Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Whitehaven Coal full year FY 2024 financial results. All participants are currently on mute. Following management commentary, we will open the call for questions from sell-side analysts. To queue for questions, you may press star one on your touch-tone keypad. Please ensure you have your audio volume turned up to a suitable level to hear the presentation. Thank you for joining us today. I will now hand over to Managing Director and CEO, Paul Flynn. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody, and thanks very much for taking the time to join us today for Whitehaven Coal's full year results call and presentation for FY 2024. As usual, I'm joined by Kevin, our CFO, Ian, our COO, and our IR team with Kylie and Karen. Kevin and I will go through the presentation as usual, and then we'll move into the Q&A session as quickly as we can. Moving on, firstly, first and foremost, our safety and environmental performance. Just want to focus on that. These are very, very encouraging results from our perspective, and I say that because it's made them more pleasing because of the level of obviously distractions that have been going on in the business from the non-routine activities that we have in a normal year.
So to be able to land on safety and environmental performances that we have has been particularly pleasing. The New South Wales business, of course, historically, has been on a very good trend. It's nice to see it continue that this year with our TRIFR down to 3.3 for the year, which is a great change and 30% improvement. Our new assets in Queensland have landed with a TRIFR of 6.6 for the quarter. And we are working very closely on integrating our business together to ensure that we've got Whitehaven safety management systems rolled across Queensland, and we continue to drive the performance that we've been experiencing from a safety improvement perspective.
For the second year running, we've had no environmental enforcement actions, which has been terrific, and certainly Queensland also emulated that type of performance with the quarter that we've got in our results here today. I'll go over to FY 2024's highlights. And of course, this has been a transformational year for us with the acquisition of Queensland metallurgical coal assets. We have successfully transitioned into ownership, obviously, and to Whitehaven, and we delivered successful and safe production outcomes for that first quarter, the Q4 of the FY, FY 2024 year. Overall, the New South Wales business has performed well, and the highlights of that is performing nicely, and certainly Narrabri has certainly turned a corner and performed better in Q4.
Looking at the financial highlights, we delivered AUD 3.8 billion of revenue and underlying EBITDA of AUD 1.4 billion, and an underlying NPAT of AUD 740 million for the year. This includes Q4 revenue contribution from the Queensland assets of AUD 869 million, and AUD 272 million of underlying EBITDA contributed. The statutory NPAT for the group at AUD 355 million is after non-recurring items primarily related to the acquisition. Kevin will go through that shortly for you. These good results have underpinned the financial stability of the business and allowed us to declare a final dividend of AUD 0.13 per share, to be paid on the seventeenth of September, taking the total for the year to AUD 0.20 for the year, fully franked.
From a TSR perspective, across the year, we delivered a 23% return across the twelve months, which is a pretty positive result, which ranks us about 30th in the ASX 100, hitting above our weight, given that we've been hovering between the 50 and the 70 range across the course of the year. From an operational perspective, we delivered 24.5 million tons of ROM. New South Wales realized a price of AUD 217 for FY 2024. The Queensland for the quarter of June, AUD 271. Good results both there. New South Wales unit cost ended just above the top of our guidance of AUD 114 dollars over, reflecting lower than planned volumes from our Narrabri production.
And then, of course, taking one quarter of integrating that into our results, there was an overall result of AUD 120 per tonne for the group. The Queensland component of that being AUD 147, but before we get onto the financial results too far, I did want to just pause for a moment and talk about the other important announcement that we put out this morning. And that is that, obviously we've announced this morning that we've now signed binding agreements to sell to Nippon Steel and JFE a combined 30% equity stake in the Blackwater Mine. This has been a fantastic end to a process which has been done not just cooperatively and with a fantastic spirit of goodwill, but a very competitive process and very expeditious timeline, I have to say.
We do feel like we have formed, you know, essentially the gold standard of joint ventures in metallurgical coal assets, I have to say. And this marks the completion of step two of a two-step process, which sets up Whitehaven for the future. And when the transaction completes, Nippon Steel will have 20, JFE will have 10% of the joint venture, and we are to receive consideration in aggregate of $1.08 billion upon the completion of these transactions. It is a strategic initiative that we've been chasing here, and it includes long-term offtake arrangements for both parties, and elevates Whitehaven's acquisition of these important assets, and the ongoing importance of Blackwater to the met coal asset, the met coal market.
Whitehaven will manage the joint venture, and our partners are supportive of the strategic direction we want to take Blackwater in, and as our drive to continue to unlock value from this important asset over time. The return metrics for our retained position in Blackwater are enhanced by this joint venture arrangement. And not just obviously selling it at a compelling price per percentage point of equity in the Blackwater mine, but we also keep the 100% of the free cash flow, of course, from the time that we bought the asset on the second of April, right through to, say, an estimated closure period that we estimate at the back end of the year. So, for the nine months that we hold the asset, we take all the cash flows.
In addition to that, we have a $2 per ton management fee as the operator of the mine, which will kick in. We'll be indexed, of course, but we'll kick in and cover all the sales tons for the operation. So very positive enhancements to our overall returns, the metric. And of course, taking the money off the table, de-risking the balance sheet, certainly enhanced the return metrics for our retained position. The cash proceeds obviously fortified the balance sheet very quickly and should take away any concerns about gyrations in coal prices from time to time, and our ability to meet all the various commitments we have associated with the, the original purchase. The buyback remains on hold for two years, as we've said.
And dividends will flow from the New South Wales business, as you've seen us declare today. But I think with, obviously, with the strength in the balance sheet, and by the time the proceeds for this transaction materialize in the bank account, which is likely to be Q1 of calendar 2025, the board will have the opportunity to review the payout ratio for the final dividend for FY 2025. Whitehaven remains the obligor or on the hook for the contingent and deferred payments, but obviously, the price that we've negotiated with the two joint venture partners includes the upfront payment on their share of those payments as well. And so we'll keep that money aside and make sure that we've got all those obligations covered, nice and tidy.
And, as I say, our balance sheet is certainly in very good shape. From our perspective, this is a tremendous conclusion to a two-year acquisition process, and has seen the transformation of the company into a metallurgical coal producer, and now on a very solid financial footing. Moving across to our business and our markets. Obviously, Whitehaven has transformed into a metallurgical coal producer, but maintains a fantastic position in the high CV thermal coal market. Obviously, that thermal coal market, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia, are now complemented by our metallurgical coal customers, and it's nice to see many of them as familiar customers to us, but it is a much expanded portfolio in that sense.
