1/23/2025

speaker
Mel
Operator

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Coronado Global Resources fourth quarter investor call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a discussion of results from the CEO and team 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 one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Chantelle Esser, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

speaker
Chantelle Esser
Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining Coronado's fourth quarter investor call for 2024. Today, we released our quarterly report to the ASX and SEC, in which we outline our production and sales statistics, as well as our key information related to safety, coal markets, and financial performance. A more detailed outline of our financial position and results is expected to be released to the market on the 20th of February with our form 10-K. Today I am joined by our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Douglas Thompson. Within our report, you will see our notice regarding forward-looking statements and reconciliations of certain non-US GAAP financial measures. We encourage you to review these statements in conjunction with our other filings with the ASX and SEC. I also remind everyone that Coronado quotes all numbers in US dollars and metric tons unless otherwise stated. On our hand, the call over to Douglas.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Chantelle. And belated Happy New Year to all and thank you for taking the time to join us today. In summary, it's been a better quarter for us. We held the opening of our Mammoth Underground mine, which included the cutting of first coal, which was achieved on time and on budget. And both our business units delivered a stronger quarter. We finished the new series of notes that was oversubscribed with improved pricing and terms, and our safety results remained better than industry averages, and we finished the year with mining costs back below $100 a tonne, a strong closing inventory position, and a solid balance sheet. Key metrics achieved in quarter four were our group ROM production was 6.9 million tonnes, our saleable production was 4 million tonnes, and our sales volume was 4.1 million tonnes. At the group level, our total recordable injury rate was 1.18, remaining well below industry averages in both the United States and in Australia. Our improvement journey is positive and ongoing. If you turn to page two, you'll see our operations and sales summary there. On a year-to-date basis, at December, Coronado achieved ROM coal production of 26.6 million tonnes. up approximately 5% on 2023 and on 2022, reflecting improved planning and efficiencies across all of our operations. The Australian Business Unit experienced a better December quarter. Currah Complex delivered ROM coal production of 3.4 million tonnes, which is 29% better than the prior quarter. But the last week of December, Currah was impacted by unplanned electrical outages, which impacted our coal processing plants and overland conveyor. Production was impacted for about one week while we attended to the repair work required after the outages and knock-on impacts. The outage meant that we built ROM inventory in this period that we couldn't process, which is expected to benefit us in quarter one in production and sales, and actually is. Due to the improved productivity from our dragline system, the previously announced Additional fleet was idled in late October. The idle fleet consisted of a company-owned shovel, T282 trucks, and associated ancillary equipment. This is the fifth fleet removed from our open-cut operations since April 2024. Results achieved from actions taken over the last 18 months to enable our productivity. Our mine site cash costs decreased by 37% to $90 a tonne in the quarter. This shows the efforts of our people to follow our plan in a determined and disciplined manner is delivering opportunities for improvement. And this plan is focused on optimizing performance by enabling productivity and removing system complexity. Efforts in the quarter have been focused on continuing to improve productivity from our dragline dozer and cast blast system. And this dragline system continues to exceed our improvement targets, with the ratio of waste moved by draglines compared to truck and excavator now at 52%. And this is 8% above our plan for 2024, and it's up from what was 37% back in 23. And in the quarter, the next major milestone in this plan was delivered, and that was to secure an alternate coal source and a coal source that was at a lower cost per tonne than our current operations. The now-operational Mammoth Underground offers that milestone. First coal was mined on time and on budget, and now we're in ramp-up phase. Moving to our US business unit, we had our planned long-rule move in