Jupiter Mines Limited

Good morning and I would like to welcome everyone to the Jupiter Mines Q1 call. Today we have Jupiter Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Brad Rogers and Chief Financial Officer Melissa North to provide a brief update on the first quarter of the 2026 financial year and then we will open up to questions from callers. Thanks Brad, please go ahead.

Thank you and thanks very much for joining the call everyone. As usual I will just give some overarching remarks in respect of the key points from the quarterly activities report that was released to the market this morning and then I'll allow time for any questions at the end of those opening remarks. So the quarterly activities report that was released this morning for the first quarter, the September quarter of our 2026 financial year summarises a very solid start to the year in line with our expectations. And I'll run through some of the details in a moment. But in summary, the operational outcomes in every respect were in line with what we expected and in line with our full year targets. We had costs that were pleasingly in control particularly given headwinds from a strengthening rand against the us dollar a build in cash at chippy notwithstanding chippy distributed a 300 million rand dividend to jupiter and to the other shareholders of chippy which we passed on adding our own cash to that dividend to our shareholders during during the quarter so Good outcomes operationally in line with our full-year targets, and obviously that's what we're trying to do as we build through the financial year. I'll get into the details also on the manganese market, but through this quarter we saw a slight strengthening in manganese prices and pretty good downstream demand from a manganese alloy perspective, and that meant that relatively strong supply, including Gemco re-entering the market, And good volumes out of South Africa were consumed by the market and prices reflect that. There was a slight increase and prices today sitting just above four-year average levels, which, given Chippy's cost levels, is quite positive for us. In a stable market right now, prices have been range trading within a relatively narrow range for the last few months. And that's a good thing for Chippy and that frames the cash generation that we've been able to see in this quarter. So I'll go into a little bit more detail on those opening comments and starting with Chippy's operations. There were no lost time injuries during the September quarter. There were two minor medical treatment injuries. From a sales perspective, the sales for the quarter were 837,577 tonnes of manganese ore sold. That was down on last quarter, but everyone should bear in mind that what we're trying to do at Tippie is hit 3.4 million tonnes of ore sales for the year. Usually in the make-up of that 3.4 million tonnes, you'll see about 3 million tonnes of high-grade and about 400,000 and sometimes a bit more of low-grade. And that 837,577 tonnes for the September quarter was bang in line with that 3.4 million tonne target. So notwithstanding it was down on last quarter, as you do for all quarters, you're going to see trippy sales increase. up and down quarter on quarter you probably shouldn't focus on that too much it's more the twin trend towards the 3.4 million tons that we have averaged for the last seven years since jupiter listed and that we're targeting again this year and so that number that we recorded for the september quarter was right in line with that uh 3.4 million ton full year target Production was very close to that as well, 829,798 tonnes for the quarter. That was slightly up on last quarter and slightly up on our plan for the September quarter and certainly supportive of, again, achieving that 3.4 million tonnes of ore for the full year. Logistics of 868,442 tonnes were slightly up on plan and up on last quarter as well. The more interesting thing to note out of the land logistics was we had significantly more rail allocation than we expected and planned for. And what's going on there is smaller producers in South Africa not taking up their rail allocation, notwithstanding the manganese prices prevailing, is quite positive for Tippie, given our cost curve positioning. It's not so positive for others, and that's the reason why some others aren't taking up their rail allocation. But as it has in the past, and it certainly was in this quarter, that goes to the benefit of Tippie, where we had much more rail allocation than we had anticipated. We did almost no South African road haulage for the quarter, and so naturally, given that rail is cheaper than South African road, we benefited from a cost perspective with respect to that particular situation. From a mining perspective, we saw an increase quarter on quarter in graded ore production, about 21%, and cost, as I mentioned earlier on this call, came in at $2.27 US per DMTU. That was a particularly good outcome given the RAND strengthened through the quarter, and that figure would have been $2.19 had the exchange rate in the September quarter been the same as the exchange rate observed in the June quarter. But that $2.27 notwithstanding... notwithstanding that unhelpful uh exchange rate movement in the quarter uh came in any way uh in line with where we would be targeting uh for costs at the moment and and where we've been guiding on on previous calls so that was a very good outcome again benefiting from the mix of rail but also benefiting from good cost control uh across our cost composition including at the mine site itself From Chippy Financial's perspective, EBITDA of $26.6 million for the quarter was down on last quarter. And the major driver of that was sales volumes being down. And again, the last quarter that we're comparing to is the fourth quarter of last financial year that had particularly elevated volumes of more than a million tonnes. And we're not trying to achieve a million tonnes a quarter or four million tonnes for the full year at the moment. If we step up to that and that is part of our strategy, then that will be a decision to do that on a consistent basis. So where you see that sort of variability quarter on quarter from a sales perspective and naturally earnings is going to follow that variability, you will expect to see that average out for the full year at about 3.4 million tonnes unless and until we make the decision to expand sales to 4 million tonnes. But we don't intend to do that until we're in a more robust market environment. That EBITDA of $26.6 million, while it was down because of sales for the most part on the last quarter, it was actually higher than the prior comparative period, the first quarter of last year, by about 27%. And that was a quarter where volumes were higher than they were in this quarter. So that earnings can be contextualised in not just the comparison to the prior comparative period, but also rather than the last quarter, but also the first quarter of last financial year. Chippy's cash at quarter end increased by 9% to 140.3 million Australian dollars. And that was a good outcome, particularly because Chippy also distributed a 300 million Rand final dividend to shareholders in that period. So if you look at the quarter just ended 30 september cash compared to 30 september last year the cash we have on hand now 30 september at chippy is 45 higher than at 30 september last year so again good outcome and good outcome particularly uh given the dividend that was distributed by chippy during that quarter turning to the manganese market um manganese prices increased during the quarter the FOB price for our grade of manganese was $3.36 per DMTU at 30 September compared to $3.20 at 30 June. So good step up there. Today, end of October, it's $3.39. So slightly higher again than the price at the end of the quarter. that price today is around two percent higher than the four-year average and that reflects as i said earlier relatively strong downstream alloy demand and that relatively strong downstream alloy demand has been sufficient to consume the volumes that have been supplied into that market, principally into China, such that stocks really didn't move. The stock number, this is manganese ore at stockpile at port in China in total, was 4.4 million tonnes at 30 September, at the end of this quarter we're talking about, compared to 4.3 million tonnes yesterday. uh 30 june and that numbers come down uh slightly as you'll see in the quarterly report but really to the end of october but that really reflects um steady stockpiles at levels that are considerably lower than the four-year average about 25 lower than the four-year average level of 5.8 to 5.9 million tons that you would expect to see looking back at the last few years of stock levels in china So given stockpiles haven't moved and prices have slightly increased, you know, that's good. And it's remarkable in that the market has consumed Gemco coming back into the market that's now producing at full volumes as well. in the market that we've just seen um and also some south african volumes have been relatively robust uh in a couple of the months in the quarter that we've just seen so um good downstream demand prices slightly improving uh to levels that given chippy's fob cost of production as we talked about 2.27 are quite healthy for chippy But that's because Chippy, as we know, is an efficient cost producer. Other mines on the manganese supply side are not making so much money at these prices, and that's also in part why the prices have held up. There's good supply cost support for prices at these levels. So we're really sitting in a market that... has gently increased over the last quarter and gently increased again over the last month, but has actually been relatively stable since about May. We've seen steady, solid downstream demand, supply month to month moving around and sometimes increasing, but the market being able to consume that supply, including the return of GEMCO to the market. So in summary, just wrapping all of that together, the Q1 outcomes from an operational perspective were in line with our expectations. Sales was down quarter on quarter, but was in line with our expectation of 3.4 million tonnes for the full year. Production was too. Costs were actually quite pleasing given the RAND US dollar exchange rate was unfavorable to US dollar reported costs during the quarter. So that $2.27 was in line with their expectations but had to consume that exchange rate headwind. All of that resulted in a good cash field at Chippy through the quarter, notwithstanding there was a dividend payment during the quarter as well. And as we look at the manganese market, we're in quite a supportive manganese market at the moment. Prices increased, stocks are steady, downstream demand has been relatively robust, sufficient to consume without increasing, or at stockpile in China, some reasonably healthy at times supply coming from the market, including the return of Genco. So hopefully that paints you a picture of how we've gone for the September quarter. I'll just pause there and see if there are any questions on the line.

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 comes from Adam Baker from Macquarie. Please go ahead.