Northern Star Resources Limited

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Northern Star June 2024 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.

Good morning and thanks for joining us. With me today is our Chief Operating Officer, Simon Jessop, and Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Gerner. I'm pleased to present an exceptional June quarter performance to close out FY24. With Thunderbox and Pogo, we were both highlights, achieving record performances complemented by continued strong performance from the portfolio. In FY24, our team delivered record gold sold and record net mine cash flow. This demonstrates the quality of the asset portfolio across our three production centres and also the value our investment is making to unlock future low-cost, high-margin ounces. I'm particularly proud of our people who safely delivered on our FY24 commitments. Thank you for all your efforts which are continuing in FY25 as we advance our profitable growth strategy. For the June quarter, we sold 439,000 ounces at an all-in-sustaining cost of Australian dollars $1,815 an ounce, generating underlying free cash flow of $189 million, which is up 32% from the March quarter. And for the year, we generated underlying free cash flow of $462 million, up 29% from last year. As you can see in our results, Thunderbox and Pogo stand out this quarter for record mill throughput and in turn gold ounces. Each of our production centres remain in a positive net mine cash flow position, ensuring they are self-funding the growth. As a group, we remain financially resilient in a net cash position of $359 million. This financial strength allows us to fund all our growth investments, exploration activities and capital management initiatives, including dividends and share buybacks, as demonstrated during FY24. For the KCGM mill expansion, onsite construction is advancing to budget and schedule. It is exciting to see this activity underway at KCGM, which will double the plant's throughput to 27 million tonnes per annum and lift production to 900,000 ounces per annum by FY29. Investors and analysts will have the opportunity next Sunday to visit KCGM and see firsthand the significant progress made prior to the Diggers and Dealers Conference. We have today also provided FY25 guidance. We expect to produce 1.65 to 1.8 million ounces of gold at an all-in-sustaining cost of Australian dollars, $1,850 to $2,100 an ounce, into a very healthy gold price environment, currently around $3,500 an ounce. As per previous years, planned major shutdowns will be carried out across all three production centres in the September quarter, so FY25 delivery is second-hard-weighted. We are majority of the way through our five-year profitable growth strategy, which sees our production grow to 2 million ounces by FY26, and more importantly, enables the delivery of higher free cashflow levels. Three years into our growth investment, we have delivered $1.3 billion of free cashflow, which confirms our rationale for the value creating strategy. We forecast FY25 capital expenditure to be in the range of 950 million to 1 billion and 20 million plus the KCGM mill expansion capex of $500 to $530 million, which is in the second year of its build phase. Before I hand over to Simon for the Australian operations, Hygo in Alaska delivered an exceptional quarter, a record of gold sold at 91,000 ounces at an only sustaining cost of US dollars $1,091 an ounce. which delivered record mine operating cash flow of US $107 million and record net mine cash flow since being under Northern Stars ownership. This is a testament to the team and the asset strength, also delivering a record annual gold sold of 278,000 ounces at top of guidance range. I remind listeners that Pogo boasts a gold resource of nearly 7 million ounces at above 10 grams per tonne. highlighting that we will be generating strong USD cash flow for the next decade plus. A fantastic achievement and well done to Team Pogo. Simon will now speak to the Australian operations.

