Bathurst Resources Limited (BRL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming along to the quarter 3 FY '25 update. Hopefully, you can see this on the screen. I'll be running through the presentation that was released today, just using that as a guide. Really, the key theme, just to really let you know what we're up to with the projects as much as anything else. So here are the disclaimers. As of yesterday, we had a $0.72 share price, about $173 million of market cap. Enterprise value is up a little bit at AUD 21, obviously, on the back of the capital raise that was successfully done at the end of March into April. Thanks very much for the people that backed into that, a combination of placement and the SPP, realizing that there was probably -- some people were seeing value in SPP being pretty much at par when we kicked it off. But having done the placement at $0.74, we believed it was the right thing to do for all shareholders to offer that opportunity to others. But obviously, it's not at a large discount. So it may not have been attractive to some, but it really has set us up now to take forward the projects that we'll discuss more as we go further forward today. It fits very much in with our stated strategy. We've got good profitable operations, both 100% owned by Bathurst, but also through the BT Mining joint venture with Stockton, Maramarua, and Rotowaro. We've got growth projects that are associated with each of those, but we've also got projects that are outside of that, which are 100% owned by Bathurst that are going to add to a larger overall tonnage of coking coal being sold into the international market and generating incremental free cash for Bathurst. And then part of that is then looking at returning the free cash back to shareholders, both in the form of dividends, but also in the form of growth. So looking at using some of that cash to then go forward with further developments as they come forward, including the Crown Mountain project, which is a little bit further down the track. So just turning our mind to our main cash generation at the present time. We've got obviously the BT Mining assets with Rotowaro, Maramarua, Stockton and then our 100% ownership in Takitimu. So just a quick overview really on the quarter. Rotowaro, we're slightly down on overburden removal, but we have been mining in a block that was additional tonnage, so we're about 200,000 tonnes up in terms of the modeled coal, and we've actually had positive reconciliations against that as well. So our sales plan is actually in front, but we are behind by about 1 million BCM for the year-to-date, for the 9 months. At Maramarua, we're actually in front of both. We're in front of overburden and coal. EBITDA generation is in line with forecast. Stockton, we're in front of OB, and we're actually picking up quite a bit of the tonnage that we lost through the first 6 months that has been deferred in the second 6 months. That has allowed us to really make a few additional sales. We're about 40,000 tonnes in front of where we thought we were going to be for the end of quarter 3, which is pleasing. The rail system has been operating well, very few delays. So again, we are sort of managing to book in more ships and meet those tonnages. Takitimu has been performing well. They're in front on OB and coal, a little bit behind on EBITDA with some of the lower-priced contracts. So really, looking where we've been and where we're heading to, we've had obviously a drop-off over the years from the, what we call, the domestic coal or process heat coal, coming mainly from our domestic markets in the South Island and also in the North Island. Even with the joint venture, yes, we were supplying a lot larger tonnage to dairy, for instance, which, in the North Island, is pretty much curtailed now, and we are seeing a drop off to those markets in the South Island as well. So as we've already projected to the market, Takitimu will close in FY '27, which is sad, but really that market is no longer there to support the future developments. Domestic steelmaking, though, is still looking to be strong. We're still going to be in that 400,000 to 500,000 tonnes a year market. And obviously, with export coal, we're looking to maintain around about the 1.1 million to 1.2 million tonnes going further forward. So that has been our business really since taking over the joint venture or forming the joint venture back in FY '17. And what we've seen is -- look, we've always been profitable. So we've always generated good levels of EBITDA, in particular, over those years. Obviously, we've had a swing in different years between contribution from export and the contribution from the domestic business. But predominantly, our export is clearly driven by the earnings that are from hard coking coal benchmark pricing and which we don't control. But obviously, we do control our costs. And we can clearly see that, with the EBITDA generation versus the international coal price in the red line on the graph, we will see an increase over the next couple of years in the EBITDA generation out of the domestic business, even with Takitimu dropping off. We're in a growth phase now at Maramarua and Rotowaro, we have been for the last couple of years as we've seen from the reduction in the EBITDA contribution from them, but we will see that increase back out to levels from around about FY '20, is where we're aiming to be. Now we're a large contributor. We're a medium-sized business within New Zealand. Direct employees are about 675. On top of that, a couple of hundred contractors at various times across the operations. We do own and operate all of the equipment on each of our sites, but we do have additional mining contractors, plus contractors in specialist areas. So we employ about 950-odd people directly through employees and contractors. Obviously, in the employees, about $90 million going into the economy. These numbers are the audited numbers at the end of June last year, but they haven't changed much this year, about $66 million to the government and about $240 million paid for services, mainly supplying diesel, BOM and other parts into the business. Safety record, not great. We've had a lot of relatively minor injuries, though, that have then required further treatment off-site. So again, our lost time injury frequency rate and our total recordable injury frequency rate are not great. We've been concentrating a lot on the critical risk management side of the business, so risk that could lead to fatalities, and then looking at the controls that will prevent that; and also bringing our management teams forward as well and concentrating a lot also on training. We've got a lot of recruitment with the growth