Paladin Energy Ltd

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Paladin Energy Limited June 2025 quarterly results 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'll 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 Ian Purdy, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you everyone for joining our fourth quarter conference call. With me today in Sydney are Paul Hembrough, our Chief Operating Officer, and Anna Thudlow, our Chief Financial Officer. Paul and the whole team have delivered an outstanding quarter with strong production at the Langer Heinrich mine and another key milestone progressed at our PLS project in Canada. The Langer Heinrich mine finished financial year 25 strongly with the commencement of mining executed successfully and safely during the quarter. The expected benefits from the introduction of fresh ore into our processing plant were realised and the performance this quarter is evidence of a significant step taken forward in our ramp up of the Langer Heinrich mine. Noting the progress made in the ramp-up during the quarter, the company is also pleased to provide financial year 26 guidance for the Langer Heinrich mine. The guidance sets the roadmap for Langer Heinrich as it transitions from its continued ramp-up during financial year 26 to expected full operation in financial year 27. And our Patterson Lake project in Canada The Financial Environmental Impact Statement was formally accepted by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment and is currently undergoing a public review process. The acceptance of our final EIS is the culmination of many years' work by the Canadian team and is a credit to their consultation processes and the quality of the work which has been completed. Finally, I'm also incredibly pleased to report that the Board of Paladin has appointed Paul Hembrough as the next CEO and Managing Director of Paladin Energy, a thank you from the 3rd of September. Having worked closely with Paul for the past two and a half years, I can confirm he is an incredible leader who has the skills and experience to drive our company forward. The entire Global Senior Management team share my excitement with Paul's appointment. Thanks again for attending. I'll now hand over to Paul to run you through the operational highlights for the quarter and also step through the Langer Hyret mine guidance for financial year 26.

Thanks Ian and good morning everyone. Well, I'll talk through the results at Langer Hyret mine. I'll move into the Langer Hyret mine guidance and we'll conclude with the remaining highlights from other parts of the company. I'm pleased to report that Peladon achieved a number of significant milestones in its order. Our Long Island mine recorded a 33% increase in quarter-on-quarter production, producing just over 993,000 pounds of E3LA. This is the highest quarterly output since the mine's restart and brings our total production for the financial year to 3 million pounds. Additionally, we achieved the highest quarterly crush of circuit throughput in the history of 100 mine operations with 1.17 million tonnes process, beating the previous record of 982,000 tonnes in the March quarter of FY14. This result was achieved on the back of mobilising the mining fleet, which brings us to nearly 50% of the planned mining operation. More importantly, however, we delivered primal from the pit to the crusher, complementing the medium-grade stockpile feed with coarse, high-grade material. We've also seen continued stabilisation of our overall recovery at 87%, as well as an increase in the grade of crusher speeds to an average of 477 ppm for the quarter. This exceptional performance is a testament to the hard work, problem-solving capability and dedication of our team, and these results have proven three key things. And they are, the project delivered what we thought it would, an increase in the process stability and deep bottleneck throughput. Secondly, that our hypothesis about adding more forthcoming mines and optimising blend strategy to improve handleability and grade will deliver an uplift in production of new treatment ways. And thirdly, that we have the capability to mine efficiently and effectively to deliver the results that we need. I could not be more pleased with this board's performance and I look forward to building on this capability in the year ahead. Our financial performance remains strong, with the cost of production at $37.50 per pound, which largely reflects the increase in volume and continuation of low-cost crop-cold drawdowns, as well as access to mining and previously blasted untouched ground in the G6. We achieved an average real-life price of $55.60 per pound for the quarter, which is a function of the timing and composition of the contract that we delivered against in the quarter. For the full financial year, we received an average realised price of 65.70 per pound, reflecting the company's balance portfolio of contracts with a mix of base escalated fixed and market related pricing. Our cash and cash equivalent stands at 89 million with an under 150 million revolving debt facility. This does not include the cash receipts of 29 million received in July for revenue recognised in the June quarter. I'll now move into the FY26 guidance for Langaheinrich Mine. Let me start by reiterating where we are at today. Langaheinrich Mine has approximately 49% of the mining fleet in operation today. The processing plant is delivering at record production rates and we have a medium-grade stockpile of approximately 2.2 million tonnes remaining. The Langaheinrich Mine will continue its operational