Dyno Nobel Limited (DNL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Look, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Dyno Nobel's 2026 Investor Day. I'm Tom Dixon, and I look after Investor Relations for Dyno Nobel. We do have a full day ahead of us. So let's kick things off. If you've not seen it already, the presentation materials for today have been lodged with the Australian Securities Exchange, and they can be found on the ASX and Dyno Nobel websites. Look, I'll just draw your attention to the disclaimers found on Slide 1 and Slide 2 of this presentation and [indiscernible] from Dyno Nobel here on Slide 3. Moving on to the agenda for today. Just a few of the usual housekeeping matters before we get underway. Bathrooms are located near the elevators. Just letting people know they are all gender bathrooms, if you get a shock and you see someone from the opposite sex washing their hands and you're in the right room. In the event of an emergency, please follow the directions of event staff. Look, you can see here our lineup of speakers for the day. We also have a couple of Q&A sessions scheduled to invite discussion on the materials that have been covered. You'll also see that we have a showcase and lunch at around 1:00 p.m. This is going to be held downstairs on Level 2 after our panel discussion. The showcase is going to be a great opportunity for you to interact with our subject matter experts and experience some of Dyno Nobel's leading technology and innovations we have in progress and also learn more about our entry into the global energetic store. Look, I know we do have a number of people here today that have to leave slightly earlier this afternoon to get to airports and so on. So if you do miss anything late in the day, a recording of the presentation will be available on the company's website following the event. With that, let's kick it off, let's get underway. I'm going to invite Kevin McNeill from the Dyno Nobel Americas team to come up for a safety share. Thanks.

Thanks, Tom. Welcome, everyone. So good morning. When you think about an explosives company, I mean, 1 of the themes or 1 of the first questions that come to mind how do you actually do this safely. It's a fair question. Look, the materials that we manufacture or design to be inherently sensitive and that they will release a great amount of energy in a very short period of time. I mean that's what allows our products to do their job. To accomplish this safely, requires very high standards and the expectations that we place on our leaders and our employees are extremely high, and they should be. But this -- I don't want to talk about safety as a statistic. I want to talk about safety as the core capability in our business. Look, safety is not separate from operational performance in what we do. It is a direct reflection on how well we design, how well we build, how well we maintain, and how we can continuously improve all of our high explosives operations. And that kind of brings me to a very simple principle that it were dimming famously said. A bad system will be a good person every time. And let me say that 1 more time. A bad system will be a good person every single time. And I kind of always like that observation because it basically applies to everything that we all do every day. Recently, I was flying into St. Louis, Missouri. We have a plant called Wolf Lake, Illinois there where we make high explosives. And I was going to the rental car agency, and when I get there, I've been upgraded super. Like normally, I get like a toy to [ Tarell ]. This time, it was -- I'll just call it a German manufacturer. And I get in the car and I follow all my procedures. I'm Head of Health and Safety, they [indiscernible] Bell Americas. So I get my seat adjusted, I got my 2 side mirrors adjusted. I get my rearview mirror adjusted and I reached down. Everyone knows where -- well, unless you're an Aussie, everyone knows what I was just reaching, right, right above my right knee since the '90s, there's been a key there and now there's buttons, right? That's what I was expecting to see. And there was nothing there. It was just a blank wall of plastic. So for the first 5 minutes, there's any good engineer, I started pressing every button in that car. I was like air conditioning. I mean at 1 point, the windscreen wipers were going on a perfectly clear day. By minute 10, and I'm not exaggerating, I was looking in the rearview mirror going, do I need to make eye contact with this thing? And fortunately, for me, at some point, I see a guy in a green shirt, I mean an indication for the rental car agency. He was 19 years old, if he was a day. He looked like he's been invented by an iPhone. He comes walking up and he gently taps on the window and at that point, I was so frustrated I didn't even try to roll the window down because I wasn't sure I could do it. So I just opened the door, and he goes, "Can I help you, sir?" And I said, look, I can't make it go. And he -- without even looking at me, he reaches across the steering wheel into the car. And on the very end of the stock for the turn signal, he presses the button, and the car started. Now look, I'm an engineer. I don't know what engineer thought that left right and engine starts should be all on the same item, but Germans did. So I literally was so embarrassed. I just gently closed the door and didn't say anything to him and I rolled off. But that's an example of a bad operating system when I spend 10 minutes trying to get through that. In our world, that's an important lesson. Look, expertise matters, experience matters. But we can never rely on the individual heroics to keep people safe. The system has to do the heavy lifting. So over the past year, there have been several serious instances in our industry involving energetic materials that have resulted in fatalities. And they caused us to ask an important question. Not do we have a problem, but instead, how do we know that our systems are as strong as we think we are. So we launched what we call a fish review. Fish stands for friction, impact, static and heat. And these are the 4 forms of energy that have allowed to couple with our products could result in an unintended initiation or detonation. Now that sounds simple. But when you step into 1 of our operating sites, that question becomes much more complex. You're not just evaluating a machine, you're not just looking at a standard operating procedure. You're going to be looking at our entire operating systems, how materials move and how equipment is designed, how our electrical systems are maintained? How process control responds? How our inspections have performed, how operating standards are applied, how our leaders are sure that our critical controls are working. Look, think about it this way. Imagine if you walked into 1 of our plants with the clipboard, you could spend all day in 1 of our plants, and you would probably find some hazards, and we would take those and we would make them as a continuous improvement process. But world-class organizations don't simply look for hazards. We're looking for the pathways. We're looking for the hazards that could overcome our layers of protection. We are looking for the weak signals before they become an incident. And that's what the fish review was designed to do. Our team went to our plants in Australia, Mexico and the U.S., that's where we have high explosive operations. We completed over 630 hours of field reviews across all of these sites and it involved operation, engineering, our technology group, health and safety, line employees and leaders, and they observed how the work was done. They spoke with operations. They reviewed process hazard analysis. They verified control, and they tested all of our assumptions. And not because something bad had already gone wrong, but because disciplined organizations actively challenge the conditions that allow things to keep going right? And what did we learn? The most important finding may have been what we did not find. We didn't find a broken operating system, the button. We didn't find that the way that we manufacture required any fundamental redesign or informational change. What we found was a strong operating system supported by deep technical expertise and experienced people. We also found opportunities to make this system even stronger. The review identified 23 enterprise improvement opportunities spanning our engineering, spanning our standards, governance, learning, critical controls, leading and lagging indicators. That's what you would expect from us. Not perfection but learning. Not complacency but continuous improvement. And not assumptions, but verification. So why does this matter from an investment perspective? Because the same disciplines that reduce safety risk also reduced our operational risk. The systems that prevent unwanted energy release also support plant reliability. Engineering rigor improves operational predictability. Assurance processes strengthen our regulatory confidence, and our leadership discipline reduces surprises. Look, that's good for our employees. It's good for our customers, and it's good for our shareholders. Manufacturing high explosives safely is hard, and it should be hard. The consequences of getting it wrong are catastrophic. And what the fish review demonstrated is that we understand that reality. It also reflects the trust placed in us by our employees by our customers and by the communities that we serve and in our shareholders. Look, we didn't conduct a review because we believe we had a broken system. We conducted it because world-class organizations challenge our assumptions. We do not take success for granted. We continuously learn, verify and improve. In the review confirmed the strength of our operating system. It didn't have had opportunities to further strengthen our critical controls and reinforce principles that guide everything they do. Safety is not something we inspect into our system. Safety is the capability we design into our system. That capability keeps our people safe. It keeps our plants reliable. It keeps our customers confident and our business resilient. Our willingness to challenge assumptions, learn from weak signals and continuously improve the system is not separate from our competitive advantage. It is our competitive advantage. Thank you very much. And with that, I would like to introduce Greg Robinson, our Chairman of the Board.

Right. Well, safety is good business. I think you've had a peak into the soul of the machine, so to speak. Competitive advantage. It's true for all these primary industries, but absolutely for us that we've got to get this right. So the FISC study that we did through the group was on the back of some really significant industry issues. I think the pleasing thing from where I sit at the Board level is, number one, the strength of our operational team. But secondly, the seriousness with which we take safety for our employees, for our communities and, of course, for our customers. So with that, I just want to say good morning to everyone. Welcome. People have come from a long way away for our Investor Day here in 2026. And for those online, a big welcome. It's 2 years since we did the last investor meeting. We've obviously done a lot in those years. We appreciate the support of our shareholders, the interest of the analyst community and the opportunity to spend some time with you today, with our customers, partners and stakeholders. It's a bit of a unique opportunity for us to be able to get customers up here and let them tell you what we do and why they value our relationship, a big part of the competitive advantage for the company. So it's usually the reporting cycle. But today, we can really sort of open the books and give you a really good look at each of our businesses and where we're going for the future. So we were together in I think it was Salt Lake City in 2024. We had -- at that event, we outlined a pretty clear path on what we wanted to do. We had some very significant issues. We wanted to divest the fertilizer business, simplify the portfolio, improve the operating performance and create a more focused explosives company. At the time, we really spoke about what needed to be done. Today, I'm really proud that we can talk about what has been achieved. Most notably, we've completed the separation of the fertilizer business. I'm sure most of the people in the room have followed that journey with us. We finished that process with the sale of Phosphate Hill, the large asset there in July this year. We followed -- that actually followed quite a few transactions. We divested the St. Helens plant in Oregon. We sold the fertilizer distribution business on the Eastern Seaboard of Australia, which shut the Gibson Island ammonium nitrate urea plant, and we sold off the real estate -- a large real estate transaction there. And then we sold the commitment with the Perdaman plant, the big offtake, urea contract. So that sort of tied that up and finished in June this year. So now we're a focused pure-play explosives company, which is really 3 years ago where we wanted to end up. We've made very good progress on our financial objectives that we outlined in 2024. You'll hear a lot about that today and about where we want to go in the future. We were starting with an EBIT base of about $300 million in '23. And today, we stay on track for the target that we set, which is $600 million by 2028. We've got a very clear pathway to get there. And our objective besides just the EBIT objective is to drive well above our cost of capital requirements. So it's not just about spending capital. Equally important, we continue to pursue our ambition to be a leading global explosives business with discipline and a clear focus on creating value for our shareholders. And we've got lots of good examples of that over the last few years. North America at the moment is performing extremely well. We continue to see a really healthy demand across all the markets that we serve. We're doing a lot of debottlenecking, great debottlenecking across our major process plants. We've got Moranbah, Cheyenne, LoMo, and that's all going to support our growth here in the U.S. and Australia. We've had good customer wins in places in Latin America and Africa, and that really demonstrates many of the long-term relationships that we've got. It's supported by our technology. The larger companies in the world want to be with where the great technology, where the best safety, the best reliability is. And they are all attributes that we think open new doors and that we exemplify. Energetics. You'll hear more about Energetics today. We haven't been talking about that a lot, but you'll hear more -- a lot more about that today. It's an emerging area of opportunity for us. Mauro and the team will discuss that in a lot more detail. But it's a market where I think our capabilities, experience and assets give us a real genuine right to compete. As a Board, there are several reasons we're optimistic about Dyno's future. The first is the quality of the markets we serve. The world, as we know, will continue to need copper, iron ore, metallurgical coal, other minerals that support economic development infrastructure and the energy conversion. These trends for us are going to underpin demand for our customers' products and importantly, for the products and services that we provide. The second is the strength of our customer relationships, nothing more important than our relationships. Many of these relationships with our business have been built over decades. They're based on trust, reliability, and a long track record of delivering value. We maintain that position through operational performance, technical expertise and technologies that help customers improve safety, productivity and outcomes. These capabilities in our industry are really difficult to replicate. And I think you've probably got a feel from Kevin's presentation just how important it is to have that right. Very difficult to replicate and they remain a very important competitive advantage. The third is the quality of our manufacturing, logistics and distribution network, which has been built up over -- this business has been in business for about 160 years. So it's a long-term set of assets. Together with our strategic partners, those assets provide the security of supply and flexibility that our customers increasingly value. As a Board, we spend a lot of time thinking about the company's long-term position. When we compare Dyno Nobel today with the business we presented in 2024, we see a much more focused company, a stronger operating performance and a broadening and widening range of growth opportunities. Today's Investor Day is about really what comes next. Mauro and the leadership team will talk about how they intend to build on the progress already made and pursue the opportunities in front of our business. Importantly, future growth, and I think this is really important for us, future growth is not dependent on any 1 single project region or initiatives. Recent wins in Latin America and Africa, our strong performance in our North American business and our joint venture is attached to that business, increasing technology adoption -- and adoption and the development of Energetics are all opportunities that point to a broad set of growth options that I think a couple of years ago, didn't really exist. As Chairman of the company and on behalf of the Board, 1 of the most important responsibilities for us is the enduring company leadership and having the right leadership. I have to say, from a Board point of view, we have absolute confidence in where Mauro and the leadership team have taken the company in the last 2 years. They've led the company through a period of really significant change and we shouldn't underestimate that. It's very hard to do major transactions, operate safely and redirect company. They've done it safely. They've kept the customers, they've kept the operational performance, and I think demonstrated a really good shareholder value. So from a Board point of view, we're pretty proud of that performance. The progress discussed today also reflects the effort, of course, of thousands of people across the Dyno Nobel business. And I'd just like to make a quick comment to acknowledge their absolutely substantial and dedicated contributions to our business. Let me finish with just a simple observation. Two years ago, we outlined a plan. Today, I think we can point to the results of where that journey is been. Dyno is a much more focused company with a stronger competitive position and a very clear path forward. There's still a lot of work to do, but the Board believes the business is in better position than it was 2 years ago, and we're really well placed to execute against these opportunities. Thank you for your continued support and interest in Dyno Nobel. I'm now going to hand it over to the main act and introduce our Chief Executive Officer, Mauro Neves. Thanks, everyone.