projects in Maramarua and Rotowaro and also on course of replacing people as they retire out of Stockton. So we've had a higher influx of new employees, which has really put stress on our training systems. Consolidated revenue, just under $200 million; EBITDA, about $40 million, which is really in line with where we thought we were going to be. We've got $165 million consolidated cash between the joint venture and Bathurst 100%. And within Bathurst 100% owned business at the moment, after the capital raise, we've got about $40 million between restricted and free cash. International coal price has been relatively stable, but obviously at lower levels than what we've seen over the last few years. So we bottomed out around about $170 million at the end of March. We are seeing the curve, though, still in contango. We're still seeing pricing going up to about $200 by the end of this calendar year and then looking to go further higher than that in the next calendar year based around the forward curve coming out of the Singapore market mainly. But also indications are that there's no new supply coming into the market. We have seen China has always been the major importer and the major controller of the seaborne trade. India has taken over some more of that. We are seeing sort of reconciliations, some tonnage out of Russia in particular that was going into Europe but is now going into India. And then obviously, the other overlay on top of that is the situation with the U.S., with tariffs, and how that's all going to settle out. So at the moment, we are still hedging a certain percentage of our forward sales up to a maximum of 40% within any quarter. So we hedge about 1/3 of our future sales and locking in the dollar against the -- New Zealand versus American, the U.S. currency at the same time. So that's sort of played us in good stead up till now. Obviously, we haven't got any debt within the business, so we're not trying to lock in downside. It's really trying to lock in profits further out as we see the opportunities. And there's only small tonnages available in this market, so we lock them in on a booked deal basis. We're still anticipating our guidance between $45 million and $55 million for the full year EBITDA basis at Bathurst consolidated. Obviously, exports down quite a bit from last year with pricing and also the disruption from the tunnel collapse earlier in the first half of the year taking out some of the capacity. We are going to see a slight deterioration in EBITDA out of North Island and South Island for the full year. And also with Telkwa, now that we're going through the environmental assessment application process, there's more money going in there. All right. The really exciting part, obviously, we did the capital raise, and it was well supported, raised $34 million. And the real reason for the raise was to be able to bring these 2 projects, take them through the consenting process, take them through the PFS, DFS to get to the stage where we can get to first coal in FY '27, FY '28. So that's the intention. Both these projects are coking coal, but they are quite different. So Buller is definitely a brownfield site. It's a well-known coal resource. We've had the bulk of these assets in 2010. It's been well drilled and well explored and well planned now. But the Tenas project is greenfield. There's no other coal mining in the area. It's got close proximity to rail. We've got control over the land with a haul road. And we're working through the process now of getting the various other approvals and consenting that are required. So with the Buller project, we'll be utilizing the Fast Track Approval process that was put into -- enacted in December last year. There's a couple of projects that are actually not by us, but by other companies, that are starting to go through that now. So we're getting some experience out of that. But this is a project that's going to come into full production around FY '28. We've got an initial start-up capital of about NZD 50 million, and we're ultimately going to build up to about 850,000 tonnes a year. And it's got a mine life of more than 13 years, utilizing the existing Stockton infrastructure. Probably just looking at that at a little bit more depth, what we're talking about with the Buller project is actually a combination of the joint venture asset and then the 100% owned Bathurst assets. So Stockton itself has probably got 3 or 4 more years of reserve within the existing holdings, but it contains the infrastructure hub. We've got the road, we've got the wash plant, we've got the rail loadout facility, and we've got access to the market. So as the tonnage drops off within Stockton, we then progressively bring in more and more tonnage, which is the purple bars on the graph here depicted and then building up pretty much to be around about, as I said, 850,000-odd tonnes average per year after about FY '32. So that maximizes the benefit for the joint venture and that we mine and sell all the remaining coal within it, and that coal needs blend partners. As probably anyone that's followed the progress of Stockton in particular, Stockton mines up to about 3 or 4 pits at any point in time and each part that goes out is a blend of each of those pits. And there's different coal qualities, even though it's quite a small area, to make up a number of different sales blends that go into the market. So we maximize the recovery as in the dollars from those coal pits by maximizing the qualities of each of those shipments. So adding that Buller coal into it over the next few years is going to maximize the recovery of coal out of that overall complex. So in terms of time lines, we're looking to submit the application to the Fast Track process in quarter 1 FY '26. So July, August next year -- this year, sorry. And we're looking to be out of that process by January, February next year in terms of calendar year, so during FY '26. We're progressing a pre-feasibility study. We've had a number of parts of this that have been under study for a long time. But now that we've sort of got the consolidated project that we just depicted on the slide before, we can now actually come up with some consolidated numbers across that at a pre-feasibility level. And then we're also, as part of that, working on a DFS that will lead to a bankable feasibility study at the end of it. We've got some work that we can do in the meantime on the site, access road upgrades and things like that, but really, the key work will start once we've actually got the Fast Track Approval. And as we'll discuss on the next slide, the Fast Track is very much a one application, multiple approvals. So when we come out of that, we'll actually have all the things that are