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spk00: Hello, and welcome to the Metals Acquisition First Quarter 2024 Results Conference. At this time, all parties are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press the star and 1 key on your phone keypad. It is star 1 if you would like to ask a question. To remove your from the queue, press star 2. Please note that this call is being recorded, and I will be standing by should you require any assistance. I would now like to turn the call over to CEO Mick McMullen. Please begin.
spk07: Thank you and thank you everyone for joining. I'll be speaking to these presentation slides today along with Morne Engelbrecht, our CFO. We're going to give an update on our Q1 2024 results as well as a bit of an update on the business up until now. So CSA obviously we own is a very high grade copper mine sitting in a tier one jurisdiction in Western New South Wales. And as most of the people on the call would know, it's been operating for a very long period of time. And so it's a sort of a known quantity in terms of infrastructure and great relationships with local stakeholders and a very stable regulatory tax and loyalty regime, which in this day and age is becoming increasingly rare. The company's got just under 70 million shares in issue. As everyone would know, we're listed on the New York Stock Exchange as well as the ASX. and the enterprise value is near enough to about 1.1 billion US dollars. We have a very strong register, large institutional backing, not a lot of retail in the company, and we view CSA as a great foundational asset for us in terms of a phenomenal resource in the ground with a lot of excess infrastructure. We thought we'd put in a bit of a scorecard for us to sort of mark how we've progressed along our journey since acquiring the mine back in June of last year. And I think, you know, overall, we've delivered on many of the things that we said to people we would do. Obviously, closing the mine was the first of those. Operate the mine safely and in a fully permitted fashion. We've managed to deliver on several key permits since we got the mine, including the tail exam stage 10 lift. We said we'd deliver a large resource increase. We always believe that the mineral resource and reserve had potential for significant expansion. And as with our call last week, we've delivered on that. We said we'd deleverage and simplify the balance sheet. And as you will see, when Morne starts to talk here shortly, you can see exactly to the extent that we've done so. We've indicated that we'd like to simplify our capital structure. And I would say that's a work in progress, but something that is front and centre of our minds. So we've been building our team both at a board and management level and I'd say that's a bit of a work in progress as well and you know we have certain steps underway that we'd like to take in order to sort of further broaden our board diversification as well as management. Operational turnaround, we've always said that CSA you know was a turnaround story in terms of it being a very small asset inside its previous owner, which is a very large company and perhaps didn't have the level of focus that the asset really needed. And so I would say we're partway along there in terms of operational turnaround. We are by no means where we'd like to be, but we see good potential to further turn the asset around. We said we'd deliver a meaningful reserve life upgrade and we've now delivered that with with an 11-year reserve life based on data up until the end of August. Clearly, we have aspirations to grow the business, but we would be disciplined on M&A, and I think we've demonstrated that. And for those of you who can recall from the closing in the middle of last year, we had a reasonable-sized deferred payment due to Glencore, which if we didn't pay it in cash by the middle of 2024... would have converted to equity. And so having paid that down, we've removed that potential dilution overhang. So three quarters into our ownership, I'd give us a reasonable score in terms of our delivery. And I think a few of those orange or yellow ticks there, we have plans in place in order to deliver on the remainder of those over the next six to nine to 12 months. Moving on to the next slide, slide six, Obviously, we've increased the life of mine and the reserves very significantly, and I think, again, based on the call that we had last week, the fact that the 11-year mine life actually only goes down 95 metres beyond the bottom of the current decline is very important in terms of the requirement for development going forward. We've had a very large increase in resources, and again, the top 850 metres of the ore body actually are not in that resource. Q1 production was down a bit from where we'd like it to have been. It was 8,700 tonnes of copper. And similarly, because of the high fixed cost nature of the operation, our C1 went up about 15 cents a pound relative to the prior quarter. I would say, and I did indicate on the call last week, that sequentially we expect quarters to be better production during the course of the year. We spent about $13 million of capital, which again was sort of exactly where we'd guided to before. And look, as everyone knows, the copper price has been