associated maintenance in the month of November at Buchanan. The US continues to improve quarter-on-quarter throughout 2024, delivering higher production, sales volumes, and lower cost per tonne. And the year's operations delivered ROM production of 3.5 million tonnes, a positive and sustained trend. Buchanan continued to achieve improved skip efficiencies following the work that was undertaken earlier in the year, with skip counts remaining at their best rate in the last two years. And the ROM production from our U.S. is up 10% on 2023. Moving to our financial position and a bit of market outlook, the December quarter group revenue was $558 million. And the December year-to-date group revenue was just over $2.5 billion. Revenues reflect an 18.9% fall in PLV hot coking gold free on board Australian index. combined with lower annual U.S. domestic contract pricing if we compare that to December 2023. In the December quarter, the average PLV index was $203, and the group average realized price per ton of MEDCOL sold for the December quarter was $163 a ton. Export sales volumes was 69.6% of total sales volumes, and met coal revenues were 95.2% of total revenues. The year-to-date sales volumes for the group at December 24 was 15.8 million tonnes, which is in line with the same period in 2023. We continue to see steel markets and raw coal material demand coming under pressure, and the PLV index at a three-year low since early September. China's stimulus measures so far have not proved the confidence in the steel market. Steel raw material prices remain subdued, with the main met coal index staying range-bound at that $200 level. And during the quarter, the anticipated positive momentum from India didn't eventuate. Neither was their recovery from hot metal production outside of China. The long-term outlook for Seaborne Metco remains very positive based on the fundamentals that we see within the market. Turning to our finance, we ended the year with a net debt position of $85 million, with closing cash position of $339 million and available liquidity of $468 million. And we successfully issued $400 million at 9.25% of senior secured notes due in 2029 in an offering that was many times oversubscribed. The proceeds from this was used to redeem the remaining $242 million of the original senior secured notes due in 2026 and provided additional balance sheet strength. To note, the tenure of the extension put the finance date beyond the expiry of the coal supply agreement with Stanwell, after which Coronado's earnings and cash flow are anticipated to significantly improve. And in the quarter, we also announced our new Chief Financial Officer, Barry Fonamava, and Barry will be starting with us on the 1st of April 2025. And lastly, I'll give you a brief update on our projects, and I'll start with Mammoth. So Mammoth Underground project at the Curragh Complex is now operational. And we're in execution phase, and we're going to be ramping up over the rest of 2025. Mammoth Underground offers Curragh Complex several strategic improvement opportunities. Firstly, reduced cost per tonne. The cost per tonne for mammoth mine is forecast to be in the second quarter. And this will reduce the overall cost per tonne from the complex. Diversified coal production. The underground mine will de-risk production continuity as it offers an additional coal supply to our processing plants. And this additional supply is not affected by wet weather as the open cuts are. And increased capacity. Once fully operational, the project is expected to deliver 1.5 to 2 million tonnes per annum of sellable production. in the first phase, and further expansion is possible and will be evaluated once the results are determined from the first phase. And Mammoth Mine has substantial high-quality met coal. The reserve base is more than 41 million ROM tons, with a coal quality expected to mirror the existing products that we get from Curranorth Open Cut. Now if I turn to the US and give you a quick update on our organic expansion projects at Buchanan, Both of these projects remain on budget and on schedule. In the December quarter, major components installation on the second set of skips project progressed and the shaft collar foundation was completed on this project. And then with the excavation works completed, the construction of the reclaimed tunnel and the screening building on the new surface wall call storage area was ongoing. Full completion of both projects is on budget and on track to be completed in quarter two of this year in 2025. Ultimately, the increased wasting capacity in storage area will reduce the risk of bottlenecks, allowing our northern Longwall and southern Longwall districts and equipment to operate at higher capacity and improved productivities. And with that, I'll hand over to the operator, Mel, and take your questions.

