St Barbara Limited

standing by and welcome to the St Barbara FY22 Q4 June quarterly report. All participants are in listen only mode. There will be a question and answer session after the presentation. If you wish to ask a question you will need to press star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr Craig Jetson, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you for that, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us on Zimbabwe's quarter four June FY22 quarterly report briefing. I'm pleased to join you on this call from Perth, the land of the Wadjuk and the Noongar people. Please note the disclaimers on slide two. As always, I would like to begin by recognising the traditional landowners of the First Nations people on the lands of which Zimbabwe operates in Australia, Canada and Papua New Guinea and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. So moving on to safety, I always start with our safety performance. Safety remains our number one commitment right across the organisation. One of our key challenges continues to be absenteeism and mitigation of increasing COVID-19 in case numbers. This is placing pressure on our maintenance and daily operations, including all of our contractors. With a TRIFA for FY22 or 3.4, there has been a slight improvement year on year. However, our TRIFA for quarter four highlights the importance of not becoming complacent. And we all know that we have a lot of work to do in this space. In terms of our key achievements, it's pleasing to present our quarter four results. Production at all our operation has been sustained and normalized through proactive and effective management. We have reached both production and cost guidance at all sites for the year with a very strong financial final quarter and promising outlook and start to FY23. The performance of the last two quarters in particular demonstrate that our results are improving and are repeatable. I have now spent time on the ground across our business. After the hiatus of COVID, This is clearly helping the team deliver better outcomes in all jurisdictions, including Nova Scotia's permitting and First Nations relationships. For St Barbara, one of the most noticeable impacts of COVID on our business was the inability for the executive and technical experts, both internal and consultants, to spend time off the ground supporting our business. Turning to the numbers, group production as a solid result of 86,000 ounces of gold up 40% on last quarter. Our focus on reducing costs has contributed to a decrease in all in sustaining costs, been down 12% at $2,007 per ounce quarter on quarter. A stronger realized gold price combined with higher production has delivered a 25% increase in cash to $99 million. And to note, this is after spending $28 million on replacing the DSTP, St Berry being non-operational or adding gold production for at least six months, and funding for the $34 million of acquisitions such as Kin Mining and Nova Scotia Gold. We now have an aspirational target of $10 million in cost reductions through the consolidation of our corporate functions to Perth. We are announcing an inaugural oil resource of Old South Gwalior, which is adding a further $1.9 million tonnes of resource at 3.7 grams per tonne. This will add a further mining front and significantly shallower depths at Gwalior and help with more optionality at these lower depths. St Berry is under strategic review. It's pleasing that multiple parties are interested, which is a testament of the strong value of this operation and the sulphide project. This quarter results also highlight the value St Berry can add. Our organic approach and our strategic approach in developing the Leonora Province has given us the opportunity to think about Atlantic in a similar way with a holistic province plan approach. This thinking will drive organic and inorganic growth across the business continuity for many years, creating further value. Our province strategy is very visible and is working. The quarter results demonstrate this. Our strategy for Leonora has been to stabilise and then improve operations, do more development, fill the mill, while we progressed our Leonora Province Plan. Gold production for both quarter on quarter, year on year, in fact, is up 25%. For the quarter, this was due to our ability to access stopes previously blocked by the seismic event at Leonora in November 2021. For the year, this was driven by increased ore mill due to the management's decision to remove historical waste and opening up additional mine headings some 12 to 18 months ago. Ore mine for the quarter was slightly down, driven by the availability of maintainers and operators, primarily due to COVID. As slagged in the last quarter, productivity for four new jumbo drills has resulted in development is increasing by 26%. Looking back at the full year tonnes milled, for the last four years, this has seen an increase of 58% from 652,000 tonnes in FY19-20 to 1.1 million tonnes in FY22. This significant increase in mill performance shows us delivering on our strategy to fill the mill through more effective management at Gwalior. The productivity increase is an operating strategy. It's not driven by capital. The Leonore problems plan is well underway. Our acquisition of Bardock certainly supports this. Bardock assets have been promptly assimilated into our business with Zorastrian on track for first production in the next 12 months. Management have identified a commissioning strategy that enables Bardock to be bought online six months earlier than initially thought. This strengthens our position to fill the mill much sooner. Under St Berry, St Berry has returned to full production and has had a great quarter. The year has been impacted by the DSTP replacement followed by the outback of COVID that everybody can remember in February of 2019. However, quarter four shows that we can still deliver. I have spent considerable time on the ground in St Berry The new ideas generated at the time with a highly motivated team there has led a better mine and mill productivity, better maintenance processes and better availability and equipment reliability is certainly improving. We have achieved higher levels of production in St. Barry. Roadblocks have been removed and the operation is delivering above expectation. This has been an enablement for senior management, consultants, technical experts, being on the ground for the first time in two years to help the site management team and the operational team. Management expects improvements that have been rolled out at Sinbury over this time to continue through to FY23 based on the quarter four results. In terms of the strategic review, discussions remain ongoing that are confidential, but I am pleased that there are multiple parties in the data room. This quarter results shows that where it is impossible to operate and how it is impossible to operate some berry and grow some berry. Looking at the SoFi project, this extends mine life by greater than 10 years as a strong NPV and creating enormous value. Notwithstanding, there have been price increases and scope changes. We'll still work through those issues. It's a strong project and attractive to many companies. In terms of Atlantic, access to high-grade oil was possible following removal of in-pit waste, which drove a 64% increase in gold production. I personally met with the Premier Tim Houston of Nova Scotia. Premier Houston has been supportive of a more collaborative approach. We are working together and have already dealt with some of the permitting backlogs. For example, we can now submit multiple permits at any one time. In this quarter, two delayed permits have already been approved, the ammonia treatment plant