increasing. We did achieve slightly higher than the average price, the spot price during the quarter. So again, we're achieving a better price relative to the market. Balance sheet at the end of the quarter, we had about 100 million US liquidity, so 155 million Australian dollars. We did pay down $127 million of interest-bearing liabilities. We've been very clear that one of the key things from operating cash flow and the ASX IPO was to deliver the balance sheet. And we have some further simplification that we'd like to do there. And we've also put out our first sort of guidance for the three years there, indicating that by 2026, we'll be producing in excess of 50,000 tonnes of copper. So in terms of production, look, it was a bit of a weaker quarter relative to the prior quarter. And that was a combination of really a couple of, two or three things. One was we did see a bit higher labour turnover and absenteeism, which impacted the production a little bit. It was also partly with the planning of the stoves. So as we've said before, the mine would sort of turn over circa 70 stoves a year. The top half a dozen of those could be as much as a third of your metal. And so if you're out of those, you know, then you have weaker production. If you're in those, as we're sort of seeing two of those stoats coming online or have come online during Q2, then obviously you get a large increase in metal. So we do have a bit of variability or volatility quarter on quarter in terms of production. The other thing, you know, in Q1 was that we announced, you know, we had a three-day complete power outage to the mine. due to that storm to the east of us. And we did lose a bit of momentum coming out of that. So that was a sort of, you know, a 500, 600 tonne copper impact for the quarter. C1 really was driven by the volume. And so, you know, we did see a little bit of an increase in C1. We do expect Q1 for 2024 to be our weakest quarter for the year. And part of the scheduling is we were mining a reasonable portion of ore from the east and west deposits, which are shallower, but they are quite a bit lower grade. And so, you know, we did see that come through in the average grade. So again, as we move out of those east and west deposits into Cutias North and Cutias Central, which is sort of really what the new mine plan is based on, you know, we expect to see grade start to tick back up again. Similarly, development metres were down. Now, we did a couple of things in the quarter. One was that we did a fair bit of rehabilitation metres, which aren't included in the primary development metres. We sort of went back and did a fair bit of extra ground support, but also under the new mine plan because we only need to advance about 95 metres below where we currently are for the next 11 years. It does mean that we actually need to do a bit less development relative to where we had been before. So again, we focus very much on productivity. So productivity was in line with the previous quarter, well above where it had been a year ago. And similarly, CapEx was basically exactly as we'd sort of forecast in the previous couple of quarters. We are doing those TSF works. And in the quarterly report, we put some photos there of all those earthworks. And so as those things roll off during the course of the year, we expect the capital spend to drop back down. But again, it was exactly in line with where we'd guided the market to be. At this stage, we don't have any growth capex. It's all in sustaining capex. And so it's trending exactly where we said it would be. I'm going to hand over to Mornay, our CFO, for the next three slides as he talks about the cost side of the business.
spk06: Thanks, Mick. Good evening and morning, everyone. My name is Morne Engelbrecht, and I'm the CFO for Metals Apposition. I'll take you through the next three slides and also the high-level liquidity waterfall at the end of the quarter. Before we get into slide 10, if you look at through our recently launched SK1300 report we issued in the US and copied on the ASX as well, You'll note that in that BDA report, they note that around two-thirds of our overall costs are being fixed. Costs from a mining point of view, which impacts to a large degree our cost per tonne and cost metrics as presented here, especially if volumes are down. Going to slide 10 and to the left is our processing cost per tonne in US dollars, which remains pretty steady with a slight uptick of around 2%. on the lower volumes compared to last quarter. And due to the higher fixed cost nature of our mining costs per ton, we're also impacted by those lower mining volumes as Nick has already covered off on. That metric is also impacted by the fact that our capital development meters were down by almost 45% compared to last quarter, which just means that less of that sort of fixed cost component is capitalized and therefore had to be distributed over the mining volumes as well and therefore it allows a net higher cost per litre. Going on to slide 11, you will see there that the volume game is critical once again with two-thirds of the G&A cost being fixed. There's little room to move when volumes drop off. The underlying costs are still high for my liking and we are actively working to reduce these overall through return ring contracts where