Full Year 2026 New Hope Corp Ltd Earnings Call
Speaker #1: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today's presentation. I'm Rob Bishop, Chief Executive Officer of New Hope Group. I'm joined by Rebecca Rinaldi, our CFO, and Domo Bryant, our Executive General Manager and Company Secretary.
Speaker #1: This morning we released our 4-year results for the 2026 financial year. Hopefully you've had a chance to go through the presentation, but in any case, I'll step you through our key highlights before we open up the line for Q&A questions.
Speaker #1: The 2026 marked another strong year for New Hope Group. As we continue to increase volumes and deliver our organic growth profile, firstly I'd like to touch on safety.
Speaker #1: Throughout the year, a high potential event frequency rate reduced by 38% to 3.59, whilst our tripper increased to 3.89, 21% higher than this time last year.
Speaker #1: Safety of our people remained our highest priority, and we have focused on continuing improvements in all aspects of safety and well-being. Looking at our operational performance for the year, the group achieved a run-of-mind coal production of 16.9 million tons, a 3% increase from the previous period.
Speaker #1: Sale of a coal production of 11.5 million tons, 8% higher than the previous period, and coal sales of 11.8 million tons, 12% higher than the previous period.
Speaker #1: Both sale of a coal production and coal sales exceeded guidance ranges, underpinned by the continued ramp-up of New Auckland Mine and Bengala Mines' return to its nameplate production capacity.
Speaker #1: In terms of our financial performance, we delivered revenue of 1.8 billion dollars and underlying EBITDA of 514 million dollars, and a statutory net profit after tax of 161 million dollars.
Speaker #1: EBITDA and impact were impacted by a temporary increase in strip ratio of Bengala Mine and lower realized pricing. Despite certain short-term challenges, our assets remain resilient and continue to generate solid margins, which allows us to maintain returns to shareholders.
Speaker #1: On that note, I'm pleased to announce the board has declared a fully frank dividend of 30 cents per share. High potential event frequency rate became the group's primary safety measure during the financial year.
Speaker #1: We have seen an improvement in our frequency rate during the period, decreasing from 5.82 to 3.59. This reflects a deliberate shift in focus toward events and conditions that have the potential to result in fatal or permanently life-altering injuries.
Speaker #1: This approach aligns with broader direction of the mining industry, where there is an increasing emphasis on understanding and managing high potential events, principal material hazards, and the effectiveness of critical controls.
Speaker #1: While traditional injury metrics remain important, we believe this frequency rate provides a better indicator of our exposure to serious harm and helps ensure our attention remains focused on preventing the most significant safety risks.
Speaker #1: Tripper continues to serve as an important supplementary measure of injury performance. During the period, increased prime waste volumes were delivered at Bengala Mine, which supported the realignment of the pit sequence following significant weather events across the hunter region late in 2025 financial year.
Speaker #1: The operations delivered a strong finish and showcased its ability to achieve its targeted run coal production rate. Bengala Mine delivered sale of a coal production of 8.2 million tons, which exceeded its guidance range.
Speaker #1: The operation achieved an FOB cash cost of 81 dollars and 30 cents per sale ton, which came in the low end of its guidance range.
Speaker #1: At New Auckland Mine, we continue to successfully ramp up toward 5 million tons per annum. The 2026 financial year New Auckland Mine produced 3.3 million tons of sale of all coal, an uplift of 17% compared to the previous year.
Speaker #1: The operation was able to take advantage of increased spot rail capacity during the year, achieving coal sales of 3.6 million tons, which exceeded its guidance range.
Speaker #1: The group achieved an average sale price, including hedging, of 145 dollars per ton, approximately 10% lower than the previous period. Despite lower coal prices, the group's low-cost assets delivered a solid margin of 45 dollars per ton.
Speaker #1: Our business generated an EBITDA of 514 million dollars, which enabled reinvestment in our assets and allowed continued returns to shareholders. 161 million was invested back into the business, largely by our capital expenditure, supporting the group's organic growth.
Speaker #1: As well as investing in our assets, we returned 206 million dollars to our shareholders by way of fully frank dividends. Our total shareholder return during the period was approximately 33%.
Speaker #1: Our approach to capital management is underpinned by discipline focus on delivering sustainable returns to shareholders. The group's strong cash position generation allows us to sustain our current baseline of production whilst also investing in our organic growth profile.
Speaker #1: The ramp-up of New Auckland Mine is progressing well, holding growth realignment to enable development of the Manivar West Pit, third mining area, is underway, with 16 million dollars incurred during the period.
