Perseus Mining Limited

Good morning and welcome to the Perseus Mining investor webinar and conference call. All attendees are in a listen-only mode. If you would like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function. I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and CEO, Jeff Quarterman. Thank you, Jeff.

Thanks, Nathan, and welcome to Perseus Mining's quarterly webinar to discuss our June quarter report. I'm joined on the call today by one of my colleagues, Leanne DeBrain, who, as you know, is our CFO. Leanne doesn't really need any introduction. She's been an integral part of Percy's leadership team for some time now and, of course, has participated in many of these webinars and other market-facing events. But welcome, Leanne. Thanks, Chris. The agenda for today's webinar is the same as usual. I'll start by providing an overview of what Percy's achieved operationally during the quarter. Leanne and I then speak to aspects of the presentation and then we'll hold a Q&A session to dive into anything, any specific matters that haven't been addressed to your satisfaction during the presentation or indeed in the market release of the quarterly or the market release that we put out last week on the drilling results from Neonsaga. For those of you who are participating in the webinar via your computer, you should be able to track the presentation visually on your screens, and for others, we have released it to the market along with the quarterly, so you'll be able to review it at your leisure. So, look, in summary, as I've said every quarter now for the last four or five years, our team at Perseus is consistently delivering on its promises, and during the three-month, six-month, and 12-month periods ending 30 June, we have once again delivered with strong group goal production, competitive all-inside costs, And of course, with the help of a rising gold prices, we've expanded our cash margins and increased free cash flow and cash balances. Relative to many of our peers who have already reported this quarter, our operating performance in closing cash balance is demonstrably better than many in the gold sector. Now, notwithstanding our solid operating performance over a long period of time, we don't seem to have received due recognition in terms of relative share price performance. we were advised that one explanation for this anomaly was that doubts existed regarding the longevity and quality of Perseus' asset portfolio relative to some. So during the June quarter, we've sought to address this matter head on by publishing Perseus' five-year production and cost outlook. And I'll return to this subject in more detail later. But from what we published this quarter, I think it should be fairly clear, even to the most cynical of observers, that based on the platform that we've built, the future of Perseus looks strong. And that is before we start to deploy our considerable financial capacity to expand the asset portfolio, either through exploration or M&A initiatives. Now, speaking of exploration or organic growth, we've been active on this front during the quarter and we returned some excellent drilling results from the phase two confirmatory drilling at the Neon Saga project in Tanzania. And as I said earlier, these were documented in a release that was made to the market last week. Now, speaking of the Nsaga, I should also mention very briefly, because I will return to this, the very solid progress that's been achieved on the development of the mine itself during the quarter. It is impressive, that's for sure. So without further ado, let's go to the presentation and you'll see what I'm talking about. So looking at the operating results, 121,237 ounces for the quarter, which was pretty much in line with the last quarter. The all-inside cost of $1,417 an ounce was up slightly on the previous quarter, and there are reasons for that which we'll discuss, not the least of which, of course, is the gold price, which was up $515 an ounce to $2,977 per ounce. And when I'm talking about the impact of the gold price, bear in mind that a significant portion of our cost base is gold price-related charges. The cash margin that we generated was $1,560 US per ounce, so that's up $307 an ounce. National cash flow, $189 million US, leaving net cash in bullion of $827 million at the end of the quarter, which was up $26 million notwithstanding some fairly significant expenditure during the period. And Leanne will talk to that in a moment. Now, what that has done is it's translated into an excellent financial year for us. So for the full financial year, production at $496,551, a touch under the $500,000, but certainly in line with what we had been anticipating. All insight costs for the year was $1,235 an ounce. The average gold price, $2,543 per ounce, up $529 an ounce on the previous year. And of course, that cash margin at $1,308 an ounce, it's significantly above the target of $500 an ounce that we set ourselves some time ago. That's all translated into national cash flow from the operations of $650 million. And as I said, left us with a fairly healthy balance at the end of the year. So what that means is that First, this is firmly on track to continue funding growth and firmly on track to continue returning capital to our shareholders. Now, if you look at, you know, how that result stacks up relative to guidance, in terms of the full year guidance, we have finished at about the 77 percentile of the guidance range at $496,000, and on the cost $1,235,000, we finished below the bottom end of the range, and a similar result in terms of the half year as well. So half year, it was around the same sort of level, finishing below the bottom end of the cost range. Now, you know, the numbers on that slide tell a pretty interesting story, and they do demonstrate the merit of having a diversified portfolio, having more than one operation at our disposal, because the operations do have good times and bad times, but if you look across the group, it's pretty consistent performance, where one will outperform to compensate for maybe some underperformance at another mine. Now, looking at the three operations themselves, so Yoyori was the biggest contributor of the three, as has been fairly normal over time, about 53% for the full year, came from there, 58% for the quarter. And it was done at a very attractive all-insight cost of $11.80 per ounce or $1,100 for the full year. I mean, it was a year of two halves in a sense. We certainly struggled a little early in the piece, but picked up very strongly as the year wore on and turned in a pretty solid performance. The national cash margin of $18.24 US per ounce, I mean, that's certainly... you know, puts us into a fairly strong position in terms of cash flow generation. Now, one of the areas that has challenged us, we've moved from, well, we've been mining in the CMA pit, we've moved over to the Yayoi pit, which is geologically very complicated, much more complex than CMA. And we've been working very solidly on trying to upgrade our grain control processes and the like to improve the reconciliation between rough model of the mill. We've certainly seen an improvement on that over the last quarter, but we still have some distance to go to get to where we would like to be. So at the moment, we're recording 25%. For the last three months, it was 25% positive on tonnes, 15% negative on grade, 6% overall plus in terms of contained ounces. So that is, you know, it's better than it was, but it's not where we need to be. The other piece, of course, around the Ayori is the underground, and I'll speak to that in Just a moment, we're waiting on a presidential decree to get going on the mining there. Now, Etican, Etican's