Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the K92 Mining Q2 2021 Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions.
To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Medilek, Vice President of Business Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and thanks everyone for attending K92 Mining Q2 2021 Conference Call. We hope you and your families are doing well. In addition to myself, we have on the line John Lewins, Chief Executive Officer and Director, and Justin Blanchet, Chief Financial Officer. I would also like to remind everyone that after the remarks from management, the call will be followed by a Q&A session.
We will be making forward-looking statements during the call, please refer to the cautionary notes and risk disclosure in our MD&A and slide two of the webcast presentation. Please bear in mind that all dollar amounts mentioned in the conference call are in United States dollars unless otherwise noted. I'll turn it over to John to provide you with an overview.
Well, thanks, David, and welcome everyone. I'm actually pleased to be joining you today from our Kainantu Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea, where I'm witnessing, I think firsthand, the impressive progress that we've made on site, over the last quarter and the last six months in fact and really.
I think there's many exciting areas where we're progressing, and that includes opening up another sub-level in Judd, ramping up the mine process plant, advancement of the twin inclines drilling at Kora, which now includes Kora South, and moving into a new phase of drilling at Blue Lake, where we're looking to drill some deeper holes targeting that potassic core.
The Q2, it saw Papua New Guinea and its resource sector, facing some fairly major challenges with unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases, which really commenced in the Q1 of the year and increased significantly in the Q2. That resulted in the Australian government suspending all FIFO movements by the resource sector, so the entire resource sector in and out of PNG, from late in the Q1 through until the second half of May.
As an industry, we responded by enhancing our COVID-19 protocols and mitigation measures, which included things like offsite testing, quarantining personnel, et cetera. As a result of that, an agreement was reached with Australian government to restart our FIFO operations. Really very supportive of the Australian government wanting to get things restarted as quickly as possible, but also obviously making sure that we were not bringing COVID into Australia.
Having faced that challenge, however, I'm also pleased to say that we operated continuously during that whole period and during the entire quarter, and certainly delivered a strong second half performance where we produced over 16,000 ounces gold equivalent from mid-May until the end of June.
That really reflects the efforts of our entire team on site. Set us up, not only did we have that stronger second half of the quarter, but that really sets us up for the second half of the year where we expect it to be significantly stronger than the first half of the year. In the case of the Q4, we're certainly looking at potentially a record quarter. Moving on and starting with safety.
In the Q2, pleased to report there was no lost-time injuries. We continue to operate with one of the best safety records, not only in PNG but in the Australasia region. That's really been since the start of operations. This is an area where we focus on, I think, quite relentlessly, the whole occupational health and safety, and that obviously includes COVID-19.
We're continuously looking to improve our systems. Looking at production, we produced just over 25,000 ounces gold equivalent. The operation delivered a record mill throughput, 75,667 tons processed, a head grade of 10.3 g per ton. Head grade was about 2% below budget, despite the fact that we treated a significant amount of low-grade stockpiles, certainly more than we anticipated, and that really was due to the COVID-19 surge and the impact that had on our mining rates.
We compare that to the year previously, the Q2 of 2020, mill throughput increased by 53%. We look at the key operational physicals, process plant, as I mentioned, delivered a record throughput. Underground development, total mine material obviously declined. All three metrics were really impacted by that surge in COVID-19 during the first half of the quarter.
That in turn caused shortage of staff in most of our areas of operation, and that was related to COVID-19 absenteeism, suspension of the FIFO flights, which I've mentioned, for effectively two months, increase in the quarantine durations that we're looking at, some of our enhanced control measures as well.
As I mentioned, second half of the quarter, we saw a fairly significant improvement, not just in the mill throughput, plant throughput, but also in those other metrics as well. In terms of COVID-19, I'm pleased to report that we've significantly increased our operational resilience and our ability to deal with the ongoing impacts of this pandemic.
From mid-May, as I mentioned, the Australian government lifted the restrictions on movement of personnel, and we now have a specific exemption which exempts us from the restrictions that the Australian government put on movement of international people in and out of Australia. This is not only for K92, but for the whole resource sector. That's a recognition by the Australian government of the importance of the resource industry to PNG.
