Evolution Mining Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Evolution Mining Limited March 2026 quarter results. All participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation 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 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 Matt O'Neill, our Chief Operating Officer, Glenn Masterman, our VP Discovery, Fran Summerhays, our CFO, and Peter Rockey-O'Connor, our GM Investor. Today, we released our March quarterly report and an exploration update, which will be the reference points for the call. A key milestone and highlight for the quarter was the transition to a net cash position on the back of another very good quarter. After generating $406 million in group cash flow at just under $2,500 per ounce, we are now in a net cash position of over $40 million. Our cash balance at the end of the quarter was $1.37 billion and we have no debt repayments until FY29. The rapid deleveraging, where we have moved from over 30% gearing to net cash in just over two years, is a reflection of Evolution's high margin portfolio consistently delivering to ensure the benefits of the high metal price environment are banked. To put this into perspective, we have removed around $1.7 billion of net at average achieved gold and copper prices that were $2,100 per ounce at $3,200 per tonne below current spot prices, while still investing in high-grade projects and paying dividends to our shareholders. We are on track to generate approximately $3.6 billion of operating mine cash flow in FY26, where the June quarter is planned to further improve our net cash position. The charts on page one of the quarterly report are a great graphical representation of our cash generating capability and the momentum being built while at the same time investing in high return projects that either grow production or extend mine life. This outcome is a credit to everyone involved in evolution. We continue to safely deliver the plan with the right level of cost and capital discipline. In the March quarter, we produced 170,000 ounces of gold and 11,000 tonnes of copper at an all-in sustaining cost of $2,220 per ounce for continuing operations. The high all-in sustaining cost for the quarter was driven by the lower production and especially the lower copper by-product credits at Ernest Henry. We delivered the quarter safely with our TRIF remaining low at 5.9%. The March quarter was expected to be a lower production quarter due to the impact of the weather event at Ernest Henry in December and the planned semi-annual maintenance work at Cow. Ernest Henry is now back to normal operations. The outcomes of the weather impact at Ernest Henry will mean that we are expected to be around the low end of the group copper guidance. We remain on track to deliver our FY26 group production at the all-in sustaining cost guidance of $1640 to $1760 per ounce. This all-in sustaining cost guidance is 6% lower or better than our original guidance. The group cash flow was on the back of $769 million and $486 million of operating and net mine cash flows respectively. It should be noted that these were achieved despite Ernest Henry being cash flow negative for the quarter. Mine cash flows are on track to lift significantly in the June quarter. All our projects remain on plan and budget. The recently approved North Park's E22, coarse particle flotation and expansion study projects have progressed well in the first six weeks, while the preparation to commence development of the BERT deposit at Ernest Henry is underway. I want to make a couple of comments about the current global fuel supply situation. To date, we've had no material operational impacts, not just from fuel, but our overall consumables. Matt and Fran are actively managing our supply chain logistics and have appropriate response action plans in place. The greater focus of the team is ensuring continuity of supply of all goods and services. Specifically on fuel, supplies are contracted with major oil distribution companies who continue to fulfil their obligations. Fuel represents 2% of our total costs, and while there is a current elevated pricing, it is not having a material impact on our cost base. On the exploration results released today, Glenn and I are very excited at what they offer in terms of adding low-cost ounces to the portfolio. They show that Mangari and Cow, there is a lot more gold to be discovered at what are already long-life operations. Some key highlights include the very encouraging results in the underground areas of Genesis and Arctic at Mangari, which supports our aim of extending the high-grade underground mine life at current production rates. While at Cow, significant high-grade results were received at the Oban underground target. Meanwhile, significant new results in multiple locations across the planned E41 open pit will provide useful insights into the full scale of the deposit ahead of its development. Regional exploration around Ernest Henry will be accelerated over the next six months following our consolidation of large tenement holdings surrounding the mine. We've also started work on the two most recent projects in British Columbia. With that, I'll now hand over to Matt to take us through the operational performance. Thanks, Laurie.