FY 2024 sales revenues, 60% of it came from Japan. Taiwan was next at 14%, Malaysia at 10%, South Korea at 7%, for total revenues. India was at 6%, but that will increase, as we know, with a greater proportion of the Queensland production in this new year's numbers. Beyond the top five countries, 13% of revenue comes from Europe, Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile, New Caledonia, a range of good jurisdictions it's selling into. As we commented at the time of the quarter, the revenue split between met to thermal at the quarter, Q4, was 69/41.
We expect that to gravitate to the 70/30 over a full year, given, as we said, there was a lower proportion of sales out of Daunia, and we'll speak a little bit about that, a little bit later in the presentation. I know these next slides, I know it's from page nine, you've seen these before, but it's worth highlighting that, yeah, we are now strategically exposed to structural supply shortages on both sides of our business, and I think these two graphs depict that well.
Commodity Insights is the source of this data, and we can see that, looking at their analysis here, the high CV end of the market, you can see demand is expected to grow by 20% between 2024 and 2040, but supply is expected to fall by 33%, so that's going to do good things for our prices. Metallurgical coal sort of represents a similar sort of dynamic here. You can see that, metallurgical demand is expected to go up and grow 22% over the same period, and supply is expected to fall by 8% over the same period. So that's gonna cause compression, which is going to underpin very good pricing for the future.
It's not just Commodity Insights, obviously, forming these views, but S&P views also consisted on the metallurgical coal market side of things. As you can see here, this is obviously the market itself, looks pretty consistent all the time, although growth occurs. Obviously, the big driver here is India. With India's demand expected to grow 110% out to 2050, Asia is gonna grow about 0.9% through that same period. Daunia and Blackwater are obviously important resources in playing in this market, and as you've seen with the formation of the joint venture, the validation of Blackwater's role in the metallurgical coal market, I think is strongly endorsed by these important tier one joint venturers wanting to secure their supply of these valuable products.
Looking to the external market, quickly, you can see there's a range of factors which we called out here, playing into the external market dynamic. Demand for hard coking coal has remained strong. India's demand grew, although in the current dynamics, it is a little bit softer based on the weather playing out there at the moment. Thermal markets have remained resilient through the whole market, and good pricing has been a familiar backdrop for the year as a whole, which is very positive. Supply dynamics on both sides has been a little better in Australia, so good weather has allowed producers to do well in this period. And the external pricing has seen the PLV hard coking price average for the year at $287, which is very good.
That semi-soft was about 60% of that number, which is lower than historical years, but we've talked about that many times, so I understand that. GC Newcastle, of course, across the year, at $136, was a good number. Obviously, it's a little stronger at the moment with about $150 per ton, which is very good. Now, of course, it's not all about just good pricing and so on. The cost side of things has been buffeted by significant inflation, as everybody understands, and we can talk about that a little bit more when we get to the cost side of our things. Whilst we've talked that labor is more accessible for us, the labor costs are still high. Then there's we're calling out here, of course, the obvious.
Regulatory impacts in terms of the inflation impact on our business, and I'll just name a couple. Clearly, the safeguard mechanism is part of it. Same Job, Same Pay. New South Wales coal reservation policy thankfully finished at thirty June. And then the higher royalties across Queensland and now New South Wales as of the first of July. All that places inflationary pressures on our business. So our task is to make sure that we can combat that through cost reductions and productivity across the business. The operational results, I'm not going to dwell on them too much because you saw them in the quarter, so I'll skirt through this relatively quickly.
Raw production, 24.5, as I mentioned before, is 34% up, 26% being Queensland, of course, and 8% increase in New South Wales. Managed sales volumes increased by 22% year-on-year. I'll just move across and talk to the various segments of our business now, separately. New South Wales, at 19.7 year-on-year, did well. The open cuts have performed strongly. Narrabri in total was less than what we want, but there was a very positive turnaround in recovery, in Q4. Werris Creek obviously finished up production, and has transitioned into a rehabilitation site, and we saw the first tons come out late in the year on time, budget, for Vickery. So, a small contribution in, in FY 2024, and you'll see that ramp up in the new year.
Now, just quickly on the sites, Maules exceeded its guidance, did well. We did turn off AHS there, obviously. But did exceed its guidance, which was very positive. Mining has finished in the southwest area now, so we are 100% in pit dumping there. Narrabri, as I mentioned before, a tough year, but certainly a good turnaround in Q4, and that continues into this year, which is very positive. Tarrawonga exceeded its ROM. Next year it is. Well, this year it is moving into that hill section in Tarrawonga, so we are entering a higher strip ratio area. So that does affect the amount of tons that will come out of it in this particular year. Werris Creek, as I say, exceeded its guidance, but has closed and now moved into rehabilitation.
I'll just focus very quickly just on Vickery, and as you can see, there's a real mine there in the picture in the slides there now, so that's been very positive, so a small contribution, i.e., a 100,000 tons, obviously in Q4, but this year, we're expecting to be a replacement essentially for Werris Creek tons in this year. The construction went very well, on time, on budget, and safely, so we're very pleased with that, and all the approvals in place to continue on with this, and the board's consideration can look at when is the right time to bring that on, but as we've said, that has been off the table for what will be two years from the time of the transaction.
Focusing on Queensland, we've added in the historic numbers for you, which make up for context. Then called out obviously the period of our ownership here in the bolder colors, that's been previous to previous BMA numbers. But we had a safe and stable transition into our ownership, which is very pleasing. The quarter, the first quarter under our control, was fantastic, actually. We've had very good results from Daunia at 1.3 million tons and Blackwater, 3.6 million tons. Performance looks pretty good trending into this new year as well, so we're very pleased with that.
So the quarter did actually, from a Blackwater perspective, saw a couple of production records hit, and we saw actually quite a few productivity improvements at Daunia as well, which is very encouraging and lays a good foundation for this transition into the new year. Obviously, with a bigger business, Queensland in particular for this focus, it does need a bolstered leadership framework to be able to manage this adequately. So we have made some changes, and I'll just call this out briefly. Ian's role has been restructured and changed, and he's taken on the role of our COO, which is very pleasing.
We put in place a regional general manager role, which Dan Iliffe has taken on the responsibility for both the Queensland sites and also the ROC, the Remote Operating Center in our Brisbane office. Reporting into Dan, we've got two general managers here now. Todd Matthews taking on Blackwater, Sean Milthorpe taking on Daunia. Two very seasoned, experienced Bowen Basin operatives, so got plenty of experience across all forms of mining in Queensland. We're looking forward to seeing the benefit of their leadership on the sites, very well known to many of the people in the Queensland market, being experienced people, so I think that this team coming together will assist us in driving changes across the business.
Obviously, there's significant opportunities for realignment of this business, and we are transitioning the Queensland operations to a simpler, more Whitehaven style operating model. You would have seen already, last week or so, we've started that process with some changes to workforce, with some 200 roles affected by that. But that role, that job will continue, and the team is very engaged in making sure that these sites are rebased in an appropriate way, and at all times, ensuring safe and reliable production. We are focusing on top another AUD 100 million worth of initiatives, which are working independently of the guidance range that we give you.
