Aeris Resources Limited

Thank you for joining the ARIS Resources June quarter results presentation. In a few moments, ARIS Resources Executive Chairman André Labouchagne will present the results for the June quarter. At the end of the presentation, André will take questions during a Q&A session. You can submit written questions throughout the duration of the call using the Q&A function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We will also open the floor to verbal questions. To ask a verbal question, please indicate that you would like to speak by using the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. With housekeeping settled, I will now hand over to Executive Chairman, Andre Labouchagne, who will begin the presentation. Andre.

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining this presentation on such short notice. We are well aware that this is extremely short notice, but the reason why we pushed along is the fact that we also have communications at the operation which needed to happen today and everyone needs to be on the same page. So what we're doing today, we'll talk about the fourth quarter. We'll look at the guidance, but also look at the operational actions and the balance sheet actions we've taken over the last month or so. Touching on the highlights for quarter four, there was a significantly improved production specifically from FITM. It has been the best production for them for the quarter, but also June month has seen various records. where they produce more than 178,000 tons of ore delivered to the plant, which is highest since we joined this business in 10 years, and produce over 2,400 tons of copper for the month. So we've seen the investment we made the last two years and we kept on talking about Bajigar, Ventshaft and Avocatank coming online. Those investments are now starting to pay off and those operations in FY24 will start to step up significantly. We'll see much better production from Clinton in FY24. The Cracker mine performed according to plan. They had a very strong gold quarter, 30,800 ounces of gold. Mount Colin performed against the mine plan, so they achieved their operating plan, but unfortunately there was an incident at the tall treatment facility and the tons which were planned to be treated in June was only treated in July. So we ended up with a significant stockpile at the Mount Colin mine at the end of the financial year. The challenging operation, as you would have seen if you had time to look at it quarterly, was obviously the Jaguar mine. It was impacted by various seismic events during the quarter, or it did last six months, really. And that has forced, that stopped us from mining some of the high-grade areas, but also forcing a review of this strategy on how do we move Jaguar forward. And as of today, we have decided to put the Jaguar mine in care maintenance for at least the next 12 months. We'll talk a lot more detail about that and the reason for it, But the benefit of having a portfolio of assets, you can do this because the best value you can have to shell this by optimizing these mines and come out in a much bigger and better operation. And we'll go into a bit more detail. From operating costs and capital, we well achieved within our guidance for FY23. As always, there's a lot of focus specifically on capital and costs. Sitting right into the Jaguar, why are we putting Jaguar in care maintenance? It really comes down to preserving that 8 million tonnes of resource. There's an 8 million tonnes of resource between four ore bodies currently, or four ore bodies at over 3% copper equivalent grades. So there's a lot of tonnes, there's a lot of value sitting there. But what we've seen through the seismic events and the low zinc price, as most of you would know, zinc is probably as low as it's been in two or three years, and the escalation we've seen, we think it's better to just quit this mining care and maintenance. What we've seen through the seismicity has slowed the production. So if you're going to start your development to get down to turbo, and keep that going, you're going to see lower production in FY24, which means you're making operating loss while you're still investing. And we don't believe that's a smart way to extract those resources at a loss for FY24. We believe there's a much better plan to start to work through how do we make a better mine out of that or better business out of those mines. And there's a few more slides I'll talk through. Just sort of a little bit of data. I mean, when we bought the Jag mine, we only bought it for the value of the turbo deposit, which we thought will be about a three and a half year mine life. Now that we're in there, we know there's three other deposits, one which is the old Jaguar mine, which we're busy pumping out. So the whole aim is how do we build a bigger business using those other resources when we bring it back online. What we've also done... As part of this, to make sure we have a controlled closure of the Jaguar mine, while we're going to invest a bit of money, or quite a bit of money, into the Krakow tailings dam lift, we have renewed or upsized our working capital facility to $50 million through Washington Salt Patterson, our major shelter, and we will cancel the current $20 million with ANZ. And that is all to make sure that we can do a proper closure, treat people and creditors with respect, and make sure we set it up so that