Welcome to the Sandfire Resources First Half FY25 Financial 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 would like to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Brendan Harris, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our half-year results call. We recognize that today is a very busy reporting day and that we had an extensive operating update and Q&A session only three weeks ago. Suffice to say, I will be brief and only focus on the highlights of our first half before handing over to our CFO, Megan Jansen, so she can dig into our financial results. But before doing so, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we stand, the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, as well as the First Nations peoples of the lands on which Sandfire conducts its business. We pay our respects to their elders and leaders past, present, and emerging. I should note, of course, that our entire executive team is here with me in Perth, and they look forward to working through your questions.
Starting with safety, we have maintained a total recordable injury frequency of 1.6 during the first half of the year. While this is at the lower end of comparable benchmarks, we know there is still much to do before we can be confident that we can sustain an injury-free workplace. The process of instilling our new way of working, that we refer to as the Sandfire Way, is ongoing, and we are actively closing gaps to ensure we are operating in accordance with our new policies, standards, and procedures wherever we work. As I said back in January, a robust first half at our operations delivered a 16% increase in group copper-equivalent production to 75.1 thousand tons, leaving us on track to achieve annual production guidance at both MATSA and Motheo.
While this holds true today, we felt it was important to highlight the emerging risk that particularly heavy rainfall presents at both operations if conditions don't ease in the near future. Our teams are managing the situation well while providing support to local communities, and we'll provide a further update as required when we report our next set of quarterly results in late April. Turning to costs, you'd recall that we recently reduced annual guidance for Motheo costs by a material 7% to $39 per ton of ore processed. We're also doing relatively well at MATSA, where annual guidance has been retained at $75 per ton of ore processed, which remains 4% below—that's 4% below the guidance we set for MATSA at the start of FY24.
Having a major presence in Spain and Botswana has been good to us, as we've avoided the hyperinflation experienced by the industry in places like Australia, leaving our operations well positioned on the C1 cost curve. So by doing what we say we will do and focusing on the basics to build resilience and operational consistency, we've increased underlying EBITDA by 87%, or $119 million in the half to $255 million, for a very healthy EBITDA margin of 45%. And this has meant that we've not only turned profitable. We're throwing the all-important free cash flow onto the balance sheet, and we're rapidly digging toward a net cash position. With that, I'll hand over to Megan to discuss these key financial outcomes and more in greater detail. Welcome, Megan.
Thank you, Brendan. I'm pleased to present our financial results for the first half of FY25. We have delivered a strong financial result for the half, underpinned by robust operating and cost performance across the business and healthy pricing for our key commodities. At an operational level, the exceptional ramp-up of Motheo, now in its second year of operations, delivered a 16% increase in group production to 75.1 thousand tons. This, together with consistent production at MATSA and good cost control, underpinned a 37% increase in sales revenue and delivered an 87% increase in underlying EBITDA to $255 million, and an underlying profit of $49 million for a statutory profit of $50 million. Pleasingly, net debt declined by 27% during the half to $288 million.
Our ongoing reduction in net debt demonstrates the cash-generating capability of our high-quality operations and the progress we are making towards our targeted net cash position. Digging deeper, at Motheo, the underlying operations EBITDA margin increased by 17% to 60%, or $159.7 million. This was underpinned by strong operating and cost performance and healthy commodity prices. The exceptional ramp-up to 5.6 million tons per annum has allowed the operation to realize economies of scale benefits, delivering an operating unit cost of $37 per ton across the half, 12% below our initial guidance of $42 per ton, which we since revised down to $39 per ton in the December quarterly report.
At MATSA, the underlying operations EBITDA margin increased by 3% - 44%, or $134 million, primarily driven by higher commodity prices and lower treatment charges, which more than offset a modest increase in underlying operating costs, primarily associated with a rise in mine backfill and waste volumes in line with the mine plan. We delivered operating unit costs of $76 per ton across the half, which is within 1% of full-year guidance of $75 per ton. And we maintain this guidance across the full year as we expect to benefit from recent beneficial exchange rate movements. Below the line, our D&A expense of $153 million continues to reflect the acquisition of MATSA in FY22 and includes a $35 million D&A expense relating to Motheo, which increased by 26% in comparison to the prior corresponding period, in line with the increase in contained copper mined.