speaker
Mel
Operator

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We also have Sandeep Deochi on the line to answer any questions you may have. Your first question comes from Paul Young with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

speaker
Paul Young
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Thanks. Morning, Doug. Happy New Year and I hope you're well. Doug, first question is on Currah, just around the performance there with respect to mining costs and also that power disruption, just starting with that power disruption, which impacted you late in December quarter. Can I just confirm, was that Currah isolated to Currah or was that actually more regional?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Paul, we actually had a number of events. So as the storms rolled through Queensland, we were impacted by a regional outage that impacted our supply to the mine, and then we also had some on-site impacts. We actually took, and this was the lingering impact of the event, because when you have a power outage, as you know, it stops your prep plants and they crash stop, so you have to start them up in a methodical manner and clean up some of the mess that unfortunately gets made. That is well dealt with. The impact we had is we had a direct strike on our reject spin and on the overland conveyor that impacted the control systems on both that had lingering impact. We got that prepared after that first major outage was on Boxing Day, and then the second one was on New Year. There was another big storm that came through that knocked out the power in the area that impacted us for that period, and we kept mining. So a combination of on-site direct impact, but then also regional impact.

speaker
Paul Young
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Okay. All right. Thanks, Doug. And then the next question is on the mining costs. If I just look quarter on quarter, really good reduction at Curra. I think it was about $35 million quarter on quarter reduction or about 6% when I look at just site cash costs. And I know you pointed out the increase in dragline mining, which is obviously great because the costs are so much lower than the truck shovel. So in this environment where You know, you've still got a bit of a CapEx program ahead of you in this half, noting CapEx did fall in the quarter, but I think you're guiding to a bit of a step up or expecting a bit of a step up this half. Where coke and coal prices sit at the moment, you know, Curra is still struggling from a cash flow perspective, and I know you've got some inventories that have built up, but on mining costs, what further can you do with respect to, you know, removing truck shovel issues What's your expectations this half on drag line percentage on mining and mining costs? So I'm just looking for the trajectory into this half with respect to what can you do, what's controllable around reducing your costs this half?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

So without getting forward looking just yet, I think if one took quarter two of last year, how we perform from a volumes perspective but also the cost out exercises And that went through quarter three, but we obviously didn't see it in the results because of the denominator. I'd say quarter two, quarter three is probably a line one can start using to trend where we want our costs to be from the initiatives that we've put in place to make Currah more productive and reduce our absolute cost base by taking those fleets out. So that's the first thing. What do we expect going forward? The drag line performance continues to be at the levels at which we've planned our forward look for this year. We've actually not held the percentages we're presently achieving. We've actually stepped that back a little bit to ensure that we can deliver the drag line ratio where I'm talking about 52% of waste moved by drag lines versus truck and excavate. We've got a mine plan that is slightly less than that to ensure that it's sustainable. So we're comfortable with that. We've seen those results bear out month to date. The cost out of the cost out, we've still got some cost opportunities in what I call removing the complexity from current operations. And what I mean by that is the historic model that the prior owners ran was a very outsourced model. We had many contractors involved, margin on margins, many overheads, crossover. Part of what we did last year was thin out our contractor services quite disciplinedly and that has a linger because you've got to keep people noticed and they've got to go through a turn-off period contractually. That work is now behind us so we're looking to start enjoying the fruits of that benefit so you should see that coming through in our costing. And then our mine plan in quarter one because of the drag lines performing better than what we had in the 24 plan, and we brought that into the plan for 25, we've got an opportunity to temporarily idle another truck and excavate fleet, which we're going through the analysis of, and that'll give us another opportunity to address our costs. So those are the sustainable, long-term, put-in-your-mind plan, engineer and have a systemic change in your cost base that we've been working through. There are obviously other levers that we can pull. The first one is making sure that we've come into the year with a strong cash position. And the discipline that we've held as a business around our balance sheet, I think, plays out to the liquidity. And we've always said that's what's important to us. You know, that $200 million probably as a business has now grown or the underground $250 million is the liquidity discipline we want to hold on our balance sheet. And we've taken that into the new year and you'll see from September through a very, you know, you look at low pricing in the fourth quarter, we've held a good cash position from quarter to quarter, so in the discipline. But we do have other levers that we can pull, for example, capital management. We're all looking at our capital programs, but it's not the levers one wants to pull in a systemic manner because it sets you up for challenge in the future. And some of the challenges we've worked very hard at Currit to address are like the COVID maintenance deficit on key infrastructure, like our four drag lines. We spent a lot of money on those, getting them up to spec and getting the reliability where we can see that in the system now, in our prep plants and overland conveyors. Obviously, those are levers one can pull, but we have others as well. And the efficiencies in our systems and costs out are the systemic ones that I'd like us to focus on.