possible. As I said before, on the development meter side, we're almost 45% low on quarter-on-quarter, and as Mika's outlined, this is predominantly due to more rehab meters being completed, which is not part of the rate calculation. And then we're also pivoting in the new mining plan. We were going to mine high-grade areas going forward. On slide 12, here I wanted to take you through a high-level liquidity update. as at the end of March 2024. As you can see, we started off the year with liquidity of around US$32 million, which included the drawdown of our revolving facility of US$25 million. We then completed a very successful oversubscribed equity raise on the ASX, which brought us into much-needed liquidity of around US$215 million or AU$325 million before costs almost immediately We paid a deferred link call consideration of around $83 million U.S., which was one of our higher debt costs on our balance sheet as it carried the same interest as the nested facility, so immediately accretive to earnings. Alternatively, this liability could have been converted to shares, which would have been highly dilutive, so paying that back as soon as possible was the best thing to do for us there. We then reduced further some additional interest-bearing liabilities by repaying the revolving facility of $25 million and reducing some of our principal on our senior facility as well of around $8 million. We ended up the quarter with around $100 million of liquidity, which is around that $155 million Aussie has outbound as well. I think it's very important to note that the This liquidity does not include the two shipments we referred to previously as well on our previous calls of around 48 million US dollars, which was shipments around, one of the shipments was the last week of March and the other one the first week in April. And if you look at that sort of liquidity graph, you will see that we carry obviously all the costs in the quarter for those two shipments. during the quarter, but there's no revenue or cash to offset that. So you will see that coming through in the next quarter. And that's just based on our terms and offtake agreement, which sort of states that title doesn't transfer until that provisional payment is made, which can be around two weeks after the ship is loaded. So that's just a cash flow timing issue there. And then also there's no revenue accrued at the end of March for those two shipments as well. So just wanted to make that very clear. Also of note, this subsequent quarter we paid the stamp duty on the acquisition of the CSA copper mine, which is around $24 million, which you will see coming through the next quarter as well. And then, as Mick has mentioned, we are looking at ways to strengthen our balance sheet and simplify our capital structure, as I mentioned before as well. So we're looking at a number of options there, which we can report on over the next couple of quarters. With that, I'll hand back to Mick.
spk07: Thanks, Mornay. And for those of you who are trying to sort of back calculate a free cash generation during the quarter from operations, I think the point around that $50 odd million were the two shipments right at the end of the quarter and dropped into the first, I think it was the second of April. We have booked all the costs associated with those shipments, but none of the revenue. So if you were sort of lining up on an accruals basis, you would need to put that $50 million back into the revenue line. And so you can see even at $3.87 copper, that was our average price during the quarter, the mine is generating quite strong free cash flow. Clearly at $4.60 copper, the prices are even better. and each of the shipments today is worth around about 28 to 29 million US dollars a boatload. So it does make your cash flow somewhat lumpy, but at the end of the day, the mine is generating quite strong free cash flow. And again, just rolling into some of the information we put out the other day, we think coming out with an 11-year reserve life really sort of gives people confidence that this truly is now a long-life asset. All of those ore bodies are open. That's on information up until the end of August. We continue to drill at some pace. And so you can see on the graph there, you know, it truly is a significant increase in the resource and reserve. They have historically been very successful at maintaining a sort of a certain level of resource and reserve despite annual production. You can see how significant this R&R update has been relative to where it's been in the last 10 years. And we see opportunities subject to exploration success and economic factors for that to continue to increase. We have run those resources and reserves at a $3.76 copper price. Obviously, $4.60, everything becomes economic. So again, circa a million tonnes in contained copper at a fantastic rate of 4.9%. Again, everything is open. Really, we now see the opportunity to be to try and produce this faster than what the current mine plan has us doing. We did talk the other day about some of the shallower mineralisation in the ore body. So again, Cutia South Upper is that little thing on the top left in green. we do intend to get in and start mining that fairly soon. But interestingly, we've been mining the historical data, so to speak, and have