Speaker #1: Our two forms of capital returns are fully frank dividends and on-market share buybacks. As previously mentioned, our board has declared a fully frank final dividend of 30%, 30 cents per share, New Hope has a significant franking account balance and will continue to utilize this value for our shareholders.
Speaker #1: The dividend reinvestment plan, which we announced in September last year, will be operational for the final dividend. Turning to Outlook, we have a very strong outlook for the industry.
Speaker #1: Our strategy is underpinned by the belief that demand for thermal coal, produced from Australian operations, will continue to play a vital role in providing reliable and secure energy supply to the world.
Speaker #1: Whilst we expect coal share of global power generation to reduce over time, the sheer increase in global power demand will continue to support Seaborne Thermal Coal exports into the future.
Speaker #1: In addition, the aging of existing thermal coal assets, combined with underinvestment in new projects, suggests a potential supply shortfall and attractive pricing outlook for the industry.
Speaker #1: The balance of pricing dynamics, our low-cost assets produce high-quality coal, providing resilience in the cyclical environment and ensuring continued margin generation. In a year where we saw uncontrollable increases in our cash costs, our assets were still able to generate an underlying margin of 45 dollars per ton, or approximately 30%, which showcases our low-cost nature as well as the significant upside potential available to New Hope and ultimately our shareholders in the current pricing environment.
Speaker #1: New Hope remains committed to our shareholders and delivering sustainable long-term returns. In the last five years, fully frank dividends have amounted to over 2 billion dollars, which equates to approximately 48% of the company's market capitalization as at 31 July 2026.
Speaker #1: In addition, New Hope's share price has outperformed the ASX of all ordinaries by nearly 10 times since its initial public offering in 2003. New Hope, we recognize the importance of our dedicated workforce and the communities in which we operate.
Speaker #1: During the year, Bengala Mine invested 1.5 million into the community and spent 186 million with local suppliers. New Auckland Mine invested 800,000 with local suppliers.
Speaker #1: The success of our operations is closely linked to the strength of communities that support us. Rehabilitation remains a key part of the commitment as a responsible operator.
Speaker #1: Across Bengala Mine and New Auckland Mine, 3,086 hectares of land has been disturbed through mining activities, with approximately 35% of that area rehabilitated. The growth pipeline targets a significant increase in coal production over the next two years, which represents low-risk, cost-effective growth.
Speaker #1: Looking ahead to the 2027 financial year, we are focused on remaining a resilient, low-cost coal producer while executing our organic growth plans, which will enable us to continue to deliver shareholder value.
Speaker #1: The group's strategy is to safely, responsibly, and efficiently operate our low-cost, long-life assets with a focus on disciplined capital management, providing valuable returns to our shareholders.
Speaker #1: Our investment proposition is underpinned by these six key areas which we have summarized throughout the presentation today. Thanks very much. I'll now hand over to the operator to start Q&A session.
Speaker #2: Thank you. If you wish to ask a question via the phone, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad.
Speaker #2: If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type your question into the Ask a Question box. Your first question comes from Daniel Roden with Jefferies.
Speaker #2: Please go ahead.
Speaker #3: Hi, guys. Congrats on the results. And yeah, I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about our FY27 guidance on slide 13.
Speaker #3: I guess it's not formal guidance, obviously, but it implies that next year might come around the range of 12.7 million tonnes saleable. If you don't include Malabar, of course, but if I'm looking at that and kind of looking at it forward, guidance around cost, if I'm trying to think about what a normalized and consistent variable cost assumptions would be into FY27, how should I think about that?
Speaker #3: And I'm kind of I think trying to get a bit of a view on how New Auckland's might change the cost base and what the stripping profile looks like at I guess the rest of the business, yeah.
Speaker #3: So I was wondering if you could, yeah, help us think about that a little bit.
Speaker #1: That's all right, Daniel. I think probably the key area of change will be Auckland. As you know, that's in ramp-up at the moment. We did about sort of 3.3, 3.4 for this financial year just finished, and that will push into the 4 million tonnes production range for next year.
Speaker #1: So as a result, you'll see that fixed cost base at Auckland spread over more tonnes. And you'll see that unit cost decrease. And that will continue as we push out to 5 million tonnes production.
Speaker #1: Within the next sort of 18 months or so, Bengala will be more sort of steady state. There will be inflationary impacts, and we've probably fair to expect that we'll see some increased or heightened diesel costs coming through the books.
Speaker #1: But I think, as I've said previously on calls and information. The market that typically diesel is correlated to coal price, so we see a much bigger benefit coming through our revenue line, which more than offsets the increase in diesel costs.
Speaker #1: And probably another operations are very low strip ratio, and as a result, diesel is a percentage of our overall cost base is less than perhaps some of our competitors.
