Regis Resources Limited (RRL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Regis Resources Limited Full Year Financial Results conference call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Jim Beyer, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Rachel. And I'd also like to mention that I've got -- good morning, everybody. I've got Jon Latto, our CFO here; and Elena Macrides, our assistant co-sec on the call. Well, thanks for joining us for the full year results. I note the Appendix 4E and a report and a swag of other accompanying documentation was released earlier this morning. And at times, we'll probably make reference to some of these. So certainly, the presentation, if you've got that readily available, that would be useful. As a summary of our -- some of our financial highlights for the year, it shows some healthy metrics, including a record net profit after tax of $200 million. Earnings per share of $0.39 a share, a return on equity of 24%; EBITDA up of $394 million with a margin of 52%; and cash and bullion up to $209 million at the end of June with no debt, which sees us maintaining a strong balance sheet. With all of this, we've again declared an $0.08 fully franked dividend, which brings our dividends declared for the year to $0.16 per share, fully franked, which represents on a grossed-up basis to factor in the franking credits, a yield of 4.1% based on yesterday's price -- share price. And we're also making available for our shareholders to reinvest these dividends into the company by way of a dividend reinvestment plan. Overall, a strong result with another dividend for our shareholders. Now before I hand over to Jon to talk through some of the detail, I'd just like to touch on COVID-19. To date, there have been no confirmed cases at any of our sites or our offices and the impact to our operations and the business have been controlled and well managed by the team, albeit with a marginal impact on our costs. The company has continued with a range of measures across its business consistent with advise from State and Federal Health authorities. These measures help ensure the health and welfare of our employees in their respective communities. We continue to be part of the FIFO DETECT research program, testing for asymptomatic cases of the virus with FIFO workers. And via this program, we test all people going to our operational sites. And to date, we've done nearly 6,000 tests. As part of our ongoing risk management, we continue considering various scenarios to assess possible outcomes, and this process, in turn, assist us in developing tactics to mitigate possible detrimental impacts on the company. The work continues to highlight the company's strong position with multiple production sites, separate camps, existing stockpiles, significant cash reserves, debt-free balance sheet and hedges that have flexibility in the delivery schedules. All highlighting the current relatively strong position the company is in managing the prevailing uncertainty and risks and to take advantage of the prevailing significant gold price. But as we've seen, the situation can turn quickly, and we must remain vigilant and disciplined in our approach to managing the risks of COVID-19. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our employees and our contractors and all the families for their hard work and support during these challenging times. On that note, I'd now like to pass over to Jon Latto, who will run through a bit more of the detail on the financial outcomes. Thanks. Jon?

