Mineral Resources Ltd Ord

Today's call will begin shortly. Participants can ask both text and live audio questions during the call. To ask a text question, select the messaging icon, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen and press the send button. To ask a live audio question, press the request to speak button at the top of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the audio question screen. Use the dial-in number and access pin provided to ask your question via the phone. Alternatively, for those on a home or personal network, you can ask your question via the web by pressing join queue. If prompted, select allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. If you have any issues using the platform, dial in details can also be found on the homepage under asking audio questions. Text questions can be submitted at any time and the audio queue is now open. Thank you. Thank you for standing by and welcome to Mineral Resources Analyst Call, covering today's release of its September 2025 Exploration and Mining Activity Report. Your speakers today are Mark Wilson, Chief Financial Officer, and Chris Chong, General Manager, Investor Relations. A bit of admin before we kick off, this is a sell-side call with analysts able to ask both text and live audio questions. To ask a text question, select the messaging icon. Type your question in the box towards the top of the screen and press the send button. To ask a live audio question, press the request to speak button at the top of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the audio questions screen. Use the dial in number and access pin provided to ask your question over the phone. Alternatively, for those on a home or personal network, you can ask your question via the web by pressing Join Queue. If prompted, select Allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. If you have any issues using the platform, dial-in details can also be found on the homepage under Asking Audio Questions. Text questions can be submitted at any time, and the audio queue is now open. This call is being recorded with a written transcript being uploaded to the Minres website later today. I will now hand over to the Minres team.