We'll speak to that a little bit later, but that's across a whole range of initiatives which we think there's very opportunities here in Queensland to make sure we rebase the business as quickly as we can. And with that, I'll hand over to Kevin for the financial updates.
Yeah, thanks, Paul. FY 2024 is probably one of the more noisy sets of numbers that Whitehaven Coal has produced in the last decade, I'd say. So let's take a little bit of time to go through it. We reported AUD 1.4 billion of underlying EBITDA. And you see it in the top line there, transaction, transition costs, and some other things related to Werris Creek accounted for about AUD 601 million of non-recurring costs. A large part of that was stamp duty, so that's about AUD 360 million that we expect to pay in the first half of FY 2025.
There was AUD 73 million of other transaction costs and about AUD 125 million of transition costs, which included building an IT system to replicate BMA, so that we could pick these assets up and start them on the second of April. And we had a Queensland integration team that was involved in that as well. Outside of stamp duty, the transaction and transition costs totalled about AUD 200 million on a pre-tax basis. In the remainder of the business, we had about AUD 31 million of non-recurring costs in relation to an inventory valuation uplift. What that means is, accounting standards require us to bring the inventory unit fair value, and that means the normal margin that you would expect to see from those tons doesn't emerge in the P&L. That's why that adjustment's made.
And finally, when we closed Werris Creek, we had about AUD 11 million in one-off closure costs around redundancies and putting the rehabilitation provision to the right place. After these significant items, EBITDA was AUD 798, so that's the statutory number. The DD&A was about AUD 319, and I think the brokers and the analysts world will want, at some point, further guidance on how DD&A and interest works. So, Kylie's attached that in the back of this process, and we'll be happy to take people through that. It is one of the bigger differences between people are pretty easy to get to EBITDA, but the NPAT becomes a little bit murky with all these transactions that are taking place in the next few years.
We reported a statutory NPAT of AUD 355 million, but if you add back the significant items, the underlying NPAT was AUD 740 million, and as usual, the tax rate was about 30% on that, so you should continue to use that rate in your modeling. Come over to the page, I think, on financial history, and it's 2024 was a very good result at AUD 1.4 billion, but 2022 and 2023 were excellent results, and they were the, they were the years that pushed this business into the position to be able to provide increased returns to shareholders and diversify, so very good two years, but if you go back 10 years, Whitehaven's three highest years of underlying earnings, before the contribution of Queensland, have been 2022, 2023, 2024.
FY 2018 and 2019 were both very solid years, but they were about AUD 1.04 billion. The next strongest year in 2019, the underlying NPAT was 565, compared with 740 in 2024. What am I trying to say, to you, I think structurally, what we're telling you and what we see in the markets is that these coal prices that we've been seeing for a number of years between $120-$150 for thermal seem to be sticky. And if you look at FY 2024, you can see the potential of contribution from Queensland. We are excited by those two mines and very happy to see them in the stable. Segment financial results.
On a revenue basis, Queensland, as Paul said, contributed $869 million in Q4, with a total of $3.8 billion in revenue, and an underlying EBITDA of $272 million to the $1.4 billion total. It's a good start. There's plenty to do in Queensland, and there's plenty to do with it, so we look to that. Come over the page to sales mix and realizations. New South Wales reported equity coal sales for the year of 13.2 million, with an average price of $217 a ton. Queensland reported 3.2 million tons of coal sales for the quarter, which, as you know, was below expectation due to the transition-related rail path issues at Daunia, and it achieved an average realized price of $271.
I think you're gonna need to see a few quarters of this play out to see the traditional run rates of qualities, product qualities and product mix, so just bear with us on that. Nevertheless, in Q4, hard coking coal and semi-hard coking coal sales achieved a price relative to the primary level of hard coking coal index of 81%. But the semi-soft and PCI volumes were lower because of the Russian influence in the market. On a group basis for Q4, revenues were 59% from met coal and 41% from thermal. Without the rail-related issues of Daunia, we would have expected to have seen higher met coal revenues. Come over the page on the margins. It's healthy margins.
At a group level, we realized an average price of $228 and a unit cost, including Queensland, of about $120, before an average royalty of about $24 a ton, so you can see the margins that are coming out of this business. With the addition of Queensland ops, in the last quarter, that unit cost increased, but the Queensland unit cost of production in Q4 was down $147 a ton, and the first quarter of our ownership, the royalty rate in Queensland was about 15%, while in New South Wales, the royalty rate was 8%, but has increased to about 10.6% from July, so the government's benefiting from the coal industry quite well.
EBITDA margins a little bit. You can see the FY23 margin, which was outstanding at $303, not to be repeated as coal prices soften, but a very healthy margin of $84 a ton in FY24, and I'll be happy with margins that run around the 50% with coal price on a normal basis or a normalized basis. So let's go to the EBITDA bridge. No surprises, almost $4 billion in EBITDA in FY23, and as the coal price came off its highs, that took about $2.7 billion off the EBITDA. And you can see the 138 million change in cost was really around 12.7 at about $10 or $11 a ton. 12.7 million tons of sales at $11 a ton.
Queensland contributed 272, and this is how we get to 1.4. I still I draw your attention to the fact that we pretty much are washing all of Maules Creek, Tarrawonga, and Vickery, and that is helping to support costs, but it's also driving the revenue outcome you see, which is a GC NEWC plus outcome. Come over the page to cash flows, and you'll recall we held about AUD 2.7 billion of cash, but we knew we had to pay about AUD 800 million-AUD 900 million of tax. So really, there was about AUD 1.9-AUD 1.8 million there that was unaccounted for.
We generated AUD 1.3 billion in the period, and as I said, we paid the tax, AUD 880 million from the previous year and about AUD 140 million for the current year. We spent AUD 496 million on expenditures and other acquisitions. We returned almost AUD 400 million to shareholders, and those were repayments and others were just lease payments before we spent AUD 3.3 billion buying Daunia and Blackwater. Now, clearly, as Paul said, we expect in the first quarter of calendar year 2025 to be receiving $1.080 billion, and that's about AUD 1.6 billion. So we're expecting to, that net investment there is going to be very attractive.
So we finished the year with net debt at about $1.3 billion, and, as I said, we look forward to the collection of the proceeds, the sale proceeds from Nippon Steel and JFE. Net debt and liquidity. We've got plenty of liquidity. If you look at this, at AUD 556 million of liquidity at 30 June 2024, we've established a couple of other facilities post that period to add to that liquidity, and we're generating cash flow from the business every month. So, that strategic joint venture with Nippon Steel and JFE and the $1.8 billion, that will be, that will effectively turn us into a net cash position before we settle the $500 million, the first $500 million with BMA on April next year.