had an interesting year. I mean, you know, we've finished off mining in the fetish pit and we're just about to finish mining in the AG pit. So there's a bit of a change in the whole production profile. We have been moving into the Nkosua pit, which is largely an oxide pit. It's a higher-grade oxide pit that we will be mining from We have had, obviously, the costs were impacted by lower production relative to previous periods. And also, of course, we've got hit with royalties in various other charges and also some increase in sustaining capital where we were making compensation payments to landowners. Now, that has been an issue for us. We are in the final stages of getting full access to the NKCOO mining area. It has been a bit of a challenge along the way. There's a few people who were struggling to come to terms with what we were doing, notwithstanding the law being on our side. But anyway, that is coming to an end, and we'll have full access in the next quarter, which will improve grain, which will improve production from Etican. In terms of reconciliations at Etican, We're 10% positive on tonnes, 11% negative on grain, 2% negative overall on contained ounces, and that's pretty much within acceptable limits. So that's fine. Looking into the future, we are working fairly solidly on various initiatives to extend the mine life at Etiquette through to 2032 through a series of cutbacks of some of the previously mined pits. That is an important exercise, and we're working closely with the local people and government to get that initiated. One of the things we did do during the quarter was that we did seed a section of the mining lease back to the government, and that is to be allocated to local citizens for small-scale mining. So hopefully that will give them some confidence that continuing to work with Percy's going forward is in their interest. Now, Sasingi's had a fairly troubled quarter, I must admit. Production was slightly higher than the previous quarter and costs were slightly better, but they're still not where we really want them to be. We are at an interesting stage up there where we're getting towards the end of one of the satellite pits and we'll be moving down to Bagway fairly shortly. But in the intervening period, we've had to make do with what we've got and have had a few challenges with our our contractor, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, we do call material up the road, and in wet weather, that also provides some challenges as well. But generally speaking, I think we're in a position where in the next 12 months, it's going to be quite different to the most recent 12 months as we get into material that is a better grade, et cetera, et cetera. If operation is cash flow positive, that's obviously pleasing. In terms of reconciliations, on a 12-month horizon, 18% positive on tonnes, 10% negative on grade, and 6% positive in the contained ounces. And that's a reasonable position. It has gone up and down a little bit over the last period of time, reflecting the particular ore bodies that we've been working in. But certainly it's in a reasonable position, but we're also doing more work on that as we speak. As I said, we're in the process of getting ready to move down to Bagway, so we're constructing facilities down there, and we should be operating in that part of the world probably in about November this year, I would think. Now, if you look at the three mines put together, I mean, it has been a pretty solid performance from them over the last four years. We've averaged around $509. thousand ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of $1,048 per ounce. Doing that in a period where we've also enjoyed fairly significant growth in gold prices, which has expanded margins and certainly generated a lot of cash. The thing that stands out from this chart here, of course, is the consistency of performance. And this goes to the point I made earlier around the portfolio effect, where in any given period, one or other of the mines may be struggling a little, as Sasingi has been doing for the last short period but at the same time some of the others pick up and we managed to still maintain that consistent performance. Now looking forward, as I said earlier in the piece, we felt it necessary to share with the market what the next five years of purchase looks like and we put out a release to this effect about a month or so ago and you can see that there is fairly solid performance coming through over the next five years at least. Now, there is a short-term dip coming through in fiscal 26, which is really a scheduling function. We were anticipating producing from our Maya Sandgol project in this period, but as people are aware, that project was put on hold some time ago due to conflict in the sedans, so our production is down slightly this year, but from here it picks up, and it picks up quite materially as the Neon Saga project comes on stream, and as I said, we that's being developed in Tanzania, and we'll talk about that in a little more detail. And certainly the cost structure that we are expecting to see across the group is well within the marks of or in line with global cost structures at the current time, particularly with the gold price assumptions that we have used in this analysis. So the point I'm making here is that looking forward, the next five years are very strong after a small Now, in terms of the guidance for next year, we are talking $400,000 to $440,000 an ounce at all in site costs 1460 to 1620. Now, it does reflect the fact that Yayoi will be reducing production from where it has been this year as we go into the underground. But on the other side of the coin, it also reflects the fact that Sasengi will pick up in production. as we go down to Bagway into the high-grade material there, and Etican keeps plugging along. The higher costs at Etican relate to some cutbacks that we're planning on doing in the forthcoming period. At the elevated dole prices that we're seeing, we're still able to make significant headway in terms of cash margin. The other factor affecting the Etican Dole Mine next year, of course, is that we will be we will be, our main source of oil will be from the end of the sewer deposit, which is an oxide deposit, and of course, recoveries of oxide material out of every can are lower than fresh material. Now, people who want to, you know, focus on the costs and be concerned about the costs, I would refer you to that chart on the right there, which shows what Perseus has done relative with its cost guidance over the last five years or so. And it's fairly clear that you know, for one reason or another, we have outperformed our expectations on the cost front. Now, you know, one might say, well, it's a function simply that you are very conservative in your forecast, and that may be the case. But what it also says is that at Perseus, we don't just take things for granted. We work continuously to keep a lid on our costs and, where possible, to reduce them. So we have a number of programs going continuously to try and find ways of improving our performance. And while we're forecasting 1460 to 1620 next year, you know, we will be doing everything within our power to do better than that. And when we look at that production, I mean, we're almost finished the first month of the 12-month period. And based on what's happened in the first month of the period, we'll be finishing in the upper part of that range, I would think, all things being equal. Of course, now, having said that, I'm tempting fate for sure, but... But certainly we've started the new financial year quite strongly. Now I'll pass over to Leanne to speak on some of the financial aspects if I may.