We're over 30% of GDP, and we're over 85% of all exports. I point out that these enhanced protocols over the past three months that we've instituted certainly appear to be working very well, and operationally we've gone, I think, from strength to strength since we instituted these. We've also, obviously, restarted our people. In addition to that, our vaccination program is well underway.
Almost all of our expatriates are now fully vaccinated, and vaccinations are also underway for our PNG nationals. To date, we've had a very solid uptake in that. That uptake in terms of vaccinations is also allowing us to look at relaxing some of those quarantine restrictions. For instance, I was in the first group. I came in on Thursday, first group that's been allowed to come in from Australia and not required to quarantine in PNG.
Our normal is to have a week of quarantine, and in fact, for the first time for anyone who is fully vaccinated, no quarantine required. These things obviously can significantly improve our operations and our efficiency going forward. The mine site does, however, continue to operate as a COVID-19 free bubble.
We believe now with that increased rate of vaccination and many of these controls that we've now established, our resilience to the pandemic has increased. It's strong. It's improving. With that, I'll turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Justin Blanchet, to discuss the financial results.
Thank you, John, and hello, everyone. During the Q2, K92 had revenue of $35.5 million. Despite higher production in Q2 2021 when compared to 2020, our 26% decrease in revenue was due to a decrease in the feed grade of 10.3 g per ton compared to 17.6 grams per ton last year.
This was partially offset by an increase in the realized selling gold price of $1,754 per gold ounce compared to $1,631 per gold ounce in 2020. In addition, as of June 30th, 2021, K92 had 5,456 gold ounces in concentrate inventory that was sold in July, an increase of 3,077 gold ounces when compared to March 31st due to timing of sales.
In the Q2, cost of sales was $20.9 million, only 14% higher than Q2 2020, despite having increased operational activity as illustrated by the 91% increase in ore mined and a 53% increase in ore processed. In addition, the company incurred costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including additional pay for employees completing longer rosters at site, additional costs related to the movement of personnel and supplies, quarantine costs, and additional safety and medical related costs.
Quarterly cash flow from operating activities before changes in working capital was $15.2 million, compared with $30.3 million in Q2 2020. As at June 30th, 2021, we had $56.2 million in cash and cash equivalents, while spending $4.9 million in expansion capital and nearly $8.5 million in income tax installments for the quarter. The company fully repaid the outstanding loan from Trafigura in early 2021, leaving the company with no debt.
As John mentioned, for the quarter, the Kainantu Gold Operations produced 22,153 ounces of gold, 1,098,370 pounds of copper, and 14,914 ounces of silver, or 25,015 ounces of gold equivalent. We sold 18,939 ounces of gold, 862,407 pounds of copper, and 12,472 ounces of silver. We incurred a cash cost of $736 and an all-in sustaining cost of $1,057 per ounce, which was significantly below our realized gold selling price of $1,754 per ounce.
Our Q2 2021 cash cost per ounce increased to $736 from $560 in 2020. The increase in cash cost was due to a lower head grade despite increased production due to the successful ramp-up of the 400k expansion, allowing the company to achieve better economies of scale. In addition, the company incurred costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is important to note that after commissioning the Stage two plant expansion in late Q3, we have seen a significant compression in our total unit cost per ton processed, approaching $24 per ton. We continue to see downward pressure on the costs via economies of scale as operations ramp up. I will now turn the call back to John.
Thanks for that, Justin. When we look at the twin incline development, that resumed second half of May, following that two-month hiatus after the COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the Australian government. Considerable progress really has been made in that area upon resuming that redevelopment. As of July 30th, the furthest of the two inclines had advanced to approximately 530 m, and the other was about 10 m, 15 m behind that.
On the exploration front, during the quarter, drilling was underway at Kora South, Judd, and also the Blue Lake Porphyry. As previously noted, COVID restrictions did result in a number of personnel that were on site for the majority of the quarter being significantly reduced, and that was in order to obviously reduce the potential of COVID issues on-site.
In order to reduce the impact of that on the core resource drilling, the focus was maintained on manning the rigs underground. When you look at the result of that, what that meant was that processing of core was given a lower priority. As a result of that, by the end of June, end of the quarter, we had in excess of 50 drill holes that had not been processed.
