Q4 2023 Karora Resources Inc Earnings Call
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Joelle: Good morning, my name is Joelle and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Karora Resources 4th Quarter 2023 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by the two.
Joelle: Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Hewitt, Chairman and CEO of Karora Resources. Please go ahead.
Paul Hewitt: Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to Corora Resources' fourth quarter 2023 conference call.
Paul Hewitt: Please note we will be referencing a slide deck which is available on the home page of our website as well as through the webcast of this call.
Paul Hewitt: Slides 3 and 4, the cautionary notes.
Paul Hewitt: Before I begin the presentation, I would like to remind you to please review our cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information.
Paul Hewitt: and non-IFRS measures.
Paul Hewitt: These statements can be found in our fourth quarter NDNA news release and in our presentation slides.
Paul Hewitt: over to slide five.
Paul Hewitt: Tonight, we are joining you from our beta hunt mine in Western Australia.
Paul Hewitt: In the room with me is Lee Junk, our Managing Director for Australia. Lee will take us through the operational highlights for the year. Also with me this evening is Oliver Turner, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, who you will hear from later in the call.
Paul Hewitt: But first, I will cover some recent achievements and then review our financial results.
Paul Hewitt: 2023 was another record year for Corora, and I'm proud of what we accomplished.
Paul Hewitt: Once again, we broke records for Gold Produced.
Paul Hewitt: tonnes milled, ounces sold, revenue and operating cash flow.
Paul Hewitt: We exceeded our 2023 production guidance of 145 to 160,000 ounces, and we're within the guided range of our full-year all-in-sustaining cost guidance of $1,100 to $1,250 U.S. per ounce sold.
Paul Hewitt: Our flagship Betahunt mine delivered consistent production and cost performance in Q4, producing over 35,000 ounces at a cash cost of $1,128 per ounce.
Paul Hewitt: As the flagship of our company, we are thrilled to see such consistent and strong performance as we continue investing in our core assets.
Paul Hewitt: BetaHunt also delivered more outstanding drill results, particularly from the Fletcher Zone.
Paul Hewitt: where we are seeing many, many encouraging results for what we believe has the potential to be a major new production area for the very near future.
Paul Hewitt: and beyond.
Paul Hewitt: I am thrilled to announce that we have begun driving an Exploration Drift over to Fletcher
Paul Hewitt: and expect to take the first cuts into the ore zone as early as the second half of 2024.
Paul Hewitt: We are eager to understand what Fletcher can deliver into our 2024 MindPlan and beyond.
Paul Hewitt: At Aidensville, we had a planned lower tonnage and grade corridor as we prepared the Pioneer open pit for the next phase of production.
Paul Hewitt: which we will benefit from in the second quarter of 2024.
Paul Hewitt: On the cost front, Q4 was higher cost quarter.
Paul Hewitt: yet we still delivered all in sustaining costs in line with our guidance.
Paul Hewitt: At Higginsville, specifically, the combination of a number of temporary factors at our HGO mill and reduced nickel sales contributed to an increase of over US$100 per ounce to our all-in sustaining costs.
Paul Hewitt: in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Paul Hewitt: The factors, including the crusher bridge failure that occurred in Q3 at the Higginsville Mill, resulted in the use of higher cost mobile contract crushing at Higginsville.
Paul Hewitt: which was further compounded by the fact that nickel by-product credits were low while we renegotiated improved nickel sales terms.
Paul Hewitt: I'm very happy to say that the new and improved nickel contract is now in place.
Paul Hewitt: In Q1 of 2024, we will benefit from the sale of approximately 10,000 tons of nickel at a very high grade above 2%.
Paul Hewitt: Lastly, slightly lower Q4 gold sales compared to gold produced, coupled to the factors that I just mentioned, resulted in a higher cost at Higginsville.
Paul Hewitt: I would like to emphasize that one of the benefits we have at Karora is the diversification provided by multiple mines feeding multiple mills.
Paul Hewitt: allowing us to consistently deliver quarter after quarter.
Paul Hewitt: During the third quarter of 2023, Higginsville produced tremendous results as we mined the high-grade underground.
Paul Hewitt: During the fourth quarter, as we entered a planned lower-tonnage end-grade quarter at Higginsville, Beta Hunt more than picked up the slack.
