Q4 2024 Metals Acquisition Ltd Earnings Call
[inaudible]
Conference Operator: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Mac Cooper Limited Q4 2024 conference call and webcast.
Conference Operator: As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded.
Conference Operator: After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad.
Conference Operator: Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mick McMullen, CEO of MacCooper Ltd. Please go ahead.
Mick McMullen: Thank you and thank you everyone for joining. Obviously it's a busy couple of days for quarterlies in Australia. We'll try and get through this fairly quickly for people.
Mick McMullen: so there's a presentation online there that people can see that's also been lodged on both the exchange platforms and I'll talk to that. Joining me today is Morne Engelbrecht, our CFO
Mick McMullen: and so as we go through the presentation there's the usual disclaimer and forward-looking statements that people can can read.
Mick McMullen: Moreno will talk to the financial shortly, but you can also see on that slide that we had a C1 for the quarter of $1.66 USD a pound.
Mick McMullen: Again, liquidity, we had about 230 million U.S. of liquidity at the end of the year.
Mick McMullen: which in Aussie dollars is actually a very large amount of cash for us, given our operating costs. We continue to run at about a 47% EBITDA margin and we convert about 74% of that to cash for the year. And we are, you know, we're well on our pathway to our greater than 50,000 tonnes of copper production by 2026.
Mick McMullen: As per the quarterly report we announced, we will typically announce our resource and reserve and any changes to guidance in about the third week of February, and that work is well underway and going through the final external checks.
Mick McMullen: So, if we look back on 2024, you know, I think we delivered on all of the things we said we would. We operated the mine safely, all permits in place.
Mick McMullen: We increased the reserve life to plus 10 years, so it's about 11 years based on last year's reserve. We had record copper production. We achieved and beat the midpoint of guidance.
Mick McMullen: We de-levered and simplified the balance sheet massively, so at the end of the year we had net gearing of around about 15%, and again with the cash flows we're generating we continue to pay down debt and reduce that.
Mick McMullen: We have a clear pathway to get to above 50,000 tonnes internally.
Mick McMullen: You know, whenever we look at stuff, we're always lining up the best options for shareholders in terms of return of capital uncertainty.
Mick McMullen: and right now the best thing we can do, apart from de-levering the balance sheet and reducing our interest burden, which is well in hand I might add, but is to actually grow organically. We have a lot of opportunities.
Mick McMullen: If we take the midpoint of guidance for next year at about 50,000 tonnes, the midpoint of guidance for this year is about 45,500 tonnes, and for those of you that are quick on the calculator, you'll see that we basically ended Q4 last year at the midpoint of guidance for this year.
Mick McMullen: We continue to optimise the mine, then obviously we've got the growth projects like the ventilation projects, which really does unlock the bottom of the mine and allows us to try and fill that mill up. We know the mill will run at 80,000 tonnes of copper annualised, we have run it at that when we have the ore.
Mick McMullen: because there's a few things like QT of South Arpa which last year were not in reserve. We've now drilled it out and it will be in reserve, which then allows us to start including it into our production plan.
Mick McMullen: Again, highlights for the quarter, so record production under the Mac ownership, record low C1, total cash cost of about $2.31 a pound. We averaged just over a pound copper, so again, in any language, that's a pretty solid margin for us.
Mick McMullen: We continue to do our job and we look forward to tomorrow.
Mick McMullen: a couple of things, you know, that I think are important.
Merci.
Subs by www.zeoranger.co.uk
Thank you.
Speaker Change: really is about a 16 cents a pound reduction U.S. in our C1 that comes into effect from the start of January.
Speaker Change: I touched on the exchange rate earlier, somewhere in the quarterly Morne has got a sensitivity there but obviously with the Aussie dollar at 62, 63 cents, we've got quite a tailwind as about 80% of our costs are actually in Aussie dollars.
Thank you.
I'm not sure Morne was able to dial EWAS on.
Speaker Change: Are you, Morne, have you been able to dial back in?
with some challenges with the launch.
Speaker Change: And I would point out that in Aussie dollar terms, it's actually grown even more because obviously when we translate our Aussie dollar balance, which is about half our cash back to Aussie, when the Aussie dollar has fallen, we've lost a few million US dollars through the translation.
Speaker Change: I think it was about $277 million Australian dollars at the end of last quarter.
Thank you. Bye.
Speaker Change: We have agreed, as announced to the market, the early repayment of SPROT.
Mick McMullen: Sorry Mick, I'm back on. I dropped off for whatever reason.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you, Morne.
