Westgold Resources Limited

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Westgold's Q3 FY26 quarterly webinar. Your first speaker for today's call is Wayne Bramwell, CEO and Managing Director. Over to you, Wayne.

Thank you, and hello, everyone. Welcome to Westgold's March 2026 quarterly results call. Joining me today is Aaron Rankin, our Chief Operating Officer, and Tommy Heng, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll begin with a high-level overview of the quarter in the broader business context. before handing to Aaron and Tommy to cover operations and financials in more detail. Then we'll open up the line for Q&A. Let's start with the highlights. Slides 4 and 5 represent the Q3 numbers. Q3 delivered continued cash generation, solid production delivery and further balance sheet strength. Westgold produced 93,145 ounces of gold during the quarter at an all-in sustaining cost of $2,931 per ounce, excluding the all-purchase agreement. With the all-purchase agreement, all-in sustaining costs rose to $3,338 per ounce. Importantly, the business delivered an underlying cash build of $285 million for full growth capital, exploration spend and one-off items. This translated to a $202 million increase in Treasury, closing the quarter with $156 million in cash, bullion and liquid investments. These outcomes reflect a business that is now starting to operate with scale, resilience and growing financial flexibility, and importantly, do so while remaining unhedged and fully exposed to the gold price. Now let's turn to what's driving that momentum. Slide number six. the waterfall. This slide highlights the momentum that has been building steadily across Westgold's business. Year to date in FY26, we've generated $492 million in treasury growth, reflecting consistent operating performance, strong margins and disciplined capital allocation. What's important here is that this momentum isn't just gold price driven. It's underpinned by deliberate operational improvements, portfolio simplification and a disciplined approach to investment, all of which are strengthening margins and balance sheet capacity. This financial strength gives us flexibility, flexibility to fund organic growth, absorb volatility and continue returning capital to shareholders. Slide number seven, guidance. Turning to guidance, we remain on track to deliver FY26 production of 345,000 to 385,000 ounces. with costs expected to finish towards the top end of cost guidance. We're reflecting both broader inflationary pressures and deliberate operational decisions taken to maximise free cash flow. With 289,000 ounces produced at the end of Q3 and key constraints now largely addressed at our major underground operations, we are well positioned heading into Q4. Slide 8, our three-year outlook. Our three-year outlook continues to provide a clear and executable pathway, growing production to 470,000 ounces by FY28, while structurally reducing our cost base. It is essentially a mine mill optimisation strategy that will see us invest sensibly in our mines and mills to allow us to maximise and better match our milling capacity with higher grade ore sources. replacing lower grade sources to produce more gold at a higher margin. This remains a conservative baseline, is fully funded and is based on our existing assets. It excludes material upside opportunities that we are actively progressing across both regions, such as the Murchison Open Pit Program that we started ahead of schedule this quarter. With that context, I'll now hand over to Aaron to take you through the operational performance in more detail. Thanks Wayne and hello to everyone on the call. Slide 10. As we guided the market, Q3 was a softer quarter following a particularly strong Q2 performance. Grades normalised this quarter, reflecting mining sequence at Starlight, which materially outperformed in Q2. As expected, we processed lower tonnes and grades from the NMG OPA, which contributed to the lower production. At Beta Hunt, Ventilation constraints emerged during the quarter. However, this did not have a material impact on Tier 3 production outcomes due to the availability of stockpiled ore. Regarding costs, the AISC, excluding the OPA, was consistent quarter on quarter. Our cost discipline is increasingly evident against the backdrop of increasing inflationary pressures. From Q3, the OPA is based on the full margin to the gold price. This performance has allowed us to take advantage of the higher gold price environment, which has driven an uplift in realised prices and a corresponding expansion in AISC margins. Slide 11. Turning to mining and processing performance in Q3. I'll step through the key drivers behind tons, grade and throughput. As previously mentioned at Beta Hunt, ventilation constraints emerged during the quarter, following a bearing and drive shaft failure in both primary ventilation fans post-commissioning. This created a temporary ventilation restriction which required mining to be focused in lower grade upper areas of the mine. As a result, waste mines' tons and grades at Beta Hunt were impacted during Q3. Pleasingly, development rates continued to improve quarter on quarter at Beta Hunt, despite the ventilation impacts. Importantly, the ventilation constraints did not materially affect gold production. The stockpiles across the Higginsville hub were utilised to maintain mill feed. Since quarter end, the fans have been repaired and ramped up to a level where ventilation is no longer a constraint. Further engineering work is underway to address what has been identified as an underlying design fault. Total mine tons were lower in Q3, reflecting the beta hunt constraints and the absence of late cow and open pits, which concluded in Q2 and contributed strongly to mine tons in that quarter. This was more than offset by continued strong performance across the Murchison operations, where all mines delivered solid quarter-on-quarter tons growth. In particular Bluebird South Junction continued to ramp up during the quarter achieving an annualised mining rate of close to 800,000 tonnes per annum in Q3 and remains on track to reach the targeted 1 to 1.2 million tonnes per annum run rate by the end of Q4. Grades were also lower quarter on quarter, driven by the normalisation of stalite grades following its outperformance in Q2, lower grades mined at Beta Hunt during the ventilation restriction, and softer grades from Two Boys. All process was lower, primarily due to planned maintenance downtime across all mills during the quarter. This was partially offset by increased processing of soft oxide material at Mekatara. Finally, milk grades were impacted by the combination of lower mine grades and reduced OPA tums and grade during the quarter. Slide 12 shows gold production via HUB. with movements broadly reflecting the grade and mining drivers discussed on the prior slide. At Fortnum, the quarter-on-quarter decline primarily reflects the normalisation of starlight grades following strong outperformance in Q2. The Megathara hub saw lower grade and production, driven mainly by reduced OPA tons and grade, partially offset by improved underground performance at Bluebird South Junction. Production at the Q hub was broadly consistent quarter-on-quarter. We expect a stronger performance in Q4 following the completion of ventilation upgrades at Big Bell, which address vent restrictions that constrain output in Q2 and Q3. Finally, the Higginsville hub delivered slightly lower grades with Beta Hunt Mine Door supplemented by stockpile consumption, which helps support overall production levels during the quarter. With that, I'll hand over to Tommy.

