Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Sandfire Resources FY 2022 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 Ben Crowley, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we present our FY 2022 financial result, and also the DFS for the Motheo expansion. With me today in the room, I have Karl Simich, our MD and CEO, Matt Fitzgerald, our CFO, Jason Grace, Chief Operating Officer, and we also have Richard Holmes, Executive for Growth, and David Wilson, our Head of Technical Services. Karl will give us some opening comments and run through the highlights of FY 2022 and the DFS. Matt will step through the financials, and Jason will take us through the high level outcomes of the DFS. With that, over to you, Karl.
Thanks, Ben, and welcome everyone to our year-end financial results, 2022, and also pleasingly, our announcements today regarding the expansion of the Motheo operations in Botswana to 5.2 million tons. Just as a highlight, we continue executing our vision, creating value through opportunity, and our mission to build an internationally diversified, sustainable mining company. As we roll through this presentation today, we remain very focused and marching forward on delivering on our strategy and always ensuring we maintain our values at the very core of our business, which effectively underline and provide the culture of our business.
In terms of scale, we continue to move forward, and as we go through this transition, we will continue to be moving toward being one of the largest copper producers on the ASX and, obviously, in those future facing metals. We believe through the jurisdictions that we are in as high quality jurisdictions, a great ability to pivot off that, and also working through those large exploration endowment that we have and a large exploration footprint, both in the Kalahari and the Iberian Pyrite Belt. We essentially have earmarked somewhere in the order of 6 million ounces of contained copper equivalent metal in either resources or tier three inventory that sits within all of the large ground holdings that we have in our various projects.
This is a dramatic change from where we may have been from two years ago, where we were effectively moving towards having very little in the way of resources in our metal inventory, and now we're sitting on that pipeline of inventory. We're really looking forward to then extracting value from that as we transition through our business at the moment. Clicking into the headline financial results, a lot of this information was pre-released earlier on in the quarterly, but just important to highlight. Record revenue for the last financial year, $922 million, and all these numbers are in US dollars. A very strong group EBITDA margin of almost $450 million, and a pleasing second-largest profit after tax we've ever recorded of $111 million.
Very pleasing financial results for the year that we've just had, and the ups and downs and the vagaries of fluctuations in those markets and commodity markets towards the end of that financial year as well. Strong cash position at the end of the year at $440 million. Sorry, $463 million from those very strong cash flow generation through the course of this year, and net debt at the end of 30 June of about $320 million.
I would just like to highlight, Matt Fitzgerald, the CFO, will give further detail, but prudently the company believes it's while we're going through this large transition of our business and transitioning of our balance sheet, off the back of a major transaction with MATSA of about $1.9 billion and the large expansion of Motheo from 3.2 million tons, also now up to 5.2 million tons per annum, and that expanded global capital expenditure of about $400 million, prudent to put a pause on dividends. Matt will give you a little bit more detail regarding that. A look at the financial operating highlights for the last 12 months.
We produced order of magnitude about 115 kilotons of copper equivalent between copper and zinc at an all-in C1 cost of $1.27 a pound of payable copper. When we look at the combination of what, you know, MATSA will do at its 4.7 million ton throughput and ultimately Motheo at 5.2 million tons, as we head into the, you know, mid-financial 2024 year, we'll be operating at a combined throughput rate of some 10 million tons per annum, and we'll be targeting a production rate of about 150,000 kilotons of copper equivalent, predominantly made up of copper, but also significant quantities of zinc as well. As I said, during the course of this year, we completed the MATSA acquisition for about $1.9 billion.
We've done it, that's transformational for our business, probably the single most important thing that's occurred to this business since the discovery of DeGrussa. That is integrating, and we're well and truly seeing the benefits of operational improvements as we work through and getting our feet under the table with MATSA. What I would like to highlight today, though, is the Motheo copper mine development and its progress and its expansion. We've done lots of work. It's advancing extraordinarily well. Production will be looking to ramp up in the June quarter of financial 2023. What was approved by the board yesterday was the formal expansion to 5.2 million tons per annum. The feasibility study has been received. The board has approved that expansion, and credit funding appropriate for that expansion is in place.
Matt, the CFO, will also give you some further detail on that. We also continue. Richard Holmes today will give you a glimpse into the wonderful opportunities that we see in the Kalahari Copper Belt, and he will talk to you about our expanded exploration activity there. We are building these operations for the future, and for we would expect many decades to come. If I just quickly turn to, for a bit of completeness housekeeping, the MATSA acquisition, which was completed, it really is just for a complete presentation, the type of funding that was used for that transaction, for the financing facility and some hedging that we put in place for that.
Quickly turning to group production for the year, just really to highlight that we had a very strong finish for the year. It was a very strong year. We achieved over guidance from MATSA of around 3,000 tons of copper equivalent for the year, and DeGrussa was at the top end of its guidance. A very strong year with effectively a copper equivalent production of 115,000 tons of copper and about 82% of our production for the last financial year in copper metal as future-facing metals. I look forward to handing over to Matt Fitzgerald now to continue with the detail of this presentation.
Thanks, Karl. We're just presenting here the EBITDA contribution from the different operations and development projects. As you can see on the left, as we've released previously, DeGrussa, a very strong year, above guidance production for copper and delivered an operations EBITDA of just under $400 million. Obviously very pleasing. MATSA, in its first five months, of our MATSA ownership from February through to June, $150 million of EBITDA. So a combined $543 million operations EBITDA in US dollars, as Karl mentioned. Continuing our progress at Black Butte in terms of permitting, and also drilling. Motheo as well in terms of exploration interest, exploration and project development, particularly as we're looking at a fall. Then across our exploration drives, across our strategy, to remind everyone, we do expense exploration as we go.