and the clay cutback. We are confident that the new approach will secure the tailings lift permit mid-August, delivering business continuity for the rest of this financial year. The approach we're taking in Canada flows on from the Leonora province plan strategy. The potential of our province approach in Western Australia has been recognised across the sector and will transfer well into an approach similar in Canada. The two extended trips I have made to Atlantic this year, I have been able to forge relationships not only with government, but also including the First Nations and the Premier himself. I'm heading off there again soon to continue building these relationships and looking forward to meeting with the Premier and the First Nations people once again. We are committed to the current plan at Atlantic. Lift the current tailings wall and providing tailings capacity for the rest of the financial year. Finish mining the two-court pit by the end of this calendar year. Process stockpile ore for the next two years while Beaver Dam is being permitted and constructed. Secure the in-pit tailing permit to enable tailings capacity for the remainder of the operations and also deliver the EIS approval for Beaver Dam in quarter four FY23. With COVID and other roadblocks, it's taken time, but we now have a pathway. I'm on the ground supporting the Atlantic team quite often, and this is delivering the outcomes that we need. Our problem plan strategy places Leonora as central to any consolidation in our view. Zimbabwe has the largest mineral resource and oil reserves in the Leonora region, near-term growth from Old South Gwalior, New mines such as Zorastia and Aphrodite with Zorastia in production within the next 12 months. We have a large landholding that grew significantly this year with the acquisition of BARDA which delivers on our province strategy. We also cash flow positive with $177 million from Leonora this year. We can fund our growth projects organically. Our focus on Gwalior and Leonora province is generating early rewards with expansion expansion of reserves and resources and extending St Barbara's footprint across the region. Our province plan thinking is seeing undeveloped opportunities in the region beginning to approach us for future development. That's very exciting. We have over 122 million tonnes of ore to be processed containing 10.5 million ounces of gold. This represents decades of potential growth and sustainable production. all expandable at low cost. The hardest thing about gold mining is finding the gold, and we're certainly doing that, and we already have plenty of it, and it's growing. The first two mines to be developed in the near future is Zoroastrian and Aphrodite mines, which we acquired this financial year. DADOC assets have been promptly assimilated into our business. These two mines will not only fill the current 1.4 million tonne capacity but also assist in the expanded 2.1 mil capacity justification. This will lift the amount of material processed at the Leonora pram from 650,000 tonnes we did back in 2019-20 to 2.1 million tonnes by FY26 with minimal capital spend. Zoroastrian will be in production in 12 months time. This is six months ahead of our original schedule. We're expected to be delivering 300,000 tonnes per year on an average of three grams per tonne of our milk. The ore body is open in all directions. We have plans to commence drilling as soon as possible. We have been investigating the possibility of starting some of the resource extension drilling from the surface. Originally, we thought the old open pit would make this too difficult, but our technical team has done some great work and have found locations where we can safely set up set up surface drills and commenced this work early. Gwalior is almost 130 years old yet we're still finding new resources. The inaugural resource and the announcement today for Old Gwalior South adds a further 1.9 million tonnes of resources at an average grade of 3.7 grams per tonne. This is an area between 600 to 1,000 metres below surface, much shallower than the deeps that we're currently seeing ore transported today. Over the coming quarters we will continue to find the rest of the ore body that looks like it may extend to the surface. In the September quarter we are targeting the inaugural Tower Hill open pit reserve, followed up in the March 23 quarter with the inaugural Harbour Lights open pit ore reserve. Again, this is very exciting for us. We may have the largest ore reserves in the region already, but we are keen to continue to add to our high-quality portfolio. In terms of exploration, our exploration teams are keen to commence drilling on extensive land holdings which came with the Bardock acquisition. 25 priority targets have already been identified in these new areas. We are chasing high-grade deposits and have plans to drill 22,000 metres through FY23. In terms of plant expansion, I believe we are in an enviable position of being able to expand our processing plant at very low cost. With a modest investment, we will increase the processing capacity by up to 50%. And with improvements at Gwalior, the new lines in Zoroastria and Aphrodite will be in a position to immediately fill the mill. Established infrastructure with processing capacity available today at low cost future expansions significantly differentiates us from all the others in the province of where we operate. I think this table clearly articulates a central region of consolidation of where we are. Our current rate of processing would take us 87 years to process all the material. Accelerating the delivery of high quality resources that we have in our portfolio would deliver outstanding value to our shareholders. This quarter and the second half of FY22 demonstrate the transformation is underway. We are delivering on uplifts one and two, and three, which is our growth strategy. This quarterly performance is an indicator of our future and the Leonora Province plan maturing. Atlantic's potential to be transformed in a similar province approach and strategic review of some very underway will also create significant and deliver significant value to St Barbara. Our Leonora Province Plan demonstrates that we have the largest mineral resource and reserves in the Leonora region, continual near-term growth including Old South Gwalior, a new high-grade mine in Zoroastrian on tack to commence in production in the next 12 months, a large and exciting landholding we believe that offers the best opportunity to find high-grade additions to our leading portfolio, a low-cost mill expansion and the ability to fund these exciting projects and growth projects through our own cash flow. Production is up per ounce is stable. Cost per ounce is stable. Some work to do to improve our safety performance. All in all, a solid quarter that reveals our potential and confirms our ability to achieve it. So with that now, I will open up all the lines for questions that people may have and thank you for joining me. So open for questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you would like to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Reg Spencer of Canaccord. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, Craig and team. Thanks for the presentation this morning. My first question is on FY23 guidance. Since your last update to the market, you flagged that you would provide an FY23 outlook at the quarterly. Should we read anything into the delay of the provision of FY23 guidance until your results next month? I don't want to speculate, obviously with strategic reviews underway at Sambiri, but could we read into, that might mean there's a pending asset transaction, or I was just wondering if you'd help me out here.