Paul Hewitt: This is one of the advantages of being a multi-mine producer having multiple mills.
Paul Hewitt: Lee will provide more details on the operation, but I would like to point out that once again, our team showed resourcefulness and resilience in dealing with difficult circumstances as we have in the past when we faced obstacles.
Paul Hewitt: The fact that we met full year production and cost guidance despite the Crusher bridge failure to close out the year demonstrates the robustness of our growing operation and gives me full confidence that we are on track for yet another record year in 2024.
Paul Hewitt: Turning over to slide six, financial highlights.
Paul Hewitt: This morning, we issued a news release with our 2023 financial results.
Paul Hewitt: Our audited financial statements and NDNA for the period ended December 31st, 2023 have been filed and are available on our website under Karora's profile on CDAR Plus.
Paul Hewitt: Headline financial results for 2023 included record revenue of $416 million.
Paul Hewitt: Up 31% compared to our prior 2022 record of $317 million, a whopping $100 million more.
Paul Hewitt: The strong 2023 revenue was driven by sales of 157,034 ounces at an average realized gold price of $1,926 USD per ounce.
Paul Hewitt: I must admit that these gold prices are exciting and certainly something I look forward to delivering into during 2024 and beyond.
Paul Hewitt: When we consider gold prices today in Australia, we've seen numbers in excess. In fact, we sold gold last week or the week before at over $3,300 an ounce. Very exciting times to be mining in Australia.
Paul Hewitt: 2023 adjusted earnings were $36 million or $0.21 per share, 71% improvement from the prior year.
Paul Hewitt: Adjusted EBITDA for 2023 was $129,000,000 or $0.74 per share and cash flow provided by operating activities was $133,000,000 or $0.75 per share up $44,000,000 or $0.25 per share from the prior year.
Paul Hewitt: Our cash balance at the end of Q3 was a very strong healthy $83M, up $14M from 2022 after a big year of investment into our flagship assets.
Paul Hewitt: and our undrawn $40 million dollar revolving credit, we maintain an extremely strong and flexible financial position as we continue to ramp up production in the current strong gold price environment.
Paul Hewitt: With that, I'll now turn the call over to Li Zheng to take you through our operating highlights.
Paul Hewitt: Bye-bye.
Li Zheng: Thanks very much, Paul. Good morning, everyone.
Li Zheng: Our operating team continued to deliver excellent performance while maintaining a safe work environment.
Li Zheng: That's exactly what we're after. We want to make sure that the safety-focussed approach is built into our cororiculture.
Li Zheng: Now referring to slide 8, on a consolidated basis for the full year 2023 we produced a record 160,492 ounces from a record of just over 2 million tonnes milled in an average grade of 2.59 grams per tonne.
Li Zheng: Consolidated mill recoveries remain strong at 95%. Now mills are operating consistently which is good to see.
Li Zheng: Production for Q4 2023 remained high at 40,295 ounces.
Li Zheng: As the record production and tonnes processed in 2023 demonstrates.
Li Zheng: The addition of the Lakewood mill provides us not only with the benefit of increasing processing capacity, but it also significantly de-risks our growth plan and gives us more processing flexibility.
Li Zheng: consolidated cash operating costs for Q4.
Li Zheng: were US$1,272 per ounce sold and AISC was US$1,435 per ounce.
Li Zheng: Both significant year-over-year increases driven by the temporary factors mentioned earlier before.
Li Zheng: The two largest factors accounted for over 100 U.S.
Li Zheng: dollars per ounce of the increase from the use of the temporary crushing at Higginsville which was $51 an ounce and the lower nickel sales.
Li Zheng: The Higgins Hill crusher bridge failure occurred during Q3 and while we were able to quickly mobilise a temporary contract crushing solution, it did come at a cost.
Li Zheng: The good news is that it's now been fully repaired.
Li Zheng: is once again back in operation which will help reduce and normalise our production costs going forward.
Li Zheng: Similarly, in Q4 there was an abnormally low Nickel by-product credit of only $6.00 US an ounce, lower by $50.00 an ounce compared to the same period in 2022.
Li Zheng: None of the nickel we mined during Q4 was sold due to the fact we were completing terms on a new nickel sales agreement.
Li Zheng: The terms of the agreement are confidential but the new arrangement is an improvement on the previous one and we look forward to delivering into it going forward.
