Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Westgold Resources Limited June Quarterly Conference Call. Your first speaker today is Wayne Bramwell. Please go ahead, Wayne.
Thank you, Shane, and welcome everyone to today's webinar. We'll go straight to slide 5, Q4 FY 2024 overview. We continue to build cash. We had a solid final quarter in Q4 FY 2024, building AUD 21 million in cash bullion and liquidity before we paid a AUD 4.7 million cash dividend. This resulted in a AUD 16 million net cash bullion and liquidity build for the quarter. We've now delivered 6 straight quarters of cash build, over AUD 71 million for the full FY 2024. Key to this delivery has been our strategy to focus on safe and profitable operations. Safety is paramount in this business, and it's our view that you can't build a sustainably profitable business if you do things unsafely. Drilling has been key to our business turnaround, and our activity is already starting to add mine life to our key assets.
We are an owner miner who drills, with drilling success culminating this quarter in a 41% growth in Starlight's mineral resource. With our new debt facility remaining undrawn, we remain debt-free, with our last zero-cost collar being delivered during the quarter. Very pleasingly, the board of Westgold declared a AUD 0.0125 per share fully franked final dividend for FY 2024. This was on top of an interim dividend paid earlier in the year. Of course, we are most excited about the impending completion of our merger with Karora, which is expected to complete tomorrow. This is a fantastic combination of two cash flow-generating businesses into a larger, bigger, and better funded company that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best gold miners on the ASX and the TSX. I'll talk more about this at the end of the call. Slide six, Q4 FY 2024 group production and cost.
We produced almost 53,000 oz of gold at an All-in Sustaining Cost of $2,041 an ounce this quarter. Production was marginally higher than the previous quarter, and it saw the performance of Starlight continue to improve and Fender finally achieve commercial production after a slow start. Phil will go through this in more detail. Our All-in Sustaining Cost fell 17% in the fourth quarter. With no fixed forward hedge book, we continue to be fully leveraged to the increasing gold price. Combining this with our lower quarter-on-quarter All-in Sustaining Cost allowed us to continue to deliver healthy margin improvement as the graph depicts. Slide seven. This is our scorecard for FY 2024.
In FY 2024, we produced 227,000 oz of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,164 an ounce, allowing us to achieve the top end of our adjusted production guidance of 220,000-230,000 oz and deliver the lower end of our cost guidance of AUD 2,100-AUD 2,300 per ounce. The prudent decision to pause the underperforming Paddy's Flat inevitably put some pressure on our original guidance set in August 2023. That said, it was the right business decision, and closing Paddy's Flat demonstrates our resolve to prioritize cash flow and profitability over production. We have exceeded our growth capital guidance of AUD 130 million this year, having invested AUD 157 million over the full financial year. The spend increase has been driven by the acceleration of the Great Fingall development and the Big Bell expansion and impacted by the delayed commercial production of Fender.
Tommy will break this down further by discussing the quarter-on-quarter movement. Finally, and importantly, we hit our exploration expenditure expectations of AUD 25 million. We don't see exploration as a cost. It's an investment in our future as it extends our mine lives. With that, I'll hand over to Matt Pilbeam, who will take you through our safety and social performance.
Thank you, Wayne, and a very good morning to everyone on today's conference call. This morning, I'll take you through a brief overview of our quarterly performance and some key metrics for Q4 as we round out the end of FY 2024. Overall, I'm pleased to advise that Westgold has continued to improve across the spectrum of our key safety metrics this quarter against the last. Total recordable and lost-time injury frequency rates improved, with TRIFR reducing to 6.85 and lost-time injury frequency dropping to 0.62, while our high- potential- event frequency marginally increased for the quarter. Also, over FY 2024, we delivered substantial improvements among our safety metrics, including an overall improvement of 18% for our total recordable injury rates. In addition to this, our overall turnover continues to improve month-on-month. Female and Indigenous employment increased, and our significant psychosocial harm and environmental events remained at zero.
It's a very busy time for us at Westgold, with many moving parts and lots to be excited about. I'm keen to outline briefly some significant steps taken by Westgold during the quarter towards building on our existing community relationships through the coordination of community engagement sessions at both Meekatharra and Cue sites. Wayne Bramwell facilitated a broad, open, and respectful discussion with our Traditional Owner groups, shire leaders, and community members, all with a clear focus of improving our relationships in our regional areas. We are looking forward to continuing a more regular engagement piece with our key stakeholders into the future. With that in mind, I will now hand over to our Chief Operating Officer, Phil Wilding, who will provide his operational update. Thank you.