Full room. Dream come true. So thank you for everyone for making it. Good morning, and thank you for joining us here today in New York. We appreciate and taking the time to be with us and look forward to share how Dyno Nobel has evolved since our last time Investor Day. But more importantly, where we see the opportunities ahead. Dyno is a very different business from 1 year go from when we discussed the business 2 years ago. We can say now we have a pure play explosives company with a resilient earnings base, a focused portfolio and a clear pathway, great long-term shareholder value. The work of the past several years has strengthened the business and creates a platform to what comes next. We continue to see attractive fundamentals across the markets where we serve, have opportunities to create more value through technology, premium products and technical services. We have meaningful opportunities to deepen our presence in existing markets and extend into new ones. And we see a compelling adjacency in defense energetics, when many of our existing capabilities are directly transferable. What gives me the confidence is that opportunities are supported by strings we already possessed today. Trusted customer relationships, many of which you have the opportunity to meet today, strategic assets, technical expertise, disciplined capital allocation in the [indiscernible] of execution. Today, I'll provide an update on the business, explain why we are confident in the opportunities ahead and outline how we intend to get there, delaying those opportunities into quality earnings, stronger returns and long-term shareholder value. Today, we have announced our new ambition, $800 million EBIT by fiscal year '31. For an expected $480 million to $490 million this year, we see a clean pathway to higher earnings and improved ROIC in our company. Our rolling 5-year planning cycle gives us a line of sight to how we get there which will cover later in the presentation. Growth will come from continued momentum across our business and property markets, defense Energetics as a new growth platform and the structural benefits of furthering that industry consolidation. Today, we'll take you through the portfolio and the actions already underway to delivery. But firstly, let me reflect on a quick update on fiscal year '26. We remain on track for our fiscal year '26 explosives EBIT guidance, which we have now narrowed to $480 million to $490 million. And our interest expense is expected to be lower than previously expected at approximately $85 million to $90 million. The fiscal year '26 effective tax rate is expected to be at the bottom of the previously guided range, and we will exit the year on track to achieve the $600 million ambition in fiscal year '28, which stays on foot. Group NPAT is expected to be in the range of AUD 325 billion to AUD 340 million, and the fertilizer separation is now totally complete following the successful transaction of Phosphate Hill. That allows that our full attention as a team to be direct towards our explosives business as the opportunity meddle in front of us. The North American business continued to exceed expectations after the strong first half we reported in May, with broad growth across end user markets and distribution channels. You'll hear more about that from our customers later tonight. Asia Pacific has also delivered a very strong second half with robust demand in hard rock and strong electronic sales. The Moranbah debottlenecking is now completed quite successfully and safely. In EMEA LATAM, program has been a bit slower than we would have liked. However, the strategy is related to cornerstone contract wins with Vale having signed a contract in Brazil with us recently and the AngloGold Ashanti contract in Ghana commencing later this calendar year. We will remain disciplined on how we price, how we deploy capital and focus on technology and ultimately generate value for our customers. On the Defense Energetic front, we have secured around USD 1 billion from government-funded contracts, including the most recent IMX contract, which we announced last week through our Nitradyn joint venture. The second major project at Graham, Kentucky, represents another meaningful step in establishing that platform. We're building momentum across the business, strengthening our cooperation, expanding our presence in attractive markets and continue to advance position in Energetics. Together, these initiatives position us well for the next phase of the strategy. Our compelling investment proposition highlights the unique competitive advantages and attractive end markets, Dyno Nobel will leverage to drive shareholder value. Begins with safety and reliability, both are fundamental requirements in our industry and essential to maintaining customer trust, as Kevin reminded us. We're now a pure-play explosives company with strong positions in 2 of the largest regions and more opportunity to grow elsewhere. [indiscernible] are supported by long-term customer arrangements, contractual protections and a diversified exposure across commodities, customers and geographies. The markets we serve also have attractive long-term demand drivers. Mining activity is expected to grow across the commodity in regions where we are positioned across the globe. While Defense Energetics provide the adjacent opportunity supported by increasing investment in sovereign capability. We also have advantages that are very difficult to reproduce. Many of our customer relationships have been built over decades. Our technology and technical expertise help customers improve safety, productivity and performance. Our manufacturing and distribution networks provide reliable supply in a world of increased geopolitical and supply chain channels. Vertical integration allows us to control important parts of the value chain. We intend to increase the value created from the core business, apply our model in regions where we are underrepresented, and develop new opportunities. Execution will depend on our people and to -- again, to Kevin's point, our operating systems. We spent lots of time strengthening both and the work remains centered to deliver the ambitions we have discussion today. It's all about the people. But let me start with the most important thing. Not that of what we're going to discuss today is more important. They're having every Dyno Nobel employee and going home safe. Safety is close linked to reliability, customer confidence and the quality of the execution of the business. We need to set the highest standards and operate with discipline. Over the past few years, we have reduced process safety events and continue to strengthen risk management and critical controls across the organization. That work matters because it's our duty of care to our people and the community where we operate. It also matters commercially. Mining and defense customers need that confidence that their suppliers can manufacture transport and handle materials safely and reliably. They need partners with proven systems, experienced people and a record of consistent execution. Dyno Nobel has more than 160 years of explosives manufacturing experience, more than 40 manufacturing facilities and a substantial Board of technical knowledge across the company. Our ammonia manufacturing assets have also delivered improved levels of reliability at 93% over the last 5 years. That reliability support security of supply and allow our customers to play with confidence. Such capabilities are relevant across both industrial explosives and Energetics. The product applications may differ, but the disciplines required to manufacture and handle Energetics materials are closer line. We will continue investing in our assets, our people, the operating system because maintaining this capability is fundamental for the business to grow. This next slide shows an important characteristic of our business. Our earnings performance not driven by movements in any single commodity prices. Between fiscal year '23 and '26, we delivered 17% annual growth in underlying EBIT despite ongoing commodity volatility. Growth has been delivered through customer recontracting, improved operational performance, the transformation initiatives and growth across the portfolio. As any business, we are not immune to market conditions but its a structure provides a high degree of resilience. We operate across multiple regions in multiple markets, often characterized by long-term contracts and pricing mechanisms that adjust to changing input costs. Commodity prices influence activity levels across our markets, but our performance is not tied to any single commodity cycle. The diverse design in the streams, customer relationships and end market exposure provides resilience and supports more consistent performance over time. That gives us a more stable base from which pursue growth. It also places greater emphasis on the things that are under our control, reliable supply, customer service, technology adoption, productivity and cost discipline. Those are areas where the transformation program has been laser-focused and will remain central to our strategy now through to '31. One of the reasons our earnings profile is more resilient than many appreciate is the quality of our contract book. We expect that about 80% to 90% of our fiscal year '26 revenue will be generated under customer contracts. More importantly, the forward value of the contract revenue is around 2x this year revenue. The level of contract coverage provides a degree of earnings visibility that is uncommon in many industrial businesses. The quality of those contracts also matters, mainly include rising for mechanisms that help manage input cost volatility and support margin resilience through the cycle. These are long-term relationships with large, well-established customers. Over time, those relationships create opportunity to deploy technology, introduce premium products and services, become a more integrated part and an improving site performance. [indiscernible] so does our ability to create value together. We move beyond supplying products to helping customers improving productivity, optimize outcomes, adopt new technologies across their operations. So while the contract book provides strong earnings visibility, it also provides a solid platform for long-term growth. We believe we are entering a gold age of great opportunity with powerful market trends, creating a strong foundation for long-term growth across the business. Electrification and energy transition continue to drive demand for critical miners. Copper material moved is expected to increase by around 50% from fiscal year '21 to fiscal year '31, supporting ongoing investments in mining capacity and production. Governments are placing greater emphasis in supply chain security and critical minerals. Here in United States alone, about $30 billion has been mobilized to support critical miners reshoring and domestic capability. Our talented commercial teams, the boots on the ground are converting these opportunities into growth. Investments in AI, data centers and support infrastructure continues to accelerate. More than a trillion of AI-related infrastructure investment is projected over the 5-year planning cycle, creating demand for the commodities materials and energy required to build and power that infrastructure. The activity is becoming increasingly important across the mining industry. Global ore grades are estimated to have declined by 6% to 8% over the last decade, meaning operators must move and process more material to produce the same amount of metal. That increases even more the importance of technology and technical expertise that improves fragmentation, recovery and overall performance. Defense Energetics represents a compelling adjacency growth opportunity. Independent market analysts would like the market could double by 2035, supported by the replenishment programs and growing investment of in sovereign manufacturing capability. This megatrend support demand for the commodities our customers produce. They reinforce the value of secure regional supply chains and trusted partnerships, but they also increase the need for the technology and operational reliability that differentiates ourselves. Each of these trends aligns closely with the capabilities we already have today, which is why we're confident in the long-term outlook for the market and our business. Growth in mine activities expected to grow across the board, copper, gold, iron ore and construction material, creating attractive opportunities across both established and emerging mining regions. The regional partner is particularly relevant for us in Dyno Nobel. North America and Asia Pacific provides scale with strong established market positions, long-standing customer relationships or in Africa and Lat Am, it offers attractive growth opportunities from a lower baseline. That gives us a somewhat balanced growth portfolio. We can continue strengthening our core business while expanding selectively in regions and commodities where activity levels are growing the fastest. As mining operations become larger and more complex, Customers are increasingly focused on productivity, recovery and overall mine performance. As many of you heard me say before, we generate the most value to customers when mine gets tougher, deeper and more selective. This is where the connection between the commodity demand and our business becomes very clear. I'm somewhat familiar with this hole in the ground, spent much of my life scooping it around. Corporate total material movement is expected to increase by around 38% over the next several years. Meeting that demand means being more mature, moving more mature, we started blasting. When you work through the numbers, that growth in