Northern Star Resources Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Northern Star June 2026 Quarterly Results Conference 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, you will need to press the star key followed by the number 1 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 thank you for joining us on the call today. With me on the call is Chief Financial Officer Brian Gurner, Chief Technical Officer Steve McClare and Acting Chief Operating Officer Jim Coxon, whilst Simon Jessup is out of country. I'd like to begin with the most significant highlight for the company in the recent period. The Phimison expansion project is complete. Commissioning is underway, with plans high-end and ramp-up to follow in the coming months. I can't understate how important this milestone is to the business at this time, and I'd like to acknowledge and thank our people and contracting partners who have completed this project on time and to a very high quality over the past three years. The KCGM of the cornerstone asset of Northern Star, now set with production increasing, capital spend decreasing coupled with a reducing hedge bulk, all point to significant cash generation in the near term driving increased shareholder returns. During the June quarter, we sold 433,000 $2,698 an ounce. All three production centres generated positive net mine cash flow, delivering more than $1.1 billion for the year. Pleasingly, operational improvements were evident across the portfolio, with record mining rates at KCGM, stronger milling performance at Jundi, record quarterly sales at Thunderbox, and another outstanding cash flow performance from Pogo. At KCGM, we achieved record mining volumes with open pit material movement of 88 million tonnes per hour and underground mining of 3.2 million tonnes per hour, both demonstrating the calibre of our owner teams and the intensity of activity growing this premium asset. We're looking forward to showcasing this operation this Sunday prior to the Diggers and Dealers Conference next week. The June quarter marked an important milestone for Northern Star, with KCG and mill expansion completed and entering commissioning on schedule. This represents the transition from project delivery to operations and is a defining step in positioning this business for the next phase of growth. This is a tremendous achievement by our project team over the last three years. Importantly, our operations team have also safely maintained the aged plan to deliver 10.3 million tonnes in FY26. and will be as pleased as anyone to migrate from this aged and unreliable infrastructure to the new processing facility established for future decades of efficient gold production. Reaching the commissioning phase of Stage 1 at KCGM is a significant achievement, and Stage 2 remains on track for completion in the first half of FY27, creating an integrated processing hub that improves gold recovery and a simpler and cheaper operating model there. At the remaining Kaggleley operations, Carrasoo Dam transitions to underground mining and processing of stockpiles as open pit activity concludes at Warbrook. The South Kaggleley and Kananda Bell operations consistently deliver and continue to contribute strong cash flow to the group. Yandel delivered stronger production of both Jundee and Thunderbox in the quarter, with Jundee now operating under a more optimised mining schedule based on year-term cash flow generation. And I credit both Northern Star Team and Burn Cup on the pace at which they have implemented these changes for the benefit of the operation. ATDO improved milling throughput at a rate of 6.5 million tonnes per annum and great uplift from Aurelia and Bannockburn delivered 67,000 ounces of gold salt. Pago operation closed out the year very strong with June quarter sales of 82,000 ounces generating mine operating cash flow of US dollars $177 million in the quarter. Our asking team continues to improve the consistency and quality of this operation, and now with decades of life ahead, FOGO offers significant opportunities to self-fund growth. At any, the project also continues to progress as planned, with managed aquifer recharge trials commencing during the September quarter, and final investment decision remaining targeted for late FY27. During the quarter, the company released its annual mineral resource and oil reserve update at that 31st of March, which delivered 26% growth in resources to 88.9 million ounces at an impressive discovery cost of $23 an ounce, and delivered a 27% increase in reserves to 28.4 million ounces under Peter's significant line life. Importantly, our most significant discovery growth is centred on the large-scale, low-cost assets of KCGM, POGO and HEMI. As we've outlined this morning, we intend to provide FY27 group guidance together with our FY26 financial results in August. The KCGM, all commissioning during August, will provide meaningful operating data from the expanded processing plant. That information will allow us to better assess Overall, we're entering FY27 from a position of strength. The portfolio continues to generate strong cash flow. We've successfully transitioned KCG expansion projects into commissioning, and we focus on delivering a safe and disciplined ramp-up of what will become cornerstone processing health within our portfolio. I'd like to thank our 10,000 employees and contractors. and further underpin the quality platform that Northern Star is today. You are the true contributors to value creation. Keep your sense of humour and thanks very much. I'll now hand over to Ryan.