Li Zheng: Although nickel is not really flavour amongst these days, we do have huge flexibility at Beta Hunt to scale production quickly in response to rising nickel prices.
Li Zheng: In fact, I can't think of another operation like Beta Hunt where the infrastructure is carried by our gold mining and we maintain the ability to throttle nickel mining up and down like we do.
Li Zheng: It's a huge advantage and something that no other nickel mine I can think of possesses. We have a high-grade nickel resource to work with which is a real asset for our shareholders.
Li Zheng: Looking forward, we're confident in achieving our full year 2024 cost guidance range.
Li Zheng: 1250 US to 1375 an ounce and production range of 170,000 to 185,000 ounces.
Li Zheng: We expect cost performance to improve as we continue to ramp up production as the year progresses.
Speaker Change: Turning over to slide nine now. Before I get to the numbers I'll give a brief update on the progression of the ongoing expansion.
Speaker Change: of the B to HUN operation.
Speaker Change: The three new ventilation raises installed in 2023 are in operation, currently utilising a temporary primary fan arrangement with the installation and commissioning of the permanent fans on track for installation later in the year.
Speaker Change: The ventilation upgrades are a critical component.
Speaker Change: It allows us to operate the larger mining fleet required to continue the ramp up towards our target of 2 million tonnes per annum by the end of the year.
Speaker Change: During 2023, we added five trucks and three loaders to the underground fleet, with further fleet additions planned for 2024.
Speaker Change: Turning to the numbers for 2023 at Beta Hunt, we mined 1.3 million tonnes, which is a 22% increase compared to the prior year, demonstrating the progress we've made in ramping up production.
Speaker Change: Four-year gold production from Beta Hunt in 2023 totaled 108,698 oz, a 37% increase from production of 79,125 oz in 2022.
Speaker Change: which resulted from 21% higher.
Speaker Change: mil throughput and 13% higher grade for the full year.
Speaker Change: Cash operating cost per ounce sold averaged US $1,088.
Speaker Change: which was in line with the US$1,045 in 2022.
Speaker Change: Overall a good performance from BetaHunt.
Speaker Change: During Q4, as planned, we mined 360,300 tonnes at an average grade of 3.05 grams per tonne, containing 35,286 ounces of gold.
Speaker Change: This represented a 43% improvement on the fourth quarter of 2020 through ore tonnes mined and a slight improvement on the prior quarter ore tonnes reflecting progress in the ongoing production ramp up at Beta Hunt.
Speaker Change: Switching to processing, 362,500 tonnes of Betahunt material was milled at an average grade of 3.13 grams per tonne for a production of 34,486 ounces of gold in Q4.
Speaker Change: The contained goal was 52% higher than Q4 in 2022 and 54% higher than the prior quarter.
Speaker Change: reflecting the mining of a planned high-grade section of Beta Hunt during the quarter as disclosed during our Q3 reporting.
Speaker Change: The majority of the mined tonnes during the fourth quarter came from the central and southern sections of Western Flanks and the scheduled higher grade ore zones from A Zone during December.
Speaker Change: Turning to nickel, for 2023, 23,288 tonnes of nickel ore were mined at an estimated grade of 2.2% nickel.
Speaker Change: which compared to 24,604 tonnes mined at an estimated grade of 1.7% nickel a year earlier.
Speaker Change: For Q4, 5,253 tonnes of ore at a grade of 2.3% were mined compared to 5,755 tonnes of nickel ore mined at a grade of 2% for the same period in 2022.
Speaker Change: and 5,193 tonnes of nickel ore at an estimated grade of 1.7 for the previous quarter.
Speaker Change: Now, looking at slide 10, for 2023 Higginsville Mines contributed 51,794 ounces of gold produced from 725,800 tonnes milled and an average grade of 2.36 grams per tonne.
Speaker Change: Higginsville mine material was 437,100 tonnes at an average grade of 3.26 grams per tonne.
Speaker Change: Cash operating cost per ounce sold averaged US$1,209 compared to US$1,179 in 2022, with a slightly higher cash cost largely due to the crusher bridge failure and associated higher temporary contract crushing costs incurred in the second half of the year.
Speaker Change: During Q4, 90,400 tonnes and an average grade of 1.76 grams per tonne containing 5129 ounces was mined from the Pioneer Open Pit in Two Boys Underground Mine.