Our overall underlying net finance expense of $27 million reflects our level of debt and the margin embedded in our various finance facilities, noting that underlying interest expense is expected to reduce in the second half, reflecting our planned reduction of debt and the lower margin associated with our new corporate revolver facility. Our underlying income tax expense increased to $25 million as the group returned to profitability, and while the group's underlying effective tax rate in FY25 is expected to broadly reflect the statutory income tax rate for the jurisdictions in which we operate, it will be impacted by the limited ability to recognize the benefits associated with tax losses in Australia and the USA. Tax payments totaling $8 million were made across the half, largely in relation to MATSA.
We are projecting a step-up in tax payments in the second half at MATSA, following improved cash generation and a reduction in our interest costs as we pay down our debt. Overall, across the group, capital expenditure remained largely unchanged from the prior corresponding period at $98 million in the half. At Motheo, an increase in waste stripping costs to $27 million as the A4 development ramped up was largely offset by a decrease in project construction and development expenditure following the completion of plant expansion activities in FY24. At MATSA, capital expenditure of $57 million was consistent with the prior comparative period as we continue to prioritize underground development. Pleasingly, we have made further progress in optimizing the structure of our debt facilities.
Just last week, we received credit approval for a new unsecured $650 million corporate revolver facility, which will be used to repay the remaining balance of our existing facilities, totaling $440 million. The new facility that is expected to be executed by the end of March 2025 has an attractive four-year tenor to March 2029, with no immediate scheduled repayment requirement and reduces ongoing finance costs. The refinancing of our debt facilities fundamentally de-risked the financial position of the group and further enhances our balance sheet flexibility. The refinancing will trigger a non-cash interest expense of approximately $11 million in the second half of FY25 to de-recognize capitalized costs associated with existing facilities, which will be excluded from underlying earnings. No dividends have been declared in respect of half one FY25 as we continue to prioritize the deleveraging of our balance sheet and ongoing investment in our business.
The excellent outcomes across our business continue to give us confidence for the future. With that, I'll hand back to Brendan.
Thanks, Megan. As I reflect upon the last two years, the transformation of our business has been remarkable. Consider back then the world was still emerging from COVID. We were in the midst of a major development project in a new country, and we were transitioning our foundational asset to DeGrussa to care and maintenance, all while integrating our large Spanish acquisition during a time of great uncertainty for Europe that was acutely felt in energy markets. Net debt was also rising to ultimately peak at just under $500 million, and we were contending with very hungry project finance facilities that had a number of hooks and barbs. Stepping forward to today, save for the weather events I mentioned earlier, Motheo is truly humming as it redefines the potential of the Kalahari, and MATSA is becoming the consistent and predictable operation it needs to be.
We're refocused and are now stepping up our exploration efforts in the Kalahari and Iberian Belt as we see real potential to attain a minimum of 15 years of reserve life at both operations within the next five years, and very recently, we received mining authority approval for our new tailings facility at MATSA that has the potential to support mining beyond 2040, and, of course, one of our best achievements has been the fundamental transformation of our balance sheet. As Megan said, our new revolver changes the game by providing a longer-dated source of capital at lower cost with no immediate requirement for repayment. Put simply, our strategy is unchanged because it's the right strategy for our shareholders.
Safe, consistent, and predictable performance will continue to underpin our financial results, while focused exploration within close proximity of our existing processing hubs will continue to be the best way we can create value and deliver superior returns to our shareholders. Rest assured, we'll remain disciplined as we rapidly move towards a net cash position. With that, can we go to questions, please?
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you would like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question today comes from David Radclyffe from Global Mining Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, Brendan and team. So my question is on capital management. I'm interested to hear in the rationale today not to have declared an interim dividend because it seems like a lot of the goals that drove termination of the dividend have now largely been met. And the potential cost today, if you hadn't declared one, given the old policy, would have actually been very comfortable and manageable for the business. I know you've got comments in there talking about moving towards a net cash position. Is this the key hurdle that the board is waiting for? And if so, why? Because not many of your copper peers actually do run ungeared balance sheets. Thanks.