required to go mining. At the same time, we are -- as part of the DFS process, in particular, we're looking to try and bring forward first coal and actually coal production overall in the Buller into FY '27. We've got some work going on at the moment, those are looking very positive. At the moment, we've reported FY '28, but we are looking to bring it forward. And then obviously, there's some key civil constructions around the coal transport route with the haul road construction. And then once that's completed, bringing on the coal fleet. So with the Fast Track, as I said, enacted in December '24, the other key thing for us in terms of that, but also our relationship with the government, is that metallurgical coal, which is our main product, actually was added to the New Zealand critical minerals list. And we are seeing that occurring in other jurisdictions across the world, Europe, for instance, the U.S. just recently with the order from President Trump. But really, the Fast Track allows the list of projects, which we have, the Buller project is listed in the act to go through with some very strict statutory time frames. And I suppose with those statutory time frames being so strict, it means that we've got to put in a very good application that doesn't require a lot of backwards and forwards or a lot of further work to carry on with it. So that's why we're anticipating it's going to take us another couple of months to get to that stage, and we'll be then looking to try and get that in July, August this year. I won't go through all those time frames, but as you can see, most of the government departments that are going to be dealing with us and the panel that will be convened once we get completion, also they have 15 days to sign off on. At the moment, I don't know of any projects that have actually got through their completion phase, so that seems to be a key step in the chain. And then it sets off a whole series of very fast turnaround discussion points and decision points, which then finally leads to a decision by the panel after about 3 or 4 months. So moving on to Telkwa. As I said, greenfield project. It's in mid-BC, right beside the main rail line that brings the bulk of the coal from the Tumbler Ridge area over to the port of Ridley. There's ample capacity at Ridley as well. We're adding here about 750,000 tonnes a year for about a 20-year period. So it's a good long life, looking at a spend of about CAD 75 million. That's based on the existing PFS. We're updating that at the present time. Good yield of a semi-soft coking coal product. And it will go into very similar markets that we're already supplying, South Korea, Japan, some coal into India and also in China. So again, we've got close proximity to the rail line. We're 320 kilometers from that port, which will be the closest port -- closest mine to a port in the whole of BC. And again, has ample capacity within that port. So where we are at the present time with that with the environmental process is that we have come out of the application development review phase. We've got a number of requests for information that we're working our way through. We're anticipating that's going to be completed by September, and then we'll be ready to put our effects assessment in for basically final vetting and then hopefully, recommendation and decision. So again, once we enter that phase, we enter some really tight time frames, 150 days and 30 days. There's very little activity that will require to stop the clock, whereas the phase before that we've just come out of, basically, every time there's a question, the clock stops and then you answer the question, then you go back. So the main phase really through the effects assessment is consultation with the parties, that's the regulators, in particular, across the various groupings; looking at the effects of the business and also the community and First Nations. So one of our goals with this is to go into that process with an affirmative response from First Nations, and we're working very hard towards that as we speak. So what we're aiming to do is really then build a business that, at this level, is delivering about 2.5 million tonnes of coking coal to the market for about another 15 years. So long-life projects with Tenas in particular and then overlaying Crown Mountain, which is not shown on here as well, but then also building on the existing assets within the North Island and the South Island through the joint venture and adding our 100% owned tonnage to that joint venture tonnage as well, as we've already seen in the graph before. So where does that leave us now? We're sitting -- again, we've got a market cap of $173 million, but we've got an asset backing of -- sorry, cash backing of $0.64, and we've got an asset backing of about $1.64. So in anyone's mind, we are undervalued. We've got no debt, and we've got good generating -- good cash generating capacity within the existing operations without bringing on these other projects. But also you then overlay these other projects, as we've just seen, and we're going to triple the opportunity to make cash out of this business. So again, we've got profitable operations within the joint venture and with 100% owned Takitimu mine. The capital raise has been successful, which then allows us to take forward that work that I've just depicted through the Fast Track, but also the British Columbian EAO process, or Environmental Assessment Office process, and ultimately, into mine permitting over there. We've got good cash reserves still within the joint venture. It's $190 million, which we own 65% of. So the joint venture itself is fully funded. The Fast Track application is fast progressing and ready to go. We've got good backing from the government through the Fast Track, plus the fact that metallurgical coal has been added to the list. They are very keen to see this economic development. We are a major employer in the West Coast and on the North Island. They want to see these projects continue on because that's injection of, as we saw before, $80-odd million in wages alone into these areas adds up to a hell of a lot of economic development going outside of just our business. So we are progressing the environmental approvals and the DFS for the Tenas project, and we're looking to be able to update you later in the -- sorry, early in the new financial year with the updates on those. So thank you for attendance. If you've got any further questions, you can get -- you can submit those through the website link or through the supplied e-mail. And look, I'm more than happy to take feedback as well as questions. So thanks very much for your attendance. Look forward to catching up with you again soon. Thank you.