Yeah, look, there's a really good call out. I think the main driver is clearly the strategic review of Sambiri is number one, but also what might affect Sambiri More so than that, to be honest, would be the permitting of the tailings facility in Nova Scotia. As you would know, we need that, I guess, to be able to finish the two-coy pit. It's about a week to two weeks away before doing that. So if I set guidance for the business now and something happened, I'm quite positive we'll get the lift. given what's happening at Nova Scotia now. So that's not really my major concern. My major concern is setting guidance and then two weeks later, if that permit doesn't come through, have to reset guidance again. So we will do it in two to three weeks from now when the four-year results are done.

Understood. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Craig. My next question is just about general industry cost pressures. Obviously, you've pointed to lower grades out of the Leonora or Agualia next year. You've also highlighted that you might look to suffer from some labour availability issues next financial year as well. Are you starting to see any indications of any alleviation of these inflationary or labour issue pressures? Are you hearing any anecdotes from any of your suppliers or contractors, you know, Are we currently going through the worst of this and, I think, starting to get better?

Look, Reg, I'd like to be optimistic and say absolutely, but I can't. I'm not seeing the labour pressures any different than they were in previous quarters. What I'm seeing is we're managing the cases much better and we're preparing and planning much better because of what we've learnt over the last 18 months and the systems and standards that we've put in place. I'm not seeing an influx of labour from the east to the west, for example, now that the borders have opened up. What I am seeing is increasing cases here in the west, creating significant issues for us in our operations in Western Australia. But I think we've been able to manage around and get through, but it's certainly not where we need to be. We're not running the equipment anywhere near capacity because of that. And I don't see that changing in the very near future as much as we try.

Mr Craig, does that mean that we should probably expect, when you bring out your guidance, obviously pending an outcome at Atlantic, that to be probably more on the conservative side, given those headwinds?