As Laurie's already mentioned, the operational performance for the March quarter was in line with our plan on the back of the rain event at Ernest Henry in the December and the normal plant maintenance schedules at Our safety performance remains in a very healthy position with the continued strong performance in this area thanks to the tireless work occurring across all parts of our business. And I'd like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all our employees who contribute to this. On the production front, we are on track to meet full year guidance for gold and to land at the lower end of guidance for copper. The most significant operational milestone through the March quarter was the resumption of normal operations And for me, the highlight of the work conducted by this team was the fact that it was completed without any significant injuries or incidents. Throughout the March quarter, the Cloncurry region continued to experience higher than average rainfall, which did slow our recovery activities, resulting in additional impacts to the full year production for Ernest Henry, which are now estimated to be between 9,000 to 11,000 ounces of gold and 6,000 to 8,000 tonnes of copper. At Cow we also saw wet weather have an impact on the completion of mining stage H in the E42 pit. Pleasingly the processing plant operated uninterrupted with additional feed sourced from surface stockpiles throughout these weather events. We also completed the regular plant maintenance program on schedule at Cow. As we move into the June quarter we will be mining the final ore from stage H. And as previously advised, we will then move to the stage I cutback and be processing stockpile ore in FY27. This will see cow producing around 10% lower ounces next year. However, importantly, we'll not see a material change in cash flows from the processing of the already mined ore. North Parks, Red Lake and Mount Rawdon all performed in line with expectations, with the quarter's highlights at these operations being the approval by the board of the growth projects at North Parks, The cash flow generated at both Red Lake, which was a record $104 million for the quarter and nearly $225 million year to date, and at Mount Rawdon, which was $13 million in the quarter and over $30 million year to date from processing very low stock material. Mount Rawdon is planned to complete processing at the end of this financial year. Mangari delivered a raft of new records over the quarter, with the fully commissioned mill operating at nameplate capacity throughout the quarter. Most notable of these records are the quarterly net mine cash flow of $175 million and gold production of 51,000 ounces. Mangari has generated over $320 million of net cash flow so far this year, confirming the decision to invest in the plant expansion and the establishment of the Castle Hill mining hub. Looking forward, we are well set for a strong final quarter with the return of Ernest Henry to normal operations the continued strong performance at Mungaree and Cow having completed its annual maintenance program and mining back in Stage H. I'll now hand over to Glenn to talk through the exploration announcements made.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to turn your attention to our exploration announcement, which was also released this morning to give a brief update on where we've seen some momentum over the last six months. Starting with Mangari, I want to briefly revisit some of the commentary I made the last time we updated our drilling results. What the team has achieved recently has fundamentally changed the view on historical geological thinking around Kandana, which had largely written off the potential for meaningful new discoveries, particularly beyond the well-known high-grade tram track positions. By challenging that old geological dogma, we've intersected high-grade veins in new structural positions outside where the traditional models were looking. That's significant because it effectively broken the old paradigm and opened up entirely new search spaces around Kandana. In practical terms, that gives us a much bigger opportunity to continue growing high-grade underground resources and reserves. The best example of this occurs at Genesis, where drilling has targeted extensions of a known system we discovered, which is shown in Figure 1 of the update. Infill drilling across a 300-metre gap northwards towards the Barker's Mine that previously had no drilling whatsoever recently returned narrow intervals but at very high grades, including numerous short intervals grading above 10 ounces to the tonne, yielding intercepts better than 90 gram metres and confirming mineralisation occurs continuously across this zone. The results I am describing all occur outside the mineral resource footprint and are importantly located near existing underground infrastructure, so it has real implications for extending mine life. At the nearby Arctic deposit, surface drilling beneath the open pit has also yielded high-grade results. These build on previously reported work and continue to demonstrate the potential to expand underground resources, particularly at depth where historical drilling has been limited. The objective of ongoing follow-up drilling is to delineate the scale, continuity and geometry of these mineralised systems. with the clear ambition of converting into a long-term underground reserve, securing high-grade production over a longer mine life, capable of maintaining at or above the currently achieved annualised rate of 200,000 ounces per annum. Turning now to cow, where step-out drilling highlighted in Figure 2 of the release has been equally encouraging. We recently received results from the surface drilling at E41, which, as a reminder, is located a few hundred metres south of E42 and will be mined as part of the open pit continuation project. Results released this morning return broad, consistent intercepts beyond the outline of the planned E41 pit. What's notable is that drilling perpendicular to the mineralised veins rather than parallel, as much of the historic drilling was, is opening up areas that were previously considered well-tested. This highlights clear potential to grow the E41 footprint, particularly to the north towards E42 and the underground mine. I should also add that the E41 pit shape referenced in Figure 2 was optimised at a very conservative gold price of $1,760 per ounce. Underground at Oban, results continue to build confidence. Drilling is targeting major mine scale structures and a favourable geological contact that elsewhere at Cow is known to host high-grade mineralisation. Importantly, the recognition of this key contact, illustrated in Figure 3 on page 4, has unlocked an entirely new search space to the north and south between the E42 pit and the Glenfiddich Fault, which has hardly ever been drilled. We've received multiple high-grade intercepts that support the potential for Oban to evolve into a new independent mining front over time. And a geological position where I'm confident further work will lead to the delineation of future resource iteration in the mine plan in the years ahead. This will be a major focus going forward. Looking beyond the operations, we're also continuing to build our longer-term pipeline. In North Queensland, around Ernest Henry, we've expanded our landholding and identified several drill-ready copper-gold projects, with an aggressive drilling program planned over the June and September quarters. And in Canada, permitting and community engagement are progressing at Two Timers Fred and Clinsbacker in British Columbia, with drilling planned across the summer field season. Meanwhile, drilling is underway at the October Gold Project joint venture in Ontario with assay results expected later in the June quarter. Overall, these results reflect our Discovery Act strategy in action, continuing to unlock value in the short to medium term at our operating assets while building a strong pipeline of drill-ready and more advanced exploration plays with the potential to deliver new greenfields production opportunities in the medium to long term. With that, I'll turn the call back to Ashley to open the line for questions.

