Evolution Mining Limited (EVN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Evolution Mining FY '25 Half Year Financial Results Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Jake Klein, Executive Chair. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Darcy. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. Thanks for joining us. I am joined today on the call by my colleagues, Lawrie Conway, the CEO and Managing Director; Barrie Van Der Merwe, the Chief Financial Officer; and Peter O'Connor, General Manager, Investor Relations. I'm going to turn to Slide 3 of the presentation, which I think is appropriately titled Strategically Positioned for Success. As you all know, it really is a great time to be a gold miner. The tailwinds of a record-high U.S. dollar gold price and an Australian dollar trading in the low 60s to the U.S. dollar put the current spot gold price at over $4,600 an ounce. That's over $700 higher than the price we realized in the first half of this financial year and relates to the financial results, which you're looking at today. So the gold price going forward, if it holds, is $700 higher for the second half. As a shareholder of Evolution, times are even better. Our strategy since we formed the company over a decade ago remains unchanged: a focus on establishing a concentrated portfolio of long-life, high-margin gold and copper assets in the Tier 1 jurisdictions of Australia and Canada. The results being presented today are a testament to the effectiveness of that strategy. What really encourages me is the confidence we have as a team and as a company that these results are sustainable well into the future. With that, I'll hand over to Lawrie and Barrie to take you through the results.

Thank you, Jake, and good morning, everyone. Firstly, let me start by acknowledging Jake for his invaluable contribution to Evolution over nearly 15 years and the support he has provided to me. I'm pleased that Jake has agreed to maintain his association as Non-Executive Chair from next year, and I look forward to continuing that relationship. Turning to Slide 4. Jake has just outlined how the execution of our strategy over the years has created a high-quality, long-life portfolio, and we are now seeing the benefits of our operations delivering at the right time. We are getting back to consistent, safe, low-cost production, which enables us to capture the benefits of the rising metal prices. Just as important, though, is that we have multiple value-accretive growth options that will extend mine life or increase production, while the exploration results over the last couple of years continues to drive our resource growth and provides further upside. With an average mine life of 18 years and options to extend further, as well as our low-cost position in the sector, the cash generation of the business is sustainable well beyond the current record gold price environment. We have an investment-grade balance sheet with the capacity and flexibility to support our strategy and most importantly, allow us to deliver increasing returns to our shareholders. Slide 5 provides a snapshot of the first half, and it contains multiple records. These records are being achieved due to us delivering to plan with production tracking at 52% of the midpoint of guidance at 388,000 ounces of gold and 38,000 tonnes of copper at $1,638 per ounce in the first half year. Delivering these results safely is paramount, and our TRIF is down 39% from 12 months ago. In terms of records, we delivered record operating, net mine and group cash flows up between 60% and 420% against a 29% increase in the achieved gold price and an 8% increase in the achieved copper price. That definitely shows the quality of the portfolio. On the back of the record results and the significant deleveraging, we have increased our fully franked interim dividend by 250% to $0.07 per share. As previously announced in the quarterly, our projects are tracking well with the Mungari plant expansion 9 months ahead of schedule and 6% under the original budget. Cowal is an asset that has fully repaid all acquisition and investment capital and year-to-date alone has generated $268 million of net cash. Receiving regulatory approval to extend the operation in the open pit by 10 years has only further cemented it as a truly world-class operation. Moving to Slide 6, which to me really captures the true quality of the portfolio and the benefit of delivering to the plan in this metal price environment. We're excellently placed to benefit from the upside of the spot metal prices. Every operation is set up to be a sustainable cash contributor to the group, and they all benefit from the spot price upside as we only have 75,000 ounces hedged for delivery over the next 18 months. Since the release of our quarterly results a few weeks ago, the potential for FY '25 cash flow has increased by another $105 million, putting us on track to deliver $2.1 billion of operating cash flow and $1.9 billion of mine cash flow before major capital. The extra $305 million shown on the chart represents a half-year benefit. So annualized, this is over $688 million as compared to where the metal prices were when we released guidance in August. We expect this momentum to continue, which further improves our flexibility in phasing our capital investment and still be able to continue to increase dividends. With that, I'll now hand over to Barrie to take you through the detailed financials.