Thanks, Jim. I'll just summarize in a bit more detail the FY '20 metrics that Jim has spoken to. So to start with, as Jim mentioned, record NPAT of $200 million, that's up 22% on FY '19. We had a net profit margin of 26%, a return on equity of 24% and EPS was up 22% to $0.39 per share. We also saw EBITDA of $394 million, that's up 28% from FY '19, with a healthy EBITDA margin of 52%. We saw cash flow from operating activities up 24% at $343 million, and cash and bullion is at $209 million at June 30, with no debt. So obviously, we continue to have a very strong balance sheet. What I'll do now is move over to Page 4 of the presentation and on that page, we see a summary of our financial results. We sold 353,182 ounces across FY '20 at an average price of $2,200 per ounce. And that's the average price we secured after we sold into approximately 52,000 of our most out-of-the-money hedges, and I'll expand upon that a little bit later on. We had sales revenue of approximately $757 million in FY '20, and that's net of approximately $21 million in revenue that was capitalized to preproduction assets. And that's primarily at the Rosemont Underground with a small amount from Baneygo. We generated a gross profit of $305 million in FY '20, and that's up 20% from FY '19. And as you can see on that page, our admin expenses are broadly similar to FY '19, with only a very small increase. We have spoken about our AISC in our recent Q4 briefing, so I don't intend to discuss those further here at this point. Over on Page 5 of the presentation, you'll see the 4 graphs that show the performance of the business going back to 2015. And pleasingly, what we see across each of these graphs is a positive trend going back to that date. So that's obviously pleasing to see. Turning to Page 6. You can see a waterfall chart. And what that shows you is the movement in NPAT across FY '19 to FY '20. And what we've done is pull out some of the key components of NPAT. So you can see how it's moved year-on-year. What you can see there is a healthy jump in gross profit before royalties of $61 million from FY '19 to FY '20, and that result is after our D&A charges increased by $34 million in FY '20 as a result of the significant investment in site assets that we've made and increased amortization charges associated with bringing 3 new open pits online at Dogbolter, Petra and Baneygo, as well as the Rosemont Underground in June this year. Also on that chart, you can see that royalties increased $9 million as a result of the higher gold prices in FY '20, and income tax payments increased as well by $15 million, in line with our increased profits. What I'll do now is move over to Page 7, and Page 7 talks to dividends. And as Jim mentioned, Regis has again declared an $0.08 per share dividend, totaling around about $41 million. So total dividends for FY '20 were $81 million, and this represents 11% of revenue and 21% of EBITDA. This is a basic dividend yield of 2.9% and a grossed-up dividend yield of 4.1% based on the closing share price of $5.55 that we saw yesterday. The total dividends that Regis has paid or declared since 2013 is now approaching $0.5 billion. It actually stands at $488 million today. So I rounded off to $0.5 billion. Regis has introduced a dividend reinvestment plan today, and that allows shareholders to invest their dividends back into the company if they so choose. The DRP will be at a 1% discount to the 5-day VWAP from the relevant date and shareholders will also benefit from no transaction or brokerage fees. Obviously, we will continue to assess and review dividends against factors such as operational requirements, planned CapEx and the gold price. Finally, I'll turn to Page 8, and that provides a cash flow waterfall that plots our movement in cash and gold on hand across FY '20. And what I'd like to do is just talk to a few of the categories that you see in that waterfall chart. Firstly, we see record cash flow from operations of $424 million for FY '20 and that number is basically cash flow from operating activities shown in the cash flow statement adjusted for income tax and other costs, with other costs being primarily head office expenditure, and those 2 categories are shown separately in the waterfall. We see mine development costs of $135 million. And to give a bit of information about what that comprises, what we see there is that includes expenditure on preproduction open-pit assets, which in FY '20 included Petra, Baneygo and Dogbolter. It includes capital expenditure associated with bringing the Rosemont Underground online. It includes capitalized deferred waste and capitalized prestrip costs, primarily at Garden Well, Tooheys Well, Erlistoun, and Baneygo. The next component of the waterfall chart that you see is exploration costs, and we see a very healthy spend of $37 million for the year. And then we see other CapEx of $65 million for the year. And that includes the TSF 3 expansion at Garden Well, the new Duketon aerodrome construction and expansion, which now allows us to land 100-seat jets at site. It includes Rosemont Underground assets, haul roads for Baneygo and Petra, cap expansions at Garden Well and Moolart Well, new lifters and liners as well as land purchases in New South Wales associated with the McPhillamys gold project, and also includes some lease payments for the right-of-use assets. The next category on the waterfall is other costs. As I mentioned, really, these are just primarily our head office costs. And as I mentioned before, they really haven't moved much between FY '19 and FY '20. So that then shows you that the net cash build went from $205 million at June '19 to $376 million at June '20. Now that's before tax payments of $64 million and the acquisition of additional tenure in the Duketon Greenstone Belt for $20 million, which allowed us to triple our landholding to approximately 90% of that belt. And the last component of the waterfall is the dividend, that as I mentioned, that's $81 million across FY '20. And that then brings us back to our closing cash and gold balance of $209 million at June 30. And with the gold bullion being valued at $2,576 per ounce, which was the spot price we used at June 30. Now before I pass back to Jim, I'll just make a couple of closing comments about our hedging. As we've said before, our hedged ounces are spot deferred, and that gives us a lot of flexibility about when we sell into them. At the beginning of FY '20, we started selling into those hedges at a rate of about $10,000 -- sorry, 10,000 ounces per quarter of the most out-of-the-money hedges. Late in Q4, we lifted that rate to approximately 20,000 ounces per quarter. Consequently, by June 30, we had reduced our hedging from approximately 452,000 ounces at the start of FY '20 to 399,000 ounces at the end of FY '20. So we dropped it by about 52,000 ounces. At this stage, the plan is to continue selling into those hedges at the current rate of 20,000 ounces per quarter. However, obviously, as we said before, we continue to monitor this. I'll now hand back to Jim.

