In line with our vision to deliver superior returns for stakeholders, in April, we paid a second fully franked interim dividend of AUD 0.03 and also completed another AUD 30 million of share buybacks, taking the total bought back to over AUD 140 million, some 56% of the AUD 250 million program we announced late last year. We will be in a blackout period for pretty much the remainder of July and most of August. We will use this time to further assess our preferred mix. [audio distortion] Such things as recent changes to capital gains tax laws and their possible impacts. As it says at the top, we're looking to maintain returns in FY 2026 and FY 2027 at levels that we established in FY 2025, whilst we go through our expansion projects, and then grow returns in FY 2028 and onwards as these projects complete and cash flows increase.
Before I talk about exploration, I have three slides to update you on our project progress. Starting at Dalgaranga, the mining ramp-up is going along very nicely. Pretty much to plan, and we've made some really good progress on our projects, as well as the mining progress. On the left, you have the paste plant being constructed by GR Engineering. We have the surface boreholes in. We're putting in the underground reticulation, recruiting the paste fill team. This is on track for a September commissioning. On the right-hand side, you have the already installed and commissioned underground pump station, capable of around 90 L a second. We have a nice new workshop for our underground contractor completed on the bottom right. At Mount Magnet, there's plenty going on there as well.
We've upgraded the road from Dalgaranga to Mount Magnet such that we're capable of hauling, on a daily basis, approximately 2,500 tons. I will note we do plan on sealing that 65-km road in this financial year. The expansion of the Mount Magnet camp is almost complete, virtually doubling its capacity to almost 500 rooms. In terms of the mill upgrade, which you can see on the screen, we will start to see major site works this quarter on circuit one, which is the existing circuit. We're looking forward to awarding the EPC associated with circuit two shortly, as the feed process comes to an end this month. We've had solar and battery storage in place at Mount Magnet for some time. Recently we completed the foundations for two 7-MW wind turbines to round out a 46-MW hybrid power solution at Mount Magnet.
You can see the concrete pour of those foundations in the inset. You may be interested to note that each of those foundations takes 800 cu m of concrete. On to our exploration upside at Ramelius. There is a lot of detail in yesterday's release. Some 40 pages. It does demonstrate the exceptional potential right across the portfolio. If we look at Mount Magnet, we have the production profile here just at Mount Magnet, where we note in the red circles the low-grade material that's included in the mill schedule. We call low-grade anything below 1 g . Some people call that high grade, but we call it low grade. Particularly in those years from FY 2028 to FY 2030. The project sitting on top, where we're targeting high-grade ounces with the aim of displacing those low-grade ounces in the mill schedule. It's a pretty simple strategy.
We're happy to say that we're looking at likely extensions to Cue and the Galaxy mines, and also the Gilbey's underground looks really promising. That's not even included in this mine plan at all. Let's have a closer look at each of those projects I just mentioned. At Cue, we're looking at the likelihood of not only extending Break of Day underground but also adding Lena underground to the north, which will combine into a much more significant underground operation than was envisaged at the time we put the mine plan together back in October last year. Even more encouraging, the deepest results below our conceptual mine design at Lena of 19.7 m at 5.7 g/t and 9 m at 12.9 g/t are only about 400 m below surface, but still below that design I mentioned.
Suggests there's still significant upside beyond what looks like a lengthy extension to this operation. Pose the question, is Lena getting better at depth? It's certainly getting wider. The same isometric view of the same area. Here you can see our planned drilling for FY 2027, where we're looking at depth extensions at both Lena and Break of Day, probably with a focus more so on Break of Day. We actually have been limited by drilling we could do below the pit because we've been mining the pit. That Break of Day cutback will be finished around the new year. That will enable us to get in and drill more efficiently those depth extensions.
We haven't given up on Break of Day at all. We do have one recent result there of four meters at four grams, well below our current design, which does suggest that it continues also. At Galaxy, not far from the Mount Magnet Mill, we've significantly extended the mine life here after a year of pretty much unstopped drilling, with two rigs, one on each of the Mars and Saturn ore bodies, utilizing underground drill positions that were established specifically for drilling. We punched in a lot of meters this year. We've basically extended what was a three-year mine life to something well beyond FY 2030. It's also important to note, whilst it looks like the strike length of the Saturn ore body reduces at depth, that's just a drilling effect.
We basically drilled straight down we believe, or the geos believe, that once we put those drill fans in that you can see in FY 2027, that the strike length and the OVMs will increase in line with that. Over at the Eridanus area, at Mount Magnet still, where we have scheduled to start the Eridanus cutback in November. This cutback will produce some 18 million tons of lower grade feed over a five-year basis, forming really the base load for the mill on a long-term basis. There is more potential to the north at a place called Franks Tower. Whilst this area is in porphyry granodiorite as opposed to banded irons, which is featured at Galaxy, the grades in the granodiorite typically average, like Eridanus, 1.5 g.