ramp up during FY26. Over the course of the year, we'll transition from processing soft-boiled medium grade ores to processing primary mined ores. We expect the operation ramp-up to be completed by the end of FY26 with full mining and processing operations planned for FY27. We intend to provide annual guidance for FY27 in July 2026. Key aspects of our FY26 guidance. Nutri8 produced 4 to 4.4 million pounds. The sale was between 3.8 and 4.2 million pounds. A unit cost of production between 44 and 48 dollars per pound with capital and exploration expenditure between 26 to 32 million dollars. I'll talk to these numbers directly and I'll start with Nutri8 produced. Production is primarily a function of three things, crusher throughput, grade and overall recovery. In crusher throughput, we've seen a significant uplift in plant performance, which has been driven by a number of factors. The most significant being the ability of the mining operations to deliver time. In the year ahead, we will observe three key performance aspects. Firstly, mobilisation of the remaining fleet in the first half of the financial year. and subsequent commissioning of that fleet during the second half of the financial year to give us full mining operation. Secondly, concentration of the mining fleet in the GC area with a significant proportion of time spent on overburden removal and low grade stockpiling in the first half. This means the first half of the year will be largely processing of medium grade stockpiles and lower levels of primary mine ore feed for the crusher. opening up the productive lower benches of the GP for the second half of the financial year. Looking at these three performance aspects, while we expect a strong first half of FY26 aligned with the performance that we saw last quarter, we expect a strong second half to deliver in the guidance range. On grades, I'll provide transparency at the end of every quarter going forward and provide verified grade numbers. is that as we feed stockpile ore into the crusher and optimise the blend as we go, we see two primary impacts, improved grade and improved throughput. The grade is reconciled after crushing and following a mass balance from the plant. The actual grade input into the plant will vary as we change blends and access different parts of the stockpile and the mine. I'll do the work, optimise the performance and report grade after that work is complete. As I mentioned before, quality production plans are expected to vary during FY26, mainly due to reduced primary mined ore feed into the processing plant in the first half of FY26. Production is expected to be higher in the second half of FY26 with a high level of primary ore feed available for blends with a medium grade stock of material. This brings me to the third component, overall recovery. Improvements in processing plant performance achieved during FY25. are expected to be sustained in FY26. Our guidance is based on considered client availability and utilisation instructions and includes allowances for expected water supply disruptions, estimated planned and unplanned maintenance activity and general client disruptions based on historic performance. During FY26, Parliament expects to continue delivering uranium to its global customers in the US, Europe and Asia. We continue to look for opportunities to lay a new contract with high quality counterparties. Sales volume, cash receipts and real life pricing are expected to vary quarter on quarter due to the timing of shipment, individual contract terms and prevailing stock prices. We do not expect to buy or sell material on the stock market during FY26. Both in our contract book as of July 2025, the Forecast Realised Uranium Flight Sensitivity, or FY26, under a range of spot assumptions are in the table within the announcements. To wrap up the commentary on guidance for LHM, I'd like to reiterate that the last quarter has given us confidence that we can deliver full processing and mining operations by the end of FY26. This is the final ramp-up year and while the first half will be strong, the second half will be stronger. We're confident in our plans FY26 and look forward to achieving our operations and financial targets. Let me quickly cover the other aspects of all the performance reports before we move to questions. As the Patterson Lake South project final environmental impact statement was formally accepted by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment, as Ian mentioned earlier, our winter drilling program delivered the most significant radioactivity results ever recorded outside of the RRR deposit. These results enhance our understanding of the saloon trend and reinforce the long-term strategic value of the project. Safety and sustainability remain our top priorities. We record an average total reportable indirect frequency rate of 2.7 billion hours, exceeding our FY25 safety target. We also continue our investment in local communities. supporting the establishment of a breast cancer clinic in Swartham State Hospital and partnering with Cricket Namibia to develop the Mondesa Cricket Hub. Being covered are often our leadership changes and I'm extremely pleased to be taking on the role of Managing Director and CEO in September. I'd like to quickly take this opportunity to acknowledge Ian's outstanding contribution to Paladin over the last six years. We'll now open the floor to questions. There are a lot of questions rest of the reading and I ask that you limit your questions to two per person and if you have further questions after the close, please follow up with Paul or Appo. I'll now open to questions.