Aurelia Metals Ltd

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for your time this morning. I have Ian Poole and Peter Trout with me today, and we will, off the back of the quarterly report released this morning, refer to the presentation that accompanied it, titled September Quarterly Update and Outlook. Just before we get going, I just want to take a bit of a step back, because in recent weeks, we released a lot of detailed information to the market covering Federation feasibility study, funding requirement off the back of that study, our mineral resource and all reserve statement for the year, FY23 guidance and an update on the operations. I recognise there's been a lot for shareholders and investors to absorb in that period of time. So this morning, myself and the team want to focus on what we believe are the key issues that are coming out of the back of that information and with that I'll just move to slide three and those key issues as we see them is the operating performance across the three assets. Federation funding and progress in particular and also the outlook for the business against what was a difficult quarter four in FY22. So just moving on to slide three. We're fully aware that operational performance and financial outcomes, particularly for Q4 and into the early stages of this year with Q1 of this financial year, weren't good enough. And we take that responsibility to fix those. And I just want shareholders to have confidence that we've actually taken those steps and starting to see the results of those actions taken. Just focus on performance recovery, particularly for peak performance. During the quarter and in response to our performance and also external conditions within the sector, we resized and scaled back peak operation, focusing on high-value wool but with less resourcing across the business for the scale and size of the operation that we want to get to this year. The end result of that has been quite a significant cost reduction and opening up the margin on every tonne produced at peak. At HERA, it's been about tonnes, tonnes and nothing but tonnes. We were heavily impacted, particularly in Q4 during the year, but with the improvements that we've made since, we've seen particularly during September, in comparison to June, July and August, a 60% improvement on mined tonnes and therefore metal outputs for the operation going into this new quarter. The DAGs, the physicals have actually been inline and solid. We're all aware of the grade issue at that asset and what we're focusing on now is what we can do with that asset to offset partially or as best we can offset that lower grade with an increased capacity through a new approval for the operation. With project development, it is all about federation. I'll reinforce some of the financial metrics and progress in a minute. But along with the operational recovery I've just talked about, the funding and recommencement of Federation Project is our highest priority. Utilising, as we talked in the release of the feasibility, making the decision to utilise existing infrastructure, it's our highest grade and correspondingly lowest cost strategy. or body within the group. So it will get priority to any of those mills in terms of capacity. It's low risk and really importantly for us, even whilst we have taken a pause on the decline to organise the funding of which Ian will talk through progress on that in a minute, the state government approvals for the asset have not been affected by our decision to pause the decline and they are progressing well and through the process. Just moving on to the next slide. September quarter and our outlook is aligned to these recovery plans and we're forecasting for the year and estimating for the year 87,000 ounces at $1,900 an ounce. There's a key question here straight up that I'll cut straight to. The question would be if we started the year at 2,600 for the September quarter all in sustaining costs How is it that we're going to get to $1,900 average for the year? I just want to go back a year and talk to a parallel here. In FY22, we finished the year at $2,800 an ounce in the June quarter and achieved across the full year $1,700. This year, we're starting at $2,600 an ounce, but we will trend down and through that $1,900 to average $1,900 for the year. So you can clearly see It's an achievable outcome for the business, all very focused on, obviously, metal output, particularly base metals, as we see the gold grades, particularly at peak and here are starting to decline. So with that, I'm just going to hand over to Peter to talk through the specifics of each of the operations.

Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Dan. And just to reiterate Dan's comment there, at a group level, the September quarter's results were an improvement on the prior quarter, but by no means are where they want them to be. The details of each of the sites' performance are provided in the presentation deck, so I'll instead focus on the operational priorities we have at each of the three sites. Turning to slide five of the presentation deck, at peak, the key change over the quarter was implementation of a new operating plan, which helped us deliver stronger production results from the site. As part of that plan, we've scaled production rates to prioritise the cash margin on the ore that's treated, and also made the transition to majority owner mining. As part of this plan, the ore processing team has moved from a continuous to a weekday operation. So instead of running seven days a week, we're running five days a week to match the mine production. And that's reduced a portion of our fixed costs at the site. In September, we commenced demobilisation of most of our contract mining employees and their mobile plant. And those cost benefits will flow through into the December quarter as our employed workforce and fleet take over the work. We also saw an immediate productivity and cost benefit in late July when all hoisting at the south mine resumed after replacement of the damaged pallets and that did away with a large volume of truck haulage to the surface. I guess it's also pleasing to see that the underground mine is operating more reliably now that we're seeing improved planning through our own team and greater control over the mining activities at the site. So with those initiatives in place, we've got a great platform there to drive further productivity and cost initiatives across the site. Moving on to slide six of the presentation deck, which talks to HERA, there's a really disappointing performance at HERA over the quarter with quarterly metal production dropping as we had some stope extraction issues early in the period that delayed ore delivery to the plant. And we also continue to see ore graze trend lower as the mine life draws closer, draws to an end. The operational imperative at HERA is about delivering ore to the process plant. And the performance improvement plan initiated in the last quarter started to deliver results in September, when 32,000 tonnes of ore was mined. And month to date, in October at HERA, we're on track to exceed that mine production. Some of the things we've done to lift the mine production, we're starting stoking from the upper hay zone, we've pushed development harder to establish three separate independent stoking areas and we've also seen the benefits of changes made to the ground support regime that have reduced the time consuming and costly rehabilitation work into remnant mining areas other options we're looking at relate to mine planning and timing of all delivery particularly higher marginal that currently sits in the second half of the financial year and a series of efficiency and cost initiatives to sustain profitable ore production at Herra. Moving to Dargs, which is on slide seven of the presentation deck, we saw scheduled lower gold grades and also a negative reconciliation in one of the mining areas that contributed to lower metal production for the quarter. However, mining and processing volumes were consistent with those achieved over the second half of FY22. Our site management team continues to focus on delivering the planned gold grades, and they're the main value driver at Dargs. So ongoing work relates to building greater predictability into the mine plan, and our underground infill drilling program is helping provide greater confidence in where the ore zones lie and the grades. We're also working to refine our stope designs to reduce ore loss and dilution, and also looking to commence extraction of some high-grade remnant areas in the mine. Other cost and productivity initiatives underway at DARGS include optimizing our stope backfill placement, looking there to reduce the cement consumption and also the time required to fill a stope, so we can cycle through the stopes quicker, and also the application to modify the site's development consent, which, if approved, will allow for higher annualised or processing rates at DAGs. I might hand back over to Dan at this point.

Thanks, Peter. Moving on to slide eight and switching gears into the Federation project, we released the feasibility three-odd weeks ago now, and I won't dwell on it, but I certainly do want to reinforce some of its metrics, particularly from a value perspective and priority for where it sits with our business. Utilising the existing infrastructure has significantly lowered the risk, we believe, in the development of this project. As I mentioned earlier, Its grade and cost structure really sets us up to be able to withstand impacts from the cyclic nature of the commodities as well as the industry. So from our perspective, it is the highest value all body within the group. It remains open. And even at the 4 million tonne production target at the moment, we're still seeing, pending the price deck of choice between Spot or Bloomberg or whichever price deck people want to utilise, NPVs of between $200 and $400 million and IRRs of between 40% and 70%. Those figures certainly support the priority of the asset in our group. Just moving over to slides 9 and 10, just to outline progress in particular of the bills, albeit we have paused and I'll come to that in a minute. Progress certainly continued through Q3, Q4 and into the September quarter. As we're speaking now, we are 90 metres underground and all the surface supporting infrastructure in the majority of cases is all in. Although we have stopped and that is about funding of the asset. We drew that to market's attention clearly three or four weeks ago. So I think for us it becomes now, as I've mentioned, about... the dual prime approach of operating, recovery and stability of the business and making sure that we find the optimal solution for funding so we can kick away the construction operation. So with that, Ian, you might take over on the funding issues, please.

