Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the St Barbara briefing on FY 2023 half-year results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, you'll need to press star one one again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dan Lougher, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for St Barbara's half-year briefing. I'm joined on the call today by our CFO, Lucas Welsh, who will take you through our financial results. Also, on the call is Andrew Strelein, our Chief Development Officer, who will say a few words on the demerger finishing aspect of the slide pack. Thank you very much for joining us. Today, I'll be taking you through our safety performance and an overview of the half before handing over to Lucas, who will go through the financial details. The planned merger with Genesis and the demerger of the Simberi and Atlantic operations, I will touch on quickly.
However, the slide pack is pretty full and I will expect that people can pick up on any Q&As if they need more final answers today. I'll also wanna touch on the update on the reserve and resources that we also announced today. Please note the disclaimer slide. I'll start off with the acknowledgement of country. I would like to begin by recognizing the traditional owners and the First Nations people of the lands on which St Barbara operates in Australia, Canada, and Papua New Guinea, and pay my respects to the elders past, present, and emerging. Moving on to slide 5. I always like to start with safety.
I know it's a financial presentation mainly today, but I just want to show that whilst we are not improving significantly, half and half, moving from a TRIFR of 4.6 to 4.7. I'd like to mention a positive note that on the recordable injuries, we only had 1 for the half for Q2. This is obviously a big improvement from the 11 we had in Q1. As a resource company, and 2 open pits and 1 underground mine, I think it's incredibly important that we remind ourselves every day that we are here to make sure that everybody comes home safely after their shift.
Everyone within the group is fully focused on making sure that that's the case, and that everybody takes their own safety and the safety of others very important, especially in recent times where there's been a significant incident in the mining industry. I will now move on to the half one snapshot. It was a tough half. We produced 125,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,576 per ounce. There's a couple of points I want to mention. We had low production Leonora and Atlantic compared to the half one FY22, that was partially offset by some improvements at our Simberi operations in Papua New Guinea.
On Leonora, we have been working hard in the recent few months in turning things around. Obviously that's quite a topic of conversation, and I'm happy to take some Q&A on that later on. We did AUD 407 million statutory loss and an underlying loss of AUD 9 million, and I'm pretty sure that Lucas will show us how that came about. Major significant items related to Atlantic and Simberi non-cash impairments and write-off of an expected credit loss provision. These will be addressed by Lucas in more detail. On the resource and reserve perspective, we've increased the reserve by 13% to 6.5 million ounces across the group, and 21% increase in resource to 16.4 million ounces across the group, which is an excellent result.
On 12th of December, we did announce our deal with Genesis Minerals, which if approved, will see the merger of our Leonora portfolio with Genesis and the demerger of Simberi and Atlantic to form Phoenician Metals. Of course, the Leonora area will be renamed Hoover House. We will discuss it a bit later on, but I'm not gonna go through it in great detail because the slides are there for people to have a take a look at. We are making progress, and I will talk through and discuss where we're at in terms of the program. Now, I'd like to hand over to Lucas. Thanks. Lucas?
Thanks, Dan, and good morning, everyone. Just looking at this financial overview slide, just highlight some of the items from the financial statements. As Dan mentioned before, we recorded a statutory loss of AUD 407 million. That included AUD 399 million of after-tax significant items, which resulted in a rounded loss of AUD 9 million underlying loss. We'll go into the significant items in the next slide. The underlying loss was primarily driven by lower group production and exacerbated by some higher costs. The lower profitability due to lower grades mined, particularly at Gwalia, which were exacerbated by higher costs, are clearly reflected in the lower EBITDA margin at 14%. This time last year was approximately 31%.
As a result, our cash flows from operating activities were AUD 6 million for the half. With the reduction in our cash position, our net debt increased to AUD 117 million. I will note that this was in line with our expectations during the December quarter. As disclosed in December, we obtained a waiver from a banking syndicate in relation to an interest cover ratio covenant, which we were forecast to breach. Broadly, the conditions attached to the waiver included the ability for the banks to refinance or renegotiate the current facility should the transaction with Genesis Minerals not proceed.