There is potential for higher grades, as we've seen at recent drilling at Franks Tower, where we've got 3.6 m at 113 g within the pit design. Probably more importantly, 14.8 m at 54 g, well below that pit design. Out at Dalgaranga, similar to Galaxy, we've had two underground drill rigs drilling away for the bulk of the year. Generally, they've been focused on the Gilbey's area below the historic Gilbey's pit. From time to time, we've swung one of the rigs over to the Never Never area and carried out infill or more or less grade control drilling ahead of mining. We've never been let down by basically stellar results from that infill drilling. I won't call them out, but you can take my word for it, they're all excellent results.
At Gilbey's itself, we have almost 600,000 oz when you combine the existing resource with the exploration target. The plan is to convert all of that over the next 12 months. Whilst the grade will be lower than Never Never and Pepper, this potential underground operation will be an excellent incremental addition to the main game at Never Never. Last but not least, we are drilling for underground potential out at Rebecca-Roe, specifically the Rebecca, the Duchess, and here at Duke. We have 1.1 million ounces in reserves at Rebecca-Roe, but other than the Bombora underground, generally they all derive from open pits. We're encouraged by the potential for underground extensions to those pits, and typically numbers like 24 m at 3.2 g are what's giving us that encouragement. We haven't given up on Rebecca-Roe in terms of exploration.
Obviously, Mount Magnet and Dalgaranga and Cue get all the attention. To wrap up as to why we think Ramelius is such a good value investment, especially at its very low current P/NAV. We are a very reliable and consistent operator. Six years of achieving guidance is a testimony to that. We do have high margin, long life assets at Mount Magnet, and we also believe at Rebecca-Roe. We are both paying fully franked dividends and buying back shares, generally at levels above our peer group. We have one of the best production growth profiles in the sector. As I've gone through, we have committed another AUD 100 million, doubling down on our exploration budget from FY 2026 to fast-track the drilling of what we believe are high quality, high grade targets. Thank you.
Thank you, Mark. Next up, we've got Wayne Bramwell from Westgold.
Thanks very much for that. I think this is on. For those who have sat through 1.5 days of presentations, mine will be very different. No long sections, no drilling, no geology. I only really want to achieve two things today, which is explain who Westgold is and, two, convince people here how our corporate strategy is delivering value for the shareholders. You be the judge. That's today's presentation. I reckon I can knock this off inside of the time. If I can do it without the bell ringing, well, that's another achievement. Firstly, who is Westgold? Westgold is a Western Australian gold producer. We've just announced our full year results yesterday. We delivered above our guidance range. 387,000 oz was the biggest production the company had ever achieved in its 10-year life, and most importantly, we delivered it inside our cost guidance.
Our business is really easy to understand. Western Australian gold producer, and we have two business units across some of the best, or two of the best gold regions in Western Australia. The mighty Murchison and the Southern Goldfields. What is important about our business? We have a very clear organic plan and we are self-funded to deliver a much larger business, which can continue to make returns to our shareholders. Our assets are long life. Our 3.5 million ounces. That number is 12 months old, and on yesterday's production figures, that looks like a nine-year reserve life. We will be updating that number in September. Most importantly, and this is where the business is in quite rude health. Again, we have never been in a stronger cash position, finishing the year with AUD 939 million of cash, liquid investments, and bullion.
On top of that, we have an AUD 600 million debt facility, which is undrawn. What has the focus been for the last two years? Last year, we really set out to change the way the business operated. It was about under-promising, over-delivering, and really focusing on shareholder returns. A busy slide, and the real key takeaways here is the cash position. Closing the June 30 numbers with AUD 939 million in cash, bullion, and liquid investments sets this business up very strongly to increase the amount of returns we pay to our shareholders. As I said, the reserve base is key. The more gold you produce, the more gold you have to find, and I will talk a little bit about how we are growing that 3.5 million ounces of reserve. Our portfolio. It is a really easy story to understand.
We really think about our business as The Murchison, our northern business, and the Southern Goldfields, the southern business. In The Murchison, we have three processing plants, and that is key to operational flexibility. Processing operations, we call them hubs, at Fortnum, Meekatharra, and Cue makes us the dominant producer in the Northern Murchison. This is what it looks like. And in The Murchison, after many years of heavy capital investment, is really starting to hit its straps. As I said, three processing hubs and a multitude of underground mines now starting to have momentum and a return to open-pit mining is giving us optionality of how we feed these plants. All of these three hubs now have stockpiles in front of them, which has been a first for Westgold.
With that flexibility and ore choice in front of these processing plants, our operating teams have now a choice as to what they feed, when they feed it, and that is seeing throughputs and recovery increase. In the Southern Goldfields, this is a business which effectively we acquired two years ago. The Murchison we have owned for 10 years. This we have owned for two. The last two years in the Southern Goldfields has really been investing capital into a large underground mine, which was 60 years old, Beta Hunt at Kambalda. When we acquired these assets, we ended up with two processing plants. The focus here is about why we like these assets. They were a large underground mine, a reasonably modern processing plant. But we could see an opportunity here that through capital investment, we could optimize this business. We are very focused on making the Southern Goldfields much larger.