Thanks, Josh, and good morning, everyone. My name is Mark Wilson. I'm the CFO of Mineral Resources, and welcome to our quarterly call for September. In the office with me this morning, I have Chris Chong, Investor Relations, and today we're joined on the line by our chair, Mel Bundy. As usual, I'll first run through some highlights from the quarterly, which was released this morning, and then I'll be happy to take questions at the end. Beginning with the key highlights, I'm pleased to advise we've delivered another strong quarter across the business, and as a result, confirm that we're on track for our volume and cost guidance for FY26. Onslow Iron was a key highlight in the quarter. We shipped 8.6 million tonnes on a 100% basis in the quarter, which was a commendable performance from the team, noting that road upgrades were being conducted through almost all of the quarter. The project also operated at its full 35 million tonne per annum nameplate capacity between August and October, which, as announced this week, triggered a $200 million increase Morgan Stanley infrastructure partners payment, which we expect to receive in coming days. Securing that contingent payment is a strong financial outcome that rewards the operational excellence we're seeing at Oslo Iron. And I want to take a moment to thank the entire team for a huge effort to get us to that point. This range from the construction team to our approvals and heritage teams through the commodities and mining services teams. On the board renewal front, Mel commenced as chair on the first day of the quarter. We also announced the appointment of two new independent non-executive directors in the quarter, being Laurie Tremaine and Ross Carroll. And after quarter end, we were pleased to advise the further appointments of Colin Moorhead and Susan Ferrier as independent non-executive directors. Turning to safety, the 12-month rolling TRIFA was 3.35, which was a 13% improvement quarter on quarter. That's a solid outcome and reflects less recordable injuries following the wind down of construction activity at Onslow Iron. In terms of corporate, our liquidity remains strong and steady at $1.1 billion at 30 September, with net debt at $5.4 billion. And importantly, net debt to EBITDA continuing to fall. I believe we're now past peak net debt and we continue to see a clear pathway to deleveraging through the operations. As we've said previously, as Onslow Iron ramps up, our EBITDA is expected to increase and our net debt to EBITDA will continue to decrease organically. The Onslow Iron Carry Loan, which to remind everyone is the receivable from our JV partners for funding them into the project, is now being repaid with interest, with balance at the end of the quarter of $714 million. That's a decrease of over $50 million over the quarter, despite some additional spend adding to the balance. Subject to commodity prices, we expect that balance to reduce more quickly in coming quarters. As foreshadowed, during the quarter, we successfully refinanced our US $700 million May 27 notes, extending the maturity out to April 31 at our lowest coupon rate of 7%. This represents the smallest spread over treasuries we've achieved, and I believe it reflects the bond market's understanding of our diversified business model and the improved quality of cash flows being generated in the business. In terms of mining services, quarterly production volumes were 81 million tonnes, steady over the prior quarter and notably representing growth of 19% year on year. Volumes were driven by the ramp up of Onslow Iron to Nameplate and were partially offset by reduced volumes at Mount Marion and a couple of declined sites. At Onslow Iron, we have incurred additional cost as a result of the use of contractor trucks, but we've also benefited from higher rates, which were designed to protect us through the first 15 months or so of operations. Those rates are now back to long-term rates. In terms of the broader market for mining services, third-party demand remains strong and we see good growth opportunities. with Onslow Iron being a great showcase of our capability. For mining services, we remain confident of hitting our guidance range of 305 to 325 million tonnes for the year, implying 13% annualised growth. In terms of iron ore, total attributable shipments were 7.6 million tonnes over the quarter, sorry, up 30% over the quarter. The average quarterly realised price across both hubs was US$90. That represented an 88% realisation. We continue to see strong demand for our Onslow Iron product. I do, however, want to point out that realisations at our Pilbara hub are likely to reduce over the next two quarters. As the contribution of ore from Wanmunna decreases, the head of Lamb Creek's ramp up in Q4. As I flagged last quarter, with iron ore prices solid and the curve relatively flat, we've prudently edged out about a third of production to the end of calendar year 25, given the first half weighting of capex. We're currently assessing our strategy for the next calendar year. In terms of iron ore at Onslow, as I said, the team's delivering excellent performance there. We've loaded 44 ocean-going vessels this quarter, and as of today, we've loaded a total of 136 vessels and continue to be very pleased with the way the transhippers are performing. We have had an issue with the bow thruster of one of the trans shippers since the 7th of October, which means that for the last three weeks we've been operating with four. That bow thruster is being repaired and expected to be back online early next week. Sixth trans shipper was launched from China in the quarter. and we expect it to be commissioned by around June next year, as we flagged previously. Over the quarter, we had 202, on average, 202 road trains operating, 118 of the min-res jumbo trucks and 85 contractors with over 31,800 trips to port completed. With the private haul road upgrade completed, we're now operating unconstrained at normal speeds. and all the contractor road trains are now slowly using our road. We do have the full fleet of jumbo road trains on site, and we're progressively reducing the number of contractor trucks being utilised in line with contract arrangements. We'll be able to continue to operate at the 35 million tonne per annum nameplate rate, but do expect some seasonality impacts through the typical cyclone season from November through to April. On the costs at Onslow, I've said previously that I feel like we have pretty good grip on those. The FOB costs came in at $54 a tonne at the bottom end of guidance and just confirming there were no capitalised operating costs as we had declared commercial production from 30 June. In terms of the Pilbara hub, we shipped a total of 2.7 million tonnes, which was another strong quarter. FOB costs came in at $83 a tonne, reflecting a higher contribution from Iron Valley. We do expect those FOB costs to fall back within guidance over the year as we transition from Wanmunna to the lower cost Lamb Creek operation in the second half. Turning to lithium, the lithium pillar continued the strong operational performance we've reported over recent quarters. Production across Mount Marion and Wojana was 137,000 drammetric tonnes on an SC6 equivalent basis, with sales of 142,000 tonnes SC6. That's up 23% quarter on quarter. Average realised quarterly prices across both sites was US$849. dry metric tonne on an SE6 equivalent basis. That's up 32%. Wojena delivered sales of 88,000 kilotons of SE6. That was helped by a ship that was scheduled for June slipping into early July. Production was up 6%, driven by improved recoveries of 67%. That followed the plant improvements that I mentioned last quarter, including the successful commissioning of high-intensity conditioning dewatering cyclones on the second and third processing trains, which is now complete. We achieved a FOB cost for Wojana SE6 equipment basis of $733 a tonne. I just want to point out that we expect that cost number to rise in the second half. Essentially, we're moving from higher or upper levels of stage three down. And as we do that, we're feeding ore that we'll see a little bit more dilution and lower recoveries through the plant. But we will then get to deeper and higher quality ore. In terms of Marion, Q1 sales were $55,000 on an SE6 equivalent basis in line with the prior quarter. The cost coming in at $796 a tonne. Those costs are lower than guidance. And again, I just want to point out that we expect them to rise in the second half. We're transitioning from the central pit to the north pit. So the grade changes and the mining costs increase significantly. Finally, to finish with energy, we did receive an independent resource certification for the Lockyer Six well in October, post-quarter end, and we've now received $41 million for that as a final payment under that arrangement with Hancock. Having completed those comments, I'm happy to hand back to Josh to queue questions. Thanks.