Yes, look, thank you for the question. For those who have known me at least will know that I've been a big believer that operationally geared mining companies are best placed running a net cash position and that one should contemplate returning excess capital to shareholders when indeed it sits on the balance sheet, not before. And I think if we look through the last 20 years, it is littered with examples of companies who have done the opposite and ultimately been forced to raise capital in a deep downturn, and that is incredibly dilutive to shareholder value. And so we've been consistent across a number of periods now. I think we've been talking about a commitment to moving towards net cash for as long as I can remember since I've been in this seat. And it is something that we talk about at the board.
We do recognize as we rapidly approach that position and come towards the full-year results, it's likely that we'll come out and talk more about our capital allocation policy. Albeit, as I've said before, as someone who established a policy at a prior company, if you look at that, it'll give you a very good idea of how I think about managing the balance sheet to maximize value for shareholders. But yeah, thanks for the question, but hopefully that helps.
Yeah, thank you. That's very clear. I'll pass it on.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning all. Just one question. Given the amount of rain at Motheo and the aquifer's presence, just wondering if you could provide any comments just on the sort of rate of water ingress, the dewatering capacity there, and any ability to re-inject that water. Any constraints on that system, I guess, would be what I'm asking for comment on.
Yeah, look, good. Thanks, Mitch. And appreciate the question. It is an important topic. Look, if I can just stress right up front, and I'll pass to Jason for the detail. We have retained annual guidance. I just stressed we've retained annual guidance. That's not something we do flippantly. We've really noted the risk that rainfall presents at both our operations out of an abundance of caution and a commitment to transparency. The teams are doing a very good job. First and foremost, our priority is on keeping people safe and well. And I can confirm that we haven't experienced any injuries during this time while we're dealing with these specific weather events. And more importantly, perhaps, we are providing significant support to the local communities, as our stakeholders would expect.
When it comes to Motheo, things like bedding, emergency food supplies, emergency medical supplies, and we stand ready to do more with constant engagement with local government authorities, and that's obviously particularly important because it is really us living our values and committing to our purpose. Jason, perhaps if you can go through some of the, I guess, the critical elements of the rainfall event. Anyone who looks at a radar at the moment in Southern Africa will see that there's been a very, very large system moved across Southern Africa. Perhaps you can just dig into that.
Absolutely, and I mean, even as we sit today at the moment, we're not receiving heavy rain up around the mine, but I've been receiving reports overnight of significant flooding in Gaborone, which is about 700-800 kilometers to the south, so this is very much a live issue for us, and we are right in the midst of responding to this situation, so firstly, as context for the rain event, in February alone, Motheo has received its average annual rainfall right just in the month to date, and we've had a number of major storm events occur over a period of a number of days, or basically over the last 10 days at site. As a result, there's significant surface water and localized flooding, and this is currently impacting our broader exploration activities. As Brendan mentioned, our team is actually managing the situation very well.
We are actively supporting the local community. As Brendan said, we've had around about 350 people evacuated from local towns and villages. The site team there are providing support in terms of food, medical supplies, bedding, and shelter as well, because a number of these communities are very impoverished. If we focus on Motheo, importantly, all processing at the operation has been largely unaffected, and throughput rates for February remain aligned with plan. At the T3 open pit, and we've mentioned this before, prior optimization of the mine plan undertaken to support the expanded processing rate to 5.6 million tons per annum has resulted in us accelerating stage two mining in the T3 open pit. All extraction is solely focused on stage two across the second half of FY25.
As stage two is higher in the mining sequence, it has been largely unaffected by the rain event, and mining remains ongoing today. However, surface water has been diverted from the mine into the deeper stage one of the T3 pit, and we are currently dewatering this area, and from an ongoing operations point of view, certainly it has no impact on ore supply that we can see in the foreseeable future coming from T3. Conversely, A4 open pit has seen the greatest impact with extensive surface water evident in recent days. In saying that, we can confirm that our team has access to the A4 pit as we stand today, and dewatering activities have commenced.
If we remember that A4 is forecast to only provide a modest 2,000 tons of metal in half two of FY25, and notably, any loss of ore production has the ability to be replaced by additional ore mining from T3 stage two, or in the event that we're unable to do that, which is highly unlikely, we have sufficient low-grade stockpiles. In the absence of additional heavy rainfall, we expect to reestablish mining in the A4 pit in the coming weeks. And as Brendan mentioned, as we sit today, there is risk to annual guidance, but this is not material, and we did feel that was prudent to inform the market.