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. Your first question today comes from Hugo Nicolese with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Morning, Laurie. Matt, Glenn, Fran, I hope you're all well. First one's on Mangari. You got above nameplate through the quarter. I just wanted to get a sense of how much of that is running softer or are you already finding opportunities to start to push that nameplate a little bit?

Thanks, Hugo. I'll hand that to Matt. I asked him the same question. I know you're going at the higher rates, but it is all...

Yeah, no, it is. It's an obvious one when you look at those numbers. So it is some of the transitional or easy-to-have ore from Castle Hill that's causing the increase there. That said, it's obviously something that we're going to target. But at this stage, it's running at nameplate when we put what we've designed through it.

That's helpful. And then second one, maybe a two-parter on exploration. I mean, obviously, some exciting drilling results that you've put out today. I guess, firstly... When should we start to see those flow into resource updates? Is that something for the update this year? And then, secondly, at Cal, the resource and asset life upside seems to be firming up at both the open pit and underground there. I think I asked you this last time, but at what point do we start to consider middle expansion studies at Cal?

Glenn will talk to the first two parts. The last bit about the plant expansion is, I think, as we... As we get more information, we'll look at it. But, yeah, it's going to be predicated on once we get into E46 and E41 as to what we do with the plant. So we're probably at least 12, 18 months off worrying about that one.

Yeah, the results that we put out this morning for Mangari and for Cal won't be captured in the next MRR update. They've just come in a little too late for us to create those. But we have already delivered a resource and reserve at Genesis, so that is a growing kind of ongoing concern. It would be the best way to describe it, and what we're excited about is that We can see the opportunity unfolding along that trend between the Pope John Pitt. So it's a hangwall structure that sits outboard of it. And it looks like it's going to link into Barker's. And we believe that we're going to fill in that gap between Genesis and Barker's. What we're looking to do, particularly in the next 12 months, is drill that really aggressively so that we can capture it in the 2026 MROS statement. So that's the plan there. I would say turning to cow, particularly what we're doing at Oban, there's a lot of space there. And if on Figure 3, one of the things that we really like at Oban is the contact that I described earlier appears to be very similar, if not a repeat, we haven't confirmed that, of the contact which controls all of the underground mineralisation in the underground mine at the moment. So we've got another one of these. What we're showing in that image is all of the drilling and there's hardly anything along it. So there's a long way to go there to explore, but we have the target at Oban and we'll continue basically to expand the story as we know it along Strike, north and south, and look to get more drilling into that space over the coming 12 to 18 months.

Fantastic. Thanks, guys. And actually, the last one, just I know you're, you know, one to 200 k's away at North Park and Cow, but any impacts to safety or mine disruption from the earthquake overnight?

No, none from the North Park or Cow side.

Great. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on.

Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, Laurie. Thank you for the 27 cow reminder there. Sorry for this year, still on track for the guidance. Help me think about the 4Q step up here to get you to that circa 190 ounce level that you did a couple of quarters back. I assume it's cow plus stage H grade with Ernest Henry normalising. Can you just talk through that?

Yeah, Matt, to add to it, I think he's got too much to add, but the two biggest drivers are... ..assets.

Yeah, I think the two big ones that people are well aware of, finishing the scheduled maintenance at Cow, Ernest Henry coming back online, are the two primary. And then outside of that, the Mungari operation continuing to run at a pretty good rate. North Parks doing what it's done. You will see a little dip with North Parks with the old stockpiles from E31 coming towards the end. But outside of that, business as usual with the uplift from the two ones that you identified.

Okay, got it. And then, Cal, the underground opportunity there. I like it. Returning hits of one to two grams under E41 and the underground system is extending. Obviously, the prize is getting out more high-grade underground tons.

And Glenn spoke to this a little before, but I guess what do you need to get confidence to say another exploration decline there or how do we think about timing or stage gates for a larger underground operation?

That's Okay, so I was hoping someone would ask that. So, look, I think when we, if we go back to the discovery in 2018 of the underground mine, we, particularly the Delwini load, which really made the difference there, that was about at three years. the first drill hole results into commencing production in the underground. So that is the timeframe that we would be thinking. So a minimum of three years. This is going to require a lot of drilling. We actually also have to get new positions in to... well, to improve the angle of attack on the oar body, or the target, I should say. So that would be something that we need to be doing, and, you know, I'll be leaning on Matt very heavily to help drive that for us so that we can get the rigs in position to do that. So I'd see that being a three-year opportunity. And then I think, sort of reflecting on the results at E41, they... Historical drilling has been largely oriented in an east-west direction, and that, as we have learnt in the cow underground, has been a sub-optimal drilling orientation. So we've pivoted the rigs around now to... hit those veins at a much better angle. And what we have seen historically in the underground is when we've done that, we do see, you know, in some areas, improvement in grades. So we're hoping that as we start to fill that in, you know, at a much better angle, we'll see similar behaviour at E41. and then obviously as i mentioned there was that the pit shell that we're showing there is a fairly conservative shell so we do expect as we get resource drilling or resource space drilling into e41 that we can you know improve the the way that pit optimizes okay got it and if i can sneak one last quick one in so the operating cash flow projected this year

You've noted no intent before to sit on a cash stockpile or do deals at record prices. Is it fair to assume the board revisits the capital management policy at the FY or how do we think about capital returns?

Yeah, Kate. So we previously said as we get to the end of the financial year, once we've got our life and mind plans in, Fran and the team will put together an updated capital management plan looking at what we do with dividend policies and capital returns. So that will come out with the four-year financial results.

Excellent. Thank you.

The next question comes from Levi Spry with UBS. Please go ahead.

G'day team. Thanks for your time. Maybe another question for Fran then. Just on the costs, Mark has obviously focused on it across all sectors. Diesel is only a very small portion of your cost base and you're probably relatively much better set up than some of your peers. But what about the rest of the pie chart? What are you seeing there? How do we think about what happens into FY27?

Yeah, Matt, Levi, just in regards to the costs, When you look at our cost structure, nearly 50% of our costs are labour. You know, I would have said six months ago as inflation was sort of trending in the sort of 3.8% range. and trending down, and that's certainly changed now. We would expect you're probably going to be seeing somewhere between 4% and 5% in terms of labour cost movement going into FY27. When you then look at our other costs, power, fairly well set up there with Cal and North Park's pricing fixed, Ernest Henry and... are through FY27 as well in terms of pricing, but some slight escalation there. And then when you look at our concern rules, it is going to be dependent upon how long the current situation lasts in terms of temporary pricing that would be requested to cover for additional logistics costs and the like. But so given that that's sort of 50% of our cost base, you're probably going to see a few percent increase in that range. bucket as well. But overall, I think it's still being well managed, but it does depend on what happens over the next three to six months globally.

Got it. Okay. Thanks, Laurie.

The next question comes from Daniel Morgan with Baron Joey. Please go ahead.