speaker
Paul Young
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Yeah, okay. Thanks, Doug. Really good detail. I appreciate that. And just lastly on realized pricing in the US, which was, I think, domestic sales focused, which probably, so I just want to clarify why was that? Was it just a timing of deliveries? Because I noticed the Buchanan export price really bumped up in the quarter. So it's unfortunate you couldn't deliver into the export market in the quarter. So can you maybe just step through and explain why we saw that variability in those deliveries to domestic stimulus rather than the seaborne market?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

I think I want to go and make sure I've got the numbers right, but from what I evaluated, it's timing. So it's about contract volumes on timing and then seaborne availability. And hopefully we'll see that play out a little bit more in this year with what we're seeing in the United States with the positive sentiment in that market.

speaker
Paul Young
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Yeah, easy. Okay, thank you, Doug. I appreciate it.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Paul.

speaker
Mel
Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Rob Steen with Macquarie. Please go ahead.

speaker
Rob Steen
Analyst at Macquarie

Hi, guys. Just to follow up on Paul's question around pricing, can you provide a bit of context around the sales mix change, Q on Q, and whether we can expect, you know, to sort of average mid-75s Metcoal

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

going forward as sort of trended 23 and the like I'd say yes that percentage of met cold yes it's a lot of it is around timing so it'll be quite difficult for me to to give you that our clients will be it that the market is under pressure has kept taking their volumes they want our product clearly So our sales volumes into contractors stayed stable to our plan. So I think the swings you'd see would have been timing. If you casted your mind back to last year, I would have seen the difference between this year and last year with some of the arbitrage advantage that we took between thermal pricing at the time, and it was a wind-out of those contracts or opportunities we took up to this year, but quarter-on-quarter would have been timing.

speaker
Rob Steen
Analyst at Macquarie

And just on Mammoth, can you provide us an update on just ramp up and how we're expecting to see that impact costs and production going forward?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

With pleasure. So firstly on the cost is as that volume ramps up and we bring more of that volume into Currah, which is second half, you'll see some material volumes start coming through in the ramp up program. That will start helping reduce the cost base from an overall complex perspective. The ramp-up profile that we've planned looks like this. There's three continuous mining units that we planned in the first phase, and we're busy building out the first panel for the first unit. So that started in mid-December when we announced the project. That will build up. And then we'll have the second unit get delivered in the back end of quarter one, and we'll build out that second panel through quarter two. And then to the middle of the year, we'll build out the third panel. And that'll include the primary infrastructure for the mine, so putting in the conveyor belt lines and the like. The opportunity that'll start playing out in the second half predominantly in the ramp out is it's a five-meter coal seam. So you, on production, take the top cut, bolt it, secure it, spend quite a bit of your investment money in the primary development, and then you come back and you rip the floor. And that's very, very productive and cheap tons that you bring into the system as you go on retreat on those floors with that coal seam that we have. So that will officer us. those opportunities. What we also speak about in expansion is if it proves to be as productive as what it is, there's a second phase that we could see ramp up where we could bring more units in, probably in about 18 to 24 months' time from now when the mine will be built out sufficiently for it to be productive, bringing on additional tons. And then from a processing perspective as well through our plant, we'll get opportunities in our bypass circuit as a like, which will help us with our processing costs. Those will all be evaluated as part of phase two in the project. So there's quite a bit of upside opportunity we see out of this that we'll be exploiting, but we don't want to make commitments to that until we see it evidenced in this first phase.

speaker
Luca Mariani
Analyst at Nuveen

Thank you very much.

speaker
Mel
Operator

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Glyn Lawcock with Baron Joey. Please go ahead.

speaker
Glyn Lawcock
Analyst at Baron Joey

Good morning. I was wondering if I could just ask what the normalised costs were like at Curragh in the quarter, given you capitalised. This feels a little bit like what we saw Q2 last year, where Costs have been gapping around quite a bit. I mean, what would be normalised costs for the quarter if you hadn't capitalised the inventory move?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