Around a third of the exploration and other costs in that relate to MATSA acquisition costs that went through the P&L. In total group EBITDA, a very pleasing AUD 447 million for the year as previously announced. Looking at comparison year-on-year, not surprisingly from AUD 337 million last year to AUD 447 million this year, the majority of the difference comes from the addition of MATSA. Period-on-period, we've got MATSA coming in, as I say, from February to June, in terms of its financial results, adding AUD 313 million of revenue and associated costs. Of course, on the operating cost employee benefit side, producing, as you can see between those two bars relating to MATSA, effectively the EBITDA number.
Also some movement in exploration, fairly minor year-on-year. Some additional support costs in terms of administration of moving the business to a more global business and a support structure for that. As I said, also in the P&L for this year, some MATSA acquisition costs, which clearly won't continue into the future P&L. Year-on-year, pleasingly increase of EBITDA, as you said, largely driven by the acquisition of MATSA and the contribution of MATSA in those first few months of ownership. Looking at the cash flow, we've also had this out for the June quarter, but just to run from left to right to remind everyone, $149 million presented here for the cash used for the acquisition of MATSA.
As Karl mentioned, there's some obviously larger numbers in terms of equity raisings and debt, but we've netted them all off for the purpose of highlighting more of the operational side of cash flow. DeGrussa cash flows from operations just over AUD 400 million around the EBITDA number. MATSA's contribution from cash AUD 218 million is above its EBITDA number. That has some adjustments coming in terms of cash flow in terms of QP alignment during that year. That will come through into the September quarter. Although we do note a recovery in copper price, we will see some offsetting of some of those booked QP adjustments of last year, probably coming at this stage into the early part of financial 2023.
We'll see that when we put out our September results and cash movements for the September quarter during October. Mine development, as we've mentioned before, AUD 200 million of mine development CapEx, AUD 131 million of that is developing the Motheo project at the 3.2 million ton per annum scenario. Jason will talk shortly about the expanded project. MATSA, AUD 36 million, larger on the mine development side and accessing new mining areas. DeGrussa and Black Butte make up the difference. Exploration is also Motheo, very heavily weighted towards Motheo for the periods of the exploration spend. AUD 19 million was Motheo and also the AUD 23 million that we have spent on exploration and evaluation activities at DeGrussa over the financial year.
Now we sold our investment in Adriatic around the time of the MATSA acquisition, which assisted the balance sheet in terms of entering the MATSA transaction. Yeah, into income tax, $132 million paid out in terms of cash flow for the year. Probably just worth noting here, you might note from our financial results, there's a higher effective tax rate of around 44%. There is a note in the financials, note seven, which takes you through the very, very detailed sections. In a higher level, DeGrussa's rehab, future rehab obligations on balance sheet see a $9 million charge to income tax expenses that unwinds and a $10 million impact of the non-deductible costs of the MATSA acquisition.
Given it's a foreign acquisition into a foreign jurisdiction, around $10 million of income tax expense relates to non-deductible MATSA acquisition costs. Dividends during the period. Pleasingly, we did pay out $42.4 million in dividends, representing the final dividend of 2021, which we paid just prior to the MATSA acquisition, and we also paid a 0.3 cents interim dividend earlier in the year. I'll talk about capital management and our dividends shortly on the next slide. That over time and other parts that come into that in terms of corporate and other parts of the business. Overall, a $32 million increase in cash. At the end of the year, $463 million in treasury.
Moving to dividends and noting that Sandfire has a very proud history of dividend payments, particularly from the strong operating cash flows at DeGrussa, what we expect from strong operating cash flows from MATSA and further into Motheo, and we'd expect to also continue to be a dividend paying company. That philosophy certainly hasn't changed. We have decided at this stage, though, to pause dividends in this transformative year. Transformative not only in terms of the business but also in terms of the balance sheet transition. As I did note before, we did pay out $42 million of dividends during this year. We're really moving at this stage to a capital management focus. We do need to make sure that we appropriately fund and build the 5.2 million ton per annum Motheo Copper Project, as we've announced today.
We're very pleased to get credit approval on the first pass of that funding facility. We also, of course, through the MATSA acquisition, took on some debt that was already in MATSA and took on some additional debt in terms of that. We wanna be sure that we are well positioned to make that aggressive debt repayment. I'll talk about that in the next slide. Those debt repayments, I'll talk about that again in the next slide.
The back end of DeGrussa, as DeGrussa finishes processing under our guidance around the end of October or early November, we do have around AUD 70 million of balance sheet movement in terms of DeGrussa's closure and payout of creditors and workforce, final working capital positions, as well as the payment effectively almost entirely DeGrussa related for the financial 2022 year at the back end of this calendar year. All up DeGrussa-wise, the next six months will see us pay out around AUD 70 million of DeGrussa closure. Also have our corporate facilities we now also related to the MATSA acquisition to AUD 138 million or AUD 200 million. It's denominated in Aussie dollars, at AUD 200 million, and we have that cash sitting aside ready for the end of September bullet repayment.
Really an objective in terms of the next sort of six to 12 months is that capital position, to support our ore reserve growth, particularly around MATSA. Our exploration pushes around MATSA and Motheo and our capital development programs. Also working to build, make sure we build an appropriate working capital position in the business after debt repayments to make sure that we are able to do all of the things that we are looking to do in terms of our strategy. As I said, pausing dividends for now, but we obviously hope to bring them back in the not too distant future. We have debt facilities enhancing now. As we know, a $650 facility at MATSA related to the acquisition. We have those repayments due during the year. Our corporate facility, as I've mentioned.