Hi, Laurie and Tim. My question is on Mangari, just on costs. And for this question, can we just put diesel to one side for a moment about what we're experiencing in a live session but just on cost was this a representative quarter for mongari i 2150 ask in previous quarters on the cost side we had obviously some capitalization of different spend and obviously the the project wasn't fully ramped up just wondering if you feel this is a representative quarter thanks

Yeah, Dan, it's getting close. I mean, we expected, you know, we said around a 16% reduction in all in sustaining costs once the... ..running and depending then on the mix of the ore. We would see it's probably somewhere... In the $2,250 to $2,350 range is what you would see, $2,400 at sort of the upper end, which would be in line with what we had projected. So it was a good quarter, really predicated, I'd say, on the campaign of the EKJV, higher-grade material, therefore helping us in terms of both mining and processing costs there. So what you'd see in Q4 is slightly higher, but then you're getting close to the reflection of what Mungari will operate at.

Thank you. And just on Cal, I mean, it's quite clear that you're moving from Stage H and that high-grade ore next quarter towards Stage I, where you're going to be pushing back. Just wondering how long is it before you start to get material access to Stage I?

or is this you know fy27 obviously a lot of hard work through there but do we start to see better grades in 28 thank you yeah it'll be um first half of fy28 is when we'll start to get back into stage i or um and uh also be getting into um you know good material coming out of e46 as well but uh There'll be nothing really of substance in 27 and a little bit coming through in the first half and the second half of 28 when you see it start to ramp up in stage I. It's about 18 months.

Thank you. And last question just on Red Lake. It has been a period of better stability, delivery. I think one of the comments you say set up for a good end of the year. Can we just expand on the latest live reports

view of ops you know through to the end of this year and anything beyond thank you yep it's matthew then it's essentially the final quarter we're going into a couple of higher grade areas uh driving a an expected little bit of an uplift in trade um but the development if you have a look through that that's been really quite consistent uh same thing a little bit of a drop with some all terms of throughput in the quarter we had a few interruptions with power and the winter side of things but outside of that that's really where it's headed so pretty consistent um pretty well set up for for both grade and volume for the next quarter and is that sustainable or or um you know the benefits sustainable so yeah so then i mean the position on red lake still hasn't changed we're focused on getting 30 to 40 000 ounces out

quarter in quarter out be positive cash and what Matt's been working well with John and the team is making sure they've got contingency in the system given you know the difficulties you have at Red Lake with those make sure that when some things don't work out they've got other areas to get to Okay thank you very much for you sorry you just cut out thank you very much for your perspectives

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Sharp with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Yeah, morning, Laurie and team. First question just on Ernest Henry. You've said you've returned to normal operations. Can you just explain what exactly back to normal is and is there any improvements there to go in this quarter? And probably more importantly, has anything changed with dewatering or water management prevent this happening again or even just decreasing the consequences, just trying to understand if it remains an operational constraint in the future. Thanks.

Yeah, I'll address the first one. Normal operation is basically back to running out of the cave as we were prior to the event. So that's essentially what we've done. So running our truck loops and the crushes and everything back operating there. There's some minor work still to go. We're still dewatering the bottom section of the mine. It's not an operational area. It's where we're doing our development. So there is still some dewatering activities occurring through there, but they don't impact the day-to-day operations at the moment. In terms of going forward, we've done the investigations and we're working through that process as we talk now. There will be some learnings from it, but I think it's important to remember that event was sort of three times... what we'd seen previously in 23. So whilst it's easier to sit here and say it's a one-off event, it's something that we need to learn from. And the key for us will be preventing, preventing the water from getting there in the first place and then being able to work with it once it does. So we are learning from it and we will take steps to make sure we minimise the chance that it happens again.

Yep, okay, that's clear. And just... Second question, Laurie, you've reiterated this morning that you're tracking below the original oil and sustaining cost guidance. With three quarters now complete, Ernest Henry back to normal, do you have any or do you have enough visibility to indicate whether this year's oil and sustaining cost is likely to land below the midpoint of the updated range?

I won't put Matt into a difficult spot or Fran by saying where. Our view is we're going to get in that range. There's a number of things that will determine it. You've got the gold price, copper tons, copper price. One thing I will say, and it's mentioned on the call, the cost and capital discipline in the business. We're running very well in terms of our sustaining capital and our operating costs against budget. We'll be in the range. That's the political answer that you needed. to give Matt some room. Thank you. Thanks.