Thanks, Jon. Well done. Great outcome. Look, I just want to cover off on a couple of items before we close out. Firstly, I'd note that earlier this we released our resource and reserve statements or report, and it was in line with our expectations and with expectations, I think, people had. What I would note that it did include in the release is an excellent summary of Regis' internal organic exploration growth opportunities and what we're pursuing. And there are a number of them. I'm not going to go into them now, but I would certainly encourage you to review them if you haven't already. And while we're on the topic of growth, I'll just touch again on the guidance for this year. We're expecting a solid year, in line with our growth -- targeted growth profile. Gold production, we're expecting between 35 -- sorry, 355,000 and 380,000 ounces with an all-in sustaining cost between $1,230 and $1,300. We see growth capital in the range of $50 million to $60 million. Exploration has been stepped up, as we've mentioned earlier, to $35 million. And McPhillamys now is starting to move on spend with guidance of $15 million. A couple of points on that guidance to note. I would note that our production rate is planned to lift in the second half of this year. The first half, we'll be running at more of the historic annualized rates and we'll be lifting in the second half. I also note that the spend for FY '21 is a minimum of $15 million. We're assessing how the planning approval process goes, and we'll continue to do that. As I think I've mentioned before, the reply to submissions, the RTS, is due to be submitted in the next couple of weeks. We'll monitor how that travels through the planning process in the next 3 or 4 months with the Department of Planning. And then we're anticipating that, that would be put forward as a recommendation to the Independent Planning Commission, the IPC, New South Wales late in the year for review early in the new calendar year. As that progresses, we'll be watching that, and we'll be making some assessments on whether to undertake some additional expenditure, specifically around the detailed engineering and also on long lead items. If this played out the way that it could do, we could see the expenditure lifting for McPhillamys from $15 million for the year to somewhere in the order of $60 million, and obviously, that's going to depend on how we see things progressing. So overall, in the words of our -- one of our illustrious ex-prime ministers, Mr. Keating, "What a lovely set of numbers." The NPAT was up, a record of $200 million, up 22% on last year. Net profit is up, earnings per share is up, EBITDA is up, return on equity is up. Cash and equivalents increased to $209 million, and that was while paying $81 million in dividends over the year. And we continue to have a debt-free, strong balance sheet. And all of this, while steadily dealing with our legacy hedge book, a book which seems to perturb some people. I think our very strong financial outcomes clearly demonstrate this hedge position can be managed down while still delivering rewarding outcomes. And speaking of rewarding outcomes, we've again declared an $0.08 fully franked dividend, which brings the full year to $0.16 fully franked, which represents on a grossed-up basis, an impressive yield of 4.1%. At Regis, we've got a solid history of growth over time and a history of paying dividends when appropriate. In fact, as Jon mentioned, the total dividends declared over the past 7 years is almost $0.5 billion. So it's been appropriate a lot. Today, we've got a clear internal growth plan that we believe has the clear capability of continuing to deliver future value. So a great set of results. I'll hand back now to Rachel for us to answer any questions that you may have. Thanks, Rachel.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Nick Herbert from Crédit Suisse.

A couple of guidance point questions, please and then a couple of operating ones. So I'll just start with the guidance. Could you just provide an estimate for or a range for D&A for FY '21? Whether it's a fair assumption that we just take that second half rate that you reported, whether that is fair for next year? And then also just around that corporate expense, whether that would be similar? Any reason for that to be?

Yes, corporate expenses are not going to change too much. We haven't given guidance around D&A charges. I guess we tend to focus more on cash, providing help for people to understand our cash by giving the all-in sustaining costs. What I would say is that in line with our increase in our strip ratio and also some of the smaller pits, we're going to see a charge increase, while we're bringing in things like -- things that we've been building over the last couple of years -- last 18 months, 2 years roads and the like. So we will see D&A increase, but we're not giving specific guidance on that.