This has been reduced to currently around 40, and in late July, we announced the results of 43 of those holes, and they consisted of both the infill and the step-out drilling to the south for our updated resource, which is targeting late in the Q4. The results delivered multiple high-grade intersections, including 3 m at over 70 g per ton gold equivalent in the K1 Vein, and 6.3 m at 32 g per ton in K2.
The hit rate, as I think everyone has come to expect, was again very strong. All holes intersected mineralization, 45 intersections above 5 g per ton, 20 intersections exceeding 10 g per ton, and 9 intersections exceeding 20 g per ton. If we move on to Judd, we're ramping up both development and drilling activities.
As I think many of you are aware, Judd is very unexplored and it has been shown to have very similar geology to Kora, with similar grades, thickness, and a mapped strike length of over 2.5 Km running parallel, sub-parallel to Kora and about 200 m away. The focus that we've had to date is on what we call the J1 vein, although there are at least four known Judd veins.
As an outcome of the positive development, drilling, and metallurgical results that we've seen at Judd to date, Judd has been integrated into our 2021 mine plan, targeting production, stope production that is, by Q4 or within the Q4. That will provide a boost to our operational flexibility, and with the grades we've seen, will also bring in some high grade. Development is already underway at the second sub-level, the 1265 level, which is going in both north and south directions.
The drive to the south will develop approximately 10 m below JDD0006, which intersected 7.25 m at 258 g per ton. To date, we've developed approximately 80 m along the J1 vein on that 1265 level. Results have been consistent with our expectations, and we'll be looking to provide an update on actual results in the near term.
Drilling is also well underway, targeting both measured and indicated as well as inferred resources. Eliminating that backlog of holes from assaying, core logging, et cetera, at Judd and Kora is one of our top focuses currently. We do expect to announce results in the near term from Judd and also obviously further from Kora.
When we're looking at Judd, end of this quarter into the Q4, we do actually anticipate that a larger portion of our drill fleet underground will actually be targeting Judd. Over the past weekend on site, I've been able to go underground, and one of the opportunities I had obviously was, and a priority quite frankly, was to go in and have a look at the 1265 Judd development.
The geology, as I think some of you who are aware of the geology of Kora, the geology of Judd is actually very similar to that of Kora in terms of thickness and mineralization. When you look at the 1235 level, we reported average thickness of 3.7 m at 11.6 g per ton gold equivalent over almost 300 m strike. Best grades being towards the south, that included 3.7 m at 15.4 g per ton gold equivalent over the last 175 m of the strike reported.
Certainly from what we're seeing in 1265, the geology looks very similar to Kora, and I think geo-technically, we'd probably say it's better than we see at Kora. Moving on to Blue Lake, our copper gold porphyry target. That phase II drilling that has been underway for some months has made significant progress.
We've completed quite a number of shallow vector drilling, and we've recently commenced some deep drilling targeting that potassic core, which we believe to be obviously the higher grade zone. I'd say the performance capabilities of the drill rigs have been strong. In hole KDD0020, we hit a record drilling depth of 1,400 m. The hole is pending core logging and assaying.
I point out our exploration people are currently focused together with the mine geology people on catching up on our underground drilling from Kora and Judd. Currently we've got two drill rigs drilling at Blue Lake, and we will be providing a more detailed update to the market in due course.
I think both the vein field and the porphyry drilling are really at quite exciting times, and they really highlight the significant big system and near mine upside potential of Kainantu. We still are sitting with something like only 20% of the vein field strike that's been drilled with the majority obviously still to be drilled and still very much open at depth. With that, operator, I think we'd like to commence the Q&A session. Thank you.
We will now begin the question- and- answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The first question comes from Alex Terentiew from Stifel GMP. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys, or afternoon, I guess. I am not sure what time it is there in Kianantu for you, John. My main question here, actually a very simple one first. Justin, you mentioned something about $24 a ton. I just missed what you were talking about. Can you reiterate that comment, please?
Sorry, yeah. That's our processing costs per ton at the mine site.
Okay. Is that your target? Is that the number you guys want to get to, or do you think there's room for improvement there?
It's definitely moving in the right direction, and it's a number that we're happy with right now.
My main question here is just on Judd. Can you guys quantify for us a little bit just the potential contribution for Q4 and, I guess, longer term, 2022 in particular? And just maybe give us a little bit of color on any incremental cost to mine and add that ore to the mill.
