Good morning, all. Thanks very much for taking the time to join us for the half year results for FY 2026 for Whitehaven. I'm joined here, as usual, by our CFO, Kevin Ball, and our COO, Ian Humphris, and we'll work our way through the presentation highlights as usual, and then get ourselves across to the Q&A section of today's format. Over the page, I should bring your attention to our disclaimer as usual. We do have forward-looking statements in these presentations as a matter of course, so I bring that to your attention for the obvious reasons. I'll move over to the highlights. I'll start by saying, look, the company, as you know, for those who've been following the quarters, we've had a good first half year.
We've laid down a pretty solid foundation for our first half of the year, and sets us well up for the second half. Now, I'll start with a couple of these important highlights, which we always do with safety and our compliance. Safety's been very good at a TRIFR 2.9. Now, we all know that this moves around month to month a little bit here, and we finished the year at 4.6, but at 2.9, that is an excellent result. So all kudos to the team for looking after our people and making sure we're on this pathway to minimizing instances and injuries in our business.
Now, we all know also that it's been a wet six months in various states, and so, despite that, our compliance has been very good. So we've had no enforcement action events at all during the last six months, which has been very positive for us also. So again, kudos to the team for keeping that up, despite some weather variation, particularly in Queensland, which we'll talk to a little bit later. Over to the highlights. The operational performance has been good. As you know, 20 million tonnes has been a very nice way to set up a platform for the second half of the year. Queensland at 10.3 million tonnes, New South Wales at 9.7 million tonnes, both very good results.
Equity sales at 12.8 million tonnes has been strong, so that's very positive. Lower than the first half last year, but of course, Blackwater is now 70% of our numbers on an equity basis rather than 100%. At a group level, we've averaged a price of AUD 189 per tonne, which includes AUD 212 for Queensland and AUD 168 for New South Wales. Our cost base has done very well, so at AUD 135 per tonne, as we alluded to obviously in the quarter. That is now a confirmed number, as you would expect. So we can talk a little bit about that, and the fact that we feel that there's upside in that also.
Revenue of AUD 2.5 billion, 54% metallurgical coal, 46% thermal. Thermal being a strong component of the sales mix in the first half, and we can talk a little bit further about that in a moment. The underlying EBITDA for the half at AUD 446 million was actually a pretty good result. We have recorded an underlying net loss for the period of AUD 19 million, and the statutory net profit after tax is actually AUD 69 million, and Kevin will go through a bridge that helps you work your way from one to the other shortly. We are in a good position. The balance sheet's in good shape, and the market's actually improved since Q1 and Q2 have come to a conclusion.
The board has seen fit to declare a dividend, an interim dividend of AUD 0.04, fully franked per share. We're also going to commit up to AUD 32 million of a buyback of equal value over the next six months. Now, of course, those who are doing the math will work out that when you consider on a whole of year basis, which we do when we calculate the payout ratio, given that we're seeing better market conditions in the second half, we're likely, based on where things are pointing, to be at the top, if not slightly over the payout ratio, just given the fact that we are declaring a dividend at a point when technically the policy says we don't have impact, and therefore we don't pay a dividend.
But, we're doing that based on our confidence in the balance sheet strength and also obviously the underlying market improvement that we're seeing. Now, just to go over that market, those market conditions, if I could, for a little bit, I say Queensland, average revenue AUD 212 has softened. New South Wales, softened also an average of AUD 168 for our revenues out of New South Wales. The average for PLV across the period, $192. So that's, that certainly started lower and has improved. So we did finish, at $212 for the end of the half, which is a positive sign to see. The NEWC price also did a similar sort of thing.
We've averaged $108, but it varied between $104 and $112 for the period. We have seen since the half year end an improvement on both sides of things. Now, it's not streaking ahead. We saw some, we saw some, perhaps, some frothiness as a result of weather-related activities in Queensland, so the PLV spiked up to $250 and has eased since then. These numbers are both much better than what we've seen over the last six months, so that is very positive for us. Supply, demand feels pretty good. Our customers are wanting the coal, and so there's no concerns on our side at all in terms of moving our valuable product. So it's nice to see customers taking option tonnes as well.
We'll look over onto the next page and look at the benefits of the enlarged group and the diversification of our markets and our products. It looks pretty good. 93% of our revenues is actually in Asia, and which is no surprise, I'm sure, to everybody. But you'll see a concentration of markets there in Japan, India, South Korea and Malaysia round out the top four of our revenue. But more generally, it's the right place to be from a growth of coal consumption perspective, and so we're well positioned to take advantage of that. As I said there, the metallurgical coal and thermal coal mix being 54/46 respectively.
A little bit lower on the met coal side in this six months, just because we did have some very good coal production at Narrabri, as you know. And, so that put a bit more coal into the first half for the thermal side of the equation. And, well, that will balance out in the second half. So, but it's certainly very positive and feel like we've laid a strong platform for the second half. Speaking of recurring slides, this slide, I want to move over to the underlying supply demand outlook for both the thermal and the met, with the high-quality thermal and met. No change in our position there.
This gives us confidence that we should continue to, to push forward and grow and invest, acknowledging that we do have structural shortfalls on both sides of our business. So that's a very positive, but nothing that we can see points to any change, in that dynamic at all. Moving over to operational results. These numbers I know you've all seen by virtue of the quarters that have gone before, but for those who haven't been watching as closely, as I say, we've rounded out a very good result for the year. So ROM, 20 million tonnes, 10.3 million tonnes, 10.4 million tonnes, if you look at the slide with the rounding. For Queensland, 9.7 million tonnes for New South Wales.
The sales actually, as I say, we had a change in our mix there just in this half because of strong New South Wales sales. So sales, New South Wales, 8.5 million tonnes versus Queensland, 7.8 million tonnes. So that does change the mix a little bit for you, but that explains, that explains, the 54% of met coal revenues just in this six months. As I say, the second half will see that turn around, but overall managed sales of 6.2 million tonnes is a good, good start to the year. Queensland is, as, as I mentioned there, excuse the rounding, there's ten point three as opposed to the sum of those two, which is 10.4 million tonnes. But we're very pleased with the results there. Blackwater, 7.3 million tonnes, good result, and Daunia at 3.1 million tonnes.
These are all in the context of what's been a wet start to the year. So I think, looking at those numbers, that's a solid, a solid beginning for this financial year. That's not to say New South Wales didn't have some weather either. It did. So I think that's very, very interesting, given that Narrabri has had a very good contribution to the total numbers of 9.7 million tonnes from New South Wales. Gunnedah open cuts are doing what they need to do. Maules , Maules has a higher proportion back end to the second half of the year, than we have in the first half. We're making great efforts to try and smooth that out month to month, but we do have a little bit more tonnes coming in the second half than we do in the first.
