MGX Resources Limited (MGX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for joining today's teleconference for the release of Mount Gibson Iron's June quarter activities report. Mount Gibson Chief Executive Officer, Peter Kerr, will be leading the discussion and is joined by Chief Financial Officer, Gill Dobson; and External Relations Manager, John Phaceas. Mr. Kerr will provide a brief overview, after which there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Due to time constraints, only institutional participants will be invited to ask questions at that time. A recording of the call will also be available via the Mount Gibson website shortly after completion of today's teleconference. I will now hand you over to Peter. Thank you.

Thanks, Lisa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Mount Gibson's June '25 quarterly report. As usual, I'll give a brief overview before handing back to Lisa for questions. And as a reminder, all currency that we mention on the call is in Australian dollars, unless otherwise stated. The June quarter was a fairly challenging one for the company given weaker iron ore prices. But despite that, we generated reasonable cash flow over the total year and completed the period in a strong position. Operationally, at Koolan, challenges included late season weather and some poor ground conditions, which meant that we fell 1 shipment short of our fiscal '25 financial year sales guidance. And that wasn't helped by the fact that, that final vessel arrived on the last day of the quarter and loading wasn't able to be completed until July. So that will be captured in this current financial year now. However, as we look forward, fiscal '26 has a very different and exciting feel about it. From an operating perspective, our focus will be, going forward, on safely maximizing cash flow from Koolan over the remaining 12 to 18 months of its mine life. And while our operating team is doing that from a corporate and strategic perspective, we'll obviously be focused on completing and then advancing the $50 million acquisition of our half interest in the Central Tanami Gold project that we announced recently. We see that transaction as an attractive opportunity to advance one of Australia's larger and highest grade undeveloped gold projects to a development decision within 12 to 18 months. It also represents a critical initial step in our broader strategy to reposition Mount Gibson as a diversified long-life minerals producer, and more on that in a moment. Firstly, in relation to safety, we continued our good trend for the last few years. The rolling 12-month lost time injury frequency rate remained at 0 incidents per 1 million man-hours worked. And our total recordable injury frequency rate, which reflects lost time injuries as well as other forms of injury, finished the year at 2.3, which although that was up slightly in the quarter, is down from 4.4 at the start of the year. And safety is obviously a mindset and highly correlated with production performance, and our operation teams are continually focused on achieving improvements. Turning to Koolan Island operations. As I noted, we faced a number of challenges in the quarter and as unseasonably late wet season rain events and related ground disturbance issues required careful management and caused delays in some of our mining, which meant we didn't quite meet our internal targets despite some very strong efforts from the team. In addition, the main issue was that weaker iron ore prices reduced our revenues and resulted in large adverse provisional pricing adjustments, which I'll cover in a little more detail shortly. Mining-wise, total material movement was 2.2 million tonnes with ore mining increasing 22% on the prior quarter to 680,000 tonnes and the waste to ore stripping ratio reducing by about 10% to 2.2:1 as planned. The full year mining movement totaled 9.5 million tonnes, of which ore mining accounted for just over 2.3 million tonnes. So the full year stripping ratio was 3:1, and that reflected the in-pit work involved with actually moving around the historic failure areas and transitioning production from the west end to the east end of the main pit. Importantly, we're shortly to complete the remedial ground support work over the central footwall failure zone, and that will allow mining crews access to the underlying high-grade ore in that area, as well as we're about to complete removal of the former Eastern haul ramp, and that's on track in this current quarter. June quarter ore processing lifted 14% to 811,000 tonnes and over the total year was 2.6 million tonnes. 8 shipments were completed in the quarter, totaling 632,000 wet metric tons at an average grade of 63.9%, and that's a little lower than our 65 previously because we did blend some material to lift volumes and sell into a market that was well priced for slightly lower grade material, and that resulted in fiscal '25 sales of 2.61 million tonnes at an average grade of 64.5% Fe. And importantly, following the final phase of waste movement in the current September quarter, we anticipate a stronger performance through fiscal '26 to the end of Koolan Island's mine life, which is presently anticipated to occur in the first half of the fiscal '27 financial year, so in late 2026 calendar year. For fiscal '26, we're targeting sales of 3 million to 3.2 million tonnes, that's million wet metric tons at an average cash operating cost of AUD 80 to AUD 85 per wet metric ton FOB. In relation to iron ore pricing, the benchmark 62% Fe index further weakened and averaged USD 98 per dry metric ton CFR, that includes shipping freight in the quarter, down from USD 104 a tonne previously. The price actually dipped as low as USD 93 a tonne and remained below the $100 level for most of the quarter amid the various global economic and geopolitical tensions that we've all seen. Positively, the 62 index iron ore price has recently moved back up to around USD 103 a tonne and the high-grade 65 index, which is relevant for us and averaged at USD 108 in the quarter, is now sitting around $10 higher than that at USD 118 per dry metric ton. This means that the high-grade premium has, in recent days, lifted from the June quarter average of 5.7% to around 9% today. Given the weaker prices in the quarter and the fact that our offtake agreements are based on final pricing 1 to 2 months after the shipment departure, the company incurred substantial adverse provisional pricing adjustments on prior and early current period shipments totaling AUD 14 million, and that was the equivalent of USD 14 per tonne that we shipped. This resulted in a 29% reduction in the average realized price of Koolan Island fines to USD 68 per dry metric ton, and that's on FOB terms, so that's not including shipping freight in the quarter. And most strengthening -- sorry, also say that modest strengthening of the Australian dollar was also unhelpful. It averaged USD 0.641 in