Although the banks have indicated it's not their intent to require repayment or change of final repayment date, rather to, you know, look at things like margins and cost covenants, the accounting standards are actually quite specific in relation to situations like these, and standards require us to classify that debt as current. Turning to the significant items, as noted on the slide there, we recognized AUD 519 million of pre-tax significant items, comprised mostly of the impairment loss, followed by the credit loss position. In relation to impairment, so the Atlantic impairment of AUD 420 million pre-tax was driven by, first of all, the Beaver Dam permitting process, was paused as we announced in December.
This was so that we could have further consultations with First Nations and Department of Fisheries and Oceans. You know, this will result in a break in production from when we complete processing stockpiles around December 24th at Touquoy, to when first ore from Fifteen Mile Stream will come online. Given that production break, you know, we had to add in some care and maintenance costs at Touquoy. As we use discounted cash flows to value some of these projects, where there was an increased discount rate, which reflected the increase in interest rates during the period, which also results in a reduction in present value of both projects. We did have some increase in operating capital cost assumptions associated with the development and operation of future projects.
In relation to the valuation methodology for Beaver Dam and Cochrane Hill, we would use discounted cash flows before, we've elected to use resource multiples now. For Beaver Dam, as mentioned before, this is based on, you know, some uncertainty from potential delays as we do the further consultations with First Nations and the DFO. For Cochrane Hill, this is really as a result of recommencing permitting under the new Impact Assessment Act of 2019 in Canada. I'll just note that the exploration value there, we reassessed using the latest market multiples. In relation to the Simberi impairment of AUD 74 million, again, in December, we did announce deferral of the Simberi project because we did find some more oxide material, which allows us to mine oxide material through to FY25.
Again, you know, pushing the timing of the sulfide project out means those cash flows bear more discounting from the increased discounting rates, as well as the lower gold prices being applied in the future based on long-term gold price assumptions. We do note the expected credit loss there. Back in my day, we used to call expected credit loss doubtful debt provisions, but not allowed to call them those anymore. That's in relation to a secured lending facility that had initial principal of AUD 16 million. Since then, we had capitalized about AUD 2 million of interest, and there's a related AUD 5 million of toll receivables associated with that. In relation to those amounts, we will note that we weren't expecting any repayment in relation to those for this financial year.
Accordingly, our cash flow forecast didn't include any if-inflows in relation to these amounts in the next 6 to 12 months. The final value for significant items post a tax benefit or loss amounts to AUD 399 million. This waterfall chart really compares the underlying profit from H1 FY 2022 to the first half of FY 2023. The clear driver in the lower net profit this year is from Leonora due to lower production, largely from lower grades, which were exacerbated by some higher costs. In H1 FY 2022, Leonora produced 100,000 ounces compared to the 66,000 ounces this half. Atlantic also had a reduction in gross profit due to lower production and exacerbated by, you know, some of the higher costs, diesel, freight, et cetera.
This was offset by production from Simberi. As a reminder, Simberi was offline in H1 FY2022 due to the DSTP pipeline failure as we're getting that operation back into action. With the lower production, you know, we do see that there's lower D&A from the reduced depreciation charge there. We do see a reduction in the corporate costs, largely some of the corporate cost reduction initiatives that we're starting to see come along. Looking at the cash position. This is a slide we did discuss this at the quarterly, as a reminder, our cash position dropped by AUD 61 million over the half as a result of the lower production and higher costs impacting the group net operating cash flow.
As I noted before, Simberi ramped up production, but particularly during this period, they built up a sizable gold in-circuit inventory through the half. This inventory was drawn down, started to be drawn down during December, which allowed Simberi to sell more gold ounces than it produced. Timing of payments and receivables results in larger than average networking capital movement, which can negatively impact the cash balance. In relation to that working capital, with Atlantic starting to reach the end of open pit mining, you know, we see a corresponding reduction in payables. We did also have some BAS or GST tax returns, which we'd normally receive in December, which we actually received in January.
In relation to some of the ore purchases, you know, we paid for some ore that we received in December, but we actually didn't process that until January. A bit of a mismatch in timing there. Thanks Dan, back to you.