Bye-bye.
Mick McMullen: We've reduced net gearing by over 60% to, you know, a company record of...
in New Zealand.
Mick McMullen: That's around 276 million Aussie at our disposal at 31 December. So that's that's again over 400%
Mick McMullen: a better position since the end of 2023. We're just further supported by an under-owned revolving facility of 25 million and outstanding QP receipts of six and a half.
Mick McMullen: So, that brings our total available liquidity to around $213 million US or $340 million Aussie.
Mick McMullen: As I said, to that end, we announced in December that we reached an agreement with Sprott to repay that facility at NACCS discretion, obviously with no additional penalty cost on that.
Mick McMullen: We are also going through a refinancing process to reset our senior debt, so we do not have any support.
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Speaker Change: In summary, Max Banerjee is in a very strong and commanding position, and frankly the best position we've been in since the inception of the company, and that provides us with great flexibility while we drive our organic growth as Nick has outlined.
Speaker Change: Moving to slide 9, we've been clearly focused on, as I said, the simplification and delivering of the bannersheet.
Speaker Change: and obviously utilizing that great cash flow generation for my operations.
Speaker Change: to not only grow production material, but reduce our interest-bearing liabilities as well.
Speaker Change: If we look at the operational corporate side of the quarterly movements, there are a few things I would like to highlight.
Speaker Change: Again, we had a very healthy free cash flow from Operation Theory after sustaining capex of around US$30 million for the quarter.
That's sort of in line with Q3.
Speaker Change: It should be noted that we did have a delayed shipment at the end of December, so we might
a part sale of a shipment.
Speaker Change: of concentrate which was at port before year-end, so we recognise it as cash but we aren't able to recognise it as revenue, so we'll recognise that revenue in January when the ship is loaded.
Speaker Change: Secondly, we further reduced our senior debt, so we paid another $8 million U.S. back on that facility, so another 5% reduction. So that's now standing at about $158 million U.S. at the end of December.
Speaker Change: and we also had a performance-nearing ratio of 15% as I said, so that's a 60% decrease from where we were at the end of December last year.
Speaker Change: The third point I want to make here is that we paid interest of about $8 million, so that's both for the MES and senior facilities, so about four and a half of that is the MES facility.
Speaker Change: With the repayment of that necessity, we'll save around sort of that $12-$13 million U.S. per annum in interest cost.
Speaker Change: Sustainable Capital 2024. So overall a very strong and healthy balance sheet position and you know we're looking to further strengthen that position with the repayment of the Sprott bed facility and obviously the refinancing process we're going through.
Speaker Change: and Michael McMullen, the repayment of the swap, as I said, will drive significant cash savings from an interest point of view, which will not only simplify the balance sheet but also the P&L as well. With that, I'll hand back to Mick.
Thank you.
Mick McMullen: Hopefully people can hear me, the lines aren't very good today. The other thing that we want to touch on is our safety. Safety, we've always said on the quarterlies, we think we can do better. Q4 we did do significantly better, triff has come down from about 14 to just under 11.
Mick McMullen: We do see potential and we think we should be lower than that, so we'll continue to drive that down.
Mick McMullen: We are our main capital project outside of the Beanton City South Upper is the Stage 10 lift. We're well advanced on that.
Mick McMullen: Those works will continue all the way through to Pugue 3.
Mick McMullen: but that will give us, once that's done, that gives us tailings capacity up to about 20-30 and that's spent and done, right?
Mick McMullen: We're in good shape. As Morne touched on, we've sort of indicated around about 50 million US of capital for the year, last year, and we've come in just under that, so no negative surprises there.
Mick McMullen: Again, from a proper production point of view, you can see the trend is up quarter on quarter, again driven by actually more ore tonned and better grade in Q4.
Mick McMullen: You can see C1 and total cash costs, you know, again, a great trend over the course of the year as we've managed to strip out costs, improve production, renegotiate contracts, and so look at C1 of $166.
Mick McMullen: You know given the average exchange rate versus where it is now and the fact that we're seeing around about 15-16 cents saving on our TCR fee from January on
Mick McMullen: We're feeling pretty confident in the directionality of where the C1 is going, and again, I think if we look at this, you know,
Mick McMullen: Best production quarter we've had, best C1 and total cash costs we've had.
Best balance sheet, neck gearing, best safety.
Mick McMullen: I think as a company we've delivered on what we told people we would do, and as we get more and more into what we actually have at the mine, we're finding quite a few growth opportunities that are just organic, that we already own.
for relatively little money, actually.
