Evolution Mining Limited

I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr Laurie Conway, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you Ashley and good morning everyone. I'm joined on the call today by Jake Klein our Executive Chair, Matt O'Neill our Chief Operating Officer, Nancy Guay our Chief Technical Officer, Glen Marston our VP Discovery and Peter O'Connor our GM Investor Relations. Today, in addition to releasing our March quarterly results, we're excited to announce the approval of the Cowl Open Pit Continuation Project that will sustain the operation as a world-class number one asset for at least the next 17 years. Glenn Marston, our VP Discovery, tells me that we're not discovering at Cowl, and I'm sure he is right. We've released a presentation pack today, and that is what... Turning to slide three, and I think it's fair to say that we've had another successful quarter. On top of our day-to-day operations, though, we've made enormous progress on multiple value-accretive organic growth projects. As I said in January, our commitment has been to continue to build on the consistency of the past four quarters, and that is what we did in the March quarter. We are delivering to guidance. Our safety was stable with our TRIF at 5.4. We produced around 180,000 ounces of gold and just under 20,000 tonnes of copper. Our all-in sustaining cost remains one of the lowest in the sector at $1,616 per ounce for the quarter and $1,575 per ounce year-to-date for continuing operations. We're also maintaining our discipline on costs and capital allocation. The consistency in delivery matched with the increasing dole price environment has seen our cash flow generation continue, with $207 million of group cash flow delivered in the quarter. On top of this, we had an extremely productive and successful quarter with our projects. The Mungaree plant expansion has completed construction early and is now in the commissioning and ramp. This now moves Mungaree back to a material tax contributor for the group. Cal received final regulatory approval for the continuation of open pit mining. On the back of this, the board had the easiest of decisions for the project due to the quality asset and the high rate of return it will deliver. The project is now fully approved and Cal is extended out to at least 2042. Lastly, at Mount Rawdon, all of the work over the past few years on the pump hydro project is starting to come to fruition with the Queensland Government committing to funds for the next phase of the project. I'm not going to steal Jake's thunder on the project. He will have the pleasure of talking to it shortly. Moving to slide four, which really does show the outcome of the fiscal quarter. We've further accelerated our deleveraging, which strengthens the balance sheet. The $207 million of group cash flow we delivered for the quarter was at an equivalent rate of $1,115 per ounce. This is 30% higher than the December quarter against only an 11% increase in the average spot gold price. We expect further improvements in cash flow in the June quarter as we deliver our production guidance matched with a spot gold price that is $550 to $600 per ounce higher than what we achieved in the March quarter. There's been a lot of talk about hedge books and Evolution has minimal hedging at 65,000 ounces to be delivered through to June 2026. It is not material in the overall scheme of things and when you look at it, this year we've achieved 98.5% of the average spot price. During the quarter we repaid all of our remaining FY25 scheduled term loan repayment. With our cash position of over $660 million, the outlook for near-term cash generation and our gearing now below 20%, we will continue to accelerate repayments of these term loans. Our long-dated debt via the USPP notes is sector leading with a very low average cost of debt at 4.5% in Australian dollar terms. It comprises 75% of our total debt with an average tenor of about six to seven years. When we issued these notes, we fixed our currency exposure and are seeing the real benefits of that. Our principal debt is currently $180 million lower and our interest expense is $7 to $8 million per annum lower than if we were exposed to currency movement. Through delivering to our plan disciplined capital allocation and banking the benefits of high metal prices, this will enable us to continue to increase returns for our shareholders. Turning to slide five and shifting gears to our projects. Cal is truly a world-class tier one asset. Since acquiring the operation 10 years ago, it has consistently delivered low-cost ounces. The resource base has grown. It has fully repaid all acquisition and investment capital. It still has at least a 17-year mine life. And as I said earlier, there is more upside to be extracted. Just this year alone, for the first nine months, Cowell has generated around $480 million of net cash at just under $1,900 per ounce. It's hard to resist, but it is a cash cow. The decision to invest in the open pit continuation project was easy due to the quality of the asset and the compelling economics of the project. Nancy will take you through this in more detail shortly. But in short, the project will deliver around 2 million incremental ounces from three satellite open pits and the existing E42 pit. The project plan and capital are very much in line with what we outlined on site in June last year. For an investment of $430 million over the next seven years to generate an incremental NPV of between $875 million and $2.3 billion, at 34% to 71% rate of return and a very short payback period of one and a half, pardon me, to four and a half years from first all. This is the right place and time to be allocating the funds. It fully aligns with our discipline on capital allocation. We will be investing $65 to $70 million of the project capital and around $5 million in mine development this financial year to have the project ready for full ramp-up from July. This capital was not included in our original FY25 capital guidance as the project was subject to regulatory approval at that time. Included in this capital for FY25 is the opportune purchase of low-hour second-hand haul truck fleet. saving approximately $35 million compared to the cost of new haul trucks. The market for this type of equipment is favourable right now, and therefore we will continue to assess options so as to achieve the best outcomes from a capital and operating cost perspective for the Long Life Open Pit Plan. I'll now hand over to Jake, who's excited to share the good news on the Mount Rawdon Pump Hydro Project.

Thanks, Laurie. Good morning, everyone. I'm very happy to have been invited by you, Laurie, to do a guest cameo appearance on the call today. I must admit, when I asked you, Laurie, for 20 minutes to provide the full story on Mount Rawdon, you did almost rescind the invitation. So I will try and meet my commitment to you and be as broad as possible, given the exciting nature of this project. But as many of you know on the call, the conversion of Mount Rawdon into a pumped hydro clean energy storage facility has been a pet project of mine. It has such great positive messages on so many levels for the mining industry and also our country's transition to renewable. What could be better than converting an old gold mine into renewable clean energy infrastructure assets? It is a project we've been working on for over five years since our partners and joint venture owners in the project, ICA Partners, identified Mount Rawdon as a site suited to the conversion to Pumps Hydro. This centered around its steep topography, its closeness to the grid, and the fact that it is a disturbed mine site, so it's environmental so well known. All the work we have done over the last five years has demonstrated this to be correct, and we've set out some of this on slide six. Mount Rawdon has proven to be one of the most advanced, lowest capital intensive pumped hydro projects in Australia. It is competitive on every important metric compared to other energy storage alternatives. Last week, the project received a major boost announced the Queensland Government's support in advancing the Mount Rawdon Pumps Hydro Project to a final investment decision. This support is being funded through CleanCo, a government-owned entity who are currently spending $30 million on further study and geotechnical ahead of deciding whether to exercise their option by the end of September this year. The agreement we have put in place with CleanCo aligns ICA and Evolution's interests with the success of the project right through to commissioning through various milestone payments and also the right to process any gold extracted as the current open pit is reshaped to serve as the lower reservoir for an infrastructure asset that will be built and operated for 100 years. Finally, probably something that was not considered in the initial analysis but is truly proving to be invaluable is the exceptional community and Indigenous partner relationships Evolution has built up over the last decade. Since the announcement from the Queensland Government last week, the response and feedback from these important stakeholders have been overwhelmingly positive, with the recognition that building this project will add jobs and contribute to the local community for decades to come. Laurie, thanks again for the guest slots, and I'll now hand over to Matt to provide some more detail on what has been a genuinely outstanding quarter for Evolution. Thank you, Jake. And a hard act to follow.