Thank you, Lawrie, and good morning, everyone. As my last results presentation with Evolution, it is great to be talking to a set of record financial results, as Slide 7 shows. Underlying profit after-tax, a record performance at $385 million, is up 144%. Underlying EBITDA of $1 billion is also a record and up 77%. This performance was driven by on-plan, consistent production, higher metal prices and good cost control. Our EBITDA margin increased by 16% to 50%, clearly showing that we are banking the benefit of the high gold price. Both operating and net mine cash flow for the half were all-time records, while we continued investing in our long-life, high-margin operations like the Mungari 4.2 plant expansion that will be delivered early and under budget. Since December 2023, gearing reduced 24% from 29.7% to 22.6%. That was after paying [ dividends ]. As we said before, as gearing comes down, dividends are increasing. The $0.07 per share FY '25 interim dividend, which is 250% higher than the FY '24 interim, clearly shows that we are honoring this commitment to our shareholders. Turning to Slide 8 that talks about our investment-grade balance sheet. Our balance sheet is in great shape, as these charts show. Net debt is $345 million lower than in December 2023 after paying $140 million [ in dividends ]. As the margins increase and we bank the upside from higher prices through consistent on-plan delivery, we have seen a very favorable step-change in all our key balance sheet metrics, which was already at investment grade before. EBITDA leverage, the number of years of cash profit that we need to cover our net debt, reduced from 1.9 last year to 0.7 this year, a 63% improvement. With expected cash generation and profitability in the second half, as Lawrie outlined earlier, this will reduce further very quickly. Our interest expense is covered 22x by EBITDA compared to 11x for the first half of FY '24. This clearly shows the benefit to shareholders of having 75% of our debt with a tenure of between 5 and 11 years at a 4.5% fixed interest rate. The foreign exchange exposure on our U.S. dollar-denominated long-term debt is fixed at USD 0.715 to the Australian dollar. And with the current exchange rate at about $0.62, the hedge is more than AUD 200 million in the money. Our average borrowing cost is a very low 5% and the interest rate on the variable rate term loans reduces as gearing comes down, meaning they are 20 basis points cheaper from 1 January 2025. Turning to Slide 9. Our policy of paying around 50% of group cash flow is unchanged, and the interim dividend represents a full payout of the dividend policy after allowing for deleveraging at pace and continued investment in the business. Therefore, following this record financial performance, the Board declared a 24th consecutive dividend of $0.07 per share fully franked. It amounts to $140 million payout in total and is equal to the total dividends declared during FY '24, and will be paid on April 4. Aligned with shareholder feedback, we are reinstating the dividend reinvestment plan, which will remain active until further notice. This provides shareholders with the opportunity to acquire shares at a 5% discount to the volume-weighted average share price for the 5 days following the record date. We are on track to reduce gearing to 20% or less by the end of FY '25 while continuing to invest in our long-life, high-margin assets. The early and under-budget delivery of the Mungari 4.2 plant expansion is testament to our major project execution capability. It means that approximately $80 million of major project capital and $25 million of major mine development capital will be brought forward from FY '26 to FY '25. This is reflected in the updated guidance table in the appendix. All other elements of guidance remains unchanged. The chart on the top right clearly illustrates that in times when gearing reduces, dividends increase. Gearing peaked in FY '23 following various acquisitions to establish our high-margin asset portfolio that are now generating significant cash flow. Gearing is reducing rapidly, while dividends have started to pick up. We expect this trend to continue, particularly considering that the current gold spot price is about $700 per ounce higher than that achieved in the first half. The half 1 annualized dividend on the chart shows what it may look like if the final FY '25 dividend were to be the same as the interim dividend. On a personal note, as this is my last results presentation with Evolution, I want to thank the company for the many highlights over the last 2 years. It was a very fulfilling and exciting experience, and I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to spend time here. Evolution is a great company and very well positioned for the future with a clear and consistent strategy and excellent leadership and people. I wish you all of the best for the future. I will now hand the call back to Jake. Thank you.