you can start it back up. So that facility you can see there is a detail. It's a $15 million two-year facility. It's a BBSY plus 11%. People will say, well, that's a high interest. Yes, it is. But there's no dilution to shareholders in any form in this facility. A lot of the new debt, which we've seen in the industry in the last few months, all had warrants and credit notes to it. So we believe, although it's higher interest, it is a good outcome for us, and it gives us capacity to really close the Jaguar mine and set the business up for the future. On the guidance side for FY24, even though we're closing Jaguar, we're pretty close to what we've achieved this year with Jaguar. And really the big increase, as you would see, is on the copper side. We're certain we'll see significant increase in production with both Evoca tank and budget gas stepping up in FY24 production. On the cost side, as always, a lot of focus on cost and capital, and then you can see from those, we're forecasting around 40,000 to 50,000 tons of copper equivalent production at a group level. They have included the detail for the different operations in an announcement which went out today, and you're welcome to have a look at those. We'll touch on those in the presentation going forward. So how does the business look? To crack our minds, We'll do around 45,000 ounces of gold this financial year. Tritton will do between 19 and 24,000 tons. And remember, Lysa, we did 17, so a significant step up for Tritton. Mount Collin will do more or less the same as what he did in FY23. And as we'll go through a bit more detail, but Mount Collin has got 12 months generating good cash and has set the business up to grow in that region. Various projects now, so the Barbara deposit, we'll talk through that. We see the Jaguar now going forward as a project, which will have a startup once we've done the feasibility and plans, and then the Stockman project remains one of our key projects in the business going forward. So I thought we'll touch base just on the different operations, both from what they've done, what's the FY24 look, but also just a little about how do we see the future of each operation. So, as you all know, if you've been in the share price for FY23, it's been a very challenging period for Triton. The underperformance or low production of 17,000 tons of copper was significantly lower than forecast. But The investments are done now. The budget ventilation shaft is in and operating. A Volca tank vent shaft, raised bore is done. We're busy putting the vent shaft on. So those two mines will now build up to full production in FY24. And you can see a significant step up on the operational side for Twitter. So at the Twitter mine, obviously you can see the photo there. It's It took us 12 months to get that raised bore in with all the challenges the guys had, but that venture is up and running. The model for Triton is basically we're mining Triton at depth in this slide, if you look down there. The high is great, and then Badgerigar will now step up production and increase production during this financial year to around 200,000, 300,000 tons annually. The Evoka tank mine is the other one. There you can see the grades going at 2.5% copper. Now, remember, we've been mining around 1.3%, 1.4% copper on average. Having 2.5% copper coming in is where the increased production for FY24 will sit. We've also, through the latest grade control drilling, discovered a new gold lens. And what you've also seen is where we've currently drilled, the reconciliation to the resource is actually significantly higher in grade than what the resource grade was when we got in. So we've seen some 3% and 4% coppers coming in in the production profile in FY24 out of Boca Tech. In the next big project, Constellation, we haven't spoken much about Constellation the last 12 months. We have allowed a significant amount of money to drill more holes to define the ore body a bit better, to look at it at depth, but also where we identified the stand-up zone basically sitting on the edge there. We will drill holes starting this quarter and trying to define that, because if that stand-up zone remains in the ore body, it will significantly change the economics of conservation. So we're busy with the feasibility study. The current model is an open pit mine with an underground mine. That should be finished off in this quarter. And then we will be moving forward with all the permitting so we can bring this mine into production as quickly as we can. Because this is where some of the biggest value will come in the long run for Triton. Then just touching on the exploration, We know that through the model of using EM surveys, we discovered consolation in this northern part of the tenement package. We've done another round of EMs. We've identified 14 new targets. We're busy toothing them, and we will do some drilling targeting some of those targets in this financial year. When you see these things, when you look, they do come in clusters. When you've got one, you've got more. And we do believe, even around this area, there's definitely a high-likely opportunity to find another constellation or another ore body which can be economical. But as you can see on that slide, all those great evoker tanks, Budgie, Clinton, Budgie, Gar, all of them are still open at depth. It has all come down to the economics of the grade of those ore bodies. The Krakow