Look, I think it would be on an achievable side. I don't think it's conservative. I think we'll set guidance. um as as we know it we've we've obviously gone through our yearly budgets internally and we'll set guidance on the back of those but our budgets are certainly taken in and considering uh all aspects of covert impacts and what we may think uh happen in the future and we're planning for those so i think if you look at the um the grade drop but if you also look at the productivity improvements that that you're seeing at gualia even with the the issues we've had in the last quarter and a quarter before with COVID the productivity increases and the ore to the surface for example has been significantly growing even with all those headwinds so if it was ever one day where we had everything manned and all the development completed and meters drilled that we would like everything was really lining up just shows you how good that asset could be so guidance will be achievable and It'll be based on the budget and the mine plans that we've currently got internally.

Thanks. One last question, if I can. Some very strategic review. What would you say would be the replacement cost of the mining and processing infrastructure on the island today? And does that feed into your consideration on any asset transaction and what you guys might think is an acceptable price for that asset, if there was a firm bid?

Yeah, look, absolutely. The first thing I think Reg's to point out, there are multiple people interested in the asset, so that's great. It just shows you that people understand how much value can bury the mine, the mine of today and a current operation can deliver, but also the strength of the software project. Yeah, it's got cost pressures and there's been scope changes, there's been all sorts of increases, but the fact of the matter is it's very strong in PV and people in the data room now are certainly seeing that. In terms of value, I'm not prepared to go into what I believe the value of the asset would be. That would be probably not the right thing for me to say. It will not be a file sale. It will be a strategic decision once we understand if there is a sale or if there is another way to be able to deliver on the Soulfly project other than fully St Barbara-owned. This is a strategic review. It's not a file sale. So is it for SAIA? Everything is, right, at the right place. So we'll have a look at all options available to us once people do their work in the data room and we do more work ourselves.

Understood. Thanks very much, Craig. Appreciate it. I'll pass it on. Thanks, Rich. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Alex Barkley of RBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Morning, Craig. So looking through the briefing book, you've well highlighted the long resource life at Leonora out to 87 years. And at 2.1 million tonnes per annum, that's still going to be a more than healthy life as well. Would you think about expanding that capacity quite a bit above 2.1 million tonnes per annum at some point? Or, you know, alternatively, is there a combination with some additional milling capacity in the region that via M&A could come about? I think you're absolutely on point. What you're seeing us talk about today is our province and where we're going short term to medium term. I think in the longer term, and I touch on it a little bit in the regional consolidation, there is significant opportunity in the Leonora region to be able to bank all their reserves and resources much sooner than than we've got in our pipelines at the moment. So the answer to your question, given the infrastructure that we have at LEO is central or the hub to all things growth, in my view, in the province, we could absolutely consolidate further, build further, expand further because the infrastructure is already there and combining some of those assets makes absolute sense given the reserves and the resources that's available to everybody. Okay. And was there a PFS update probably coming out Q1? Is that when we might learn a bit more about that? We certainly learn a bit more about what we're doing. Tower Hill, Harbour Lights, in particular, the expansion, greater than 2.1 potentially. What we find with Zoroastrian, with the drilling and what that might open up, an extension of life of mine there, hopefully, with Aphrodite. and and zoroastrian on board so look there there will be um changes uh for the better going forward i think the baseline of where we are today is exactly that it is a baseline for potential growth okay and a a quick one on simberry recovery was pretty good in the quarter up to 77 percent despite some lower lower head grade is that sort of an above average blend percentage of oxide ore or should we expect good recovery going into FY23? We're going to get mixed recoveries towards the second half but we have got a robust mine plan now that gives us a very solid result for FY23 that I'll talk about when I set our guidance. I think for me the production throughput in quarter four is normal. That's what we should be expecting quarter on quarter. Now, there's going to be quarters of mill shuts, like we'll have to do a mill relining or if we have a mill failure, whatever the headwinds are, may slow us down. But a normalised quarter with the operations running stable, that quarter four performance, in my view, would be a normal quarter. Okay, great. Thanks very much for that, Craig.

Thank you. Once again, if you would like to register for a question, please press star 1 on your phone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Jeffrey Cranfield of Rover Investments. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, Craig. Congratulations on a great turnaround, good results. As you know, my comments and questions come more from a shareholder's point of view rather than an analyst's point of view. Probably the first and most pressing concerns that we have been, we do have serious concerns regarding what we've been reading and what's been reported in media more so than anything regarding talks, merger talks with Genesis. We see this as just a ridiculous thing, a merger of equals. Zimbabwe shareholders have taken a fair bit of pain, as a lot of shareholders and gold mining companies in Australia have, with share prices being beaten down. Are you able to... Quite frankly, we don't have a lot of confidence in the board of St Barbara to negotiate following a series of bad decisions going back to the way that Atlantic was purchased, basically relying on the due diligence reports or lack of relying on what Atlanta Gold had told them. So are you able to tell us anything about where those talks might be or if they are ongoing or if they've been ceased?