Our current repayment profile has us returning around 43% of our debt balances to repaying those during the financial 2023 year. We clearly leveraged up for the MATSA acquisition, which we're very pleased with, and this is a time of balance sheet transition and consolidation. Motheo facility supporting the initial 3.2 million ton per annum base case, and we're very pleased to say today that we have credit approval from the banks for an AUD 140 million facility. That's out of what we're scoping around a combined AUD 180 million-AUD 200 million dollar facility to support what is a larger operation of 5.2 million tons at Motheo, producing up to 55,000 tons per annum of copper.
As I say, scoping AUD 180 million-AUD 200 million, and at the initial stages is the credit approval received, and pleasingly received, and board approved in terms of the AUD 140 facility, which would be a seven-year facility at this stage. We're very close to finalizing the documentation and signing those documents hopefully in the next few weeks. Our hedge book is again protecting our cash flow to a certain extent. As we saw towards the end of the financial year, we saw copper and zinc both come down. Zinc has recovered very strongly and copper is, has also, commenced its recovery. When we put out the quarterly, I think our copper hedging for the next financial year was around 25% above spot. It currently sits about 15% above spot.
That relates to the recovery in copper, recent recoveries in copper prices. We also have that copper price protection in terms of cash flows, and debt repayments and working capital into the future exactly as designed.
Moving on to the development of the Motheo Copper Mine in Botswana. First, as a quick update on the development of the 3.2 million ton per annum project, construction continues to proceed on schedule, with first production expected in the June quarter of 2023.
Construction activities are now around their peak levels, with over 1,700 personnel currently on site. Over 9,200 cubic meters of structural concrete has been poured, and a total of 950 tons of structural steel has been erected to date. In addition to this, Sandfire has now achieved another important milestone in the company's plans to establish a major new long-term copper mining hub in the Kalahari Copper Belt. This is through the completion of the definitive feasibility study for the 5.2 million ton per annum Motheo expansion project. This project includes the development of the A4 open pit mine and delivers outstanding project economics, including a pre-tax NPV of $548 million and an IRR of 29%. Finally, Sandfire is also very pleased to announce that Motheo funding has also taken a major step forward.
The selection of the syndicate of international banks is now completed, and credit committee approval is received for a $140 million project debt facility. If we now look in more detail at the 5.2 million ton per annum definitive feasibility study, completion of this work has confirmed a very strong business case for the development of the A4 deposit as part of an expanded 5.2 million ton per annum Motheo production hub. This is underpinned by a combined ore reserve for both the A4 deposit and the T3 deposit of 49.6 million tons at 1% copper and 14 grams per ton silver, for close to 500,000 tons of contained copper and over 21 million ounces of contained silver.
As mentioned before, the project delivers very robust economics over a 10-year mine life, which is scheduled to produce a total of 440,000 tons of copper and 18.4 million ounces of silver at an average all-in sustaining cost of $1.79 per pound. Total development capital for the expansion project is estimated to be $397 million, and this includes development costs for the A4 open pit and 5.2 million ton per annum plant expansion of $47.9 million. Subject to contract award timing, site construction activities for the process plant expansion are scheduled to commence in the March quarter of financial year 2023, with increased plant throughput at a 5.2 million ton per annum rate expected to commence in the March quarter of financial year 2024.
As part of the definitive feasibility study, the life of mine plans for both the T3 open pit and the A4 open pit have been integrated and optimized for a combined ore production rate of 5.2 million tons per annum. This yields a peak annual copper production of approximately 55,000 tons and maintains around 50,000 tons per annum production rate over a six-year period. Subject to the approval of the environmental and social impact assessment and granting of the mining license for A4 by the Botswana government, pre-strip mining at A4 is anticipated to commence by the March quarter of financial year 2024.
Formal submission of the environmental and social impact assessment to the Department of Environmental Affairs in Botswana is planned for the December quarter of financial year 2023, with final approval anticipated by the middle of next year. Looking now at the key definitive feasibility outcomes. As mentioned before, project economics are definitely very robust and makes a major difference to the overall project, and these have withstood the significant increases currently seen in the input pricing from mining costs, diesel supply, reagents, grinding media and labor. As some of these numbers have been covered before, I won't go through all of them as shown on the slide, but I will touch on the estimated operating costs. With the C1 cash costs over the life of mine and on a payable copper basis is estimated to be approximately $1.47 per pound of copper.
This includes $0.84 per pound in mining costs, $0.56 per pound in processing, inclusive of power and site administration, offsite logistic costs of $0.23 per pound, $0.19 per pound in treatment and refining charges, and a silver by-product credit of $0.35 per pound of copper. If we now look at the expanded mine layout. In completing the DFS, Sandfire's been able to leverage off the work currently underway for the development and construction of the 3.2 million ton per annum project, as well as the prior work completed on the 3.2 million ton per annum feasibility study. Mine facilities for the expanded project include surface mining operations at the A4 deposit, expansion of the processing plant and supporting infrastructure.
New infrastructure at for A4 includes a light vehicle access road linking the open pit mine to the already constructed access road for the Motheo site, a dual lane heavy vehicle haul road to be constructed directly from A4 to the Motheo processing plant, workshops, fuel facilities, crew and office facilities, along with electrical and water supplies. The recently completed Motheo mining accommodation facility requires no expansion as provision for additional personnel members were incorporated in the scope of the original Motheo project. Planning is also well advanced for a 22 MW solar power facility and battery energy storage system. The solar plant will be located next to the processing plant, with the potential to supply up to 34% of the project's future energy needs, and will reduce carbon emissions by 475,000 tons over the life of mine.