Thanks Jeff and good morning to everybody. As you can see we've had a very strong quarter generating $189 million of notional cash flow which was an increase of about $37 million or 20% on the last quarter. And this is largely attributable to the $515 per ounce increase in our average gold price achieved in the quarter of $2,977. Our cash and bullion increased by $26 million, which I'll speak to a little bit later, and our debt remains undrawn at $300 million. The increase in cash and bullion to $827, I think it's important to point out, was after a number of key expenditures during the quarter. We did, as Jeff alluded to earlier on, the organic growth investment in the period was extensive, including exploration drilling at the Nianzaga pit, well, Nianzaga Resort, should I say, and those results were released last week. And then we've done some drilling at the Nkutumsa deposit in Ghana as we seek to continue looking for extension opportunities at EDICAN. We also then spent about $80 million in sustaining and development capital in the quarter, which included $25 million on Nianzaga, about $18 million on the CMA underground, and we spent $17 million purchasing increased land at Yare to ensure an extended capacity for our extension of the life of mine at that asset. We've continued to make contributions to our host countries, making $70 million of tax contributions, which included tax payments in Ghana for income tax and withholding tax payments on dividends we declared out of Ivory Coast. In addition, we then also spent about $50 million returning funds to our shareholders, and this included a $22 million interim dividend paid in April, We've, in the quarter, done $28 million on the share buyback. That moves us to a key focus for us and particularly my role as a CFO. It's been our hedge program and focusing on, as we always say, to continue focusing on maintaining our hedge program to ensure downside protection while retaining as much upside opportunity as possible. And this is really done while we try and observe proven cash management practices, knowing that gold price, as much as it can go up, it can go down. With that in mind, we had to think about the selection of our hedging instruments during the period. And during the quarter four in June, we purchased 55,000 put options at a 2,600 US dollar per ounce price for a cost of 2.9 million US dollars and put those out over 27 and 28. Importantly, the committed hedge position of the group was reduced in the quarter from 24% to 16% of the forecast three-year production. Moving on to our capital returns to shareholders. In FY25, we have returned Australian dollar $107 million to our shareholders by our interim dividend paid in April and our continued commitment to the share buyback. Since our maiden capital return in FY21, Perseus has returned a total of $275 million Australian dollars to our shareholders. And this will be a continued focus for us going into August. And lastly, just on our share buyback, we importantly, as you all remember, we announced this $100 million Australian dollar share buyback on the 28th of August, 2024. And where opportunities have presented itself, where we've been able to purchase, we have, at the 11th of July, progressed back to 73%. And we will continue to focus on that now as we are able to go back into the market with the release of this quarterly.