Thanks, Barrie. And on behalf of the company, we thank you for your efforts and wish you all the best for the future. Turning to Slide 10. And just before opening the lines for questions, you may have seen this morning that in addition to the record financial results this morning, and as Lawrie mentioned earlier, we also announced that I will transition to the role of Non-Executive Chair of our company from the 1st of July 2025. Having had the privilege of being both the founder and an executive of Evolution since our journey began almost 15 years ago, I've decided that the time is right for the business and for me for this change. I'm excited that in addition to being the Non-Executive Chair going forward, I will continue to lead our efforts on converting our Mt Rawdon operation into a significant renewable infrastructure asset, generating clean power for Queensland. This move has all been carefully planned, well considered and has been really in the works for over 2 years, as I've worked with Lawrie and the Board. As you have seen in the financial results, Evolution is in great shape. Lawrie and the team are doing an excellent job at delivering safe, reliable production. Really important to both the Board and me and to the whole company, we continue to retain our core culture and values. I personally could not be proud of what we have achieved at Evolution to date, and I look forward to continuing to being a part of Evolution's exciting future. Darcy, can you please open the lines for questions?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from Jon Bishop from Jarden Group Australia.

Congratulations, Jake and Barrie. Well done. Good innings from you, Jake, in particular. Just a couple of questions from me, just around the reinstatement of the dividend reinvestment plan. I mean you're obviously enjoying some ballooning free cash flow at the moment. I'm just wondering what the sort of logic was behind that given [ from the face ], let's dare to dream the current commodity prices hang in there and your cost controls remain, it looks like all of your capital calls are imminently manageable given your balance sheet at the moment.

Thanks, Jon. The only reason the dividend reinvestment plan was reinstated was based on feedback from shareholders. There is no relationship to the balance sheet, which is, as Barrie said, very strong and very robust. So it is entirely related to feedback from shareholders.

Okay. That's fine. Look, the second one, this is well and truly out of my comfort zone, but I'll ask anyway. In terms of reconciling the numbers to the actuals that you've delivered today, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect in the depreciation charges, which I can only reconcile given your comprehensive quarterly disclosure relates to the depreciation of the Triple Flag stream. I'm just wondering whether there's been something different with the accounts for the half year or whether this was just a misunderstanding of the disclosure provided at the time of the transaction in December of '23.

Jon, we've missed you on the last couple of calls, so we'll have to work out when your holidays are now when we schedule our results. But it's good to have you back with the accounting questions. I'll hand it to Barrie, but it is relating to the D&A associated with the stream. When you look at our quarterly report and we put the D&A per ounce, that is on the actual operating asset. Barrie, do you want to add?

Yes. I mean, Jon, so the D&A per ounce for the quarterly should get you to the D&A we've got in the accounts.

Yes, that reconciled almost perfectly, which is in terms of your disclosure, not my capability. It was just the delta, which obviously then impacted EBITDA and right the way down to NPAT seem to be that delta and what I'd understood to be expensed through the P&L from the stream.

Yes. I mean maybe off-line, we should just step through exactly where that stream amortizes because it hits in a couple of places. There's impacts on revenue. So part of that balance sheet liability amortizes to revenue. And then there's a bit going through interest as well. So I think let's catch up off-line, and then I can step you through all of that.

Your next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies.

Congratulations, both Jake and Barrie. Just reiterating Jon's questions, look, I'm going to do the same line at length, as Jon here. I'm still struggling on the Triple Flag stream and the accounting associated with that, despite having raised a couple of times. So can we just step through where it's coming through line by line? So in the revenue line, I see in Note 2, I see $35 million coming through, of deferred revenue coming through at Northparkes, plus another $72 million at the corporate development. Are they those two in the revenue?

Correct. That's all of it in revenue, of which that [ $35 million ] isn't cash, okay?

It's not cash, yes. And then in the cost line on Page 22 of the accounts, we've got sort of $57 million of purchase of metal. And then the other one is the interest on streaming of $18.8 million coming below the EBITDA. What are the other amounts that I'm missing other than those 4?

No, those are all the amounts impacting the stream, so you've got all of that there. If you use those numbers, anything not reconciling with that, that you're struggling with?

Okay. So there's nothing else in the D&A?

There's nothing else, no. The D&A is just the total assets that we amortize and that's as per the quarterly.

Okay. Perfect. And then my second question just is again on the DRP. With that reinstated, can you just remind us of the historic levels of participation in that?

Yes, Mitch, the last one back in 2017, we had participation just under 20%.

Your next question comes from Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley.