The capital for the solar plant is currently not included in the life of mine capital as firm pricing submissions are currently being sought. If we now drill down on the processing plant area, as you can see, the expansion to 5.2 million tons per annum will be a very simple process, with the addition of a 4.5 MW ball mill being the only major piece of infrastructure required. The reason for this simplicity and overall efficiency is due to Sandfire's discovery and drill out of the A4 deposit during the period when the original Motheo definitive feasibility study was being completed. This allowed us to design a processing plant exactly for this outcome, which was to be readily scalable to 5.2 million tons per annum. Finally, looking at construction and development capital.
The total development capital for Motheo is now estimated at $397.4 million. This includes $47.9 million for the future development of the A4 open pit and the 5.2 million ton per annum plant expansion. This also includes the $29.5 million increase in capital cost forecast for the 3.2 million ton per annum project, as disclosed in the company's June 2022 quarterly report. Please note as shown on the slide, that the $71.9 million there includes $24 million of pre-approved capital. Life of mine capital is estimated at $499 million, and as at 31st July 2022, the company had invested $185.4 million of the total $397.4 million of the development capital.
Now moving on to Motheo exploration. Let's talk a little bit about our dominant position in an emerging belt. The Kalahari Copper Belt's probably one of the most underappreciated belts around the globe. Putting that into context, the known endowment of this belt already is 9 million tons of contained copper, and that sits in around 20 deposits. The reason why we like this belt is the average grade of those deposits is around 1.4% copper. If you look around the globe in operating mines, the average grade around the world at the moment is around 0.5% copper. If you look at the pipeline of study projects coming on, again, is around 0.4%-0.5% copper.
We think we've got an amazing opportunity in this belt to bring on high-grade deposits into the Motheo exploration portfolio. The belt itself has seen little exploration over around 15 years, so just over 600 holes drilled. If you look at our land holding, sitting around at 26,000 sq km , equates to one hole every 40 sq km , large regional datasets, build our targeting models to really push forward exploration and bring on those new discoveries. The big focus going forward for the year will be A1. A1 is a prospect that sits around 19 km from Motheo as the crow flies. A significant amount of work has been undertaken here already.
We've done a fair amount of drilling and some IP and EM. We've identified a prospect that's got about 9 km of strike. Previous operators, being MOD Resources, discovered, you know, significant width of copper mineralization at the MPS contact, so relatively deep. We have a slightly different approach and different geological model. Our challenge now is to locate high-grade economic mineralization near surface in the D'Kar Formation. We're working hard on that at the moment. The exploration budget going forward for the year for the Kalahari Copper Belt will be around $13 million. A significant portion of that will be aimed at A1 in helping build out that mineral inventory to support the Motheo processing plant.
Thanks, Matt, Jason and Richard. Just really to wrap up, thanks everyone for attending today. We're very pleased with the very strong financial results for the last financial year, June 2022. We're delighted to be able to be announcing today the expansion, the board approval and funding appropriately for the Motheo facilities to 5.2 million tons, as we continue to transform our business and work towards that global vision of having those global capabilities as we build a diversified and international sustainable mining company. Look forward to your questions, and we'll open the floor now to that. Thanks very much for your time.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Karl, Matt, and Jason. Look, two questions from me. First one is around dividends. Obviously, you've chosen to suspend them today, and you've talked about how you can reinstate them going forward. I wanted to get a bit of a framework, perhaps. How are you viewing your target net debt? I mean, on my numbers, you're basically sitting at one to 1 to 1.5 times net debt to EBITDA next year, 20%-25% gearing. What kind of level do you want to get that down to before you can recommence dividends? That's the first one, and I'll come back with the second.
Thanks, Rahul. Karl here. I think, Rahul, just at the moment, what we need to do, as we go through this transformation, is deal with what we have in front of ourselves. Clearly, the acquisition of MATSA was a transformational transaction, and we put the balance sheet to work. And at the same time, you know, we are working towards that expansion of Motheo, which is in the best economic interest of all shareholders to do that and to accelerate that expansion. I think, with that, we have not set a target ratio at this point in time, Rahul.
We will work through, I suppose, through the financial 2023 year, to attend to those debt structure and repayments as they're currently anticipated and build that up. I think when we see things roll out, then we'll start to put together, you know, target numbers and target ratios. I think as we go through this period of significant transformation and change, we just need to work through that. We don't have target numbers in front of us at the moment for those numbers.
Sure. Okay. No worries. Then, Karl, look, a good result in terms of that expansion study at T3. I perhaps wanted to touch upon potential to extend life. I mean, there's an additional five years sitting in the resource as opposed to the reserves. If some of the drilling work that you mentioned just towards the end of that presentation, is that targeted towards life extension or is this, I mean, infill or is that more exploratory drilling to basically expand the resource base? I just wanted to get an understanding when we can start giving you a bit more credit in terms of the life of the asset beyond sort of the 10 years that we currently have.
I will pass it to Jason one second, other than to say, I think some of the highlighted points that Richard made is that we have 26,000 sq km of tenure in the Kalahari Copper Belt. Just to re-highlight again, just the endowment that is there at a very underexplored province. I think it is a very, very long journey here, and we're at the very early stages. Over to you, Jason.
