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, Craig Jones. Thank you, Craig.

Thanks, Nathan. And welcome to Perseus Mining's quarterly webinar to discuss the June 2026 quarter report. I'm joined here today with our Chief Financial Officer Lee-Anne de Bruin and this quarter marks the close of the 2026 financial year and it's been another period of solid operating performance from our three operating gold mines with strong cash generation along with continued progress on our organic growth projects. Looking at our operating performance, so we produced 109,000 ounces of gold, which was up 1,869 ounces on the March quarter, and the higher production was achieved across two of the three operating gold mines. The weighted average production cost was US$1,340 per ounce, and the all-in-site cost was US$1,941 per ounce. The comparable all-in-sustaining cost for the quarter was US$1,865 an hour. Gold sales from the three operations totaled 114,567 ounces, which was 18,000 ounces more than the quarter three of the financial year. The realized gold price was US$4,086 per ounce, and our average cash margin for the quarter was US$2,145 per ounce, resulting in a notional cash flow of $216 million. and we finished the quarter notably with over a billion dollars in cash and bullion. For looking at our performance across the FY of the 2026 financial year, we produced 405,000 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of US$1,750 per ounce. Gold sales from all three operations totaled 399,000 ounces with an average realised gold price of US$3,693 per ounce, which is US$1,150 per ounce more than the financial year 2025. Our average cash margin for the year was US$1,943 per ounce, which was US$635 per ounce higher than the 2025 financial year, resulting in a record national operating cash flow or $769 million from all operations. $119 million higher than financial year 2025. If we turn now to Yarra, overall gold production from the open pit and the CMA underground was 38,900 ounces of gold at an all-in-site cost of $2,277 per ounce. The Yare Open Pit produced 30,440 ounces and the CMA Underground produced 8,472 ounces. Overall process head grade was lower than planned at 1.13 grams a tonne down from 1.29 grams a tonne last quarter and this is for two reasons. Firstly access to the higher grade Yare Stage 1 The area was limited as a result of high rainfall and secondly we mined the offside section of the Zane 2 deposit in June which returned a grade that was lower than planned. Sustaining capital was higher reflecting timing of works on the new community road which is part of the waste dump extension and the replacement of the tailings pipeline. As I mentioned earlier, the quarterly production for the CMA Underground was 8,472 ounces, which was up 1,600 ounces from Q3, and the overall gold sales for the site totaled 39,000 ounces at $3,920 per ounce, including 7,252 ounces sold from production at the CMA Underground. and Yarrow produced a national cash flow to the quarter of $50 million. On the CM underground, this was landmark quarter for the CMA underground, with advanced 3,604 metres of lateral development across the four declines to date and critically we commenced stoping in April with three stopes completed delivering 33,606 tonnes of ore. Preparations commenced for the installation of the primary ventilation fans and the expansion of the generator farm, with contractor engagement for civil structural and steelworks. Project development progressed well, with US$89.6 million spent by 30 June 2026. So whilst CMA Underground started later than we initially planned due to the permanent delays, the team's been able to recover some of the lost production through good performance throughout the year and I really look forward to CMA Underground project adding considerable value to Perseus as we ramp up to commercial production, positioning CMA Underground as a long-term key value driver for Yarrow. For Etican, we produced 41,940 ounces of gold at an all-in-site cost of $1,959 per ounce. Head grade process was 0.79 grams a tonne, down from 0.84 grams a tonne in the previous quarter as a result of pit sequencing and mining in lower grade areas of the Incasil pit. Quarter on quarter, Etican produced production costs increased by 17% to US$1,155 per ounce. The increase was primarily attributable to higher mining costs driven by increased diesel prices, increased blasting volumes associated with higher volumes of fresh ore, and increased re-handle costs. In addition, grade-controlled drilling at Anchor Sewell was increased during the June quarter, following weather-related delays in the previous quarter. The increased costs were compounded by lower production volumes, which negatively impact The weighted average all-in-site cost increased to $1,959 per ounce from $1,539 per ounce in the previous quarter, attributable to the increased production costs along with increase in royalties and timing and sustaining capital spend associated with new cyanide tailings storage facility construction and fit perimeter dewatering wells. The royalties increased by $216 per ounce as a result of the new scar royalty implemented by the government of Ghana that was effected from the 10th of March 2026. Gold sales from Etican were 43,868 ounces at US$4,347 per ounce. We also commenced the cutbacks and dewatering of the Fetish and Aswaja North pits, which are the future oil sources for Etican once post-completion of the Inkasua pit. and Eddie Cairn produced a notional cash flow of $100 million for the quarter. Sosingi was a standout performer for the quarter. Our Sosingi complex produced 28,161 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of $1,550 per ounce, representing an 11% increase in production and a 3% reduction in all-in site cost compared to the previous quarter. This improved performance was mainly attributable to the higher proportion of high-grade ore from the Antoinette pit at Bagway. Gold sales were 31,453 ounces at a realised gold price of $3,890 per ounce. National cash flow generated from the complex during the quarter was $66 million and taking into account March quarter, the national cash flow of $60 million The thing is made a meaningful contribution to the performance of the business. Looking ahead to our FY27 production and cost guidance, we expect production to be in the range of 420 to 480,000 ounces of gold at an all-in-site cost of $1,835 to $2,070 per ounce. Our cost guidance is based on gold price assumption of $4,000 per ounce and government royalty rates of 8% in Cote d'Ivoire and 11% in Ghana. This guidance reflects the commencement of production of Nianzada with our guidance including 55,000 ounces of gold based on the FIZ as released in April 2025. All operating costs at Nianzada are capitalised until commercial production which is planned for Q4 of FY27. We'll hand over now to Lee-Anne who'll talk through the financial aspects of the quarter.

