Northern Star Resources Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Northern Star June 2023 quarterly 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 Stuart Tonkin, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning and thanks for joining us today. With me is Chief Operating Officer Simon Jessop and our Chief Financial Officer Ryan Gurner. I'm pleased to present our exceptional June quarter results today that contributed to our delivery of group production and cost guidance for FY23. During the June quarter, we delivered a production result of 426,000 ounces sold at an oil and sustaining cost of $1,700 an ounce. I would like to extend an enormous thank you to our teams and contract partners that contributed to this outstanding result, which for the full year delivered 1.563 million ounces at an all in sustaining cost of Australian dollars 17.59 an ounce. We've now completed the second year of our five year profitable growth plan to 2 million ounces per annum. And we have made significant progress across each asset, which underpins the platform to deliver continued superior returns for our shareholders. During the quarter, we announced the decision to expand the KCGM processing plant to 27 million tonnes per annum, which will lift production there to 900,000 ounces per annum and reduce costs to $14.25 an ounce. At modest gold price assumption, this returns an IRR of 19%. It is funded from cash flows and it is paid back in under five years. This investment at KCGM will lower costs, extend mine life and be an enabler for future opportunities to drive superior returns for shareholders, placing it as a top five global gold mine. Today, we've provided our FY24 outlook for production and costs with guidance for costs for gold sales of 1.6 to 1.75 million ounces at an always sustaining cost of between $17.30 and $17.90 Australian dollars an ounce. We will invest growth capital of between $1.15 and $1.25 billion, including the KCGM plan expansion. And on exploration activity, we have allocated $150 million. I'd like to remind listeners that we are able to maintain these growth investments, given our strong operational cash flows and balance sheet, whilst also servicing our dividends that are based on 20 to 30% of cash earnings. Now Simon will speak to the Australian operations shortly, but first to operations in Alaska at a Pogo mine. Pogo delivered an exceptional June quarter with gold sales of 80,000 ounces, representing an annualised production rate in excess of 300,000 ounces per annum. Pleasingly, the uplift was through consistent monthly performance across mining and milling metrics. Development averaged above 1,700 metres per month. Stoke production was two-thirds of the ore mined, and the milling throughput approached an annualised rate of 1.4 million tonnes per annum. And impressively, mine operating cash flow for the quarter was US$61 million. It is very pleasing to celebrate these milestones with the Pogo team, and I thank them for the efforts to date to demonstrate the exceptional quality of this long-life asset, and I believe we will start to see the market assign greater value to Pogo given its performance and significant resource and exploration upside. Now over to Simon for the Australian operations.

Thank you, Stuart. For the Kalgoorlie Production Centre, including Casey Gem, Karasu Dam, Kanata Bell and South Kalgoorlie, we sold 224,000 ounces of gold, up 18%, at an Australian all-in sustaining cost of $1,666 an ounce. This production delivered a mine operating cash flow of $280 million, while we spent $112 million on significant growth capital projects. Primarily, $57 million was spent on KCGM open pit mine development and new tailings storage facilities. At KCGM, open pit material movement was 21.8 million tonnes for the quarter, along with a new quarterly record of 66,000 trucking hours as we continue to optimise the load and haul fleet. This quarterly movement combined with the previous three quarters resulted in 83 million tonnes moved for the year as a new record and is in line with our total annual material movement. Grade of mined ore and volumes both increased for the highest quarterly volumes of FY23. Underground mining volumes for the Kalgoorlie region were again steady at 1.56 million tonnes. while grade increased 5% compared to the March quarter, driven from Kalgoorlie Ops and Karasu Dam to deliver 130,000 ounces. KCGM's underground Mount Charlotte operation stabilised production with 1.04 million tonnes mined in the second half, which is above our annualised 2 million tonne per annum target run rate. We will continue to grow this operation to 3.5 million tonnes by FY26. The Karasu Dam Porphyry underground mine continued development as the next major underground ore source, averaging 390 metres a month for one jumbo. Kalgoorlie operations, Kanowna Bell and South Kalgoorlie underground ore volumes and grade volumes were stable quarter on quarter, showing strong cash flow margins from these assets. Processing volumes in the Kalgoorlie Production Centre returned to planned volumes with increased grade, resulting in the 18% uplift in gold sold by 224,000 ounces. Karasu Dam's processing plant milled 1 million tonnes for the quarter, a new site record, and finished with over 70,000 ounces sold as an outstanding result for the team. At our Yandall production centre, including Jundee, Thunderbox and Bronzewing, we sold 122,000 ounces of gold at an Australian all-in sustaining cost of $1,647 an ounce. This production delivered a mine operating cash flow of $124 million, while we spent $61 million on growth capital projects. Primarily, $26 million was spent on the Aurelia open pit, and new tail storage facilities. Our Jundi operation achieved a new underground mine record of 829,000 tonnes of ore, up 21% on the March quarter. Development continued to be consistent at 7.8 kilometres for an annual total of 31.5 kilometres developed. As a result, mined ounces was an impressive 101,000 ounces for the quarter. Processing throughput was also a new quarterly benchmark at 789,000 tonnes, while for FY23, Jundee milled over 3 million tonnes, which is 11% over the previous record. These exceptional mining and milling physicals delivered 320,000 ounces of gold sold and over 300 million of free cash flow generation. The recently announced renewable project for Jundee is exciting as we've commenced works on the 24 megawatts of wind and 16 megawatts of solar generation, which will also include a 12 megawatt battery storage. This is part of our carbon reduction target of 35% reduction by 2030, with Jundi an important first major step forward. Thunderbox underground operation continued to be the high-grade ore source for the mill, with 525,000 tonnes mined in the quarter and the highest physicals to date. For the full financial year, the underground and open pit operations successfully mined 6.5 million tonnes of ore tonnes, which is above the nameplate of the newly expanded process plant. We will continue to bring on life of mine ore sources in order to provide high-grade feeds to the newly built 6 million tonne per annum process plant. The new Thunderbox process plant achieved 1.03 million tonnes for the quarter due to the first major reline and shutdown activities which were successfully achieved. Thunderbox also had two separate downtime events totaling one week each to rectify a variable speed drive electrical repair. No further downtime has been experienced since the final repair in June. The throughput tonne per average for the quarter lifted to be in line with the design nameplate, which was very pleasing. Recovery also did improve 3% from the last quarter as the gravity circuit issues were resolved late in the quarter. Thunderbox over FY23 successfully built, commissioned and milled 4 million tonnes and is a new step forward as we look forward to a full 12 months of runtime in FY24. I would now like to pass over to Ryan, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss the financials.