The part of the movement in the quarter on quarter is also inventory. So we've built drawn inventory in quarter four. So that causes some of it. That will stabilise out, I think, as the underground comes online as well and we stop having some of these events that impact us. And our plan, as it's been playing out, you can see the amplitude of those impacts are starting to flatten and Curra will be more stable. So I think it's denominator inventory that probably moves it around. Quoting a number, I don't want to preempt what we're going to be doing in a couple of weeks' time, but if you thought about 105 with some of that normalised out, that's probably where the number would be.

speaker
Glyn Lawcock
Analyst at Baron Joey

Okay, so if I think about the trajectory over the course of 24, given you've been Q2, had massive capitalization of inventory, the opposite in Q3, then again in Q4. I mean, that number you just given then, is that sort of the right base effect for Curra then about 105 or something?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

I'd say about sub-$105 for the first half, and then obviously as these projects come online, as you said, capital winds out. But the benefit from the capital starts flowing through. That'll change.

speaker
Glyn Lawcock
Analyst at Baron Joey

Okay.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

I don't want to get over my skis.

speaker
Glyn Lawcock
Analyst at Baron Joey

Yeah, no, no, I appreciate it. I mean, it's just obviously the volatility of the capitalisation. You know, when you're swinging from $120 a tonne to $90 a tonne, The truth is somewhere in the middle, roughly, it seems like.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

And that's the inventory you're on.

speaker
Glyn Lawcock
Analyst at Baron Joey

Yeah. And then just on the cash flow, I mean, I know it's very small, but it's a game of inches with this company, it feels like, on cash flow. You made a very small reduction in net debt. Was it just a working capital contribution in the quarter to help you make positive cash reduction in your net debt? No. If we look at today's environment, prices are obviously a bit weaker than we'd all like them to be. Is the business making cash at today's prices as we stand today?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Playing down our net position first going there is a combination of the effort, the costs and that coming down, but yes, there's some working capital in it. You mentioned the inventory. The first quarter is going to be tough, and this pricing environment, I think, for everyone, as you said, is going to be tough. The fact that we've got a fairly large capital program in the first six months of this year is going to be tough. We've set the business up and we continue to hold the business to the long-term intent of playing out in 2025, of finishing these capital projects, holding the discipline on what was needed to sort out the productivity and efficiencies at Curra in particular, and drawing benefit from those. So that work is largely complete, but it needs to bear fruit in this first half. So the first half is going to be hard while we finish these projects off and where we're seeing pricing at the moment.

speaker
Glyn Lawcock
Analyst at Baron Joey

So capital will be up on 24 or we'll wait for guidance next month?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

If you could wait for guidance.

speaker
Glyn Lawcock
Analyst at Baron Joey

Okay, that's great. Thanks very much. Thank you.

speaker
Mel
Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Chen Zhang with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

speaker
Chen Zhang
Analyst at Bank of America

Good morning, Zach. Happy New Year. Thanks for taking my question. Just a follow-up on the mining costs from Australia quarter over quarter, I know you mentioned about the drag line, the inventory, the capitalized inventory, et cetera, et cetera. But by looking at the volatility quarter over quarter, for example, from Australia in first quarter, the mining cost was US$126, and then dropped significantly second quarter, 91, and third quarter up again, 123, and the fourth quarter, it's $90. So I guess... what exactly has happened in the last 12 months? You have such a quarter of a quarter of big volatility in the course and also maybe give us some confidence. I know you will provide a guidance the next month for the average of FR25 mining costs and maybe give us some sort of confidence that you can maintain the mining costs from Australia at a relatively low level, let's call it like below $100. Yeah. And also the levers to achieve that. Thank you.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