Yeah, Rahul, look, there's a number of things that are happening at the moment. We believe there's still some more tons to be had or reserves to be had at A4. So we have factored into our budget this year, and for next year as well, resource extension drilling that may or may not extend the A4 open pit. But all indications are at the moment that that is highly prospective and there's a good likelihood. Particularly, you know, I'll hand over to Richard, but the work being done around A1 and up at T1, T2, and in particular, that area that we've called in the past, the Motheo Project area, is particularly exciting and I think highly prospective.
Thanks.
Yes, Rahul, the budget I talked about is greenfields exploration. It's obviously being focused on A1, T2, which are easily within trucking range of the Motheo processing plant.
Gotcha. Okay. Final question from me then, around MATSA and solar. Obviously gas prices, energy prices very volatile at the moment and perhaps improving economics for, you know, additional solar, I guess, by the hour rather than by the day. How are you viewing that opportunity? What is the update there? Is there a change in scope? Can we make that bigger? I just wanted to sort of get an idea of how we're thinking about energy costs at the asset going forward. Thanks.
Rahul, no worries. Look, we have our plans at MATSA for solar. I think we've spoken about before, but we have an initial 20 MW facility which there's a signed agreement. That one is expandable to 40 MW, which then we're looking at over there. That project is the most advanced. In that one, we're based at the San Calixto and the southern part of the MATSA operation. The team over there are working through an additional 20 MW facility up near the Aguas Teñidas concentrator. That one is a little bit early stage. All in all, we've got, you know, 40 MW capacity in the pipeline.
Just to put that, I guess, as a reference point, our peak demand, we're somewhere between around 37 MW-39 MW. That would cover 100% of our use when obviously they're generating 100%. Beyond that, we'll need to look at things like storage and other things, which is also on the agenda. We'll give many options.
Perfect. That's helpful. How should we think about timing of these coming online?
The first one we're timing to be towards the end of quarter three of FY 2023 is the latest date. The other one we're still working through with providers to get a firm date, but we're hoping to do that as quick as possible.
Perfect. That's all from me. Thank you. Thank you all.
Thank you. The next question comes from David Radclyffe from Global Mining Research. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Karl and team. My question just comes really to the balance sheet, and as you put it, the aggressive debt repayment profile this year. Just trying to understand why you really chose not to restructure the maturity profile to better suit the needs of the business, given that it seems to have costed a token dividend here. Then in the absence of sort of debt targets, as you were asked before, how should we think about, you know, what you're thinking here? Are we being just conservative, or do you see other opportunities you wanna present the, you know, or position the balance sheet for?
David, Karl here. Look, just very quickly, I think, initially when we look at the transaction of MATSA, which has then ended up with the structure that we've got. If we can just go back one step. MATSA transaction was order of magnitude of that $1.9 billion. Clearly, transformational for us in terms of scale and what we believe it will ultimately deliver over a you know, put our hand on a heart and say a 10 to 20 to 30-year mine life. Lots of exploration potential and significant footprint in the Iberian Pyrite Belt. If we sort of go through the bouncing ball, we go.
We maximize the quantity of debt, equity that we could raise on a one-for-one equity raising with a ASX-approved waiver for a AUD 0.30 placement. There was not one more share we could issue. We inherited, with the blessing of the previous vendors, the debt facility that was within the project of MATSA itself. We looked at what our cash requirements were from our expanded and large treasury or just our normal business requirements from the Motheo expansion. At the time, we also had a sense that there might be requirements for further expansionary capital for Botswana. We had that factored into our modeling. Therefore, there was a quantum that we were happy to release out of our treasury.
The balance was extra debt that we wanted to secure. That debt had to be secured above the MATSA asset in a holding company, and that was a balance of debt to factor the gross MATSA debt up to AUD 650 million. It wasn't. It was really out of necessity as to being able to complete the transaction at the time, extraordinarily quickly, with you know, effectively, limited options available to achieve it, without going to, you know, information being leaked to the market or any of that sort of other stuff. We sort of got what we got, and you know, things like we drew down also on a corporate facility with the ANZ Bank for you know, a couple hundred million AUD, and that was all to complete the transaction.
It was what it was, and it would enable us to be competitive and complete that transaction. We didn't sit here and luxuriate around, going around in circles about, you know, what debt amortization looked perfect for the project. That will all occur over a period of time as we're going through balance sheet. I think we need to go through this period of time. It'll be the next, you know, six, nine, 12 months. You know, as Matt said earlier on, 43% of the current debt profile is repayable within this current financial year, which is, you know, not normal, smooth amortization of debt facilities, but it is what is required to get the job done back on settlement of first of February this year. It is what it is, and that's what we're dealing with.
There's no problems. We knew about it, and we're catering for it, and the business is set up to deal with it and complete all the other strategic imperatives that we have got without compromising this strategy that we have got on table. What will occur through the course, I have no doubt, of this year and as we get time to integrate all these things into our business and complete the Motheo construction and ramp it up, is that we'll start to then be able to modify and work within having target debt ratios and all the rest of it. It really is as a matter of necessity to get something done that we're in this position.
As we see things roll out, we will start to be able to, you know, look at how we want to set up, where we want working capital to be, what our dividend, our philosophy is going to be, what our target debt ratios are going to be. That is not something that we need to focus on because we've got far more important things right here, right now to focus on. Which is, you know, the completion with the integration, which is going well with MATSA. Fantastic expansion, optimization, and for the completion of construction and expansion of Motheo, absolutely, you know, it's on schedule, on budget. When I say on budget time-wise, there's been a little bit of an uplift in cost, which is relatively insignificant, comparable to what's happening in the rest of the industry.