Mick McMullen: Mill grade, again, the last three quarters, let's call it 4% on average, that seems to be about where we are.
Mick McMullen: Again, that's a combination of where we're mining, but also better dilution control.
Mick McMullen: We are, again, directionally, when we did the reserve last year...
Mick McMullen: We added a fair bit of dilution in the reserve number, and we have been mining above that grade, so it's likely as we do the reserves this year, we might modify that a little bit to be a bit more reflective of what we're actually mining.
Mick McMullen: Development Meters down on the relative previous quarter but sort of flat for the year.
Mick McMullen: We've pushed on, the decline's been pushed on a long way. It's now currently 25 metres vertically above the bottom of the 2023 reserve.
Mick McMullen: We're finding more ore tons per vertical metre there, so actually that's allowed us to not have to do quite so many metres of development, but ore tons at 286,000 tonnes was good. The month of December, off the top of my head, was 103,000 tonnes for the month.
Thank you.
Mick McMullen: So, and that's before our ventilation comes in, or queue yourself up as online. So, yeah, we're feeling increasingly confident about delivering the operation, and we can't do the ventilation fast enough to be able to really unlock that mind.
Speaker Change: Costs, Morne, I might hand back over to you and you can talk to the dollars.
Morne Engelbrecht: Obviously, that's mainly driven by that 20% increase in all mine for the quarter.
Engelbrecht, Michael McMullen
Morne Engelbrecht: and it makes it, you know, just over 100,000 tonnes by December alone, so that's driving that cost per tonne.
Morne Engelbrecht: Milling tonnes, which has increased by 9% with the underlying gene costs, GNA costs, you know, gross GNA costs largely in line with the previous quarter.
Slide 15.
Morne Engelbrecht: by 10% compared to the previous quarter. As noted, the additional tonnes mined in December
Morne Engelbrecht: Sustaining CapEx decreased slightly over the quarter, but as we said, that will sort of end up at the $50 million mark for the year when we report our results.
Morne Engelbrecht: and increase grade as well, driving up production, free cash flow and decreasing our unit costs and that obviously supports.
Morne Engelbrecht: Alena, more simplified balance sheet and obviously as we deliver more capital development for this year as well and continue to grow the company.
Thank you.
Nick, I'll hand back to you for the rest.
Nick: Thank you. Many of you have seen this slide before. Look, I think, you know, hopefully the message has gotten across now that, you know, we aren't actually all body limited.
Nick: And as I said, we've expanded the main ore body, QTS North, by 20-25% along strike.
Nick: We have a fair bit of material that hasn't made it into reserve historically, measured and indicated, plus a lot of inferred, a lot of the drilling if you look through the historical drill release of the last year.
Nick: This long section is useful for us to talk about, so currently we mine 75-80% of our ore out of QTS North, a little bit out of QTS Central and a couple of other ore bodies not shown there.
Nick: Kitty is south, the sort of one on the extreme left there, you know, that is very high grade, the bottom of that's running about 7-8% copper.
Nick: The very bottom hole, sort of at the bottom of it, was 9.5% at about 20% copper. In the current mine plan, that's still a fair way out. We'd like to mine that a bit quicker and that's one of the things, if we get a bit more bent in the mine earlier, we can start looking to get out there and drag some of that material forward.
Nick: In the very top of the mine there's a red bar and a sort of a yellow looking thing which is the east and west lenses.
Nick: We've been doing a fair bit of work in that area up there, looking at historical zinc for a start, but also the copper mineralisation, there's significant copper mineralisation up there, and the zinc we've talked about historically of the ability to track that to polymetals.
Nick: There's a fair bit of focus on that right now, we've put a separate team on that to look at developing what we call the upper mine.
Nick: We think there's again when we talk about organic growth opportunities we see four or five hundred meters vertical ore body there in separate zinc and separate copper deposits.
Nick: And that actually has the potential to, for very low capital costs, add a reasonable amount of production.
Nick: It's all incremental production at a very low capital cost. It's all within
Nick: 50 to 100 metres of existing development, and very shallow, right, starts 150 metres below surface. So, we're quite excited about this, you know, we're working away, probably the first thing we'll do.
Nick: will come out with will be the sort of plan around the zinc.
Nick: And a pretty substantial Copper Ore body that looks to be sitting up in that proportion that we can go online as well.