Thanks, Matt, and on to slide 11. This quarter-on-quarter movement in production by ore source summarizes key points we made in production space. We produced 52,795 ounces of gold in quarter, marginally higher than that in Q3. Paddy's Flat was paused last quarter, not entering the feed lane this period. The real star for us being Starlight, which opened up a large high-grade Nightfall lode. Big Bell also performed well, delivering record tons, albeit slightly lower grade. Fender stepped up outputs, delivering a large contribution to the quarter-on-quarter production. The full benefit of comparatively strong quarter-on-quarter mining performance of Fender and Big Bell will have it delayed until Q1 FY 2025, as persistent rains affected haulage to processing plants, resulting in significant stockpile build at the Big Bell ROM. At Bluebird, we had lower production as a result of implementing dilution controls, meaning slower mining rates. Slide 12, Bryah operations.
The Bryah region has performed exceptionally well this quarter as a result of mining a large Nightfall lode flagged in the prior quarter. The Starlight mine produced 149,000 tons of ore, 3.9 g a ton, and 19,000 oz mined. For comparison, last quarter, our grade was 2.6 g a ton. What's encouraging is that this system continues on the current level of the mine and has been exposed on levels further down. The mill processed 190,699 tons of ore in the quarter at a grade of 3.2 g a ton, with 96% recovery, resulting in 18,902 oz of gold being produced. Due to substantial grade of the mined ore, we blended this ore with lower-grade stockpiles to ensure an optimal recovery. This led to a high-grade stockpile of 19,000 tons being built up in Fortnum.
The pebble crushing changeout is happening early in Q1 at the Fortnum processing plant, commissioning in early August. This is expected to increase processing rates at the plant. Costs at Bryah came down with the increased production, and we've accelerated development to the Nightfall lode with bottom-up and top-down access drives. The future is looking well for this mine, and the platform is set to sustain elevated production in FY 2025. Slide 13, Starlight resource estimate. The major factor that has unlocked the true potential of Starlight has been drilling. Over the last 18 months, we have invested substantial effort into drilling this ore body. The payoff now starting to come into fruition with Nightfall. We've had multiple underground diamond rigs spinning in the mine, which culminated in a 41% resource upgrade announced in June this year.
Encouragingly, we've converted a substantial amount of inferred resource into measured and indicated resources that are now available for ore reserve studies. We continue investing in this drilling with three underground drills operating as we speak, and you can see the strong intersections that have been hitting on the screen. The bottom line, the Starlight mine is getting bigger the more drilling we do. It's already had 800,000 oz mined since its inception, and it does not appear to be slowing. Slide 14, Meekatharra operations. Production at Meekatharra operations dropped quarter-over-quarter due to cessation of production at Paddy's Flat, persistent rain events impacting haulage, and lower production at Bluebird. Mining stopped at Paddy's Flat last quarter, and there was no feed from Paddy's Flat into the mill blend this quarter.
Bluebird produced 95,000 tons, 3.55 g a ton this quarter, representing a slight decrease quarter-over-quarter in physicals. Lower grades driven by stope dilution in Q2 have been addressed through an updated, more robust mine plan, which over time will see dilution reduced and grade increase. This has come at the expense of mining rates in the short term. The Big Bell mine near Cue performed very well, delivering a mine production record of 319,000 tons of ore, a grade of 1.9 g. The south side cave continues to be the primary feed source. We did open up the north side of the cave during the quarter; however, this was only a small portion of the overall tonnage. Big Bell Deeps continues to progress with the first opening level underway, and basic infrastructure works well advanced.
The Fender underground ramped up towards commercial production this quarter, producing 74,000 tons of ore at 2.3 g a ton. Despite the strong performance of Big Bell and Fender, rain interruptions constrained haulage from these two mines to both Tuckabianna and Bluebird mills, resulting in 64,000 tons stockpile build-up at Big Bell for later haulage to the mills. Secondly, a lack of ore haulage from Cue resulted in increased processing of lower-grade stockpiles and slightly lower production. Slide 15, mine planning for the South Junction stopes. Turning once again to Bluebird, which is an evolving ore system, we'll see mining rates at Bluebird increase as we open up new mining fronts. We are accelerating access into South Junction from existing Bluebird levels and infrastructure as we're encouraged by results from substantial drilling we've been conducting over the last six months with multiple surface and underground rigs.