Thanks Aaron, and hello to everyone on the call today. Slide 40. highlights the strength of cash generation from operations during the quarter, the key to a successful and sustainable business. Gold sales were lower in Q3, driven primarily by sales timing. We had 3,000 kilo ounces in inventories at the end of the quarter, valued at $225 million. We've since lowered this balance in Q4. Importantly, realized gold prices remain strong, reflecting our unhedged position and full exposure to the rising gold price environment. On the cost side, Performance remained largely consistent quarter on quarter, underscoring continued cost discipline across the business. Looking forward, we have a clear pathway to structurally lower costs over the three-year outlook. This is underpinned by higher milled grades, reduced long-distance haulage of lower-grade material, and sensible upgrades to milling infrastructure to improve efficiency. Strong margins have translated into meaningful uplifts in net mine cash flow over the past two quarters, supporting a growing treasury balance. During the coil, we have upsized our revolving credit facility to $600 million. This was executed from a position of strength allowing us to secure attractive terms, including the debt being unsecured with no requirements to hedge and available for general corporate purposes. As a result, when combined with our closing treasury position of $856 million, our total available liquidity now stands at $1.45 billion, providing significant balance sheet capacity and strategic flexibility. I'll speak to our cash flow on the following slide. Slide 15. During Q3, we delivered a treasury balance of $202 million, closing the period with cash, bullion and listed investments of $856 million. This outcome reflects strong underlying operational cash flows supported by higher margins and ongoing cost discipline. Underlying cash build was $285 million before $3 million in capital returns through share buybacks, $94 million growth and exploration spend, and $14 million in one-off cash inflows from the sale of Mont Henry Serene. We have built franking credits this quarter with $34 million in cash tax payments comprising a true-up of FY25 tax and insolvency for FY26. During the quarter, we also had growth in our listed investments balance with both our holdings in Cali Metals and Black Cat Syndicate coming out of ASCO. All up, we finished the quarter in a strong position. Our balance sheet is exceptionally healthy, ensuring we are well funded to execute our growth strategy. Slide 16. Before I hand back to Wayne to wrap up, I'd like to touch briefly on shareholder returns. Westfield continues to deliver on its commitment to returning capital to shareholders. We declared a 3 cents per share final dividend for FY25 and upgraded our dividend policy for FY26 to reflect our growing confidence in the business and its cash generating capacity. In addition, we launched an on-market share buyback program, a clear signal of our belief in the underlying value of the company and our disciplined approach to capital management. Since inception, we have progressively acquired $4.3 million of shares on market outside blackout periods. These initiatives are underpinned by strong cash generation with a continued growth in treasury and liquidity, resulting in building a robust balance sheet. As mentioned in the prior slide, during the quarter, we paid $34 million in tax, further strengthening our franking credit position for future fully franked dividends to shareholders. Together, this balance sheet strength and capital discipline positions us well to continue rewarding shareholders while maintaining flexibility to invest in growth and optimization across the portfolio. With that, I'll hand back to Wayne.