Well, Jeff, let me start by saying it's great to have a shareholder dial in and ask some questions and I really appreciate you you've taken the time out today to do that and i think there's probably um many hours to be able to answer your questions effectively let me start with um i think the the atlantic um purchase uh look i've spent um significant amount of time at atlantic this year now now the cover's gone i've been up with the team of uh as i've stated in the release today i've met with the premier met with the Minister Howman, who's the Minister for Environment and his team, and everybody else. And I think for the first time, I can actually say everybody's working together to achieve a business continuity outcome for the Atlantic assets. The acquisition of the assets are still strong in my view. They are good mines, they are good operations once developed, and they'll certainly deliver good NPV and good cash once permitted. The headwinds have been the permits up until now, not the asset purchase, not the assets themselves. In actual fact, Tucoi has been a very good cash generator over the last three to four years and the last two and a half, three years since St Barbara's owned it. So that in itself has been producing safe, reliable cash. Unfortunately, it's running out of life of mine now. and running down and will be in the low-gauge stockpiles. It still has a couple of permitting headwinds. But what I will say, working very closely with the government, having the executive team, including myself, being able to be on the ground now, working with the team, working with government, working with the regulators, we've been able to achieve two old, I guess, applications of permits in the last month or so, which gives me courage that the process that we've put in place that's been cooperative with the government, working together for business continuity, will get the other permits in time. So I think that business, over time, will be developed into the cash machine that was first envisaged during the acquisition. The gold is still in the ground. It's gone nowhere. We will get it. We will permit it. We will move on. It's just this hiatus between how long does it take and when can we do that. We are getting closer to be able to nail that and realise the benefit. So I think the acquisition itself was very, very sound. Obviously not here at the time, but on the ground looking at it, it has the potential to be a very, very good business once permitted. There are some strategies to be had, and I won't talk about that in this call, but there are some changes potentially in strategy and how we operate, what we commission first, But we'll do all that work and the internal washing machine and come out with the best strategy we can once we've got the permits in place. In terms of the talks, there's a lot of chatter in the market, is there ever? And I do take on board your comment about the pain that the shareholders have endured, particularly over the last three and a half years and more so in my time, in the last two and a half years. But that's been for a lot of reasons, not one single reason. I won't go into the backlog of excuses. But when people start to see and other business leaders start to see the opportunity that Leo would provide as a centralised hub, a lot of people start talking. A lot of people want it. A lot of people approach me about, is there business continuity opportunities between us? Is there synergies between us? Absolutely. In terms of Genesis, yep, I've spoken to them and talks are continuing. I'm not ruling out any business opportunity at this point in time, but what it will do is make good sense and create value to the current shareholder proposition, shareholder value, and to our business. It won't be a reckless change or consolidation, if at all, any. And there are other opportunities of the Bardocs in the region as well. As I've said today in today's call, people now are coming to me asking me about their business opportunity, what they've got and the synergies that they could bring to Leonora. It's great that we are the centre of attention in terms of value creation. I'd rather people be saying, gee, I wouldn't mind a piece of garlic or I'd like a piece of that product's plant. I want to be part of that. Then don't do that. I don't want to admit we're near where they are. So we've got the right strategy. We've certainly got the right endowment. We're talking to the right people, not just one group of people. We're talking to multiple groups. That's what business development do and Andrew Strelow, Chief Development Officer, doing a great job in that space, talking to multiple parties on a whole range of different opportunities. Which one we land on, Geoff? Not decided, no decisions, but we'll certainly do everything we can to support the growth and the value of our share price.

Yeah, okay. Look, thanks, Craig. Look, appreciate the acquisition of Bardock um and as you say it's going ahead ahead of plan uh extremely positive and and you know and other consolidations in the area would be great it just was you know we we do have concerns with uh with genesis and uh anyway look thanks very much for uh for that explanation and uh uh we look forward to uh to uh to St Barbara, you know, really making some positive moves from here on in. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Geoff, and it's great to get your feedback and the questions that really bothers the shareholder. But, you know, as I said, we've delivered two quarters now, two quarters that are very solid, one in particular. Just watch this space and we'll keep delivering. Thank you. Great, thanks.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Peter O'Connor. offshore and partners. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Craig. Your energy and enthusiasm is clearly noted today, and the presentation was very well-rounded and a great narrative, so thank you. First question is on Gwali and the Leonora hub. Just a free milling ore opportunity, Craig? So within that expansion to 1.4 and then to 2.1. And I note on slide 16, you do add the Albion component as well. How long can you free mill with what you've got at higher rates before you need to take that extra step?

