29Metals Limited

I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. James Palmer, CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning all, James Palmer here and thanks for joining this 29 Metals update for the September quarter for 2024. Today we'll be speaking to the presentation released this morning alongside our September quarter report and joining me here are Ed Cooney, our Chief Operating Officer, Peter Herbert, our Chief Financial Officer and Christian Steller, our Group Executive, Corporate Development. Look, it's great to be speaking with you all again today to talk through what was a great quarter of delivery by the team, a quarter that moves us closer to our 2024 objectives and beyond. Pausing on slide three before we get into the quarter results, just highlights again the 29 Metals investment proposition, specifically large Australian-based copper endowments, lots of upside potential. Slide four lays out our key 2024 priorities, and they remain the same as when I spoke to you three months ago. Health and safety first, always, and across the group discipline in productivity and in cost improvements, with some great wins by the team on this front during the quarter. At Golden Grove, it's all about the drumbeat of delivery to maximise free cash flow and moving towards a final investment decision at Gossan Valley. At Capricorn Copper, it's all about the imperatives for a sustainable restart, with water reduction the immediate focus. Slide five shows a summary of the September quarter. On safety, our TRIF slightly up over the quarter, and we remain focused on safety as our number one priority. Operationally, it was a strong water delivered by the team at Golden Grove, producing 4.4 kilotons of copper and 19.1 kilotons of zinc, positioning us well to deliver our full-year metal production guidance. In addition, the asset generated $42 million of operating cash flow and $26 million of free cash, so a great result. At Capricorn Copper, really pleasing progress was made towards our immediate-term focus of reducing water levels on site with the team progressing the things within our control to position the asset for optimal water reduction in the coming wet season. Specifically commencing treatment of the water in the Mill Creek Dam in preparedness for controlled treated water releases during the wet season was a major milestone for the quarter. So I'll now pass to Ed to talk through Golden Grove in some additional detail. I'll then provide an update on Capricorn Copper prior to Peter providing a corporate and finance update for the quarter. So over to you, Ed.

Thanks, James, and morning, everyone. So moving on to slide seven, as James mentioned, a great quarter delivered by the team at Golden Grove, producing 4.4 kilotons of copper and 19.1 kilotons of zinc, positioning us well to deliver our four-year metal production guidance. As foreshadowed in the June quarter report, higher zinc production in the second half of this year is being enabled by paste filling completed earlier in the year and progress of Xantho extended development advance, providing access to high-grade ore through the second half of the year. And from the chart on the top right-hand side of the screen, you can see the proportion of Xantho extended ore at circa 50% for the last two quarters. To this end, 9.1 kilotons of zinc production during the quarter was about a 300% uplift versus the March quarter and a 25% uplift versus the June quarter. Zinc grade milled was 6.3% versus 4.8% the prior quarter, with the higher feed grade increasing zinc recovery from 83% to 85%. Copper production is also tracking well year-to-date with production of 4.4 kilotons during the quarter, which puts our year-to-date copper production at 16.6 kilotons and positioning us well relative to the full-year guidance range of 18 to 22 kilotons. Development at Zanzo extended continues at rates to enable full-year metal production guidance. with lower quarter-on-quarter development at Xantho extended of approximately 700 metres versus the June quarter of a bit over 900 metres. And that was reflective of lower planned activity as we established the next sub-level of fresh air infrastructure within the lower levels at Xantho extended. So moving on to slide eight and another pleasing quarter for unit costs. with C1 costs and all in sustaining costs of $2.52 and $3.42 per pound US of copper sold respectively. Marginally higher quarter on quarter absolute site costs were driven by a planned eight day extended shutdown during the quarter and some additional required maintenance expenditures. The quarter-on-quarter increase in unit costs was primarily due to reversal of the stockpile movement credit from the June quarter of $33 million to a $21 million charge, and increased treatment charges linked to the higher zinc sale volumes and recent strength in the zinc price, given the link to the zinc treatment charge escalator associated with pre-IPO offtake agreements. Impacts of stockpile movements and treatment charges were partially offset by higher byproducts during the quarter. Moving on to slide nine and activity associated with the capital expenditure on the TSF4 project really ramped up during the quarter and final key approval from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation required for completion of construction is also now in hand. The photos on slide 9 show the excellent progress being made on the project and hopefully you can get some context of the scale of the facility. The project remains on track for completion in Q1 of 2025. And owing to its scale and thickened tailings deposition methodology, TSF4 is expected to enable lower deposition costs over the life of the mine. In addition, the upfront investment in long-term tailings capacity is really expected to de-risk future tailings permitting requirements as compared to the incremental approach of building stage lifts on smaller facilities adopted at Golden Grove in prior years. Next on slide 10, production efficiency initiatives continue to be a major focus for the team at Golden Grove and indeed across the business. Working closely with our contract partners on site, productivity initiatives to increase metal production and reduce unit production costs have been a key focus through the year. A couple of recent wins on this front are shown, specifically the BlastIQ project, which actually won an award at the recent Australian Mining 2024 Prospect Awards and enables digital reporting, analytics and information sharing between underground operators and production engineers. And the implementation of some 3D standard drive scanning technology. So these are really two further examples of leveraging the fibre optic backbone that we installed underground in 2023 to really have faster work cycles, increased mobile fleet availability and improved safety. And turning to slide 11. We continue to progress Scotland Valley towards a final investment decision with works during the quarter really focused on review of outcomes from geotechnical assessments of both box cut and raised bore locations, receipt and analysis of surface infrastructure and underground mining tenders and refinement of the economic model. Gossam Valley to date has been drilled from surface, but history certainly shows that mining fronts at Golden Grove tend to grow over time, and the team are very excited about the prospect of getting underground and the opportunity of really testing the extent of known minimisation. Upon development, Gossam Valley is expected to enhance overall ore production and scheduling flexibility by providing an additional independent and relatively shallow production front at Golden Grove. I'll hand back to you, James, to talk through Capricorn copper.