copper alone translates to roughly 700,000 tons of additional ammonia nitrate equivalent domain. Just for the reference, that's 2 more in bars. That's a brilliant opportunity for Dyno Nobel. As our customers expand production to meet growing demand for critical mines will be there to help them do it safely, productively and efficiently. The second growth market we want to cover today is defense. Market analysis indicates that the Australian Defense Energetics market is expected to grow from approximately $5 billion to $7 billion today, to $10.5 billion to $13.5 billion by 2035. In short, the markets expect to double over the next decade. Importantly, this is not being driven by short-term geopolitical event only. It reflects a structural increase in defense to Spain, replenishment programs and investment in sovereign manufacturing across NATO-aligned countries. NATO members have committed to increasing defense expenditure towards 5% of their GDP, including 3.5% on core defense spending, well above historic levels in most countries. The opportunity spans a range of energetic materials, including main charge explosives, propellants, [indiscernible] and boosters. For those of you that want to -- what the hell is that? Braden will be explaining for this downstairs in a few hours. However, the largest area of energetic growth is expected to come from main charge explosives, which represent about 6% of incremental market growth aligning closely with Dyno Nobel's existing manufacturing expertise and acknowledge capabilities. This demand growth is expected to be driven primarily by increased volume growth with government looking to establish secure domestic and aligned supply chains. These require significant new manufacturing capacity. And building that capacity is not straightforward. These products require specialized chemistry, complex approvals, rigorous process safety standards and experienced people. And those capabilities may take years to develop. That creates for us first-mover advantage. Companies with existing experience in [indiscernible] materials, established manufacturing capabilities and a proving operating track record. Our approach remains disciplined and focus on where is our chemistry expertise provides a genuine competitive advantage. The capabilities we've built over decades gives us a strong foundation to serve the evolving needs of Energetics market. Whether we are in a trading nitroglycerin in cattage, pantalighting gram, handling HMX and TNT as raw materials in Wolflake or manufacturing black bowering voltages our teams are relying on process safety, product traceability and engineering controls compared to the most strict defense standards. We have an integrated chemical supply chain established operating footprint across 2 regions, making significant investment in sovereign capability. Obviously, this does not remove the need for careful project evaluation. Defense projects have particular customer, regulatory contracting and execution requirements. And obviously, we will assess those requirements closely and only pursue opportunities with partners where that provides the right capability or risk allocation. But we're not starting from 0. We're building from assets, expertise and operating systems are already present today in Dyno Nobel. We are making tangible progress in building our Defense Energetics position. In North America, the recently established nitrodine secured U.S. government support for the first new TNT facility at Graham, Kentucky. We're now definitizing the project scope and commercial framework with first production expected in 2028. With the IMX project, Graham, Kentucky, is being transformed into bold class and Negerics facility by 2031, with around GBP 25 million of flexible capability to produce TNT, IMX, RDX, [indiscernible], NTO and HMX. They love acronyms. When complete, Graham will be the second largest energetics complex in the U.S. Nitro dine is pursuing further opportunities with the U.S. government in areas like energetics research and propellent watch this space. The fiscal year '31 ambition of $800 million includes $30 million to $40 million in EBIT from the Graham Energetics project. In Europe, we are lining more than a century of experience in voyages, supplying products interface applications like [indiscernible] while assessing longer-term opportunities in early-stage entry into Europe. No incremental contribution from these opportunity in Europe is included in our $800 million ambition, giving us further upside, where projects meet our rigorous investment criteria. North America is particularly exciting for our Energetics business, independent analysis indicates that Defense Energetics volumes could almost double by 2035, driven by increased demand across TNT, propellants and advanced energetic materials, and we are already converting that opportunity in real contracts. Graham Kentucky facility have now secured 2 awards, 6.8 kilotons equivalent of TNT and approximately 3.6 million tons of IMX, the earnings through government tolling fee or offtake product margins. These awards demonstrate the strategic value of our manufacturing footprint, the strength of our technical capability and the growing role Dyno Nobel can play in supporting North America's future energetic requirements. Our confidence reflects the breadth of opportunities we have to grow earnings across the portfolio, both within our core business and through emerging opportunities. In North America, we are the clear leader in a market comprising a $900 million of EBITDA pool. Our priority here is to continue strengthening that leadership position, to technology, service and operational execution. In DNAP, we also have a significant market share in an addressable profit pool of around $1.4 billion EBITDA. This remains a highly attractive market, supported by long-term demand from the commodity infrastructures we serve today. EMEA, LatAm, our growth markets, it represents a different opportunity. Our market share today is very small, the available EBIT pool is approximately $1.6 billion, providing a major runway for disciplined growth. And I have to say, discipline in capital allocation, discipline in pricing and pursuit of value with customers. Beyond our existing markets, we see an emerging energetics market with an estimated pool of AUD 1 billion to AUD 2 billion. We are optimistic about our ability to win across these markets, driven by the pillars and the lion strategy. Our position has been built over a decade of consistent investment in the people, assets, technology and customer relationships. In our world with increased geopolitical and supply chain challenge, customers increasingly value reliability in technical expertise, [indiscernible] that have served us well in [ industrial closures ] and provide a credible foundation to expand into defense. Delivering value to our customers is 1 of our core values, and it's the heart of everything we do when we think about innovation. Having spent myself much of my career on the other side of the table, I know operators are not looking for technology for technology's sake. They are looking for safer operations, more tons moved better recovery and lower cost. That's why our approach innovation is deliberately practical. We invest where we believe we can serve a real operational challenge and delivered the measure outcome. Safety is our bread and butter core businesses offered in [indiscernible]. But it's wireless initiation, remote blasting or the industry transformative autonomous bench that we're proud to announce today, the objective is simple: remove people from high-risk activities, improve controls and create a safer operating environment. We have an opportunity later today to see some of these capabilities in more details. The same principle applies to productivity, premium products, advantage solutions and the expertise of our DynoConsult team will help customers improve throughput, recovery and overall operational performance. And so is with sustainability, whether it's electric NPUs, lower carbon product offerings, we're helping customers progress the decarbonization journey will maintain high levels of performance. What we learned over the years is that customers really talk about individual technologies, they care about outcomes. What differentiates Dyno Nobel is our ability to bring these capabilities together, combining technology, technical expertise in operations to help customers achieve better results. Dyno concerns team's curiosity, co-face exposure and humility to leasing is a secret sauce. We proudly wear hard hats and T-shirts with a love causes, and we mean it, despite getting trouble from time to time in security checks in airports. One of the advantages of our industry is that customers are very clear about what matters the most. Customer wants safe operations, reliable partners, improved productivity, strong technical expertise and security of supply. Customer feedback shapes how we run this company for improving response time and subsidy standards to developing technologies, strengthening operational performance, it's all about the customers. Across Australia and North America, our Net Promoter Score is around 20%. But the number is a reflection of the value we help create. When we do that, relationships deep, we become more embedded in customers' operations. They place great interest in our expertise, and that creates opportunity to support them across a broader range of needs. That's 1 of the core strengths of this company, through performance and customer outcomes reinforce 1 and out of a time, creates a strong relationship and a stronger business. Swan customers' colleagues use us in a fire for flight in an orange shirt, sharing the fines of a safety investigation, training the next generation of short fires or stopping unsafe work, they know they can rely on our team. Our vertical integrated network is a key competitive advantage to this business. Following the debottlenecking activities, we have more than 1 million tons of gas-backed ammonia nitric capacity. Dyno Nobel holds top 3 position in traded ammonia nitric globally and assembles our initiation systems in-house. Scale matters. But the real strength of this network is where it sits. We have premium assets positioned alongside key demand centers close to customer operations and embedded in some of the world's most important mining regions. That gives us competitive advantage that is becoming more and more valuable over time. As supply chain becomes more complex geopolitical tensions increase, customers are placing greater premium on reliability, security of supply, and trusted local partners. The network is built around these priorities. Again, the Kentucky Energetics Complex in Graham will further strengthen both capacity and vertical integration as will be fully integrated in our booster manufacturing back to TNT. This is a unique network, very hard to replicate and it's becoming precious in a volatile world, valuing these assets making sure that the capital deployed over years is remunerated fairly is a mantra for this management team. Our new ambition of $800 million by fiscal year '31 builds on momentum we have in the business today. It's a continuation of the journey we are on. Since fiscal year '23, we have grown underlying explosive EBIT from around $300 million to now an expected range of $480 million to $490 million this year, and we remain on track to achieve our $600 million ambition by fiscal year '28. We have completed much of the heavy lifting, simplify the portfolio, strengthen contracts, improved pricing and create a more scalable business. that gives us confidence in the horizon ahead. Just as importantly, we can give a line of sight on how we get there. [indiscernible] expected to come from greater adoption of premium products, bundled solutions and growth in our core markets. We also expect improvements from productivity measures in embedding the [indiscernible] away that Kevin referred about across the business with further contributions for our markets, including Africa, LatAm, metals and critical minerals and defense. This ambition is built on scale, improving strength across the portfolio, not relying on any single project or outcome. We created a platform and learned along the way. I'm confident on our teams and the passion they bring to work every day. In fact, about 20% of our workforce have recently elected to join you as Dyno Nobel shareholders. Separate to fiscal year '31 ambition is the potential for more substantive M&A. I continue to believe we are in a unique position in this industry to drive substantial shareholder value through further consolidation. We will continue to assess potential opportunities against a very strict investment criteria as we move forward. Before I hand over to Nitesh, I'd like to finish on a personal note. I couldn't be proud of what this team has achieved over these last few years. We have strengthened the leadership team, transformed the way we operate and build a business that is better positioned for growth than any point in our history. I want to thank my executive team, our leaders across the organization, their commitment, capacity and focus on execution have been critical to get us there. You'll hear from [indiscernible] today, and I invite you to engage with them and hopefully share the same level of confidence and passion that we have for the business. They are the people driving this business forward every day. And I'm sure you enjoyed the engagement as we talk today. Ultimately, our confidence in the future comes down to execution. We have the people, we have the capabilities and the operating discipline should deliver on our ambitions. With that, let me hand over to Nitesh to show some of the numbers. Thank you.