Yeah, look, as soon as, I guess, we get xerastrin on, that goes a long way to filling the current 1.4 million tonnes. But we really need the mill expansion over the next 18 months post that to be able to accept... up to 2.1 million tonnes from Aphrodite or even beyond in our view. So I think the Albion timing on that, we'll put out a lot more information at the full year to give people an idea of where the capital cash is going to flow and on what project on the timing. We could, and we will, and we plan to put Aphrodite material with Zorastrian and with Gualia. It will hurt our recovery somewhat, but it's still good business to be able to mix them if the album plant is not ready. But really, we need the album plant and one other mine other than Aphrodite online at the same time to maximize the benefit from the Albion circuit, and we're still working through that. But again, as I said, Tower Hill and Harbour Lights, we'll talk a lot more about where they fit in the scheme of that, which will tie into the Albion expansion at the same time at the full year result.

Switching to St Berry, the data room, can you give any more detail about the point of which you're in the process? Are you non-binding stages, binding stages? And when you talk about the parties involved, are we thinking multi-geographically located parties, not just from China? And also, are we thinking about operators that are currently in the PNG or looking to get into PNG or both?

Yeah, look, there are operators in PNG that are interested for sure. And there are operators in Australia that are certainly interested in PNG as well. And people like myself have got plenty of PNG clients. experience are interesting. There's a significant shift in mining in P&G at the moment with quite a few assets being reviewed or in strategic reviews or just blatantly up for sale. So that's an interesting field at this point in time. The thing that we're looking for, this is not a file sale to remove St Berry. This is a strategic review of what's the best outcome to achieve the sulphide project. And if that's not with St Barber, then who's it with? So let's look and see who's interested. The other part would be is, you know, we're not going to sell it just to anybody. And there's a lot of reasons for that. We have values of operating in P&G and that's going to be a significant, important piece to whoever's successful if we do go into a sales agreement of how they would operate in P&G. Past experience in P&G would be another one. And our suburb of values would be a third one. So there's quite a bit of, I guess, non-financial thinking going into that. But what I have to say at this point in time, there's nothing binding at all. People are having a look in the data room that are interested in purchasing.

Thanks, Craig.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Matt Green of Quedit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, Craig. If I could just ask on Atlantic, So it sounds like you've been there a fair bit. And also from your commentary, it sounds like things are sort of on the permitting side stepping up a bit. So I guess just with the benefit of hindsight here, the last few years, you know, being on the ground there, what do you get the sense has caused all these delays? And I appreciate this is always an issue with this industry on the permitting side, but what's your sense? Was this more a bureaucratic issue or was it a Barbara personnel issue in Canada?

Yeah, look, it certainly accommodated both, Matt. And let me say, we're not squeaky clean in everything that we do. In hindsight, whatever, we could have done things much differently. But one of the stark surprises that I got was when I went to the Premier's building, not his office on the first day, on the second day, sorry, but the first day when I went to his building, that even though COVID restrictions had lifted, and I'm going to blame COVID a little bit here, but over 80% of Nova Scotian government was still not back at work and I found that incredible and of course the frustration for me buried in Australia and not been able to get out and most of the time buried in my house in Queensland not been able to get out getting the frustrating emails that lack of response and whatever I now understand why when people are actually not at work and government people working in significant teams supporting each other and without those people being able to do the inspections on the ground the face-to-face meetings the technical challenges been able to resource the technical people just stalled all applications of many different types and it made the whole process dysfunctional and for two years we've been in this dysfunctional state of not been able to work together on the ground, in the office or anywhere to be able to deliver significant projects in a timely manner. And people were not making decisions. On our side, we certainly struggled with technical drilling, geotech drilling. We struggled with all sorts of different technical people not travelling, not been able to bring in technical experts from other jurisdictions in mining to help us answer the questions whether it be from an information request some of the irs whatever it was so it was really a a combination of many different fronts of inability to to be able to continue growth or continue development or continue business processes it was really about can we survive of what we've got today can we support the sites to safely deliver gold ounces and that's where the focus was. All things permitting, all things government, all things outside the mine just stalled and stopped and it's only just opening up now but it's great to see the recovery plan. Now we've got a change of government in Nova Scotia as well and I'd have to say that Premier Houston is certainly across business development and growth very encouraging. in terms of what St Barbara want to do and need to do and very supportive. The teams that we've put together now that sit together on a weekly basis to go through the permitting together have been able to backlog two partners that have been in the abyss all through COVID. So with that, I think that's why I'm really confident to be able to get our tailings dam raised permit in two to three weeks from now and that should fall due at the time when I'm actually back in Nova Scotia for my next trip so as you can see I'm spending a lot of time developing those processes and relationships with government but also the First Nations so yeah I'm a little more confident now about the asset that we have.

