St Barbara Limited

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the SBM FY20 Q3 March quarterly report conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After this speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded, and I'd like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Craig Jetson, CEO. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning everybody and thank you for joining us. It's from Barbara for the March 20 quarter report briefing, my first since commencing with the company just on 12 weeks ago. On the call with me today I have Garth Campbell-Cohen, our CFO, Mr Rowan Cole, our Company Secretary, Val Madsen, GM Human Resources and HSEC, Lucas Welsh, General Manager of Finance and Procurement, and Mr David Cottrell, Manager of Investor Relations. I'd like to open up by saying how pleased I am with the very successful measures we have taken to protect our people during the COVID-19 pandemic. I, along with other members of the executive team, are very focused on the health and wellbeing of our employees and contractors during this crisis. Unfortunately, there's still a long way to go, especially for our people and our folk in Papua New Guinea before we get back to some sort of normality. Our three mines have performed well over this quarter, given the difficult operating conditions that we've had. All three are produced in line with ounces and cost expectations. A great achievement would need to put some effort into changing our processes and daily habits to minimise the COVID-19 risks. We increased our cash performance by $41 million from our operating activities, as previously announced. Our conservatively drew down $200 million which we had available from our debt facilities. At Atlantic, we offered our condolences and support to families and friends, colleagues and the community so dreadfully impacted by the recent tragedy in Nova Scotia, in the area where we operate. Atlantic, the operation has had an outstanding quarter with record plant throughput, despite being in the middle of winter, a great effort by Lee and his team. Congratulations to Atlantic. The Glarlia extension project is in the final stages of the raised bore, remaining the only part of that project to be completed. Extremely difficult ground conditions recently damaged the raised bore head, but the site team have been very busy with components of the project that are completed, changed the mine ventilation configuration as we integrate the new surface infrastructure into that ventilation program. It seemed very production and costs for the corridor were well in line with guidance St Berry is the only site that I was able to manage before COVID-19 restrictions came into the force. Our new general manager, Jason Robertson, is doing a great job with his team in his first few months on site in extremely difficult circumstances, mainly driven by COVID-19, as you all would expect. So with that, on slide four are the details of an incredible job our team has done to protect our people, their families and their business to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. We followed very closely advice from government medical authorities and taken steps appropriate for quite different operating conditions as you would imagine. At our sites in Western Australia and Canada we brought in split shifts that are two different operating teams back to back so we have no physical interaction. Our fly-in fly-out teams in particular are checked at the airport and this happens daily for our driving teams in Atlantic in Canada. In addition, we have closed our offices and cancelled all non-essential activities, including all our travel. The company's IT connectivity has been highly developed and secure and robust, particularly with the increased usage we've experienced in the last month, including our first virtual board meeting held for many hours last week. Key highlights, and turning to slide five, is on slide five the highlights of the quarter, which some have already mentioned. I draw to your attention the payment of the half-year dividend during the quarter. The quarter also marked 15 years of St Barbara's purchase of Gualia, an occasion which I was looking forward to celebrating with the site team myself, which we'll do now sometime into the future. You will note our consolidated full-year production anticipated to be lower end of our guidance range, driven by Gualia and Somberia being at the bottom end of their guidance range, but margins still remain very healthy and significantly helped by our gold price. On slide six, you'll note the ongoing improvement in that safety, in particular at TRIFA. Safety is my number one priority for the company and I have been doing a lot of work in the safety under my leadership and will be doing a lot more in the future. Slide seven, and turning to slide seven now, the consolidated quality of production and all in sustaining costs, a robust result given the coronavirus-related disruptions that we've had to endure. Moving on through to slide eight, in particular this is Gwalior's quarterly result. Production has been impacted by the change of conventional ventilation configurations, which you may have heard about earlier this year. This separates the mine into ventilation districts with the aim to getting more effective use of our chilled air that we're already seeing a positive impact as that started slowly but surely comes online. Gwalior grade was approximately what we've seen over the last few quarters, so no change material change to be mentioned on that point. Moving to slide 9 you can see the total material removed in the final raised bore shaft which will allow the new ventilation infrastructure strategy to really start having impact has not yet been completed. This has been quite frustrating with difficult ground conditions and at times over several months now the ground conditions are described as pillow basalt in quite