Yeah, I think, and the other point, Jason, whilst I think over the next week we're watching closely, we do note that the wet season is coming to an end. So ultimately, whilst the flooding is particularly damaging for some of the local communities, water is a very scarce resource in Botswana, so I'm sure the fact that it's recharging the aquifers is actually welcome. But hopefully, Mitch, that provides you with a good sense for what's going on at Motheo.
Yeah, extremely comprehensive answer. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Lyons from Jarden Securities Limited. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Apart from weather, 2025 actually looks to be a great year to be a copper and zinc miner, particularly with reference to copper TCRCs settling way lower and spot zinc treatment charges close enough to zero, but as far as I'm aware, not actually settled for calendar 2025. So a pretty simple one from me. Just given the historical offtake with one of the vendors of MATSA, I'm just wondering if there's any reason why you wouldn't experience the majority of the benefit from these lower copper and zinc treatment charges. Thank you.
Yeah, look, thanks, Ben. I'll pass to Megan, but it's a good call out. As you'd know, Motheo has been largely uncontracted, so we've been selling predominantly on spot. Conversely, of course, MATSA, we sell into that specific contract with Trafigura, which is related to benchmark. Just as I hand over to Megan, we are progressively putting some more of that tonnage into contracted positions with multiple shipments tied to them. In one instance recently, I think we've got a series of shipments across the remainder of this year that are struck at around 10 and one, and we have had a spot deal that's been close to zero, and that's been certainly benefiting Motheo.
Of course, we know that one of the things the industry more broadly is thinking deeply about is there a level where treatment and refining charges get to that some of the traditional smelters come under pressure: Europe, Japan, Korea, etc., which possibly is not good for industry structures. So we're also mindful of that, and I think that's a pretty important consideration as we move forward, particularly for the larger players. Megan?
Thank you, Brendan. And hi, Ben. And maybe just to round out on Motheo, and when we released our December quarterly results, you'll recall that we did revise our C1 guidance at the time for Motheo downwards, and that really reflected the line of sight that we have around the treatment charges for the sales that we have contracted at Motheo across the second half. So we're reasonably comfortable on the Motheo side. At MATSA, as you understand, we do have our sales subject to a long-term offtake agreement. The team is currently working through alignment on what the benchmark rate for calendar year 2025 is. We expect that that will play out across March, and we're hopeful that we'll be in a position in the March quarterly to actually confirm the outcome of those discussions.
But we do recognize that there's some benefit that we can expect to come through our financials and our C1 in that regard, particularly on the zinc front at MATSA.
Awesome. Thank you very much, Megan. Thanks, Brendan.
Thanks, Ben.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Brendan and team. You've called out weather at both operations. Now, I'd imagine that the weather concerns are an order of magnitude larger at Motheo than they are at MATSA. But could you just expand a little bit on any impacts that MATSA experienced at all? Thank you.
Yeah, look, again, I'll pass to Jason because I think it's best for him to provide the flavor. I think it's fair to say they're different. The Motheo event has been particularly intense through February, and as Jason alluded to in the last week, so it is an active situation we're managing as we speak. Whereas MATSA has been progressive build-up of just high levels of rainfall. Remember the floods that were heavily reported around the world in Spain through the latter part of FY or calendar year 2024? Calendar 2024 was a particularly wet year, and it started off as another wet period through January, and it's that accumulation of rainfall. And as you know, if you get super-saturated soils, it just leads to more runoff, and that has other broader consequences, but perhaps I'll let Jason talk through the detail.
All right. Thanks. Look, overall, the site at MATSA has been experiencing very heavy rainfall for a number of months. January alone was four times the average monthly rainfall on record, and this has been the wettest winter that the site's ever received in its time. Importantly, the team, like the Motheo team, has responded very well. And last week, we had Rob Scargill go down and was presented an award from the regional government recognizing MATSA's support to local communities, particularly during some emergency events due to local flooding and dam stability in the local area. Right. If we look at it operationally, we've had very, very wet ROM stockpiles, and this presented a number of challenges to us, particularly late in January and early in February, and particularly for our crushing and processing operations during the wettest weeks.