That's great, thanks Greg and I guess you know we've seen similar stories here in Australia on the permitting during COVID And I guess there's not a huge amount of mining in Nova Scotia, so hopefully the backlog isn't too bad. But if we take the view here that you don't get your tanning permits in time and you're forced to wind down operations there, and of course this is a worst-case scenario, but what could that look like on Karamazov? Is this a case of wind down, keep the labour pool on the payroll until you get, I guess, the permits and also leave the down permits in place and then look to restart? Or could you look at a more extended period of care and maintenance if you're about to go through a capital-heavy spend at Leonora? I'm just trying to get my head around what that could look like. And also, just to add to that, once you do get these permits, does that trigger a timeline as to when you first have to start mining?

So I'll start with the last question first. So if we got the permits, then we'd be in development of Beaver Dam. For Beaver Dam, for example, we're still probably 18 months away from getting that permitted. 12 months, I would hope. Now, the actual construction of Beaver Dam is very simple in terms of cutback and delivering ore. It's very shallow, so it's not going to take a long period of time. But the day that I got the permit, providing First Nations were okay and that part of the permit process, I would actually start mining or start the cutback. So that's okay. Now, I guess the elephant in the room is about what to do with Atlantic operations if we don't get the tailings dam lift and we don't get uh follow-up within the next 12 months the in-pit tiling solution what do we do so we've looked at internally many different scenarios as you would expect our planning to do that and one is a genuine care and maintenance so you have a minimal team so you have basically a cold team making sure that the the asset is is kept in a state that's acceptable and all I would run at that time would be the permitting team to make sure our permit sequences were continuing on and probably some engineering at the same time making sure we don't fall behind on the further development of the dam and 15 mile stream and of course Cochrane Hill, so a bit of engineering. We've costed that. We've costed that to be very, very cheap. It's probably in the order of about a million dollars a month to keep that on complete cold care and maintenance, but still keep the continuity of permitting and construction to be the dam 15 mile stream in train. So it's not a lot of cash outlay to put it on care and maintenance. The issue will be is, this is where I talk to the government quite a lot, is we've got a couple of years of processing low-grade stockpiles that still puts the operation in the black from a suburb perspective and still makes some free cash. But it also keeps a lot of the people, not the mining team, but the processing team and some of the mining team employed for the next two years as well. The last thing we want to be doing is be laying off people and then in 18 months' time trying to restart up again with no one. So if we've got the business continuity, and what that means is the tailings dam lift and the input tailings, we can process for two years low-grade stockpile, be profitable doing that, and by that stage have the dam permitted and have it cut back and delivering ore as an option. So I think the second part of what I've just played out for now is not the third option but we're looking at you know all three now of course if you go into care and maintenance then it's um and we've completed the thinking and we've we've looked at the um the plans of you might want to stay down until you get business continuity not just to finish um and you wouldn't finish low-grade stockpiles you would look at, well, do we stay on carrot maintenance until we're fully permitted, beaver dam, 15 mile stream, or one or the other, and bring them on together. So, you know, the thinking is in multiple facets. But I'm just trying to give you the thought that we're looking in the future, we've got some scenarios mapped out, and we could execute any of those. But what our holy grail is now, in two, three weeks' time, three or four weeks' time, get the permits or the timings list to move on.

Thanks, Craig. I appreciate all the context, as always. And that's it from me. And, yeah, all the best getting the permit through. Thanks, Max.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrew Bower of Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Hello, Craig. I think you've certainly answered all my questions on Atlantic. Just going back to Gwalior, obviously in the quarterly you talk about the grade decline over this year. I assume that's talking about the Gwalior deeps grade and can you just give us a little bit more clarity on a longer term deeps grade outlook? Is it, you know, at the end of this financial year will it be exiting at roughly that sort of 5.1 gram per tonne Gwalior deeps grade or will there still be some lumpiness in the next couple of years in that all coming out from the deeps of Gwalior? Yeah.