Okay, thanks very much, Leanne. Yes, this issue of capital management is something that is exercising our mind at the moment. We've received a lot of feedback from our shareholder base as to their preferences between dividends and share buybacks, and we'll be discussing this at some length, I expect, with our board in a month or so's time. But certainly the share buyback concept has worked extremely well for Perseus, we believe, since it was started in August last year, 12 months or so. We are somewhat constrained at times by blackout periods where we are about to make announcements, et cetera, so we have to stay out of the market. But nevertheless, when we can buy back, we have done that and have done it reasonably consistently, and I think it's been beneficial to the share price. The dividend allocation has been steadily rising over a period of time, and we'll see where the board sits on this. in August, as I say, but certainly this has been a good year and I think that will be reflected not only in the financial results that are going to be delivered on the 28th of next month, but also in the returns to shareholders that are announced at the same time. Now, looking into talking about capital management, I mean, basically with the excess cash that we're generating, returns to shareholders is important and also managing our balance sheet is important But one of the other key focuses on the organic growth of the business. And there are a couple of initiatives that are worth commenting on, I think, in that respect. We've mentioned the Neon Saga project a couple of times throughout this call. Now, where we stand at the moment, the schedule going forward is that we've started work on the foundations, et cetera, for the process plant. We've been working on the relocation action plan, which is housing of people impacted by the operation for some time, and that'll be completed in around October. We've been working on upgrading the camp at Niyanzaga because we're going to have a very significant influx of people very shortly, particularly when we start mining early next year. The current plan is to start in April 26th. However, we're doing our best to bring that forward by three or four months to start in January 26th. So we'll have a mining group alongside a construction group on the site at the same time, which will make the site a very busy place to be. And that will culminate in first gold being poured, we believe, in the first quarter of 2027, if not sooner. And certainly I know all of our team are highly motivated to do it a little bit earlier than that, but this is where we're predicting at the present time. And just looking at what is happening on the site, I mean, there has been a lot of building activity on the camp and on the wrap housing, et cetera, et cetera, and getting ready. You can see some photographs on the right-hand side of that work that's going on there. We are using some pretty interesting construction techniques using our local labour, et cetera, et cetera, and that's going very well. You can see the foundations of the camp fairly clearly on this particular photograph. We've also been working on putting in bypass roads to minimise the impact on our local community when we bring goods into the mine site. So that work is ongoing and we're doing that in a very professional manner to ensure that those roads are accessible under all weather conditions and will last the community long after we leave. On the resettlement program itself, we've been getting along pretty well there. We've completed... 65 and handed over houses out of 262 there's quite a lot more that um another 40 or so will be handed over very shortly as soon as we get some more doors to put on but you can see some of the some of the housing on in the photographs here it is interesting actually the relocation housing it's quite different in in every country we operate in and the people we understand are extremely happy with what what is being received and you know in certain instances Not only do they have water supply, but in certain cases, they've also got electricity as well. So it's quite an important program. Now, I did make mention earlier on, on the drilling that we've been doing, the stage two of the resource definition drilling. When we made our final investment decision in April of this year, it was based purely and simply on the first phase of drilling. And at that time, we announced a reserve of about, I think it was 2.3 million ounces. Now, what we did say at the time was that we were undertaking a second phase of drilling and that we would upgrade the ore reserve mineral resource by the time we started production in 27. We put out a release the other day, which, excuse me, reflected some of the results that we've achieved to date. And... You know, you can see from this slide here that there are some very, very good intercepts have been achieved. And these intercepts give us enormous confidence in being able to make a fairly significant increase in the reserve for this project when we release that next year. And that is material that will be mined from the open pit. But one of the other things that also has come out from the drawing results is that there's very clear evidence of mineralisation extending at depth. Now, we don't want to offend the regulators here by saying too much, other than to say that there is certainly very strong encouragement that if we continue drilling and continue to get the results that we've been seeing in recent times, then there's every prospect that we may be able to continue mining well below the bottom of the currently envisaged pit and using underground mining techniques. And if we are able to do that, of course, it will extend the life of the Neon Saga project quite a substantial way. So this has been a very important and exciting development at Neon Saga that has come to life over the last six months or so. And the other project that we're busily working towards is the CMA Underground project. I mentioned that we have just about finished in the CMA pit, open pit itself, and we've moved over to the Yayori pit. We took a final investment decision to go underground earlier this year, and we've been working very strenuously ever since then to get ourselves into a position where we will start to mine underground very shortly. We appointed an excellent Australian underground mining contractor, Burncut, as our primary mining contractor, and they are mobilised on the site and ready to go now. The only thing that's really standing between us and cutting portals at the present time is that we are awaiting a presidential decree to give us the green light on this. This is something that only emerged very, very