So I'd say balance sheet in excellent shape. Turn over the page. I think our capital allocation framework has delivered really solid outcomes to shareholders and to the business. You know, it's served us well. It's a disciplined process that's said, if you keep the business going well, we've got the balance sheet in great shape, and there's real tension between where do we deploy capital and provide returns to shareholders. For now, the buyback remains paused. Dividends are being determined based on the earnings from the New South Wales business. We've said in light of the acquisition, that cash flows from the acquisition will be directed to retiring vendor finance first, and the decisions around major development expenditure will be on hold until the deferred payments are paid down.
When we receive the $1.8 billion, the board will have the opportunity to review this capital allocation priorities in time, and as Paul said, we'll look to the full year FY 2025 dividend to see where that goes. But overall, our final dividend of AUD 0.13 fully franked takes the full year FY 2024 dividend to AUD 0.20, which is pretty easy to remember, and that's about 22% of group underlying NPAT. So we expect a significant step-up in capital returns when the deferred payments are made and surplus capital emerges from these expanded assets. So I'll hand it back to Paul, and go from there.
Thanks, Kevin. Turning over to the full year guidance. In FY 2025, of course, everybody will understand that we're focused on continuing to integrate the Queensland assets and setting up a robust base against which we can deliver strong results and sustainable outcomes. We have deliberately taken a measured approach to guidance with the new assets, as you imagine, being the first year of our ownership and having had them now for 35+ . I think we all want to ensure that this year ends well, and to that end, you will understand that we've taken a level of conservatism, and that has been prudently applied in the construct of our guidance for this year.
We expect to produce 35-39.5 million tons of ROM, and to deliver 28, a range of 28-31.5 million tons of managed coal sales. We believe this is very achievable. Queensland ROM production reflects a focus on increasing the blasted inventories and pre-strip inventories to optimize operations, and is set a base for improved performance of Blackwater and deliver ongoing AHS productivity at Daunia. New South Wales ROM production reflects the closure of Werris, of course, and the ramp up of Vickery. Mining it up, there is a high strip ratio area. We're heading through the hill there at Tarrawonga, as many people have observed. We have allocated an eight-week longwall move for Narrabri in forming our guidance for this year.
That'll be in January 2025. The reason why it's eight weeks longer than normal is we do have some drops that we want to bring to surface, can't be made, the maintenance can't be done, downstairs, so we will bring them up to surface so that we can get up to some of that important work. We expect site costs to be in the range on a base from AUD 140-AUD 155 per ton. Certainly reflects the underlying labor cost increases, continuing as EBAs are rolled out across the business. The Queensland cost base obviously represents lots of opportunities to improve. You'll see us act on that already. You will see us continue to do that as we move through the course of this year.
Now, the capital guidance there at AUD 450 million-AUD 550 million, I think is pretty judiciously configured. We have pulled out the microscope and had a good look at that across business. And so I think given the scale and change of the business, that is a pretty responsible way to configure our first year of ownership of the broader business. Queensland, we accounted for about 40% of that, New South Wales, 6% of CapEx for FY 2025. And in closing, just coming to our focus for the year, prospectively, as we described, we want this year, obviously, our first year of expanded business, to go well. So we're very much focused on sustainable operational performance, year- to- year, and improved cost management across the entire business.
In New South Wales, our efforts will be directed to consistent and reliable operations at Narrabri, as well as our open cut operations and ramping up early mining at Vickery. In Queensland, we want a strong foundation in FY 2025, and we know we can deliver significant value, in not just in this year, but in years to come, and it's all about setting up for the future. So, further alignment of Daunia and Blackwater will be the focus to Whitehaven's simplified model.
And as I mentioned just briefly, rebuilding blasted inventories and pre-strip at Blackwater will certainly be a point of focus, as will be further productivity gains at Daunia AHS. And of course, overall, as I mentioned earlier, there's a AUD 100 million bucket of cost initiatives that we're looking at in Queensland, and our target is to rebase the run rate of costs at the end of the year by that measure. So just to be clear, not delivered within the year, in terms of those savings, rebase the run rate of costs by the time we get to 2032. And of course, we want to see the terrific trajectory of safety performance going across the entire business and also the environmental progress that you've seen in more recent years.
At group level, we're obviously focused on completing the sell down. Very exciting transaction as that is, and as we've said, we expect that to complete our two-step transactions, so they can complete at different times. We hope that it's at around the same time. But that will be in the first quarter of calendar 2025 when the issue occurs, and this will be a bank-ready result as that is. And to that end, I'd like to thank all of our people, particularly during the last year or two actually, to transform the business into what it is today, and to our board for the steadfast support, to be able to navigate our way through this, this transitional, two-year period.
It's very satisfying to see the business steadily and de-risked as we chart our course into the future. So I thank you all for your support, and I particularly thank our shareholders for their ongoing support during this period of change for us. So with that, I'll hand over to the operator. We'll get the Q&A going. Thank you.
Thank you, Sell-side analysts. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Rahul Anand with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, Paul, Kevin, and Ian. Congratulations on the deal. Look, my first question is perhaps focused a bit on the unit costs going into next year. So, if I look at FY 2024 and I back out what Queensland did in terms of your actuals, I arrive at about AUD 164 or AUD 165 per ton. And if I look at FY 2025 and I try to hold Queensland at about that level, it would imply that your NSW costs have gone higher to about AUD 130 a ton from about AUD 115. So I guess what I'm trying to get at is, is there a mix shift here in your NSW production guidance numbers? Is it more coming from Maules versus Narrabri?
I mean, what's driving this cost increase into next year, or has Queensland cost actually gone up, significantly into next year? So that's the first one, and I'll come back with a second. Thanks.
Yep. Thanks, Rahul. That's, I'm going to try to answer some of that, and I'll hand over to Kevin for a little bit of this as well. A couple of numbers there you've implied there, not quite sure how our numbers equate to what you are, Rahul, but you're thematically, I think that's a reasonable proposition. We've certainly got lower volumes in New South Wales than we would otherwise like. We've taken a relatively conservative position there. Of course, we're going to have those tons, a little less out of Tarrawonga as we go through this high strip zone. So there's some of it. So that's less than last year. Werris Creek obviously is broadly replaced by Vickery. So that's relatively neat.
Maules, no, no particular change there, volumetrically from there, but as I say, we're continuing to work through the inflationary impacts in our business. So we've got that rolling through, but lower volumes overall in New South Wales does lead to a higher cost per ton as a result of take or pay absorption across the tons that actually are produced and then washed and sold. Queensland, we have taken a conservative position there. I think that's definitely influences this. You know, we've only had the business now for five months, and we had to scramble pretty quickly to put a budget together, which I think the team's done an admirable job on.