Thank you. If you have not yet submitted your text question or joined the live audio queue, please do so now. I will introduce each caller by name and ask you to go ahead. You will then hear a beep indicating your microphone is live. Our first question today comes from Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley. Rahul, please go ahead after the beep.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for the call, guys. I appreciate it. Look, I've got two questions. Firstly, in terms of mining services, you did talk about the 15-month rates coming off and the rates being lower, but then I guess to offset that, you do have contractors going off the road. And I understand year on year, you know, there's going to be a bit of a lower margin in terms of EBITDA per tonne. But how should we think about that margin progressing into next year and how should we basically square the circle of these two I guess, opposing forces for the margin side of things. And I'll come back with a second. Thanks.

Yeah. Thanks, Rahul. Good morning. We generally talk in terms of the $2 a tonne number, and we said that We think that's a reasonable guide going forward. There is a little bit of up and down in the first half with the movements that you've described. We do get the benefit from the additional rate through the first quarter. So it might be a little bit up and down, but yeah, generally $2 over the year still seems right for us.

Got it. Okay. And then, look, I just wanted to touch upon the lithium business. Obviously very strong performance this period. And I guess the markets there to be able to supply as well. You know, two quick ones there are just around, you know, is there potential to sweat the assets a bit harder to kind of make use of this strong market in terms of volumes? And then any sort of progress update on that lithium business potential sale as well as previously been talked about? Thanks.

I think that makes three questions in total role, but I'll answer them both. In terms of the lithium, we're very pleased with the way that business is performing. It's been performing well for quite some time now. We have pulled back on production, as we've said previously. We're running Mount Marion a little bit slower, and Wajina, we're running a little bit over two trains on average over the period. We can push that third train on with relatively short notice when we choose to do so. But what we've said is that we won't be a clean oar to be able to feed three trains consistently until around November, around this time next year. So there is capacity to go harder. We don't have any plans to push it harder at this point. In terms of any sort of process around lithium, I'm not going to comment specifically on lithium as such. What I will say is that Chairman, in his letter to shareholders, expressly referenced a willingness to consider inorganic deleveraging, and you should assume that's something that we're continuing to do. As we've said before, we've got a history of doing that. We've been doing that for the last five, seven years, and we'll continue to evaluate options.

Our next question comes from Paul Young from Goldman Sachs. Paul, please go ahead after the... Thanks.

Morning, Mark. First of all, really strong operating performance, so well done and a good quarter. First question's on Onslow. I mean, with respect to actually costs, which were really, really good considering you're still running the contractor fleet. But I noticed the strip ratio was really low, only 0.3 to 1. So as you unwind the contractors, you'll get a benefit there. But just on the strip ratio, maybe just over the near to medium term, how are you seeing that profile?

Yeah, so I just want to make it clear. Thanks, Paul. Nice to talk. Just want to make it clear for everybody. Those contractor costs don't come through that FOB number. Those contractor costs sit in the mining services business because they have a mining services business as effectively a mine-to-ship contract. So the mine co, Onslow Iron, enjoys the benefit of a fixed-price contract. And so that FOB number of 54 reflects that price. So those costs... have effectively reduced the margin in mining services, albeit, as I said earlier, offset by higher rates. So hopefully that clarifies that. In terms of the strip, it is true that the strip at Onzo is low. It will revert short to medium term to 0.6. We are actually pulling tonnes now from Upper Cane, which actually has a strip of 0.1. So, we expect to see low costs going forward and we don't see upward pressure on that $54 into future quarters.