recently. The advice that we'd previously been given around how the government would approve this exercise seems to have changed, and we now need to get the president to sign off, which we hope will occur in the next week or so. But anyway, the operation itself is well and truly ready to go. We're going to have four portals being built on the CMA pit, two intakes, two exhausts. The work on all that is well advanced and is pretty much ready to roll on all four of those sites. We've been working getting our services up to scratch, so both power and water are more or less in place. There's a little bit more work to be done in some areas, but generally speaking, the power and water supplies to the mining are in very good shape. We've ordered the equipment, and that should be arriving on the site fairly shortly. That will be installed as we go deeper underground. And of course, we've been working fairly strenuously on putting in place all of the facilities that are needed for the mining services contractor and our team to be able to work on the underground mine. So all in all, at CMA, everything has moved along very nicely and we are ready to take the next step and to start cutting portals as soon as possible. One of the things that is pleasing about the way we've conducted our business, of course, is that we have been, you know, observing all of the areas to ensure that we have a sustainable operation. We're particularly happy with our safety record, running a TRIFA of 0.6 for fiscal 25, which is the best result that we've turned in, and one that's actually very credible in terms of global terms. I mean, the safety record is very, very good on the site. And this is not a case, I can assure you, This is a case that we have committed a good deal of money and effort to working on the safety front over the last few years and introduced a number of initiatives, including the fatal risk management control process and what we call SHED, which is safely home every day interactions. And between these two initiatives, I think our workforce has come on board and we're delivering some very good outcomes. In terms of our host communities, government and communities, they're receiving very substantial benefits from what we do. So the countries where we are receive something like US$231 million in total for the last quarter, taken in a range of ways. Of course, 83% of our procurement comes from local suppliers and we also make investments into various social aspects as well. of local people is around 94% or so, which is a fairly credible thing given that what is important in the countries where we work is to try to maintain as much employment as possible to continue to support the economies. Environmentally, of course, that goes without saying. We observe all of the regulations that are in place. and have determined to leave the mine sites in better shape than what we found them. And from a governance point of view, once again, that goes without saying, those things are done to ensure that we are transparent and above board in everything that we do. So look, in conclusion, as I said at the start of the call, we have had another good performance on all fronts during the quarter, half and full financial year, and we've delivered on through gold production, weighted average cost, cash generation, et cetera, et cetera. And I think when we release our fiscal 25 financial report and our sustainability report, I should mention as well, in about a month's time, it'll be just even more clear as to what a good year has passed. And as I said earlier on, the pleasing thing is that we've done this in a very, very safe manner so that our staff have been able to come to work every day, go home every day, and not be incurring injuries or anything worse. Looking forward, as noted during the presentation, we will experience a slight reduction in our production next year relative to prior periods. But as I pointed out, in comparison to future periods, next year is also a dip. So what we're saying is that it's a short-term dip resulting from scheduling of events rather than those events who are beyond our control rather than through full performance. And we have a clear strategy in place to recover from that, particularly with the commencing of production at Neonsaga. But beyond that, we'll also get further production from our existing operations. What we do have, I think, is very clear evidence that our strategy of producing 500,000 to 600,000 ounces of gold a year at an average cash margin of no less than $500 an ounce, but usually a lot more, it will continue well into the future. And that will occur even if we fail to grow our existing asset portfolio through exploration or M&A. But I think that it's fair to say that from our perspective, you know, the concept of us looking to grow our diversified portfolio is and will remain a very important feature of this business. We believe that through engaging in multiple operations in multiple countries, we're able to remove a lot of the volatility that comes with operating on the African continent. and still deliver outstanding results. We will continue to remain receptive to new ideas, and if a value creative opportunity comes along, and I stress the point value creative, with the cash and debt financing capacity at our disposal, we're just in a great position to execute and to continue our growth journey. So as a company, our focus on generating material benefits for all stakeholders, including host governments, communities, employees, providers of goods and services, and importantly, our shareholders, our investors, remains as strong as ever, allowing us to consistently achieve our stated mission, the stated mission of our company, and that's something of which we are quite proud. Now, finally, in conclusion, I do once again want to acknowledge the wonderful contributions made by all of the men and women who make up the Perseus management and operating teams in all of the countries in which we operate, including here in Australia where we're headquartered. I've said many, many times that you can have the best assets and the most amount of money in the world, but unless you have good people to execute your plans, you'll not realise your potential. Perseus has very good plans and currently has very good people. But more importantly, we've operated well as a team and long may that continue. And to all those employees, I wish to acknowledge all of your contributions and sincerely thank you for all your efforts in helping us to continue to deliver on our promises. So thanks, everyone, for attending today's webinar. This brings the presentation to a close. And if you have any questions, we're happy to try to answer. Thank you.