And given that, you know, I suspect that budgetary processes occurred at various levels above the mine site level, whereas obviously our, our approach is to do that from the mine site level forward. So we have taken a conservative position there. We want to make sure this all goes well. We think there's upside, as I say, in the costs. We have given a relatively wide range on costs, as you note. So $15 spread across that is wide. But again, it's really just the fact that we want to take a relatively prudent, course in, in this first year of ownership and make sure that goes well.
Obviously, we called out separately on top of that, the AUD 100 million initiative, on top of the bucket of savings that we're looking at across various initiatives in Queensland. And you've seen us already addressing some of the elements of the cost base in Queensland with the restructure we embarked on last week. Those ones, the ones you saw us embark on last week, are in the guidance, where the AUD 100 million is on top of, just to be clear. You want to add anything there, Kevin?
Yeah, no, Rahul, I'm going to say to you that I think there is a mixed change.
Yep.
There's definitely a mixed change because Werris Creek tons come out, and as you know, there's 100% yield there, and they're closer to the port. They're going to be replaced by a higher quality product out of Vickery. But Vickery is. The way I think about Vickery is that it's simply a box cut that's being developed for a future mine. Unfortunately, accounting standards require me to push the costs of Vickery through the unit costs, so that's contributing to this.
Yeah.
I've also got we've got early days in Safeguard Mechanism at Narrabri, so we've got an estimate in there for what that might cost us, and we're obviously working hard to work our way through the whole process, so that's coming in. But you would have seen us unwind some stocks out of Tarrawonga last year. That contributed to sales volumes. Those sales volumes aren't being used or aren't there this year to come through and use up take or pay. So there is a, there's a volume impact that, in the long run, gets solved by a bigger Vickery at a point in time in the future, and by a return of Narrabri to a better level of product production. So there are-
Got it. No, that's very clear.
Yeah.
That's very clear. Thanks. Just a quick follow-up there before I move on to the second one. You've also talked about NSW still being circa 90% of your development spend. I guess, within that, you've got Narrabri Longwall 203 now going to FY 2025. So, I mean, at what point do you actually decide whether this development CapEx now starts going into the bigger Vickery or to Narrabri southern ops, considering that 90% development spend gone there?
Yeah, Rahul, that. I'm not sure where the 90% comes from. Queensland is 40% of the CapEx guidance. New South Wales is 60%.
Got it. I might have got that wrong. I can follow that up offline.
No, I see you're referring to the subset for development CapEx only.
That's correct.
The number I gave you-
I'm talking about development physically. Yep.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, got it. Yeah, look, Narrabri, obviously, there's an area, obviously, transitioning between stage two, if I can call it, the two hundred panels and the three hundred panels. The CapEx for three hundred, stage three, which we're hoping for imminent approval, but the activist application to seek leave to the court has been dismissed. The ball firmly sits in the hands of the federal minister now to approve that. But we have curtailed, we've had to curtail the CapEx spend on stage three capital and push that out. But there is still a bunch of work which needs to be done, obviously, in the two hundred panels, and that's where we're currently mining two oh three. So that work is required to continue.
Until we have some clarity on stage three full approval, the EPBC approval, we'll continue to be prudently pushing the capital out, for as far as we can, responsibly do so.
Got it. Okay. All right, final question, just around your balance sheet. Kevin, you did mention it briefly in your introductory comments, the board will have a strong position early next year if the deal goes ahead as expected, and you'll probably be in a net cash position. If we assume that it has gone ahead and you are in a net cash position, I guess two questions that come to investors' minds are obviously, how to think about that 20%-50% EPS range, and if you think that's still relevant for the business going forward? And then secondly, you have previously said that the Anglo deal is something that you're not gonna look at. Does that change your views on that side of the equation as well?
I'm gonna leave Paul to answer the Anglo deal, because I don't think that's a long sentence.
That's a simple one. No.
Okay.
And then the second one, if you have a look at the slides that Kylie's inserted in the back there on guidance, you'll see that there's an awful lot of non-cash charges come through, Rahul. So I think the 20%-50%, we'll consider that as we get through the process. But I do think as we expect to settle this in the first quarter of next year, that the board will have a good look at what are the competing uses for capital. And given that we've been at the lower end of distributions to shareholders, I'd not be surprised if they actually looked upon that in a way that said that recognized the support shareholders have provided.
But I don't think I'm saying anything out of turn there, Paul.
No, no, I think, I've just been told we've got quite a few people in the questioning queue also. We're gonna have to hand the baton over to somebody else and keep it relatively brief.
Absolutely.
We have got fifteen minutes remaining.
The next question comes in from Lyndon Fagan with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, Paul, Kevin. Just, like, a similar sort of follow-up question there. I mean, you've obviously got this net debt target range, 0.5-1.5 actually, sort of, at the lower end, maybe even below it. Should we think you're gonna sort of, once this deal is complete, will you look to sort of go to almost a net cash position? Or do you think you're gonna stick between that 0.5-1.5 and potentially, you know, give better returns over the next couple of years around dividend?
Well, look, I'm happy to say I've got no plans to retire the debt.
Yep.
Right? So, we've relevered the balance sheet modestly as a result of this process. We always believed that the balance sheet and the business should maintain a level of debt past, and that's what those credit ratios say. So I would suggest you should not model the retirement of the debt as your base case at all. Does that make sense?
Okay. Yeah, no, that sounds good. And just back on the cost, can you give a bit more of a split between New South Wales and Queensland? You, you sort of mentioned in the April pack that you'd give us a split. Can you give us the split?
Yeah, look, we've taken the view that the cost is best managed on a group basis. And to dive into more detail in that regard is not gonna be particularly useful, given that you don't make profits out of one or the other, you make profits out of the business. And so we're gonna stick with this and simplify your life by just giving you one cost.
Okay, very good. Now, that's all from me. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Paul Young with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning, Paul and Kevin. First one on the Blackwater sell down. Kevin, I think you mentioned that there's a US$2/t management fee associated with it. Correct me there. But also, on the other side, is there, with the offtake, is there any impact or on the pricing to benchmark by? Is there a great discount to, say, any type of index being Platts, et cetera?
Yeah, Paul, that's correct. You've got it on the management fee, a few US dollars indexed for sales terms. That's value-enhancing on the metrics for the deal. And of course, the cash flow until the time of completion, we get 100% of that as well. So that takes, I think, the metrics on the return from that perspective.
Even the broker can see it.
Sorry.
I think it's set up.
Yeah. Sorry, come out on the-
On the offtake?
Yeah.