Thank you. Mauro has talked to you about how he likes to be in orange and his I love explosives merchandise. He was up here yesterday in his Miron, Queensland jet. I've already told them we're not sponsoring the Brisbane line. So good morning. Thank you for joining us today. In my section, I will focus on the financial architecture behind our strategy, our path to high-quality earnings growth and how disciplined capital allocation translates that performance into shareholder value. Over the next 30 minutes, I will connect our strategic priorities to the drivers of growth, margins and returns, whilst demonstrating how we maintain our balance sheet resilience. Let me start with the momentum we've established and the forward indicators supporting our confidence. At Dyno Nobel, we believe through our people, we deliver for our customers, which drives shareholder value. Putting the first -- putting customers first, delivering value and building trusted relationships is what drives a very healthy forward contract book. This is an important metric for us, and you can see it stands at 2x our current revenues. Our earnings are more resilient than many investors appreciate. Recontracting at fair prices, long-term contracts are supported the growth despite commodity price volatility that Mauro talked about in his section. Diversification across customers, commodities and regions provides further protection. Underlying EBIT has increased approximately 17% per annum from FY '23 to FY '26 to our FY '26 guided expectation. FY '25 reflects the effects of major plant turnarounds, but the budget trajectory shows that our portfolio simplification and transformation are converting our customer focus into consistent underlying earnings growth. ROIC improves by approximately 0.7 percentage points over the same period. As CFO, this is a critical measure. Growth must generate returns that justify the capital that we employ. Delivering an appropriate ROIC is vital for the essential service we provide to the mining ecosystem and for the sustainability and the investment in innovation that you will see here today. This investment in innovation is particularly important in the context of those declining ore grades that Mauro just spoke about. ROIC has improved since the start of the transformation, but there's a lot more that we have to do to achieve our target, which is above 8.5%. Underlying EPS rose approximately 38%, demonstrating that our earnings growth, capital discipline and improving outcomes per share on an underlying basis. Overall, we have very strong momentum through execution. This gives us the confidence to outline the next horizon while maintaining the delivery discipline required to achieve our [ 600 ] ambition. Our financial framework governs how we convert that momentum into sustainable value. Our financial management framework balances growth, resilience and shareholder returns. Quality earnings growth is a core principle of our growth mindset while continuous improvement through the Nobel way supports operating leverage by embedded productivity and cost discipline. We deploy capital selectively in our Halo assets and growth opportunities whilst maintaining balance sheet strength, liquidity and cash conversion. These disciplines preserve stability and resilience through volatile economic conditions. The final plank is value creation and shareholder returns. Our focus is to deliver ROIC above WACC together with appropriate shareholder returns through dividends and surplus cash programs. These are not independent objectives. Earnings generate cash and balance sheet capacity to fund disciplined growth opportunities that support sustainable shareholder returns. My role is to keep these trade-offs explicit and ensure capital flows to the highest value uses. The operating system supporting this framework is our transformation program now embedded as the Nobel way. Transformation has delivered approximately $183 million in benefits to date, with most significant contribution coming from commercial initiatives, followed by operational and growth. We remain focused on this $300 million FY '28 and are on track. FY '27 is a critical year for us. And in the next slide, I'll explain how we deliver that uplift and reached the $600 million exit run rate that we have committed to. But why stop here? The Nobel Way is now an operating system. The 5 Nobel way disciplines make delivery repeatable, clear accountability, rigorous idea validation and execution, disciplined cost and capital management, standardized ways of working and continuous improvement through structured operating rhythms. The next horizon of growth beyond FY '28 is underway, supporting the growth ambition of $500 million exit run rate by FY '31. Both the '28 and '31 ambitions, build on the FY '23 Dyno Nobel explosives EBIT baseline, which you heard about in the last Investor Day of $300 million. This would deliver an $800 million exit run rate ambition. This transformation is morphing into the Nobel way, evidence of delivery, a repeatable operating model and managed opportunity pipeline. Firstly, let's look at the earnings growth to our $600 million commitment. Getting from our FY '26, $480 million to $490 million guidance to $600 million. That means delivering just over $100 million in additional EBIT over the next 2 years. FY '27 is a turnaround year for [ Shire ] and our QNP JV. This will result in lower headline earnings. However, it does not affect the transformation exit run rate as earnings were rebound in FY '28. It is not dependent on 1 initiative, as Greg mentioned in his part. It is supported by a balanced portfolio across commercial, operational and growth levers. Commercial is expected to contribute approximately 30% to 40% in the FY '26 to '28 uplift. The focus is converting the opportunities in front of us, metals and Q&C wins across the U.S., more bundled customer sales using our premium technology solutions and stronger performance across our JV network. Operational initiatives are expected to contribute 20% to 30%. The largest levers are unlocking additional ammonium nitrate tons through the debottlenecking activity at Moranbah, Cheyenne and Loma, expanding IS production in Turkiye and Indonesia, as well as delivering localization and cost savings at our major IS plants. Growth is expected to contribute approximately 35% to 45%. We will use our global footprint and establish customer relationships to expand in these priority markets, particularly Africa and Latin America. But there's also planned expansion in Asia, Western Australia, Canada through our capital-light model. The contribution ranges are estimates and the mix may move, but together, these initiatives provide the pathway to reach the $600 million of EBIT by FY '28. I'll cover the next horizon of growth on the next slide. The next horizon of growth is to build on that $600 million earnings base and deliver a further $200 million uplift, taking EBIT ambition to $800 million by FY '31. The same 3 levers: commercial, operational and growth continue to drive the pathway. But the emphasis shifts from delivering current transformation pipeline to compounding that platform at scale. In commercial, we will deepen and expand our strategic customer relationships, increase the contribution of bundled products while capturing more value through premium product mix, which you'll hear a bit more from Dirk, in the next session. The aim is better customer outcomes and stronger margins, not volumes at any cost. Operational initiatives from the embedding the Nobel way includes continuous productivity improvement, AI enablement and digitalization and process simplification. We will also use our scale to optimize procurement, supply chain and manufacturing performance across our portfolio. Growth includes scaling new Energetics platforms and expanding our presence in target growth markets, of Latin America, Africa, Asia and Canada. These ranges are directional and the initiatives reinforce 1 another. Technology supports premium mix and differentiation. Digitalization improves productivity for us as well as our customers and the strategic relationships create routes into new markets. Together, they will provide the diversified and executable pathway to the next $200 million of EBIT and the $800 million FY '31 ambition. Revenue growth is the foundation of this next horizon. The following slide shows how volume, price mix and new markets combined to support that ambition. Our ambition is high single-digit growth from FY '26 compared to approximately 4% to 5% since FY '23. The forward ambition has 3 building blocks. Around 3% to 4% comes from underlying volume growth, existing regions and commodity demand, particularly in metals and Q&C. A further 1% to 2% comes from price and mix. This reflects pricing for the value we deliver, greater adoption of premium technology and transformation initiatives. As mentioned by Mauro, these technologies are driving significant value to customers through mining efficiencies. The remaining 3% to 4% comes from new markets. So as I mentioned, primarily targeting expansion in Canada, Africa, Latin America for commercial explosives, but it also includes contracts that we've won in North American energetics. The composition of this revenue is equally important to quality of earnings. Moving to the next slide. Our commodity exposure is shifting towards higher-margin technology-intensive end markets aligned with our strategy. Mining activity continues to increase many of the commodities we serve, with particularly attractive outlooks in copper, gold, iron ore and critical minerals. Metals increased from approximately 36% of our revenue contribution in FY '23 to just over half by FY '31. This gives us greater exposure to faster-growing markets, supports premium technology adoption and reduces our relative exposure to energy transition risk. At the same time, Mauro mentioned declining ore grades made blasting performance more important. Customers need better fragmentation and productivity outcomes to move more material efficiently. The combination of more tons moved and lower ore grades creates increasing demand for our products, technology and services. This is quality earnings growth through portfolio mix. High-value revenue, deeper customer relationships and more resilient earnings base. Premium technology is the clearest example of how improved mix translates to financial value. Premium Technology Solutions support both growth and margin expansion because they link our economics to measurable value created for customers. Premium products are expected to increase from approximately 35% of our revenue to approximately 45% of our revenue in FY '31. Standard products remain an important part of our base, but the mix shifts towards differentiated offerings. The margin comparison shows why this matters. Premium products margins are approximately 1.2x those of standard products. This reflects our investment in innovation and the development of differentiated technologies, which as Mauro mentioned, are focused on customers' needs. This is not simply a product growth initiative. It represents a deliberate movement -- improvement in revenue quality through customer adoption from demonstrated outcomes. The second major earnings lever is operating leverage and capital efficiency. As outlined earlier, operating leverage discipline is embedded in how we manage the business. The overheads and capital metrics illustrate the potential for more scalable, capital-efficient business. Overheads as a percentage of revenue improved from about 13% in FY 2025 to the range of 10% to 12% target range in FY '31. Revenue is expected to outpace overhead growth, supported by the Nobel way, process simplification and AI enablement. Operating efficiencies will be delivered to be able to support investments required to grow into these new geographies for growth. Realizing these benefits also depends on our talent, culture and our approach to change. We will configure our workforce to harness AI innovation with the skills and ways of working required to scale it effectively. Capital intensity also declined. As you can see, we have stabilized spend, excluding turnarounds in the last 3 years. Balancing, operating our assets consistently, improving throughput and growth investments. The reducing trend in CapEx to EBITDA is reflective of the operating leverage with a bias to lower capital intensity. North American Energetics benefits reflected in growth is low CapEx intensity and supports this curve. This is due to the USD 1 billion Graham, Kentucky investment being funded by the U.S. government. Noting as Mauro mentioned, any European Energetics benefits and investments are not included in the plan and would represent upside opportunity for us. Overall, the objective is to convert a greater share of earnings to cash while continuing to fund safe and reliable operations. These ranges will not be linear in every year. Planned turnarounds can create variation, but better cash conversion reinforces our financial resilience. Combining revenue growth, operating leverage gives us the pathway to the FY '31 earnings ambition. Earnings have stepped up materially since the transformation program began. Underlying EBIT growth was approximately 3% before the transformation. The program included material recontracting at more sustainable levels, reflecting the explosives industry's low ROIC, and the need for greater sustainability. This is evident in the past 3 years where EBIT has grown approximately 17% per annum. Although ROIC in FY '26 still remains below our cost of capital expectation. The next horizon of growth is driven by market demand and the adoption of premium technology, which delivers ultimately downstream mining efficiencies for our customers. These drivers are complemented by continuous improvement and scalable operating models in which revenue grows faster than overheads. The $800 million FY '31 exit run rate remains an ambition but demonstrates to you the opportunity we see at Dyno Nobel. The cash generated by the earnings must then be allocated through a clear, consistent framework. Our capital allocation framework is designed to balance resilience, growth and shareholder returns. At its core, it does 3 things: It protects the foundations of the business by funding safe, reliable operations and maintaining financial strength. It directs capital selectively to opportunities that support our strategy and meet clear return thresholds. It preserves the flexibility to return surplus capital to shareholders when that is the use of funds. The framework is disciplined but not mechanical. Decisions are made with each use of capital assessed against the risk-adjusted return, strategic fit and balance sheet capacity. This ensures growth does not come at the expense of resilience and keeps capital allocation focused on sustainable value creation. That approach shapes the upside opportunities we see that are not included in this ambition. I'll touch on this on the next slide. This slide brings together the 2 sides of disciplined capital allocation. First, returning surplus capital to shareholders and investing where we see compelling long-term value. We have returned significant surplus capital or cash to shareholders through special dividends and share buybacks executed at an attractive average price. This demonstrates our commitment to returning capital when we see it's the best use of funds. At the same time, we are seeing attractive opportunities in Energetics. These opportunities offer strong returns and the potential to create long-term value for shareholders while supporting the next phase of Dyno Nobel's growth. With approximately 2/3 of the announced capital return now complete, Dyno Nobel will conclude that program. We will prioritize strengthening the balance sheet so that we can have the capacity and flexibility to invest in these opportunities. This disciplined balance between returns, resilience and investment is designed to support sustainable shareholder value. This slide here demonstrates how our plan is designed to create sustainable shareholder value. The value comes from bringing the elements of the strategy together, growing higher-quality earnings, improving operating leverage and allocating capital with discipline. As execution strengthens, we expect the business to generate better returns on capital employed and stronger earnings on a per share basis. Achieving ROIC at the levels is reflective of the importance of our people and assets to the mining ecosystem and underpins sustainable investment to unlock the resources the world needs. Let me close by bringing the financial outcomes together. Our long-term outlook brings the financial elements of the strategy together in 1 clear value creation pathway. Growth in priority markets, pricing that reflects the value that we deliver, greater adoption of premium technology, support the single -- high single-digit revenue growth ambition, improving revenue quality, operating leverage and cost discipline, then convert that growth into our FY '31 ambition of $800 million EBIT. The plan is designed to translate stronger earnings into economic returns. Achieving ROIC above WACC demonstrates that our growth and capital deployment are creating value, we've -- while improving our cash conversion provides the capacity to fund business and pursue attractive opportunities. Cash conversion is expected to be more stable following the fertilizer divestments and in the indicated range of 60% to 75% post interest and tax. Balance sheet strength remains central to this approach. Maintaining an investment grade credit rating is a commitment. We've had positive feedback from rating agencies as a pure-play explosives business, both agencies have indicated an appetite to increase leverage, had room to reflect the improved credit profile of the business. This will give us flexibility to be at heightened leverage levels periodically, but our long-term setting remains at 1.75 to 2.25x, which presume preserves resilience and flexibility. Taken together, Dyno Nobel offers a compelling balanced and accountable investment proposition. Quality revenue growth, operating leverage, expand earnings and cash generation, disciplined capital allocation directs that cash to opportunities that clear our return thresholds and investment-grade balance sheet preserves resilience and flexibility. This combination supports returns above our cost of capital and sustainable shareholder value. This momentum is visible today. The Nobel way supports execution, our financial framework provides discipline to turn that execution into enduring value. Thank you. I'll pass it on to Tom.