Thanks, Jude. Good morning, everyone. As demonstrated in today's results, Northern Star remains in a strong financial position as we enter FY27. Our portfolio continues to generate significant cash flow while we invest in the next phase of growth across the business. At 30 June, the company held cash and building of $1.2 billion, and importantly, we achieved this while continuing to invest in our growth projects and returning capital to shareholders through our on-market Share Buyback program, with 129 million of shares purchased during the quarter. In addition, we had $1.75 billion of undrawn corporate facilities available at year end, providing liquidity and flexibility to support our growth objectives. Our operating assets continue to perform strongly from a cash generation perspective. For FY26, all three production centres generated positive net line cash flow, contributing approximately $1.2 billion for the year. As Sue mentioned, Pogo again delivered an outstanding result, generating a record annual net line cash flow of Australian $609 million. demonstrating the value created through the transformation of the asset over the recent years. The company generated significant cash earnings also during FY26, and we expect the final figures to be in the range of $2.86 to $2.9 billion. Turning now to the June quarterly cash movements shown on figure 8, the business generated online free cash flow of $206 million during the quarter, supported by improved operational performance across the portfolio. As Stu discussed earlier, the key milestone during the quarter was the commencement of the commissioning of Stage 1 at KCGEM Mill Expansion Project. Stage 1 of the project entered commissioning on schedule, marking a significant achievement after more than three years of engineering, construction and execution. During FY26, capital expenditure on the project totalled $713 million, while operational readiness expenditure totalled $322 million as we prepared the operation for expanded throughput rates. As we move into FY27, our focus is firmly on safe, disciplined commissioning and ramp-up. The existing processing plant will continue operating through July and August, which tie into the expanded processing facility scheduled for September. Commissioning will follow a measured approach designed to ensure safe, reliable and consistent operating performance before progressively ramping up throughput. While our immediate priority is the successful commissioning and ramp-up of KCGEM, we continue to progress the next stage of growth at HEMI, where we are focused on advancing permitting, engineering and project development activities. During FY26, expenditure totaled $104 million, with final investment decision anticipated late in FY27. The project remains an important component of Northern Star's long-term growth strategy. Exploration also remained a priority, with FY26 expenditure of $217 million, supporting resource growth, as you mentioned, and mine life extensions across the portfolio. More broadly, we enter FY27 with a strong balance sheet, a portfolio generating significant cash flow and a clear pathway to future growth through both KCGEM and HEMI. Thank you. I'll hand back now to Harmony for Q&A.

Thank you.

If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. Wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. And if you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Daniel Morgan from Baron Joey. Please go ahead.

Hi, Stu. I'm a huge milestone with the plant because she's commissioning. I guess my question is just how does the following few months sort of track conceptually? So gold production... It sounds like it's from the old plant for July, August. Then you tie in the new plant. I presume that's going to be a minimal interruption period or plan to be. And then you would ramp up using low-grade ores through the first few months to make sure gold doesn't end up in the tailings dam. Is that a fair summation of what you'd expect in the months ahead?

Yeah, thanks, Dan. I'll just let Steve McClare give you a picture of that, please.

Yeah, thanks, Daniel. We were... at the moment is basically we're all commissioning from the primary crusher through to the core source stockpile. So we have that core source stockpile with crusher up on it and we've been very pleased with the front end of the plant. We're in wet commissioning for the remainder of the plant from the mills right through to the tailings thickness in wet commissioning. And then the tails line post that has already been commissioned and is in full operation. So as we progress, we will work through that wet commissioning We switched to ore commissioning early next month when we're comfortable. And once we're on an ore commissioning of a low-grade material, we will start to produce gold from that area.

Okay, thank you. And whilst prior to Gitche coming on, you're selling gold concentrate, or it'll be a larger proportion of the sales – Can you just explain to us what impact that has, if anything, on the financials? Obviously, you'd have lower realised revenue. Is that significant or not?

Hey, Dan, it's Ryan. Good question. No, so as you would have seen, so we've been selling concentrate material this financial year. So I think in the end it was totalling about 75,000 ounces in the financial year and about 30 in this quarter. So those sales will continue. So we've built up that capacity. in our business to do that. So the intention is additional concentrate material once, you know, the plant, the new circuit is running well, that additional concentrate material, the excess, if you like, will be sold similar to how we're doing it now. Obviously, equally, concentrate will still be going to Giji and we'll still be pouring melt bar. So it's more of the same, really. It's just that we'll have more concentrate between the time that, you know, Gigi comes back to the footprint at Sib, we will be selling some additional concentrate on the market. That's right. In terms of... Sorry, just in terms of your question on revenue and payability, payability is excellent, I'll say. So we don't anticipate, you know, any derating in revenue or performance on cash flows because we're selling concentrate. They're good commercial terms. So, yes, there's no derate of revenue, if you like, on that front.