Speaker #3: Yeah, perfect. And yeah, I touched on a few of the things I was going to follow up on, but yeah, maybe could you help remind us what the sensitivity to diesel is at Bengala, and acknowledging I guess the relationship between I guess energy pricing and thermal coal, of course, but you obviously seen thermal coal react, but if I'm doing my calculations and backing out, what I guess the natural gas price equivalence in thermal coal units is, there's still a fair bit of headroom there.
Speaker #3: From your perception, what are you guys seeing, and what closes that gap on an equivalent term? Do you still see marginal buys out there in the market, or is there a lot of resistance in making that coal to gas or sorry, gas to coal switching?
Speaker #3: Sorry, I've been in that.
Speaker #1: Yeah, no, there's a lot in that, I guess. What we've seen since the high contentions in the Middle East, we have seen directly some Asian countries switching certainly.
Speaker #1: Our belief is that Korea is doing just that. Korea essentially turned to Russian coal off the back of the Ukraine crisis and wasn't taking much, if any, Australian coal.
Speaker #1: That's now changed, and we've had some inbound requests for supply to Korea. So that for us is a sign of switching in our belief is Japan is as well and that certainly is underpinning some of the index price and the Newcastle index there are other factors at play which are impacting that with Indonesian quotas and certainly some stoppages in China now that's obviously impacting more the high ash coal price, but ultimately the more high ash goes up typically, you'll see an underpinning of the Newcastle index or high CV index.
Speaker #1: So probably the other point also is that certainly in recent days, we've seen impacts to gas supply and heightened concern over that, which will be making countries think about the switching potential and certainly from a stability of shipping lanes, etc., coal from Australia is certainly a much safer bet than some of the other sources for gas.
Speaker #1: So there's a lot contributing to it, and I think also the likelihood of a hot dryer summer under the El Nino conditions which are expected I think will also underpin coal prices and I think our view is that if coal prices at the moment around 150, there's probably a good chance it'll stay at that point and potentially work its way a little higher.
Speaker #3: Okay. And maybe just last one from me. And I'll hand it over and read you on the queue. But just on your last point there, how's your expectation of maybe holding 150 or higher on a coal price perspective, maybe just walk us through the rationale behind the final div for the year and noting the franking balance there if you could remind us what the residual franking balance is and I guess if we are expecting to hold around to these levels, what I guess the expectation would be for depletion of the franking account?
Speaker #1: Sure. So I guess from the franking account balance, it'll close the dividend, it'll sit around the mid-600s. So 650 million or thereabouts. And you'll be able to work that out looking at the accounts.
Speaker #1: But certainly a solid dividend to shareholders. And as you pointed out, fully franked and I guess that really goes to the cash generative nature of our business.
Speaker #1: We certainly saw probably prices at the lower end of the cycle particularly for the first half of the year. We benefit from a rally which has been sporadic depending on what announcements are coming out on what's happening in the Middle East.
Speaker #1: But after probably a fairly soft year from coal pricing, we still generate a significant cash and have the ability to pay a very strong dividend.
Speaker #1: So I think if you convert that to an outlook of potentially high prices, I think it's pretty clear that shareholder returns will strong shareholder returns will continue.
Speaker #1: So which is which is very exciting and you look at our the slide in our deck on our organic growth and the tonnage which is coming into the business for modest capital expenditure to achieve that.
Speaker #1: And then low-cost tonnes both mines sit low on the cost curve quality coal all that means is strong cash generation. And particularly as capital expenditure internally for those growth projects is coming.
Speaker #1: So I think we see a really strong cash generative fridge for the business.
Speaker #3: Awesome. Thanks, Matt. I'll hand it over. Thanks.
Speaker #1: No worries.
Speaker #2: Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul Young with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Speaker #3: Yeah, morning, Rob. And I'm guessing Rebecca or Domo there as well. So good morning and hope everything's well. Rob, a little bit further another question, sorry, on diesel and just the outlook there and to your point, yep, absolutely, coal price is getting pushed up particularly due to what's happening in Indonesia.
Speaker #3: And I was with restricted exports and the dryness there and also the impact from diesel prices there. But just on specifically on your business, I just sort of look at that you've actually put in your release here that and you had a report that Bengal's diesel cost was $1.12 a litre last year.
Speaker #3: 90 cents a year prior. Can you just step through what diesel price you're paying now and also how much diesel does actually Bengal consume?
Speaker #4: Yeah, sure. I'll take that one, Paul. And thanks for the question. I guess our diesel contract does look at the market rates behind the diesel, so it does fluctuate when the underlying diesel price does go up.