Speaker Change: Production from Higginsville mines totaled 5,809 recovered ounces based on milling 122,800 tonnes at an average rate of 1.61 grams per tonne.
Speaker Change: Cash operating costs per ounce sold at Higginsville averaged US $2,112 in the fourth quarter of 2023 versus $1,098 for 2022.
Speaker Change: with the slight increase reflecting impact of the higher cost per tonne and lower processing grade.
Speaker Change: Had we operated in a normal crushing environment, Higginsville would have delivered a consistent result.
Speaker Change: Cash operating costs around sold in the fourth quarter of 2023 increased from $832 US the previous quarter reflecting lower grade processed.
Speaker Change: 1.61g per tonne compared to 3.13g per tonne in the previous quarter, with the previous quarter ounces coming primarily from the higher grade Aquarius underground mine.
Speaker Change: Turning to slide 11, one of the many areas of feeder hunt I'm excited about from an exploration and development point of view is the Fletcher shear zone.
Speaker Change: Building on a series of very strong draw results from Fletcher over the course of 2023, including some very wide intercepts such as 4.8g per tonne over 32m and 3.6g per tonne over 34.5m.
Speaker Change: Last month we announced some further strong results from our Stage 2 drill program at the southern end of Fletcher, including 3.8 grams per tonne over 33 metres, 5 grams per tonne over 9 metres and 15.2 grams per tonne over 3.3 metres.
Speaker Change: extremely strong results.
Speaker Change: recorded to date at Fletcher supported our decision to adjust our beta hunt mine plan earlier this year.
Speaker Change: And we've now commenced an exploration dive towards Fletcher South.
Speaker Change: We expect to take our first exploration cuts in the second half of 2024 and look forward to adding new working places in this area as we ramp up towards our 2 million tonne run rate at Beta Hunt.
Speaker Change: As a reminder, Fletcher's a parallel shear zone to Western Flanks, Beta Hunt's largest and most prolific gold zone to date.
Speaker Change: Gletscher is positioned about 250 metres to the west and parallel to western flanks in the Hunt Block and extends to the Ulfra Island Fault.
Speaker Change: Fletcher remains open a long strike with the potential to extend up to two kilometres and is open at depth.
Speaker Change: Overall, Fletcher is a really exciting opportunity for the ongoing growth of beta hunt.
Speaker Change: We also reported some very promising new nickel results from infill and extensional drilling at the 50C area south of the Gamma Fault.
Speaker Change: Initial results from the 50c drill program included some of the highest grade nickel insert sections recorded to date.
Speaker Change: 12% over 2.9m, 8.2% over 5.1m and 8.8% over 3.3m.
Speaker Change: The results highlight the potential to grow the current gamma nickel mineral resource of 6000 tonnes in the M&I category.
Speaker Change: and over 8,000 tonnes in the inferred category.
Speaker Change: The gamma and nickel resource is primarily comprised of the 50C and the 10C zones.
Speaker Change: It's very encouraging to note Gamma remains open to the south for a potential strike length of about three kilometres to the southern tenement boundary.
Speaker Change: Additionally, 400 metres further along the stripe is a historic drill hole that returned 11.4% nickel over 9.5 metres.
Speaker Change: By all indications, Gamma is poised for substantial resource growth for the coming years in the new mining area, suitable for mechanised large-scale mining compared to our previous practices of air-leak mining in remnant areas.
Speaker Change: Finally, it's important to recall that in November we announced significant increases to our gold measured and indicated mineral resources at Beta Hunt.
Speaker Change: a year-on-year increase of 249,000 ounces or 18% net of mining depletion.
Speaker Change: The total M&I mineral resource now stands at 18.1 million tonnes at 2.7 grams per tonne for 1.6 million ounces with a further 1.1 million ounces in the inferred category.
Speaker Change: Beta Hunt's Western Flank Zone highlighted the update with a 12% improvement in grade to 2.9 grams per tonne and a net addition of 143,000 ounces in M&I resources.
Speaker Change: Nickel M&I resources also showed improved grade along with the addition of 1,200 tonnes of contained nickel.
Speaker Change: All in all, an outstanding year-on-year improvement in line with the long-established resource growth trajectory at Beta Hunt.
Speaker Change: With that, I'll turn the call over to Oliver Turner.