Thank you. And maybe just a conceptual question on the mines that feed expanded capacity at the Super Pit Mill. Is there anything you'd call out on how productivity and ramp-up is going? Is there any frustrations, any unforeseen, any issues accessing Golden Pike? Thank you.

No, not at all, Dan. You can see by the volumes of the year, 88 million tonne rate for the year of the pit and they have 3 million, 3.2 million for the underground growth. So those are ramping very well. I'll remind us that the mill expansion was primarily based on the incremental throughput was based on that 140 million tonne stockpile that's there. So primary oil will be half of the feed of the new plant from pits and undergrounds and then the remaining part of the throughput will come from that low-growth stockpile. to get that ounce profile. So they're very pleased with the ramp-ups, very pleased with the commencement of our Northern Star surface mining team, the new excavator, another one coming in November. The productivities they're getting out of that fleet, the Ivanhoe cutback is outstanding. And again, great to demonstrate the calibre of the team and the efficiency and productivity of getting it super fit. We'll showcase some of that on Sunday. So a lot of the team will see that first hand.

Okay, Stuart and Tim, thank you for your perspectives.

Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Pardon me, Kate, your line is now live. Sorry, good morning, Stu. Well done on the commissioning. I just wanted to check you've noted no medium-term guidance this calendar year for KCGM. Does this mean that we shouldn't rely on the previous targets that were kind of given in August last year and how do we think about what the mine plan assumes in terms of the mill this coming FY. I appreciate that you just gave us some comments around the feedback but any information would be great.

Thanks Kate. Look, it's important to wait for that complete picture and I think we've explained we'll provide that with the full year accounts in August. So yeah, I'd say just watch this space and you'll be provided all of those details you require in the next few weeks. But, yeah, further to Sunday and next week's presentation will be focused as well on KCGM. There'll be important messages from the group on how to ramp up, how we should see it, and where all those feeds and the grades and all that are coming from to lift that house profile over the coming years.

OK, so one year outlook in August and then medium term a bit later.

Yeah, we've spoken in the quarterly to reiterate that that medium-term guidance won't be this coming year. So expect that that broader outlook will be ready when we've got that broader picture of support before it's out of that multi-year near-term guidance group.

Okay, thank you. And then we haven't spoken about HEMI since the resource update that we had in May last we had that grade go from 1.5 to 1.2, and it looks like you've changed the critic methodology there plus the dilution assumptions. I get that there's more tons, but you've got less contained gold, so less production, I guess, average. Just how do we think about that going forward and upside opportunities?

Yeah, thanks, Kate. Look, it's one piece of the story, and it's, you know, resource remains sound with, you review of what that resource was going to be, so same sort of scale and quality. We absolutely put some stronger mining factors on the reserve, but fundamentally that's not the final plan either, so it's consideration of a published reserve to bring it onto Northern Star's books, but ultimately we need the full feasibility inputs into this asset of everything, including the flow sheet, obviously CapEx, OpEx, and the ASC profile as we ramp that up. So work is underway with the team to advance that. Yeah, I appreciate you saw one piece of the information with the resource reserve update. It was important we brought that off the degrade, declared R&R onto Northern Stars, which contributes to the underpins of our overall R&R.

Okay, so more details with the FID before the end of next FY?

Yeah, which we've said that later for 27 is the target of the study. Cool.

Thank you, Stu. Thank you. Your next question comes from Levi Spry from UBS. Please go ahead.

Morning, Stu and Steve. Thanks for your time. Looking forward to the site visit on Sunday. Can you just remind us, Steve, how long do you expect the tie-in to take? and then just in terms of when you call out low-grade fee, I assume that means just the 0.6 from the stockpiles or a little bit lower for the first few months. Is the reminder wrong from China?

No, you're right, Levo. Thanks for the question. Yeah, while we're going through that oil commissioning early on, there's a number of checks we have to do. These are big mills. We have warranties, have guarantees, et cetera, and we go through a stage on-off, stepping up and making sure we're comfortable because recoveries and everything will be a bit up and down through that period as you would normally expect in the commissioning of this scale. So the intent is to stabilise the plant before we start to move off of that lower grade material and feed and it's really about testing reagents and everything else and a live system and tuning it and getting it stable. The beauty is at the moment is we continue to make gold through the existing circuit and when we are comfortable running the new circuit So we do that over a number of days when we're comfortable. And normally, you know, in that period, that will be sometime in early September.