You know, we've had a 10% uplift, and during this period of supply chain disruption of COVID, it is relatively low. As we've had to you know, find that from our treasury to fund that clearly. Importantly, for that asset, to optimize that business unit is to accelerate that development into a double 2, 53, 84 as quickly as possible because the returns are significantly greater than they otherwise would be. At the same time, not to prejudice our organic growth, you know, development of MATSA, but also exploration of Botswana.
There are a number of moving parts at the moment, and I think at an appropriate time, it won't be too far away down the, in the future, we will be able to get back to those more mainstream things of ratios and, you know, what's your sense of that after we've gone over the transitional hump. It doesn't pinpoint and answer your question. It gives you a sense of what is going on, and the importance of being. You know, we're very focused at the task at hand at the moment and doing exactly what we said we're going to do and dealing with, achieving our targets and milestones and delivering back, on the requirements of our syndicates and debt ratios and repayments and all those other things.
Going back to the dividend, it's just prudent not to go and say, "Well, we're doing that," when we're in the middle of doing extraordinary transitional transaction three times the size of the company and doing a large development, that's expanding as we're going along, which is all on track. It's just sensible, you know, board and management being sensible and prudent for where our business is today.
Yeah. Okay, thanks a lot.
It doesn't give a specific answer, just a general sense of where we are as an organization.
Okay, great. Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Yeah. Good. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question comes from Matt Green from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Karl and team. I just have a few questions on the Motheo study. Just to start with on the economics, the NPV, the reference date for that, for the PFS versus the feasibility study, are you using the same reference date for that?
Reference date?
I mean, is the feasibility study NPV as of today, whereas the PFS is as of, well, 12 months ago?
The PFS and the feasibility are pretty much the same date. They are the same date.
That's September last year, I take it. I'm just trying to bridge the gap between what's driving that 20-cent drop in NPV. We know the CapEx has stepped up a bit, and you've mentioned some of the cost pressures. I'm just trying to get a sense as to how much of that is costs, because it does seem like the profile at T3 has changed a fair bit. I think it would be FS if I just eyeball the copper production profile, you know, 2027, 2028, you're reaching 60,000 tons a year. Now it seems like you're peaking up at 50. Can you just perhaps talk about what's changed on the profile? Because the grade doesn't seem to change a great deal. Is this more about managing the strip?
No. That's absolutely correct. If you look at it, our ore reserve hasn't changed at all from basically pre-feasibility through to feasibility study on that. That's with both A4 and also the updates that we've used on T3. The one thing I'm not sure if you've seen the ASX release or the broader report, it does do a reconciliation there about changes or key changes and assumptions between the pre-feasibility study and the feasibility study. That hopefully might give you some more insights in there as well. If you look at metal production in particular, what we have done is integrate the two mine plans, and we've also optimized those mine plans for actually that blending configuration and also our open pit mining schedule.
Now, the only thing that has shunted some metal around in terms of changing of timing, we actually changed our staging designs in the A4 open pit between the PFS and the final feasibility study. The PFS actually used a three-stage pit on A4. When we looked at that in more detail from a mining efficiency and a cost point of view, it was actually more efficient to actually change that back to a two-stage open pit.
Okay, thanks. The T3 staging hasn't changed?
No, it hasn't.
Okay. No, that's great. Thanks for the color there. Matt, just on the project finance facility of AUD 140 million, you said it's in the first part, hoping to get it up to AUD 180 million-AUD 200 million. If you can increase this, when do you expect the balance of that facility to flow through?
Yeah. We're targeting probably somewhere around the middle of calendar year next year. The process now will be the banks clearly are aware of A4, and they also have in their head a 5.2 million ton per annum project as a full project. Given the completion of the DFS and an approval of the DFS, those banks, the funding banks will have a look at that combined model. As Jason mentioned, it does reschedule and does optimize T3 and A4 together. There will be an impact on their models as well of that. I'd expect that probably something like a six to nine month process in terms of engineering, experts and those sort of things to run over the combined model. As I say, Sandfire and those banks, I can safely say have a 5.2 million tons per annum project ultimately in their mind.
Okay, thanks. That's helpful. I heard you mention it was a seven-year term. Sorry if I missed this, but when do the repayments commence and is this a pretty flat amortization schedule?
Seven-year term. They are current. We are currently sculpting the repayments under the model and the final debt facility documentation. That'll come out, I'm guessing at this stage during September. We'll have a bit more detail, but that not exactly final yet. They'll be sculpted based on the final agreement. At this stage, debt repayments would start towards the back end of calendar 2023.
Understood. Thanks. Just lastly, Karl, I think I may have heard you correctly. Did you say that you inherited the AUD 650 million facility at MATSA?
The MATSA facility, when we completed the acquisition, there was an initial facility within MATSA of $313 million. We effectively rolled that over. In addition to that, we secured a further facility for MATSA above the project level at the holding company above. Our holding company into Spain of $337 million. The two of them collectively are what we call the MATSA facility or the project facility of $650 million.
Really the MATSA facility in your head, it's almost we inherited the project finance debt facility related to MATSA, and we got an additional acquisition facility, if you wanna sort of think about it in two parts of $337 million, which was to assist us in making the acquisition of MATSA together with the ANZ facility for AUD 200 million or $140 million, as well as money out of our treasury, as well as the funding from the equity raising that we did at the time.
Yeah.
Is that clear?
Yeah, that is. Thanks for clarifying, Karl. That's all for me. Thanks very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Kaan Peker from Royal Bank of Canada. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Karl and team. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to clarify one thing. I think the line didn't come across. Is there AUD 70 million of expenditure at DeGrussa on rehabilitation? Just wanted to see if this is also in cash and the timing around that.