Thanks, Dan. Just on that, we've got a slide 11. So the Board of Management, in conjunction with its advisors, are progressing funding options for the Federation projects. And these options include debt and equity at both a company and an asset level. And the focus is really to bring on the Federation at our highest value all body as quickly as possible. So I will move to slide 12, which is just the financial outcomes for the quarter. During the quarter, Darg's contributed $3.3 million of cash flow after sustaining capital. Harrah was negative due to its operating performance. Darg's negative cash flow was maturely impacted by a $3 million build of inventory during the quarter. And as Dan advised earlier, the concentrated sales will be maximized during the December quarter to release his working capital. There was also Investment and growth capital of $11.6 million during the quarter. $7.4 million related to federation, the outcomes of which were shown on the earlier slides. Site development works were suspended during October until the funding solution is finalised. And also $4.1 million related to the peak storage, toning storage facility, the Stage 5 LIT, which is expected to be completed in the December quarter. There was also 3.7 million spent on exploration, 1.8 at DAGS, which was to improve confidence and extend the mine life, 1.2 at Federation, and half a million at Burra Bungee, which is near the north mine at the peak. The company also paid down a further 5.1 million in cash backing for the environmental bonds. So there's now 35.9 million held in restricted cash in line with our syndicated facility. And we also paid down 4.1 million of our term loan in a quarter. So the balance of our term loan now stands at 16.7 million. Giving us a closing cash balance at the end of September of 46.5 million. So now I'd like to hand back to Dan.

So with that, Sari, we might open up to the Q&A, please.

Certainly. Thank you. If you wish to ask a 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 star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up a handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Dylan Kelly from . Please go ahead.

Good morning, team. I understand it's a tough quarter. some of the numbers we've seen before. I'd like to dig into your points, Dan, about how you've implemented this recovery plan and in particular how do we gain confidence about those plans being able to stop the large cash losses and stabilise that cash outflows. So just to dig into some of them, do you mind if we just step through the assets? So like firstly at peak, like I noticed that ROM for the period was about 162,000 tonnes. That seems like a bit of a step up there. How do we get confidence there around the ability to maintain higher volumes? There is simply a function that You now have an owner-operator there. You've got your kid up and running. How do we gain some confidence there? Second point is around mining costs. I noticed that they stepped up to about $25 million for the quarter. Peter, I think you made an interesting point there. You talked about how switching contractors out means that that cost should come down. How much can we really expect there in terms of that coming down from that sort of high benchmark level?

Dylan, it's Peter here. I'll take your question. So, firstly, on the first query about how you have confidence about the performance going forward, I think you can see from the performance in peak during the quarter, that got a lot of our attention, managing that transition over and making sure we had the planning and execution to support that. We actually pushed a bit harder, given that we had an overlap with our own workforce and the contractor workforce, to build a bit of a buffer as a risk mitigant in that process. So I'm not looking to sustain 160,000 tonnes a quarter going forward, but we're certainly looking to deliver with more consistency from within the planned mining areas. And just to zoom in on something there, the planned compliance at peak was above 90% for the quarter, which was a significant turnaround on the greater control we've got over those activities. In terms of the reduction in costs from the change-out, we'll... For example, in September, we saw a 20% reduction in the workforce numbers. That will continue to flow through into the current quarter, and we've built those numbers into the guidance that's being provided over the course of the full year. So it's not a one-off big bang. It is a stage transition, and we'll see those costs come out progressively.

Okay, so the final point just around benefits of having the hoist restart, should that have a material impact? in cutting some of the mining costs back down? Because I've noticed that from, let's call it the March quarter before, it was running at about $17 million a quarter. It's gone to $21 million, then up to $25 million. What sort of water of magnitude can that be sort of normalised at rolling forward?

Certainly lower than what we've been for the last couple of quarters. You consider when we had the hoisting system out of the South Mine, we had eight trucks running from underground over 1,000 metres below surface up up to surface. So taking those trucks out of that long haul and resorting to the hoist is a significant productivity and cost improvement for us, and that will bring those costs down. We are also seeing escalation in costs elsewhere. So energy costs are clearly up, labour costs are up across the board, and consumables. So I don't expect we'll be back down to the low numbers we had in prior periods, but it's about the margin we're chasing here. through the restructuring of that operation. And that's the key focus.