fractured ground so that large boulders are coming down loose and falling onto the reaming head causing significant damage. The post aggregate fill plant has been commissioned. The crushing is operating well and the pumping circuit has been operating quite well, although during this quarter relatively slow due to the mining sequence and only a small amount of stoke filling occurring at this time. The final raised bore shaft is expected to be completed within the financial year. We're expecting guilefully a full year production but the lower end of the guidance as a result of these delays. Sint-Berry quarter three March results. Sint-Berry has improved its quarter with mining able to focus on ore rather than waste to a greater extent. Our strip ratios dropped from 1.3 from approximately 1.4 where it has been in the previous two quarters in particular. The Bottle Loop pit in the south of the mining area is really quite a small pit but in common with other pits in St. Barry. Deeper parts of that deposit have been superior in terms of ore tons and grade than the grade control model would have suggested. Processing performance has been good through this quarter and improved mill tons and recovery with the relining of both mills have been contributed to the improvement. Harder rock from the deeper zones of the pits, which are reaching the limits of the oxide pit shells, has increased the wear rate, not just in the mills, but also the conveyors, the breaker at the top of the hill, and also the rope con. My broad observations from my visit there was encouraging. Some of the significant investments of recent times, including 1,500 metres of a new conveyor spliced into the rope con belt, and the installation of a new pebble crusher and scrubber has all gone quite well. The Siberi PFS has had a third party independent review and validated by the panel of external experts. We are shortly submitting the proposal to the board for a decision. During the quarter we announced an update of Siberi's reserves and resources. We increased by 30% to 2.2 million ounces. on an accessible drilling campaign beneath Sarawak in particular. Moving on to Atlantic Gold, on slide 11, I guess a big thing you've heard in this term is that Atlantic Gold gets a great quarter. They were through with another record, made it 1.2 grand per tonne gold, closer to the reserve grade of 1.1, rather than the exceptional 1.5 grade in the last quarter. The Atlantic team took advantage of the winter where the conditions to complete the planned truck rebuilds leading to a 17% decrease in material moves mean that we relied on stock for greater extension. A similar gazement with our notice of pressure is on hold due to COVID-19 restrictions at the moment, with the relevant departments and the First Nations organisations in particular all in lockdown. Our own experts and teams have been able to have some limited interaction with the wildness area adjacent to the development of our project. That's also delayed COVID-19 issues in the country. Moving on to slide 12. Slide 12 shows balance, which has increased by $241 million during the quarter. This includes a $200 million drawdown from the syndicated debt facility I mentioned earlier. And this is after an $18 million dividend payment, $10 million in growth and capital, and $6 million in exploration expenditure. So moving, I guess, on to the next slide, slide 13, in terms of our... So in Australia, our exploration during this quarter focused on the Leonora region, Pingen, and the Dramatin JV we have with catalyst metals. On Simberry, we've completed the diamond drill program designed to gather additional geotechnical, metallurgical, and assay data for the sulfite project, as you would imagine. In Nova Scotia, we were able to conduct some suspension of work. The north Brookfield area in the southwest of the province returns some particularly encouraging results that I'm sure that we'll all look forward to. As previously announced, we suspended exploration field work due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, we are currently evaluating that position resumption of exploration activities within a reasonable timeline and using relevant guidelines to be able to start the exploration programs up once again in the very near future. Slide 14 and 15 outline our strategy and growth pipeline. The company's strategy remains relatively unchanged in that we are focused on building out our existing growth options as well as considering external growth. Within the current portfolio, we have consultants assisting with the review of Gualia as we look to reset our production profile. We also have consultants reviewing our optimal sequencing of our length of goal projects. As I mentioned earlier, some very solid projects have been prepared for a submission to the board as we speak. Overall, I'm still very excited about the growth opportunity and potential we have in our portfolio. In conclusion, and moving on to slide 16, we've had a solid quarter at all three operations despite the restrictions imposed by COVID-19. Importantly, our safety performance is trending in the right direction. Consolidated full-year production is anticipated to be on the lower end of our guidance range. Cash at the end of the quarter increased $41 million after $18 million dividend payment, plus $200 million from the drawdown of that debt. This puts the company in a very strong position with $320 million and enables the organisation to withstand interruption in production across all our operations, if need be. In the near term, we're expecting to take the proposal to the board for the Symbere Sulfide decision. Lastly, we have reviews underway again at Gwalior and Atlantic to maximise performance, reaching full potential and growth of those operations. I'm planning to provide an update in quarter four on the progress of those reviews. In summary, and with that, I will now hand over and take questions.

Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a telephone question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the pound and hash key. Thank you very much. We have multiple questions in queue. Our first question is from Alex Barkley from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question, Alex.

Hi, guys. Thanks for the opportunity to ask me a question. A couple from me. Percy, I think you mentioned you were on some of the periphery slopes at Qualia this quarter. Would we be expecting to get into some of the higher-grade central stuff in the June quarter, or is that path going to be pushed into FY21?

Yeah, look, Alex, I think that's a really good question. And given, I guess, some of the issues that we've had with the raised boring, particularly the ground that we're going through and the extended... I guess, time it's taken to finish that project. Disappointingly, I suspect we will push it somewhat. Now, as I said earlier, we do have a number of consultants, mining engineers, mining specialists, and alike, looking at our current operation to optimize that asset. But, you know, there will be, I guess, some impact of the delays of the venture for sure.

Okay, thanks. And moving to Atlantic Gold, you've talked about some of the COVID-related delays. Is that interaction with the government, is that going to delay your internal study? And where does that study timeline fit about when we can start seeing the optimal mine timeline?

Yeah, look, clearly what it's done and You know, the Atlantic team in particular had to endure a horrific, I guess, last month in particular, not only from the COVID issues that we're seeing globally, but also with the, I guess, the deaths that they've had because of that shooting. Now, that's making it very, very difficult, of course, for all governments to be focused on things like permitting. And clearly, with the COVID, most of the operations in government and also the First Nations have closed down. But we are continuing on with our own internal project advancement. So at this point in time, the timing for that strategy to come out and be played out in more detail will be in the quarter four later this year.

Okay. All right. Thanks for that.

That's all from me. Next telephone question is from Nick Herbert from Credit Suisse. Good question, Nick.

Oh, thank you. Hi, Craig. A few from me, please. When can we expect to get the results of the review there? And on current planning, we'll be thinking about the ramp-up in mining rates and over the next couple of quarters, just thinking in terms of what we can embed in terms of a base case, which can then be sort of optimised from there.

Yeah, Nick, I think the Gwalior, I guess, project group of people that I have there at the moment is looking at exactly what you're asking for. I think the time in us for me to come out and talk in much more detail about Gwalior's full potential and ramp up for the future will be in quarter four. So the very question you're asking in terms of, there's two parts to it really. The first part is to finish the ventilation and continue on with development and certainly catch up on development. At the same time we need to be able to tune the ventilation effectively to get maximum benefit out of the infrastructure that's been installed. On the back of that the consultants we are using are looking at mine optimization over a long period of time, not just short. So in terms of that detail and effectively model, again, we'll be out in the quarter four.

OK, understood. Thank you. And then do you mind just reminding me what the current mill throughput capacity is?

Yeah, look, I think the mill is about 4.4. We are ramping back 1 million to 1.1 million times as soon as we bottleneck the operation. Okay, great.

Thank you. And then moving on to the dairy, just looking at what you need in Q4 to hit that bottom range of guidance, like it'll be the strongest period for the year. just on full plant utilization post the works you did there in the June quarter or is there an improvement in grade factored into that June quarter also?

No it's certainly not an uplifting grade it's more through reliability and throughput. We're doing a lot of work at that site to increase the availability in particular our truck fridge. One of the things that we're certainly seeing and impacted our operations materially, but it's the difficulty of getting supplies, in particular spare parts from, say, South Africa, if it's belt truck related, into PNG through St. Barry. So that's been quite problematic. But we're working extremely hard, and the team there are working extremely hard on throughput availabilities and reliability, so I guess uptime utilisation as well. If all those, and we have no reason to doubt that they won't, or line up, they'll come in at the bottom end of guidance.

OK, great, thank you. And then finally, just on the Sambiri study, are you planning to release that to the market post the board review?

That would be my intention, yes. OK, thanks very much.

Our next telephone question is from Brian Chu from the Australian Gold Fund. Please ask your question, Brian.

Good morning, Craig, and I work on the... that you are delivering for Zimbabwe.

Pardon me, Brian, can you come closer to the phone so we can hear your question, please? Thank you. Oh, is this a bit clearer? Yes, please go on.