Thanks very much, Lucas. We'll move on to slide 14, which is the creating a leading Australian gold house. As I mentioned earlier on, I won't go through the slides per se, but I'll just touch on some high levels, then I'll pass over to Andrew to talk a little bit about the Phoenician and the demerger. We announced on the 12th of December that St Barbara and Genesis had agreed to merge under the Scheme of Arrangement. The merged company will be called Hoover House and will comprise our Leonora provincial asset and the asset of Genesis. At the same time, we will also demerge Simberi and Atlantic under a new company called Phoenician Metals, which aims to list on the ASX. It will be 80% owned by existing St.
Barbara shareholders, with the remaining 20% held by Hoover House as a cornerstone investor. Just happens that Andrew, the current Chief Development Officer of St Barbara, will hopefully lead Phoenician Metals, as that demerger happens. The merge and demerge is subject to shareholder and court approvals and our indicative court, first court date is in and around 20th of March. These can move, but that's currently our indicative date. Once we've got the court approval, the transaction booklet will be released to shareholders. The indicative second court date will be in and around 10th of May. Obviously, there are other conditions precedent, but we are confident that we have the ability to meet these conditions.
If all things go through, Hoover House has a target to pre-produce north of 300,000 ounces per annum, and will have a long operating life, thanks to its large resource base in the Leonora area. It will have a very good start. I won't go through any further bullet points on that on the following slides than to say that obviously the work is in progress along those timelines for the scheme. I'll just hand over to Andrew to touch quickly on slide 16.
Yeah. I'd likewise, Dan, just be brief, 'cause we went through this in December. The plans for Phoenician continue as we described back then. Large gold inventory of resources of 5.9 million ounces between the two projects and 3.5 million ounces of gold reserves. Plenty to work with. We've got, obviously there's been a bit of tidying up of the balance sheet, Phoenician goes in with pro forma no debt, AUD 85 million in cash and approximately AUD 34 million in listed investments. Got the management team in place. We will have Hoover House's 20% backing, which sets us up well for the plans that we described in December.
The strategic direction that we outlined in December continues to be the plan. Continue with the focus on Fifteen Mile Stream, which is the major asset in Atlantic. Get on with the extension of the resource at Simberi while we're pushing out the oxide life through 2025 and hopefully into FY 2026. Thanks, Dan.
Thank you Andrew. Before we close, I just want to quickly mention the reserve, the resource update. We've actually added to both. Our reserves grew 13% or 0.8 million ounces to 6.5 million ounces after mining depletion across the group. We announced our first inaugural reserve for Tower Hill. The purchase of Bardoc added another 400,000 ounces to the reserve, and that's shown on the waterfall graph on page 19. If we go to page 20. We've actually grown our resources by almost 3 million ounces, 21%, and that is mainly through to the Bardoc acquisition. We've also grown our resource base at Gwalia through work done on Gwalia Shallows, which includes material from Old South Gwalia. Some great names there.
We are doing some work following the Shallows resource update on relooking at the Gwalia open pit, that sort of shows that we've got a bit of reduction there. We'll keep working on those to see how they flow into mine schedules and how we see whether we can convert those into reserves going forward. That's something to watch for. In a nutshell, that's the main part of the presentation. I think we all would like to look forward to a better second half.
The one of the areas, obviously as Lucas mentioned and touched on, is that we are having a very hard look at corporate costs, which I know is very front of a lot of people's minds, and we will be looking at that in earnest now. You know, looking at our main assets in terms of Gwalia and Simberi and Atlantic, in terms of also, where we could see some efficiencies in costs, and especially up at the Gwalia operation in WA. I'll close off there. We'll be open to Q&A.
Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, you will need to press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Alex Barclay of RBC. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, Dan and team. You've got the comments about the bank syndicate and the cap on further drawdowns. Is it possible just to give a sort of comment on liquidity that you expect heading into when the merger might potentially complete?
Alex, in terms of liquidity, I mean, we still have, you know, additional $20 million, and we can potentially draw down on the debt facility, but we certainly, in our forecast, we don't have any intention of requiring that.
you're sort of happy with the cash flow estimates, it's positive and.