Oliver Turner: Thanks, Lee, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to provide an update on two important achievements so far this year.
Oliver Turner: First, on Cali Metals.
Oliver Turner: The Kali Metal spin-off transaction was completed and began trading on the ASX on January 8, following a very successful over-subscribed IPO that raised AU$15M. Quora now owns 22% of Kali, which represents a current value to Quora shareholders of approximately AU$13M.
Oliver Turner: The Cali transaction is a great start to our strategy to unlock the lithium value creation potential across our extensive Higginsville land package.
Oliver Turner: Our ownership stake in Cali provides Corora shareholders exposure to lithium upside through participation in a well-capitalized exploration company in a Tier 1 jurisdiction. Cali Metals will fund its own exploration and development activities, allowing Corora to keep its management and capital allocation decisions focused on growing our gold and nickel production.
Oliver Turner: In addition to the Higginsville lithium rights vented in by CORA, Kalamazoo Resources vented in its Australian lithium projects located in the Pilbara area of Western Australia and the Lachlan Fold Belt area of New South Wales.
Oliver Turner: CaliMetal has an impressive 3,854 square kilometers of highly prospective lithium and critical mineral sediments, much of which is adjacent to existing large lithium mines and deposits.
Oliver Turner: Cali Metals is led by an experienced team with a proven track record of success and we're encouraged to watch this success unfold.
Oliver Turner: Switching to energy, on January 16th, CORE announced the signing of a long-term power purchase agreement for HGO processing operations.
Oliver Turner: The agreement involves connection to grid power, with a new spur being constructed by the power provider during 2024. The PPA is expected to provide two main benefits to Corora once it's implemented early in 2025.
Oliver Turner: One second here. Early in 2025.
Oliver Turner: Firstly, the PPA is expected to result in a significant reduction of 11 to 13 percent in scope one and two carbon emissions by 2030 by replacing our current onsite seven megawatt diesel power generators with more efficient grid power.
Oliver Turner: This is a tremendous first step towards our state of objective of reducing our GHG emissions by 20% by 2030 compared to a business-as-usual baseline. More details on these targets can be found in our latest ESG report filed earlier this year.
Oliver Turner: Secondly, the grid power tie-in is expected to significantly reduce power costs at HGO by approximately 30 percent, or almost half a million dollars per month, or six million dollars per year.
Oliver Turner: Overall, these two arrangements are good news for shareholders as they measurably add value and reduce costs while requiring little capital or ongoing quora management time and energy.
Oliver Turner: With that, I'll turn the call back over to Paul Hewitt.
Paul Hewitt: Thanks, Oliver. Before I turn it over to the operator for questions, I just want to take a moment and thank our entire team in Australia who worked extremely hard.
Paul Hewitt: Today, we had the privilege of going underground, myself, Lee, and our Chief Operating Officer, Peter, with our GMs.
Paul Hewitt: It was very encouraging to see everybody and how excited they are about our future, about the infrastructure we've spent. We've spent, in the last four years, a little over $400M to $410M of capital into this operation to watch it grow and to finally see the equipment, the ventilation, all the tunnels in place and see ourselves taking advantage of that new infrastructure that was all funded from
Paul Hewitt: It's very exciting on this note. Our future is quite excited. We've got the Fletcher, as Lee pointed out, I pointed out, we're driving towards it. It just opens up such a new area for us.
Paul Hewitt: You can't not be excited about the nickel that we have in front of us. Despite some of the lower nickel prices, even at these levels, we can do really well. We're no longer mining with a teaspoon with slushers and jack legs. What we have in front of us is very different than what we've been mining over the last four or five years. Pretty exciting times for us and our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for questions.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request and your questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two.
Speaker Change: If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys.
Speaker Change: One moment, please, for your first question.
Speaker Change: Your first question comes from Nicholas Dionne with Cormark. Please go ahead.
Nicholas Dionne: Hi guys, congrats on your results last year and great to see the progress you're making at Beta Hunt.
Nicholas Dionne: I just have a few questions. Firstly, you mentioned more mining equipment was added in 2023 at Beta Hunt in terms of jumbos, haul trucks, etc. What additional equipment do you need to add in 2024 to get to that 2 million ton per annum run rate?