Michael McMullen, The Engelbrecht Foundation
www.mclean.co.nz
Nick: We're actually going to continue to drive out and we'll use those accesses as drill drives because these ore bodies are sub-vertical, drilling them from surface you can miss them easily but drilling them from underground is much easier. And so we're quite excited about this.
Nick: Q4 is when we expect to see the first production coming out of this thing.
Nick: They're actually pushing out on a on a stringer Which will you know provide us a bit of extra incremental or and pay for that thing and then and then it'll run out and we'll push out part that but
Nick: It does highlight, you know, when I went there with some people and we went to have a look at the ventilation drive and we turned up to a place that's running 15% copper.
Nick: that's CSA for you. You can get those things all over the place and it's all about being on your toes, identifying them and mining them and getting them in the mill as quick as you can.
Nick: So, in terms of our plans going forward, so, you know, we sort of see, you know, plus 50,000 tonnes.
Nick: We're starting to become a bit more confident about maybe we can do a bit better than that. We sort of see the target for C1 down around the $150,000, take Q4 $166,000, we've told you that we'll get about $0.15 or $0.16 off the TCRC improvement this year.
Nick: You don't have to be a rocket science to work out that, you know, we're feeling quite confident around getting down that level.
Nick: I'm Ned Gearing, again, end of the year at 15%, you know, Morne I would like 10 to 20%, I'm pretty happy with 0%.
Nick: but once we've paid out the Sprott facility and we've got a bit more flexibility.
Nick: self-funding all of the stuff that we're doing. We see a good pathway for organic growth.
Nick: and you know, we think the balance sheet is in great shape now. So the business...
Nick: Quite frankly has never been a better position. I was down the bottom of the mine last week with some investors Who've been with us for the journey all along? And I think they were quite surprised at just how much activity have going on there relative to you know over the last 18 months so
Nick: We're starting to get into a good rhythm and cadence now and so we feel pretty comfortable about the growth profile of the business.
Nick: So look, you know, that's our strategy, you know, deliver operationally, you know, execute organic growth. I think quite frankly, right where we are, it's deliver the balance sheet, share all the returns and grow the business, I think is quite frankly where we are.
Nick: and we're feeling pretty good about the operation. I'm feeling less good about where my share price sits. But look, CFA has been an amazing operation. The team at CITE have turned it around. We've stabilised the workforce.
Nick: I think they've delivered really well, we can see a great runway now in terms of what else is to come and when your head grades 4% copper.
Nick: it's a pretty good moment. So with that I'm going to turn it over for any questions if anybody's got any and happy to take as many as you want.
Conference Operator: To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2.
Speaker Change: First question comes from Daniel Morgan with Barron Jewry. Please go ahead.
Daniel Morgan: Hi Mick and Morne. First question, just on achieving your production outcomes you'd like in 2025, what is the key driver versus 2024? Is it more tonnes mined or growed or both? Thank you.
Mick McMullen: Yeah, I think grade will be hovering around about that four, maybe just under four, so it's more tonnes, is the short answer. And more consistency, Dan, in terms of how you get those more tonnes.
Speaker Change: Quite frankly, we know this mine can produce a lot more than 45,000 tons of copper a year on a week-by-week basis. It's eliminating the weeks when you're producing at half that rate. That's actually, we've talked about consistency before.
Speaker Change: It's that consistency piece, and that's why I say, you know, we've never had more working places open.
Speaker Change: So to that end, I mean, it was pleasing to see the lift in mines or tons in the quarter. Is that something we should expect, you know, for the March quarter, for example? Another, you know, lift or stability or what's...
Speaker Change: Well we're not really, we've got to come out with our guidance in about three weeks but you know I think overall for the year you know we're not really in the business giving quarterly by quarterly guidance but you know overall for the year we expect to see a bit more tonnes, more tonnes.
Speaker Change: Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show.
So it's really about doing what we did in Q4.
Thank you. And just on the...
Just on the resource reserve update coming in Feb.
What is in SCARP?
Speaker Change: But obviously there's been drilling to expand all of them and so both total resource expansion plus conversion to M&I for reserves.
Speaker Change: We're working towards seeing if we can get a zinc resource out and
Speaker Change: and then the copper resort like in the upper portion of the mine, the copper in the upper portion of the mine is unlikely to be in there we've you know we we have an internal number
Speaker Change: We will get a Zinc resource out at least then we can talk about what that production plan looks like.
Speaker Change: It would sound like it's going to be a, it's still going to be a little bit of time for you to do the work on your end to provide ore into that, you know, zinc ore into that JV.