Kaan, I think you're referring to the AUD 70 million on slide 12. We're talking about capital management, is that right?
I just heard it on the call. I think you were mentioning a AUD 70 million expenditure.
Yeah, sure. Really AUD 70 million in terms of cash flow, more than sort of on the expenditure side. Certainly some costs in terms of closure. We do have a retention scheme at DeGrussa to make sure that our employees are well incentivized to remain and continue to perform strongly to the end of the current mine life. Most of that AUD 70 million is in cash flow rather than in P&L, and relates to the final clearance of creditors. At the start of an operation, you start in that working capital position where creditors are 60, 30, 60 days later. At the back end, we do have some catch up to do in terms of the last month or the month after, in terms of clearing a creditor's balance.
There's also the set-off tax payment that's in the balance sheet as a provision already, so it's already expensed, financial year 2022 tax payment. Majority of that AUD 70 million that I've talked about is really a cash movement, and most of that will hit during the September and December quarters of this current financial year.
Sure. Thank you. Very clear. Just also on the debt facilities and specifically the project financing, the credit received. Are there specific clauses that impact Sandfire's ability to pay a dividend, or is this self-imposed?
The MATSA facility you're talking about?
Either or, I mean, both of them. Is there anything specifically in the clause with the debt that impacts-
No. Yeah. Neither of them has any restriction on the corporate entity paying dividends. But the MATSA facility does have a restriction in terms of the MATSA debt facility needs to make its initial debt repayments before MATSA is able to send dividends within the group. Does that answer your question?
Yeah.
There's a restriction on the ability to move cash, but there's no ultimate restriction on the parent in paying dividends, no.
Sure. Okay. Thank you. Just also with the CapEx increase, I think most of it has come from the 3.2 million ton base case. I think it was mentioned that, you know, only that AUD 72 million only includes processing capacity. Is there any other? It seems very low in terms of capital intensity for brownfield expansions. Is there any other CapEx, like mine pre-strip, that isn't included in that growth CapEx, but may be included in other CapEx components?
No. Short answer on that one, no, there's not. It's all included. I think, Kaan, if you recall, when we did the 3.2 million ton processing facility, it had a certain amount of CapEx, and there was a pre-approved additional amount for pre-works for A4 work, et cetera, et cetera. If you have a look at the CapEx, then subsequently what happened in the June quarterly, we announced the quarterly results, but then also the CapEx adjustment fundamentally relating to T3, and there was that lift in that CapEx, which was about 10 or 12%, I think, or thereabout. Given the extent of. Most of that related to a lot of energy prices, you know, diesel for that pre-strip for T3 predominantly in that uplift.
There are other bits and pieces, but most of the capital components for the expanded. 5.2 million-ton facility, other than the It was essentially in that T3 expenditure anyway. I think the balance that sits in there of that AUD 70 million includes then the balance of all of those costs relating to, and Jason, I think you're confirming the pre-strip of A4 as well. There's nothing else that's not. There's nothing missing.
Sure. Okay. Thank you. Just finally, the ESIA, I think it was mentioned that it will now be in 2Q. I think previously indications were to be submitted in 1Q with essentially a 12-month process. I think now guidance is for the approval process to be achieved June quarter FY 2023. That would suggest a, you know, six to nine month turnaround. How confident are you with that timeframe?
Look, we're very confident. Obviously it is out of our control once we submit the ESIA documents. But what we have seen from the Botswana government is there's very strong support for the project and, you know, at all levels within government, we're getting a lot of cooperation, and we're working really well there. At this point in time, there's no reason that we would see that would extend. Even if I touch on the scope of the ESIA, there's really nothing complex or there's nothing really controversial associated with the A4 project from an environmental or social point of view. All indications are really quite good, very good at this stage.
Thank you very much. Very well. I'll pass them on.
Thank you. The next question comes from Levi Spry from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good day. Thanks for the call. Two quick questions. One for Matt. Just to confirm, the Motheo Project facility, you said, six to nine months. Was that for the extra AUD 60 million? What about the first AUD 140 million? Can you draw that soon, i.e., this quarter or next quarter?
Yeah, Levi, my comment was around the uplift to the target, full target 180-300. Yeah, the 140, we expect at this stage to draw between September and March. September 2022 and March 2023.
Okay, perfect. That's what I was after. Thank you. Maybe one for Jason. I have to ask about Spanish power prices. What are they today? What did you use in the guidance? What percentage of your costs are they at the moment?
Levi, I'm gonna hand over to Dave to answer that one.
Yeah, Levi. Today they're sitting at about 250 right now as we speak. 257 to be exact. I think we said in the quarterly that for the five months to June last year, we averaged EUR 252/MWh and we guided going forward 180 to 280 or 270, I think from memory. That's still in line. And then just probably also to refresh that current contract, which is linked to spot run through to the end of December this calendar year, and we're out in the market at the moment with the different options going forward that will both fit with our solar plans going forward, but also look to try and lock in lower prices.
Your question on percent of total cost, it's in the region of 20%-25%.
20-25 mine gate? Yep.
Yep.
Any complications from your customer in terms of high power prices impacting their business?
No.
No. No, nothing that we've heard.
Okay. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
Later on.
Thank you. The next question comes from Peter O'Connor from Shaw and Partners. Please go ahead.