Okay, understood. Just so I understand.

Dan, just a comment. Just noting Peter's comment about mine volumes this quarter. Just make sure we're across what we're guiding for peak that we release the 550 to 600,000 tonnes for the year. This quarter's annualised rates are over 630. So it is above what we're planning. So don't be making an assumption that mine tonnes will remain at this run rate because that's not the structure of what we've set out to achieve for the rest of the year. It's not about performance. It's about the way we're gearing the business in cost structure and getting similar tonnes to what we mined last year, which, as Peter said, 20% less resourcing.

Understood. Just moving into HERA. So obviously there's quite a lot of sticker shock looking at an all-in cost like that. Can you just walk us through the decision-making process as to what to do with such high costs and such losses? I understand you make some points about just targeting on volumes. Is that enough just to cover up what looks like a short-term issue, or do we have that much flexibility in the current development plans to make this up in the short term?

I think I mentioned before, Dylan, there's not a lot of flexibility in the operation at HERA, given the advanced state of the mine. That's why bringing in the upper haze deposit has given us a bit of relief there by having a new mining area we can go into and set it up from the outset without having to do rehabilitation works, for example, to get in there. I think when you look at the cost for HERA, just drive down in the underlying drivers there. So all process was 11% down on the quarter. And that was driven by the fact we had a poor July and August where we had a number of uphole states where we couldn't pull the full height. which led to time being consumed trying to recover those stopes and ultimately had to abandon some ore in those. So that actually set back the stoping sequence as well as delivered less ore at that point in time. The other one to look at is the grades at HERA. So the grades are trending back down towards your reserve grade and in general are about 25% down quarter on quarter. So when you combine those two factors, we're about 30% down on all metals at HERA. And timing of sales didn't help us in that regard either. So we lost on the byproduct credits going into that. It's a lower denominator of the dollar per ounce number. So clearly the focus in here is getting that volume up to trade off against the declining grades and get our costs under control so that we are not having to persevere with higher costs to chase low margin materials. And one of the things that we are looking at actively at the moment is what changes can we make to the mine plan that bring forward that higher margin material from the second half of the year into the current quarter.

Okay, understood. Finally, and then I'll just pass it on, just with DAGS, I see, what is it, 3.3 grams per tonne. obviously disappointing in terms of grade. Expectations there around timing for potential permit extensions to increase that throughput rate, as well as any thoughts that you might have around a potential upside in that grade as the infill, sort of giving you some sort of confidence there, or grade control drilling giving confidence that we might see an uptick in that in the short term.

It does, Dan. I think that we will see a little bit of an uptick, I think. But I think that what our real focus on is, as you mentioned, is that apart from the drilling that Peter talked about, so we have that confidence, so we know where it is, and that effectively eliminates loss-making ore. But the approval status, I'm pretty sure you'll be aware, approvals in New South Wales can sometimes be complex. submissions are made um it's a matter for us now of handling um the remaining process and i think we we can't estimate it um we estimate somewhere between three and six months at this point to get to there but it's very difficult to say at the moment what i can say is though that we've been on public submission um and particularly for a sensitive area like dags we went through public um exhibition with only one submission in response to our application, which is a remarkable turnaround to where the asset was when it was first commenced in terms of approval. So we believe it's low risk, meaning that it can hopefully be on the faster side, but as we've said before, quite difficult to pinpoint a particular month at this point.

Okay, understood. I'll pass it along.

Are you there? Hello?

Pardon me, Carl Farrell, you're next in line for the question. Please go ahead.