Speaker Change: Yeah I think realistically towards the end of the year, you know sort of Q4 type sort of stuff. Right now, upper part of the month.
Speaker Change: and then we can come back and and do the development for the zinc. The development work for the zinc is actually quite small. It's so close to development. It's just you know we've got to focus on doing
www.mclean.co.uk
Okay, thank you for your perspectives, Mick.
what
Conference Operator: The next question comes from Sam Catalano with Wilson's Advisory. Please go ahead.
Hiya, how are you today, Mick?
Two questions...
Speaker Change: Just to probably ask the questions that Dan was asking, perhaps in a slightly different way. So let's assume you get that consistency on grade and output levels through 2025, then that annualises roughly around that midpoint of your existing guidance, so I know that's due an update.
Speaker Change: Or is it likely that you can see an avenue where the output will materially move up and you can get towards that 48 type figure?
Speaker Change: I think the key is actually duty of South Upper, which is not in the current guidance range at all, because it was inferred last year.
Speaker Change: So if we can try and drag that forward a little bit, so it's not currently in, like if we look at the midpoint of guidance, there's nothing from QGIS South Upper in there.
Bye. Bye.
Speaker Change: So there's a reason that we put it into everyone's bonus for this year, is first of all out of QTS Upper, the earlier the better. And so I was there last week, up on the 2 level, and it is a high of activity.
So, for us, that's pretty crucial, right? And so...
Speaker Change: You know, I think Q4 is where we can assume, you know, that we'll get some more out.
Speaker Change: There's none of it in to get to midpoint of guidance right now. That's not in the plan and So if you think about what's the swing factor to get to the top end, it'll be that
Speaker Change: and then the other opportunity we have is that you know there's as we drive out there there's definitely smaller lenses on the way
There's some chance that we could do that as well.
Speaker Change: The metric we've stuck in everyone's bonus is first doping off.
All right, thank you.
Speaker Change: So again it's narrow but it's very high grade and so you don't need a lot of ore tons out of that thing to get a thousand ton of copper or two thousand ton of copper so
Again, we get asked about this.
Speaker Change: We've probably been a bit delayed, you know, we went out to contractors to see if we could get a contractor to do it and They're actually whether a scale or it'll be on other stuff. We just couldn't get a contractor to focus on it So, you know, we probably lost about three months there while we did that
Speaker Change: And then we just made the decision, well, we can't wait for other people, so we're doing it ourselves, and now we're executing it, right?
Speaker Change: and that same crew, you know, what we're trying to do is that same crew we actually want to use. I'll just go back to the slide.
Speaker Change: If you can see the slide, GDS South Upper is about the same level and about 600 metres away from the Upper West and Upper East ore bodies, the Zinc and the Copper there. In either world I have that same crew and fleet moving between those two areas to maximise my fleet. So that's why we're...
Speaker Change: With Defined Duty of South Africa, we have a plan, we're executing on that plan, now we're rolling into defining the plan for those other areas and then we'll try and utilize the same fleet, right?
Speaker Change: Okay, so if, sorry just last little bit, if everyone hits the first opening or in Q4 and gets a bonus and so forth then potentially in the quarter or two before that you might get a tiny bit of incremental development of material out of there.
Speaker Change: yeah we may and again as I said there's a series there's various drill bits and sort of small lenses on the way up to it as well and so if we're lucky maybe we get a bit out of that as well
Speaker Change: You know as I showed you the photo on that vent level that we're driving out there, you know, we've hit a face That's run on 15% copper. I'd like that CSA is you can have those small lenses and you just got to be opportunistic and take them
All right. Thanks, Mike.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from Paul Hissy with Morlis, Australia. Please go ahead.
Conference Operator: discussions around alternative facilities. I might have missed it at the very start. Did you have a potential timeline if we could put Morne's feet to the fire on that one, Mick?
Good morning, Apple
Speaker Change: and looking to have a bigger rolling facility as well, so it gives us a bit more flexibility in terms of managing our benefits from that point of view, and we don't pay a lot of money for that. So that's sort of the main...
Michael McMullen, Founder & CEO Australian Banking Services
Speaker Change: Yep, sure, and just with the Sprott facility, we expect to see that closed out, getting the cash out the door prior to the end of this quarter.
Speaker Change: Look again, it sort of depends on how we sort of move through that refinancing process, but that's sort of the same sort of time in six to eight weeks to sort of close that out.
Speaker Change: Yes, sure. Okay, and then just one other question about, I guess this is more...