Okay. And then just on to your comment, just regarding the substantial mine life opportunity at Moolart Well looking at different gold prices. Can you just expand on your thinking there and provide some sensitivity around what a reserve could look like on a higher gold price? And whether implicit in that comment that we take from that, that reserve price of $1,600 next time that gets updated, we will see that move higher?

Yes. Look, the descriptor around what we're doing at and what we're looking at, at our options at Moolart certainly does play into this, what can we do with our gold price. But one of the things that we see there is that for it to become efficient, you need to assume a fairly high gold price because of the patchy nature of those deposits up there, trying to get it all to hang together in what we would call a super pit. I think we sort of -- we wouldn't venture to suggest that it should be compared to the super pit. But it requires a fairly healthy assumption on the gold price. And this is part of the work that we're doing to understand that sensitivity. I think things like -- I think to make those numbers work, we've got to talk of gold prices well in excess of $2,100, $2,300 an ounce. Now for us, and this is just part of our evaluation, for us to look at that, and that's got the potential to add maybe another couple of years of throughput up at Moolart. But you've got to start, there's a fair bit of stripping to do. And we need to make sure we understand the timing of all of that and what the implications are. Because one thing I don't want to do is, I don't want to start -- the company starting to take today's cash flow, spending it on strip ratio on the presumption that the gold price is going to stay up at $2,700 an ounce, and then find in 2 or 2.5 years' time when we start to hit and process this ore -- pardon me, that it's actually dropped back to lower levels than what it's actually costing us overall. We don't want to use today's cash flow to pay for tomorrow's production. Otherwise, we're just recreational miners. You spend lots of money, but make no cash and can't return anything to your shareholders. Sooner or later, you've got to pay the piper there. So I can't give specifics. It's something that we're evaluating. We sort of, I guess, in the release on the resource and the reserve statements, we do talk about it as a broad picture. Just -- probably just to give people a bit of a sense as to what it is that we're considering. But as I said, some of those high gold prices that we've assumed in there could give us another couple of years of production. So that sort of gives you a bit of a feel as to what we could be looking at. But it's still very early days as to what we would lock in and declare.

Okay. Got it. That's helpful, Jim. And then finally, just Ben Hur acquisition. You said this is a 1.6 gram resource there. Can you just clarify that that's based on an open-pit shell and doesn't include any potential underground? Because there's also a potential mention of an underground opportunity there as well. I mean just sort of broadly, high-grade, how do you think about that in terms of the potential to bring that into the mine plan?

Yes. I mean it's a resource. So it's got a shell around it. So it's certainly only the open-pitable resource material. The comment that we make on underground is because we believe that there's a clear indicator that the mineralization continues at depth, but there hasn't been any drilling of any materiality at depth. So it's an open opportunity. And timing-wise, look, we've got a -- the grade is certainly attractive. How it looks after we've done the usual machinations of converting from resource to reserves looks is the first step, and then figuring out the timing of where that fits in and whether that's something we bring forward or whether we just have it as part of our scheduling because we'd still have to construct a road down there and get access to it. But it's certainly a great little deposit at the moment. Really, I guess, we want to make sure that we're confident in its scale before we start talking about developing it. We don't need it straightaway. So we've got a little bit of time to do more drilling and see whether there's more in it than was currently identified. But it's certainly -- it looks prospective, and that's fundamentally part of the reason why we bought it.

Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan from UBS.

Jim and Jon, just wondering, firstly, the announcement of a dividend reinvestment plan. I find that curious given that your net cash and the gold price is materially higher now than where we might have thought it was a little while ago, so cash flow would be good. Just wondering why the dividend reinvestment plan? Why now?

Yes, a good question. Look, we think a couple of things. First of all, we -- obviously, that's a sign that we consider ourselves to be undervalued, foremost and front of mind. And we see it as being a -- in terms of -- it's a modest discount that the shareholders would enjoy, but there's also other benefits for -- in terms of brokerage fees and the like, which aren't significant, but these days, it all adds up. So we see it as being an opportunity to highlight the fact that we see ourselves being undervalued. We see it as a way of potentially bringing -- allowing our existing shareholders to return -- to build their position in our company while returning some funds for our use. So basically, that's the reason behind that.

But if you consider yourself on the value, aren't you issuing shares at a lower price? I appreciate it's to your existing shareholders, but isn't that dilutive to your views of value? Otherwise, why not consider a buyback?