We're continuing to drill at Bluebird with five rigs spinning as we speak. The focus is shifting to infill drilling so that a statement of updated ore reserve can be delivered. South Junction will start production in the very near future. We're also continuing backfill studies, which will enable us to ensure optimum value extraction from Bluebird, which is fast becoming a long-life mine. In a grand scheme of things, what this means for milling at the Bluebird hub is broken out. The South Junction area of the mine will be large, bulk tonnage, with a grade that will substantially increase mine production. We have a target for this mine to grow production to a scale that eliminates the need to process hauled ore from Q, eliminating haulage cost and displacing low-grade ore, magnifying cash flow generation as a result. Slide 16, Great Fingall.
We've now completed the initial resource definition drilling campaign for the upper section of Great Fingall and around the open pit. The drill results are giving us increased confidence that early profitable production will be possible out of this system. The Fingall Flats, Sovereign, and the remnants of the upper Great Fingall reef are all undergoing mine planning assessments as we speak. It's important to note that these areas have substantial capital development in place, with a decline in other infrastructure in close proximity. The main game, of course, is Great Fingall and Golden Crown itself. I'm pleased to report that phase one of the primary vent system is now complete with initial fans installed and the first large line of the vent rise.
Great Fingall study, as a reminder, assumes a steady state production of 45,000 oz per annum and normally costs AUD 1,801 an ounce, with first-time FY 2025 coming from the virgin regions below the Great Fingall old workings. Onto slide 17, where I'll hand over to Simon Rigby to take us through exploration.
Thank you, Phil. Now turning to page 18. The exploration team has had another very busy quarter with extensional and greenfields exploration programs conducted within Westgold's large tenement portfolio within the Murchison region. At South Junction, within the Bluebird operations at Meekatharra, the team has continued to progress the exciting resource definition drilling program beneath the open pits, which historically produced over 1 million ounces of gold. During the quarter, we completed a further 22 diamond core holes for nearly 12,000 m, primarily targeting the Polar Star and South Junction lodes. Outstanding assay results have been returned from many holes, with a selection shown on the cross-section on this page, with the most impressive being 20.9 m at 6.7 g in hole 21, wedge 2.
More details on the results to date can be found both in the quarterly, but also in the two specific South Junction ASX releases made during the period. The South Junction drill program is ongoing, with three rigs currently in operation and with approximately 6,000 m remaining to be completed within the approved program. Turning to page 19. In addition to the South Junction program, the team has been busy testing a further 10 early-stage greenfield targets during the quarter. At Day Dawn near Cue, we completed a first-pass reverse circulation drilling program over a series of Great Fingall analogous targets interpreted from high-resolution gravity geophysical data that was collected earlier this year. Excitingly, some encouraging gold results were returned from a couple of these targets, with the best result coming from the South Trenton prospect, with hole 16 intersecting 11 m at 2.76.
The image on the right shows the RC chip trays for this drill hole and meter-by-meter assay results. This mineralization is hosted in the favorable unit 3 of the Great Fingall Dolerite and is the same style as that at Great Fingall and Golden Crown. Follow-up programs are currently being designed. Elsewhere, the exploration team conducted early-stage aircore geochemical drilling, testing a series of lithostructural targets in the Cuddingwarra, Reedy, and Labouchere areas. Considering the nature of these types of drill programs, we have been encouraged by the results from Reedy West targets, where numerous drill holes have returned anomalous gold results warranting further investigation. Going into the September quarter, the exploration team will remain very busy with the ongoing South Junction program, as well as following up the good results from Day Dawn and Reedy West.
In addition, we will execute drill programs in the Peak Hill and Nanine regions, and of course, start to work with our new teammates from Karora to investigate the priority targets within their large tenement portfolio in the Kambalda and Higginsville regions. With that, I'll hand over to Tommy to talk about our financials.
Thank you, Simon, and hello everyone. Slide 21, lower all-in sustaining costs quarter-on-quarter. Jumping straight into costs, our all-in sustaining costs reduced by AUD 22 million quarter-on-quarter to a total of AUD 108 million. The key drivers of this reduction were lower mining costs as a result of the suspension of mining at Paddy's Flat, increased capitalized costs of mine development activities, and the expansion into Nightfall at the Starlight mine and South Junction at the Bluebird mine, and the net group stockpile build-up. As Phil explained, we had stockpile build-ups at Starlight due to the higher grade and Big Bell due to haulage disruptions. These build-ups were partially offset by increased stockpile consumption at Bluebird in response to the haulage limitation.