Yep. Dan, this is pointed at you. This is Kaif. I'm as a shareholder calling in. How are you? Good, thank you. Okay. Now, very, very concerned. You've wiped out $300 million of market cap since you've joined the board. You've promised, I've listened to every podcast in the last four quarters. There's got to be some accountability from a management level here, and I'm only pointing at you, is that The stock has deteriorated significantly in the last six months. The operations have just gotten from bad to worse. I'm just really, really concerned, not just my clients and myself as a shareholder, leakages in the markets, in the media and social media regarding capital raising and the way you've handled that, which has destroyed the hedge funds, obviously shorting your stocks. As you can see, short positions are growing. What's the accountability? What's going on internally? Because I don't think, it's gonna be very difficult to turn this line around unless you get Federation up and running. I'm frightened, I'm just not sure where you guys are at as a team to turn this around. I know that analysts are gonna talk it up and turn it around and put recommendations, but I just want your point of view, what your accountability to the market decline of $300 million in market cap And how are you going to solve the issue? I'm not talking from a mining point of view. I'm talking from a company point of view and management point of view.

Okay. No, I'll handle that. Thanks for that. I think clearly a very pointed question. For me personally, I am responsible for it. There's no doubting that. And... Every day we're at this is to try and recover value in the business and get ourselves back on track. The management team is going hard at it at every angle to recover the performance in the business and regain the confidence of the market. I think particularly in the last two to three weeks, once a funding gap becomes understood the way it has, There's nothing I can be doing about a leakage in the market. As I mentioned on those calls earlier, we did have discussions with major shareholders in relation to equity, of which we got the feedback. We decided that it was most important for all the shareholders' benefit, considering the feasibility had been completed, to release that feasibility unfortunately, in an unfunded situation. So I think we've done the best we can do to getting that information out and making sure that people clearly understand it. I am accountable for that and I wear that. I'm an investor as well and, you know, I feel the pain as much as all our shareholders do in terms of the value loss within the business. What I can tell you is we're focused on getting those operations that we've got now into a cash flow positive state and secure the best funding that we can, the best combination of funding that we can, to restart the decline. I think that's about all I can say on it.

Fair enough. It's just that maybe ... Okay. Fair enough. That's all.

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

I'm just interested in your comments around funding at Federation. Just wondering if you've had many inbound inquiries around that asset, and if you could maybe give us some more colour around your comment about Federation being funded at both a company or an asset level, that would be great.

Yeah, I'll take that one, Adam. I think, you know, as... We're investigating all options to fund it, as Ian said, equity, debt, a mixture of. So I think it would be remiss of me to be mentioning of specifics in that, but there's no doubting we've been engaged in multiple streams of work to work out the most effective way to fund the business or the asset going, particularly the asset going forward. So I think it's, Really, we will consider all options that are available as long as we believe they're the best outcome and the best cost of capital for the shareholders.

Yeah, okay. Fair enough. And for HERA, just interested, unless you can kind of turn the operational performance around at this asset and stop the kind of cash bleed. Is that something that you might look at potentially putting into care and maintenance while Federation is kind of in limbo just to stop that cash bleed or are you comfortable you can still think you can turn the operational performance around?

We're confident we can turn it around but let's just come back to the point that Hira is in the last two years or a year of its life, really. And in commodity prices and cost structures, it is on our critical watch list. It has to be. And we're confident that we can, with a recovery in volume and therefore metal output for the business, have it in a cash flow positive state. But if we can see a position where on a... prolonged basis, it being in negative situation, whether that be because of volume performance or a commodity price movement, then yes, it will go into care and maintenance.

Understood. Thanks, Pastor.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Dylan Kelly from Otminet. Please go ahead.

So just circling back, Peter, to your comments around HERA before and some of the operational issues, could you just clarify for us what were the issues with the uphole stopes? Was there just a significant amount of underbreak? Do you think these issues are resolved and is stoping to continue broadly using that method for the short to medium term?

So the specific issues related to pulling the single shot uphole rise, which is a 20 metre high drill and blast pattern that has to come out in a single blast that opens up a void that we can fire other rings into. And we had two stopes there where those uphole rises did not pull to the full length, only about half length. It was an issue with the delay sequencing and timing around the rise lasting. So what we had to do there is bring the long hole rig in to try and recover full height in those stopes. We weren't successful in doing that. We got a decent chunk of the ore out, but we had to leave some behind because we didn't have the height and hence the void to fire into. We have since fired uphole risers and stoves and pulled them to full height, so that gives us more confidence going forward that we can extract all that ore as planned. And I'll also highlight, Dylan, that there are a higher proportion of stope tons coming from uphole stoves in the remainder of the mine plan. There are still some areas we have access to the top and the bottom from development, But clearly, as the grades fall away, it becomes uneconomic to put a top-level access drive into every scope.