As a result, you know, we've got a little bit of a skewing there. Otherwise, we're happy with it. Cost reductions, we'll speak to as well, but we're well on track to deliver our AUD 60 million-AUD 80 million out of the business by the year end. Overall, we feel pretty confident about where we've been and how we've set ourselves up for the second half of the year. So with that, I'll hand over to Kevin, who will deal with the financial side of things.
Thanks, Paul. So I'm over on slide 15, and it's the EBITDA bridge from H1 FY 2025 to H1 FY 2026. And not surprisingly, this tells me what happened, which is really prices were soft. So a AUD 35 margin or a AUD 35 reduction in price, together with the volumes that we saw when we sold the 30% of Blackwater out of the quarter, contributes to the AUD 505 million or the AUD 552 million decrease in sales volume and price. Costs, AUD 2 a tonne, AUD 2.50, I think I rounded down to AUD 2, better. So we had a few headwinds in the costs in the first half, mainly from queuing at all the ports.
So we had a strong build of low-cost production in December, so that should come out in the second half. And they've masked the underlying improved cost performance and held the cost improvement to that couple of AUD a tonne. So in half one, 2026, we reported an underlying EBITDA of AUD 446 million, and I think what I see out of this is that calendar year 2025 was the cyclical low that we've seen in the market, and that's as Paul alluded to, an improving price scenario in the second half of FY 2026. If I take you over the page, you can see the segment result, between New South Wales and Queensland and reconciling to the group.
On a revenue basis, met coal prices were a bit softer in the half than thermal coal, so Queensland contributed AUD 1.3 billion in the half, which was 52% of overall revenues. New South Wales and thermal coal prices recovered a little earlier than the met coal prices, and so New South Wales had 48% of revenue, or AUD 1.15 billion. The half year EBITDA contribution from Queensland of AUD 248 million showed the effect of those lower coal prices, while New South Wales delivered AUD 215 million in EBITDA. In Queensland, with acquisition accounting, attributing a large, large proportion of the acquisition value of the property, plant, equipment, the depreciation charge in Queensland was AUD 147 million, while there was also AUD 36 million of amortization.
Those, the fixed depreciation costs of this low part in the coal price cycle have an outsized impact on NPAT at this point, so better prices and that impact will be lower. Underlying net finance expense of AUD 135 million, it largely reflects the interest on the AUD 1.1 billion term loan that we used to complete the acquisition of Blackwater and Daunia. But as we say, we're planning on refinancing this debt in this half. And then there's a small income tax benefit of about AUD 6 million, which you'd expect off the AUD 25 million underlying loss before tax. If I take you over the page on costs, I'm gonna say I'm pleased with the costs in the first half, given the headwinds that we had in terms of weather and ports.
I'm pleased, and I think Paul's going to talk about the AUD 60 million-AUD 80 million that's coming in cost outs, and we're across that. But at a group level, we realized an average price of AUD 189 a tonne for our sales. And those tonnes that we sold cost us AUD 135 to produce. We paid both governments an average of AUD 20. It was a bit more in Queensland and a bit less in New South Wales. But in Queensland, the low point in the cycle, that average royalty rate was about 10.6, while in New South Wales, it's around the 10% level. If I look at where we're up to in the first half, we're tracking at the bottom end of guidance, so that's a good thing.
AUD 135 million is at the bottom end of guidance between AUD 130 million and AUD 145 million. As I said before, costs in the half unfavorably impacted by higher vessel queues in all ports for a portion of the half year, and strong production levels in Q2 meant that low-cost production was held in coal stocks at 31 December. We also have a little impact here by the higher percentage of sales from New South Wales than previously, and impact marginally because we had less Blackwater tonnes in the sales mix this quarter because of the 30% sell down. So margins in the half to December were AUD 34 million, which is about half the margin we earned in half one FY 2025, but it's just consistent with the coal price environment.
Moving forward, we have a new above rail haulage contract kicking in in July, so we expect to save AUD 3 a ton around that, and we're continuing to accelerate the amortization of additional charges at NCIG to accelerate their amortization of debt, and we'll see, should see that fix itself late in this decade. Turn the page, and I'm sure everyone wants to understand how we get from an underlying net loss after tax of AUD 19 million to a statutory net profit after tax of AUD 66 million, or AUD 69 million rather. So we reported AUD 446 million of underlying EBITDA in the half, which is an improvement H2 FY 2025, which you would have seen in the previous slide.
Group D&A, AUD 336 million, outsized relative to EBITDA, but that's to be expected given the coal price period we've come through. An underlying finance expense, we've talked about AUD 135 million, and we can give you the breakup of that in some slides in the back, in the appendix to this pack, which you've got. The non-recurring items totaled AUD 88 million. The largest portion of that was, when we reset the deferred contingent expectation of what we're gonna pay BMA, as a result of the price movement. I think in there as well, there's a, AUD 34 million technical tax accounting around it. The recognition of deferred tax liability relating to expiration as part of the sell down. Sure, if you want to ask me questions about that outside of time, that would be lovely.
Net debt, I've got to say, I'm really pleased with this. We came through this, we came through this half, really well, I think. You know, the capital allocation framework really helps us in this process. If you look at us, we've spent AUD 157 million on CapEx, so we're sustaining the business. So we maintain the productive capacity of the business through the bottom of the cycle. We returned AUD 93 million to shareholders in the form of buyback and dividends, and we spent AUD 39 million on other investing, which is really a little bit around the rarest side of the world. And we finished the net debt balance at 31 December 2025 at AUD 710 million. On any view, when we turn the next page, you'll see that Whitehaven's balance sheet is particularly strong.
So we have, strong balance sheet, low levels of gearing, about 11%, a low level of leverage on a trailing basis, about 0.8 at the bottom of the cycle, which is really good. And we kept AUD 1.5 billion of liquidity to ensure that there was no doubt that we could comfortably meet our obligations. We've been saying this for a while. Since we sold down Blackwater, we've kept the cash, reserved to meet that second payment to BMA. So the AUD 500 million that's going to be paid on the second of April is sitting on deposit, and the coal price contingent payment structure, associated with that acquisition has been working as intended.
We paid AUD 9 million to BMA in July, and at the current moment, I'd say the number that we owe, calculated, is about $20 million, but it's lifting in this quarter with rising prices. Thanks. We're working to refinance our AUD 1.1 billion acquisition facility, and we're just looking to lower costs. When you look at how the company's positioned, it's a really strong, it's a really strong credit, probably one of the best coal credits around. But the finance acquisition was a piece that we put in place. Now, we want to put that in with a piece of debt that befits the quality that we have. So let me hand back to Paul for the remaining of the slides.