Overall, in the quarter, we had a net stockpile build-up of 2.5 million versus a drawdown of 10.1 million, which you can see as the rounded 13 million difference on the graph. On a per ounce basis, these costs are spread over the marginally higher production number, which had a positive impact to the all-in sustaining costs on a per ounce basis this quarter. Slide 22, increased investment in growth projects. FY 2024 had been a year of investment into our key growth projects, setting up Westgold for the future.
quarter-on-quarter, we had an increase in investment, and as the graph shows, this increase was in relation to the continued acceleration and development at Great Fingall and the Big Bell expansion, the delayed commercial production of Fender, which resulted in increased capitalization of costs, and ongoing expansion at Bluebird through the accessing of South Junction and at Starlight as we developed into Nightfall. Finally, upgrades to processing equipment plant and camp infrastructure. Slide 23, AUD 16 million cash and bullion build in Q4. Our operations once again generated operating cash flows. The graph shows our cash flows for the quarter and depicts our closing cash and bullion, which grew by AUD 16 million quarter-on-quarter. Our revenues once again benefited from the high spot gold price at the end of the quarter.
We concluded our zero-cost collar program, meaning Westgold is now fully unhedged and leveraged to the gold price moving into FY 2025. Overall, our operating cash costs, including sustaining capital for the quarter at AUD 105 million, was AUD 35 million lower than the prior quarter's AUD 140 million due to cessation of mining at Paddy's Flat and increased capital development activities at Starlight, Bluebird, and Big Bell, and the timing of the H1 bonuses and salary back payments that were made in Q3. In the previous slide, we covered off the increase in growth CapEx quarter-on-quarter, with the only variance between the waterfal l chart and the previous being the timing of cash outflow versus capital commitments. As both Phil and Simon have demonstrated, we continue to invest in exploration as a major growth lever in the business, with AUD 8 million spent this quarter.
We invested AUD 6 million in our 18.7% interest in Ora Gold during the quarter. We continue to progress an agreement whereby ore from Ora can be processed at Meekatharra for the benefit of all stakeholders. During the quarter, Westgold paid AUD 4.7 million in cash to its shareholders for the AUD 0.01 per share interim dividend declared for the first half of FY 2024. In early July, we announced that the Westgold board had elected to declare a AUD 0.0125 per share fully franked dividend, which combined with the interim amounts to AUD 0.0225 per share or AUD 10.6 million for the full financial year. With that, we finished the quarter in a very strong position with AUD 263 million of closing cash, bullion and liquids. We remain debt-free this quarter with a AUD 100 million corporate facility undrawn. Back to you, Wayne.
Thanks, Tommy. Straight to slide 25, a new +400,000 oz Australian gold producer. At the end of the quarter, in some sense, we closed the book on the second generation of Westgold, Westgold 2.0. The transaction with Westgold and Karora announced back in April is set to complete tomorrow. The resulting company, Westgold 3.0, is a very different value proposition. Merged with the Karora team and assets, we become the next +400,000 oz Australian gold producer, a much larger, well-funded, unhedged company with a plethora of fantastic growth options and enviable exploration upside. Importantly, we become one of the largest unhedged Australian gold producers. This will provide massive appeal to a much broader group of shareholders. Final slide. In closing, I would like to thank the Westgold team for their efforts during FY 2024.
Their efforts have positioned the company to execute a transaction with Karora that creates a larger business capable of significant free cash generation and higher shareholder returns. I look forward to presenting the Westgold 3.0 story, the next evolution of our company, next Monday at Diggers and Dealers. Thanks for listening today.
Thank you, everyone. That concludes the formal part of today's call. If anybody has a question, if they would like to enter it into the question facility in the webinar, it's the little question mark in the chat symbol. We'll pause now just to allow people time to enter some questions. Thanks, everyone. That concludes the formal part. Thank you, everyone. That concludes the formal part. We'll just pause now to await any questions into the question facility in the webinar software. Shane, I'll hand back to you at this time because we have not received any questions as yet.
Thanks very much, Shane. Thanks, everyone, for patching in and listening to today's webinar. Really busy time for Westgold and Karora, and we're absolutely looking forward to welcome the Karora team to the broader business tomorrow. Thanks very much.
Thanks, everybody. That concludes today's presentation.