Thanks, Alex Terentiew. It's 10:51 P.M. here, by the way, if you're looking for the time. It's a little dark outside. Look, Judd, we would anticipate somewhere between 20,000-25,000 tons will come from Judd in the Q4. Grade-wise, that'll be somewhere around between 10 and 15, probably more over that 12-13. There will be some higher grade portions of that overall. I was underground at Judd on Sunday.
I've got to say, the face certainly looked very good. As we mentioned, we'll put out some results on the development that we've done there. Of course, we've also got quite a bit of drilling that we're in the process of catching up. In terms of contribution next year, I really can't give you that figure yet. That's something that we're actually still working on Judd really is very much a work in progress. Remember that we're actually going to be producing material from stopes when, in fact, we haven't actually issued a resource yet on Judd.
There will be a resource coming out on Judd as part of our resource updates that we're putting together. We're putting up in the Q4, there'll be an updated resource coming out for Kora, and there will be a first resource coming out for Judd. It is still very early days, and until we've got that and can put that into our planning, I can't give you a figure for next year. Certainly, I would anticipate it'll provide a significant amount of what we produce next year.
Okay.
Certainly, a month or two months material. In terms of costs, really would see a similar cost to what we're getting from Kora. Geotechnically, it looks very similar to Kora. If anything, better than Kora, in fact, geotechnically. We don't see any issues in that area. Of course, we're coming off the development that we've already got in place for Kora to get into Judd.
It's not that we're sort of developing out and it's not like developing a new ore body that you found and you have to go off and develop to open up. Cost-wise, we don't think it's going to add anything to our cost. If anything, potentially, it can help drive your cost down slightly.
Okay, that's great. Just one more quick question, if I may. Your guys' target of 1,100 tons per day, what's the bottleneck in that? With Judd opening up here, you're going to have additional mining phases available. Is that 1,100 ton a day mine constrained, or is it more mill constrained? Maybe any color on that would be helpful. Thank you.
I think at this point in time, the 1,100 tons a day is about getting the mine to produce that consistently. The COVID-19 issues that we had during the first half of the year, in the Q1, and for the majority almost of the Q2, one of the big issues really was that our numbers on-site came down quite dramatically.
Obviously, the mining side of things is significantly more labor-intensive in terms of numbers than the plant. In a number of areas, there's no doubt that the guys got behind, simply because we didn't have all of the people, we didn't have our full complement of expats able to come in, and they're quite key to upskilling all of our locals and what have you. Remember, we're trying to expand our labor at the current time.
Then we get the constraints of COVID-19 and all the rest of it. When you think about it, every single person that comes to this site for a roster has to quarantine. Some of that is done on-site, some of it is done off-site because we've set up off-site quarantines. We simply couldn't operate if it was all on-site.
If you're bringing somebody in for a six-week roster, and they have to do a week of quarantine, then you actually need, obviously, 15% more rooms. If it's a four-week roster, and our domestic guys are on shorter rosters, it's 25% more rooms. You need a heck of a lot more rooms, and in fact, like all operations in PNG, quite a number of our rooms are shared rooms. When you're doing quarantining and all the rest of it, of course, you can't do anything like that.
Yeah.
Big focus. We're just bringing on an extra 100 rooms in the next week to two weeks that have been installed during the last three months, for instance. We've got another 100- 200 that will be done by the end of the year. We've got a huge focus on expanding the camp. Of course, in order to expand the camp, that means that you need to bring in contractors who need to go through quarantine and then be on-site, taking up some of the rooms that you actually want for your operations people. It's been a real balancing act to get this.
That's why, for instance, we were behind on logging of core because we focused on having the people on-site that could do the drilling, with the limitations on accommodation, so that we kept the drilling up as much as possible, and accepted that we'd have to do a catch-up in terms of our logging.
As we've ramped up the numbers on-site, we've been able to do that. In fact, our exploration people are actually right now focused on not surface logging, but actually logging of all the core from underground so that we can catch up all of our Kora and Judd for our cut-off, for our resource updates on Kora and the new resource for Judd. Sorry, long-winded answer.
Yeah
I was trying to give you a bit of flavor for that.
No, it's great to put that into context. That's it for me. Thank you.