Nicholas Dionne: G'day, Nicholas, Lee here. We added a lot last year as we've talked about trucks, boggers, gumbos. This year we'll add two new 2900 boggers and one new truck and I think we're doing about three new rebuilds so...
Lee Junk: The equipment is being upgraded continually and it's the pride of the goldfields it's it's all pretty new so we're really happy with it.
Nicholas Dionne: Okay, very good. And then on your 2024 guidance, I'm wondering if you can give us an indication on how that will look over the course of the year in terms of whether we should expect higher production in the second half, for example?
Speaker Change: Yeah, Nick, I was slightly weighted to the second half as we're developing Pioneer, two boys, they're all coming on, and Beta Hunt's ramping up throughout the year, so we're slightly second half weighted.
Speaker Change: Okay. And should we expect the inverse for cost? Maybe Q1 will be the highest and coming down from there?
Speaker Change: Yeah, correct.
Speaker Change: Okay.
Speaker Change: On the nickel, considering the scheduled shutdown of the BHP concentrator nearby and your new sales agreement, can you give us an update on your plans in terms of nickel mining, looking forward to the near term and your plans there?
Speaker Change: Yes, sure. We are putting a plan together at the moment. It should be done by mid-year. As you say, the nickel concentrator in the Tembel will probably go into care of maintenance just after the mid-year.
Speaker Change: We do have the option to truck to Leinster, which Cora has done several years previously, so we'll build our plan around that and when the concentrator comes back online, we'll do that.
Speaker Change: We will just keep delivering to that. So we've got the option to go to Leinster, which we'll put in our plan. We've already transitioned from Airleg to Jumbo. We're more productive and safer and we are ready to go when the market improves.
Speaker Change: Yeah, and I'm pretty keen to get into the 50C with those good results that we just announced.
Speaker Change: Nick, it's Paul here. I just want to add one thing. One of the things when I was living here in Australia
Paul Hewitt: As a company, we were looking for succession planning and Lee's name came up all the time. Most people know…
Paul Hewitt: Lee's background. Lee is very well known in WA for his experiences in the nickel industry. He was instrumental in renegotiating that contract for us, which is a tremendous benefit to us. Even if we have to go back up the linser, like we were doing in the first couple of years, the improved rates will cover those costs. We're very close to it anyhow. That new contract is a feather in Lee's cap. The transition from Jack Lake to Jumbo needs to be done by people who know what they're doing.
Paul Hewitt: Mining nickel flatline like that is not something that's simple anywhere in the world, and Lee and his team and our team here are experts, so I'm quite excited.
Paul Hewitt: to see the progress. When we were underground today, we could see it actually in the face where we're flat resting and some beautiful nickel right in front of us. Pretty exciting to see us doing it that way instead of with jack legs. A little more color on to your nickel question, Nick.
Nick: Great, thanks for that. Yeah, it's good to hear. Yeah, that's it for me. I'll let others ask their questions. Thanks.
Speaker Change: Nick, I'm just going to add one thing. I know you talked about production and cost.
Speaker Change: The only thing I will add is that I don't think any of us would have thought gold would be trading at $3,300 an ounce Australian either. That's a tremendous benefit mining here in Australia. I know I've said it before, but I think you'll hear me say it a hundred times $3,300 an ounce Australian for gold. I don't think a whole lot of us had a crystal ball envisioning that. I think that's something people need to update their models and make
Speaker Change: Your next question comes from John
John: Hey guys, thanks for taking my question here. Just a couple from me, obviously Fletcher is pretty exciting with the exploration drive going, just wondering if you can outline some milestones and catalysts for 2024 in terms of exploration results, a maiden resource and then when we could see production from that zone.
Speaker Change: Yeah, g'day John. We'll, yeah, like we said we're driving out now. We run to go and saw that today. That's going really well. It's been a huge focus for us and we've we've been hitting our targets there. So we're driving out there now. We should hit that just after mid-year in Q3. We should put, we should be completing our resource, inferred resource.
John: some towards the end of the first half.
John: We're drilling now, we're continuing drilling, we're seeing results coming up.
John: Yeah, as we as we speak so we're yeah and drilling's ongoing now, which is pretty exciting
John: As you'd imagine, as we're driving out there getting closer, our drilling will become more efficient as we're drilling from closer so we should have more results as we get closer.