Look, I've got a couple of questions, pretty similar to the first two, actually. I'll come back to the DRP again, apologies. Just curious to understand, perhaps you've talked about the drivers being shareholder-driven and I can understand there's a saving on the brokerage fee and perhaps a small discount, but the shares are available on the open market. So I guess what it does for the company, however, is it does accelerate the de-gearing process of the balance sheet. So if we take that as a given and that the balance sheet is de-gearing quicker, are there perhaps organic growth opportunities, perhaps one for Barrie and Laurie, that you can bring forward and perhaps bring forward a bit of growth into the company? Or perhaps if you want to revisit this, then inorganically, what would be your focus at this time? That's the first one. I'll come back with the second.

Yes. Look, Rahul, if you look at it and just answering Mitch's question, yes, the last uptake is around 20%. That is unfortunately not going to fund much of our organic growth. So it's not linked to that. It is, as Jake said, over the last sort of 6 to 9 months, investors have asked us about DRP and when we had stopped it. And we've taken that feedback on Board and aligned to their feedback and reinstating it. Our balance sheet, as Barrie has said, is deleveraging quickly at spot prices, $700 above what we achieved in the first half. It is not to fix the balance sheet. And with that balance sheet, we have the capacity to fund our growth projects. Jake?

I just want to add one more thing, Rahul, because maybe you can bring some growth opportunities forward. And I want to reiterate our view that the capital needs to be allocated to appropriately and judiciously. And whilst we are in this great gold price environment, we are going to be good custodians of capital. We will invest in organic growth, which we have multiple opportunities, but only in ones which deliver us good rates of return at a long-term gold price, which is materially lower than this, but hoping for this gold price to continue.

Got it. Okay. And look, just the second one, it's a very quick one, perhaps for Barrie. Barrie, just confirming, obviously, your borrowings are at $2 billion, your cash is at $500 million, yet the net debt is at $1.293 billion. I suspect in your net debt calc, you're basically taking out the present value of those currency swaps you've got in place. Is that right?

That's exactly correct. So you'll see on the balance sheet, there's derivative assets. And if you take out those derivative assets, then you get to the net debt. I mean the simple way to do it is to just translate the USD 950 million of USPP debt at $0.715. And that won't change. I mean that $0.715 stays the same. Then you add the term loans and knock off the cash and that gets you to the $1.293 billion.

Okay. Got it. Perfect. And just if I can sneak a last one in, just on CapEx. Your run rates at pretty much all the assets, barring Mungari where you brought more CapEx forward, were running, I guess, below guidance, yet there is no change to guidance as such. Is it purely just timing? Or is there a risk here that some of it slips into next year as well as you progress through the year?

The short answer is we're tracking into the guidance range. Sustaining capital has traditionally been second half weighted for us. And in terms of the major mine development, that runs over the full year. And as we get into the second half of the year at Mungari, that's where we'll need more mine development to get ready for the plant commissioning, and the projects are all tracking. Certainly, at Ernest Henry, a couple of those projects were always planned to be delivered in the back half of the year because there was at least a 50-week lead time on some things. So you will see the second half CapEx trend above the first half, but we're still within the guidance range, as Barrie explained earlier.

Your next question comes from Levi Spry from UBS.

Just fleshing out, I guess, the CapEx question that you led us to there, Jake. Can you just remind us what's happening with Ernest Henry extension feasibility study, what you've said in terms of scope and CapEx, and then maybe the same for Northparkes and talk to how any of it could be potentially brought forward. And you mentioned your long-term price. Can you just remind us what that is?

Yes, Levi, a few things there. So long-term price, we've assumed AUD 3,300 an ounce and 14,350 a tonne for the copper. In terms of the Ernest Henry extension FEED study, that's progressing. As the study has been progressing and getting further drill results from Glen around Ernie Junior and the main ore body, the teams [ found a way ] to extract that. So as we go through the next few months, we'll finish that work. The CapEx, as we had said when we moved into the feasibility, was around $450 million, $500 million. And then in terms of Northparkes E48, it's the project that we're doing the study on now as well as doing some development as no-regret capital. And that's $45 million, $50 million of capital on the E48. And by doing the E48, we pushed E22 out to FY '27, with production starting in FY '29 at this stage. And the feasibility study finished, but given we're not going to be actually seeking approval or doing anything for a couple of years, that's why we haven't put the results out, but the thing that we have confirmed previously is that at 100% level, noting we own 80% of the asset, the feasibility still comes within that $600 million range for E22. So that's sort of where they all sort of sit. The only thing I'd add to it is, at a group level, what we said in June last year when we did the site visits at Cowal and Northparkes, and as Jake just mentioned, that we will have the discipline about when we invest in these projects and doing them when they only need to. Our total capital over the next few years still sits within that $750 million to $950 million range where you'll have some ups and downs. But as an average, that's not really going to change much for us.