Thanks, Nitesh. Look, I'll get you actually don't stay on stage. Thanks. So I Invite Mauro on the stage also. We're now to a Q&A session with both Mauro and Nitesh. We have some moving mics on the floor. So please raise the hand. We've got a mic on each end. And yes, we've got about half an hour allocated for Q&A now. So we look forward to that session.

The first 1 just on the role of bolt-ons. For the Horizon 2 incremental $200 million, how should we think about how much of that is from sort of the bolt-on acquisition spend that you flagged?

Yes. Great question. Look, the bolt-on -- maybe the best way to do it define what we mean by bolt-on. Bolt-on typically means as we enter in new markets, so doing a new -- it's about complementary capability that will accelerate the speed of growth, but it's not transformation in terms of changing materially the scale of the company. So the bolt-on is a means to grow, but not -- in no way an attempt to accelerate the process just by buying -- earnings or buying revenues. You really looking to do complementary capabilities. Typically, when you enter in new markets and you want assets in the ground or make your ability to serve the customer easier. That's the type of thing we're talking about. And we gave you range to give you the order magnitude of what that could mean. So that when we start deploying planning for capital, you have a sense. But it's not -- we haven't broken it down because it's not in itself a target or a level. We talk about that as a means to deliver on all the other things, whether it's the geography in LatAm or EMEA or even defense, it's a means to deliver the plans that we outlined.

Maybe I'll add, you could probably see that it's included in the CapEx intensity that we outlined. So whatever is in that CapEx intensity will be minor CapEx.

And then secondly, I guess the obvious follow-on is that more transformational M&A that you potentially flagged that sits outside of the $800 million ambition. How should we be thinking about I guess, the timing, the sequencing of that versus, I guess, Horizon 1 and Horizon 2?

Look, it's totally excluded, but everything that we're doing is creating a platform that is better positioned for that. You heard me talking about that many times I think this industry is ripe for more consolidation. It's happening. In Dyno Nobel, will be 1 of the technology winners in the end of this journey. But the plan we're presenting for you today hopefully gives you a sense that we're getting fit for the marathon. And we really have enough fund in front of us to deliver to strengthen the position of the company. And eventually, if there are opportunity pops up, we'll be every time a bit better to do that. Our best currency to play this game is value we create every day and reflected by the share price. So we're not shy to say that we see that as a big [indiscernible] in the future, but that's not the plan. It's not is not included in the $800 million. We have line of sight to do our own self-help, but we remain curious in looking at what's happening around us.

It's Ramoun from Jefferies. Just a couple for me. Maybe just starting on '26. You've provided guidance at the upper end of your range. Just if you can maybe talk through some of the temporary impacts. I know it's been a volatile 6 months just given what's going on, any sort of impacts to think about around freight that have affected the half or pass-through of raw material costs, just given the volatility in nitrogen pricing and energy prices that we should then think about into '27?

I think broadly, we outlined in the half 1, some of the headwinds we saw some of those were temporary. So for example, we've seen FX probably not as bad as we thought in terms of currency translation into the U.S. as we originally, but we had some offsetting effects in Indonesia and some other effects. So broadly, most of those items we called out in the half year, we're traveling there, which is why when we've tightened the range, it's kind of a similar space of where we outlined previously. We were certainly beneficiaries, as we said in the half year results in the first half for a tighter AN market. But in the second half, we also were trading in that market. So broadly, the effects of ups and downs in FY '26, there's nothing significantly that you've got to carry forward in how you think about FY '27.

Look, if I may add to that. So if you think the story holds in terms of what were the exchange rate Strait of Hormuz, if you want, inflationary pressures. But to your point, we expect as the rising for mechanism started to kick in, right, you will have that reversing next year. But there will be other things that we haven't planned for like those of you that follow any mining stocks were happening in Chile, for instance. We have 1 of our customers down for more than a month, 3 meters and there's no. So you cannot plan for those things. There's things happening. If you see the voting of all the big money houses, nobody playing what happened in Chile. So with all that, we're still tracking well for that range. But in the balance of the ups and downs, we feel strong about this year.

Great. And just the second one, just around the commercial uplift in that horizon to how to think about, I guess, the recontracting cycle. So maybe if you can touch on that. And then I guess as part of that commercial-led growth, the contribution from North America versus Australia or APAC that you're assuming within that, I think it's $80 million uplift through 2031.

Yes. Look, this part of the world in the U.S., given the Energetics story, but also you hear firsthand from some of our customers, 1 of which, very important, a new customer. well, not a new customer, but new operator, 1 of the minds of -- I have to say how much longer will hold. But Rio Tinto will be here later today to talk about the Quebec operation. So you have some underlying growth in this part of the world, which is the story playing to our advantage. But then what's happening in Canada, it's spectacular, it's our fastest-growing market anywhere. So much of that is not only what you call the traditional U.S. business is also coming out of Energetics coming out of Canada. We have some ambitious about what we want to do in Mexico. So it's all very exciting here. But notwithstanding that, Australia very likely will still be our biggest market. In terms of the recontracting cycle, the U.S. is being as tight as I've seen in my time. For the first time, I think this leadership team has been talking about import parity in the U.S. which is a very core natural language in the Australian business. But now it is a thing here. Ammonia nitrate has been consistently imported in the U.S. market. And that drives a whole different mindset on how people think about the product. And obviously, if I'm to finish the long answer, don't underestimate the risk profile that people are allocating to ammonia nitrate as part of their own supply chain resilience. I don't think people take both streams like the opportunity to not have a domestic source of supply for anything that is ammonia related. So I've seen a status ever the ammonium nitrate market in the U.S. The import parity in Australia still remains pretty healthy at around $1,000 delivered. So all of those factors support yet another cycle of recontracting where we remain positive that there is another opportunity for us to keep growing margins through the next cycle.

It's fair to say reminded Greg has had a great year here in the U.S. and there's a good reason why we're here because he could afford to pay by [indiscernible] tonight.

Is it in the forecast?

It's Brook from Barrenjoey. You provided a comment that contracted revenue is sort of 80% to 90%, I think, of FY "26. How did that look a couple of years ago? And you talked about how the earnings are more resilient, kind of suggesting the quality of those contracts are -- have improved. So maybe you can give some examples of maybe how some of the conditions and the contracts are different to history if that's what's at play?