discovered that there is substantial zinc mineralisation in the upper portion of the mine, very proximal to existing infrastructure within 50 to 70 metres of the decline in most cases. And that drill hole had about 16 metres of massive sulphide, zinc-rich sulphide, sitting right up near near surface, around about 300 meters below surface. So we're very excited about this. You know, we're not specifically chasing zinc. We, you know, still see CSA as a predominantly copper ore body. But, you know, if there's a free ore body, we'll take that as well. Again, reserves, very significant upgrade in the reserve status, which underpins some of the discussions that, you know, we've sort of touched on in terms of balance sheet simplification. This is one of the key building blocks along with the ASX IPO and the large equity raise and then obviously the operations generating strong free cash flow. They're really the three pillars upon which you can sort of, you know, replan a balance sheet in terms of where you'd like to be. Again, guidance, we see guidance, you know, production gradually ticking up. Again, we'd like to see if we can improve on that as our knowledge of the ore bodies change and we can sort of... now focus our development efforts on unlocking that bottom of the mine through additional ventilation which is really one of the key changes in the development plan is to not have to be driving down as deep but actually take those meters and use some of those on pushing that ventilation in because that's really the key in terms of actually unlocking production. So just coming back to, you know, our highlights again, a little bit weaker quarter in Q1. We do expect sequentially the quarters during 2024 to improve and, you know, costs up slightly, you know, again, fixed cost base. But really at $4.60 copper, you know, this mine, clearly with a C1 of in that sort of $2, $2.15 a pound level, clearly is generating significant operating pre-cash and then the capex of, sort of historically we've guided the market to around about 50 to 52 million US for the year. It obviously generates some very good free cash. I think the simplification of the balance sheet is something that we see as pretty critical here going forward and obviously generating lots of free cash and paying down interest bearing debt is right on the top of our list of things to do. And so with that, I think that's really the summary of the update and happy to turn it over to questions.
spk00: And to ask a question, press star 1 on your phone keypad at this time. You may also submit questions via the webcast using the Q&A button at the bottom right of your screen. We'll take our first question from Daniel Morgan with Baron Joey.
spk05: Hi, Mick and Tim. First question just relates to production and outlook. Do you expect production to improve sequentially each quarter during the year? And if that is the case, what are the drivers, you know, tons and grand? Thank you. Sure.
spk07: Yeah, look, we expect to see probably Q2, Q3, I think, will be the stronger quarters, just based on... And it's really just sequencing of stopes As I've said, we've got two of those big high-grade stoves that are coming online or have come online during Q2, and that will drive a fair bit of production growth there. So with a bit of luck, we don't have another three-day power outage, which realistically actually knocked 500, 600 tonnes of copper out of Q1. And I guess I could look on the bright side and say, well, we didn't produce that and sell it at $3.87. and now we can produce it in Q2 and sell it at $4.60, I suppose, if I'm looking at the bright side of things.
spk05: Sure. And on the financials, I know that you are simplifying your debt structure and you are paying down debt. Just wondering why perhaps you're not deciding to pay down more of the senior facility to perhaps defray interest because you've got a lot of cash. You know, is there... Is there costs of redrawing that facility if required? Thank you.
spk07: Well, the senior, if we, obviously the revolver, we can repay and draw and we fully repay that. The senior principal, if we repaid, it is not redrawable. But I think it's a good point, you know, in that we have other, you know, I guess we've paid the debt down in the order of cost of capital that we could. and perhaps there's other bits of capital in that stack that are more expensive than senior that we are working on to see if we can reduce that cost in priority, I suppose.
spk06: Okay. The other thing maybe to note... Thank you.
spk00: We will take our next question from Sam Castellano with Wilson's. Mr. Castellano, your line is open.
spk03: Oh, yeah. G'day, Nick and Morne. I just wanted to, you're conscious that you referenced the increase in unit costs given fixed cost leverage and the decline in values, but you've also spoken a bit on the call and in the release about the split between capitalised developments and what hits the operating cost line. I wonder if you can give us any feel for how that might move around over the next sort of year or two as part of the mine plan, because I sense that that's probably going to be a key determinant in the headline figure that you end up disclosing quarter by quarter on a unit cost basis.
spk07: I might let Morne handle that one. Can you hear me, sir?
