still things to be done on the portfolio, but I think my advice to Matt would be to play to his strengths. Matt's strengths really are around his engagement with people, his technical capability, and how we can squeeze more out of the operations and make things like Taylor the best it can possibly be.
I mean, that's really where Matt cut his teeth at things like everything is man hours at times. I think that's the stuff that's really gonna create a lot of value for our shareholders. I think, you know, we have some really great people for the journey. Obviously as you move into that next stage of delivering on major projects into operational and commissioning, that's some new skill sets that we have to continue to update.
Perfect.
Yeah.
A question at the back we've got.
Thank you. Hey, Graham. I remember sitting at a Melbourne Mining Club dinner in London more than one decade ago, where Lionel Barber cheekily said to you, "How does it feel to be CEO of Crapco?" I'd love to hear what you'd tell Lionel today with the benefit of hindsight.
See, I remember that. I mean, that one felt like a long time ago now. In fact, on day one when we demerged, I got interviewed by the ABC in Australia by a lady called Ticky Fullerton, and her word was, "How does it feel to run Shitco?" I think, you know, the names around Shitco and Crapco, I mean, obviously are names that stung at the time, and I think that gave our people some drive to actually make a difference. Look, I think what I would say today is the portfolio is very different. It's long in growth options. You got exposure to the right commodities, the right jurisdictions. Let's be honest, this industry is not an easy industry.
If you think about that transformation, Karen Wood, who was our second Chair, but on the board pretty much from day one, stepped down recently and she found an old note that I wrote about, you know, these are all the things that we need to change on the portfolio. She sort of took a great pride in saying that, you know, you've done all those things you said, bar one. I won't tell you what the one is. I said, yeah, but I said I could do it in five years. It took me 11 years. It's just a reminder in our industry how hard it is to actually move, change your portfolio base. It's not easy.
I think we have been blessed when we demerged from BHP that the CEO at the time, Andrew Mackenzie, sort of gave me open slather on people, which is great from him. We really have some high caliber people in our business that I think have made a real difference over that period of time. I think what I'd say to Lionel would be, look, the quality of the people, I think, has made a real difference here in sort of upgrading the quality of the portfolio. Still more work to be done, but I think it's been a quantum change by those people, and I'm thankful for that, what the effort they've done.
Before we wrap up, thank you, Graham Kerr, I'd just like to have a plug for our cocktails at 5:00 P.M. on evel 2 at the rooftop terrace, if you wanna chat to us some more. Please join me in thanking Graham Kerr for his incredible career. Thank you for coming.