No problem. Tianjing, most of what you said I think helped me answer the question and the prior response as well is Volatility in those quarters was driven by a number of things. The first quarter was, and inventory balances, like you said, first, yep, that does the swing in the quarter, and then the denominator. If you look at Curra in the year that's been, we started the year off where the Australian Eastern Seaboard was hit by those big storms and then the cyclones that impacted our input inventories and our opening inventories to process and produce product. So from a sales perspective, denominator was severely impacted in the first quarter and also ROM production. The second quarter, the mine was set up and we produced really good ROM production, sales production as a result. And that started reflecting the kind of numbers that we were looking for in our plan. And that's also when we started taking tangible cost based out of the business by taking fleets out. you're not only taking that cost, but you're also taking all of the people associated with those costs and the knock-on effects. That came out, as we announced, as we parked up the first two fleets. It was at that timing when we finished the historic works on recovering the pre-strip and setting up the new working areas for the dragline efficiencies. And then as the productivity of that system played out, we could park up the second two fleets. And then in the last quarter, the the unplanned at that stage, but a fifth fleet that came out of the system as the efficiencies played out. So that's the underlying costs coming out of the business. The third quarter was, once again, August had, I think, the highest rainfall from 2013 that impacted operations. And then we had our overland conveyor damaged with a belt getting ripped by a crusher plate coming loose and a substantial amount of damage that took volume out of it as well. So those are the key items that played out that then took the denominators out. So that's why I'm saying look at Q2 and look at Q4, and you can kind of see the system's capacity that it can produce at the moment, and you can also start seeing what the cost that it can operate with the cost out that we've been doing. So then to answer your question and look forward, yeah, that... You know, 105 probably below that. And then particularly in the second half, as the volumes start coming through post the investments that we've made in capital, we'll start enjoying the return on it. And then the other point is you get system stability as you have that additional volume come along. This is, I know it's laborious and it entertains my mind, but it's an engineering solution that we've designed and we're disciplinely executing it as we can afford it to get the business there and Time is the most valuable commodity for us, so we've been working through it as quick as we can to get the system stability, but this engineered solution for Curra, and we can see the results. We've demonstrated the results. We just need it to be sustainable going forward. And that will play out in the costs.

speaker
Chen Zhang
Analyst at Bank of America

Okay. Thank you, Doug, for the details. Much appreciated. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

No problem. As offered in the past, we'd love to host you on site and show you this.

speaker
Mel
Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Daniel Roden with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

speaker
Daniel Roden
Analyst at Jefferies

Good day, guys, and thanks for taking my call, and thanks, and good job on the quarter. I just wanted to, I guess, understand, you know, you've called out the potential for, I guess, removing another load and haul fleet just due to the drag line efficiency seen through December. I just wanted to understand... basically what the decision process is for switching those fleets both off, but then also back on. And what, I guess, what are you doing with the actual fleets themselves? Are they remaining on site? Are you offloading them to a different site and contractor? And I guess the premise of this is just, I guess, trying to understand what the medium term risk is of falling, I guess, behind on your medium term pre-strip requirements for coal uncovering.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, very good call out. To answer your question and let's go to where it is, look at Currow as a resource. It's now three mines. So through the group, we've got 10 operations. We've got five in the Logan complex, four undergrounds, one open cut, the cannon, the two, and then three in Australia. So the addition of the underground and the incremental tons that can come out of it where you've got a fully permitted long-life asset with the amount of reserve in front of us offers, as I've called it in the past, a smorgasbord of opportunities for an engineering mind of what can we do. Part of that has to be played to what the market's doing. So we've got the opportunity. If the market moves, we can install additional capacity, we can ramp up production, and that'll always be our goal is Does it make sense in the market to get additional capacity through? And I think for Currah, volume does work. So we will be pushing that lever. I think we've signaled that in the past. What we've done disciplinary to date is simplify the operations, get them really focused and drive productivity. And to do that, you pull back. Now that the drag lines are performing where they can, we can start looking at the truck and excavator fleet, as you've suggested, that in a particular market, do you wind it back? without dropping revenue out of the business, obviously. And then when can you wind it back up again? So to get into the next part of your question is, well, is the accessibility that fleet's still there to you if it presents? So the shovel is ours, we own it. That equipment is parked on site and will remain on site. So yes, that capital is available. All the other fleets that we've parked have been contractor-owned fleets, and those fleets have been demobbed and removed off site The fleet I'm talking about of consideration in this year is probably about a 400-ton class fleet. So it's not a primary pre-strip fleet. 600 and 800-ton fleets is our primary fleet. But it still has a substantial cost base that can come out. And with the drag line sitting at what we plan in them to do this year, that pre-strip can get done by drag lines in lieu of that fleet. It probably will get done to the back end of quarter two if the performance keeps on going the way that it is. And that'll play out for the rest of 25. But it will come back into production probably in 26 at some stage when we look at our stripping ratio profiles and pre-strip ahead of drag lines. So we'll try and keep that fleet accessible. But in our procurement processes going around, there is fleet available in the markets. Everybody is getting cost out of their business at the moment. So there are avenues to pursue fleet in a reasonable amount of time if you can pre-plan it properly. So we don't see any of these decisions that are taken at the moment to impact us long term in managing the stripping ratio of the mine.