Yep, thanks for the extra pass, Steve. Yep. And just moving this on, Dee, it sounds like you're a bit happier with the way things are going. Is there still an operational type review ongoing? Is there a timeline for that? What's the sort of last thing, I guess, for us?

No. No, no, so that'll be incorporated and articulated in the group guidance that we provide for your accounts. But, as I said in my remarks, we're very pleased with it. the actions and the rapid speed at which North Star and Burncut adjusted to that in the June quarter, and they're now working under that plan, so pleased with how Dundee's positioned, and that'll be provided with the full year outlook. Yeah, great. Thanks, Jude.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Hugo Nicolasi from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Oh, morning, Stu and team. Look, maybe just picking up on that question on the outlook, look, obviously appreciate not wanting to give KCGM, just given the scale of that project and then some of the near-term uncertainties, but are you able to provide some directional commentary, at least across the broader portfolio, in terms of production and maybe the moving pieces into next year?

No, I'm not, Hugo. So we'll provide all that together with a four-year account. And it's important that decisions related to KCGM... do knock on the decisions with the other operations. So, yes, you've isolated and said, look, knowledge around KCGM and ramp-up and performance is one element, but how we allocate our resources across the group, focus, start new stuff, there is a contagion kind of knock-on effect in our overall risk profile in that regard. So the two don't go hand in hand. We can't just isolate the non-KCGM assets and give you some color on that today. Thank you.

Yeah, fair enough. Thought I'd try anyway. Maybe just on HEMI then, you know, obviously the FID, target and late, FY27. Can you just talk us through what that critical path is looking like at the moment and the driver of that timeline? You know, is it still federal permitting, native title? Is engineering maybe taking a little bit longer or maybe it's sort of timing around, you know, the procurement pieces and the timelines you've been given there? Just any extra colour would be helpful, thank you. Yeah, thank you.

I'll just let you give your progress on that on HEMI, thanks.

Yeah, Hugo, morning. The project's developing really well. We're still continuing with the permitting, both federal and state, so that's progressing very well. We're working really well with the Garara RNTPC to work with them about getting on country and work with them around the Manish Aqua recharge trial, so that's going to happen in the September quarter. So things are really progressing as planned for now, and obviously, as we talked about, the FID is in late FY27, so all progressing pretty well at this stage.

Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe just last one for Ryan on the hedging piece. Look, you've obviously historically talked to letting the hedge book run its course, but gold prices has pulled back. Does that potentially create an opportunity to maybe close out some of the smaller hedges in FY28 and bring forward that free cash flow inflection to, you know, if you close out your FY28 hedges, it should be less than 12 months away from that free cash flow inflection and the potential re-rate some of your smaller peers have seen?

Thanks, Hugo. Yeah, look, we have considered it. I think the beauty is we can continually consider it. I'd probably be more inclined to bring forward the nearer-term ones rather than the ones out because the closer we are to understanding price discovery right now, the near-term ones, you know, you can get some certainty that the price is going to hurt you up or down, obviously. So, look, we do talk about it. We've got our share buyback on too, so... I think it's just a balance between those decisions on the additional free cash made. Great. Thanks for the second question.

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

Hi, morning guys. Thanks for taking the time. Just one on the underground at KCM. I mean, it's been running pretty consistently around that 3.2 million tonne per annum run rate. And it's probably, it's clearly not a bottleneck now with the mill extensions, but I guess looking further afield into the two years for the 27 million tonne per annum run rate, it's great. you've got the, you know, five-year stockpiles worth of feed at 153 million tonnes. Like, my question is, I guess, what are we looking at for the ramp up to the underground here? Have we still got an aspirational goal in mind to ramp that underground up and therefore, you know, provide the mill feed once we're at that 27 million tonne run rate? Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Abisai.

we've got historic sort of ramp-ups of this. Half this 37 million tonne per annum plant is from stockpile and it was in foundation 12, 13, 13 million tonnes of the existing plant would have been primary ore. That's why we've justified expanding the plant. The blend of whether that's open pit or underground, we've kind of always targeted a growth between 12 million tonnes or so from primary ore and whether that's four from underground and eight from open pit or from underground and four from open pit, trying to match those two ramp-ups as one winds down and then the remainder of the feed comes from the low-grade stockpile. So, yeah, year on year on year, we're growing that underground. If you remember when we acquired KCGM, it only had a million tonnes coming from the underground, less than a million tonnes coming from our Charlotte. We've got that up over 3.2. We're still developing significant metres there. to open up these new production fronts, and ultimately it will be more underground feed than open pit feed in the next 5-10 years. That's the approach and plan. So, yeah, that'll come into the outlook, the broader outlook, but those volumes will grow, and that's what we're investing in that front-end development to achieve at the moment.