Processing continued during that time, but with some overall timing differences. We also lost around about a day or probably just over 24 hours at Magdalena in late January. As the incident that I mentioned before, a government-owned dam presented risk to the local community and had the potential to impact one of our access roads that goes between Aguas Teñidas and Magdalena. Right. But at no stage was there any risk to any of our mine infrastructure other than one crossing on that road. We should also note that particularly the management of our tailings facility over this period has been excellent, and that overall facility is in very good shape and managing the water that we're seeing very, very well, and look at it.
I mean, if we look at this year, it's been a challenging winter for them overall, but our latest plan does have us achieving annual guidance, right, but recognizing if we get further continuity of intense rain, it does present a risk, right, as Brendan mentioned, because the overall area and a lot of the ground up there is fully saturated, and all of the key water storage facilities are basically at 100% or greater. And as with Motheo, thankfully, we're getting pretty much to the end of our forecast wet season.
So would it be fair to say across both sides that you need, from this point as we stand, you would need a continuation of very bad wet weather to put guidance at risk? Is that a fair comment to say?
Yeah, look, that is the case. So firstly, we often reflect open pits provide a lot of flexibility. I think Jason and the team, we shouldn't forget, made a decision around 12 or more months ago to accelerate the development of stage two at Motheo, primarily to enable us to accommodate higher rates of throughput. But that also provides significant flexibility. And as we said, sitting here today, all of the ore that we're planning to extract from T3 is coming out of stage two in the second half. So that, again, gives us a lot of confidence, and we are mining there today. So we have access, we're mining today. And as we said, the processing rates across the month are doing well. A4 is the primary risk, Jason says, around 2,000 tons of metal that would be at risk if we didn't regain access.
We certainly don't expect that to be the case. If there is any loss, as mentioned, we think we can recover that either from T3 or low-grade stockpiles. So it would be an order of magnitude less than that, which in the scheme of full-year guidance at this stage is immaterial. But of course, if we had significant additional localized storms, we would have to reassess because all of those impacts could be exacerbated. And MATSA, I think, again, Jason summed it up well based on what we know today and where we're at today, and it's very different than what we're dealing with in Botswana as we speak. Our latest planning sees us achieving our annual guidance. So we just felt, as I said, right up front, out of an abundance of caution and transparency.
By the way, the fact that social media means you'll probably see some of the photos out of Gaborone and elsewhere, that it's a good thing to ensure that you're aware of the situation.
Yeah, thank you. Sounds like it's a support for the view to have a very strong balance sheet and capitalized assets as well. Thank you for your perspectives.
Yeah, look, Dan, while we wait for the next question, I think you just summed it up well. It's a core belief of ours, of mine, that when you're an operationally geared mining company with exposure to volatile commodity markets and operational risk, it's a good thing to have a strong balance sheet. And then once we've got that in place, we just drive value through incremental improvement and, of course, the exploration work we have underway.
Thanks.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Matt Chalmers from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.
Good day, Brendan. Megan, thanks for today and congrats on a strong result. It's nice to see a profit return. Just a quick question for me on the tailings facility at MATSA. So great to see the approvals there in place. Perhaps you could, Brendan, if you could just step through some of the next kind of immediate milestones on that project for the next kind of 12 to 18 months so we can get a better feel of what to keep an eye out for.
Yeah, look, a critical thing, the mining approval was the last of the major approvals. We now have a local approval, municipal approval that we need to work through. And then obviously, it's about moving towards initial construction, so clearing of land before we get into construction. We do have the opportunity for another incremental lift on the existing tailings facility, and there are actually arguments as to why we might do that to help us better manage our closure obligations there as well. But really, the primary objective is to get into this new area. I visited it when I was there recently, and the team is roaring to go. Again, this has been a multi-year process planned almost to the minute of these approvals towards construction.
I'm really proud of the team, and it's not always easy, that they've actually navigated this over a long period of time, and they're pretty much bang on schedule. Jason, just in terms of construction and time?
Yeah. So if we look at it, so we have one remaining permit that we need, which is effectively what it translates to an urban license. The analogy here in Australia is like getting a building permit from your local government. So given the approvals that we already have, legally, the local government must issue that license to us, and we do expect to get it sometime pretty much in the next quarter. So that's on track. We are gearing up to make sure that we are starting construction very, very quickly. So we're finalizing all of the tenders on that work, and we expect to start particularly earthworks and land clearing pretty much within a few weeks of getting that urban license. And we're finalizing all of the final construction contracts to commence immediately after that.