The next question comes from Matthew Friedman with MST Financial. Please go ahead.

Sure, thanks. Morning, Laurie and team. Can I firstly extend on Levi's question on diesel? Obviously pretty modest in isolation on the pie chart at 2%. Just so I'm clear, how does that play through in terms of the various kind of rises and falls across some of your mining contracts and other contracts you might have in place across the business that are sort of sensitive to diesel. You know, are there any other exposures outside of that sort of 2% in isolation that we should be thinking of? And then in particular, I suppose, your sort of CapEx plan, the major projects you've got in your pipeline, Presumably a lot of that is waste movement or underground development. So should we be thinking about, I guess, diesel or explosives or sort of other cost sensitivities there also? And is it fair to kind of assume that that sort of low single digit number is a representative sensitivity in those areas of CapEx also? Thanks.

Yeah, Matt. I mean, if you look at it, you know, the rise and fall for any of the contracts that require use of diesel be that haulage or mining contractors, you will see that diesel cost flow through. And as we've said, though, it's still captured in terms of the cost of our business. It's not the major part of it. Labor's still half and then you've got power at around 9%, 10%. So we're not seeing a material impact, but those rise and falls do come through. In terms of then the capital, yes, you look at the biggest mine development we've got going over the next couple of years is at Cow with E46, Stage I and the like. In terms of the mining costs, the material movement isn't going to be significantly higher or nothing that's of consequence for us in terms of our costs there. We just have to monitor it over the next few months to see where it all lands, Matt.

I understand. Thanks, Laurie. And then maybe secondly, just quickly, it's not a particularly material one, but obviously noting that in Ernest Henry during the quarter, you kind of highlighted non-operating costs of $26 million related to recovery from the December quarter. you know, presumably with the ongoing impacts in the March quarter in terms of whether there'll be some ongoing, I guess, non-operational recovery costs in future quarters. Can you give us a sort of indication of what we should expect there, whether that's going to be a bigger quantum in the June quarter or onwards? Yeah, I expect there's some sort of tail costs there. Thanks.

Yeah, Matt, look, similar to what we had in March 23, you'll start out as a large amount of costs of recovery and getting equipment out and getting all the infrastructure back to normal and then it tails off. I would say through the June quarter, you'll see some more. As Matt said, we've still got water at the bottom of the mine that we need to get out and the like. We've still got some equipment. But it will trend down. I don't think you're going to see multiple quarters at $25 million, $26 million. but I think most of it is being captured in this first quarter.

Understood. Thanks, Laurie.

Your next question comes from Adam Baker with Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Hey, Larry and team. Congrats on achieving your net cash position and appreciate a new capital management plan will be provided with the financial results. But I'm just keen to hear your initial thinking surrounding capital management moving forward. Do you think the current dividend policy is fit for purpose or could we see a change to this current dividend policy or could we potentially see an implementation of a buyback like some of your peers have done? Thank you.

Yeah, Adam, thanks for the acknowledgement of net cash. It's actually really pleasing to see the business get to that point with what we've been able to do over the last couple of years. It does give us a good problem. I think it's fair to say over the last two quarters, Fran and I have received the most amount of feedback from shareholders as to what to do with the cash versus what increased dividends, reinvestments, specials, buybacks. We'll take all of that into consideration into the June year end and discuss it with the board. And as I said, it's a good problem to have. It's come earlier than we probably would have expected. But I think the interim dividend that we paid, which was a material lift, based on the cash that we've generated and we paid forward some of the second half cash. I think that's a good reflection of what shareholders should expect going forward.

That's a positive signal. Thank you. And just a clarifying remark with Cal, you mentioned 10% lower ounces for FY27. Just wondering, is that 10% lower versus the midpoint of current guidance or is that 10% lower versus the lower point of guidance? Just trying to get an understanding here. It could be anywhere between 275 and 286,000 ounces. Thank you.

I'll try and help you out here, Adam. I'd say if you take... Work out your estimate for the June quarter and take 10% off the full year. That's going to give you a pretty good estimate of how it would be for next year. And Matt's explained we've finished the shutdown. You'll see an uplift in production in the fourth quarter. Work that one through and then that'll give you the number for next year. Matt and Joe won't like it. It means their guidance for next year is almost being set. Thank you very much. Cheers.