spk06: I can, yes. Look, I think going forward, we'll obviously look at that consistency coming back into the mining plan going forward. So, you know, hopefully over the next year or so that sort of lumpiness will be taken out of the mine plan, which will then impact the lumpiness in terms of our development costs being capitalised. We will look at how we can smooth that, I suppose, going forward as well in terms of that sort of calculation. So if you look at the depreciation side of things, um you know that's for a forward-looking uh calculation on a dollar per ton basis so we look at how we can sort of work that into those numbers as well but it's really beholding to the mining plan in terms of what what we do on a quarterly basis and therefore impacting impacting um you know those those sort of calculations i'm not sure whether we can we can you know be clear in terms of pre-empting what those sort of developments look like on a a preemptive on a quarter-by-quarter basis. But again, we'll see whether we can make that easier in terms of being sort of more predictable, I suppose, from a financing point of view going forward.
spk03: And thanks, Mornay. And just to be clear, so the statue release on, say, mining costs per tonne, that would include development and whatever's capitalised and expensed?
spk06: Yeah, look, that's the release is sort of on a net basis. So, you know, you take your capitalized, you know, development cost out of that sort of number. So and you can see that going through the stat accounts as well that we issued more recently. So in terms of your modeling, you know, that that'll be a sort of a mostly a fixed sort of dollar per ton that you apply to those per meter. Sorry. for those development meters, which is then capitalized. So if you don't do a lot of development meters, then a lot of that sort of fixed cost then stay in your mining costs, which is then, you know, spread over whatever volume is mined. In the first quarter's case, that's obviously a lower volume than the previous quarter, which then exacerbates the difference, I suppose, from our cost per tonne point of view.
spk03: Yep. Okay.
spk00: Thank you. Thank you. We will take our next question from Eric Windmill with Bank of Nova Scotia.
spk04: Great. Hi, Mick and team. Thanks so much for taking my question. Just a follow-up question here on the ground support requirements you talked about in the rehab. Any additional commentary in terms of where in the mine that is, and do you think that will continue into Q2?
spk07: Yeah, most of it was back up in the shallow areas of the mine. As everyone knows, you know, it's a relatively deep mine in the Australian context, but, you know, ground actually conditions at the bottom are not bad. It's more around historical development areas that, you know, in the past probably, you know, haven't quite had as much rehab as they should have. And so, you know, I guess you sort of move from a reactive mode to a proactive mode, which is where we are now. So back up halfway through the mine, a bit of work up on the shallow part of the decline. And I guess we sort of had the opportunity to go and do that. I would think we've got a little bit more to do in Q2, but it's not really a big work stream that's going to happen year in, year out. We obviously will do rehab as we go, but there's been a bit of catch-up work that's been required. So that's happened in Q1. And as Mornay said, You know, the mining costs are sort of one bucket and the portion gets allocated against primary meters of development, but not rehab. And so, you know, you sort of end up, you end up, if you do less primary meters of development, your mining unit rate goes up as well.
spk04: Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Maybe just one more from me, if you don't mind. The geophysical survey sounds interesting. I know it's still underway. Um, any thoughts on, uh, you know, when you might actually, uh, or what you might do in terms of additional exploration there and, you know, when we might actually see some, some drilling there, lots more work to do this year, maybe.
spk07: Yeah. Um, everybody's extremely busy in the exploration world, certainly in Australia. And so it does take a fair while to get information back. Um, that's probably more of a Q3, Q4 type sort of thing. The reality is we're focused on expiration, which is not real true expiration. We're just sort of pushing out the boundaries of known ore bodies. So our focus for really this quarter and really into Q3 is going to be on that. And then as we get the results back from the various surveys, then we'll start chasing up some of that other stuff towards the back end of the year.
spk04: Okay, no, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
spk07: Sorry, but as part of the ASX proceeds, we did raise a reasonable amount of money for exploration, and we're trying to push on with that as quick as we can. But it's a very underexplored package, is the short answer.
spk04: Yeah, great to hear. No, I appreciate the extra color. I'll hop back in the queue. Thanks.
spk00: Thank you. Our next question comes from David Radcliffe with Global Mining Research.