Okay, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Glenn Risson, who is a private investor. Please go ahead.

Hello, gentlemen. Glenn Risson here. My question is concerning DAGs. And the final dot point on your presentation there about underground infill drilling providing better ore body delineation. It seems to me in the eight quarters since we've owned Dargs, I think it's eight, that something like this about struggling or working to find the delineate the ore body has been in there. Are we getting any closer to an answer or is it just We'll try this one next or what?

Glenn, it's Peter here. Yes, we are getting closer to an answer, and I will point out that the infill drilling has progressed from platforms higher in the mine to deeper in the mine. So it's not just drilling from the one location and plugging more holes in. It is as the mine development progresses deeper, we are moving that drilling down, getting those drill results in before we actually design the development so we can be confident the development's going in the appropriate locations. Experiences told us that at darts, the ore body is discontinuous and having close space drilling and the optimal drilling here is less than 10 meter spacing on diamond drill holes, which is a big ask, takes a lot of time and effort. Initially, when we walked into the operation, we didn't have that information and a lot of the development was going in places where they proved the ore didn't exist. So this work is very important. So we put the development in the right place and we can get greater confidence in the tons and the grade to be extracted. Particularly as we come down now to the deeper sections of the mine. The other thing we're also doing is we are testing the limits or the boundaries to see if there are other areas we can bring into the mine plan. And as is usually the case with these things, we have some wins where we can bring more material in. But there's also some losses where the closer space drilling proves up a lack of continuity that had previously been interpreted. So it will be an ongoing exercise at DAGS until we hit the final mining level. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We will just pause for a short moment to allow for questions to register. You have a question from Anthony Wallace with a private investor. Please go ahead.

Hi, Dan. I just wanted to sort of get a bit more clarification, if possible, with regard to a possible equity raising for Federation. You know, with the share price at its current level, that would encompass a lot of extra shares on issue and a lot of dilution for shareholders. what other options or what are you looking to sort of negate some of that impact of the dilution and obviously a resulting drop in share price?

Thanks, Anthony. It's Dan. You know, when it comes to equity, that is on our mind constantly, the whole dilution piece. If I just take a step back, original intentions here and ambition with the business was to self-fund. We misstepped with Doug's and we've owned that result. It put us in a position where we've been looking at the multiple options and combinations really because at the end of the day, it comes down to what is the best cost of capital that we can get to take the business forward. When we look at those IRRs, it deserves investment. There's no doubting that. What's the best way to do that? I think we've looked at options that are all debt funding, for example, and they're expensive. There's no doubting it. And is that the right option for us to do, to fund it all with debt, all with equity? There's another option that we will look at, and I think it's very valid on the basis of utilising the existing infrastructure, and that is that we... we could opt for a slow ramp up of the asset unless there's upfront capital, considering we're using existing infrastructure. And that's also an important part too. So it's not only where did the funds come from, whether it's debt or equity, but it's about reducing the amount of funding required as well. So I think we're looking at all of those options, but we are well aware on the equity front what dilution can do. It's on our mind every time we think it.

Okay, thank you.

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now hand back to Mr. Clifford for closing remarks.

Thanks, Sari. Thank you, everyone, for your time. Just to wrap up on a couple of things, just on our priorities. It's about the asset recovery plans, achieving the results. And I think, well, I know we are confident that we can see those results coming through, particularly at the back end of the September quarter, particularly in September. That's about ensuring that all our operations, as one of the questions from shareholders came about, ensuring that they are cash flow positive, all our operations, because if we can see that they're not, then we will need to take that action in terms of parking the asset. And in parallel with all of that is the funding and recommencement of federations. I think those are the three key priorities for the business and the takeaways from today's call. So thank you for that. And next thing we have as a business is the AGM late in November. So I look forward to seeing and hearing people at that session. Thanks, everybody.