Oh, yes. So I'd like to ask two questions. The first one is that I noticed you have a take on $200 million of extra debt with this particular quarter, and I'm just wondering... There is going to be an increase in the interest cost. Do you have a substantial need for the debt, or is it really for prudent purposes? And would that affect your operating cash flow much because of the substantial size of the debt that is going to be just sitting there?

Yeah, Daron, that's a great question. Thanks for that. It was a prudent decision to make in the early days of COVID, not understanding where the globe and where the world would go with COVID and the impact on our business. So we elected to draw that down for the purpose of insurance and risking the business if we ever needed to do that, particularly in the event that if we had significant business disruption in any way and clearly able to avoid that and so by drawing the uh down the 200 million dollars down we've been able to to reinvest reasonable rates as good as you can get these days so the actual premiums to to have that facility available sitting there if ever needed um from a de-risking perspective is certainly working very well and was a right decision at the time it is certainly not going to have any impact on our cash position at all, and hopefully it will sit there to a point where we don't need it and we can make decisions around that.

Okay, and the second question I'd like to ask is regarding the various projects, you're saying that the reserves have increased from 1.7 million ounces to 2.2 million ounces net of money depletion. So can I get an understanding that you are currently mining some of the sulfide already, and it's stockpiled and waiting to be processed should the processing plant build, or is this just a general term that is used to, like you're not really mining out of the ground yet?

No, we haven't changed our mine plan specifically to go after mining. sulphides at all. Just by the nature of Sinbury, there are sulphides mixed up in the current mine plan, but it's certainly, and we would stockpile if that continued to go, but we're not specifically changing our mine plan to stockpile sulphides at all.

Okay, thanks very much for that Craig, and all the best with the upcoming years that you'll be on the helm.

Thank you very much Brian. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate that. The next telephone question is from Kate McCutcheon from Citi. Please ask your question, Kate.

Hi, Craig, and Craig and team. Wondering if you could provide some more color on what prevented you from utilizing PATH to its full potential, I guess, in March quarter. And then secondly, if you could talk about any production impacts you've kind of had or having throughout this quarter at Gwalior from having to implement social distancing, particularly as an underground operation.

Thanks. Yeah, Kate, I think there are a lot of good questions in amongst that. I think the... Let me start with the COVID, and particularly the separation and how we're managing. A big call out to all our operations and not just to Glalia, but Stian and the team. They were very proactive in the early days in getting processes in place and all sorts of social separation occurring right at the very beginning, which for us is either driving from the local communities and or from flying from Perth. So being that proactive and being able to manage that has certainly de-risked the business. Our way of operating and accessing underground and even working above ground has significantly changed. So if you can imagine the chaos in the first few weeks we had to endure and change our processes and duplicate a lot of things in many ways as we learnt what COVID really meant. But to be able to come through that with virtually no change to the production or have very little impact in production is a credit to Sian and his team. And that will continue on and of course the learnings from COVID right across the organisation. And the appointment of people in specific COVID response roles has benefited us enormously. And we'll take those learnings for any future issues that we may have. And I hope not, but if there's another uptick in COVID cases, then we're in a good position to manage going forward, given these learnings. In terms of the underutilisation from the PATH plant, that's really driven by the mine advance and the mine... activity. We have been up and down with production and for various reasons, mainly as we are working and dancing through on the back of the extension project and as that comes to conclusion. We just haven't had the open stoves to backfill and to fully utilise the path plant is the only reason. This quarter we'll have similar, maybe a little bit more utilisation of the PATH plant as we advance and we'll become more de-constrained, but that's the only reason we're not fully utilising the underground PATH at the moment.

Okay, that's useful, thanks Craig. And then just finally, interested if you could provide an update on the progress of the profit sharing stream at Moose River. I guess, have you made an offer to purchase that or what's the next data point that we can kind of expect there?

Yeah, Kate, the only thing that I can share about Moose River is the exec and the board of Moose River have met with my executive team. We have made an offer and we're currently sitting down with the Mercer River Executive Group again in the coming two to three weeks to discuss that offer in more detail. And we should be able to have an announcement on that in the coming weeks.

Okay, so that will be something that you'll look to update us on outside of cycle?

Correct, Kate, yes.

Okay, thanks, Kate.

Our next telephone question is from Reg Spencer from Canaccord. Please ask a question, Reg.