Thanks, Kevin. Just back to the cost side of things. Again, as Kevin was saying, and we said earlier, we, we feel confident we're going to be able to deliver our AUD 60 million-AUD 80 million in savings by year end. This just gives you a little bit of color in terms of where we're finding the opportunities within the business. Being split state to state, we think there's gonna be about 60/40, more or less, if I divide it between the two states, and that, and that slides back a little bit because all parts of the, the business have to contribute, not just the sites, but, obviously, the offices as well. And so we are finding opportunities across all areas there.
Now, just to give you a bit of color, obviously, the organizational structures of the business continue to be aligned to a Whitehaven model. So we're seeing changes there in the operating model as we drive consistency across the business between the various operations. We're seeing upside in terms of maintenance strategies across our larger assets in particular. With obviously there is a big level of mechanical intensity there, and obviously there's a lot of money being spent on maintenance. So there is, that is, fertile ground in terms of optimizing that. In New South Wales, we have been moving equipment around to make sure that it's the implement is best deployed in the space where it can be best utilized.
Tire lines and things like that, we're certainly seeing the opportunities for improvements there. Some sites, there's good transfer of knowledge between sites in terms of how we're doing well with tires on some sites and benefiting others. And of course, there's a range of contracting arrangements are being reset and adjusted as a result of the opportunity, not just with scale, but also just the parts that we've inherited, we're changing those as we go along. And so we feel that we're in good shape to be able to deliver on our commitment here for AUD 60 million-AUD 80 million by the financial year end. I'll turn over to the slide, which is entitled the Queensland five-year FOB cost estimates adjusted for inflation.
And this is really a commitment we made here, that we would go back, as you would imagine we should, in any event, which we have been doing, which is, an acquisition of this size, you know, a post-implementation review should be done, and this has been part of that. So we knew all along that the estimates we put out at the time of the acquisition, obviously, were based on the work we were capable of doing during the due diligence phase, which generally has worked well and little surprises have come out of it, so quality work was done. But inflation has done its ugly work for the business, so we've called that out. We've said that we were going to adjust it to this half year, and reset these numbers, which we are now doing. So-...
So definitely, when we've gone back and looked at purchase price indices and obviously wage inflation indices, there's about AUD 10 in that. So coming off the 120 average base, if you like, for what we gave you as the five-year averages at the time of the acquisition, you should add AUD 10 in there in terms of inflation. And then learnings and observations that we've made since, as I say, in that post-acquisition review, there are a number of observations that we can see that have changed the cost base, and I'll divide them, if I can, into temporary and then permanent matters. So I'll go through the bullet points that we've got there, but I'll firstly deal with the temporary ones.
As you all know, we are definitely working hard to reinstate a comfortable level of stripped inventory that we feel like we should have in order to run at a higher degree of operation. Now, we've been producing higher than what the mine has historically been doing in more recent years, so we are consuming the stripped overburden in advance at a higher rate. So this is going to take us a little bit longer than expected to do that. This is a high quality problem, I have to say. But until we get to that point where we're satisfied that we have an inventory of strip ground enabling the efficient deployment of draglines and obviously the elimination of downtime, where it's been parked up because the bench is not ready, we will continue to have this effect in our business.
Relatedly with that, you know, there's a higher degree of rehandle that goes with the dragline fleet, while we're in that situation. So that is a feature which we'll have for a little while yet to go. Look, the other thing we've observed, and this is just part of experience now, we've certainly observed a backlog of maintenance that's needed to be done. And so, the major shutdowns for the big implements, you know, so the draglines and shovels in particular at Daunia at Blackwater, have certainly featured and it's important work and obviously not work you can do with any great detail. You can review the records and so on, shutdowns and things in the DD phase, but we found that we needed to put some more money into that.
And there are other examples of that. The crest wall, say, for instance, we had to do quite a bit of work on them to ensure that utilization has improved. It has improved dramatically, which is very good, but that has required some work to get that fleet into the right shape and fit for purpose. The AHS isn't—we had assumed a better level of productivity from AHS at the time of the acquisition. It's not there yet, and so we are working with CAT on that, and we are pushing hard to ensure that we can get to a level of satisfaction with the productivity across the autonomous fleet that we think it should be. Now, the summary of those ones, those four features I've just mentioned, they're the temporary ones.
Couple of which are permanent in nature. The Same Job, Same Pay, that is definitely an adjustment. That was obviously occurring at the time of the acquisition, and so we weren't able to size that. Now we have, we have embedded that in our business now. Sadly, the cost of labor is going up as a result of all that, as everybody well knows. So that is influential in our cost base, as is the higher level of demurrage, in particular, out of Daunia, but, but certainly Blackwater as well. The Queensland logistics chain does not work with the efficiency that we're accustomed to in New South Wales. I'm sure no one will ask me here to say that if you're a Queenslander, but that is, that is a fact. And so the assumptions on demurrage have been adjusted accordingly.
Now, the cost base of AUD 135 that we've talked about, very happy with that. Even given, as Kevin mentioned, the delays in ports and shipping in logistics in Queensland in particular, that AUD 135 does include a couple of extra bucks there just for those influences, which should unwind. That part of it should unwind, but the reality is demurrage is going to be higher than, than we budgeted for, in Queensland. So those are the two permanent ones I want to call out. The four preceding were temporary in nature and will be alleviated as we continue to drive. So as a result of all of that, we're now giving you a range, a reset that range, 2024-2028. Obviously, there's only a few more years left in this, of AUD 140-AUD 145.
Now, we've been doing well on costs out, as everybody understands, with the business since we've acquired it, and we're only six or seven weeks away from crossing the second anniversary. So I feel like we're, we're making really good progress there, and, and we get ourselves down to AUD 140 in this, in this period. I think that would be an excellent, an excellent outcome. That's not to say we, we stop trying, because, as I say, the first four aspects of that I've mentioned were, are temporary. We'd consider those to be temporary in nature, and so we'll continue to push and drive greater productivity and, and lower costs as a result. Now over to the capital allocation framework. Nothing new there for you in, encompassed in this.
So this has served us well, and we feel confident that even in this instance, so again, if you were to apply this framework slavishly, then we wouldn't be paying a dividend because we have an underlying net loss, minor as it is, it is one. However, reflecting the balance sheet strength that we have and the improving market environment that we're experiencing, we feel confident that to recommend it to our board, that we pay a modest dividend, and the board has accepted that proposition and declared AUD 0.04, as we mentioned earlier.