Okay, thank you. And this one for the timing on the stamp duty, thanks for the call-out on the grey $250 million. Is there a timing on that?

Adam, it's hard because we don't set the clock and the progress on it. We still think this half, perhaps late this half, but again, with no conviction because it's out of our hands around the timing.

Okay, I'll go ahead now.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Jonathan Sharp from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi, Stu and team. Thanks for taking my question. Just digging in a little bit more from Levi's question, just the tie-in, how should we think about that, the timing and, you know, the risk there?

Yeah, so please just articulate its days. and you've got the current plant operating throughout and then it stays like a normal shutdown to swing the pipe across and tie it all in. So you're not having a massive hiatus of downtime across the whole operation. You've got two plants operating and then you're basically tying you back to the primary plant. The important aspects there on goal production is that is not going through at the moment without gold. They'll be rocked with limited gold and then there'll be a ramp up phase through September quarter. So across the whole group, as we always do, September quarter is a soft quarter because of the planned shutdowns across all of our operations to do those realigns. And then you've got the magnification of KCGM basically being fed on low grade and ramping through that commissioning phase. So quarter for the year and fundamentally people need to understand and prepare for that and it ramps up from that point. So yeah, the tie-in itself it's not weeks and months it's shifts and days and then that just moves away from the construction commissioning risk and starts to really allow us to refine and optimise the plan.

Yeah, thanks. And just maybe Digging into the grade, I don't know how much detail you can give us there, sounds like 0.6, but will it ramp up and will it be for the full first half, just maybe some more detail there would be great?

Yeah, so the detail will have to come with the full year guidance. But I guess what we're explaining to people was how we can mission a plant, you don't want to be throwing gold out the back. So while we're trying to get stability and mechanical things operating we're throwing rock through and getting all those things, the flows and everything, the densities, all those things right without the concern of the metallurgical recovery of the most valuable product we're mining. So that's sensible. That's when everyone commissions a plant. As we get comfort that those are stable, we start to introduce some of the lower-grade feeds and then fundamentally we start to move to the primary blend. In the meantime, the existing plant is operating. So the existing Simiston and Charlotte circuits are operating. And last year they just achieved 10.2 million tonnes. So that's operating. In parallel, this ramp-up in commissioning is occurring. And at the right side, when Steve and the team are confident, they'll tie it in. You can always undo it later, but our intention is we're confident, we tie it in, then we start to bring the primary feed and start to produce gold bars from that plant. And it will be better than the old plant and it will improve and improve and improve by weeks and depending months and quarters.

Okay. Thanks, Stuart. That's some good colour. Pass it on.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Lyons from Darwin Securities. Please go ahead.

Oh, thank you. Good morning, Stu and Sam. Acknowledging once again that you haven't issued guidance for KCGM, but you'll have a number of people on site this Sunday, and I'm sure you've had a chance to prepare the materials ahead of the site visit, but obviously not everybody on the call will be able to make it out to Cal. So I'm just interested in what are the key messages that you're intending to convey at site this weekend next year?

I'm afraid Steve is going to do the presentation as well for the business.

Yeah, what we're going to see in colour is a plant adaptive commissioning then. So in terms of, you know, you just heard in terms of the underground feed and everything, the underground will work its way up to being one of four ore sources and that ore sourcing de-risks the site. So we'll see the mill tour, you'll see the open pit, you'll see the underground and how it all fits together. And this is all part of a journey of a new, simpler, cheaper processing plant, has lower electricity inputs in time, and it basically has multiple sources of ore and de-risking. And so going away from any event in the open pit stopping us, we start to move into that future phase of far more robust production. In terms of the infrastructure, what you actually see is our tailings dams have been part of this build as well and something we don't often speak of, but that's fully permitted, licensed, ready to go. The Pimmisons etc. You won't see much in terms of other stuff, in terms of the renewables, power stations, stuff like that, but they are in the very final stages and we're going into that in this financial year. From other areas, I think you'll be very surprised with the performance in the southern end of the pit. There's a lot of movement up there. We're really starting to work that material, work those longer term plans, so very encouraging.