The next question comes from Tom Gallo from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my questions here, folks. Just on the Blue Lake, switching gears a little bit to the regional drilling. Obviously excited to see hole, I think it was hole 20, down to that 1,400 m level. Just a couple questions around what the program looks like. First of all, how deep are the holes planned? I mean, is 1,400 m that planned depth, or was that hole terminated for some other reason? Maybe more on the spacing. Are you planning the step-out from that hole? How far away are your step-outs planned?
Thanks, Tom. Look, Blue Lake, 1,400 m was actually beyond where we were looking to take it. In part, it was driven down by, we were trying to see what the rig could actually achieve. We've got some other holes that are planned. I don't think we've got any holes right now that are planned as deep as 1,400 m. We do have some holes that are certainly going to go over 1,000 m over the next few months.
They are consistent with the fence lines that we've been doing currently, the fence lines have been 200 m apart. They'll be basically, obviously targeting a deeper potassic core that we've got vectors on from the drilling that we've done to date. As I said, unfortunately, we've had to make a call between some of our exploration holes and our Kora and Judd.
Right now, Kora and Judd are taking priority from a logging perspective because we've got a cutoff in terms of getting a resource update completed. Right now, all of the guys are focused on getting all of the backlog of Kora and Judd out. That should be done pretty much by the end of this quarter. We think we should have caught up all of those holes.
There'll obviously be a lot more results coming out probably towards the end of the quarter, early next quarter on Kora and Judd. I think it'd be fair to say the deals remain excited by Blue Lake and certainly what they're seeing at Blue Lake in terms of core, et cetera, that's coming. We do have protocols in place which actually limit our interaction as well with our exploration sites. We support the exploration sites from site, from Kainantu.
If anyone actually goes onto the site, then of course they've got to quarantine before they can come back on site. I was around today actually, Tom, with Chris Muller, just going around the sites in the chopper. We weren't actually landing and going in to talk to the guys and have a look on the ground.
Because we do that and now we have to come back and go into quarantine for a more limited three days because we're vaccinated, but nevertheless, we'd still have to go into a quarantine situation. Chris, for instance, does that every two weeks. Every two weeks, he actually gets up and goes around all the sites, spends some time there, comes back to site, has to do three days quarantine. It does give you a few challenges.
I think what we've got in place is making that extremely manageable and certainly the meters that we're getting are fairly reasonable, I think. Well, that we're getting both at Blue Lake and at Kora Judd on the surface as well, because we're also doing some drilling on Kora Judd at surface.
Very good, John. Just to clarify, what are the number of rigs on site, including the stuff underground, the surface drills, and the Blue Lake drills, just to get a tally?
We have 11. I think 10 are operating right now. Four on the surface and six underground.
Great. That's it for me. Thanks very much.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. There are no more questions in the queue. Sorry. Excuse me. We have a question from Geordie Mark from Haywood Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, John. Just some follow-up questions there, mate. Just looking at the ramp up that you're having through the mill, just wondering when you get to nominal nameplate capacity, how you expect to evolve on a fixed cost basis, and what sort of proportion of costs are going to be unfixed and versus, say, consumables?
I haven't got it off the top of my head. I think it's around 60% is actually a fixed cost. As I'm sure you're aware from a plant perspective, there's people, for instance, say power is a variable cost. 90% of power for a plant is not a variable cost, it's a fixed cost. Our fixed costs are obviously our labor, our plant, assaying, those sort of things. The majority of our costs are fixed as opposed to variable.
Okay. Thanks, mate. When you're looking at Judd markup for exploitation or, I guess, stoping, what sort of dimensions are you looking at for stoping and looking at basically comparable costs ultimately that you're going to carry across to Judd on a per ton basis relative to Kora? Or how are you looking at that?
Look, it's still pretty early days, I'd have to say. Having said that, in relation to the average width that we saw over the entire 300-m strike length of the 1235 level was about 3.5 m, which is consistent with what we see in both K1 and K2. Obviously, it does vary. It does get thicker and it does get a bit thinner, both in K1, K2, and in Judd. Actually very similar in that context.
Geotechnically, as I said, the ground is very competent, so there may be a potential to look at larger stopes, but of course. That might not necessarily be possible given that you're coming into Judd off the same systems as you're going into Kora. You may actually be constrained by what you're doing there. Certainly, we'd anticipate that the cost should be very similar.