Your next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs.

Jake, Lawrie, Barrie, congrats on the record result, and I echo the comments for Jake and Barrie as some of the others made. Congrats on the tenures. I'll save some of my stream and accounting questions for later as well. And Barrie, sorry to make your last record result discussion about accounting, but if I can ask one also around the D&A piece, just reconciling your full year D&A guidance and what that implies for the second half. I presume the step-down at Cowal is driven by the major shut there. But are you able to just give us a bit more color in regards to the lumpiness in D&A at Red Lake and then Northparkes and how much of that is stockpile builds and other things and how we should expect that to normalize into FY '26?

Yes. I mean so this year is a bit -- there's a couple of steps in the D&A within this year because you've got the Cowal Underground coming in, so that adds quite a bit. And then in the first half, especially when you compare to last year's first half, we did produce more. So since depreciation is on a unit of production basis, I mean that in itself would lift the depreciation. You've got the new Northparkes depreciation that's in that wasn't in last year. I mean that's in the base, and we should expect that to continue into the second half of the year. I mean, obviously, it's driven by the gold ounce production, which this year at Northparkes, we are producing a bit more gold than the average run rate due to those high-grade pits. So into the future, you may see that pull back a bit. And then at Red Lake, it's just a function of the continuous accounting practice of updating your estimates and making sure you depreciate the assets according to their useful lives. So hopefully, that gives you a bit of a feel for the key moving parts in the D&A and a bit of a glimpse into next year.

Got it. So just on that last comment on Red Lake, if your D&A rates come down this half versus second half of '24, do we take that to mean that your useful life assumption is now longer? And if so, is that built around gold price or some of the operational efficiencies you've been able to achieve?

On which operation specifically is that?

On Red Lake. So if I look at your D&A at Red Lake in the first half, it's down considerably versus, say, the June half of FY '24. So I assume that the asset life is now longer on your estimates.

I mean it is driven by all those factors. It is kind of what's in the reserve and resource base and then what you produce. So that will just move around according to that. But there's not a significant change in expectation of the overall life there.

And just on that, Hugo, it will also depend on the area -- this year versus last year are different in terms of what we're getting out of Cochenour, Campbell and Balmer.

Got it. That's clear. And then one more, if I can, just maybe on the corporate cost piece. How are you expecting those to sort of move going forward into the second half and beyond there? And anything in particular to call out that might be moving that around?

Yes. I mean if you look at that year-on-year, there's the usual inflation piece that comes through there. And as we said on -- more of the life of mine planning work centrally. So that drove that cost up and that part will stay. There is a one-off in there related to kind of working on the cyber incident that we had earlier this year. So there's some one-off costs of about $4 million that won't recur into the future. So if you think about corporate costs going forward, you should normalize for that.

Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan from Barrenjoey.

First one, just to you, Jake. So congratulations on your career and your move. Can you just talk about your future commitment to Evolution? Are you still expect to be Chair for years to come? Or is this perhaps a precursor to stepping down in time? And then secondly, you have been the key driver of a lot of the deals over the past decade. Can you just talk about, are you still planning to be active in future dealmaking? Or is this now going to be more the remit, firstly, for Lawrie, and the management team to bring to the Board?

Thanks, Dan, and thanks for your comments. I haven't yet planned my retirement as the Chair, but I'll speak to the Board about that. But no, my commitment, it's a significant shareholding of mine. Asset that I have is my shareholding in this company. It has really become an integral part of my life, and Lawrie and the team are not going to get rid of me easily. So my commitment is high, but I think the time is right to take a step back. Kirron, Lawrie and I will continue to collaborate on deals and various other things. But I am very confident that the DNA that we have in this company will still be able to identify and execute deals which are accretive to us and which improve the quality of our portfolio. So strong level of commitment, but recognizing that we have a great team in place who are going to be able to take this forward as well.