Thanks, Mark, for clarifying.

Yeah, we still think we'll be between guidance of $54 and $59.

Yeah, understood. That's good, thank you. And second question, just on the hedging strategy, which has been great so far, and you hedged 30 volumes to the end of the year, the market's tight. You can see that through your realisations. What is the hedging strategy next year? I know you said you're assessing it, but I would have thought that it'd be pretty compelling to hedge more under the current structure into next year.

Yes. We are considering it. There are a range of considerations that we're weighing up. We actually have locked a few tonnes away in January. We're using the same sorts of structures, zero-cost collars with a floor. The ones this year, this calendar year, are between a floor of 100 to 101 tonnes. and a cap of around 106, 108. We can get probably slightly better numbers in January, which we have in place for a small number of times. We're looking at now extending that out. The market's moved a little bit over the last week, as you'd know. So it's something we're watching closely. But it is attractive at these prices, particularly as we move through this deleveraging phase.

Our next question comes from Lachlan Shaw from UBS. Lachlan, please go ahead after the beep.

Good morning, Mark, Mel, Chris and Tame. Thanks for taking my questions. So two from me. I suppose I just wanted to check with Onslow. So the August run rate, in excess of 38 million tonnes per annum. And obviously, TSV6 arrives within sort of 12 months. Just interested in how you're thinking about the ability of the asset to sort of sweat or push above that 35 million tonne per annum run rate for post-26. And I'll come back with my second question.

Thanks, Lachlan. We're very pleased with the way the assets performed or the projects performed over the quarter. We have benefited from comparatively calm weather through the period. We have lost a number of days, but this is a quarter we would expect to do well. as you would expect from us we're constantly looking at ways that we can improve productivity we're searching for minutes literally in every aspect of the operation uh what we've said consistently is the sixth trans shipper should give us the capacity to go to 38 million tons per annum we are trialing and have been trying for the last month or two um channel passing of our trans shippers And we see the potential to possibly increase throughput by another 5% as a result. But, you know, we'll possibly, we'll see how we go through. We'll continue running those trials over the coming months. But, you know, I think that the headline number that we've got to remain unchanged that we see us getting up to 38 million with the sixth transshipper.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And look, my second question is, So just on the lithium side of the business and the mine co and obviously reports around and being open to, I suppose, capital recycling. But I wanted to ask, you know, can you help us understand? I mean, how do you think about this business? And I suppose the optionality embedded in being exposed to the potential for, you know, fly up pricing in lithium. There'll be another cycle. We know that. versus obviously, you know, a key motivation for doing or looking at this sort of transaction would be to gear. But can you help us understand how you think about, I mean, how do you sort of weigh all that up? Because I do note, obviously, SPOD prices are looking better. You're realising a better price is caught up and perhaps things are looking a little better into next year. So I'm just interested in how the business thinks about those trade-offs. Thanks.

So... What I'll say is, I'll just repeat, Chairman's expressed very clearly an intention to consider inorganic deleveraging. Management's assessing a whole range of different possibilities. You should assume that anything we do on any of the assets, we will only transact if we see real value there. So we don't need to do a transaction today. We're really pleased with the way the business is performing. We're pleased with the cash it's generating. We can see that, as I said earlier, that clear line of sight to deleveraging through the performance of the business. Just to emphasise, we won't do anything unless we can see very strong value, both financial and strategic, for doing something. I don't know that I can say much more than that.

Our next question comes from Glyn Lawcock from Barranjoey. Glyn, please go ahead after the beep.

Mark, good morning. Just if you could maybe help a little bit on the realisations for iron ore, you know, 85% at Pilbara and 90% at Onslow. How much of that was due to the hedging you put in place and just how much is that maybe quality as you start pushing Onslow? Because it was, you were getting more like 80% realisation. Thanks.