spk01: Hi, good morning, Mick and Mornay. First question is just on reconciling the caches 75 mil. And I get the point about the two shipments post the end of the quarter. Maybe it'd help if you could give us the actual tons sold in concentrate during the quarter and any sort of guidance you can give us on what the current levels of concentrate stockpiles are and where they sit at the mine or the port?
spk07: I wouldn't have that off the top of my head. Mornay, do you have that?
spk06: Not the tons sold. I think just looking at the spreadsheet, yeah, probably around that 8,200 sort of mark
spk07: And stockpiles, well, we can take it offline perhaps, but stockpiles at the end of the quarter would have been, well, pretty well one full shipment because we had that vessel go out on the 2nd of April. So 31st of March would have had one full vessel and we had another vessel load on the 24th of March as well.
spk06: Yeah, I think there was another, so that'll be around that sort of 5,000, 6,000 tons, I suppose, of copper that was in that sort of inventory at the end of the quarter.
spk00: Okay, thanks. Thank you. We will take our next question from Tim Hoff with Canaccord.
spk02: Hi, Tim. I think most of my questions have already been answered. I think probably just looking at your cash levels, Are you happy with where they're sitting at the moment? And I guess how do we look at that going forward? We're expecting to see some cash build over the next quarter.
spk07: Well, maybe I'll start with that one, Mornay. And yeah, look, obviously, as anyone who's known me for a long time, I actually like to run my business as net cash. We're clearly not there yet because we took on a reasonable amount of debt to buy the asset. So more cash is better. I think to one of the earlier calls points, clearly having cash in the bank earning you 3%, 4% versus paying out double that in interest is not a great long-term solution. So look, our view is build as much cash as you can uh, and then use that to pay down your, uh, um, pay down all your interest bearing liabilities. And so that, that's sort of part of the further simplification of the balance sheet to come. Um, but you know, I think having 150 plus million Aussie dollars worth of liquidity on hand is, uh, is, you know, is where I'd like to be. Yeah.
spk06: I think the other thing to add is that, uh, the lumpiness of the cash flows currently. So, uh, I suppose in terms of the current cash hold, um, we'd like to see, um, you know, sort of see how that next quarter plays out from that point of view in terms of liquidity. Um, and then as Mick has said, you know, I'm, you know, from, from my, uh, past, uh, sort of management of, of Banish, he'd like to be in a net cash position as well. Clearly not there yet, but, um, you know, the sooner we can pay off interest bearing liabilities, especially the, the, uh, on the more expensive side of that, the better and more creative for shareholders as well. But for now, happy with where we're sitting on the liquidity side and just seeing how the next quarter or so plays out, especially with the higher copper price, which will drive higher liquidity and also dealing with the simplification of the equity, the capital structure. That will play out in the next couple of quarters as well. So, So I think you'll see that simplification will come through pretty strongly.
spk07: Thanks very much, guys. Again, just to reiterate the point, Tim, as much cash on the balance sheet as possible and the least amount of interest bearing liabilities on the balance sheet as possible and to pay down the more expensive of those in that order, which is sort of what we've done. Clearly, we have one other one there that we have a call date in the middle of next year. And so our view is that we think given where the miners position, given where the production costs are relative to the copper price, we're generating good free cash and we would like to sort of deliver the balance sheet as quickly as possible.
spk00: Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, press star 1 on your phone keypad at this time. We will take our next question from Jackie Przybylski with BMO.
spk08: Thanks very much for taking my question. I'm looking at the productivity charts in the release, and thanks for providing those. They're super helpful. But some of the metrics like the times mill per employee or the development cost per meter, I mean, they do look either like they've sort of leveled off or maybe gotten slightly higher in the tons milled category. Mick, can you talk a little bit about what drives the productivity improvements from here? Was this quarter just really a function of the power outage in the beginning of the quarter that kind of threw you guys off? Or how do you continue to get better?