Yeah, no, no, you shouldn't. You should be modeling what we've told you. There's a customary market arrangements with long-term offtake, long-term customers that have been taking the product for decades. So-
Right. Okay. So to confirm, there's no discount, no discount attached to the-
To put it in my language, there's no cross-subsidization between future earnings and purchase price.
Got you. Okay. Thanks. And then, maybe back on the costs, Paul. I mean, I think you used in the presentation, harmonizing, Queensland, New South Wales. I'm interested in what that word actually means. Is that just sort of introducing the Whitehaven culture and, so I'm interested in your thoughts there, but just more broadly around the opportunities and the cost out. You said, you know, two people are leaving the business. You've also got additional savings of AUD 100 million program by the end of FY 2025. Where are these opportunities? Are we talking around, yeah, tech services? Are we talking, you know, associated with systems like OneSAP? Are we talking about removing truck fleets? Can you provide a bit more information about the cost out opportunity across Daunia? Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Paul. I'll just quickly say, look, we just run a simpler operating model than what these two mines have been used to been running under. Not to say better or worse or whatever it is, but from our perspective, there certainly is a more complex model. We want to streamline it. Part of the headcount reductions, as you've seen, as part of that, there'll be further additions to that going forward. And, but we do. Look, obviously, we don't have the complexity of the operating services model, obviously, which, but we did take all the people on originally to have a look at what's really going on there. That was just part of the deal.
Ian's obviously focused on a whole range of initiatives on an operational sense, so I might get him to cover off, you know, some of the headline items that we're attacking.
Yeah. Thanks, Paul. So just to give you a little bit of color, I mean, you asked some areas, so maintenance would be one of them. You know, traditionally, that's been done on a sort of calendar basis. We're going to look for performance management and extending the life of components. There's a balance to, I guess, capital replacement, what we're going to look at there. The whole equipment rationalization based on productivities, you know, the fleets we've got, the ratios of ancillary equipment and, you know, and also a look at the suitability of some of the existing equipment and looking to optimize there. When you look at the sort of the contracts, we inherited those, in a short period, we had to stand up. We basically took on board sort of what was there.
But there's no doubt that there's room to work through those and rationalize some of those arrangements, both probably in number and value. Around sort of, and as sort of a by-product of the people space, the whole what I'll call logistics of camp accommodation, planes, and all of that area. We basically stood up what was in place and duplicated that, and there's a whole lot of room for some improvement there. Paul touched on, you know, continuing to look at, I guess, structure and optimizing structures. That never goes away. I mean, that is in both businesses, Queensland and New South Wales. Maybe one of the other ones is in the explosives space. We changed. I think we made you aware earlier on, we changed at Blackwater, the explosives supplier.
The transition is going well. We've beefed that area up. But as far as sort of technical expertise, get in there and start utilizing some of the new products, electronic, detonation, timing, and all the rest of it, there are a number of sort of, opportunities there to save money. So maybe that's a bit of a look at the laundry list that we're tackling.
Yeah, that's good. I appreciate that. Thanks, gents. So that's it for me.
Your next question comes from Daniel Roden with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good day, guys, and thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to understand the sell down from Blackwater, the AUD 1.8 billion. What, I guess, the cost and tax implications are you expecting in FY 2025?
Cost impact?
The cost-
Oh, tax impact.
The short answer for that is that there'll be a tax. The net proceeds will be down by about $100 million. So $1.08 billion is about a $100 million tax bill attached to it.
And just confirming regulatory processes, competition purposes, and FIRB approval still need to once we go, so that's timeline by.
It's the customary approvals, and you know, FIRB is one of them, and the other one will be some competition authorities in some other jurisdictions. But we think that's a three- to five-month process. FIRB, probably three to four, and the competition depends on who you talk to and how it goes and where you have to go, but typically done within three to five months.
There's nothing controversial in any of that.
No. But you look at where we're selling this coal to. It's India, Japan, Korea, and that's about it.
Okay. That's perfect. And, maybe just, I guess confirming, how I've interpreted it, when that transaction does close, and let's assume it's around the March quarter of 2025, there will be an item on the capital management, I guess, policies and, figuring out what's going to happen with the additional free cash, generated by the business kind of post that period. Is that understanding generally in line with, what you've said?
Yeah. Look, I think we'll settle the transaction, and then we'll look at the run rate for the balance of the year. And I think as we've highlighted there, the board will have an opportunity to review for the final dividend the settings. The buyback's still on pause, just to be clear for everybody, but the board will certainly have the opportunity to look at the final dividend and whether or not that the payout ratio that you've seen us declare now, a little bit above the bottom of that guidance, the 20%-50% of the thermal business. I think there'll be an opportunity for the board to revisit that and look at where they want to calibrate that grade for base.
But it will be at the year-end, rather than in March or something earlier, depending on whether some of the transaction occurs. So you'll need to see the run rate of the business for the full year.
Crystal clear . Thank you, guys, and I'll pass it on. Thanks.
Your next question comes from Rob Stein with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just two quick ones. The offtake, is it 30%, or does it extend to a materially greater source of volume for Blackwater?
Yeah, look, the offtake stack is a bit different performance, generally for historic. They've been big consumers of the product, and obviously that's driving the attraction for them to come in and take the equity slice. There is the opportunity to scale up and down there, but the key point here is these are both important and material consumers of both products, the semi-hard and the semi-soft, out of Blackwater. And it's obviously important enough to their business that they want to put serious money to work here to ensure that they have consistency of supply over time.
Sorry, is that a 50% offtake? Is that 60% of the production under offtake? How can we sort of think through that?
I don't think we're about to tell you that.
Yeah.
So, the other thing-
Okay
I'll probably get you to do is, because we don't disclose commercial in confidence contracts with customers. But I think I'd encourage you to go and have a look at the Nippon Steel and the JFE announcements to their own market. That's been. It'll give you an insight into why they wanted a stake in this business. Really inform these slides.
No, no problems. And then just a final question. The OpEx costs build, it looks working capital in nature, especially in Queensland assets. Are we expecting that to revert back to a certain number across FY 2026, 2027? And are we expecting, once you've built the ROM stocks, that production is going to revert up to that guided rate, as disclosed at the time of the transaction?
Yeah, look, I think we're still satisfied that the five-year averages that we've given you, we're happy with those. And the physical and the pathway to those physical outcomes and the cost related to them, we're, we feel comfortable with. Obviously, we've just been through a competitive process, and we've shared our views on that with our incoming joint venture partners, and they've also satisfied themselves in the same way. So, yes, there is. We've highlighted a need at Blackwater in particular for build in in-situ blasted ground and also pre-strip inventories ahead of dragline utilization, to make sure those draglines can hum at all times. And then, of course, Daunia is all about efficiency of the AHS system.