Thanks, good morning guys. Focusing on Sambiri, I just want to check that there will be no major change to the project metrics with the Sambiri fees relative to the pre-feeds in terms of plant throughput and so on and so forth, noting obviously that the grain has changed versus the prior iteration of that study.

Yeah, Rich, I don't foresee any significant change in material changes. If they do, they would hopefully be on the upside and not on the downside. But given the robustness of the drilling program that's gone on there for many years, the pre-feasibility project, the way that that's been managed and brought to the table, now we've had third-party independent reviews on that. I'm very confident of going to the board with the right deck. So I wouldn't suggest for a moment that there'll be any material changes at all, no.

Great. Again sticking with some berries, just looking to get a little bit of colour on that drop in processing costs. I'm sure there's a little bit of economy to scale in there but when do you expect to start to see some material cost benefits from lower oil prices? Do you have any existing hedges in place and if not would you look to put any hedges in place?

Well the answer to that is absolutely and we're reviewing that position. quite often in recent times because of things like the oil price and where that's going. You can see globally that people are taking advantage of that around the world and we're certainly keeping a close eye on that. But I'd just like to say in terms of operating costs, part of the future strategy of what we're doing, and I've mentioned that we have consultants that at Gwalior and looking at our production and cost profiles there. That's part of a larger strategy for the entire organisation. So, Warren, I suspect there will be a lot more to talk about in the coming near term, in the near couple of months, three months, around cost profile in a lot more detail.

Sorry, Craig, so that would form part of... the results of the feasibility study or what you're doing with the sulfide, is that when you might look to flesh that out?

Yeah, fish and berry it would be for sure, yes.

Yeah, okay. Okay, understood. All right, thank you. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

And that telephone question is from Adam Baker from Global Mining Research. Please ask your question, Adam.

Hey, morning, guys. Previously, St Barbara provided an FY21 and FY22 outlook for Gwalior. 230,000 ounces per year. Does this still stand or do you expect the ramp up to be somewhat delayed?

Yeah, look, it still stands. I think the organisational review that I'm currently doing with the team, you know, there's nothing material that would suggest anything different to make that change at this point in time. I won't, I guess, forecast the future and what that could mean. But we're certainly looking to optimize our business right across the portfolio, so that still remains.

Alright, thank you.

Our next telephone question is from JP Morgan. Please ask your question, Levi.

G'day, Craig. Thanks for the call. I joined a bit late. I might have missed a few things. So just confirming the Simbiri PFS is going to the board for approval to progress to a feasibility study this quarter. What's the approximate cost?

Yeah, Lou, you're right. The board will receive a recommendation within the next few days and the decision will be made on what we're going to do. In terms of the cost, it still stands. I think we got it at around $150 million US, and that still remains the same.

Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Craig. And just over at Gwalior, one of your WA gold mining peers talked about a 10% loss in productivity because of the COVID measures they've taken. Just confirming you're not seeing any losses in productivity for a deep underground mine.

No, we're not. I can stand here or sit here today saying that this is COVID-related. Swings and roundabouts as we go through the optimisation of the ventilisation and the vent program in particular and what we're doing at the mine, we're seeing peaks and troughs of production. But I'd have to say, again, with what all the operations are doing, no more than what the team at Gwalior have been able to achieve, wouldn't be able to say that there would be any material impact on production driven by COVID. Now, if you're talking about costs and productivity and different things, then absolutely it would be. But in terms of our guidance and our production targets, I'd have to say no.

Okay, thank you. And I caught the tail of a question at the start. You talked about updating the the Canadian mine plan and the Gwalior mine plan in quarter four, is that right? And that's quarter four calendar year? Just drop my memory, please. Yes, it is.

And look, and to the clarity, you know, we have a strategic team looking at Gwalior as we speak, and that's certainly looking at life of mine, but also, you know, looking at the major opportunities there with cost out and production, particularly in the way that... Once the ventilation is completed and we do bottleneck the mine, you know, what is the full potential of the mine over a long period of time? What does that look like? Costs out of our business. The same thing applies, and the same methodology will apply at Simvery, whether we do or whether we don't go full with the sulphide project. And then, of course, you know, where do we actually sit? What does Atlantis look like in the next two, three to five years? All that type of strategy... is currently being built behind the scenes, and we hope to be a bit more transparent about what that strategy would look like for the entire organisation by quarter four. Thank you.

Thanks, Craig. Our next telephone question is from Matthew Friedman from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.