And then an accounting question, which I guess probably for Barrie and probably comes when you release financial results, just on the cash flow statement, the lease spending, of $27 million in the half, which is in the financing portion of the cash flow statement. What is this for? I presume equipment. And is this included in all-in sustaining cost numbers?

Yes. I mean, so you're right. It is mainly equipment and some of that equipment coming through our contractors that mine areas like the Cowal Underground. The payments reflected there is the principal payments on the leases that sits on the balance sheet. And then the interest is accounted for separately. When you look at the all-in sustaining cost, because that's a balance sheet item, it won't reflect in the all-in sustaining cost because it's made up of principal repayments and interest there.

But just to be clear on it, Dan, that is an accounting standard. So it's not where we're actually leasing and acquiring equipment. So Cowal Underground is a very good example. We've got a dedicated mining contractor there that has equipment that is only really available for use by us and therefore, under the accounting standard, we must treat it as a lease that's embedded within the mining contract cost that we pay. So the cost that we pay to the contractor does hit our all-in sustaining costs, then in accounting, the way you have to treat it under the leasing standard creates what Barrie says, which are really noncash versus what we book in the AISC.

Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Citi.

Just a quick operational question. There was a lot of rain and weather recently. Has there been any impact on getting concentrate in and out or any impacts from that this month to sort of flag?

Kate, thank you for the question. The first non-accounting question we've had. Lawrie?

Jake, you can answer this one. No, look, Kate, we've had no impact on concentrate at either of Ernest Henry or Northparkes with weather. And certainly, for Ernest Henry, the weather isn't so much on site. It is around Townsville. And it happened to coincide with the major shut for Ernest Henry, so we weren't producing much anyway.

Okay. That's good timing. And then just moving to Cowal on the OPC, that still has to go over to Board FID, correct? Can you just remind me on the timing there and the critical path?

Yes, so two items. We are on track for federal consent conditions by sort of the end of this month or early into the month of March. That's on track. Once we've got the final regulatory approvals locked away in the June quarter, we expect to take the project to the Board for approval.

And the Ernest Henry extension study, you said March quarter, would the market be expecting that in April? Would that be fair?

I think you and some others would like it then. It will finish in March and need to go to the Board. But what I'd say is that when talking to Levi's question, as the study is progressing, we've just got to make sure, given we've got Ernie Junior coming into the main ore body and the drilling is telling us what the entire ore body looks like, we want to make sure we get the design and everything right around continuing below the 1,175 given the infrastructure that's required. So that's probably the stage that the team is up to right now. And if we need to take a bit more time on that, we will, but it's still tracking sort of through the end of this quarter at this point.

I think, Kate, what's really encouraging from my perspective over the whole portfolio is that the optionality and the opportunities in each of the assets is really giving us -- sequence things in a way which is beneficial to the overall portfolio. It doesn't have, as Lawrie said earlier, too much lumpiness in our capital and allows us to schedule that out and smooth it out. So it really is a portfolio with a lot of opportunity from the organic growth that we have in it.

Yes, that makes sense. And all the best, Barrie, as well.

Thanks, Kate.

Your next question comes from Al Harvey from JPMorgan.

Just to reiterate congrats and good luck to Barrie. I suppose just on that, I think Barrie was meant to be finishing up at the end of March, only 6 weeks away. Just wanted to see if there had been any update on the search for the next CFO.

Yes, Al. So Barrie will be here partway through March, and the search for his replacement is ongoing and progressing well.

Great. And maybe one for Jake, just on Rawdon Pumped Hydro. I suppose there has been a bit of news flow in the last few weeks about the Queensland government backing away from renewable energy targets. Just wanted to get a sense of how you think this might impact pathway for the project and maybe you can just give us a bit of a refresh on expectations around timing and news flow on that project.

