Well, welcome to today's webinar. I'll now hand you over to Wayne.
Welcome and thank you for joining Westgold's June 2026 quarterly results call. Today, Aaron Rankine, our Chief Operating Officer, Tommy Heng, our Chief Financial Officer, and Kasun Liyanaarachchi, our Group Manager of Investor Relations and Communications, joins me on the call. We will review today's quarterly report and presentation before opening up for your questions. I'll start with safety, which remains our priority. In Q4, we reported no lost time injuries. We also saw continued improvement across key lead and lag safety indicators. This result is supported by sustained frontline engagement, critical control verification, and leadership field presence, and reflects our ongoing focus on fatality prevention, critical risk management, and injury reduction across the group. To our business performance, FY 2026 was a defining year for Westgold. We exceeded production guidance at 387,000 ounces, delivered costs within guidance with an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,841 per ounce.
Critically, we increased treasury to AUD 939 million. In Q4 alone, we produced just shy of 100,000 ounces and generated AUD 233 million underlying cash. Our strategy is delivering what we designed it to. Stronger production driving stronger cash generation. These two factors combined enable stronger returns to our shareholders. We hit our targets in FY 2026. We exceeded the top end of production guidance and delivered all-in sustaining costs within our guided range. We continue to advance our growth projects. Bluebird- South Junction and Great Fingall developments are progressing, and the Murchison Open Pit Programme commenced early. We are investing pragmatically in projects and infrastructure required to support future production growth. These investments are reflected in our capital. However, they are designed to bring value forward and underpin the next stages of our current three-year outlook.
We look forward to sharing our FY 2027 guidance and updated three-year outlook next month. With that, I'll hand over to Aaron to speak to our operational results.
Thank you, Wayne, and good morning all. Our operational performance continued to build in Q4, delivering circa 99,000 ounces. Importantly, we are well-positioned for a strong FY 2027. Our multi-hub operational structure remains a key advantage, absorbing normal operational variability at the asset level but delivering consistent group performance. We have built inherent flexibility in our business. A down day at one asset can be picked up elsewhere across the group. The Murchison delivered stronger output with record mining rates at Bluebird-South Junction, which hit a 1 million tonne per annum exit rate, along with record mining rates at Big Bell. Fortnum produced its highest full-year production in ounces ever. Excluding the toll treatment at Lakewood, which was not scheduled for Q4, production in the Southern Goldfields was steady. Overall, higher production drove lower unit costs and delivered a strong operating margin. We remain focused on our strategy.
Simply put, we are safely increasing mining and processing productivity with improving head grades, fully optimizing our core operations to deliver more gold and create value. Mine production increased materially in Q4. The continued expansion of Bluebird-South Junction, completion of vent upgrades at Big Bell, the operational improvement efforts across the business being driven by our site teams all contributed to increasing mine outputs. With these increased mining rates, our stockpiles continued to grow, improving the risk profile of the business. Beta Hunt achieved its strongest mining rate of FY 2026, despite ventilation constraints, which remain manageable and are being addressed through an independent alternative solution, which is already underway. Importantly, our mills remain fully utilized with higher grade feeds from our core mines. Across the hubs, Meekatharra, Cue, and Fortnum all performed strongly, helping deliver record annual production in the Murchison.
The Higginsville Mill delivered steady gold production on increased throughput delivered from ongoing optimization works. The lower quarter-on-quarter gold production at Southern Goldfields reflected the fact that we did not process a parcel at Lakewood in Q4 as we did in Q3. Tolling resumes this quarter. In summary, we enter FY 2027 in a position of strength. After delivering a shade below 100,000 ounces for Q4, we are carrying momentum into FY 2027. With that, I'll hand over to Tommy to speak to our financials. Tommy.
Thank you, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. This slide highlights the strength of Westgold's operational cash generation. We sold more than 110,000 ounces during the quarter at a realized gold price of AUD 6,391 an ounce. With the higher production and healthy margins delivering lower unit costs, in Q4, our operations generated AUD 159 million in net mine cash flows. It is worth noting that this strong performance is net of the capital investments associated with bringing forward a number of our key growth projects as Wayne touched on. The quarter saw us add AUD 83 million in cash bullion and liquid investments, increasing Westgold's treasury to AUD 939 million at year-end. Together with our AUD 600 million credit facility, which remains undrawn, we have AUD 1.5 billion of available liquidity to fund our organic growth plan.
Q4 delivered an underlying cash build of AUD 233 million before on-market share buybacks, growth expenditure, exploration, and proceeds from asset divestments. We invested AUD 142 million in non-sustaining capital and AUD 11 million in exploration while continuing to strengthen the balance sheet. This level of cash generation enables us to fund growth internally and maintain shareholder returns. Before handing back to Wayne, I would highlight that Westgold is in its best financial position yet, debt-free, fully unhedged, and with a very healthy treasury. Our treasury strength provides flexibility to invest in growth, progress asset optimization projects, and continue returning capital to shareholders. In FY 2026, we bought back to the value of AUD 27 million in shares, and we look forward to providing a dividend update next month. I'll hand back to Wayne to cover off on some of our exploration and corporate highlights.