So AUD 0.04 , fully franked, is a modest dividend reflective of the fact that we've come through the bottom of the cycle, but paying a dividend through a period that represents the outcomes from the bottom of the cycle, I think is a very good outcome. And of course, we're aligning that with an equal sum of our buyback over the next six months, up to AUD 32 million, with a total of AUD 64 million in dividends and buybacks out of the first six months, which again, I think is a solid result. Over to guidance. Look, you can see we're tracking well in our guidance, certainly the ROM targets to do 20 in the first half. The upper end of our group guidance there, obviously at the managed level, is AUD 41 million....
You know, we would, we would dearly like to make sure we can, we can get close to that, if not surpass it. So, we feel like we're in good, we're in good shape. The challenge here, of course, is of course, weather, and, that's the major caveat. But otherwise, we feel we're in, in decent shape. The last quarter, you saw a run rate of about 11 million tonnes in the quarter. We're carrying that momentum into the new quarter. So it's nice to see things, moving along, which is, which is very positive. The costs, as I mentioned earlier, and as Kevin spoke about, you know, we've, we've seen good progress on the cost side of things.
135 out of a half that was weather affected and had some extra costs, you know, I think is really good. We can see month-to-month, when we're doing the sales volumes that and production volumes that we expect, we can see the upside associated with that. So we feel positive that we can drive our costs down to the lower end of the range if we hit that top, that top end of the run production. So we feel pretty good about that. CapEx, as is our way, we're spending a little bit less than the range we've given you, so at AUD 157 million for the six months.
I'm sure there will be a little bit of extra capital come out in the second six months as people want to finish up projects and so on, but we're tracking obviously to the bottom of that range. And so, again, that is reflecting a bit of history, I suppose. But the conservatism that we brought into, into our guides will continue to apply. But overall, no change to our guidance. And moreover, we're, we're tracking to the right end of the top end, and we're tracking to the lower end on costs, which is, which is very positive. But overall, good solid six months, and we're looking forward to the second half. So I think we're, we're in decent shape. So with that, I might hand back to the operator, and we can get some questions going.
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 are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Dan Roden with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for coming in, and thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to probably kick it off with the potential refi of the AUD 1.1 billion term loan. Can you remind us what the timeline is with the non-call approaching? And I guess, you know, do you have any revised expectations around, you know, the 10.5% in the current period? What cost do you think is or what rate do you think is realistic, kind of, when you are looking at refining that, and what gating items for lenders would you expect are, I guess, the considered important factors?
That ball is pointed at me, Dan, so I'm the guy who gets to answer that one. We're well down this path, and we've been working on this for probably 6 or 8 months, to be honest with you, in anticipation of the first call period, which is about the twelfth of March. Expectations are we'll refinance this out before 30 June. And I think I said on the last call that if it had a 7 handle in front of it, I'd probably be okay. If it had a 6 handle in front of it, I'd be delighted. And I don't think my expectations have changed. Markets are improving.
The ESG, the benefit in Whitehaven Coal of having half the business in met coal or over half the business in met coal, is really helpful when it comes to this financing. And the structure of the financing lends itself to using those assets for that security and providing those funding. So Dan, my expectation, I've said, if it starts with a six, I'll be delighted. If it has a seven, I'll probably be disappointed, but that's still, you know, 300 basis points cheaper than what we're currently paying on 1.1, which is $30 million-$40 million in savings. So that's the program.
Yep. Yep, no, definitely. And maybe a quick follow-up. Like, it's, I guess if you, you know... Are you seeing the markets are supportive around those rates at the moment? Like, you're obviously confident you can get something closer to that. But, you know, if you aren't getting something closer to that, how do you think about, I guess, paying down debt in terms of the capital management framework? Do you pay down debt more aggressively if the, I guess, rate's higher, or if you don't aren't able to refi the debt, like in half to when you are restructuring well?
I think I'd answer that question by saying this: I mean, in the back of the capital allocation framework, you'll see that we're talking about a double-B plus rating. We're an organization that's had conservative credit metrics. In fact, the credit metrics we run are typically you'd classify them as investment grade. So we really are at the top end. We're at the top end of the high yield piece, or we're at the bottom end of the investment grade piece. And if you talk to your debt guys, they'll tell you what that rate should be, even with a coal premium attached to it. I wouldn't...
I'm not really in the conversation at the moment about entertaining a discussion around not being successful in that, because I don't think that's helpful. And I don't think it's realistic either, to be honest with you. We've had a number, several, many inbound inquiries about helping out the financing, and it feels like that ESG overlay that existed maybe four or five years ago is abating. It hasn't disappeared, but it's less than it previously was.
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, mate. And, I might just ask on, I guess, the unit cost guidance as well, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of follow-ups on this. So I might just. I'll keep to my 2 questions and hand it over. But just with the, you know, you've kind of outlined the AUD 24-AUD 28 cost guidance, you know, at AUD 10-AUD 15 on top of that, that's the new expectation. But just trying to unpack, like you mentioned the kind of rate that we've had at the moment from the Queensland assets is around AUD 140. You know, some of the historical costs there kind of become a bit obfuscated just in terms of the reporting structure.
So I just wanted to, like, very clearly articulate, like, what the expectation is on those Queensland assets? ... over, like, I guess into the H2 2026, and then, you know, 2027, 2028. Like, what cost rate are you, like, expecting in the Queensland assets?
Yeah, thanks, Dan. Yeah, look, what we are obviously highlighting today is the resetting of those five-year averages based on what we can see the inflation. So what we are saying for those Queensland assets is an average of AUD 140-AUD 145. That is what we explicitly are saying. And so, that obviously... And you can do the math in terms of how our numbers have been looking for the first almost two years of our operations. Obviously, there's no surprise. You can get our segment note, and you can pull that apart. And so you can see that there's still cost upside in this business.
Based on the things that we've highlighted that we feel are temporary, that are keeping it a little higher than where it should be, we think we can, we can continue to pressure this down. So, yeah, say, for instance, you get to the bottom end of that range at AUD 140, I think that's, that's a very good outcome in this, in this context, given the inflationary impacts that we've seen. And so the problem with this is that inflationary impacts can, can abate. They don't. You never get that cost out of your business from the labor perspective in the first instance. So you can. You do see inflation rise and fall on services, for sure.