Look, we traditionally have had protection, but I think as in a world where security of supply becomes more of an expectation from customers. At some point earlier this year, all but us, all of the globally slow supplies, but had some customers somewhere in the global force majeure. Obviously, that's helpful. And that creates a sense of viscosity of the product, and hence, gives us the opportunity to say, well, it's more than fair that you would expect us to get some protection on volumes, some protection on margins. if you want us to give you some protection on security of supply. So it's a 2 street. So the overall market condition was positive for us to leverage that, the fact that we had the product available to say, okay, we will be happy to give you some guarantees on our performance as long as that's now volume protected somehow. So it's a two way street.

And second question, just around the additional AN demand in LatAm. I think you called out 700,000 tons additional demand for AN given the growth in copper. How do you think the market is going to serve and meet that demand. I presume, given your comments around CapEx, you're not going to be committing capital to new AN plans. I guess it's just debottlenecking. It sounds like, but correct me if I'm wrong. So how do you think the broader market is going to meet it?

Hasn't changed, Brook. There's not 1 line of our capital plans that sees us bringing in new capacity. Our house view is that there is enough in the world, the obvious displacement of geography displacement or even application of what goes into Fit, what goes into market, but there's no 1 line in our capital plans. It talks about new AN capacity being brought to life. Now we like privileged assets. So if you ask me around the world, would there be any planes that would be nicely placed in -- yes, that's okay. But we won't bring any new capacity in our plan. We will bring capacity through debottlenecking to your point, that marginal typically turnaround related investment, but not any new plants.

I think the other part there in terms of context of that is our assets, our assets become more valuable. And so our ability to reflect that value into how we see our ROIC is how we see that additional demand in the market.

John Purtell from Macquarie. Just a question regarding the Energetics market and how complementary it is. You've obviously touched on that Mauro in your presentation there. But does it have similar characteristics to your base explosives business, thinking about sort of long-term contracting, and who are the current players of serving that sort of main charge explosives market?

Thanks, John. Look, 100%. Our estimation in -- there is obviously the Dyno Nobel franchise, the credible operations that we have in the country. But on a practical sense, if the Army had preferred to do a greenfield development for a new operation, you would have taken them at least 2 years, maybe 3 years longer between permits, land, and land is particularly critical because you want you have land in terms of the size, but you want to have land in a place where those communities around us in Graham, Kentucky, are used to hearing banks and bumps going from time to time as we test product. And having a community that accepts that industry, having the people trained, having safety, being able to trace products, which we do today, you may or may not know, but many of the jurisdictions we have absolutely control where the product ends up. So all of those things to start from scratch, having a system to trace product would have taken at least 2 years for a new greenfield operator to replicate. So there is a time to market. But now the other thing we're learning is there will be some other difference between the U.S. The U.S. is the biggest military complex in the world. Naturally, has the economies of scale to do what the government done, which has decided to put capital to work to do capacity in the country. The Europe story is somewhat different. We expect that to be more -- as from his telecom experience keeps talking internally more like a data center model where you will likely have -- that's why we allocated some capital in the plan to that reason, not allocating this plan, but we're giving you a sort of range of possibilities of what they could look like, where we would likely have a capital deployment and written by offtake arrangements with Prime. So all the primes that you know the BAs, tales, the global ordnance materials. So the procurement would go through likely a prime in that prime we distribute to the different countries in a rather than in the U.S. which is a very concentrated model. And we are -- I'm limited in what I can say how progressive we are in that, but we have -- Richard will talk more about that later today. We have had some early indications that the Vonage's footprint in what it brings is very similar to what we've done with Graham.

Lee from JPMorgan. If we just look at the revenue CAGRs that you gave us, '23 to '26, something you talked about how obviously it's a more rational market, condition has been pretty good over that period. And then you've got 4 to 6 in the next like '26 to '31. Do you think that is more the market doing better? Or are you winning more and kind of what's a sensible kind of view of what the market actually does in that period?

Yes. So I think we've tried to break it out in terms of consumption. So I think we've seen consumption very strong, as you've seen in our half year results, some of the growth that we've seen and we've shown what the consumption element has been. So we've tried to show consumption, there will be consumption growing aligned to those growth in those commodities that we've also outlined then. Then we've kind of split out some of that growth in new markets in the growth category. So I think that's the distinction between the 2. So where are we looking at new business, it's within the growth category.

Okay. the 4% to 6% includes your new business wins in existing doesn't or am I thinking about it the wrong way?

So the 4% to 6% is consumption growth would be existing. So anything that is new is sitting in the growth category.

Okay. And then the. The premiumization like the margin, the 1.2x margin, do you think that holds as we go out as we have that 10 percentage point uplift out to 2031.

It does for 2 reasons because as you see later today, we're launching a new product, and this product in itself is premium as premium as it gets, and you would expect that pricing for that would differ from the equivalent standard product or standard equipment in that case, it's a piece of gear that we're doing -- we'll talk about that later. But as some of the products mature and probably that price spread becomes diluted the new products we're managing and go to the next cycle. So we're not standing still. We're progressing our technology portfolio, and Dirk will have more to say about that. You're right. If you were standing still in the technology was frozen over time, you would expect naturally that, that would be wound down. But as new products come to life, the comparable earnings opportunity stays through.

I was just going to add, just to reiterate, a lot of our contracts are -- have got CPI included. Rise and fall mechanisms and that's come into price and mix. I think the other component there is we would want to see that grow more strongly as our differentiated products move into mix, which is generating those higher, more premium product lines. So -- and the last component, when I looked at it and I thought, wow, we should be growing more in that line in terms of CPI going forward. So -- in my view, that is an opportunity for us to -- as our assets become more valuable, price should be a consideration. But some of the suppression we're seeing in that space is FX in the time. So when we look at the next 5 years, we've got sort of FX headwinds, which are compressing that.

Sure. And then just a final 1 on Energetics. So this business seems like relatively large and accurate energetic systems that was a Tennessee producer that had like a significant issue at their plan the back in the last years. Is the assumption that, that comes back? Or does that just stay out of the market and your views on what that means?

Looks difficult saying, and I have to say I had to go to the 14 lives that were claimed with that. I don't think maybe Kevin has a bet -- on the break that Kevin can give you. But I think it's is not -- at least not in the short term. They're probably not coming back, given the size of the impact and literally, the destruction that happened at site. Actually, the plant that they lost was literally 1 of our -- so it wasn't Energetics. I was boosted manufacturing, very similar to what we have in chemo and will the essentially, we're using TNT-filling canisters, which we do all the time. So it's a process that we know very well to the point that Kevin and his team were invited to join the ATF to do some of the investigation. That is all on the privileged obviously, we cannot comment on that. But the ATF came to us to ask help to go and what will happen there. So it's a very similar process to what we do wasn't much in the energetics says it was an IMX or it was handling TNT to produce Boost is very similar to what we do.

I've just got a follow-up. Just Mauro, obviously, mine is, as you know, a pretty fecal bunch, but...

Yes, they are. I love mines.

You've got a fair bit of your growth come from, I guess, premium product mix, new products, how do you get confidence that those customers are willing to firstly adopt those blocks? And then secondly, willing to pay up for those products?

Again, they will kill me, but I cannot talk about this without talking about what's coming after, which is Dirk launching a new duct. That product will release productivity in a mine that is unavailable today for safety. So with that technology, a drill and blast department typically will be doing drilling and blast and then there is a handover point between the drilling team and the blast team. So you drill, drill, drill, drill. When you're ready, you hand it over to the blasting team. I leave that through 30 years of my career where you had a clear separation between drilling and blasting. So imagine a world which we have done, we imagine it world where you don't need to drill during the day and stop at night, which now with autonomous drills you do. Imagine a world where there's no safety. You don't need any light, you don't need to see what's happening. You can just load the hole throughout 24 hours without stopping. So you're opening up 8, 9 hours, depending on the place of the world of productivity in the bench, there would be otherwise not available. So really, the price of explosives and the price of -- it becomes irrelevant when it looks -- when you look at the utilization of most valuable asset that miners have which is time. So we're really trying to get out of the cycle of going for tenders of ammonia nitrate per ton, which from time to time, we do but really to go and say, look, we can make autonomous -- your bench 100-nano no person in the bench, and you can run 24-hour loading explosives in your bench. So it's really fundamentally -- and you hear that from customers in a minute in themselves, how they feel and how they think about it. But the product we're developing, they try to take away the conversation about the dollar per ton or dollar per initiation system or the dollar per booster to say, this is how much more productive your mind will be if you work with us.

Got it. And then just 1 more on Energetics. Help us understand the competitive landscape, both here and in Europe, if you can. Not enough. There's not enough in the world. Everyone is trying hard. And we learned that with TNT, as you heard me say before, this all energetic story for us if -- to be very honest, it's almost accidental because we stumbled into an opportunity when we were trying to make our supply chain a bit better with TNT. So we are heavy users of TNT. We use about half of the TNT in the U.S. for industrial use. And what we found is there is a huge shortage coming out of the recent tensions in Ukraine. So there's a company, if you wanting to understand a bit of the economics of the companies, there's actually a company that about 40 years ago, was part of the Dyno Nobel family, a company called [ Camering ] Nobel listed in Europe, which is 1 of the traditional energetics players. They essentially were part of Dyno Nobel back in the day and was pit as a separate business at least in Europe today, maybe if you interest to go and take a look at what types of earnings and what type of margins they make, they're good comparative of what this business could be.

Just a follow-up on, I think, Ramoun's first question on sort of technology in the mining space. We've always sort of considered Q&C to be kind of at the high end of the spectrum from a profitability perspective for you. But as you attach more premium products, more services in the mining space, which seems to be a key focus area. Should we expect that sort of gap to converge and close metals versus Q&C?

Unlikely. It's a good question because it's not so much qualitative. It's more geometric. It's really because of the bohos and the typically in a quarry, you're very compressed in space. So you don't have the geography as you are in the middle of the desert. You cannot do as big plus as you typically would in the big end of town in mining. So the ball hosting much smaller. So it's really -- it's a mix issue. So you end up using more explosives per time of bulk explosives then you're doing any other type of operations. So it's defined by the way they work. It's not so much about willingness to take -- it's not a behavior thing. It's just your metric and how it plays out in the bench. The bench fundamentally different from a big and BHP or Rio.

Sam Seow from Citi here. Just on 1 of your slides where you outlined the $1 billion to $2 billion EBITDA opportunity. I think you had in the comments, EBITDA margin, 20% to 30%. But it looked like they referred to kind of NATO region margins. Is there any reason to think that North America would be different, higher or lower? And then similar, again, when in your Europe opportunity, just relevant to that kind of note that 20%, 30%?

Yes. Likely, Graham will be the highest ROIC in Dyno portfolio because not our capital, so very high ROIC and lower margins proportionally because obviously, we're not remunerating capital with those margins. Europe business will be more like what's in that benchmark. And again, I refer you to Cameron Nobel, not because we're going to replicate what they do, but they are somewhat well established, mature business that's been in that market for quite some time.