mine. Krakow, we have made a decision, as you can see there, production-wise, it is our best performing operation productivity-wise. The guys have done a really good job to get control of the grade in FY23 and achieve what they set themselves out to do. We have made the decision to invest another $18 million to lift the tailings dam and give us another three-year capacity in Krakow. And really, the reason for that is coming down to, if you look at those little map on the right-hand side, we're currently mining the western wind field. This mine has been going for a long time and never really had more than two to three years of reserves. So what we're seeing in the current workings, there's quite a few new targets that have been identified, which we will test, and that will extend the mine life within the current area where we mine in the western wind field. But then we also discovered, or not discovered, started drilling the golden platter deposit. And what we're planning this year is to do an exploration drive and then drill the ore water app in FY23 to start to set it up for mining from FY24 onwards. So we're targeting, we already identified 62,000 ounces in a mineral resource. Now this can significantly increase, especially as we do that exploration drive, and you can draw at the right angles. There's a lot of confidence that where we've got all these structures now that we've seen quite good grades wherever you find those intersections. Then there's the potential game changer. That's Southern Wayne Field. If you look at this little map over here, you see the western minefield, that's where we're currently mining, already mined 2.5 million ounces. Then Golden Plateau already mined 1 million ounces. So just in that area already, 3.5 million ounces has been discovered and all mined. This southern minefield we know is under cover. It's got all the right signatures to host another large deposit. You can see there, historically, like the rules should and the ground should, you know, it's small, but it's high grade, million plus ounce ore bodies. And Brad and the team are very excited to spend time and effort to see if these ore bodies or these structures extend further south on the tenement package. Now, Colin, I always talk about this photo. It's a small footprint. The model there is you mine it, you truck it currently to Ernest Henry, and you get paid for your copper. Really simple model. We're using a contractor from an environmental rehabilitation point of view. You don't have a tailings dam. You don't have a lot to cost to close this mine down and then move to the next one. So in terms of this year's guidance, we're looking at between 8,000 and 10,000, around 9,000 tons of copper, quite a bit of gold in it. As I said, pretty simple, track it in its entry. We had 100,000 tons of stock sitting on stock closet in its entry at the end of the financial year. And then we will start to look at how do we close Mount Colonnade. So currently there's about 12 months, 15 months left for Mount Colin. You can see there the mine plan on the right-hand side. That's just for information, really. We're harvesting cash coming out of there. There's no more capital to be spent. And then it is just taking that opportunity with those regional malls and then starting to look at, we've got quite a large tenement package. How do we manage that going forward? And the whole... The whole challenge or the whole aim here is to use this asset to get a springboard to the future operations or opportunities in the region. As we said many times, we're trying to build a pipeline of projects in North Queensland. The next one we are focusing on is the Barbara project. It has been mined before. It was treated at Mount Isa. So it's known as an open pit. We've done a resource update in the last quarter. There's 2.2 million tonnes of 2%. That's a doable project. So we're doing the feasibility study, and the aim would be is you go Mount Collin, and while we still finish off Mount Collin, you get your approvals, and once you get your approvals, you start Barbra as the next project for North Queensland. So let's have a look at Jag. So the Jaguar mine... The two quarters, two halves, was in the first half we did 15,000 tons of zinc, and the second half we did 7,000 tons of zinc. That was impacted by various, as we said, the stresses and the seismic events, but also the lack of development and the getting skills to do fast development to get down to turbo. So this year we have got very little production. Really the aim is we already started today talking to the crews. The mine will stop mining in August, so we're harvesting the final stopes, and then we will process what we've got in stocks and then go into a care maintenance program. But this is the opportunity. So the strategic plan at a concept level is to build a 10-year mine, push the current mill, which we do about 500,000 tonnes through it, which has got a capacity of more than 600,000 tonnes, push the mill up to 650,000 tonnes by mining more than one deposit. So the Bentley mine owes the turbo deposit. The Jaguar mine was an underground mine which was mined before they started Bentley. And when they discovered Bentley, they basically left what's there in Jag because of the grades at Bentley and moved to Bentley. So we already started to pump the Jaguar mine up because it's full of water. And that will keep going. We'll keep going with that hearing care