Thanks, Geoff. Just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function. Your first question comes from Kate McCutcheon at Citi. Please go ahead, Kate. Just on mute there, Kate.

Morning. Sorry, Leanne and Jeff. Thank you. Just on guidance for the year. So your five-year outlook is pretty fresh at 420 to 440 and costs topping out at that 1,500-ounce mark. And then today's guidance, I guess, is a bigger range on ounces and costs higher than what's in that outlook. Okay. What has driven that tweak to the outlook for 26 in the past month or so? I guess I'm looking for conviction in that five-year outlook because once you put these things out to the market, you tend to get held to it.

Okay. Thanks very much for sharing that with us. That had never occurred to us that that might be the case. But, no, look, I think there's a few factors in there. We wanted to just, you know, take into account where we sit at the present time. And also, I think that there is a difference in terms of the gold pricing that we've been using, which has had some impact on various things. Leanne, would you like to add to that?

Yeah. So, Kate, when we did the five-year forecast, we were using a $2,400 gold price for the long-term five years. And then, so with this guidance now, we've brought in a gold price of between $2,700 and $2,800, which impacts the royalties, importantly remembering that. You know, Etican and Ivory Coast have quite extensive linkages to gold price including the community benefits, the global sustainability levy and then the royalties. And then I think just in terms of the actual – the guidance for the ounces, I think we just decided to – for this financial year, given with the underground, just to increase the range effectively from what we put out in the five-year forecast. Effectively, we just put the downside, went from $420 to $400.

Yeah, I mean, there's nothing too sinister in that, I have to say. I mean, we are being a little conservative perhaps, but I guess we feel that that's appropriate given that we are a little late starting with the CMA underground relative to the recent change with the government. But I think that... As I said, where we sit at the present time, I mean, if the first month is any good, I don't think people need to be too concerned about where we're going to end up for the year.

Yeah. It's just to accommodate for the underground answers that are included in the FY26. If there is a delay in that, we did want to sort of put some downside advice on that, guidance on that. Okay. Cool. That is crystal clear. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Al Harvey at JP Morgan. Please go ahead, Al.