Thanks Craig. The performance of our sites during this transitional year is not disappointed and allowed us to further strengthen our balance sheet. Our net cash and bullion position, as Craig pointed out, has ended the year at just over a billion dollars and this is after continued investment in our growth projects across the business. The liquidity position of the business sits at 1.4 billion with our undrawn debt facility of US$400 million and this liquidity excludes the US$230 million of liquid investments in relation to our investments in Predictive Discovery and Aurum. Given consideration to this strong position of our balance sheet, we continue to purchase shares under the Share Buy Back program announced in September 25. The Australian $100 million was reached in June 26th and the Board resolved to further increase the share by about $215 million Australian dollars on the 15th of June 2026. At the end of June 26th we had purchased back 24.1 million shares at an average price of $5.24 Australian for a total cash outflow and a return of Australian dollars $126.6 million. In FY26, Perseus has returned $194 million to shareholders via its interim dividend declared in February of $0.05 per share, totaling $67.5 million, and the share buyback, as I just mentioned, of $126.6 million. The shareholder returns have continued to grow since our maiden distribution in September 2022, as you can see from the graphs. and further capital allocation will be under consideration by our board as part of the financial statements released in August 26 in line with our capital management framework and dividend policy. The strong financial vision of Perseus has been built over years of strong sustainable cash flow generation through disciplined execution by our dedicated teams across the globe. As CFO, for nearly six years as part of Perseus, I've had the privilege of sharing these results with everyone on these calls, but it's a team effort of every individual across the Perseus team that contributes to these outcomes. The strong gold price coupled with a focus on cost and capital discipline produced an average Q4 cash margin of $2,145 per ounce and delivered a notional cash flow for Q4 of $216 million US dollars. and as Craig pointed out earlier on, this has delivered a record full year notional cash flow of $769 million for the financial year, another milestone for Perseus. We shift our focus now to the cash flows and capital allocation for the June 26 quarter specifically. The increase in cash and bullion to $1 billion was after operational cash flows of $276 million Continued capital investment in our growth projects in the quarter of about $142 million, with $108 million spent in progressing the Nyanzaga growth project, which Craig will speak to later. A further $26 million in progressing the development of the CNA underground. The start of the Erdogan cutbacks. Ongoing exploration zoning in our assets of $8 million, with exploration now a key focus going forward of our capital allocation program. Continued contributions to our host countries of 77 million paid in corporate and other taxes. Noting that we received the proceeds from the sale of the Sudan project in this quarter of 260 million US dollars. And we continue to return to our shareholders with 77 million Australian dollars executed of the share buyback in the June quarter. I'll pause very quickly on this, and this is just the reconciliation of our all-inside-cost cash-based metric to the all-in-sustaining-cost metric, showing that the all-inside-cost of 1941 reconciled down to 1848 on the all-in-sustaining-cost metric. I'll now hand back to Craig to take everyone through the update on the Neon Zogo Gold Project.