Yeah, so, Glyn, almost no impact from the hedging. We had maybe a couple of percentage points impact through prior period adjustments, but not substantial. Really what we've seen is the whole market has tightened in terms of low-grade discounts over the quarter. There's been... a shortage of supply into China. And we're seeing as the mills become more familiar with the Onslow product and figure out how to blend and optimize it through their plant, continuing to see very strong demand for that product. really they would take as much as we could give them. So very pleased with the way that's performed. But as you pointed out, even in the central Pilbara, the discount's been tighter. So I think that's reflected general market conditions. And we're seeing that continue into the early stages of this quarter.

Okay, that's great. And then maybe just any update you can provide on discussions with the Pilbara Port Authority over the dispute on charges for onslaught? Thanks.

We've got a great relationship with the Port Authority. We work with them in a number of areas. I can't comment specifically on that matter because it's before the courts.

Our next question is from Khan Pekka from RBC. Khan, please go ahead after the beep.

Hi, Mark, Nell and Chris. Thanks for the update. Just on the parallel channel passing, Just wanted to get an understanding of how the trials have gone, what needs to be seen to be rolled out, and why only 5% upside in capacity. A bit more detail around that, and I'll circle back with a second.

Thanks, Khan. Good morning. The trials are performing well. We have to trial with each of the vessels. We have to trial with the different shifts. We have to trial with day and night. We have to trial with the different crews. So there's a whole number of elements that need to be trialled over a period of time. Also working with the Chevron vessels passing in the channel and so on. So it's a process that we've agreed with the Port Authority. It takes time over a period of months. In terms of 5%, we've modelled it out. We're taking a view. We can't assume that we can do that for every movement of the transshippers. So to get to that number, we've taken a view on the percentage to see... how frequently we can utilise that opportunity.

Sure, thank you. And then maybe the commentary around flotation at Mount Marion. I know you've sort of mentioned it before, but I think it's the first time I've seen a date of 1Q27. Just wondering the capex for that and if that's been included in FY26 guidance.

In terms of In terms of the float, that's something we're still studying. So we are doing a little bit of design work on it, design engineering work. We're working with our joint venture partners to understand what that looks like. but the actual work itself is not underway, when I say the work itself, the construction. We haven't taken a decision to do that. That's something that we'll talk with the board about and with our JV partner about as we work through our updated capital allocation framework.

Our next question comes from Ben Lyons from Jordan Securities Limited. Ben, please go ahead after the beep. Thanks.

G'day, Mel, Mark and Chris. First question just on Onslow. Congratulations on a very strong quarter, obviously, and understand your comments around the channel passing trials, etc. Just specifically on one of the transshippers, though, Montebello doesn't appear to have moved since very early in the month of October. So just wondering if there's any... maintenance issues or operating issues or crew availability or whether you just don't have sufficient capacity to run all of those trans shippers simultaneously at present. Thank you.

Morning, Ben. Thanks. The Monty is the vessel that I was referencing earlier when I said that one of the trans shippers had a bow thruster issue. So the port side bow thruster was lost in operation and just for prudent you know, to be prudent, we've basically moored it up whilst we repair it. And that's down from the 7th of October. As I said, we expect it to be back in service early next week. So it's not a capacity issue or anything like that. It's just an unplanned maintenance.

No, great. Thanks, Mark. Apologies, I did miss the first part of the call. And this one might have already been asked as well, but just on the iron ore hedging, just whether you've disclosed the rough pricing, you've hedged away that sort of 33% of volumes for fiscal 26. Thanks.

Yeah, no problem. One of the things I said earlier, and you might have missed it, was we've only hedged out through calendar 25. So we haven't hedged the full financial year. We're actually waiting to see... and understand better the impact of the change to the 61% index. So we've hedged a third out to the end of December. We've done that with a series of zero-cost collars with a floor of somewhere between 100 and 101 and a cap of 106 to 108. We've also got a few zero-cost forward sales, 102 to 105. So that's out to December. I also said that we've been able to hedge just a small volume of tonnes into January, and we're just reassessing what we might do through that first quarter next calendar year.

Our next question comes from John Sharp from CLSA. John, please go ahead after the beep.