Okay, thanks Steve. So I guess just tying back to Adam Baker's earlier question about the underground ramp up, it sounds like we're probably stepping away from that aspirational 8 million ton underground which was always going to be a huge concept and I think we previously talked to about a 500,000 ton annual sort of step up on the journey to get to that level of underground ore extraction.

Now, if anything I'd reinforce that that is the plan. There's 12 million primary tonnes, whether it's four from the underground and eight from the pit in the near term, it'll move towards eight from the underground and four from the pit. And the remaining fill for the mill will come from the large low-grade stockpile that is over 3 million ounces of stockpile. So, absolutely, the future of this asset that it goes to become is a large, multiple large underground sources. So...

Okay, cool. Thanks for clarifying, Stu. Maybe a second question is just on the approach from the high-profile activist investor. I guess you've had some time to reflect upon that campaign now, and I assume there's been some direct engagement there, but just wondering, again, at a high level, whether it's had any material influence on the business strategy and your thoughts around portfolio optimisation. Thanks.

Thanks, Ben. Thanks for your question. Look, yeah, I mean, the boards engage Elliott and continues to engage Elliott constructively, just like all of our shareholders. But, you know, that's a matter for the board, not management. So, you know, we don't really have any further comments to make on the matter this morning.

Okay, cool. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. Your next question comes from David Radcliffe from Global Mining Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, Stu and team. I just wanted to follow up on the head of your comments, because I think we're still scratching our heads a bit here, and especially the comments that it's progressing to schedule. How does that square that it just keeps appearing to be slipping? So perhaps to answer it another way, my understanding was that it was circa six months of engineering, ahead of projects and then a two and a half year build. So when we hopefully get to FYD late 27, how much of that engineering is likely to be left? And on your current plans, do you still see it as a two to two and a half year build?

Yeah, thanks, David. So, yeah, I guess there's parts that are out of our control, including the approvals. I guess they are progressing. There's no showstoppers in that, but it's... to go through and largely those things are out of our control. As Jim highlighted, we're very pleased with the engagements and progress we're making on this water reinjection trial and the relationship with Garriotta and the cooperation there. Really, this engineering period is to advance it to much higher accuracy to ensure that the board can make fit. you'll see the expenditure that's been occurring to date and will continue is for the aim of narrowing in what that quotient is, what the engineering cost is going to be, and the commitments to enable our board to make an educated, informed, returns-based decision on fit. So all of those things would normally happen. We're utilising the time effectively to get that accuracy, but some of this delay is really outside of the control of the company. and we're in the process of the approvals train.

Okay, so most of the engineering will be completed with XYFID, so then we should go back to that previous sort of rough guidance that at FID it should be circa two, two and a half years. Is that reasonable?

If it's the same build flow sheet, accurately, to gold bars from that point, we may actually be advanced on some of the time, either two and a half years, that has some of the engineering continuing, but it should not be longer.

Okay.

Brilliant.

Thank you. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. Once again, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star 1. Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Sorry, I'm on mute again. Thanks for taking my follow-up. Maybe a question for Ryan. Just on the CapEx for June quarter, it was probably $100 million in consensus expectations for the quarter. Is there anything to call out there or anything that we should think about as being a catch-up for next year or anything that timing flips?

Thanks, Kate. So you're talking about sustaining capital just generally or...?

Oh, sorry, the gross CapEx.

The gross CapEx.

So that's circa $577 million.

Yeah, so obviously it's related to probably the mill expansion and all the readiness stuff, so there's probably a bit of activity there. You know, from a just catfish perspective generally, if you took it sustaining, there's some additional capital done at Pogo because, you know, it's summer and they can do the things they need to do and there probably is a bit of a catch up from a full year perspective you could say. We're still obviously looking across on the table there on page, I think it's three, you can see where we're under for the, across the board on CapEx for the full year both growth and sustaining which if you can recall we originally got that $750 million amount. We have had discretion on capital this year. As Jim mentioned, it's been a challenging year, so we've been discreet there. But there probably is going to be a catch-up in that in the final part of the year, Kate. It's probably a good lens.

Okay, thanks, Matt. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr Tompkins for closing remarks.

Thank you, Harmony. So yeah, presenting Northern Star now for 50 quarters and thanks for joining us on the call. We look forward to speaking to you again when we report our full year results next month. Thanks for joining us. Cheers.

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