But once baked into your cost base, from the labor side of things, and, in addition to, Same Job, Same Pay, you're never gonna get rid of that. And so that, that is a problem and, and something that we need to work on from a productivity perspective. But yeah, explicitly, that's what we're saying, AUD 140-AUD 145 for Queensland. I think that's, that, that is just reflective of the reality that we've inherited. As I say, I've tried to divide that up into, temporary impacts versus ones that are baked in. And hopefully that's, that's useful for you all in terms of, your calculations of- for Queensland assets.
Yeah, yeah. And then I, I was more trying to get a trajectory on that. You know, you, you obviously talked about the strip ratio and how the AHS impacts were transitory. I guess, kind of coming out, maybe, maybe asking a different way, when you come out of that guidance range, would you be expecting the costs are higher or lower than that AUD 140-AUD 145 range?
Dan, you're gonna have to hand this over to someone, but just to answer your question here, we're not giving guidance past that point, and so we'll deal with that on an annual basis once we're outside this acquisition, the room, the remnants of this acquisition, data that we gave you two years ago.
Yeah. No, I handed over. Cheers, guys.
Thanks, Dan.
Your next question is from Chen Jiang with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Morning, Paul and Kevin. Thank you for taking my question. Maybe first question to Kevin about your buyback. So your original buyback program of AUD 72 million, you only have AUD 4 million buyback left from that original program announced. And today you announced AUD 32 million buyback to match with the interim dividends. So is that fair to say, actually, you added incremental buyback of AUD 28 million in addition to your original AUD 72 million? Thank you.
Chen, this has been a pain for a number of years. It's just the way in which the legislation comes. So what we've done now is we've said each half, we'll tell you what the buyback is, up to, what that amount is going to be, and then we will close the buyback from the previous. So you should think that AUD 72 million is dead, never to come back alive again, and the AUD 48 million is never to come back alive again, and then the AUD 32 million will be the buyback for the next six months up to that number. And we're just trying to make this a lot easier for people to work their way in, in working in their models.
Okay. So every six months you will have some sort of number?
Yeah, that's right.
Okay.
And the problem is the regulator gets a bit confused about this. So-
Okay.
So that's why we've had to close a buyback, the previous chapter of buyback, and open a new one. So that's what we're gonna have to do in order to assist people in avoiding confusion as to, is there some trail that was unexpended during that period? Is that gonna be added to this? Unfortunately, just the way the regulation works, it's neat, just close it off and then announce the next one. Then at the end of that period, you'll have to say whether we did or didn't expend it all, but you'll close that one and then open a new one.
Sure. That's very clear. I mean, your previous buyback of that AUD 72 million is almost completed. So anyway, thank you for that.
Yeah, we got close.
And then 94% completed. And then if I can have a follow-up on the cost, please. Understand it's an average of the five years, but looking at FY 2024, FY 2025, even FY 2026, I guess, those Queensland costs much higher, right? So it's like AUD 147 or AUD 145. So take an average, how should we think about this? I mean, is that like a FY 2027, FY 2028 should be averaged down to get that AUD 140, AUD 140... Or the way to think is, FY 2027, FY 2028 should be the range of AUD 140-AUD 145. Thank you.
Yeah. Look, I think, Chen, as you would have expected with the first range we gave you and now with the reset, you know, the higher cost period is the early years as we're getting our hands around things, and then you would expect us to continue to improve through that 5-year period. So obviously, we're a couple of years in now, so we've got essentially 3 more to get within this range, and we feel confident we can do that. But yeah, I would imagine the end, so the FY 2028 period is going to be the cheaper, if I can say, the lower cost period, and obviously first year of our operation being the highest. So, the same philosophy applies to this new range that we've given you.
... So averaging, kind of averaging down from the five-year average.
It will, yeah, more expensive in the early years, cheaper in the later years, for sure.
That's very clear. Thank you so much, Paul. I will pass it on. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Paul Young with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, Paul and Kevin. First question again on the, on these Queensland medium-term costs. You know, there's really no real surprise here, I guess, from an inflation standpoint. And also, you know, the operations are doing well, but not as well as you expected, you know, at the time of acquisition. But one thing you haven't mentioned here is actually, you know, it's all about moving dirt, and coal, and actually what the production assumptions are. So if you go back to the time of acquisition, I think you were, you know, forecasting that Blackwater would get to around 15 million tonnes of ROM on a 100% basis, and I think Daunia are at six million tonnes.
Yeah.
Are you still, do you still think that's achievable? Or... And then, by the way, the Street doesn't have it, those numbers, Paul, so the Street's shy of that. So just curious around the volumes, because ultimately, unit costs are just a function of, you know, obviously production.
Yeah, yeah, that's... It's a good point, Paul. Thank you. Yeah. The reason why we didn't change it, because we actually feel good about the physical side of things, and we've been saying that along the way. We're making good progress. The numbers you've just recounted, we feel good about those numbers, so we've got a couple of years to get to it. You know, Daunia has been doing well and is approaching those numbers, as you can see already, so that's very nice. Blackwater obviously is a bigger ship and requires a little bit more time to allow the benefits of the initiatives we've put in place to turn around, but the physical side of things we actually haven't been concerned about.
It's just, once we bought it, of course, we were able to lift the hood and look in a more detailed fashion. We can see the temporary things that we've got to deal with. So we feel positive about that. We're not disappointed about it. Obviously, the revenue assumptions that we used to justify the acquisition were obviously much less than the prices even you're seeing today. And so from a valuation perspective, we feel very good about the acquisition and what it's been able to do for our shareholders. But overall, the physical we feel good about, and we're just gonna continue to drive these costs down.
Yep, understood. No, that makes sense. And then moving to New South Wales, and can I ask about Vickery again? I mean, you talk about structural deficits and thermal coal. You know, Vickery has been, you know, I guess, shovel-ready, or I know you guys are still working through the capital estimates, and so if you can remind me where you're at with that, but also just on the formal process, have you-- is there a formal process? You know, I know you've had open and it's closed previously, but where are you at with that? And then also, with the new rail contract, does it make room for the larger Vickery project?
Yeah. Okay, look, Vickery first. Vickery is fully approved, just to remind everybody, fully approved. The only official parts that are remaining of that is obviously FID, and so that's obviously manageable internally, completely. So the board is... You know, given that we've just come through the bottom of the cycle, we're not, we're not minded to address that in the next 6-12 months. But we are doing lots of work in the background on funding for Vickery. So that's important to us because lots of people have expressed interest in us bringing that forward. And we said to them, "Fine, we're not gonna take all the risk. You've got to help us with it if you want the coal." Which I think is the right thing, posture for us to take.