But yeah, there will be a build-up on those inventories to sustainable levels, then should moderate as you settle into a more rhythmic basis of stripping.
Yeah.
Perfect. Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Your next question comes from Jon Sharp with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, Paul, Kevin, and team. Congratulations on the sell down. I'm sure it's been a busy time. Just another question on unit cost, but more to do with this new legislation, Same Job, Same Pay. I know you briefly called it out, but I'm hearing from key contacts, particularly from the coal mining industry, that it's having a much more dramatic impact than most people probably realize. Can you just discuss how much effect it's having on the unit costs? And I'm also interested to know if there are any other unintended consequences that you're seeing, other than, of course, pushing up the unit costs.
Yeah, look, the spectrum of Same Job, Same Pay affects each producer differently depending on their configuration of labor hire to own workforce. And obviously when we took over the Queensland assets in particular, we obviously collapsed the labor hire component of that into our workforce. So it's not to say there's no contractors there, it's just to say that a operated services environment doesn't exist in our ownership, as it did before. And so there is an inflationary impact, generally, on converting labor hire across to our own people. And that will be evident in New South Wales, as it would be in Queensland.
So we're not quoting numbers in terms of that, but we are at the very early stage of this. Let's see how that settles across the year. We have noted, we have had a couple of forays of these negotiations have already taken place within the industry, not with particularly favorable outcomes, I have to say, from a cost perspective. So we are watching that very closely to see where that goes. We do have our own exposure in New South Wales to a collective bargaining case, which Narrabri has been drawn into. So we're watching that very closely to ensure that we can minimize any inflationary impacts from that collective bargaining claim.
Okay, thanks, and just to follow up, is there, are there any other unintended consequences of that, that you're seeing?
No, no, I wouldn't say so. No, I mean, As I mentioned before, labor availability is better. And so, and-
Yeah
and you've seen us obviously addressing some of that in Queensland already, and we'll continue to work on during the course of this year. So, but we do expect if labor is more available, then the inflationary aspects of labor should actually come down. I've called this out before, we are not seeing that yet. And although it should come in time. And we're not the only ones thinking about the efficiency of the operations in the sector. And we know there's been some changes announced from other producers in Queensland in particular. And so that should assist in the moderation of inflation, the labor component of our business. But as I say, we're just not seeing it yet.
Okay, thanks. And my second question is just on the cut a nd fill at Narrabri. Will you continue this indefinitely? I assume there's a certain price that you would stop this operation. You know, there's little doubt that it's increasing unit cost, and I would imagine it's taking focus away from the money maker, which is the longwall. It just, I'd like to know the strategic perspective. Is it due to reducing risk for take-or-pay? Just interested in your thoughts there.
I'll jump in there. So look, I mean, we've got an area at Narrabri that is approved to mine, cut and fill. It's not suitable for longwall. So we'll continue to do cut and fill while ever it's providing, I guess, a positive outcome. And I don't foresee that changing anytime in the near future. And we actually have a number of other areas or potential areas around Narrabri that could become cut and fill, and they will be part of the body of work we've got going forward. So and yes, you're correct, it does assist with the take or pay, but that's not the only driver in that, I guess, decision-making process.
And, you know, I mean, we've had it in there for a period of time, and I guess, say over the last six months, we've really started to see it hitting good, steady delivery results. So we're pleased with it, and we'll continue to keep going for the foreseeable future with cut and fill.
Okay, great. Understand if you can't take longwall in there. Makes sense. Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Your next question comes from Lachlan Shaw with UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, Paul and team. Thanks for your time. Just a quick one with Blackwater and the blasted inventory and pre-strip catch-up. Can you help us with a bit more insight around how much of the OpEx guidance is accounted there? And secondly, how long is that whole process expected to play out there?
Yeah, I'll jump into how long it's going to take. I mean, you know, we've already ramped that up and progressing, and the good aspect is the pre-strip first strips are going really well, too. So trying to keep that in advance is it, it's a good problem to have. They're chasing us, but you know, we've got the resources up there. We've got the new team. So it's probably, you know, it's going to continue to grow. To get to where we want it to be is probably at least twelve, but maybe eighteen months. And then that should stay in a sort of steady state.
Yeah. I think that's, as has been said, the performance has stepped up, and so it's sort of chasing us down. So as we've stepped up the pre-strip, the actual production has stepped up as well, so the dragline is working better. And then, but we do have. You may recall that we've taken the decision to bring a bit more capacity onto site. So the first of those large excavators is on site now and being assembled. So we have not had all enhanced stripping capacity on site yet. So that commissioning process, the build and commissioning process, will go on still for a couple of months. And then we'll have that capacity on the ground, plus the trucks to be able to get further ahead.
Yeah, nice to see us making better strides to strip more efficiently and greater volumes. But in actuality, you know, the draglines are chasing the pre-strip for that, so not a good problem to have.
And then just in terms of the cost, I mean, is the way to think about that, but that just kind of the additional cost of resetting that sort of falls back into the cost savings you might find elsewhere at the asset. Is that the right way to think about it?
I think we're always going to blast inventory. There's probably a better way that's coming, which is... I would have said the number of, like, what have we got? We've got 20-30 million meters of drilled dirt that we need to put some bottom.
Yeah. So we're targeting that, sort of that 50 million meters of shot dirt ahead of us.
Yep, and maintain that.
Okay, thanks. That's helpful. And then just quickly, second question, just on the met coal market. We're coming out of monsoon in India. We're all looking for the buyers there to come back. There's some interesting package changes going on with the steel mills there. I mean, what are your team telling you? With, you know, hard PLVs, sort of just above $200, what are you hearing from the market, and what's the view going into end of year and next year? Thanks.
Yeah, it's yeah, we'll do the same thing, obviously, with Indian buying relatively subdued at the moment. I think there's a bit of sentiment, negative sentiment, I think, generally, for the Asian market. But we are seeing inquiries out of India coming in now, so that is a change, as we expect to see. So as they emerge from this period, we see them. We want to see them getting more active in the market, and we are seeing it. So that's nice. The inbound inquiry is starting to kick up, so that gives you some comfort that then you're going to see some buying activity which will pump the market. Of course, $105, we'd like to see that, of course, but you know, we're here for the long haul.
And the focus will be to make sure that we rebase the business as well, ensure that the margins are healthy and resilient through a cycle, not just when things are good.
But I would say, Lachie, that all the-
Great. That's helpful.
All the stories that you see in Indian growth, they're real. When that place is growing six to eight and that demand is going by, it's just slowly building.