Yeah, Andrew, grade is an interesting piece of quality. So we are going to take a dip in grade for the next couple of years at least. Post two years, it does jump back up a little bit. But as you know, as we go deeper in theory, the all-body knowledge we have at the moment would suggest that as we go deeper, the grade drops off. Now, I've already criticized myself by saying in a couple of years, it jumps back up a little, not back anywhere near I'd like, but it does pop back up again. But in terms of life of mine, Greg, we're going to have to reset that at some stage. It's not going to be, you know, the six, six and a half grams per tonne that's been in the market for two, three years is going to be much reduced. And we're finding that as we get deeper, as of this year, you know, it will be in the fives, no doubt.

And I guess just expanding on that grade question, I mean, obviously the old Gwalior resource out today, you know, resource grade a bit lower than what that deeps grade is, but obviously cheaper to mine as well. Is that, will you be looking to convert into reserves a fair amount of that resource or is there sort of a high grade core you can chase to sort of, you know, keep as close as you can with dilution to that resource grade?

No, that decision hasn't been made yet and the team will come out with their reserves and resource statements and we'll elaborate and expand on that further shortly. But I think the whole issue of grade, we need to do some more extension drilling, we need to do a lot more development and we certainly need more grade definition drilling as well. So there's a lot of activity to be able to answer that question, Andrew, with any sort of accuracy from me at this point in time. I think the technical people are in a better position to make that assumption, and I'll certainly talk about it at the full year.

No worries. That's all from me, Craig. Thanks very much. Thanks, Andrew.

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

Well, hi. Good morning, Craig and team. A lot of questions have been answered. So just a couple of quick ones then. Just coming back to the new resource on Old South Gwalior, you do talk about that you're still sort of working that up. And I guess you see upside both up and down sort of plunge there. just trying to understand the potential scale of this. If I look at the section in the presentation, it does look like the main resource catches the bulk of the tonnage potential. Is that a fair assessment? So you sort of look at it and you see there's a bit of upside, but it would be unlikely to double, or is that maybe that diagram a bit deceptive?

Yeah, there's certainly upside, but I wouldn't call it double.

All right, thanks. And then just maybe a follow-up one. I mean, just coming, you were talking about business continuity and the such like, I mean, given what's happening with the corporate office, you know, you're cutting and relocating that at a time when there's so much going on in the business. Is that, is that, how's that going? And are you actually able and finding you can fill the key roles that you need to in WA given this market where everyone says that it's very hard to find people?

Yeah, Certainly what we're seeing is our ability to be able to do that. We've got it in a plan. We're still working through what critical and key roles need to be and can be relocated and then our people in Melbourne in key positions will be offered the opportunity to relocate and some people are very keen to do that. Most are not, which is fine. We're also not replacing some of the roles and people that are leaving and we're working through that. But the fact of the matter is, if I look at the future, St. Barbara, without a St. Berry, and then I have two provinces, Atlantic and potentially Atlantic Gold as a province and Leonora in the west. If I was managing 70% of my assets, 80% of my assets here at Leo, which takes up most of the management and the support and the corporate time, I would want them here in the West. So we're doing that. From a technical perspective, the office here won't be full of Melbourne people, full of equivalent roles. What we're doing is making sure that everything that we can do at the site is done at the site by the site people. Anything from governance, risk, capital, all other technical is supported here in Perth. So we're asking the sites to be more owners of their business unit than having corporate buildings full of transactional people, if that makes sense. And at the same time, looking at our own operating model, because the executive operating model will change over time. As the business matures, as the business changes, as the business focus certainly changes. So it is time for, and St. Barbara's always had two offices, been an office here in Perth for a long period of time. But to have the, The executive here to have the major technical hub, the risk management processes, the finances, all here makes perfect sense. And the duplication or the extra in Melbourne is probably outdated now. And there are flexible works. There are working from home. There's all sorts of ways to achieve the Melbourne office closure that we're currently working through. Now, we're getting back to our people in the end of October, November. to talk about the next steps and the office may cease sometime in calendar next year. Alright, brilliant Craig.

Thanks for that. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr Jetson for closing remarks.

Look again, thank you everybody for your interest in dialing in today and some great questions. It's great to see shareholders dialing in and asking some difficult questions as well. So I really do appreciate that. I just want to recap by saying the management team are delivering on the strategy that we put out on 2020. It's been a difficult couple of years with COVID, whatever it is. But if you look at the last half, the last quarter in particular, very strong results. And I just want to reach out and thank the team my team in particular, for delivering that on behalf of the shareholders. And thank everybody for your interest today in dialing in. It's much appreciated. Thank you.