Where you'll potentially pick up, obviously, is that your development costs, a lot of your development costs are already being carried effectively by Kora. Therefore, overall, your cost comes down because you're getting more tons out of the major development that you're doing along strike and vertically.
Okay. Thanks, mate. In terms of looking at the development costs with the integration of operations flexibility at Judd, are you looking at capital costs on a sustained basis? Are you looking at something at that level staying the same and operating at Kora and Judd, or are you looking at heightening total capital costs in there? It's kind of the question of, again, heightened capital costs or sort of trade-off between where you allocate capital between the mining fronts.
Oh, shit. I think there's always that trade-off where you allocate the capital. It's certainly not a science. I'll have to be careful what I say on this one because my CFO will give me shit on it. There's always that debate on where is your capital, where is your sustaining capital, and what have you. Overall, Judd should bring down your sustaining capital cost simply because you're able to get more tons out of a lot of that capital development.
Not all of it, because obviously you've still got capital development coming off of your main north side developments and what have you, that come to the east for Judd, and therefore, you'll pick up some costs there. Overall, you have to say you expect that your capital component should come down. Really, you've got a vein system 3.5 m wide.
It's almost like a K3 that's 200 m away from K1, but on the other side of your main north side development. That north side development, all of that vertical that you're putting in, that vertical development you're putting in is also there and able to support Judd. Same for your reticulation, and certainly quite a bit of your development for ventilation and those sort of things as well.
Okay, thanks. Maybe one last question there. Once you've completed, I guess the quantum of drilling for infill at Kora required for the upcoming study, where within the plane of the Judd mineralization are you going to focus those underground drill rigs, given you're now going to initiate production?
Sorry, I didn't quite understand the question there, Geordie.
Once you've finished your infill drilling, I guess, on Kora, the circular strip rigs that you're using for that underground drilling, what area are you going to focus within Judd with those rigs?
Within Judd?
Yeah.
I think if you looked at the long section, you'll be focused on going from around 50, probably around 59,200 to the south. That's your northing. In terms of vertical, I would expect that we'll be targeting basically 1,000 m RL up to basically surface.
Okay.
That will be our initial. All of it basically already has the drill cuttings in place. It's basically, in some cases, going back into those drill cuttings and instead of drilling to the west, you're now drilling to the east, you're turning the rigs around 180 degrees from what we've been doing in the past.
We don't have to go and open up or we don't have to go and develop new drill cuttings or whatever else. The drill cuttings are all there, have already been previously developed for the drilling of Kora. I would make the point, however, Kora drilling will continue to the south. Primarily, there will be more infill drilling, I think, being done as well.
We don't, at this point in time, plan on trying to do any of the deeper drilling. We're really waiting for the twin incline to come through and start doing the deeper drilling off the twin incline. It's sort of 300 m below any level that we currently have operations on in the current mine.
The twin incline is obviously going to give us the access that we want to extend at depth and keep pushing that resource down at depth, and obviously be able to actually generate a whole lot of measured and indicated, from sort of 1,000 m down to 700 m over that sort of window, and over about 1,000-m strike length. You're effectively trying to duplicate what you've already done, which is centered around that 1,200 RL level.
Okay. Thanks, John. I appreciate it.
The next question is from Ralph Profiti of Eight Capital. Please go ahead.
Hey, John. Thanks. I'll be quick with this one. You mentioned some incremental progress on lateral development rates on the twin inclines, right? Both subsequent to quarter end and since May. I'm just wondering, do you have at your fingertips your outlook on, say, a meters per month basis on those development rates? I'm just trying to get a sense of now versus the target rates in the PEA. Also, are you where you need to be on the number of development jumbos operating?
In terms of number of jumbos, we've got the numbers that we had planned. That included getting a brand-new one for the twin decline development. We haven't obviously submitted our capital yet to the board, but there is one or two twin boom jumbos for the coming year as part of the capital. I think it's two twin booms, really, as part of the capital. We're looking for around 200 m a month as the meters that we're looking for right now from the twin incline.
We're getting back up to that, having really had to stop the twin incline for the best part of two months again because of this COVID-19 situation. Twin inclines themselves are looking very good. One of the areas that we are really focused on actually expanding our capacity, for instance, is on shotcreting because we use a lot of shotcreting underground now.