speaker
Daniel Roden
Analyst at Jefferies

Yeah, not perfect, but it was, yeah, perfect answer. But thanks, Doug. I really appreciate it and I'm looking forward to getting up to start to pick some rocks.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Great. Thank you.

speaker
Mel
Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Luca Mariani with Nuveen. Please go ahead.

speaker
Luca Mariani
Analyst at Nuveen

Hey, guys. Thanks for answering the question. Yes, I just wanted to clarify something on cash generation. So pro forma for... the new issuance last quarter. What was the effective cash burn on a quarter-over-quarter basis? And is there a minimum cash level you want to keep for the first half of 2025?

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

I don't want to get too deep into the details of it because we're going to be coming out in a month and putting out all of our financials, so we don't want to get across our skis on your first part of your question, but what we believe as a team and our board and what we've been reporting to the market is liquidity of about $200 mark is what we've been managed as we grow in the business with both the expansion in the U.S. and Australia. We're probably looking at $250 is the kind of liquidity level we want to hold as a business, and we're sitting at just on $470 million of liquidity at the moment and cash of just under $450 $340 million. So we've got comfort level in both of those at the discipline with managing the balance sheet and our cash positions and strategies around that is working.

speaker
Luca Mariani
Analyst at Nuveen

Got it. Thank you.

speaker
Mel
Operator

Thank you. That concludes the question and answer section of today's call. I'll now hand back to Douglas for any closing remarks.

speaker
Douglas Thompson
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

As one year draws to an end and the next opens, one sits back and reflects on opportunities of learning and growth. A review of our plan long-term for all of our assets is the right plan. Our strategic intent is the right. We've got Logan, the five minds there. They've been a very reliable, constant performer, excellent team, very experienced team delivering good results. Buchanan, with having both long wall operations in 2024 now proven to work and that we can manage the mine a lot better, particularly yields going forward with both of them going, I'm really excited in 2025 with the de-bottlenecking as we allow additional throughput through the system and have the flexibility that will enable the team at Buchanan. And then at Currah, a lot of the milestones that we've spoken to the team have delivered. We now have three mines. The regulators approved three mines. The complexity is out. We've taken out a lot of our cost base and that has helped simplify it. And we've seen the results come through in our productivities and in our cost. So I don't see the first half of 2025 being easy for anybody on any measure. Things beyond our control like market that we need to respond to and have a business that's responsibly prepared for. And then the efforts to finish these capital projects like we have been. To build a coal mine in Queensland on budget and on time is kind of unprecedented. So I'm incredibly proud of the effort put in by the team. But we know we've got more to do and these assets have got more to offer. And that's where our focus is. And that's what excites me about the year ahead. So as I've said previously, please take us up on the offer. We'd like to get you out to these mines and show you what we're doing. It's far easier to show you than explain it. With that, thank you very much.

speaker
Mel
Operator

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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