Yeah, morning, team. I just want to get a bit more of an explanation of that change in the CMA underground process going forward. Did you mention that you're expecting the presidential decree in a week or so? Would you guys expect to announce this to market and I suppose what are the options the team has up their sleeve to mitigate potential delays here?

Look, the situation is just that we were told about two or three years ago of a process that needed to be followed. We followed that process and done everything that was asked of us. And only last week we received some advice that, in fact, on reflection, the government had changed its perspective. Now, there is a meeting of cabinet next week, I think it is, and we have been assured that everything will be done appropriately. If it isn't done appropriately, well, we'll just have to regroup at that particular point and see what we do. There are some options available to us that I don't really want to be going into at this particular juncture. But yes, we will keep the market fully informed as we always do. But at this stage of the game, we're fairly optimistic that the government will do what they have said they were going to do and get this signed off and we'll be moving forward fairly quickly. Now, we have lost a month or so on it, I must admit, because we were looking at cutting portals on the 1st of this month. However, you know, we have a very committed mining contractor and team of people there And if, you know, history is any guide, Perseus will find a way to recover ground. You know, we seem to have a knack of being able to do that, and we will do it again, I'm sure. But, you know, in terms of the guidance and everything, we thought that rather than be sitting on a knife edge, we would give ourselves a little bit more protection just to see how things go. But I have every faith in what's going to occur, and I believe that we will be, you know, delivering, if anything, towards the, certainly into the upper half of that range, you know, when the next year comes around.

I mean, just to add to that, there's about 20,000 ounces of underground that was, you know, in that region, in the underground coming into FY26, so we're not talking about a huge amount. Yeah. And there is opportunity there to look at the remaining CMA, the CMA pit from an open pit perspective.

Yeah, so just to clarify what Leona said is that The contribution from the underground this year is not enormous, but there is some contribution, and we'll be doing our best to bring that in through various means.

Yeah, thanks, Geoff. Maybe just to follow up, I suppose I guess just with the presidential elections coming up in Cote d'Ivoire, do you feel like there's any impact there as to why this decision's been taken?

No, I don't think... I think it's completely unrelated to that. I just think that, you know, there's various processes that they follow and some things can be approved at a ministerial level, some things can be approved at a presidential level, and I think that... This is the first underground mine in Cote d'Ivoire. So this is the first time they've had to deal with this situation. And they started off considering that this decree could be issued by the minister. But what they're saying is that this is actually a change to the original mining lease. And given that the original mining lease was signed off by the president, this needs to be signed off. Now, it would have been helpful if this was discovered two years ago or three years ago. But the fact that it's only occurred last week, we just need to work around it. So I don't think there's anything to get too excited about. Plenty of people have made observations about the ups and downs of operating in Africa, and this is just simply one of those. We've been dealing with these sorts of things for 15-odd years, and we do find a way to get our way around them. So I wouldn't make too much of it, to be frank. And if there is something to be made of it, we'll certainly keep the market informed. Sure. Thanks, Jeff.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Wood at UDS. Please go ahead, Ben.

Thanks, Sam. Just wanting to hopefully get a little bit more colour on FY26 and just drill into the detail a little bit more. How should we think sort of about the profile across the year itself? You know, June quarterly run rates at Yayoi sort of suggest stronger start and potentially a weaker finish, but hopefully just sort of wanting, yeah, a little bit more colour on that if possible.

Well, look, you know, I'm tempted to... Well, what will happen is that, for instance, Yayoi's first half will be stronger than its second half. I'll give you that much. Erikan's second half is going to be substantially stronger than the first half because in the second half of the year, we do get full access to the tank of sewer deposit and the much higher grade material there. And similarly, Sisingi, the second half is going to be stronger than the first half because we will have a full six months of baguaio, which once again is higher grade than what we're seeing. in the first six months. So the thing is that each of the operations have their ups and downs. We have in the past provided the market with six-monthly guidance, but we were told repeatedly by analysts that you didn't want six-monthly guidance, you wanted 12-monthly guidance. This is what you've been given. So we're responding to requests from the market in giving 12-monthly guidance. Appreciate that. Thank you for the call.

Thank you. Your next question comes from David Radcliffe at Global Mining Research. Please go ahead, David.