We should see that overall, that earthworks completed by the end of this financial year and going into full-blown construction for FY25 and pretty much completing it, most of it during FY26 and being in operation early the following year.
And importantly, while it's a staged design, ultimately getting into this new area with this new facility creates the pathway to underpin mining in this region, as we've said in our announcements today, beyond 2040, which is a really important step for the local community and all of the people we employ, both our employees and contractors.
Yeah, thanks, Brendan. I appreciate that. Thank you for that color. And then just lastly, if we just switch to Motheo, obviously, a great job being done there on the costs with the ramp-up in volumes. But just beyond that and putting aside potential impacts from the weather over the next few months, are there any additional initiatives you could undertake on the cost side to potentially drive those costs even lower? Is there any kind of still some juice left to squeeze there, or how are you thinking about that going forward?
Look, I think the first thing, if I can, I'd just take you to the slide in our presentation deck whereby we talk about bringing forward metal production. I think that's the best thing we can do in the immediate future is to make sure we deliver on the 60,000 tons next year. Obviously, that's going to be the best thing we can do, if you like, from an economies of scale and a margin perspective. This is still a relatively new mine. One of the things that you'll notice in our guidance, it implies that costs actually rise a little into the second half, and that's primarily because, again, we're moving more into a sort of normalized maintenance cycle, and so we will see an uptick in maintenance in the second half.
Of course, as these things settle, stressing again, this is a very new operation. It will give us an opportunity to step back and look for all the opportunities. I think no doubt the work we're doing on recoveries has been good, but we're still not where we want to be relative to the DFS. And of course, that's going to help incrementally as well. So there's no specific initiative. You can imagine where we're at the moment. First step was, let's drive it hard and let's test and work out what we think the sustainable rate is. At the moment, it feels like ± 5.6 million tons per annum. Now it's about the mine scheduling, which we've been working very hard on to try and enable us to bring forward metal production. We think we're tracking well.
We're expecting that our life of asset planning cycle will confirm that towards the latter part of this financial year such that when we come back to it the full year, we're very hopeful that we'll be able to commit to a circa 60,000-ton copper-equivalent number for FY26. And then obviously, as part of that, we'll also be able to show progressive improvements in recovery as we start to get a better handle on just those nuances in the processing plant. So look, again, nothing specific. It doesn't mean we won't find something, but we're really working on a number of fronts at the moment.
Yeah, thanks very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Adam Baker from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Brendan and team. Obviously, got a large infill drill program going at A1 and targeting in the fourth quarter of FY26. Understand that you've got a pre-feasibility underway, but just wondering if you could talk through potential sequencing for this satellite pit.
Yeah, look, so it's still early. Based on the experience we've had elsewhere, we're still very hopeful that indeed we'll have an economic reserve there, and we would expect that that will sequence in towards the back end of the current mine plan. So into the late 2020s and early, particularly the 2030s, and be blended with existing ore sources. That's by virtue of its distance from the processing plant scale and other things and its strip ratio. That's the best way to configure A1. And of course, that all depends on Richard and his drilling program and what other ore sources that we discover in the interim. But I can't see a scenario where A1's not getting developed unless we get some particular surprise in the drilling program in the next few months.
But my suspicion is that there is a 100% likelihood that A1 ultimately gets constructed, gets developed, and comes into the mine plan towards the back end of the current sequence.
That's great. Thanks for the color. And maybe one for Megan. First off, FY25 implied tax rate of about 28%. You mentioned MATSA tax payments have ramped up in the second half. Just wondering if there's any lumpy nature to these tax payments and should we expect similar rates moving forward?
No, thanks, Adam. It's a good question. And I did touch on an expectation that the MATSA cash tax payments will ramp up in the second half. And there is a range around that. It could be an additional 50%-100% of the amount we paid in the first half. That really comes off the back of the improvement in MATSA's cash generation. At the same time, a reduction in our interest expense aligned with our reduction of debt. Now, with the sort of cash tax payments going forward, looking beyond FY25, these are things we'll look to provide guidance on in terms of FY26. As you'd expect, there's a lot of thought that goes into the tax planning.