John: I guess the other notable thing from the quarter was Q4 costs were a bit elevated and I'm sure some of that was related to the Crusher issue at Higginsville and then nickel prices also, but are there any factors there that are stickier and that we could see kind of throughout 2024 and beyond?
Speaker Change: No, not really. We're also doing a pre-strip on our Pioneer open pit so that's a one-off. Once we complete that we'll be into the ore zone there. Those three things are about it.
Speaker Change: Okay, good to hear. Also last, in terms of Q1 and how that's been going so far, I heard there's been a little bit more rain in the region than usual. Just wondering if you guys have experienced that and if that's impacting operations so far.
Speaker Change: Yeah, we have seen some.
Speaker Change: But yeah, so is everyone else in the gold field, so we're pushing on and aiming to hit our targets or come close and we're still aiming to hit our targets.
Speaker Change: guidance for the year so it's only early days in the whole year so if you're going to have some rain it's good to have it early in the year.
Speaker Change: Agreed and hopefully that dissipates in time for for the site tour so yeah thanks for taking my questions and looking forward to seeing everyone.
Speaker Change: Thanks, John. See you.
Speaker Change: Bye.
Speaker Change: Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star followed by the 1. Your next question comes from Daniel Kozelczyk with Red Cloud Securities. Please go ahead.
Daniel Kozelczyk: Hey, good morning, congrats on the results here and thanks for taking my questions. So first question surrounds the new ventilation system that is now fully functional with a temporary fan system. Are there any further performance gains to be expected when the permanent fans are installed later this year?
Speaker Change: Yeah, towards Q3 we get the permanent fans in the...
Speaker Change: our other infrastructure will go from about 400 up to about 700 cubic meters which is a huge amount of air so that does help everything.
Speaker Change: also allows us to, you know, comply with the upgraded work health and safety regs. So that'll be great Daniel.
Daniel Kozelczyk: Thank you. My second question surrounds the PPA for Higginsville you announced in January, which sounds like
Speaker Change: I guess a win-win in terms of both carbon footprint and cost factors, but can you provide some more detail on what's involved in the implementation, and what are the capital requirements like, and are there any further similar power optimizations you were looking for in your other optimizations – sorry, operations?
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks, Daniel. It's Oliver. I'll take that one. So, yeah, we're quite excited to get that underway. As we mentioned, the power provider that we send the PA with is responsible for construction of the spur or the connection to the mains power line.
Oliver Turner: I think the total capital sum for that is somewhere in the order of 10 to 12 million Australian, but Corora is not responsible for that. That gets paid back through the rate that we pay on the power over the course of the agreement, so no upfront capital costs to Corora. We expect to connect that and switch on at the beginning of 2025. Of course, at that point, we can ramp down our diesel power generation with the on-site generators that we have, but we'll always have them as a redundancy, which is a great thing to have as well. Good benefits on the carbon emission side. It's about halfway through our goal of reducing by 20% by 2030, so good visibility on our reductions there, which is really, really good. And then the last part of your question in terms of looking at similar power optimization at the other operations, which would, of course, be...
Oliver Turner: data hunt and SPAR goes to the court, we're always evaluating things, there's.
Oliver Turner: other partners in the region that are also looking at hybrid solutions between natural gas and renewable energy and some potential opportunities for us to piggyback on some of their work as well. We'll always be evaluating those solutions, first and foremost from a cost reduction standpoint, and then anything we can do on the GHG emission reduction side, we'll look at as well. Certainly more to come there. I think in the entire gold fields, everybody is starting to switch over. Certainly solar options are pretty interesting there as well. We'll continue to look at those and update the market as any of that develops.
Speaker Change: Thank you. That's all the questions I have for today.
Speaker Change: There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Paul for closing remarks.
Paul Hewitt: I just want to take a moment and thank everyone for listening in on our call. We know and understand everyone has busy lives and busy schedules, so we appreciate you taking the time to listen in. Pretty exciting quarter we had, being the record year we had.
Paul Hewitt: I'm looking forward to 2024. I want to thank all our shareholders and lastly I just want to say I'll welcome the analysts that will be coming up. We're having an analyst site visit here so we're quite excited about that. We've got quite a few of them coming up and you'll see some really good reports. You're going to be able to see it with their own eyes here in the next couple days. Thank you very much. Have a great day everyone.
Paul Hewitt: Bye-bye.
Speaker Change: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.