Thanks, Leanne, and some pretty impressive numbers there. Moving on to our organic growth projects and starting with Mienzaga. So the Mienzaga gold project remains on budget and schedule for first gold in January 2027. The overall project progress achieved was 67% at the end of the quarter and total costs incurred and committed to date are $424 million, being 81% of the budget of $523 million. The Nianzaga Gold project achieved a major safety milestone during the quarter, recording more than 8 million work hours and 532 days of lost-time injury-free time, demonstrating Perseus's uncompromising commitment to safe project delivery. The key work fronts achieved significant progress over the period. So we've got all major procurement for the process plant is completed with equipment and material deliveries now at the peak. All site installation contracts have been awarded and mobilised. The tailing storage facility construction is ahead of schedule with the north and south east embankments complete and the south west embankment is more than 60% complete and the basin is being prepared for liner installation. The resettlement action plan was successfully completed. with the handover of the final community infrastructure including two schools, a dispensary, a granary and the village office and the church. The pre-strip of the mining resource continued at Tusker Hill with 1.8 million BCMs moved to date. So Nianzaga continues to build momentum as we move into the final phase of construction and I'll look forward to providing more updates on its construction as it nears completion. Just a couple of photos there. Moving on to sustainability, Perseus maintained a stable sustainability performance throughout the June quarter and finished FY26 LTI-free. The total recordable injury frequency rate was 0.87 with three medical treatment injuries during the quarter and all sites exceeded their leading safety indicator targets helping to stabilise that performance. Our contribution to our local economies was $388 million, including $226 million to local suppliers, $10.6 million in local wages, and $126 million in taxes and royalties, and half a million in social investment. The local and national employment remained at 94%, and our female participation increased slightly to 12.8%. In terms of the environment, our rehabilitation at the Fimby Assay progressed well. Our emissions intensity reduced to 0.66 tonnes of CO2, equivalent per ounce produced, and lower water withdrawals at Eddy Can as the Cingy reduced our overall group water intensity. So overall we achieved a disciplined and consistent sustainability performance to close out FY26. So in closing, Perseus delivered another strong quarter of operational performance and strong financial returns and meaningful progress on our strategic growth projects. We strengthened our balance sheet. With a strengthened balance sheet, high margin operations and a clear pathway to growth through Nianzaga and CMA Underground, Perseus is exceptionally well positioned heading into FY27. So thank you for joining us today and I'll now Thanks Craig.

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 Reg Spencer at Canaccord. Please go ahead Reg.

Morning Craig and Lee-Anne, just a quick question on guidance and congrats on a very solid quarter, not much to really dive into but I know that you've provided some detail around what you expect to spend in Zaga but just a group CapEx guidance for FY27, can we expect something with your four year results or can you give us some help on that front please?

We haven't provided any specific CAPEX guidance other than our capital projects, both the CMA underground and the means-owner projects is really the key capital projects for us and obviously our sustaining capital is included in our site cost guidance.

Okay, roger that. Thanks Craig, appreciate it.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Richard Knight at Baron Joey. Please go ahead Richard.

Hi, Greg and Lee-Anne. Thanks for the call. Just a quick one on Euray. You've had a couple of tough quarters there. I just wanted to get a feeling as to how the CMA underground is ramping up. What sort of proportion of the June quarter production was underground versus open pit? And in terms of the guidance for next year, what does that look like in terms of underground, open pit? and I suppose your level of confidence with how CMA is progressing.

Yeah, thanks Richard. I think in terms of CMA it's been a very, very good ramp up for that project and if you recall at the start of the year the approvals to start that project were delayed by about three months so that set us back at the start of the year in terms of the CMA underground. We've been able to ramped that mine up quicker than what we initially had in our budget. So we've actually recovered some of that lost time throughout the course of the year. So that's been a pretty solid performance from the CMA Underground. And it's the result of a couple of things. I think that the team has started doing an exceptional job of building the first and operating the first underground mine in Cote d'Ivoire and the Iborians are really taking to that well. but it's also a very good ground condition so it's meant for good development and good staking performance. So we're pretty confident in the ongoing ramp up. Obviously we continue to ramp that up through the course of this financial year with a bigger second half than first half from the CMA underground and so we're feeling pretty confident with this performance.

Yeah, and can I just push you a little bit in terms of how much of the FY27 guidance you think the CMA Underground is going to contribute? Just trying to get a feel for how our model ramp up and grades.