That's great. Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Your next question comes from Chen Jiang with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Paul and Kevin, congrats on the Blackwater. Production and cost questions got asked. Maybe, if I can, ... you know, have two points on the Queensland coal. It's been, I guess, 5 months since you acquired, you know, Blackwater and Daunia. I'm wondering, you know, I had a look at your management change. You had a new general manager from Blackwater and Daunia. And also, I think you made around 200 people redundant from Daunia recently. I'm wondering, is there any other, you know, is there any extra capacity or room to streamline Daunia and Blackwater? And also that AUD 100 million per annum of the cost savings, is that included in FY 2025 cost guidance already? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Chen. Yeah, look, the Queensland, the Queensland operations, you know, came as they were, and so there, there is a lot of opportunity there for improvement of the assets, and the teams on the ground are doing a very good job in that regard. Yes, we have put new leadership in at both sites. One of the sites came, the GM was there before, chose to move on to do other things, and so there was a logical replacement there. We had two excellent acting people there taking carriage of the assets until we transitioned in. But now we've got stronger teams there, and they are doing a very good job in focusing the operation.
The opportunities are significant at both sites, and the challenge here is just to make sure we prioritize, reprioritize ourselves here and focus on the big things that matter. The initiatives for sure is to start with last week, they are a beginning. There is further opportunities for streamlining and improvement going forward. You'll see us, during the course of the year, address that. To your question about AUD 100 million, that is outside the guidance, so that is in addition to. Better volume, lower cost, that's the way the guidance works, for sure, but the AUD 100 million on top of it is outside of that.
Right. Thanks. So it's outside of guidance, and that, can you implement that from April 2025, or we have to wait until you've done pre-stripping? And then, because your Queensland coal, as well as New South Wales coal, are unique cost bases in April 2025, you guided higher than April 2024. I guess for Queensland, that's due to pre-stripping, but for New South Wales, I guess you mentioned longwall movement and lower volume. I'm just wondering how, you know, the benefits coming from that beyond April 2025.
Yeah, that was a long, that was a long dissertation there, Chen. So, I think what you're looking for is. Look, we need to get, obviously, in Queensland, particularly Blackwater, to the levels of volumes of inventory that we want to be able to run those seven draglines harder. And that will result in more coal being produced. And so getting to a stable level of inventories to allow those draglines to be deployed without delay to new areas is our objective here. Daunia is very different. Daunia is all about productivity. It is an established commercial AHS operation, and so we do need to work on that.
It's not where we would like it to be, but they have made very good progress, and particularly Q4 also gave us indications of encouragement there. But both those sites will be subject to further review to reduce costs from the business. But as Ian said, the build in inventories will take well, it certainly won't be done within twelve months. It's more like eighteen months for sure. So once that is done, you should see the volume start to improve outside that period.
Sure, sure. Understand, so around 12-18 months integration and all the work. Yeah, sure, understand. May I have another follow-up just on the Queensland coal? Are you-- Is that part of your plan to change your, I guess, your marketing strategy, including the mix of how you sell the met coal product versus, versus BHP's time? Thank you.
I'm not sure what change you're referring to there, Chen. So no, we have no plans-
Sorry. Yeah, I apologize. Just like a customer base. I know you have very good relationship with the Japanese mills, but I guess India is where the incremental met coal demand are coming from. You know, I don't have details on how Blackwater or Daunia customers like versus BHP's time. I'm just wondering if you have anything under your plan to change how BHP used to operate, but from the marketing or customer or even co-mix perspective.
Yeah, I think we just need to keep these questions relatively succinct, if we could, Chen. Whatever BHP did from their market perspective is a matter for them. We have good relationships in these markets. We have established an office, a representative office in India, and so, as you rightly point out, that is significant upside from a met coal demand perspective, and we'll be continuing to leverage that. We know a lot of the players there already, having sold semi-soft and PCI into that market for many years, and we'll be continuing to focus on that. But we'll be running the marketing and logistics component of our business the way Whitehaven does it, as opposed to whatever may have happened in the past. I think we're running out of time.
We've got one more question. So can I just ask that next person to come on, ask that question? If they could be succinct, please, that would be great.
Thank you. Your final question is from Glyn Lawcock with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hey, Paul. I'll try and be succinct. So look, just quickly, talking around all your peers in Queensland, they talk about the below rail being an issue. You know, the system is running about 12% below what it did at its peak five years ago.
Yep.
Can you just maybe talk a little bit about how things are traveling for you? You had some issues in Q4, so, you know, are you comfortable that below rail can actually step up? And then just anywhere, because it's been quite above average rainfall the last few weeks. Thanks.
Yeah, thanks, Glyn. That is a good question, so, well, I'm surprised it didn't come up earlier. Daunia, as we commented before, had suffered in that first quarter of not receiving the pathways necessary to move the sales tons we would have preferred in the first quarter. Obviously, we've elevated that significantly, with the incumbent, but we've also brought in an additional provider there to help us out, provide further pathways. Since that time, we are clawing back actually some of that sort of lost ground, which has been pretty positive. This quarter is looking much, much better. Credit to all those parties, the incumbent and others involved, that is improving. You're quite right, though, that everybody's complaining about the same thing in the system itself.
Our issue was more a situational issue, where extracting Daunia out of the centrally managed BMA contract caused a bit of a glitch in the allocation of pathways in the internals of Aurizon Network. But that is being addressed, so I appreciate the change there. I think you've got to be actively managing this going forward, so we've got to be on our game here. Daunia is a relatively small piece of the puzzle in that system, and so we've got to be on our toes to make sure we're always getting our share of the pathways or our contractual share of the pathways that we're paying for. The challenge here, as you know, is the system does require maintenance, and there's a tricky balance there.
I know that the argument have been, has been in the past: if you pay us more for maintenance, we can provide more pathways. That's an unfamiliar proposition for any regulated asset. So we've just got to make sure that we're getting all the pathways that we deserve. But we are recovering ground in the quarter, which is very positive.
And I think, I mean, I'm assuming everyone understands this, but obviously that discussion is in and around Daunia.
Yep.
I mean, Blackwater and that rail train is, you know, plenty of capacity, dedicated stockpile type of range. So we don't foresee that same challenge out of Blackwater.
The joys of two railways.
And any weather impacts from the rain we've had and above average?
Oh, look, yeah, this month, you know, there's a little bit of rain in and around, but, you know, we kick off July really well, and, you know, we're not seeing any overall challenges for Q1 falling out of that. So, no.
All right, thanks very much.
Thanks, Glyn.
That concludes our question and answer session. I'll now hand back to Glyn for closing remarks.
Yeah. Thanks very much, everybody. Appreciate you taking the time. It's been a lot. I know we sent you a lot of orientation this morning, on this excellent joint venture formation opportunity and the results for the year. I know there'll be lots more questions, but we'll be seeing many of you over the course of the next week, too, but if you have any questions, you know where to find us, and we look forward to engaging you on all the aspects of what we've been asked today. Thank you.