Thank you for that question as well, Al. We're getting away from the accounting questions onto interesting ones. I could talk for hours on this, but there is no doubt that storage is the key component to any solution to renewable energy. Mt Rawdon Pumped Hydro is the most advanced and cost-effective pumped hydro project that is available, to the best of my knowledge, around the country. We are advancing it at the moment. Yes, the targets for delivering, the government targets for delivering, are probably out of date, frankly, and it's going to -- but I think the momentum is building towards a renewable grid. Mt Rawdon can and should be an important part of that. So I think the Queensland government is committed to renewable energy. It may just be time frames that are different. And certainly, we've heard no indication that the project is anything but important to the Queensland government.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question today comes from Matthew Frydman from MST Financial.

Another couple for Barrie, I guess, given this is his last results. Thanks for your time with the company, Barrie, by the way, and apologies for some more uninteresting accounting questions. But just wondering if you can unpack the $72 million of corporate revenues. It looks like you made maybe $15 million of EBITDA in the half on buying and selling bullion. Is that right way to interpret that?

I think what's important is that's all related to the Northparkes stream. So if you look at that segment piece, then the unwind of the stream revenue sits in the Northparkes segment and then the revenue at spot associated with that metal sits in the [ corporate ]. So it's all Northparkes. As I said earlier to Jon Bishop, we can step through it in more detail. There's no other trading activity other than the Northparkes metal stream.

Right. But you sold the metal for $72 million and it cost you $57 million to buy, if I look at your COGS. So is that right? You made $15 million on buying and selling?

Effectively, yes. But you need to account for other elements of the stream as well like the interest, et cetera, to get down to the P&L result.

Okay. Sure. Maybe thinking about the cash generation of Northparkes at a higher level then and trying to maybe kind of summarize some of these questions and discussions around the various streaming impacts. But if I look at the segmentals for Northparkes, so $125.6 million of EBITDA, less $22 million of CapEx. So ex any streaming impact, you'd say that's $104 million of EBITDA and CapEx. And then looking at your net mine cash flow from the quarterlies, Northparkes, I think it was minus $2 million in the September quarter and $49 million in the December quarter, so $47 million of actual net mine cash flow after stream deliveries. And then on top of that, remind me, we need to apply, I guess, a tax benefit, as you say, from the elevated depreciation and interest expense. So can you give us maybe a rough sense of what that sort of tax benefit from the streaming impacts below EBITDA was for the half? Maybe circa $10 million, does that sound about right?

I mean so the way you've stepped through the cash flow piece up to net mine cash flow, Matt, I mean that's the right place to look, the quarterly, and that net mine cash flow determination because it ignores all of these noncash funny accounting pieces. So that is the right place to look at post stream. If you look at the amortization from the stream and the tax benefit associated with that, I mean the first thing is we get a bigger benefit in the outer years. I mean I'd estimate on a full year basis, it will be about $15 million to $17 million on a full year basis, for FY '25, of benefit to cash tax.

Okay. That's the sort of quantum I was thinking about. So yes, so $47 million in net mine cash flow plus, as you say, maybe half of that $15 million to $17 million coming in the first half.

That's close enough, Matt.

Also well done, Jake, for his appointment as Executive Chair.

Thanks, Matt.

Your next question comes from Jon Bishop from Jarden Group Australia.

Remarkably, my other question wasn't asked, so I'll ask it. Can you give me a steer as to what the treatment and refining charge market is looking like? And I know you've given us periodic high-level guidance, but just to remind us of the timing or the impacts or the benefits in the current market to both Northparkes and Ernest Henry.

Yes, Jon, so for both of them, they're on life-of-mine off-take agreements with benchmark pricing. The benchmark hasn't been settled for this calendar year yet. So that will flow through at some point. In our guidance, we had allowed for it to come off. We were tracking around [ 80 and 8 ]. For the first half, we had allowed for it to come off. In the second half, knowing where the market was going, we haven't seen the settlements yet. So what you would expect is when we go into FY '26 is when we would update our all-in sustaining cost guidance number based on what we see as the settlements. We don't expect it to be any material change in what we had allowed for in our all-in sustaining cost guidance for this year, knowing that it would be half at last year's rate and half at the new rate.

Unfortunately, that does conclude our time for questions today. I'll now hand back to Mr. Klein for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Darcy. Thanks, everyone. No closing remarks. I think it's covered in full other than to say that there are complicated accounting issues. What I would encourage anyone writing research on Evolution is, if you are uncertain about the accounting treatment, please contact us. We will take you through it in detail rather than going out there before having -- thanks very much for your time and for your efforts. Thanks.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.