29Metals Limited

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the 29 Medals Limited March Quarter Report Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mike Slaberski. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Betsy. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll be speaking this morning to 29 Metals March quarterly report, which was released to the ASX this morning. The call and parallel webcast is being recorded and will be available for replay by the 29 Metals website and the Open Briefing website. 29 Metals Manager, Director and CEO, Peter Albert, will commence the call before passing to our Chief Operating Officer, Ed Cooney, to review operating performance and progress against 2023 priorities. He'll then pass to CFO Peter Herbert to talk to the financial outcomes, and then Mark Van Heerden, General Manager Geology, to discuss the significant exploration results achieved during the quarter. Mark will then pass back to Peter to manage Q&A. So thanks very much, Peter. I'd like to commence the presentation.

Yeah, thanks, Mike, and thanks for the introduction. Well, I'm pleased. Thank you for the time. In many respects, the March quarter was overwhelmed by the extreme weather events of Capricorn and Kotler. As outlined in our market updates in March and last week, this was a very significant weather event. I do want to recognize up front the tremendous response from our site team, employees and contractors, for their professional, calm, and focused way in which they were able to ensure the safety of all of our people and protect the environment. At no time was there any consideration to a lesser out. Whilst the recovery task ahead of us is considerable, We remain focused on finalizing our plans to bring Capricorn Copper back online as quickly, safely, and environmentally responsibly as possible. The scale of this event was particularly severe at Capricorn Copper, a function of the higher rainfall in the immediate vicinity area of the mine, which was significantly higher than some other mines in the region, as well as impacted by the topography of the mine site and the proximity of waterways swollen by this more than one in 200 year event. The extreme event has resulted in an additional 1.5 gigalitres of water being collected on site, the equivalent of 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools. As I have said in other forums, 29 medals investment in environmental protection measures over the past three years paid off. We had no uncontrolled release of water from regulated structures through the event. Safety performance across the group continues to be a key focus, and as a result, continues to deliver results. Whilst our focus is on leading indicators, such as critical controls, hazard identification, and leadership interactions, the results show up in our total recordable frequency rate, the TRIFA. And our lost time injury frequency rate, the LTIFR, both continue to fall, with Group 5 falling a fifth consecutive quarter to 8.1 lost time injuries per million hours worked, and the LTIFR down to 1.6. And indeed, in Capricorn, we achieved five months without a single recordable injury. The March quarter was always going to be a weaker quarter with production weighted to the second half of the year, and putting aside the Capricorn weather event, the results were broadly in line with our expectations. At Golden Grove, copper production was higher quarter on quarter at 3,200 tonnes, with zinc production lower at 8,700 tonnes compared to the very significant zinc production in the December quarter 2022. Capricorn copper production for the two months of operation produced 2,600 tons. Both mines were impacted by reduced throughput due to tailing capacity constraints, which I'll address shortly. In terms of financial outcomes, Peter Herbert will discuss in greater detail, but a couple of highlights. revenue of 163.4 million being aussie dollars being 21 million lower than the prior quarter impacted by the suspension of mining at capricorn copper in the early part of march lower site costs driven by lower activity levels also impacted by the suspension of operations at capricorn maintained low maintained low leverage with unaudited net debt of 34 million aussie dollars a quarter end and substantial liquidity, including a US $40 million revolving credit facility which remains undrawn. One of our key performance drivers for 2023 is a laser focus on costs, especially at Golden Grove, given the current situation at Capricorn. A dedicated corporate team has engaged with site teams to identify potential business improvements, including efficiencies as well as costs. Whilst this is still in the early stages, engagement by all teams has been very positive and very encouraging. Peter Herbert will talk later to us in more detail, as well as providing some current examples. Other key performance drivers for the business, including ventilation, development rates, and tailings dam regulatory approvals. Ventilation and development rates will be discussed later, but in terms of TSF approvals, we have worked closely with the regulators for both sites. And for Golden Grove, I'm very pleased to confirm that approvals for the lift of TSF3, as it's noted, as it's called, were confirmed post the quarter end. The construction team is mobilized, and we look forward to lifting the constraint on milling rates in the current quarter. At Capricorn, while the extreme weather event and recovery planning is the highest priority, we are working closely and very proactively with the regulator and progressing that approval process. In terms of prices through the quarter, copper prices have been mostly stable during the quarter, ranging between $3.72 at one point up to $4.28 a pound, while zinc has ranged from about $1.30 to $1.59 a pound, all U.S., of course. The outlook for copper demand and pressures on supply continue to persist, and whilst at 29 Metals we remain bullish and convinced that we're producing the metals that the world needs to achieve net zero goals, our focus in any price environment is on delivering production and controlling costs to capital investment capital investment in sustainability and growth projects are investments in our future and a number of key projects have been advanced in the marked quarters including a remote control mining system called auto mine at golden grove was implemented which enables operation of underground loaders to continue during shift change And both operations work on the life of mine tally storage facilities continued with the intent to submit approval documentation later in this year. And the new ventilation facilities at both sites have been progressed during the quarter, with one of the surface fans reinstated at Capricorn Copper and the other one being held in the supplier's workshop pending the restart at Capricorn. And at Golden Grove, the high-level fans and the high-level ore body have been reinstated and operating. Also, fans for the Xantho Extended, the deeper Xantho Extended for ore body, are due for delivery and commissioning by the end of quarter two. During the quarter, we released the 2022 resources and reserve statement, resulting in group or reserve tons increasing by 23% after depletion and an 18% increase in copper metal to 540,000 tons on reserves. Group mineral resources are up 4% after depletion, with an increase to 2.24 million tons of copper metal. Also during the quarter, assay results were received from drilling activities at Capricorn Copper for Mammoth and Esperanza South. These were then reported on the 12th of April. The Mammoth drilling results demonstrate a potential for a new mineralized trend not previously identified, and at Esperanza South, the drilling results continue to demonstrate the down-plunge potential of this ore body. Staying with exploration, in the quarter, Capricorn Copper was awarded $200 to undertake a combination of geophysical surveys. Mark Van Heerden will elaborate and talk further in his section a little later. And in terms of the longer-term outlook for both Capricorn and Golden Grove, an update on the Capricorn Copper status and recovering planning was provided to the market on the 20th of April, and the detailed planning remains work in process. We have an intent to further update the market in mid-May. We also plan at the same time to provide the market with an update on the outlook for Golden Grove beyond 2023. I mean, to look forward to in the middle of May. And at this juncture, I'll now hand over to Ed Hooney, the COO, to talk in more detail about production activities at the two operating mines. And as Mike said, Ed will then hand over to Peter to talk about financial and commercial outcomes. And lastly, we'll hear from Mark before we go to Q&A. So over to you, please, Ed.