Yeah, good morning, Mark, Mel and Chris. Congratulations on the ramp-up of Onslow. Quite an impressive result. And just the first question there around that, and a similar question to Lockie's around sweating the assets, but more to do with the road frames. You've said that you're confident that you'll maintain 35 million tonnes per annum. um as contractors come off but are there any improvements that you see there with the road trains whether it's cycle times loading of trucks um you know anything that you're seeing there where you can improve or is that not a concern uh because maybe the tranship is a more the concern i think we've been consistent in saying that ultimately the tranship is the bottleneck um

We did have some inefficiencies through that first quarter just because of the use of the public road at times, the use of large numbers of contractor trucks, which impact productivity when they're unloading and so on. So we expect to see greater efficiency over the coming months, but we don't see the haulage as being the constraint.

Okay, thank you. And just... Yeah, just a question on the progress towards autonomous haulage. Can you just give us an update there? You know, is there any regulatory sort of certification that needs to be done or anything to update us on there?

Thanks, John. The benefit or one of the benefits of having the road upgrade completed is now that we can move back to trialling of the autonomy, which is now underway. So we are trialling a number of trucks with the autonomy. That's a process that we've said is going to take some time. We need to collect all the data and do the analysis, working closely with the regulator to satisfy ourselves and them, the state of those systems. So we've said that that's going to be a second half of next year sort of thing before we can really know with certainty how it's tracking. But at this point, we're still very confident in terms of how it's shaping up.

The next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Mitch, please go ahead after the beep.

Good morning, Mark. I'm just wondering, on an SC6 basis, there was a divergence between the ASP at Mount Marion and Wojnar. Can you help us understand this, please?

Sure, Mitch. So a couple of things I'd point out. I'm very, very happy with the price performance in particular of Wojana. And so, you know, we sell on spot and obviously in part it depends on timing of sales and cargos and the like. But I'd say that Wojana sales performance is fantastic. been very strong through the quarter. So I think that that delta between the two is possibly exaggerated to an extent by that. And the demand for that Wojana product continues to be very strong, reflecting of the grade that we put through there. Marion, we tend to sell as a parcel with a combination of the higher grade and the lower grade. And so historically, the difference between the two has been about 5%. This quarter, it's 10%. I'd say it's in part due to the strength of the performance of Wajana. There is a 10% discount applied to the SE3 product, the three and a half.

Okay, there is a discount. Thank you. And then staying at Marion, total tons mined were down materially quarter on quarter. How do we think about strip ratios and material movements in the mine plan going forward?

Yeah, it's a good pickup and consistent with what we're saying. One of the benefits of Marion is we operate out of a number of pits. So we don't just have a single pit. So you shouldn't be, and you haven't suggested this, but I'm talking about the market generally, shouldn't be worried that we're high grading or anything like that. We're just reshuffling, resequencing our mine planning. And you're right, we were able to benefit from lower strip at Marion through the quarter. And we did that in part to help manage CapEx. You know, we've said before that we're conscious about the way that we're managing our capital through the business. And so we are going to sequence back to higher strip pits. And the life of mine average at Marion is 10 to 11. So that's one of the reasons why I called out costs going up in the second half as we do that. But just to emphasise, we still see costs for the year falling within guidance.

Our next question comes from Hayden Bairstow from Argonaut. Hayden, please go ahead after the beep.

Hey, morning, guys. A really good result. Just a couple of questions for me, Mark. Just on mining services, Just keen to get your sort of thoughts on external volumes and whether that you see some opportunities to grow, I guess, more into next year than this year. But just keen to see where that's at. And also at the Pilbara Hub, do we assume then lower volumes in this and the next quarter, just as you transition and get Land Creek going in Q4?