There's no more questions off the floor for this session. We've actually got time for a break now. Thank you, everyone. We'll have about 15, 20 minutes to stretch the legs, bathroom. People are welcome to walk out on the balcony, et cetera. So we'll kick off again with the technology and customers at 11:40 a.m. Thanks. [Break]

Good morning, everyone. My name is Dirk van Soelen and I'm the Group Technology Officer for Dyno Nobel. During this session, I'll focus on how technology creates customer value. And how in turn, this drives higher quality revenue for Dyno Nobel. I'll walk you through what's driving the industry's demand for technology and also look at our pipeline. Our pipeline has projects at various maturity levels, and it sets out some ambitious and very exciting initiatives. I'll distinguish between what it earns today, what is scaling and what remains in development. The results speak for themselves, and I'm looking forward to share with you some real proof points from key customers in gold, copper and iron ore. The result shows and quantifies just how much better blasting improves recovery and the cost of material liberation. 6 forces are reshaping mining pursuit to be safer and more productive. AI is moving out of pilot programs and into decision-making stages. All it and drilling are already automating with the safety bar being raised and skilled crews becoming harder to find. Data across the mining cycle from drilling and blasting to the material that is recovered is still siloed. This means that the processing plant must deal with significant variability in the feed material that it receives. Across our industry, all grades are falling and the geology is more challenging and complex to deal with. In addition to this, Carbon and energy usage per ton is also under pressure, and security of supply matters again in a way didn't 5 years ago. Together, all of these trends are pushing the industry towards solutions that improves outcomes, gives accurate data and keep people out of harm's way and the blast is absolutely pivotal in addressing most of these challenges. In the context of all of these factors happening around the world, our technology offering and pipeline is in a very strong position to respond to customers' demands. For example, our Nobel Fire digital platform improves Blast decisions with AI and predictive modeling. Our new autonomous solutions and wireless initiation systems removes people from the bench, and our drill [ build ] programs links blast performance to plant outcomes. Our differential energy solution matches energy to the rock, and underpinning of this is security of supply. And this is achieved through our integrated chain and network of privileged manufacturing assets, which continue to support continuity. We continue to focus on adding technology and services to the drill and blast processes, where we already have a proven track record. That is why these global forces that I just mentioned works in our favor. They increase the value of a position that we already hold. Dyno Nobel has a strong technology pipeline. Some of these solutions are already earning at scale today. Others are emerging and seeing good results on [indiscernible] and some are still in development. I want to give you a look at the pipeline and how this links to our strategy, namely to protect and grow the core by focusing on continuous improvements while we are also securing developments for the future. Globally, adoption of our premium offerings, including electronic data [indiscernible] and emulsions continues to grow. Our differential energy technology allows loading of up to 6 densities in a single blast hole rather than only 1. This matches the explosive energy to the specific rock type, and this is what provides optimized and consistent fraction. Our electronic detonators continues to replace legacy systems with safer, more flexible and accurate timing. Combining this, we have Dyno Consult, our technical teams work hand-in-hand customers to unleash the value of these products and to solve real-world problems. This approach focuses on outcomes and value offerings rather than just product selling. Scaling into the base is Nobel Fire with usage that has roughly tripled since FY 2022 as the needs for analytics and integrated through workflows expand. Our world-class and first-off world electric mobile processing unit is currently being site trialed, supporting transition to lower carbon emission mine fleets. For the underground market, we have a new strategic partnership with TesMan. This remote loader technology cleans, prepares and load all the holes without operators at the face, improving safety and access to high-risk resources. What's also nice about this product is it can be retrofitted to existing rigs, optimizing the asset utilization of our customers, ensuring that we protect the future is critical. And looking at our pipeline, the development of lower carbon emulsions, the next-generation wire reginator and a new complete autonomous process to inspect and load blast holds will ensure that the biggest challenges our customers are facing will be addressed. I'm encouraging you to find out more about these capabilities during lunch at our tech showcase downstairs, where you can also chat with our SME subject matter experts. I'm going to take a minute to talk about AI. Dyno Nobel's Nobel Fire solution combines blast data, predictive models and feedback to optimize the next blast design. AI is now used across all our development groups, increasing the delivery speed, as shown by the productivity measures on this slide. This results in faster and more cost-effective delivery of our digital product offering. I want to be clear that we remain focused on the blast and its downstream impact, integrating with our customer systems rather than trying to own the entire data stack. This focus improves execution, interoperability and customer retention. Now to something really exciting and the autonomous bench. We have a short video to play that explains this innovation, but I've included this slide for further reference after the video. [Presentation]

Thank you. I'm incredibly proud that this autonomous bench is no longer a concept. But after 5 years of R&D, Dyno Nobel has built actual units which has been trialed in controlled environments, as you just saw on the video. These units will soon be deployed to our first trial site here in the U.S.A. with our customer and partner, Mariana Minerals, who is here with us today. Mariana Minerals is building 1 of the first fully autonomous mining operations in the United States, and they are the right partner to move this technology forward with us. Our objective is reliable autonomous loading, which integrates with the mine systems and other autonomous solutions that the customers have already deployed at their sites. Through a stage pathway between now and mid-2027, the new system will autonomously measure, prime, load, stem and record each hole accurately to the design parameters, thereby automating the full cycle without people on the bench, resulting in repeatable efficiencies and predictable results. This new technology improves safety and downstream efficiencies as we mentioned, but it also unlocks other opportunities like access to high-risk ground, greater night shift utilization, continuous operations and 0 entry mining. Strategically, this new technology protects our role, not only as mining operations automate into the future, but also as the forces we discussed earlier in the presentation, are reshaping mining and as they intensify. In the future, this reliable, repeatable loading and blasting capability supported by proprietary hole-by-hole data will create a distinctive and a value proposition for both Dyno Nobel and our customers. As I mentioned before, more customers are using our premium products, and this is supporting Dyno Nobel's earnings growth. And there's 4 drivers that is improving revenue quality. Firstly, continued conversion to electronic initiating systems a higher value product mix, digital tools have been embedded in customers' workflows and lastly, services that expand our scope from product supply to supported outcomes. Electronic volumes are up roughly 1.25 to 1.5x and mobile fire uses has increased about threefold since FY 2022. The mix is shifting towards higher value, more integrated and higher retention revenue. This premium technology opportunity also compounds. Electronic data analytics enables our customers to optimize blast results when they use this in conjunction with differential energy. The differential energy can be optimized further by data-driven decisions and our predictive models which then drives the adoption of our Noble Fire platform. Because of the vast amount of data and analysis and insights that is gained from Nobel Fire, this then becomes an enabler for services and optimization via DynoConsult for supported and value-driven outcomes. This progression supports our customers to boost product productivity and value, and it leads to sustained earnings growth for Dyno Nobel. We are not just selling a product. We are providing customers and with solutions that deliver real-world value. As you can see from this CASE study, our model of integrated product, digital and service offering is delivering results. From precise and repeatable blast execution to predictable fragdation, our solution provides improved material flow. This leads to increased plant performance and higher recovery rates. I stress predictability is this is what really matters on site. Variability disrupts downstream performance and throughput. In contrast, more consistent and predictable fragmentation improves dig rates, stabilizes the feed to the crusher and the mill reduces the energy per ton, delivering higher throughput and recovery at a lower unit cost. This approach then expands our ability to work with our customers beyond just explosive supply. It opens the door to blasting services, design and performance outcomes focus on the total cost of liberating the material, not just the single line item of explosives. We are committed to helping our customers and to quantify the value they are receiving with Dyno Nobel. This case study on the slide with a key copper customer demonstrates this. As we went through the process, we found that the combination of differential energy and electronic detonators coupled with our fragmentation density modeling and the meticulous data-driven services provided by our embedded DynoConsult people on site delivered an increase of 27% in blasted rock. In addition to this, the SAG mill, which does the heavy grinding to break the rock down far enough to separate the metal and which is traditionally the largest power user on site recorded a 10% drop in energy usage. Due to this better fragmented rock, resulting in the mill having to work less hard. Together, this added an estimated $20 million a year in value. Over the last year, we've worked with more than 30 of our customers to validate the impact of technology solutions on their operations. This slide highlights the headlines from 4 different case studies patients, commodities and technologies, and each has quantified outcomes and delivered real customer benefits. I want to point out that the same value creation model translates across different operating environments. Earlier, I spoke about the value that our copper customer obtained of Dyno Nobel. But as I look at iron ore, our differential energy product, along with moving to electronics and investing in pattern optimization delivered product improvements of approximately $20 million a year in cost savings. This is equal to roughly 2.5 to 3x the amount spent on blasting. In gold, our drill to leach program increased gold recovery by 8 percentage points and crushing throughput by 15%. Recovery is really difficult to improve once the ore reaches the leaching pad. Fragmentation is 1 of the few upstream levers available and is critical to optimize and control. Our customers' metallurgists valued gained at an estimated $215 million over 10 years. In smaller operations like quarries and aggregates, this technology model still holds and again delivered roles by reducing oversight. This is the large rocks that slows down Aquaris production being reduced by 42% and the fraction above 36 inches in size dropping below 1%. This initiative saved a potential $700,000 a year in value for very little additional investment by the customer. As a benchmark across operations running the full Dyno Nobel technology service model instead of legacy methods, we see a 3 to 5x increase in the value generated based on their blasting investment. In short, well-managed, controlled, reliable and repeatable blasting delivers real cost savings and value for our customers. Our technology and service model helps them to deliver these benefits, which in turn builds trust. Our investment in technology is also supporting our customers with their decarbonization objectives. We continue to focus on new world-first technologies and solutions such as our electric MPU and lower carbon emulsions. These are important technology advancements and will be critical to the industry moving forward. I want to make the point that the largest source of emissions is often hauling, crushing and milling energy. We are able to influence these emission sources by providing reliable and repeatable blasting outcomes for our customers, as we've just shown by the 10% reduction in the SAG mill energy in the copper case, which delivered both carbon and cost benefit from the same intervention. If I can leave you with one message today, it is that Dyno Nobel's technology is transforming mining challenges into measurable safety, productivity, sustainability and cost improvements for our customers. It is also creating scalable and profitable growth for our business and our shareholders. Thank you. We are privileged today to have some of our customers here to provide their insights on the mining industry and the role that technology plays in their operations. Greg Hayne, President of our North American business, will assist me in moderating the panel that includes customers across iron ore, aggregates, coal and critical minerals, including a joint venture partner working and delivering products and services on the bench every day. Let me invite them up to the stage and welcome them.