Thank you, Stu. For the Kalgoorlie Production Centre, including Casey Gem, Karasu Dam, Kanana Bell and South Kalgoorlie, we sold 221,000 ounces of gold, down 2% at an Australian all-in-sustaining cost of $1,712 an ounce. This production delivered a mine operating cash flow of $335 million, up 10% quarter on quarter. The region also spent $264 million on significant growth capital projects. This included $101 million on the Casey Gem Mill expansion, $52 million on the Casey Gem Open Pit mine development, and $24 million on underground mine development. We also have successfully started to commission the new tail storage cells of E and F at KCGM, which have a 147 million tonne total capacity. At the KCGM open pit, material movement was 16.6 million tonnes. As we prioritise the partial access mining of Golden Pike North with a further 43,000 ounces mined in the quarter. The east wall cutback works continued, along with Arroyo Brownhill and Fimson South. For the full year, we mined 72 million tonnes of ore and waste as the open pit team continued to manage competing priorities. We remain on track to regain full access to Golden Pike North in the quarter two of FY25. Underground mining volumes for the Kalgoorlie region increased 3% to 1.55 million tonnes with grade up 12% to 2.8 grams and delivered 143,000 ounces. The higher grade was driven from Kalgoorlie operations South Kalgoorlie mine and Karasu Dam mine sequence. KCGEM's underground operations increased development a further 11% quarter on quarter to 4.2 kilometres. The development metres will continue to ramp up quarter on quarter going forward with the arrival of two new jumbo fleets at the end of the financial year. The Karasu Dam underground mines all perform well with 54,000 ounces mined in the quarter. Open pit movements increased 16% to 1.3 million BCMs despite consistent rain impacting these positive results. The Kalgoorlie Operation underground mines increased mined ore volumes and grade, which increased 36%, driven by South Kalgoorlie's mine averaging 5.4 grams a tonne, over 37,000 ounces for the quarter. Processing volumes in the Kalgoorlie Production Centre increased 13% quarter on quarter, as Casey Gem had a smaller planned shutdown, along with good milling performance at Karasu Dam. Casey Gem's head grade reduced with less high-grade ore available from Golden Pike North, which was offset with lower-grade stockpiled ore. Casey Gem recovery was impacted due to a float circuit and Gigi losses, with both being addressed in the first quarter shutdown of FY25. Karasu Dam processing finished with a new annual record of 3.9 million tonnes processed in the year, which is a major credit to the team. The Casey Gem Mill expansion spent $101 million over the quarter, with total engineering progress at 44%, and the major equipment package also at 42% complete. The concrete poured at the end of June was 9%, while as of today, as we're sitting here, it's 18% poured, with the largest single pour of 1,600 cubes completed early in July for the ball mill raft. We are very pleased with the on-ground construction activities and we look forward to showing the progress of the Casey Gem Mill expansion project as part of our upcoming Casey Gem site tour. The project remains on time and tracking to plan. At our Yandall production centre, including Jundee and Thunderbox, we sold 127,000 ounces of gold at an Australian all-in sustaining cost of $2,109 an ounce. This production delivered a mine operating cash flow of $155 million, while we spent $81 million on growth capital projects, primarily at the Aurelia open pit and Wanda underground. At our Jundi operation, development advance was set 7.6 kilometres up 10% quarter on quarter, with 796,000 tonne of ore mined and 88,000 ounces up 20% quarter on quarter. Processing was lower than nameplate due to a fixed plant fire which impacted the gold room and back of the processing plant, requiring a large amount of electrical rectification works. By quarter end, the impacts of the May fire were rectified with a large build-up in gold in circuit, with lower gold sales due to the reduced milk tonnes. Jundee's renewable project of a 16-megawatt solar farm and 12-megawatt battery system is currently in its final commissioning phases, with partial renewable power now being successfully exported into the grid. We also have one of the four wind turbines erected as the crane moves through the program before commissioning of that stage begins. The Thunderbox underground mines, including Thunderbox and Wonder, achieved 650 13,000 tonne of ore for 35,000 ounces at a head growth of 1.8 grams per tonne. The Wonder Underground mine continued to ramp up ahead of plan with 1,508 metres developed with one jumbo over the quarter. It's a credit to the Northern Star Mining Services team who are building this mine with the Thunderbox technical team ahead of plan, below cost, which ultimately brings high-grade ore feed earlier to the Thunderbox mill. For the quarter, the underground and open pit operation successfully mined 1.5 million tonnes of ore, which is at the expanded mill's quarterly nameplate. At the Thunderbox process plant, we achieved nameplate on a quarterly average of 1.5 million tonnes milled. and sold 63,000 ounces of gold, up 40% quarter on quarter. The mill throughput averaged an impressive 795 tonnes per hour for the quarter. Availability was also a new quarterly record of 85%, with a significant shutdown occurring in April in those numbers. For the first full financial year of processing, we achieved 87% of the nameplate throughput, We are continuing to work on availability in the crushing circuit and milling stability by rectifying known wear points. The last quarter is a great result for the Thunderbox team who continue to unlock the full value of this major plant expansion. I would now like to pass over to Ryan, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss the financials.