In Spain, in terms of upfront capital allowances, there's elections ranging from between 0% and 100% in terms of how much of your capital allowances you take upfront. So that does make it a little more complicated to sort of provide a longer-term outlook on what that looks like. We will look to provide something more firm for future financial periods, Adam.
No worries. Thanks very much, Chief.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Kaan Peker from RBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, Brendan, Megan, Jason, and team. Two questions for me. The first on MATSA. The operational approach was to build ROM stocks over FY25, but this seems to be going a little slow. Should we expect the ROM stocks to increase more so in the second half?
Yeah, hi Kaan. Thank you. Maybe the best way to contemplate this, we've always said that ideally, if we could get 200,000 tons thereabouts of stock on the ROM pad, that'd be a good thing, and it will fluctuate for various reasons, of course. You shouldn't expect it to be significantly more than that. For those of you who are familiar with the Iberian Pyrite Belt, it is called the Pyrite Belt for a reason. There's a lot of sulfur in the ore, and if you leave it exposed for too long, it can catch on fire, so there's never been a desire to build a large stockpile.
It's really about having just that level of stock on average over time that helps us manage the blend of our ore sources going into the processing facility because ultimately, that's part of an opportunity for us to maximize the chance of having better recoveries. Jason, anything to add?
Kaan, if you reflect back, it was FY24, it was our goal to build up to that plus 200,000 tons of stock by the end of that year. We achieved that in the second half, and we've maintained that all the way through FY25. So once we got to that level, our strategy, as Brendan mentioned, we can't continue to build up stocks, all right? It'll affect us metallurgically. But our plan is to maintain that level and basically match our mining and processing rates, which we're pretty much doing for this financial year.
Okay, very clear. Thank you. Oh, yes, it does. Thank you very much. And maybe the second question is around your comments around the verification of the TCRC market. Pretty interesting. Just wondering if Sandfire is actively approaching this. Is there an approach of sort of making sure that you get the most out of the TCRCs, or you are actually encouraging the non-Chinese refineries to come in at better rates?
Yeah, look, I think my comments reflect very much the sentiment of LME Week in October of last year, that this was a very, very significant talking point, that balance of the short versus the long-term industry structure. As a company where all of our MATSA concentrates, so that's the larger part of our volume, are already committed to a third party, we have a very small volume, i.e., Motheo, that we have available, if you like, to look at how we contract and trade. We're not going to be the people that set the market price. I think that is very much a question for the bigger players that are the large suppliers of concentrate, particularly into China and elsewhere, and particularly those who set the benchmark.
And maybe just to give you a feel for that, we said when we released our quarterly that the guidance we've provided for MATSA C1 cost probably has downside, as in it's probably going to fall and be better than what we've suggested because at some point, the benchmark TCRCs will be set. But we didn't want to put a forecast out there because it's not for a small player like us to try and indicate where we think the benchmark will land. Does that help?
Yeah, sure. So sure, yeah. The Motheo concentrate will be done at spot, so.
Yeah. So if you look at Motheo, I mentioned earlier that we've put a multi-parcel agreement in place with a smelting customer at around 10 and one. So that's a series of parcels over the course of the second half. And we have sold parcels effectively at zero across the prior period. And you can imagine there's sort of everything in between. So we're very much responding to the market dynamic at the same time as we're trying to build the brand for our concentrate. So there are other nuances for us. We have to take into account customers who are willing to accept load port versus discharge because there's real value in that for us in terms of mitigation of risk and of potential disparities around sampling and the risk that represents to us from a margin perspective.
So there's a lot to take into account, but I think it's an excellent question. But I think for me, it's something the industry has to be mindful of. But as a player with a relatively small amount of concentrate that's not already spoken for, we're unlikely to be the player that's going to drive the outcome.
Yeah, very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there any further questions at this time? I'll now hand back to Mr. Harris for any closing remarks.
Look, thank you. Really good questions. We appreciate it because I have a pretty good sense for how busy you all are. We've had very good participation on the call, and we don't take that for granted. Look, we think we've had a very good first half. The business is transformed. Our operations are high quality. They're spinning up a lot of cash, and that cash is going to the balance sheet, and as I've said many times, rest assured, we'll remain disciplined. We look forward to seeing you on the road, whether that's in Miami next week or whether that's on the East Coast of Australia the week after and elsewhere in the world. Thanks again for your time.