Please welcome to the stage Jay Pumphrey, Vice President and Equity partner Buckley Powder Company. Jay brings more than 50 years' experience working in the explosives industry and 25 years with Buckley Powder Company, one of our valued JV partners. Buckley Powder Company operates in roughly 28 locations across 5 regions supplying explosive products and blasting services to the quarrying, mining and construction industries. Mark Helm, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, Dolese Brothers. Mark has 4 decades in the construction materials industry and now leave Dolese, one of Oklahoma's largest construction materials producers with more than 1,000 employees. Dolese is a customer of Buckley Powder Company. Paul Wagner, Vice President, Global Supply Chain Peabody Energy. Paul has held leadership roles spanning the Americas, Australia and global supply chain functions, helping drive operational performance, cost optimization and supply chain strategy across the enterprise. Peabody Energy is a leading global coal producer supplying high-quality thermal and metallurgical coal to customers in the electricity generation and steelmaking sectors. Willem van Schalkwyk, Director of Mariana OS Product Management, Mariana Minerals. Mariana Minerals is a software-first vertically integrated critical minerals project developer and operator. It owns and operates Copper 1, a copper mine and refinery in San Juan County, Utah which restarted mining operations in April 2026 incorporating the company's proprietary software stack Mariana OS. Mark Arkell, General Manager, Mine and ore Delivery System, Rio Tinto IOC. With more than 3,200 employees, Rio Tinto IOC is Canada's largest iron ore pellet producer. Mark has spent over 15 years with Rio Tinto, almost all of it in large open pits, we have run autonomous drill and semi-autonomous explosive loading fleets in large open pit operations.

Okay. Good morning, everybody. My name is Greg Hayne. I'm the President of our Americas business, and I'm so excited to have assembled such a well-credentialed panel to talk to you here today. Up here on stage, we have over 100 years of executive leadership experience across all of our market segments, metals, coal, quarry construction, and we also have our largest joint venture distribution partner with us. So I think with 100 years of experience on the panel, I think it's appropriate that we start with someone who's contributed generously to that 100 years of experience. Mark Helm. Mark, you've been the Executive Chairman of Dales, and you've also chaired the National Stone Sand and Gravel Association for about nearly 40 years now. What's changed in your business and in the industry over, let's call it, the last few years?

Sure. And to start, he says long term because Dolese has been around 125 years, we're celebrating next year. So we're pretty excited about that. National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association really represents the aggregate industry and the products that are used there. If I look at the last, say, 3 to 5 years and think about the changes, I could talk about quite a few things. Some of it's the consolidation of the industry. Some of it's the difficulty in permitting new sites that's getting harder and harder. There's a number of things, specifications that have continued to get tightened up and the requirements that our customers have on our product. But in the end, it is the technology really that I'm seeing us really try to drive the most. If you think about the aggregate industry, we have not really taken on the technology in the same way a lot of maybe my counterparts up here have, and that -- that's really because the economics haven't really been driven as well as they could for us. We're -- we tend to be smaller operations, so the technology is expensive and to get a return on it is difficult. Also, a lot of it is just the difficulty of sensors and those things that aren't as durable in our environment. And so we're seeing a lot of that happen right now, but the technology has really started to develop at a point where the economics are starting to work for us. And so we're really focused on it from an automation standpoint of our plants, our operations, data collection and what we can do with that data and trying to control the plant, doing remote controls on plants, all those types of things are really starting to move into our industry and especially in our bigger aggregate operations. There's a lot of small operations, including some of ours where I think it's still going to take some time for that economics to work out.

Nice one. And Mark, just specific to AI, how is AI shaping your industry?

Yes. I think for us, AI in the back office, we're starting to use that more for some of our processes. Of course, our IT folks, OT folks, OT, operational technology folks are using it for coding and those types of things. Where we're at really is being -- even though we're 125 years, we probably haven't done as good a job because we haven't used the technology level. So our data is not as clean. It's not -- it's siloed somewhat in different places. So it doesn't all agree. And so that's where we're really focused on because we know that if we can get the data in from our plants reliable and we get that data clean, now we can use AI really to control that operation and start to make adjustments on the fly. And so that's where we're really trying to head.

Nice one. Nice one. And I guess we should bookend this. So we've started with Mark. We should move to the relative upstart into the industry. And Willem, we're all fascinated to understand what is the world's first software-first mining company all about?

Yes. Thanks. I think we're -- so Mariana, we started about 2 years ago. And I think pretty early on, we got into business at Copper One. And the goal there with Copper One really is for us to start mining in the way that we intend to mine and intend to scale the business. And the autonomy is like a really, really, really big piece of that picture. We've set ourselves a really ambitious goal of going after 10 projects in 10 years. And we know the only way that we're going to be able to do something as crazy as that is to do it by leveraging technology to its fullest extent. I think that means like really, really kind of like end-to-end deployment of technology. So that means like going after all of the unit operations so that we can get to that sort of like full no human in the pit operation, blasting is obviously a really big part of that. And then the other piece of the puzzle is the kind of data infrastructure and the kind of optimization layer that looks across the entire operation. So we want to think about blasting, for example, in the context of the downstream recovery and the full kind of like operational optimization, not just an individual point solution. And I think the other thing to call out is like that is an incredibly ambitious vision. We are also very, very lucky, I think, in the mining industry to have very good kind of point solutions. And we see our main challenge like being able to orchestrate and bring all of those solutions together so that we can make the data flow and make the decisions flow across all of the different silos rather than each unit operation solving for itself.

Thanks, Willem, and I'm sure Dirk is going to interrogate you a little bit more on that shortly. But I just did want to bring in Paul Wagner. So the thermal coal industry, people don't obviously always sort of associate that with the AI revolution. But how is it affecting Peabody Energy?

Well, for Peabody, AI, obviously, it's a technology story, but probably the more immediate impact for Peabody is the electricity and the infrastructure story. We're seeing for the first time in this country in a number of decades, measurable increases in electricity and the demand for electricity. Many of the utilities are starting to look at their fleets and how do they supply that electricity in the future. So the coal fleet that at some point may have had an expiration date on it is getting pushed out. And that's good news for us, helps our supply situation definitely. I'd say the other piece of it is around the critical minerals and the rare earths. You hear a lot about that in the country that we don't have enough of those. So we're starting to look at our resource base and how we can be part of that supply chain as well. So with the electricity, the infrastructure and the minerals, I think Peabody has got a role to play in all of those.

I was reading about that. I'm sure people are fascinated by sort of Peabody's -- what you're seeing in regards to rare earths in Wyoming there. Can you just give us a bit more on that?

It's early days for us. We're starting to understand what do we have in our resources. And then it comes down to how are we going to extract that economically. But we are definitely pursuing that, and it's one piece that we're going to be looking at pretty heavily.

Yes. Maybe, Mark, I can hand over to you. And look, with all your experience on a lot of sites that you've run, you understand the impact of blasts really well on downstream processes. And at IOC, where do you see the greatest value from getting it right at blasting?

Yes. Thanks, Dirk. IOC is the iron ore company of Canada. It all starts with the blast. We have a very intensive downstream processing. So we concentrate and then we upgrade our iron ore into very high-grade quality. And if we don't get the blast right, it makes that downstream a lot more expensive, and we lose value each step, especially the interfaces. So working with Dyno up there, really trying to get our blasting right at the front because -- in terms of return on investment, more money you can spend on the blast, it really saves downstream. So that's where we're really trying to get it right at the front of the blasting there.

That's good. blasting Jay, if I can throw it to you, you guys run a lot of sites as Buckley Powder and you support a lot of sites. Where has technology made the biggest difference to blast performance? And what can you achieve today that was not possible a few years ago?

Thanks. Just we like to call ourselves boots on the ground for Dyno Nobel. We carry out the technology that they bring forth along with the products, which the differential energy deal has made a huge difference to us. and how we go about. We got 62 trucks that we run now with differential energy, we've taken it and run with it. But when you start talking about technology, what it's done for particularly the aggregate industry. So we've been able to go in and recover rock that we weren't able to recover before. And the reason is it's technology, okay? And we can blast in with electronic detonators, we can blast a lot closer to structures than we could in the past. We do -- it's allowed us to educate the public more on what's going on. We do a lot of regression studies where we work with our seismic graph operators. to make sure that we're not shaking up the public, okay? And the main thing is we need to stay out of the newspaper. And so in our business, that's not always easy. And so technology has made a huge difference to us, and it will continue to do that.

Yes. I think that is really great in that license to operate.

Yes. As I said, permitting is getting more and more difficult. And in our state of Oklahoma and most states, there are requirements on blasting levels, those vibrations and air impacts that you have to meet. And definitely, the electronic detonators and that whole process has really helped in that regard because a lot of our locations are getting built around they're close to neighborhoods. And so we've got to be really careful on how we're doing that. And it is the license to operate as we go forward because it's not uncommon for us to be permitting new sites quite frequently.

And that's an issue not just for new sites, but it's an issue for the big coal mines, Paul. I know we work with you on community issues all the time. How does the technology sort of flavor some of the work that we're doing with you on that?

Well, I think technology is definitely important for us, helps with productivity improvement. And the mining game, particularly the coal mining game is all about cost and what's the cost to move a yard a dirt. So if you can help us do that efficiently, we're all about that. But coal mining, in addition to that, there's other pieces of it and safety is #1 for us. And we look to you for your products that they can meet our safety the requirements. And then as far as any services that you provide that you can do that safely as well. And then once we get over that hurdle, it's the product supply. Can you deliver the products to us in our cyclical business up and down and continue to support us in that part of the business. Good technical support to help us implement those technologies. Those are always very important to us and then really just executing on the bench for us.

Yes. Mark, maybe back to you. Just with all the variables in the mining cycle, if you could improve the consistency of one aspect of each blast, what would it be? And how would that impact your overall operation?

Sure. When you look at our operations, one of the things that I don't think people always realize about the aggregate industry is when we're producing products, one of our plants might produce anywhere from 15 to 25 different products. And at any one time, it might be 3 or 4 different products. And so when we've set up a plant, we know what our production needs to be for each of those products, and we're trying to set up our crushers, our screens to really capture what the average material that we expect to come out of that quarry or out of that pit. And sometimes say, Buckley's help, we'll have different shots. We might make anything from a rip wrap shot for large erosion control stone to smaller shots that are helping us produce some mineral filler. But so what that means is because the average coming out of that muckpile is not always the same, it's not just the throughput of our plant, but it's also the distribution of products that we make at any one point in time, whether that might be a 1.5-inch stone to a 3.8 stone to 0.25-inch stone, we're trying to produce all of those for different construction projects. And so that variability really causes us some problems in the plan. And so if I could have one wish, it was that, that muckpile, that rock that's been blasted down is consistent all the way through. And that's a little bit difficult for us to really see and to do. But that's what I wish for the most.

Let me say something -- and one thing on that, the communication with Dolese is excellent. And so what we do is as we get into this and we see a blast and we look for measurability on throughput numbers and so on and so forth. It's not all about how much you can produce. It's more about what Mark said, the products that you produce. And the more feedback we get from them, we can change the blast on the next and we can change the timing on the detonators and we can create a much better muck pile that runs better for them, and that's the goal. So...