So we've had interesting inbound inquiries on the sales side. We've had interesting inbound inquiries on the infrastructure side, people wanting to help us build and operate that. So I think that's really... That'll be real. The next 6-12 months will actually be really interesting to see how we can bottom all that and obviously minimize the funding ask from the cash flows of the business. So that all looks pretty good. The rail contract is a really interesting reset. I mean, that obviously was a product of a 10-year contract, and you only get that opportunity once to come along every 10 years, so we've taken it. The AUD 3 we've mentioned to you per ton is actually on the New South Wales business.
So on a group basis, that's AUD 1.50 off the cost base from 1 July onwards, just to be clear. So that's very, very positive and in fact, we've actually started the process in Queensland as well, because there is a renewal up there in another 18 months' time, more or less. So interested to see where that goes. But the question on Vickery, it does cater for... We've got upside potential for the tonnes. Now, we haven't contracted those tonnes, so just to be clear, we've gone from being long above rail to matched, if not slightly short, with surge capacity attached to it. So we've flipped this on its head nicely, so we're not carrying any extra cost in the business for above rail.
We have upside opportunity with both the haulage providers that are in place there to be able to add the Vickery tonnes as required.
Yeah, okay. Well, that's, that's good. Thanks, Paul. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Your next question is from Rob Stein with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Paul and team, first one on the dividends. The full cents per share, does that... That obviously heavily borrows from what you're expecting to pay in next half. How should we think about the decision around the next half, in terms of your capital allocation framework and sticking to that payout ratio? Are we still to expect that payout ratio to apply, i.e., we can deduct the next half's dividend, you know, our expectations versus this half?
Yeah, Rob, look, we don't feel like we're borrowing from the next half. The balance sheet's in really good shape, so we feel like the capacity exists already from what we've been able to do. Now, the fact, if we're just purely following the calculation basis in our framework, because we're paying a dividend at a period when we record a loss, then reasonable expectations would say, based on even pricing today, that you're gonna generate significantly more cash today than, and through this next six months than we have in the first half.
So, now, all things being equal, there will be obviously this discussion in six months' time about the divvy, and there'll be a reasonable divvy, and most permutations that we've looked at says that you're probably going to be over the, you know, the 60% of impact level, simply by virtue of the fact that you paid a divvy in the first half when there was no impact. That's just a calculation outcome. But we're not taking now from what we think should be, you know, we're expecting to derive from operations in the second half. The approach is obviously if they, even in, even as if we were seeing them soften a little bit off their AUD 250 down to the AUD 220s, March is about AUD 220-AUD 225, I think in terms of looking at the outlook.
Those numbers are much better than what we've experienced over the first six months. So cash generation has been good. We've seen good production, you know, in December. We've seen that good production follow the momentum into January. You know, cash generation has been solid, so it's very good to see, and we feel like we'll be able to continue to make a second half decision around dividends, you know, when the time comes.
Okay. So consider it more as, for want of a better word, a special allocation rather than a shifting in time period allocation. You're gonna take an independent decision in the second half?
No, we don't consider it special at all, Rob.
Okay.
That's not, that's not a characterization we would give it either. You know, obviously, the framework we set up, we want to be paying dividends through the cycle. The fact that we actually can, after we've just experienced the bottom of the cycle, I think is, is excellent. So I don't consider it special.
Yeah.
But the payout ratio is calculated on a whole of year basis, just to be clear.
Cool. Okay, and then just on the, you know, probably the key topic of today, the Queensland cost guidance. Just to try to get a bit of a feeling for FX impacts on that cost guidance, if FX were to hang at current levels or potentially even strengthen, what - how should we think about the cost sensitivity of this number to that?
Yeah, look, not much. Not much, I would have to say, because by and large, there are a couple of exceptions, as you can imagine. By and large, we're an Aussie dollar cost-based business, and so currency affects the revenue line, it affects our interest costs to a degree, it affects the coal price itself, you know, and oil, but that's it. The rest of it is Aussie dollar based.
Perfect. Thank you.
Your next question is from Lyndon Fagan with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Paul, obviously a lot of focus on the Queensland cost, but wondering if you're willing to share a medium-term outlook for the New South Wales business. I mean, there's a number in the mid-120s around the ballpark.
Thanks, Lyndon. Someone was bound to ask that, wasn't it? It was always gonna happen. But, look, I think we all understand the history, why we, why we had these five-year averages for the acquisition. It's just because you, you've never seen these assets before, because they are, they're obviously consolidated within the broader BMA unit, and no one got to see them. So we needed to give you something, so you could... Something that you could use, so we did that. You know, once we're outside of this five-year period in those averages, we plan to go back to the normal guidance setting arrangements that we have, which New South Wales is indicative of. And so, so no, we, we won't be doing that. But New South Wales has done very well.
I thought you were gonna go and point to another area, so you didn't, so I'll do it myself. You know, the costs, the costs in New South Wales have been good, you know, and production, when, when you have Narrabri spinning out lots of tonnes, everybody knows Narrabri is our cheapest tonnes. And so when Narrabri production is good, the average costs do well. And so we feel pretty good about that, and, and production continues to go well there. And we are, we are re-reviewing our costs in New South Wales as we have been in Queensland, and we are finding savings there as well, and that's outside the resetting of the above rail haulage contract we just referred to. So that is positive.
And if you don't mind, I'll just step in and say, I think if you look at the New South Wales business, you've got a pretty strong contribution from Narrabri. You've got an underweighted contribution from Maules Creek relative to the year, and you've got a pretty strong contribution from the Gunnedah open cuts, who are performing well, but they're probably our highest cost operations. So there's a few moving parts in how you assemble the New South Wales costs. And if you look forward over time, to that earlier question about Vickery, Vickery, in its bigger form, will help drive costs down in the business. So it's a bit difficult to give you that conversation. I think you need to almost deconstruct it and then reconstruct it based on volumes that contribute.
No worries. I suspected I wasn't really gonna get an answer, but thanks anyway.
Good discussion.
I just thought I'd ask about the met coal outlook. We've obviously lost a little bit on the hard coking coal price, and I'm just wondering whether... how you're feeling about the sort of current market tightness and near-term outlook?
Yeah, look, the market's, the market, the underlying market has been pretty good, and when I say underlying, our, our interaction with customers. The demand has been good, people chasing our coal, which is nice. Obviously, prices took a, took a bit of a leap there based on concerns around weather and so on, and supply-side constraints. You know, we, we understand in the Bowen Basin, there's still people dealing with a lot of water in their pits. And so whilst we have water too, we did manage ourselves very well through that rain. And so, so we're not seeing negative impact, negative impacts as a result of that, that are material to our, our, our guidance for the year. So we're, we're in good shape. But there is some supply-side constraint in Queensland.