maintenance. And the plan would be then to mine Bentley and Jag at the same time. Push them all to 650,000 tons. And you've got grades sitting around three, three and a half percent copper equivalents by putting that through. And you'll make good money. And then you go to tonic ball, which is an open foot cutback. The Triumph deposit is already approved to be mined, and then there's obviously exploration ground. So in those four deposits, there's 8 million tons, roughly around 3% copper equivalent, with 1.1% copper and 5.6% zinc. And we tend to get quite good silver grade as well. So really it's about sitting down, doing the feasibility study to say, how do we do this? How do we make sure the plant can deal with 6.5% How do we time these deposits to come into production at the same time, that you don't have this piecemeal effect while you're trying to get to the one, you lose money on the one while you're trying to do the other one. And I think just a coordinated approach in restarting this business will have a significant benefit to all of us and shareholders in the way forward. So there's an example, the Bentley mine is still 3.1 million tonnes sitting there, actually about 3.5% copper. And you can see what has happened in this last six months. The seismic event was in the Pintaga area, which was our high-grade stoves. So we couldn't get back in there to mine those stoves, and we had a few events in this area as well. So the analysis has been done, why it happened, so we understand that, and that will become part of the new mine plan going forward. But this turbot deposit, which is close to 2 million tonnes, is still the biggest or largest lens discovered within this ore body. So a lot of value sitting there for us to look in the future. The Jaguar mine, as I said, they basically walked away from it. We updated the mineral resource in the last quarter. There's already 800,000 tons at 2.3% copper with good zinc. That is a pretty good result. So if you can start to mine these two mines at the same time, it would be a huge benefit to the business. The dewatering is underway. We expect to be able to get to the vent intake by December, and then we can assess the work which needs to be done in rehabilitation to get this mine back up and running. And that will then form part of that study we will do going forward. Then the exploration. This mine sits within a 25 million ounce gold field. The tenements are highly prospective for gold. And then there's quite a few targets identified for base metals. So while we're in care and maintenance, we will still do a bit of work around exploration, see where the opportunities, and start to talk to our neighbors who's gold miners to see how do you extract some value for the gold you will have on this tenement package. The Stockman project, I know we have said previously to the market we will put a study out by the end of June, so in July. It is taking a bit longer, the guys are doing an amazing job to understand this asset, to look at metallurgical recovery, so we did a few more holes to test the recoveries. A lot of work has been done to look at the footprint of the asset. The mining engineers has re-looked at the mine plan in various different ways to ensure we can do it cost-effective. So we're really spending a lot of time focusing on those, look at the logistics, and we still will give a market update in quarter two, FY24. This is a great project. It's got 10 million tons and nearly 3% copper equivalent recovered. So it is one of the best projects we have it will produce around 30,000 tons of copper annually or copper equivalent annually at this mine. The approval process are all underway. As I've said before, we already got a mining lease. We already got the approvals for a tailings dam. It's all the minor approvals, which is part of this process, is also continuing. And we have got a few approvals during the quarter. These are just a few pictures. This front footprint is significantly smaller. You can see it's not huge underground mines. It's basically on the side of a hill, but not a lot of capital spent to get declines to the ore bodies, and they're not part of part in terms of where they sit. At a corporate level, we ended up the quarter with $29.5 million between cash and receivables. That was one of the reasons why we did start to talk about putting more working capital in the business, because a lot of this is It's just movement in capital with all the stocks we have. But FY23, we did spend a lot of capital while we were not necessarily doing that well. That working capital facility is in place as of this afternoon, and we still unhedge in the business going forward. I guess that sort of summarizes where we are. FY23 was a challenging year. We've seen significant improvements at the operations. And really the benefit of having a portfolio of assets allow us not to keep mining jag at a loss, but rather plan for it to be mined in an economical fashion going forward. Thank you very much. I'll open the floor for discussion or questions if anyone wants to ask any questions.

Thanks, Andre. I'd like to remind attendees that they can submit questions using the Q&A function or raise hand function at the bottom of their Zoom screen. We will give callers a few moments to get their questions in. Andre, we can see that Adam has a verbal question they'd like to ask. Adam, I'm going to turn your mic on now. Is that working for you?