Speaker Change: figure picture strategy-wise, but just running the asset in general So the vent will come online sort of midway towards the second half of next year
Mick McMullen: This gets you to 1.7 million tonne, obviously, but excludes QTS upper. Just remind me, Mick, what's the throughput of the mill and sort of where do you, if you can get 1.7 from, I guess, from the legacy operation?
Speaker Change: Clearly, QTS upper high-grade material can displace anything that's lower grade, but what's the medium-term philosophy there around overall throughput with your plant capacity?
Speaker Change: cool yeah look that plant it depends what you put into it but 1.8 to 2 million tons a year is about you know what you could put into at the front end the back end will do about 80,000 tons of copper and we run it at that you know when we have the ore at high grade we run it at that
Speaker Change: We're capped at about 1.7 million tonnes per annum on the water so our own water 1.45 million tonnes. The deal we did with Polymetals to secure that extra 150 megalitres of water, that gets us to 1.7.
Speaker Change: and so you know we we sort of think about 1.7 is 1.8 is
you know, our target to get there from all sources.
and you've got to think it's not necessary.
Thank you.
Thank you. Bye. Bye.
Thank you.
Any questions?
Thank you. Thank you.
you know a couple of that
Watch TV.
Speaker Change: I'm not sure if it's mine or your end Mick, but yeah breaking up quite a bit here.
and all of our actors.
Mick McMullen: Yep, yep. Look, maybe, I guess you've confirmed that 1.8 is the magic number for the plant, so I guess it boils down to where you get the material from to fill that 1.8. Look, the line's really bad. I'll check the transcript after the call, Mick, and if I have any other questions on that, I'll just give yourself or Morne a call directly. Yeah, apologies.
Speaker Change: Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then 1.
The next question comes from Eric Winnemille.
Please go ahead.
Eric Winnemille: Great, thanks for taking my question. Congrats, Mic and team. Hopefully you can hear me okay. There's definitely the lines breaking up a bit here.
Eric Winnemille: But just a quick question on the reserve and resource update, perhaps you mentioned it, but how much new drilling do you think is going to go into that or where's the cutoff on the drilling for that?
Eric Winnemille: I managed to do it back online. There'd be 30,000 to 35,000 metres of drilling in the new resource update. The data was cut off at the end of September or October.
Eric Winnemille: Okay, fantastic, thank you. And maybe just a question on the tailings, you're doing this stage 10 embankment now, how long is that going to set you up for and which, do you say what the CAPEX is around that?
Speaker Change: Yeah, so the CapEx on that's about $12 million US on total, like IA and Aussie.
Speaker Change: It might come out to be a little bit less because obviously the Aussie dollar has dropped. I'm just trying to find the slide. And once that's built at the end of Q3, early Q4 this year, that takes us out to about 2030. So the tail end is done until 2030. There we go.
Speaker Change: So we're spending that money now, and then we're set up for the next five years.
Speaker Change: Fantastic, thank you. And maybe just one more question on the upper portion there. I know you said that we'll make in the resource, but I know some of the initiatives there in terms of digitizing and you know obviously the more zinc anything you're seeing there and you want to follow up on and maybe kind of catch your interest here that you might want to look out for.
Speaker Change: Yeah, so that work, we've got all the historical drilling in, we've had a huge project digitising all the old level plans and everything and georeferencing them.
You know, as I said, there's a...
Speaker Change: A pretty high-grade, decent-sized zinc ore body sitting at the top there, but also, you know, lower grade, you know, but still pretty good grade relative to every other copper mine, just lower grade for us.
www.mclean.co.nz
Speaker Change: and that work is underway right now. So, but again, as we look at, well, what does everyone else have that's undeveloped?
Speaker Change: I think actually we have a better project sitting up there than all the other undeveloped copper assets in Australia.
Speaker Change: All right, fantastic. Thanks for that. Appreciate it. And yeah, congrats again. I'll hop back in the queue. Cheers.
Conference Operator: This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mick McMullen for any closing remarks.
Please go ahead, Mick.
Conference Operator: Okay, thank you everyone. I think, you know, we feel very proud, like the team inside have done a great job to the quarter and to the year. You know, it's been a very strong result. I think the company has never been in a better position.
Conference Operator: and you know we look forward to continuing to deliver and I guess you know
Conference Operator: We'd like to think that we're as advertised on the tin. We've delivered on what we said we would deliver and then some and You know, we're feeling pretty confident about that mine out there now about our pathway to organic growth and that's it Thanks everyone for your time
Conference Operator: This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.
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