Now, there have been a few. There's been obviously with a few more tonnes coming onto the market as a result of a couple of mines, the underground mines, Centurion just restarted. So I think that a little bit of excitement around that has tempered the price outlook for March and April, say, for instance, if we're gonna see some tonnes start to emerge from these restarted operations. So I think that sort of weighed on that a little bit. So I think, you know, the spot's down to what? AUD 240 or somewhere around there. March is around AUD 220-AUD 225, somewhere in that region. So but these are the much better numbers than where we've obviously been for the last six months, so we welcome all of it.
But the underlying conversation with our customers, they want more tonnes, so we're keen to try and satisfy those needs.
Thanks.
Your next question is from Lachlan Shaw with UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning, Paul, Kevin, and team. Thanks for taking my two questions. First one, just on the Queensland costs we've covered at length. I wanted to just unpack a little bit, though. So you have used language, extended period of higher dragline rehandle. Is that, you know, to the end of FY 2028? And I suppose part of that then is from FY 2028, you know, is there more, do you think, that you can kind of pull out of these assets here? Or is the FY 2028 baseline to get your five-year average to AUD 140-AUD 145, is that FY 2028 endpoint, then the appropriate sort of jump-off point beyond that? And I'll come back with my second. Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Lachlan. The challenge there for us is that, as you know, we've put more capacity into the pre-strip fleet to try and make up this ground, and that's been going well. But, you know, now you've got the draglines chasing down the pre-strip fleet. So that is, that's, again, a good quality problem, but it is going to take longer to get ourselves... As we increase production, which we have been, the inventory also needs to increase. And so that's just the slightly circular dynamic we find ourselves in. So yes, I think for another couple of years, we're going to be doing that. And so that brings us into the end of this outlook period. But that's taken into account-
Okay. Thank you.
The costs we've been. Yeah.
Yep. Yep. Okay. And so, the inference is then FY 2028 is sort of the appropriate kind of jumping off point beyond that, or, or, or is there more, do you think that... And do you have to look out that far and think, "Okay, well, what more can we do?
No, I think that you should take that as a jumping-off point, because, you know, if we want to expand materially further post then, we'll tell you. You know, it's really just about volume. We obviously want. As I said earlier, we feel good about the physical volumes in terms of five-year outlook, so if we want to go bigger than that, that will require some capital, and that'll be a different conversation we'll have with you at the time.
Great. That, that's helpful. Thank you. And then my second question: so, so just wanted to talk to met, met coal pricing and realizations. I, I guess, just interested in your perspectives at the moment. We're seeing a bit of disruption, in the U.S. met coal market in terms of High-Vo l A, High-V ol B, you know, widening to, to mid- vol, hard coking coal. And then obviously there's been, sort of, I suppose, soft recent Mid-V ol, prices out of Queensland, too. What are you seeing in terms of the different markets across the met coal, quality fraction? And how do you sort of anticipate that to impact realizations for you guys going forward? Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. What, what we're seeing at the moment... Look, we, we, we all observe the ups and downs of, of, of the market. We, we, we see what you've just described. Obviously, we're generally playing in, in the low to mid-v ol space, if I can use the U.S. vernacular. But generally, our products are all Low- Vol, other than the ones out of New South Wales, if we're talking about Semi- Soft out of Maules or Tara. The annoying part for us really is just, trying to drag up realizations for the lower two products, if I can call them the secondary products, the Semi- Soft and the, and the PCI. The relativities of PLV to low-v ol, I think that's okay.
But we would like to see improvements, and we're pushing our negotiations hard to improve the realizations for our Semi-S oft, say, for instance, that's really important to Blackwater. And so pushing that hard in the market where steel makers are struggling a bit, that's not easy. That's not an easy conversation. But, you know, the fact that we've got a couple of important steel makers in our tent now, that helps them understand, obviously, the economics of the project itself. But then again, they've got the tricky balance of the external market that they face for their product. So of all the things, I'd like to see a bit more of improvement in those realizations. That'd be my question.
All right. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Glyn Lawcock with Barrenjoey. Please proceed.
Morning, Paul. I'm gonna try and ask Queensland costs in another way. So if I heard you correctly, you wanna jump off in 2028 at AUD 140, and that is a real number in December 2025 dollars. So you've, you've given us today AUD 10 inflation over the last two and a half years. Your jump-off point is two and a half years from now. Do you think we should be thinking about another AUD 10 inflation adjustment over the next two and a half years?
Yeah.
Just, what's your sense inflation? So do we actually jump off in June 2028 at-
Yeah.
AUD 150, adjusted for inflation?
Yeah, that's a really good question, Glyn. You know, we haven't assumed in our calculations that we would go through a similar period of inflation. Now, obviously, that's a very topical question, you know, on a macroeconomic sort of level or political level in this country at the moment. We're not seeing inflation. I don't think we should assume the same, is my bottom line here. The labor inflation, the labor inflation that we've seen over the last two years has been quite extraordinary. Now, I don't expect that's going to continue at the same way.
Our EA negotiations that we've, that we're undertaking at the moment are reflective of a more, a more, realistic market where, you know, the industry is struggling a little bit, and some players are really struggling, and so job losses have occurred. And so that's, that inflation, at least at the EA level, is better. Now, having said that, our own personal or, company specific experience during that period was also, affected by the fact that we've just grown. We've just doubled, and people's jobs, you know, had grown as well. So, the amount of out-of-cycle remuneration changes that, that we saw during that period, isn't, isn't indicative of where we're gonna go going forward, and so that's, that's settled down. But...
Generally on the supplier side, so on the PPI side of things, that, that has moderated slightly. So I don't think we should be assuming the same replication of the same period over the last 2.5 years. I don't think we should. Yeah, [crosstalk] .
Yeah, and I saw the federal government just made our health covers going up 4%+, so I don't think that matches inflation, but that's another discussion.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
But if I even take 2.5% inflation, right? I mean, that's AUD 3.50 a year. I mean, that's 2.5 years. That means I'm up for about AUD 8 a ton increase, just at an average 2.5% inflation rate.
Yeah, if you did... I understand the math. If you did nothing else, then that would, that's that math. Yeah. Makes sense.
Yeah, I guess I'm just trying to understand, can you-
Yeah.
Can you fight inflation on top of everything else you're fighting, just to get down to the AUD 140 that the non-permanent issues-
Yeah.
you're dealing with?
Yeah, that's right.
I'm saying that gets you down to AUD 140.
That's right.
But now I'm just wondering if you've got other levers to combat inflation. I get your point, but yeah.