spk07: Yeah, look, good question. And I'll just move back to slide nine and Yeah, in terms of tonnes mil per employee, it's sort of flatlined quarter on quarter. You know, as you've seen in a few of these turnarounds I've done, you know, you start out right-sizing your business in terms of workforce and everything, but eventually you can't cut your way to further profitability. You need to grow your production and your revenue line. And that's really the key from here on in. Yes, and that power outage was sort of, two-thirds of the way through the quarter. And it did, apart from the three days of no power, we lost a fair bit of momentum out of that. So again, that's one part of it. Again, we've had a fair bit of elevated labour turnover and absenteeism, which is, I would say, the other impact we've seen. So I think we need to stabilise the workforce We need to, you know, actually just get better at our job. And so we've talked about, you know, ventilation is our constraint eventually. But quite frankly, in Q1, ventilation wasn't our constraint. It was consistency or lack thereof was actually our main constraint. One extraneous factor through the power issue, but, you know, it's just operating. So I'll be spending a bit more quality time out in Cobar from this point on just to sort of try and see if we can improve that. But, yeah, you need to get more production. And so productivity needs to improve with the current headcount. That's the key. Again, if you were to sort of put this up relative to Australian averages, these are still not, you know, these are not aggressive numbers. Where we are sitting is still, you know, well and truly in the lower quartile, I would say, for a variety of reasons. But, you know, this mine can do better. I believe that we can do better as a company. And so it's very much around planning, motivation, consistency. It's no point running like a race car for a week and then dropping off after that. We have to just be consistent day in, day out. And that's really the focus for the business right now. And then look, when we get these very big high-grade stoves come on, that's great. But we as a company can do better than where we've been and that's what we have to do going forward.
spk08: No, that makes sense, and I appreciate the answer. And just one other question. I'm just curious how you're thinking about the board. You mentioned at the beginning of the call that you're looking to improve board diversity or realign the board with the profile of the business. As you look for future acquisitions, and I know in the past you've mentioned Australia, but also some other countries like Canada as well, and maybe in terms of where your future acquisitions come from. How do you think about your board composition? Do you wait until you have an asset or two additional under your belt first to see where the portfolio finds its center of gravity first? Or can you make the changes that you're looking at on the board without doing that first?
spk07: Well, I think we can be proactive and sort of make some changes as we go along. And you're right, we've been very clear in terms of our strategy, in terms of growing the business, very focused on value, obviously. But Australia, Canada, some states in the US, Chile, Europe are sort of our hunting grounds. And so, yes, that may well frame where we want board members in terms of their You know, maybe there are applicability to each of those jurisdictions, but that's no reason for us to not move forward on adding to the board. You know, I think the one comment I would say is for a company of this size, you know, we actually have a very high performing board, you know, that probably punches above its weight for this size company. And so the challenge is to try and find board members who would, you know, be at that level. And so we've been working very hard on that. And obviously, you know, we'd like a bit more diversity on the board, but I think it's a bit like assets. You know, board members, when you find the right one, you grab them, as opposed to sort of waiting, you know, for some event or something that might happen. If a very high-quality candidate presents themselves, then you grab them when you can. And so we're, you know, we're working hard on that and... We'd like to see the board evolve. Again, if we do some M&A and we end up in a different jurisdiction, then we may add some other people with specific expertise in those jurisdictions. But right now, we have an asset in Australia. It's copper. And so the attributes we're looking for would be someone who has knowledge of that.
spk08: Makes sense. Thanks very much for taking my question, Michael.
spk00: Thank you as a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question press star one on your phone keypad at this time it is star one if you'd like to ask a question. It appears, we have no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to CEO McMullen for any additional or closing remarks.
spk07: Look, thank you and thanks everyone for attending and your questions. Obviously, we try and put as much information out as we can. In summary, I think on the scorecard that we've decided to mark ourselves against, we've delivered on most of those goals. I believe that the others we had well in hand. I would say from an operational turnaround perspective, I think people sometimes expect miracles, and we've been clear that these turnarounds are not linear upwards in a straight line. And so Q1 was our weakest quarter for the year, I think. We expect a pretty substantial improvement over the coming quarters. But look, at the end of the day, at $4.60 copper, having a high-grade, long-life asset in a great jurisdiction like Western New South Wales, it's a great time to be in copper. And with that, I'd like to thank everyone for your time, and we look forward to the next call.
spk00: Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect.
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