Yeah, we haven't provided any specific guidance on the proportion of Underground versus Open Pit, other than to say that we expect to be...

in commercial production sort of later this year, this calendar year, but it's... Yeah, I think it's just the one thing that ultimately once the mine is running, we've mentioned this, is that once it's running commercial production, you get a 70% feed from the open pit and 30% feed from the underground through the mill, and that gives you sort of a 50-50 outcome in terms of ounces output. and a number of others.

Yeah, okay. And just with the open pits at URA, I mean, in terms of the grade reconciliation issues and pit access, I mean, are you sort of confident in the mine plan for FY27?

Yes, we are. So if you take the last quarter, it was actually quite a wet season across Africa, both in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. So we did have some issues that kept us out of Stage 1 a little bit, So that was kind of part of the grade issue for the last quarter. And then the other thing, we brought in some Zane 2 oxide material, which was only being mined during June, and that didn't perform the way we expected it to. So those are the two sort of mining challenges that we faced during the quarter, both short-term issues.

Okay, great. Thanks for this. Thank you. Your next question comes from Brain Coast Coaching at J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, guys. Good seeing you in Zaga on track for Jan 27. I guess I was hoping you could step the, I guess, critical path between now and then and just confirm if the mining contractor has been awarded. I might have missed that one in the release.

Yeah, I think if you talk to critical path, it's really through the mills. All the infrastructure is progressing well. Pretty much they had a schedule and it's really through getting the mills up and running and the commission, of course, into operation. So that's the key for the ongoing project. In terms of mining, we've moved, as I said before, 1.8 million BCMs project to date and so well on track for our ore delivery. We're using local contractors to do that work. In terms of the longer term mining, Mining Contract. We're still working through that and we've got plenty of time to get that contract awarded.

My understanding was that contract needs to be awarded by a court in September or October of this year. Is that still the timeline or could we potentially push that out a little bit?

No, we've got plenty of time there. We can push that out.

That's good to hear. And then I guess the final question for me was obviously balance sheets in a very strong position. I just really want to unpack the capital management outlook a little bit more and how the boards potentially think about sizing any additional capital management and whether there's a preference for like a one-off special or a sustained period of elevated returns over the next couple of years.

Yeah, we'll talk about that more in August. So we've got our August end of year board meeting where we'll discuss all of those sorts of elements of capital returns and be able to talk to you more about that post that meeting.

Not a problem. Appreciate it, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Regan Burrows at Macquarie. Please go ahead Regan.

Thanks Craig and Lee-Anne for taking my questions. A lot of them have been answered already but it seems to be just around the oil and sustaining cost guidance. I mean how sensitive is that to I guess the current fuel issues that we're seeing across all miners?

Yeah look it's not highly sensitive. It's about a 10% sort of proportion is the fuel cost so

So a lot of the inflation impact then is really just that Ghana sort of royalty regime and additional sort of costs coming through with that and I guess sustaining capital up.

Is that sort of how we think about it? Yeah, for next year. Correct. Okay, great. And you sort of touched on the weather impacts before, just confirming if there's no sort of hangover into Q1 FY27 in terms of the weather impacts across, I think it was Yarra and Etikin?

No, that ends the same year as well. I mean, all the sites got to a lot of rain this year, but no, there's no ongoing impacts from that. Great. That's all I had. Thank you very much. No problem.

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

Morning all. Thanks Craig and Lee-Anne for this call. Just a quick one, I guess, on the changing royalty landscapes. You know, have there been further discussions that you can sort of let us know about what's sort of going on in Ghana, sort of the risk of sort of what you're seeing in Tanzania as you ramp up Nyan Zaga sort of later this financial year just you know just broadly I guess the jurisdictional risk that you're seeing across the portfolio at the moment? Yeah I think well if you take Tanzania I think that there's really no conversations about royalties and so forth at this point in time so that's pretty stable I think Ghana's really gone through its changing sort of approach to Thank you very much. you know we'll update you if there's any change to that.

Thanks Craig, cheers.

Alright there are no further questions at this time so I'll now hand back to Craig for closing remarks.

Thanks Nathan, and I suppose as I said before, we've had a good quarter and a good year. We're looking forward to providing further updates throughout the course of the next financial year, particularly around Neon Zaga as it progresses closer to production. But none of this happens without the hard work and dedication of the Perseus team, and I really do thank them for the exceptional results that they're producing. And thank you all for attending.