Evolution Mining Limited

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Evolution Mining September 2020 quarterly results call. At this time, all participants are just in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, there will be a Q&A session today. To ask a question today, you will just need to press star 1 on your telephone. And just please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. But I will now hand the conference over to your first speaker for today, Mr. Brian O'Hara. General Manager at Investor Relations. Thank you and please go ahead.

Thanks, Myles. Good morning and welcome to the Evolution Mining September 2020 quarterly conference call. This morning on the call we have Jake Fine, Executive Chairman, Laurie Conway, CFO and Finance Director, Glenn Marsterman, VP Discovery and Business Development, who are all with me here in the group office in Sydney. We also have Bob Fork as COO who's dialling in from Brisbane. During the September quarter, global macro factors remained supportive of a strong gold price, and new records were set in both US dollar and Aussie dollar terms, with quarterly averages of 1909 US dollars per ounce and 2668 Australian dollars per ounce, respectively. While there's likely to be some volatility in the gold price for the upcoming US election, the longer-term outlook remains constructive. with continued negative real interest rates and record money printing from governments around the globe. Last Friday, we were pleased to release our 2020 annual report and sustainability report. We're looking forward to engaging with our stakeholders in the coming weeks to discuss the great progress we're making in our sustainability performance as outlined in the report, including a healthier and safer and more diverse workforce, an increased focus on climate-related risk in the key areas of energy efficiency, water security and extreme weather and health events, and the ongoing contributions we're making as a trusted partner to provide community benefits beyond the life of our mines.

Thank you, and I'll hand you over to Jake. Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us on the call today. We hope you are doing well and are healthy and navigating through this COVID pandemic successfully. I'm really pleased with our performance this quarter. We've had a strong start to this financial year with the results and progress across our whole business ahead of where we planned. Operationally, our focus continues to be on capturing and banking high margins, safely and reliably converting quality, low-cost bounces in the ground into cash in the bank. This quarter, we are able to capture an all-in cost margin of $871 for every ounce we produced, which is sector-leading. At the same time, we are investing in our growth and have an exciting pipeline ahead of us. Over the next two years, we expect to be able to deliver a 17% increase in production and a 9% reduction in costs on our already low FY21 cost base. At Cal, we are making good progress to grow our production base to 350,000 ounces of low-cost gold from this outstanding asset. In the September quarter, a very important milestone was achieved with the submission of the significant state development application and the modification 16 development application to the New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. Support from the local communities and stakeholders for this project has to date been very positive. Reflecting the confidence we have in this underground mine, the board last week approved the development of 2,300 metres of additional deep line, which will be used initially for exploration drilling, but it's also been designed so that it can form part of an operating underground mine in the future. We continue to be encouraged by the size and scale of the underground ore bodies. which was estimated at 2.9 million ounces in the last release, which had a 30th April 2020 drilling cuddle. This quarter drilling has again extended the resource envelope and it remains open a long strike and at depth. We expect this drilling to support an increase in resources and reserves when we release it in the March 2021 quarter. Red Lake continues to exceed our most optimistic expectations, and our confidence is growing about the potential upside for this asset. At 11 million ounces of resource, it is already a very significant mineral inventory, and the six drill rigs operating underground is a reflection of our view on the upside of growing its resource and reserve base. Accessing the 4.3 million ounce resource at 10.5 grams per ton, In the upper Campbell area is a clear and present opportunity, and work has been accelerated to complete a study that will allow us to develop a decline to access this high-grade area. Ernest Henry continues to be a very powerful cash generator, this quarter contributing an outstanding $83.2 million. There are very few gold mines in the world that generate that scale of cash flow. We are very confident that the drilling program currently being undertaken will extend the mine life of this important asset. The team at Mangari has done a fantastic job at transforming the operation. In many ways, it is the same journey that Red Lake is at the start of. They now consistently meet or exceed plan, and this quarter generated their third consecutive quarter of record mine cash flow of just under $45 million. an outstanding achievement by our site team. With this confidence in the operation, we have commenced studies on assessing processing options for the Castle Hill area, which we expect to be able to share with you in the June 2021 quarter. Mount Rawdon delivered largely to plan, whilst Mount Carlton drilling at Crush Creek is providing important optionality for the future of this operation. Evolution is very well positioned to prosper through the cycle. During good times, like we are currently experiencing, we are banking sector-leading returns, rewarding our shareholders with dividends, and investing in our future growth. This is a great position to be in. Combine this with a fantastic team of people who are passionate about both our values and creating value, I'm confident that evolution is in very good shape. With that, I'll hand over to Bob to provide more detail on our operational performance.