We're finding that's really effective for us in terms of support and timing and everything else. Obviously, the whole of the two twin inclines are being shotcreted. That's a scenario. I think we're actually looking to double our shotcrete capacity. We've put in a big cement facility late last year, early this year, one of these automated batch plants. We've actually got sufficient capacity. I think that we are looking at the next phase of expansion.
We've got enough capacity on site to actually be producing our own concrete for the installation of the plant. It's a big batch plant. I think I actually just signed a CER for a new agitator cement truck. People call them agis, while I've been here. We'll have another one of those in the next six weeks, I believe.
That's helpful, John. Thanks. Sounds like good progress.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Varun Arora of Clarus Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, John. Well, most of my questions have already been asked. I was about to get to the twin incline, and Ralph also asked that. Maybe if you can just talk about when do you expect the twin incline to be completed, I guess that'll be helpful. Thanks.
I don't know. Is that okay?
Yeah, no, I understand-
I don't know how long it's going to be.
Development rates. Yeah.
Look, right now, the development on the 1,200 level or just over 1,200 level, but we call it 1,200. The north side's development on the 1,200 level has actually gone outside of the mining lease, and we're developing into our exploration license. We're actually setting up, next drill cut is actually, is outside of the mining lease, and we're already drilling some of our holes, part of our resource will be outside of the mining lease.
As we've said in the past, we believe that there's something like a kilometer of strike length still outside of the mining lease that we need to be drilling. We are looking to start drilling from the surface shortly, in the next few weeks, quite literally. The big focus is actually to drill that from underground, and that's because the surface answers actually don't come into a mine plan anytime soon. Obviously, underground answers can.
That's why I said, I don't know, because I'm not sure how long that twin incline is going to be. If you look at it in the context of what do we need for the next phase of expansion, then we'll be getting to the areas that are, Judd or Kora, we'll be getting to those areas I think by the end of next year, beginning of the following year.
I'd say probably into the following year. Then, we've still got another almost 2,000 m to get to the end of the mining lease. It's going to continue developing for certainly the next four years, being continually pushed further and further to the south. Obviously, that's contingent upon getting additional mining lease to the south, but that's certainly our plan at this point in time.
All right. Thanks for the update, John. That helps.
Thanks, Varun.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. This concludes the question- and- answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to John Lewins, CEO and Director for any closing remarks.
Thank you for that, operator. Appreciate everyone's time this morning, in the main part, I suspect. From our perspective, it's a great opportunity to communicate with people, give them some idea about what's happening on-site, and give an opportunity to ask questions. This is the time of year that in previous years we've looked to have analysts and I think several of the people asking questions may have had the opportunity of being out here or possibly would've been out here if not for COVID-19.
That ability to connect is important, I think, for the company, and we certainly appreciate the interest and we appreciate the questions. As I said, I'm on-site and I've got to say, coming on-site and seeing progress in so many areas is quite stunning. For the analysts who have been here in the past and hopefully will be here next year, you just won't be able to recognize the place. It's changed so much. Development underground, the whole areas have opened up underground.
Quite stunning, really, the number of operating levels that we have for our larger team. Fleet of equipment. Just so much going on in every single area. Warehouse just up the road being tripled in size. It's going through everything. It's the camps. It's all of our infrastructure. Everything underground, the mining fleet, the plant.
We've got a few ideas on the plant and actually looking at another potential incremental expansion there on the plant, which we think is pretty exciting. All of this is really made possible by the team of people that we've got on-site. We've made comment about what we think is a, we've got a really low turnover of people, which given the challenges of COVID-19, given the quarantining and all the rest of it, is quite exceptional.
That team of people is what makes this company and is what's made this mine. I would like to make note and recognize, really, the contribution of that team of people. Support of PNG government has been quite outstanding over the last few years actually, but especially during this COVID-19. Thanks all for your attention. I do hope to be able to catch up with many of you.
After a weekend in Port Moresby, I'm heading over to Canada, and to be around Vancouver and I'm looking to get into Toronto as well. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to catch up with people and give them a bit more detail and a bit more color as to what we've got going on. Thank you again. Thanks very much for your time today.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.