Speaker #4: Last month, as an example, we paid around $1.23 a litre. And as we've seen in the past couple of weeks, we expect that to increase with the diesel price.
Speaker #4: Bengal uses about 80 million litres a year, based on kind of current forecast run rates.
Speaker #3: Okay. That is very helpful. Thank you. Rob, the next question, thanks, Rebecca. The next question is actually just Wales and actually the outlook for Bengal.
Speaker #3: I mean, one, you've done a great job of picking up the tenements around Bengal and also through your investment in Malabar as well. We've got a few big decisions coming up in the next month with Mount Pleasant and also Hunter Valley operations.
Speaker #3: We've got the net zero commission in New South Wales having a view. We've got Penny Sharp, Minister Sharp coming out with a view around no greenfields projects in New South Wales going forward, which is it's a really interesting sort of juncture at the moment in the industry.
Speaker #3: And you've presented a a really compelling chart on, I think, slide nine showing New South Wales coal production declining and we've obviously got Mount Arthur coming off in 2030 as well.
Speaker #3: So the question's actually around the tenements around Bengal. Is the view just an initial discussions with the government and your work that this is greenfields or brownfields?
Speaker #1: It'll be brownfield extension. And so it's sort of it fits within the recent statement on coal from New South Wales. It's an existing precinct, it's adjacent to existing operations.
Speaker #1: It'll utilise beyond the basis we pursue an extension and as you pointed out, we have the two ELs out to the west. So the common sense approach assuming exploration proves that there's economic coal there and we believe it will, would be to continue the advancement of the pit out to the west so that's certainly a focus we're currently exploring that.
Speaker #1: But there's not a significant rush for that. Our current permit is out, it's proved out to 2039. We believe we'll have exhausted all of the reserves within that permit around about 2037.
Speaker #1: So yeah, quite rightly pointed out, there's a couple of imminent decisions which need to be made about neighbouring mines and we'll certainly be and have been watching that closely.
Speaker #1: Hopefully, common sense prevails there. They're solid operators that make sense to continue and certainly I think the MINS government is hopefully there's a lot of support to continue both of those operations.
Speaker #1: But we have a bit of time for an approval and we've been engaging with government and had positive feedback. And certainly the intention would be to pursue those as we sort of get to the back end of this decade.
Speaker #3: Yeah, great news. And just lastly, accounting question actually for probably for Rebecca. Just around your equity share within Maxwell, which continues to come through at the moment through the revenue line and it's been making losses obviously because Longwell hasn't it's only just started cutting coal and a large fixed cost base there.
Speaker #3: But when it turns to profitable, do you still expect to take the EBIT from that operation through that line or we're going to see that come through and Pat, sorry, come through the EBIT line?
Speaker #3: How should we think about the accounting, Rebecca, going forward?
Speaker #4: Yeah, so the accounting shouldn't change too much, Paul. It should still be considered a share of an associate, which will come through that line where the loss is coming through.
Speaker #4: And that's because we don't control that operation. So essentially, when that operation starts to pay profits, we'll recognise those profits and subsequently get dividends off the back of that.
Speaker #3: Yeah, okay. Understood. Thank you. Thanks very much.
Speaker #1: No worries.
Speaker #2: Thank you. Your next question comes from Jacob Lee with Barren Joey. Please go ahead.
Speaker #3: Rob, Rebecca, and Dom, congrats on the strong result in dividend. Just trying to understand the thinking behind the dividend payout, just and what we expect on a go forward basis.
Speaker #3: You previously talked to sort of wanting to hold a bit of more cash as a historically if I look at your performer cash balance netting the final dividend today, that's more than 500 million dollars.
Speaker #3: I guess the question would be how much cash does New Hope ultimately want to hold on a balance sheet and over what time horizon are you thinking about that target level and sort of distributing any excess cash?
Speaker #3: Thanks.
Speaker #1: So good question. I guess our focus is still to execute existing capital within the group. So that's really there's commentary in the pack around some capital that needs to be spent to build out the pit.
Speaker #1: To the west at Auckland. So that's completion of that road, some mobile equipment which needs to be purchased ancillary equipment. So that's obviously a focus.
Speaker #1: That's the best use of capital within the business to generate that extra tonnage for Auckland to get up to that 5 million product. From a minimum cash balance perspective, we've sort of spoken of around about 300 million dollars as a sensible minimum cash for the business.
Speaker #1: And we constantly review that. But I guess it's been pleasing to be able to pay a very handsome fully-franked dividend for this last year.
Speaker #1: And as I said before. Just really underpins the cash generative nature of the business. And obviously, when we get to the middle of FY27, we'll assess our cash balance then and what makes sense to pay in an interim dividend.