Thanks very much. Morning, Craig. Just wanted to touch on the Sinbury Sulfides project. and whether you could give a bit more colour on what you're expecting the path forward might look like from a mining licence perspective. You know, clearly I'm asking the question in the context of, you know, what we know about Porgera. And I know Simberi is in a different boat because obviously it supports an island community. But wondering whether that, you know, whether what the government's done at Porgera, I guess, might weigh on the board's decision to deploy more capital in Papua New Guinea and wondering what kind of fiscal or licensing terms or agreements you might hope to achieve before you do make that decision.

Yeah, Matthew, I was hoping that question wasn't going to come up. Sorry, Craig. But thanks for that. So, look, I'd have to say in terms of what's happening at Porger, only the key players there would know. The rest of us would speculate. So how that would affect us would be minimal in my view. And there's a few pieces to that. One is the team, over the last couple of years in particular, has certainly got our licence to operate now out to about 2028, I think, before it even has to be reviewed. And that will give you some sort of confidence of the reputation that Sir Barbara has operating in PNG. So I don't see that as any material, I guess, change other than certainly of interest of what's happening at PAWGRA in particular to what it would have to our sulfite project. I think if we generally have a good business outcome and proposition return on investment for the board, the board will support and move forward but I won't pre-empt that until we have that discussion. So linking it to what's happening with Barrick and PAWGRA, I don't share any sort of

view of major risk at all sure you touched on the fact that your existing licenses after 2028 um you know clearly some of the value of the sulfides project probably sits beyond that timeline so would you you know would you want to get comfort around a mine life beyond that or you think you could delve into the project you know given that i guess just given the current mining license situation you'd be comfortable with that

Yeah, look, immediately, if you went ahead with the sulphide project, you're extending the life of mine north of 8 to 10 years or longer, we would hope. So I think the business proposition in itself is very robust and sound. In terms of licensing, as you would be aware, Matthew, there's risk with the Mining Act and change of legislation. and a range of impacts in PNG that we would want some sort of assurity for and protection against if we were to invest 130 to 150 million whatever the sulphide project would take if we go down that path. So yes, we would want some guarantee. We certainly have support of the landowners, the local level government, provincial government in particular are paying a very keen interest on what we're doing and wanting to know how to help. But we would certainly look for government support and longevity before we signed up to any major project there. No problem. Thanks, Craig.

Telephone question is from Andrew Bowler from Macquarie. Please ask your question, Andrew.

Hello, guys. I'll also jump in a little bit later. I did hear you talk about pillow basalts being sort of the main reason behind the delay in the raise for Agualia. I'm assuming you have a pretty good idea of the stratigraphy from the pilot hole there. Do those pillow bath salts continue? Is there sort of a chance this gets delayed again, or have you factored this into your new completion guidance?

Yeah, we've certainly factored it into our guidance. There's no doubt. And yes, it was certainly on the radar. Now, if you remember, we had a similar issue with ground in one of the other vent raisers recently. We weren't prepared for it. This one in particular, and we backed ourselves to think we had a technical solution and were much better prepared. But then again, you're really in the lap of whatever gets thrown at you in these sorts of environments. We've come out on the worst end than we would have liked. We're certainly struggling, have been struggling in this ground for a period of time. And it's not so much that it's so slow going. That's one problem that we face. But we've had in this hole in particular, this venting raise in particular, we've had large rocks fall on top of the cutter and cutterhead and damage them. And that is a lengthy project to lower the cutterhead back down into the, into the mine and repair them. That's a couple of weeks each time we do that. So, yeah, we've certainly been battling and fighting, but we will finish that work in this quarter.

No, that's all for me. Thanks.

And our next question is from John from Eastern Valley Limited. Please ask a question, John.