Yes.
Yeah. Okay.
No, no, that's correct. In terms of the forecast coming through and everything sort of according to plan at the moment.
Okay. Would there be a plan B that you could speak to at this point?
Not at this stage. I think we're just sort of focusing on where we're at at the moment.
Yeah, no problem. A final question. After the impairment, I think I saw there was deferred tax asset, about AUD 22 million, maybe in non-current. Thought that number might have been a little higher. Is that around your expectations on taxable income, that you can't recognize a larger asset?
Yeah. Certainly when we look at the deferred tax assets for the different regions, 'cause we have to look at region by region, given, you know, Simberi, that's more largely around about when a sulfides project would be approved. You know, we can't account for any potential future taxable profits from that just at the moment. With Atlantic, obviously with us doing stockpiles and there being a likely break and needing permitting, until we sort of get that permitting approved, we can't really recognize anything from there. Certainly everything with Leonora has been recognized that we can.
Okay. That's very helpful. Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, mate.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Greene from Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Good morning, Dan and team. Hope you're well. Lucas, just a question on the bad debt charges. Obviously I see in the footnote this is in relation to a third party. Just want to confirm, yeah, is this the ore purchasers at Gwalia? Is this a single third party? Is it the Linden Gold Alliance? I think that's what they were called. Sorry. Is it that group?
That's correct. This is Linden Gold and, you know, we initially advanced them the money to help them develop their project to start with. With the, you know, the toll treatment process, you know, they've sort of built up some toll receivables. No, they are going through a process at the moment. I'll actually go to Andrew. He's a bit more familiar of where they're at at the moment.
Yeah, Matt, I just wanted to. Like, back when I was learning to be an accountant, like we, again, same as Lucas, we used to call this provision for debts not expected credit loss. Linden Gold are continuing, they're continuing to supply ore. We're supporting them with their proposed IPO and the development of the Devon pit with MATSA. Obviously, you know, with a bit of a tidy up of the balance sheet, we thought make this provision at this stage. We're continuing to support it. Yeah, the bad, quite keen to make sure it doesn't sound like it's bad debt, it's a provision against the receivable.
Yeah, we're keeping working with them in Gwalia, to help them move forward.
Okay, thanks. Just to confirm here, the AUD 23 million or so, that's all your exposure to Linden at the moment, or is there anything else?
That's correct.
Yeah. Okay. All right.
Correct.
I presume you're still in business with them. You're still accepting third party material like.
Oh. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yep.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. All right. Just on the Simberi closure provision, CS increased to AUD 45 million. Can you just let me know what was that number previously? It seems quite low to me anyway. I just wonder, what's the process in getting to that figure? Have you had it audited and run it past the PNG government? Are they happy with what, you know, the costing and the closure plan that you've put forward?
First thing in terms of, I'll draw your attention to the segment note 1, we do include a line that shows the rehab provisions for each of those. That was AUD 25 million at June, increased to AUD 45 million. I guess in terms of the process, we do use third-party consultants to come through to review what's required to be done and the work to be done there. The prior estimate was probably something that I think that was work was done a couple of years ago.
You know, we're going through the process right now to update those estimates, which includes, you know, and you can see that increase now, includes some of the feedback that we've had from, you know, regulators and other sort of consultants been out there recently to look at that provision now.
Okay, thanks. The timing on that, is that, based on... I mean, is this... I guess in, just in terms of trying to think about the discounting here, is this at the end of the sulfides project, or is this end of the oxides project?
No.
This AUD 45 million. oxides, yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, this relates to the oxides. In terms of the provision, we can only provide for what's actually occurred at the balance date, which basically relates to the oxides at the moment.
Yeah.
you know, if we had further-.
Okay.
If we had further the areas of disturbance in the future, obviously that will in the future add to that.
Yeah. Understood.
Just for your modeling.
Okay. Thank you.
In terms of, I think I heard you reference the modeling, so obviously the timing of that would depend on your modeling assumptions of the sulfides project because, yeah, when you commence that work depends on, whether the, you know, the sulfide project and how long that goes for.
Yeah. Yep.