Hey, Matt, can I just push back on the dividend comment? It's a small thing, but you've explained with incredible granularity the debt facilities that you had and your knowledge of the cash flows and the repayments. It's hardly a surprise that you're not paying dividends, but you haven't flagged it before. Thinking through these, it's really changed the copper price which peaked in April. The June quarterly, I'm just going through my notes here to word search. You didn't mention dividends, dividend payments or anything like this. Why did it just land upon us now?
I think, Peter, I'll have a go first. I think really the philosophy of Sandfire has always been to assess dividend payments at a point in time. We've very deliberately not come out with a mathematical dividend policy that has percentage of revenue or percentage of any, of P&L or percentage of anything else. We've assessed it as we go. We always, I guess, wanted to come through the first period of MATSA ownership. We're very pleased, as we said, about what we've been able to achieve at MATSA in terms of throughput rates. Yes, we've seen some copper price movement in recent months and a recovery in recent times. Really I think it comes back ultimately to a balance sheet question of saying, now what obligations are there?
How do we need to build to support our strategy? How do we make sure we have enough working capital in the business to have higher dividend payments, let's say, into the future? Not something that we, as I say, necessarily message every month or every quarter. It's really something at a point in time where we look at, the board looks at and says, "Where are we positioned? How do the next 12 months of transformative growth and balance sheet transition look?" As I said, we have a very proud history of dividend payments. I think we've shown that through the decade. It continues to perform and as we get Motheo into operation and into positive cash flow then, you know, I personally have no doubt. We'll return to dividend payments.
I think it'll just be a transitional year at Three First, and that's how the company looks at.
It feels like, Matt, it's always been a transitional year. Again, the detail you've given, it reflects that. The only thing that's changed is the copper price. I'm just surprised at your lack of. Come on, Matt, I'll move on. Just a few quick ones, Matt. Tax, effective tax rate. You talked about the MATSA to non-deductibles. Is that a one-off or should we expect non-deductibles going forward? If so, at what level and what would the effective tax rate be?
Yeah, one-off. They're setting the high rate, I think I said 44%. The high rate is the non-deductibles and the rehab, the DeGrussa unmined in terms of DeGrussa, so that's all for one-off. I would expect we'll still have an effective tax rate of probably 35 odd percent in the end of this. There's some detail when you have a moment, Peter, in note seven, page 57.
Seven.
Details out the actual differences between 30% tax rate and the tax rate in the financials. Yeah, as I said, largely one-offs in terms of the acquisition costs and also the DeGrussa impacts. We shouldn't, you know, we also are conscious that we have international operations and after October, November of this year, entirely international operations. There will be some non-deductible costs that are incurred in Australia that are not tax-deductible.
Just leaving that back to the dividends. What balance do you have remaining, and will it be paid out when and, going forward, zero franking balance or zero franking credit from dividends?
No, not necessarily. No, we have a very healthy franking credit balance. I don't have it in front of me. I'll come back to you with it, but no, that remains in force as well and is very, very healthy given the profitability of DeGrussa over the last eight or nine years. That we had over that time, probably if you average it out, probably a 35% interim payout ratio. Yeah, very, very healthy of franking credit. I'll come back to you with all the numbers. Peter, just to take Karl there, back to your question on dividend, and while I heard you trail off, like I'll get on with things.
I think just to recognize and Matt made the comment, but essentially we sit down and we talk about dividends, and we discuss them as a board when we look at our half year results and we look at our full year results. We don't sit there and we consider all the things that are in front of us. I think it would be fair to say, if you looked at the history of this organization and what we have done, and if you looked at the last 12 months and what has occurred and what is occurring, I think it would be fair to say that on balance, a lot has changed in a relatively short period of time. If you can't see that, I would be very, very surprised.
Prudently, the board has decided, given all of the moving parts and bits and pieces, while I'm sure there could be a modest amount of dividend that was paid, the board decided it can be prudent, and I see it as a word that has been used occasionally recently, that it didn't make sense to pay a dividend, and so it resolved not to pay a dividend. I wouldn't get too hung up about it. Your comment about, well, you know, lending itself, didn't you know or didn't you? We know everything, you know. Because we know it, we think it's important to be prudent and to ensure that as we go through transition, we transition well. I think the shareholders will appreciate that, and I recognize that.
I don't think there's any surprises, and I don't think we need to be talking about things before they need to be talked about. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
Yeah. Thanks for the clarity.
Very happy. That's right. Very happy to chat, have this longer chat if you want to apply.
Okay, two more small ones, Matt. Long-term corporate charges. You talked about the step-up in one of your waterfall diagrams that during the year because of MATSA. How do we expect those numbers to play out going forward? Will the corporate charge be giving you now global business?
Yeah, they're about AUD 30 million a year, we're predicting to.
Any more color you can give us on the QPs we should see drop in September quarter? How they'll look, the quantum, et cetera.
I'd save that for the quarter. I just wanna see how the, you know, copper price moves and how they readjust. Modeling those at the moment. My comment was really saying, towards the back end of the year, we saw a QP adjustment down. Copper has recovered, not back to the same level, clearly, as we all know. That bounce back will also have an impact on QPs. I'd rather do that as we do the quarterly.
Okay. Thanks, Karl. Thanks, Matt.
Yes.
Thank you. At this time, we're showing no further questions. I'll hand the conference back to Karl for any closing remarks.
Thank you everyone for listening today to our financial 2022 results and the announcement of the Motheo expansion project to 5.2 million tons. We're very pleased with the results for the last financial year, and we are particularly pleased with the continuation of the execution of our transformational strategy, which is on track. Once again, thanks very much for listening, and we look forward to updating you at the next public release, which will more than likely be our next quarterly report. I wish you all a very pleasant day. Thank you.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.