New Hope Corporation Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the New Hope Group FY26 Q4 Quarterly Activities Report and Investor Call. 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 via the phones, you will need to press the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please enter it into the ask a question box and click submit. I would now like to hand the conference over to Rob Bishop, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. I'm Rob Bishop, Chief Executive Officer of New Hope Group. I'm joined here by Rebecca Rinaldi, our CFO, and Dom O'Brien, our Executive General Manager and Company Secretary. Hopefully you've had a chance to go through the report, but in any case, I'll briefly step you through our key highlights before we open up the lines for Q&A. The July quarter marks the end of the 2026 financial year for the New Hope Group. Operationally, it's been a great year for the group and we are very pleased with our results to date. During the quarter, our TRIFA decreased to 3.89, 12% lower than the previous quarter. However, the high potential event frequency moved up in an unfavourable direction from 1.21 in the previous quarter to 4.65. Critical and fatality and fatal risk management remains a continuing focus for the group. In response to the increase in high potential events and recent serious events across the broader industry, the group has doubled down in terms of focus of the effectiveness of controls for fatal risks. This has included group-wide safety pauses, increased frontline engagement, and targeted review and verification of critical controls. The safety of our people remains our highest priority and we have focused on continuous improvements in all aspects of safety and wellbeing. Bengala Mine recorded a strong finish to the 2026 financial year with the operation performing at the targeted $13.4 million goal production rate for the quarter on a 100% basis. RON coal production was 3 million tonnes, a 16% increase compared to the previous quarter, as the strip ratio moderated following the significant prime overburden removal in the first half of the year. Saleable coal production was 2.3 million tonnes, up 8% from the previous quarter, driven by the increase in RON coal volumes. At New Ackland Mine, the RON coal production totalled 1.7 million tonnes, a 3% increase on the previous quarter, also driven by a reduction in strip ratio, New Ackland Mine achieved coal sales of 0.9 million tonnes, 7% lower than the previous quarter, primarily due to rail cancellations across the network, resulting from Queensland Rail protected industrial action. The group achieved an underlying EBITDA of $169 million, a 30% increase on the previous quarter. The uplift in earnings was driven by improvements in the group's realised pricing, with both favourable movements in benchmark indices and foreign exchange. With the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, volatility in energy markets is expected to continue following supply concerns, which underpin support for thermal coal generation as a reliable energy supply. Turning to our full year results. 2026 marked another great year for New Hope Group as we continue to increase volumes and deliver our organic growth profile. The group achieved saleable coal production of 11.5 million tonnes, an 8% increase on the 2025 year's financial year results. and above the group's guidance range. At New Ackland Mine, we continued to successfully ramp up the operation towards the 5 million tonnes per annum target. For the 2026 financial year, New Ackland Mine produced 3.3 million tonnes of saleable coal, an uplift of 17% compared to the previous year. The operation was able to take advantage of increased spot rail capacity during the year, achieving coal sales of 3.6 million tonnes, which exceeded guidance. Looking forward, access to the Manning Vale respite is scheduled for the second half of the calendar year 2026, which will deliver the next step in the production volumes. Over at Bengala Mine, the 2026 financial year reflected a period of recovery, following significant weather events in the Hunter region late in the 2025 financial year. Despite these impacts, the operation delivered a strong finish and showcased its ability to achieve its targeted raw coal production rate. Bengala Mines delivered saleable coal production and coal sales of 8.2 million tonnes, which exceeded its guidance range. In addition, the operation achieved an FOB cash cost of $81.30 per sales tub, sitting right at the lower end of guidance range of between $81 to $89 per sales tub. Despite a challenging backdrop, the group achieved an underlying EBITDA of $514 million for the 2026 financial year and generated operational cash flows of $564 million. We invite you all to tune in on Tuesday the 15th of September as we release our full year results. We're pleased with our ability to remain a resilient, low-cost producer and we're looking forward to another safe and productive year ahead. I'll now hand over to the operator to start Q&A session. Thank you.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question via the phones, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, Please type it into the Ask a Question box and click Submit. We'll pause for a moment to allow parties to enter the queue. The first phone question today comes from Glyn Lawcock from Baron Joey. Please go ahead.