Good morning, Jeff and Leanne. My first question is on Etican. Recovery for the year just short of 90%. you've stated that there's probably an impact in 26 given the higher rate of oxide material. Could you maybe give a bit of quantum on that? And then within that, you've obviously been waiting for access to the new PIP for a while. You've mentioned the government's intervened, but every quarter it seems to be just getting pushed out.

Sorry, just to clarify that, we have been mining out of NKSUO now for six months. So what we're looking for is full access to ground for waste dumps and things of that nature, more so than actual the pit as well. I mean, there is some access in the pit, but it's really about getting into full-scale mining conditions. So that's fine. And as far as the government is concerned, the government is fully on board with this project and is fully supportive of it. And there's no issue on that particular front. Where we have had some discussions is with the local community. And, you know, we want to make sure that everybody is happy about what we're doing. We don't want to go ahead with, you know, full resumption of land if there's anybody who's not happy about it. So we're just being a little bit cautious on that front. As to the recovery, the recovery, the recovery, the oxide ore does have a lower recovery. But what we tend to do is that we blend that oxide material with lower-grade fresh stockpiles that have been accumulated over many years. So we will probably see a drop-down in the recovery, not too dramatically, but it will be below where it's been in the last 12 months or so. If you actually look at the planted eddy can, I mean... It really is quite remarkable. I mean, here we are now, 2025. This thing started in 2011. The runtime and recoveries that we've achieved at Etican over the last 10 years have been spectacularly good. It really is a very good plan. And I wish that we had enough ore to go for another 10 or 15 years, but it doesn't look like that will be the case.

Okay. Thanks, Geoff. Then maybe on the exploration spend for next year, obviously a big step up this year, and you had a lot of drilling to do, especially at Nines, Iger and the such like. So do we expect the level to be maintained through this year?

It'll certainly be maintained. I mean, look, with our exploration, approach to exploration, it's a fully gated exercise. So it really depends on, you know, the level of success people are having. And if we're being successful, then we will find money to One thing that we're going to be doing this year that we haven't done a lot in the past is to really embrace Greenfield's exploration. Most of our exploration to date has been relatively close to existing infrastructure and the like for the obvious reason that they're the cheapest answers that we can get. But we also think looking forward and particularly taking into account the fact that there's opportunities around for acquisition, we do think that with large amounts of capital available, we really should start on a greenfields program and see if we can't generate some deposits that way. Now the fact is that it's not going to happen in the short term. We need to make a long-term commitment and that means making a commitment of money and people. That's something that we as a company are about to do.

Okay, thanks. And then just the last one, Eure and Etican, all in sustaining costs up a couple of hundred bucks per ounce. Was that all just related to compensation payments? Were there other things in there?

So a couple of things in there. So just talking specifically about the assets. I mean, Etican had about an $80 per ounce increase due to royalties. And then there is quite a lot of expenditure on tailings expansion in this quarter for EDECAN. And there was actually a big payment in the quarter for land compensation as well in relation to the extension of the mining lease. Yare similarly has got about... And when I say royalties, I'm talking about everything. So that's also the community spend. There's also links to the gold price. It was about $70 per ounce at Yare. And then additionally, there was a big finish-up offer for TSF expansion for Yara in this period. So it was those two contributors, really.

Yeah, so three things, essentially. Realties in the broadest possible sense, the price-related costs, if we will, community compensation and sustaining capital. I mean, Yara is one of the ones that actually is worth commenting on. I mean... I guess when we developed the AORI originally, if we made a mistake, we probably didn't plan for the success that we've actually had. And we have, you know, with the underground coming on and other, you know, shallow deposits, it's pretty clear that we need more space. We do need more space for tailings and also for waste dumps. And so we have had to actually go out to the community to pick up some more land, and then we've also needed to, you know, to actually build the structures, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, in a sense, it's a price that we're paying for the successful expansion of that operation.

Brilliant. Thank you. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, so I'll hand back to Geoff for closing remarks.

Okay, well, thanks very much, Nathan. Yes, we're pretty comfortable with where we're positioned at the present time and we're looking forward to the future. And I think that investors can have a similar level of optimism, particularly when you look at the quality of the team and the efforts that are being put into delivering outcomes on a consistent basis. Anyway, yes, we'll look forward to bringing you more news as and when it's relevant. Thank you very much.