In terms of the first question, mining services... As I said, I think the external market, the demand for the services is strong. The industry is generally strong with the others in the industry, not that we have any true competitors the way we operate, but others are focused on gold. We see a significant pipeline of opportunity into calendar year 26 and beyond. So very comfortable with the outlook and prospects for that business. In terms of the volumes out of the central Pilbara, it's more a shift between the mines. You know, as the market understands, one of the challenges with the Iron Valley product, even though it's a great product, it's very high FOS. And so we do need to blend it. One mana is there, but the grades are falling. And so that's one of the reasons why I called out lower realisations over the next two quarters as we do that blending with reducing grades. uh before we get lamb creek on and then lamb creek will see the grade stabilized but it will and the blended grade stabilized it'll also see that the costs improve because of the strips quite low there thanks man our next question comes from rob stein from macquarie rob please go ahead after the beep

Hi, Mark, Mel, Chris. Quick one on just CapEx, the 400 mil. Assume that's front-end weighted into the first half of the year, and obviously because guidance is still in tact, that we can expect a slower second-half run rate, and I've got a follow-up.

Morning, Rob. Yeah, that's an accurate assessment.

Cool. And then secondly, just the Hancock payment. So the 41 mil, that was results to date. The issue with the well-being caps, basically getting another drill rig back on site and then the other remaining part of the contingent consideration is still accessible once you're able to access or drill the second part of the well.

No. So the Hancock arrangements now concluded with that payment of $41 million. The well that we referenced in the quarterly was another exploration well, and we weren't able to determine commercial volume to be able to take it to production. So We've got a program of drilling planned with Hancock. They're going to drill some material for them or opportunity for themselves. And JV will do some work over the coming months. But we have no intention to go back to that well.

Our next question comes from Lyndon Fagan from JP Morgan. Lyndon, please go ahead after the beep. Lyndon, you are live. Please ask your question. As we have not heard from Lyndon, I will move on to the next caller. Our next caller is Matthew Friedman from MST Financial. Matthew, please go ahead after the beep.

Sure. Thanks, morning, Mark and team. I hope you can hear me.

Yep, I can hear you fine. Thanks, Matt.

Yeah, great. Thanks. A couple of questions on mining services, please. Firstly, you mentioned in the release a bit of a reduction in third party or client contract volumes. That sounded pretty minor, but is there anything you can do to quantify the drivers there or whether that's a temporary or lasting impact? Thanks.

Yeah, happy to explain that a little bit better. We had an external site finish last quarter and we had a new one start this quarter and they didn't balance out. We did more volume with the terminating contract than the new contract through its start-up phase. So that's a timing thing. And then we had one or two sites where the client wasn't able to provide us with the sorts of volumes that we would normally expect. But again, not significant in any sense. So just a temporary thing, I think best described as.

Okay, got it. Thanks, Mark. And then maybe following up on Hayden's earlier question, just, I guess, trying to quantify the next opportunity in mining services. I mean, simple maths will tell us that even to grow volumes by a fairly modest 10%, it needs to be a 35 million tonne per annum contract. So what does the next opportunity in mining services look like? Is it partnering on more onslaught-sized developments? And I guess what sort of timeline do you expect in terms of achieving some of those opportunities? Thanks.

I think you've identified that as, I mean, the business has got a fantastic track record of growth over many years, and I think you've identified one of the challenges, which is to continue to support that sort of growth rate for a number of years into the future. So it is something we talk about internally. We do think about how we allocate resource. We've got a wonderful team, but we've got a certain number of people we need to make sure they're pointed to the right opportunities. And so we need to work with management and with the board to make sure we're thinking about that capital need going forward. I can't talk about specifics, as you would appreciate, but what I would say is that the market better understands the capabilities of that business as a result of the success of Onslow, and I'll probably leave it at that.

Thank you. We're going to try Lyndon Fagan again. Lyndon, please go ahead with your question after the beep.

Hi, guys. Look, just wanted to check in again on Wojnar Train 3. I'm not sure if this got covered off, but given a better outlook for the market, what do you need to see to ramp it up?

Morning, Lyndon. So the answer is that we've sought to be disciplined with supply. We have pulled volume out of the market. We do run that third train from time to time. We haven't set a hard number as such. We obviously track the market every day with the calls that we're making around sales, and we've got a pretty good view and feel for the market and what that outlook looks like in the short term. It's a JV asset as well, so any decision that we take around that needs to take into account the views of Albemarle. What I would say is we're holding to the guidance for this year. I think that's the best way to put it in terms of where we think sales production will be.