That's why I called out the temporary components of it, 'cause those are the areas where we really can work. Same Job, Same Pay, labor cost. You know, the only way to deal with labor cost is to have less labor, right? And so that's a challenge. We need a certain amount of people to man all the equipment we've got, and of course, we need to use it more productively. And we're striving to do that. But those, the four areas we mentioned are ones we're working on because we certainly believe that we can alleviate some of the pressure we've seen on that in recent times. But you know, it's a constant battle with inflation, you know?
Yeah, sure. And then just on the balance sheet, I mean, you call out net debt, AUD 700 million, but that's gonna double on the second of April when you pay your next installment to BMA. Are you still comfortable with, like, AUD 1.4 billion in net debt, which will jump up to next time you report?
I don't expect it'll jump to AUD 1.4 billion next time I report.
Yeah.
I think what you're missing in that conversation-
Well-
is what's the cash that gets generated between now and 30 June?
Mm-hmm.
So by the time you-
No, I-
No, let me finish. By the time you do that, I think where you get to is probably off an EBITDA number that I think Visible Alpha has about AUD 1.3 or AUD 1.4, Kylie. Around there, then I think you're probably again 0.8, 0.8-ish sort of leverage would be sort of where I expect it's gonna fall. And those metrics, Glenn, you know, those. As I said, yeah, what I wanna draw out is really when we talk about our capital allocation framework, it's a business that has operates on investment-grade credit metrics, perhaps not yet at the scale needed to be investment grade, but has those, has those metrics in it and is firmly, you know, in the high end of the semi-investment grade debt.
So from a business, we don't want to run a business that's completely unlevered. That's not the intention. And so we think we've got a pretty capital allocation framework that drives a pretty prudent, conservative level of leverage and level of gearing in the business. And, yeah.
Yeah, sorry, I should have said pro forma as if you pay it today. But no, you're right, you will generate a fair bit of cash if prices stay where they are by 30 June. So no worries, but I'm happy to hear you explain how you're happy to run with a bit of leverage. Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question is from Chris Creech with Morgans. Please go ahead.
Hi, Paul and team. Thanks for your time this morning. Just two quick questions for you, if you wouldn't mind. Paul, you spoke before about potential expansion of Blackwater sort of into the future, but I see that the sort of Blackwater Northwest Extension project was withdrawn in November last year. I know that sort of BMA submitted that. So is it more about me sort of wanting to optimize how you proceed with Blackwater? Or was there something else that sort of drove that withdrawal of that sort of project?
I'll try and answer that as best I can, Chris. Look, we've got, you know, that site can grow substantially. We are in the approvals process for the expansion of the northern area of Blackwater. So, but don't forget, there was actually an approval request put in place for a broader expansion to the south. And that obviously covered what we call Blackwater South. And there's obviously a significant area there which has, you know, anywhere between 50 and 100 years of coal still in that southern region. So we have two areas, if you like, in terms of what we can do for incremental expansion over and above the improvement in the existing footprint of operational pits.
So the northern area, as I say, that's currently on foot with our approvals processes. The southern area, BHP did lodge an application there, and we're looking at that very closely in terms of what we think is the Whitehaven version of that same future. The expansion I was referring to isn't actually about either of those. It's just actually about us thinking we can get more tonnes out of the existing footprint that's operational today. And so there's plenty of ground which is open at Blackwater, which has been left at different times in history when prices were low. Now, those prices obviously bear no resemblance to even the low prices today. And so a lot of those areas are capable of going back in, you know, relatively quickly to get back in and get extra tonnes.
Our view is we can get more out of what we've got even before we consider that northern approvals process, opportunity or obviously a whole approval, whole process approval submission for the southern areas of Blackwater South.
Yeah, gotcha. Awesome. Thank you for that. Just a second one, and not to sort of flog a horse, so to speak, but I did ask you after the first quarter results about Daunia and AHS performance.
Yeah.
And you say that it's still obviously that performance, sort of difference between where you want, where sort of manned would otherwise be. Is it still tracking sort of where you want it, or does there sort of come a time where you sort of... like what, what you guys did at Maules, where you sort of, move it back to a fully manned operation to sort of achieve that sort of cost guidance that you guys have set?
Yeah, Ian's been waiting very patiently for a question to, to come his way. So, so look, it's not where we want it to be. We assumed it would go better. It's not bad. Don't get me that - I, I'm not saying that. It's just, it's just that we think it, it should do better. And we obviously had that experience as you just described at Maules Creek, so we know what the benefit is of going back to manned with the system. Now, in fairness to Hitachi, that wasn't a commercial system. This one is. And so that was still a development project at Maules Creek. This one is, you know, by all accounts, a commercialized system. And but we can - we're, because of our history, we're able to very quickly benchmark what the difference is between humans and not.
We can see that this is not there yet. So the quick, the key question is, how quickly can we get to where we're satisfied that we're doing, you know, the right thing for our shareholders, which is, you know, obviously the most, the lowest cost, highest, most productive iteration of Daunia we could possibly imagine. Ian?
Yeah, I love it when my boss covers everything and hands it over. But, look, over and above, over and above that, look, we're engaged with Caterpillar at all levels through our organizations to improve it. I mean, as Paul said, you know, we have seen improvement, and but there is more to go there, so we're working on them. And, you know, I think we've got to be careful to differentiate Maules Creek and the Cat system at Daunia. I mean, even if we went 100% at Maules Creek, the whole site was not an autonomous site. And I guess that interface, and the difficulties around that, and then for those that are familiar with Maules Creek, it's an extremely highly intensive mine with a whole lot of interaction.
So, I guess our decision, I guess the maturity of that system, the fact it was never gonna be 100% AH mine site, even if we sort of ramped up to what we called 100% AH, and, and that interaction is the why we made the call, that we never thought it would work at Maules Creek and be as efficient as a manned operation.
No, that's all. Thank you, you two.
Your next question is a follow-up from Rob Stein with Macquarie. Please proceed.
Thanks for the follow-up. Just to try to extract Glyn's question a bit further. So, you know, there's inflation, which we can forecast, macroeconomic-driven, U.S., et cetera, and then there's escalation, which is industry specific, regionally specific, labor costs, construction costs, et cetera. Does the 140-145 target have inflation? Is it inflation adjusted but not escalation adjusted out past 2026, 2027, 2028?
Yeah, it's inflation adjusted, but we're not passed on escalations, no. We've not changed any escalation. Just standard inflation.
Okay. Thank you.
We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Flynn for closing remarks.
Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to listen in today and the questions that you've asked. If there's any further questions, you know where to find us. We look forward to seeing many of you obviously in the follow-up post this presentation. Thanks very much for your attendance once again.