Thank you, Tommy. I love the story this picture tells. Exploration remains central to our long-term growth strategy. While FY 2026 exploration spend finished just below guidance due to modest timing and access constraints, investment will continue in FY 2027. We will keep drilling. Our current drilling focus is on resource growth and reserve conversion across our core assets, particularly Beta Hunt, where we are doing the work to define a maiden reserve for the emerging Fletcher Zone. At another of our key growth assets, Bluebird-South Junction. You will see the results of this effort in our next group reserves and resources update, likely in September. This disciplined focus on optimizing our core assets is further supported through a campaign to divest some of our smaller, non-producing assets that didn't feature in our three to five-year plan.
In Q3, we de-merged and listed Valiant, and in Q4, we completed our non-core asset divestment program. Peak Hill and Chalice were sold, simplifying the portfolio while sharpening our focus on core operating hubs. Together with previous transactions in this campaign, these sales have brought forward almost AUD 200 million in value for Westgold shareholders, and importantly, retained exposure to the upside of these projects through material equity stakes and other mechanisms. The focus on optimizing a streamlined portfolio of core assets supports disciplined capital allocation. We're investing wisely and selectively in our bigger mines. Bigger mines need bigger mills, and bigger mills drive stronger economics. In the Southern Goldfields, the HXP tender process is in train, and orders have been placed to secure long lead items. In the Murchison, we have two studies that are nearing completion. One at Cue.
A low-capital option to increase milling capacity with the potential for a very short payback period, a growing case for a larger mill at Meekatharra on the back of both the emerging Polar Star lode within Bluebird-South Junction, as well as drilling at a near mill open-pit project called Aladdin. We look forward to sharing these studies as they are finalized. In closing, Westgold enters FY 2027 in a position of strength. In FY 2026, we exceeded production guidance, met cost guidance, substantially strengthened the balance sheet, and expedited disciplined investment in future growth. With four operating hubs, long life cornerstone assets now ramping up, and significant financial flexibility to implement our three-year outlook, Westgold is in its best position yet to create shareholder value.
Thank you for your time and for your interest in Westgold. I'm happy to take your questions, will hand over to our Group Investor Relations Manager, Kasun Liyanaarachchi, to open up the floor.
Thank you, Wayne. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us on the call today. If you haven't already, I invite you to submit any questions you may have via the chat function.
Thank you, Kasun. I'll start to take the questions. First question from Kevin. Kevin's question is, "Will Big Bell mining rates achieved this quarter continue or increase following the ventilation upgrades?" I'll pass this question to Aaron.
Thank you, Wayne. Look, following the ventilation upgrades at Big Bell, we do expect to see these lifted run rates continue.
Oh, thank you. Thank you, Aaron. Another one from Adam Baker. Adam asks, "What can we expect for OPA material in FY 2027?" I'll defer that question to Tommy.
Thank you, Wayne. We can expect, at this stage, to be about 380,000 tons for about 30,000 ounces. That's our estimate at this stage, obviously. More information will obviously come with our guidance next month.
Thank you, Tommy. Another question pertaining to the expansion studies we're running from Kevin. The question is, "When can we expect the expansion studies for Cue and Meekatharra?" Kevin, in regard to the Cue expansion, that study is close to complete, and we will put some information to the market soon. With the Meekatharra study, probably midway through FY 2027. A question from Al Harvey about ore purchase. NMG ore purchase agreement indicated 30,000-50,000 tons per month. Last three quarters have been above top end of that range. Is that a pull forward of tons or mutually agreed higher volumes? These end margin, ho w do you trade off OPA versus treating your own ore? I'll answer this collectively.
Yes, we are contracted to take between 30,000 and 50,000 tons per month from New Murchison, and we do work together, and where there's been higher grade material available, we took it. Q2 FY 2026 was an example of higher grade material available, so we took it. In terms of how do we look at OPA versus our own ore, this is the flexibility we're building in the business now. We always make higher margins on our own ore and lower margins on the OPA material. People need to remember, it's about risk and return. Our risk around the ore purchase agreement or ore is low. Why? Because we don't mine it. That's a third party taking that risk, and on that basis, our return on ore we have no risk on, should be lower.
Another question from Adam Baker about the Southern Goldfields. Volumes and grade at Southern Goldfields dropped slightly quarter-on-quarter. What were the drivers of this? Can we expect mine grades to be around 2 grams per ton moving forward? I'll pass that question on to Aaron.
Thank you, Wayne. I'll cover that in three parts. Firstly, the volumes were lower predominantly because of the Lakewood tolling parcel that was completed in Q3. We didn't have a parcel in Q4. That does recommence this quarter. The actual Higginsville milling throughput itself was actually up and hit some of its best run rates we've seen. In relation to the grade at Beta Hunt, we are expecting long term to see that at the lower 2-gram range. The 2 grams we've seen in the last three quarters is really related to the ventilation restrictions, and we've updated our mine plan, which is seeing us well and truly outperform the mill capacity. The higher areas in the mine where we're mining at the moment do have a lower grade.