And I guess if you decided at the end of this year the market outlook was sufficient to bring it on, how quickly could you go from that decision to train three at nameplate across the whole operations?

I think one of the interesting parts about that question is it highlights the optionality that sits inside the business generally, specifically with respect to train three. We can turn that on overnight and we can produce. In terms of having clean, consistent feed to support all three trains, that'll be 12 months from now. We would be able to... deliver production from three trains next week. But what we would see would be recoveries would fall, costs would be a little bit higher because we'd be dealing with more contact ore and we'd have some dilution impacts on the plant, so on the mining and through the plant. So, you know, it's a choice that's available, but to get to nameplate with clean ore is going to be 12 months.

Before we take our next question, I'll just do a quick reminder of the instructions. To ask a text question, select the messaging icon, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen and press the send button. To ask a live audio question, press the request to speak button at the top of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the audio question screen. Use the dial in number and access pin provided to ask your question via the phone. Alternatively, for those on a home or personal network, you can ask your question via the web by pressing join queue. If prompted, select allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. If you have any issues using the platform, dial-in details can also be found on the homepage under asking audio questions. Our next question comes from Lachlan Shaw from UBS. Lachlan, please go ahead after the beep.

Morning again, Tim. Thanks for taking my follow-up. Just a couple quick ones. So firstly, great result with the recent debt refinance. I'm just wondering, though, corporate spreads are pretty tight right now. You must be tempted to go early again on the next bond due November 27th?

Hi, Lachlan. We were very pleased with the market reaction when we came to market. There was a lot of appetite, both out of Asia and out of the US. The bond, the next bond, has a call premium of $1.4, effectively. So it's a little bit expensive to go now. That'll step down shortly. it's a broader conversation in terms of how we think about the capital stack and what we're doing. So we don't have any hard plans to go, but, you know, that's an option we're continuing to monitor.

Great. Thank you. And then just a final one from me. So obviously the whole Rotodonzo repair is complete. Yeah, really good outcome. As we're coming into the wet season, you know, and you sort of look at how that's all gone, are you comfortable... the risk areas along the road in terms of river crossings and potential for lying water to impact? Are you comfortable that's all been sufficiently addressed and you've now got a pretty reliable and resilient pathway through the wet season? Thanks.

One of the benefits of the somewhat painful experience earlier this year was that we got a better understanding of where the water sat and how it moves live as opposed to the modelling. And so you can assume that we've studied that, we've worked with that, and we've tried to address that in the work that we've done through that period up to September. So, yes, I'm confident the team has done that work.

Our next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Mitch, please go ahead after the beep.

Thanks for taking the follow-up. Previously, you had disclosed plans to take Onslow well below, beyond 35, you know, towards 50 million tonnes. With the deleveraging in sight, is there any inclination to dust those plans off or what would you need to see to dust those plans off?

Mitch, thanks for the question. You know, we're not changing our position. We see a potential to go to 38 with the sixth transshipper. We know that there's a huge amount of resource out there, but there's also a lot of work that will be needed to be done both on the resource and on port infrastructure to go materially higher. So that's something you can assume that we're talking about because we always have the medium to long term in mind. But for the short, medium term, there's no plans to change what we're saying.

Thanks. And just with regard to the study of reintroducing float at Mount Marion, does that potentially use existing float equipment there or will it need new float equipment?

There's potential to reuse some of it, but it would be largely new. And just, you know, we've talked about it a little bit today. The benefits of the float are clear in the sense that it would allow us to have a single product and it should take, subject to what the final study says, we estimate it could take up to $100 a tonne out of the oil and sustaining costs of the operations. But ultimately, it's a capital investment decision. We have to take that through management and through the board once we've finished our analysis.

Thank you. There are no further questions. That concludes today's call. Thank you for your time and have a great day. Please reach out to the Minres team if you have any follow-up questions. You may now disconnect.