Again, for the last year, it's underperformed our own targets. On a group basis, did better than we thought. A growing record of performance. This is really about trust. It's always good to come in after Mark. Ramelius have shown the value of consistently hitting your targets and continually returning capital to shareholders. This is what Westgold has started to achieve. I said, 387,000 oz last year was a group record. We exceeded our guidance. Most importantly, we managed to control our costs. Our treasury grew considerably. What is this saying? The strategy is working. We are funded for our own growth from internal cash requirements. The focus very much now shifts to shareholder returns. A quarter, just shy of 100,000 oz, that's our internal target. What does good look like for my team at Westgold?
Consistently delivering 100,000 oz of production per quarter. We were just shy of 400,000 oz for the full year. We start July this year from a position of strength. Why? Record mining rates at our Bluebird-South Junction mine at Meekatharra. This little mine started in 2022. It's an underground mine 600 m from our largest processing plant. Through drilling and capital investment, we've seen this mine shift from 250,000 oz run rate to 500,000 tons run rate. It finished June with an exit rate of over 1 million tons. What did that do? We added AUD 233 million to the balance sheet in one quarter. What does that allow us to do? Continue to invest for future growth. This is really the key of the presentation. This is why I'm not talking about geology or long sections here. It's about how is the strategy delivering value.
I think for most of the people in the room here, it's about what can companies like us do for you. Best thing we can do is return capital via share buybacks or dividends. What did we say to the market 12 months ago? We said we'd focus on cash generation. We did it. This is a very simple graph, but it shows closing cash at the end of FY 2025 and how it looked at the end of financial year FY 2026. The second point, we guided towards 345,000 oz or a midpoint of 365,000 oz for the year. We delivered 387,000 oz. We told the market last year that our guidance range would be 2,600-2,900. We delivered 2,841. We told our shareholders we're committed to growing value for them. We did a record dividend in last year, in FY 2025.
We started a share buyback in FY 2026, the first time Westgold had had the financial capacity to do so. We saw a significant appreciation in our share price to date. This is probably the most important slide. I will slow down at this point. For everyone in this room, in terms of the things they're interested in, it's shareholder returns. These companies really have two ways of doing that, through share buybacks and dividends. We told the market many years ago it was about sustainable returns. In FY 2024, we returned AUD 10 million back to our shareholders via dividend. In FY 2025, AUD 28 million. FY 2026 to June 30 this year, we've returned AUD 27 million in share buybacks. That share buyback's still live. We will report a dividend in August.
We've been paying tax in the second half of FY 2026, if the board approves it, that'll be a fully franked dividend. Really, what's ahead for this business? The business is, we're just quietly going about our business. We're trying to under promise and overdeliver. The 12 months behind us has been very busy, and it's been focused on a multitude of things. Continuing to drill, cleaning up our portfolio, and then during the last 12 months, we sold, divested three gold assets. We also did a demerger and IPO and created a new gold producer called Valiant. Westgold has got a view specifically around divestment, is we're here to help other companies. We can't do everything, and our portfolio of assets is really broad.
For us, we'd rather see those assets developed, if we can crystallize value for our shareholders through cash and script in other companies and potential ore purchase agreements, then that's something I think is just pragmatic business. The operational catalyst for the business in the next 12 months is very clear. As I stand here today, we have 22 drill rigs operating across our business. We own 16 of those things, and most of them are underground, and we've also got third parties drilling on the surface. What is that focused upon? That's focused upon continuing to replace the gold that we have produced. As I said, we were 3.5 million ounces of reserve at the end of June last year. There'll be a new number coming out in September.
What we're probably most excited about is in the Southern Goldfields is an ore body within the Beta Hunt mine called Fletcher. That's a name not well known to everyone. Last year, we announced a maiden resource on this Fletcher zone within Beta Hunt. We thought we'd find 900,000 oz. We reported 2.3 million. The maiden reserve for Fletcher is very close. To recap, I'm getting very close to the end now. Westgold, we are a growing mid-tier company, all West Australian focused, it's about under promising and overdelivering. We are regaining the trust of the market, as we continue to hit our targets and people see a lift in shareholder returns, I can see more share price appreciation in this company. Most importantly, we are fully funded for our own adventure now.
In October last year, we put out a three-year plan for the shareholders, something which they'd never seen in nine years. We'll update that three-year plan in August also, that'll show what our business looks like for FY 2027, FY 2028, FY 2029. Thanks for your time today. I hope you take away one thing. If you're looking for a business now, a mature business, 10 years old, which is funded for its own adventure for the next three years, that can continue to increase returns to the shareholders, look no further than Westgold