Speaker #3: Yeah, thanks, Rob. I guess just to push you a bit further on that, if I look at your performer cash balance since 2021, you've been holding around 400 to 450.
Speaker #3: I'm talking about cash net dividend declared. Is 300 million dollars still the cash balance you want to hold? Or are you sort of want to hold a bit more given the uncertainty in the micro environment and the coal pricing?
Speaker #3: Thanks.
Speaker #1: Well, I think it goes to the point of having capital to deploy within the industry in the business. So it's I think we've highlighted before that coal prices fluctuated a lot in the last six months.
Speaker #1: There's a potential that that will continue. So we want to make sure that we've got the cash on the balance sheet to deploy to for our organic growth.
Speaker #1: And then we'll assess where we're at come middle of the year.
Speaker #3: All right. Thanks, Rob. A second one would be New Auckland. I'm just looking at your chart on slide 21. FY28 appears to be, I think, 4.5, 4.6 instead of 5 million ton pound on the nameplate.
Speaker #3: Is there a level of conservatism that they're given the rail performance has been impacted by cross river rail sort of outages and QR industrial action, etc.?
Speaker #1: Yeah, that's certainly something which we've highlighted as a challenge. Certainly cross river rail is very delayed and that will continue to hamper consistency of rail.
Speaker #1: This month, there's a material shutdown in September, for example, which is planned. We've catered for it, but I think from our perspective, we're confident that the mine will get up to that 5 million tonnes there probably is a level of conservatism in our outlook.
Speaker #1: And I think we've probably consistently exceeded the expected ramp up for Auckland. But certainly, we acknowledge the risk of rail we're engaging both with Horizon out of our provider and QR to ensure that we get the right support to support that ramp up.
Speaker #3: All right. Thanks, Rob. If I can squeeze in a bit more on New Auckland, good to see the increasing coal resources. How does that sort of shape your thinking around potentially stage four mining given, I think, your permit to go to, I think, 2040 with stage three mining?
Speaker #3: Thanks.
Speaker #1: We have a lot of land, a lot of tenements surrounding our existing approval footprint. We've engaged with Queensland government on a potential extension similar to the scenario which we spoke about in an earlier question around Bengala.
Speaker #1: So we have a very good understanding of the reserves around our existing footprint. It's in many cases, it's probably lowest drip ratio than what we're seeing with our existing approval into the twos, two to one strip ratio.
Speaker #1: So very low strip ratio. So it should be very prospective, very early days, from a current permit stage three which is the stage we're in at the moment will continue to around about 2040.
Speaker #1: So we do have time, but we're certainly looking at that and engaging with government on a potential extension.
Speaker #2: Thank you once again. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone or type your question into the ask a question box.
Speaker #2: Your next question comes from James Goodsell. It's noted that saleable production hit the upper boundary of your guidance, but FOB cash costs still climbed 7.9% to Australian 88.9 dollars per tonne.
Speaker #2: How much of this cost expansion is a temporary and due to the Bengala pit resequencing versus structural inflationary pressure?
Speaker #1: So there are a couple of points there. And we've talked about the pit resequencing in Bengala having an impact on unit costs. And that was particularly in the first half of the of the year for Bengala, which is more indicative of that asset on a longer term as Auckland ramps up.
Speaker #1: That becomes a more material part of our group. And when you look at the tonnage coming out of Auckland at the moment, it's still in ramp up.
Speaker #1: So you will see a heightened I guess unit cost for Auckland having an impact on the blended unit rate for the group as Auckland ramps up to the 5 million ton production.
Speaker #1: You will see an easing of that cost base to a lower level.
Speaker #2: Thank you. Your next question comes from Vanita Nagaraja. Could you please provide some color on how the capped coal options operate to mitigate the potential dilution arising from the convertible notes taking into account the 30 cent dividend, the effective exercise price of the convertible notes will now be closer to the market price.
Speaker #4: Yeah, sure. So I guess on the capped coal, essentially that instrument steps in at the strike price of the convertible bond. So the strike price at 31 July was $7.41 of that convertible bond.
Speaker #4: And that capped coal then pushed that strike price up to an average blended rate of $9.55. So if the share price is within that strike range, and the bond could convert, essentially those counterparties would step in in that regard.
Speaker #4: In terms of your second point, yes, both that strike price of the convertible bond and also the strike price of the capped coal will adjust based on the dividend.
Speaker #4: Now, that's based on a VWAP prior to record date. So we don't exactly know what that is at the moment, but the expectation is that on the convertible bond, the strike price of $7.41 will come down to around $7 or so.
Speaker #2: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand the conference back to Rob Bishop for any closing remarks.