Thank you, Aaron. A question from Ganesh. Does the current gold price scenario open options for acquisitions in addition to organic growth? A great question, Ganesh. The answer is yes, but let's be very clear. From a Westgold perspective, we are focused on organic growth from the portfolio we own. We don't have to look outside our own portfolio to deliver our three-year outlook, and that is our focus. Another question from Kevin. When can we expect the Milling pump? Sorry, that question's been answered. We're just sequencing.
A question from Larry Hill. Hi, Larry. Hi, team. Can we have some more detail, please, on the constraints on Beta Hunt ventilation? Whereas prior quarters had mechanical failures, these haven't been noted as a reason. Is this the only constraint to achieving 2 million ton per annum run rate as expected? Larry, I'll hand this question off to Aaron.
Thank you, Wayne. In short, yes, that is the only constraint on us delivering those run rates that we had telegraphed. The details are as discussed, and we've put it in the quarterly. We had been told to implement an engineering solution from the vendor. That hasn't worked. We've taken action and put in an interim control that's enabling us to outperform the required mining rates to feed the mill. We're still building stockpiles, and we have got on foot a plan to permanently rectify should that vendor not be able to fix their fence. We are in a comfortable position that we are continuing to outperform the required mill feed rates, and we have two parallel solutions that will resolve this problem long term.
Thanks for that, Aaron. Next question from Hugo. Hugo asks, "Hi, Wayne and team. Good to see the operational performance is strong. Are you seeing cost pressures in the industry impacting your operations, particularly at underground mines, which seem to be facing the largest escalations?" Great question, Hugo. In terms of cost inflation, amongst most of the Australian gold producers, you would only have seen a glimpse of it in the Q4 numbers. Fuel is a big driver for all of these businesses, we started to see that in May/June. Impact will probably be seen more so in Q1, Q2 of FY 2027. Certainly anything fuel related or petrochemical related, whether it be poly pipe explosives, even in some sense ground support, those things are being affected. Most importantly, what are Westgold doing about dealing with cost inflation?
Our focus is basically now we've got a group of assets which are becoming more productive and more efficient to try and squeeze more out of these mines with less capital. More ounces over our cost base sees our costs fall, we saw that during Q4. The focus going forward very much is about productivity and efficiency, trying to offset the cost of cost inflation. Another question from Al Harvey around portfolio. Any further work on portfolio simplification to come? Plenty of non-operating resources remain, how do AUD 210 million of listed investments fit in the portfolio in the longer term? This is like a Keith Goode question, Al. I'll unpack it for you. Portfolio simplification. FY 2026 saw us divest three assets do a spin out. Basically, we are done.
In the short term, we still have one underground mine on care and maintenance, Paddy's Flat. We're actually drilling that now as a potential open pit target. That's a keeper. Things like Spargos is another underground mine in the Southern Goldfields. We're looking at that again, long story short, there's no plans in FY 2027 for any more portfolio simplification. On that basis, we're done. In terms of our listed investments, how do they fit in our portfolio? Ultimately, those listed investments will be monetized to different levels. When we do monetize or reduce our equity positions in some of these assets, that cash is available very much for shareholder returns. Our focus is very clear. We're miners, it's about continuing to make this business more productive and more efficient.
Our listed investments in some of the assets we've got, we will maintain, to levels which we're comfortable with. Another question from Ganesh. When do you see the Southern Goldfields and Beta Hunt performing to its full potential? I'll hand this one to Aaron.
Thank you, Wayne, and thank you, Ganesh. Great question, very interesting one. The full potential of the Southern Goldfields, we don't understand yet inside our business. As we continue to drill and grow Fletcher, the scale of the Beta Hunt asset for me is phenomenal. It's very exciting. There is short-term full potential out of the current mining areas of Beta Hunt. We'll absolutely see those run rates hit in FY 2027. I'm very confident of that. The full potential, unknown. It's a massive system, and we're continuing to drill and study that to unlock the full potential and understand it.
Thanks for that, Aaron Rankine. It doesn't appear to be any other questions, so I'll just close today's presentation with this statement. FY 2026 was a solid hit-out for Westgold. We beat our production guidance. We brought our cost guidance within range. We are pragmatic about capital investment. Where it makes sense to bring capital forward, we do. It was a great year in terms of cleaning up the portfolio. That puts us in a position of strength. We hit FY 2027. We're starting that obviously now in July from a position of strength. We've got more productive mines, a clear focus on cost out and efficiencies. This is probably the best the company's ever been. The Murchison is hitting all its straps.
We've got open pit mining running in the Murchison again, which will help us iron out some bumps which always happen within these businesses. The inherent flexibility we have within the business now with four productive processing hubs and multiple mines to feed it is a new thing for Westgold. The ability to continually deliver shareholder returns is now there. We have an engine that can do it. Now we just have to prove that to the market. We look forward to delivering our full-year financials in August. A maiden reserve on Fletcher will speak to our potential dividend post the board review at the end of the month. Most importantly, a new three-year outlook, which will bring FY 2029 into the picture. Thanks, everyone, for their time and taking the interest in the stock.
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