Yeah, good morning, guys, and thanks very much for all the efforts in a very tough time. I've got a few, actually. My first one is on Gwalior. Now, obviously, the overall situation is grades going from sort of 11, I think, grams a ton down to maybe seven. You've got, I think, around 10 more years at present. Are you seeing that as How should we see the grade? I mean, is it going to be some slowly overtime falling, or will we get a fairly steady sort of seven, or is there going to be possibilities for, you know, getting into some better grades again? So that's one. And related to that is obviously you spend quite a lot of money on the ventilation system. I just wonder why now you're doing another study. I would have thought you would have done the study first, then spend money on the ventilation, and then you go. I just wonder why you need to study again. And then the final very simple one on that is at what date roughly are we just going to be full on with the ventilation system fully working? We're just mining without some construction activities getting in the way. Another completely separate topic is how do you look at the possibilities of more acquisitions at the moment? I was just thinking in terms of, say, Guaya, there's some explorers not so far away you could bolt on and chuck some ore to the site. That's another one. And then just on hedging, Obviously, what this has taught us is that mines can be shut down, and then you're in trouble because you've got to deliver into your hedge book. And if your mine's not working, you can't do that. So that's why you have to take out debt. Notice, I think you're still adding to hedges. I just wonder why that is. And especially in this era of central bank money printing, it would suggest that gold is going to be heading north. And then just on Atlantic, I just wonder how you're going to deal with that situation because, you know, you may have to, if you're seeing executives who want to travel to the site, you know, you may need to go into quarantine or go into quarantine when you come back to Australia. So it's almost a bit like you don't have your hands around that. And again, on hedging, they have a lot of hedging there at low prices. Are you going to really tap back on that so you can enjoy the full cheap cost per ounce there. So those are the questions, thank you.

Yeah, I think, let me start off with I think the grade question you asked around, I think, you know, 11 grams botanical alia down to seven, I think, was your range. You know, we've always stated that the The life of mine, Gray, was average of 6.4. And that still stands today, and that may change over time as development, you know, I guess, continues. And we certainly hope to see an uptick in that, but that's something that we can't guide for at this point in time with the information that we had. In terms of, I guess, your other questions, and all relevant, A lot of those will be answered once we come out at the end of quarter four, just before the yearly, in terms of what the overall business and company strategy will be and what it will look like. And as you would imagine, 11 weeks into the role, I'm certainly assessing all those particular areas of opportunity that you spoke about. So let me talk about, I think first and foremost, You know, I'm still running the mill, even Deconstrained, as best we know it today, at Glalia, with significant opportunity. We shut the mill down at the moment about a bit less or around about a week a month. So my first prioritised area would be to fill that mill. Now, whether that comes through acquisition or tolling agreement or a JV or somebody to be able to toll that mill, material to fill the mill, not sure yet. We're working through that. We have had some tiling arrangements that have gone very well for us and we'll seek to do some more. There are also significant opportunities to be able to explore near mill around Gwalior and that's something that we're looking at at the moment and the general manager of exploration is certainly deep diving the opportunities around that. we're not losing sight of continual development, fill the mill and maximise the benefit out of aquahalia. Your questions on hedging are absolutely valid and yes, there are a lot of hedges associated with Atlantic. We certainly look to use hedge as our advantage and there'll be more on that by Garth at the end of quarter four of what we intend to do strategy-wise and how we've used the hedge and particularly our hedge book. The COVID issues at Atlantic is certainly frustrating from my point of view because you're right, there'd be nothing more valuable than getting to the site, understanding the culture and the environment that we work much better than I do today. But I'd have to say the The team at Atlantic in particular are doing a great job. We're all running our businesses, we're all running our organisations these days from desktops, and that's working very, very well for us. We communicate and connect to the site. Obviously, I do pretty much every day. It's not the same as getting there and putting your arms around things and understand it. And certainly, it's not like... me in particular, I've developed the relationships with the regulators and the government and the First Nation people that I would certainly like within the first three months of this role. Now, having said that, we're managing with what we've got effectively. We're certainly extremely valued in the region and very well regarded. I had calls later this week with First Nation and trying to set up calls with some government people on video to get that relationship going as best we can and continuing through the permitting process. I think that's extremely important. Now, strategically, to be able to set ourselves up for when the COVID restrictions start to be wound back somewhat, I think that puts all governments in a position where anyone that has what I'm calling shovel-ready type projects to get the economy rolling will certainly get prioritisation. in permitting and in development so we are strategically positioning ourselves for that to occur and being able to launch into into growth and development um at the end of some of the covered restrictions when they get removed but picking on your point there there's absolutely nothing better than being under there face to face and it's very frustrating and it's frustrating globally i would imagine for everyone

Thank you very much indeed for the answers, Craig.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. There are no more further questions at this time. That does conclude the call for today. Thank you for all participating, ladies and gentlemen. You may all disconnect and goodbye. Take care. Thank you, everyone. You're welcome.