Okay. That's good. Okay. Thanks, guys. Then just on the impairments, no impairment at Bardoc. Is that, I guess if the merger does go ahead, is there an expectation that you will see an impairment of the Bardoc assets?
No, there's no indication now to suggest that the Bardoc assets would be impaired. I mean, we'd started developing that portal. Actually I'd gone in a little bit, so I think, you know, the deferral was largely around, you know, the announcement we made with Genesis Minerals and, you know, priority with Ulysses ore.
Okay. That's great. That's all for me. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Matt.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes through the line of Jon Bishop of Jarden. Please proceed with your question.
Oh, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I'm just interested to know around the existing scheme documentation with Genesis. Are there any sort of material adverse clauses or change provisions regarding either the balance sheet or asset performance at Gwalia at all?
There is a material adverse change clause, no balance sheet movements wouldn't be part of that. That, that, you know, the cash flow projections for the assets were, you know, were all things that were considered in the due diligence. The main impairments that we were discussing here are adjustments to what would, what will be the Phoenician balance sheet.
Okay. nothing to do with sort of net debt provisions or anything like that in terms of major changes in that net position at all?
Net debt is a separate condition precedent. That was, you know, there was an assumption of the forward-looking net debt position at the end of the month prior to the transaction. At this stage it would be April. That had, you know, that had a buffer in it in terms of around our guidance predictions and how that will translate into the net debt position. That's not. That's a separate condition precedent that we mentioned in December. That's the material adverse change clause is obviously, you know, a classic material adverse change clause where something goes bang unexpectedly, rather than a sort of a gradual operating performance, which the other CP is designed to cover.
Okay. Then in terms of asset performance, there's nothing around that. I guess the next question therefore is how is Gwalia looking, given we've sort of had January and most of February behind us?
I think the key, the one that is in the agreement on that is the net debt position. Obviously if Gwalia was not anticipated to meet guidance and that impacted on the net debt prediction, then that CP would come into more focus. There's no.
Yeah. Okay.
I mean, material adverse change clauses, again, they're quite typical ones that they're focused around things going, you know, events happening rather than operating performance. Again, it comes back to.
Hitting hit guidance and the buffer in the net debt clause will be adequate.
Okay. Separating the two, are you able to sort of comment on how Gwalia's performed in the new year? Has it sort of shown an improvement on the December quarter?
We're in the middle of the quarter, Jon. From an operational perspective, obviously we've come through December, whilst I hate mentioning the C word, COVID and obviously holiday periods didn't help going into January.
Yeah.
To be honest with you, the turnarounds we need would be, you know, cost reductions on fixed costs. We've managed to now remove. Sorry, remove is not the right word 'cause they actually did a good job. PYBAR has left site, so the mid area of Gwalia, where they focus is now under the Macmahon's banner, and that's obviously taking fixed costs and another group of management out. That's quite a bit of a change in terms of underground equipment, et cetera, and fixed overheads for management. That's flowing through basically the end of January to early February. We need to see how that flows through into the that Macmahon picks up that work without any additional, well, not any significant additional cost to their current fixed cost.
That's one initiative. Look, the cycle of events at Gwalia is very dictated by mining sequence, and that then dictates the grade that we get. The mill has actually been performing really well. We've now been seeing target tonnages through there, which are akin to how we used to see in the old days. As long as I can keep that mill full, the rest will work its way through the plan. Yes, we have got work on hand to reduce costs and that's our new GM up there. Well, I guess you'd argue he's not a new GM anymore. Andrew Lindsay, who's a very detailed guy, and I have full, you know...
I believe that he will get as much out of Gwalia as we can and, I'm looking forward to seeing that turnaround. Came through a tough first half. I'm pleased to say that we're certainly seeing improvements across the site in terms of mining efficiencies, but it's still a work in progress.
All right. No, I appreciate the detail there, Dan. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
It's a pleasure.
Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn back to Dan Lougher for closing remarks.
To me. Sorry. You caught me by surprise there. Yes. Look, thanks very much for being with us this morning. We are going to be seeing quite a few people on one-on-ones between today and tomorrow. Once again, thank you and have a great day.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.