the period compared with USD 0.627 in the previous quarter. So given the weather and in particular, the pricing challenges, Koolan Island incurred an operating cash outflow of $15 million in the quarter, and that comprised the ore sales revenue of $65 million after the adverse provisional pricing adjustments I just mentioned, less cash operating costs of $72 million, capital projects of $2 million relating mostly to the footwall remediation works and government and third-party royalties of $6 million. On a per tonne sold basis, cash operating costs averaged AUD 114 per wet metric ton, and that reflected the shipping volume. But it's also worthy to note that the actual unit cost of the operations, mining, logistics and administration activities actually reduced by 11% per tonne mined in the quarter, which was a good result from the team. For the full financial year, Koolan generated cash flow of $26 million overall, and that comprises revenue of $359 million, cash operating costs of $264 million, and that equates to for the full year, a unit cash operating cost of $101 per tonne that we sold. We also spent $24 million through the year on capitalized waste mining costs, capital projects of $13 million and the total mineral royalties we paid were $32 million. On an overall group basis for the full fiscal '25 financial year, total cash flow generated was $29 million overall, and that comprised the $26 million figure from Koolan Island I just mentioned, as well as interest and other income of $22 million and less corporate admin and exploration costs of $19 million. After favorable working capital movements and $2 million of share buyback purchases in the June quarter, the company's total cash and investment balance increased to AUD 479 million at 30 June '25, which is equivalent to approximately $0.40 per share. Turning now to our growth strategy and the recent announcement of our acquisition of 50% of the advanced Central Tanami Gold project from Northern Star, which is obviously an exciting development for us. For some time now, we've been seeking to diversify into other conventional commodities, which have both a positive longer-term fundamental picture and which are not largely dependent on a single country market. This acquisition is an opportunistic one to enter the gold sector for an attractive price and to build a profitable gold business. It's obviously a significant step for Mount Gibson, and we're seeking to satisfy the transaction's conditions, particularly FIRB approval and to complete the acquisition as promptly as possible. Many of you were on our call about this transaction last week, so I won't rehash the detail. But in short, $50 million, we're acquiring a half stake in 2,100 square kilometers of granted and applications, mining and exploration tenements in the Central Tanami region, and that's just to the northwest of Newmont's large Callie gold operation. The Central Tanami project joint venture in which Tanami Gold NL holds the other 50%, currently hosts JORC 2012 resources of 1.6 million ounces grading 3.6 grams per tonne gold and work is underway to assess a further 1 million ounces in historical resource estimates and to bring those in line with modern JORC standards. In value terms, we're entering the joint venture for an attractive resource multiple of AUD 61 per ounce of mineral resource or if you include the historical estimates, that comes down to around $38 per ounce. That's a very favorable set of numbers compared to recent industry averages as we outlined in our transaction documentation last week, plus there is strong potential for resource growth through more drilling. The joint venture also includes a nonoperating 1.2 million tonne per annum carbon-in-leach processing plant, and it has been idle since 2005, but it is a refurbishment option for project development. And there are also within the joint venture substantial other infrastructure items, including haul roads and airstrip, a borefield and a mine camp, and all of these things will help chart a shorter and lower cost path to development. So we intend to work closely with Tanami Gold and with whom we obviously share a common major shareholder to position for a development decision within 12 to 18 months. As part of this transaction, we will also pick up a further 3,600 square kilometers of exploration tenements in the region owned outright by Northern Star, and that will give Mount Gibson exposure to 5,700 square kilometers of ground in this area. And that's obviously a sizable land package in a region which has been producing gold for a long time. So this transaction neatly complements our longer-term pursuit of investment opportunities in a bid to become a multi-commodity metals producer. We anticipate that further opportunistic investments ahead to add to our existing positions. At present, the key positions comprise 9.8% plus options in Midwest iron ore producer Fenix Resources, and that holding was worth approximately $21 million at quarter end. Plus we also have 5.4% of Queensland-based copper producer, AIC Mines, which is worth approximately $11 million at quarter end. In addition to those investments, Mount Gibson holds sub-5% equity holdings with an average -- with an aggregate market value of $12 million at quarter end, and that's in a number of junior development companies where future financing and strategic options may arise. Regarding the share buyback program, it was, of course, necessarily paused while our negotiations with Northern Star advanced and we're now also in a blackout period ahead of the release of our full year results, which is scheduled for the 20th of August. We'll reassess activity within the buyback program at that time. To date, the company has bought back 38.8 million shares or 3.2% of the issued share capital at a little over $0.31 per share. And finally, as we announced in April, we welcome Brett Smith as our new Chairman, who's succeeding long-standing Director, Lee Seng Hui. So in summary, firstly, we're focused on operating Koolan safely to maximize production and cash flow generation over its remaining life, in particular, as we use the current September quarter to complete the last waste mining push and set the mine up for strong shipping and cash flow thereafter. And secondly, we're obviously working to close the recently announced Central Tanami Gold project acquisition and to work closely with our joint venture partner to promptly pursue activities necessary for a development decision. So we look forward to an exciting and somewhat different financial year ahead. So with that, Lisa, I'll now hand back to you for any questions that may be there.

[Operator Instructions] We don't have any questions.

Thank you very much. We know that there are a number of people listening. So if you do have questions regarding either last week's announcement or our quarterly, please feel free to contact us, and we trust everyone has a good day. Thank you.