Your next question comes from Baden Moore with CitySea CLSA. Please go ahead.

Morning everyone. Thanks for your comments on your fuel supply situation. I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more to the duration of your contract position, so what sort of timeframes that you have in place and then maybe whether You've had any conversations with government about how all your supplies and how you might be prioritised for fuel in the event there is any level of rationing in the country? And then I guess the third layer might be just how do you think about just resilience and planning around if there is any disruption to supply? How do you plan around that? What are the safeguards for you?

Yeah, I'll answer the second question first in terms of government. I mean, our position has always been that we're responsible for our operations and making sure that we've got continuity of supply. And that's what Matt and Fran and the site teams are working through. We don't put our reliance on in terms of that government support. In terms of if they make a decision on rationing, we would address what the impact is on our operations at that point in time, I think. The one thing I'd say is our open pits are the largest diesel consumers and at both Mangari and Cow we do have stockpile material that we'd be able to put through the plant. It would mean you would slow some of your mine development down to preserve that use of diesel. And so, you know, when we then look at the other consumables and everything like that, that is the work that Matt and Fran have got in place around what are our response actions that we need to take as we see any issues with consumables. The good news is that through March we had no interruptions on anything in terms of supply of consumables into the business and the outlook into the June quarter is very similar. And then in the first part, the contracts are multi-year contracts. We've got very good relationships with the oil companies that are the distributors for us. We would see them, as I said on the call earlier, they're fulfilling their obligations. We're not trying to do anything outside of the contract and that's maintaining the really good relationship to guarantee our supply.

Thanks. And just a quick follow, can you talk to how many months inventory you'd have at hand? And then with the stockpiles you mentioned, I mean, what's the duration that that would run for before you'd have any sort of impact to your cash flow?

Yeah, look, I mean, in terms of volumes on site, as we've said, we've got adequate volumes on site and continual delivery to our orders. So that's not seen as an issue. much relevance to say what the percentages are because they'll change today and they'll be different again next week as we either consume or get deliveries. But we've got adequate coverage. Then if you look at it, I mean, the biggest one is at Cal, we've got over 47 million tonnes of stockpiled ore. We run at 8.8 million tonnes per annum. So I think it gives you enough understanding of our largest operating asset should we not be able to have fuel on site. That's a great answer. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Belinda Humphreys with IQ Industry Queensland. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much for the briefing today. Just wanted to talk about the exploration efforts near Ernest Henry. Are you able to go into a bit more detail about what's going to happen in the June and September quarters, meters drilled, budget, that sort of thing?

I'll hand that over to Glenn. I don't think he's going to talk through the meters. I think he'll talk more to the programs that are more important for us. Thanks, sorry.

Yeah, so look, the real objective of the program on not just the recent tournaments but the overall package that we've been building up over the last several years is to identify new production opportunities that can support filling the mill at Ernest Henry, so we have latent capacity there. And so we're not looking for huge deposits, but if we find one, we'd absolutely take it. But we're looking for probably more modest-style deposits that can help achieve that goal, essentially. So the drilling programs, they'll commence in the next month or two. We've been basically waiting. There's been a lot of weather up there. We need to wait until... Everything is completely dry, very difficult to get any access, particularly equipment, until it is dry. So as soon as it is, we'll be drilling. We gave some examples of the types of targets that we're looking at this morning in our update. That gives you a bit of a sense, you know, 10Ks from Ernest Henry. previous drilling identifying anomalies, the consolidation of the tenements up there is the really exciting thing that's happening because bringing those together means that we can explore the full opportunity rather than piecemeal it on tenements. tenement to tenement so that's actually really really helped uh how we're going to prioritize the drilling program over the you know over the dry season and so i just advise to stay tuned um you know we would look to be talking more about what we're getting in the you know at the end of the december quarter by the time we have some results from that drilling program

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We'll pause a short moment for any final questions to register. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Conway for closing remarks.

Thanks, Ashley. It's pleasing to have delivered another very good quarter and we're on track to deliver our group guidance and take full advantage of the current high metal prices. Having moved to net cash and no debt repayments to FY29, we're certainly building the flexibility. Upcoming, we'll release our 2025 MROR report in the next month and then we also have an investor briefing and visits to Cowland North Parks. Thank you for your time on the call today.

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