But it's to our existing shareholders, and it's allowing us to -- we're looking at how we manage our capital funds overall throughout. We've got McPhillamys coming up. It's an opportunity for people to participate in that. It's not significant in terms of the overall quantum. And we just felt that it was something that we would make available to them. And that was used to justify it.

Okay. And then it appears that you have now formalized the acceleration of delivering into the hedge book from 10,000 to 20,000 a quarter. I know you did sort of flag that on the quarterly, but just -- it seems like it's now been formalized as a policy. Can you just run through why this level, why this quantum, what was contemplated?

Yes. It's not so much a policy. It's just what we're doing at the moment based on -- you got to look at the -- at our hedge book in the context of what proportion of our revenue it actually represents when we action it. It's seen as being an issue. But frankly, the only reason that is -- the underlying reason it's an issue is because the gold price is up so high. So it represents -- I think when we ran the numbers last year, represented about 3% to 5% of our gross revenue, and if we step it up, it's going to represent a reduction of 8% to 9%. So we continue to get, to a degree, quite frustrated with the perspectives of some, not everybody, some that have a view that it's a sword of Damocles hanging over our head, whereas in reality, the reason that it's there of any noteworthy is because the gold price is up. So while some of our ounces are being sold at a discount into the hedge, there is a significant amount that is still being sold at full price. And I think I haven't seen the latest, but I think when you run some of our numbers, even when we do run at these rates, we're still, relatively speaking, selling on a weighted average, some of the best prices of our peers. So is it a policy to step it up? No, but I guess we've made a judgment at this price. We continue to generate at this gold price. We continue to generate some excellent cash flows. It's setting us up well for considering future investment at McPhillamys, which is clearly coming at us very quickly. But it also, as we look at our various modeling and scenarios, it still puts us in a position to be able to give consideration the next time the question of dividends comes up. So we see it as being something that we can deal with. You can't leave it there forever, obviously. So we do need to deal with it. But we can do that in a manner that doesn't have an impact on basically what it is that we're trying to do with our business from an investment perspective and also keeping this flexible to be able to do what I think people invest in us for, which is do the best that we can to return -- to provide returns to our shareholders.

And just on the guidance comments. I think in your opening remarks, you did flag that production is going to be second half weighted. Just wondering if you could talk to the drivers behind that. And somewhat related, just an update on the Rosemont Underground productivity, how that's tracking? Is it -- are the ounces of the higher grade coming through? Is that going to be later in the fiscal year?

Yes, you probably answered your question with your second question. The business -- the site, you do -- you always get the ebb and flow from month-to-month and even quarter-to-quarter just as particularly with -- now that we move to a number of multiple sites, a number of multiple pits. So we manage the ups and downs of grades as best we can. But ultimately, Rosemont Underground is a -- will be a great producer for us. It is -- our target has always been at the lower grades and the -- where we enter the ore body -- pardon me, that ore body tends to pinch and swell as you go vertically, which is one of the reasons why the open-pit closes out is that the ore body is effectively pinched out down the -- pinches out down the bottom and doesn't -- it's not payable on an open-pit basis. We come in and start mining where it's -- the underground where it's pinched. And we've also come into the area that was closest on the schedule where the grades are lower. And we're just -- we're working our way through that. We've -- I wouldn't say in this southern area, the results have been spectacular. They've been consistent, and we're certainly getting into the rhythm of development and stope firing. But we see ourselves getting into the medium, higher-grade areas towards the back end of this first half and in the next half. So that's tending to be part of what's having an influence on that production profile.

Your next question comes from David Coates from Bell Potter Securities.

Thanks for the presentation, and well done on the result. Just a quick one, you highlighted quite justifiably the improvements and performance on a whole -- pretty much all your financial metrics there. And I appreciate, this is a question sort of -- one sort of decided fairly subjectively at the board. But your earnings, NPAT, EBITDA all growth, but dividend relatively flat. If you look at from 2017, you've got 40-plus percent growth in earnings, but sort of 6% growth in dividend. Can you just sort of, I guess, give us a bit of background as to how that's sort of -- what's into that decision?

Yes. Look, there's probably a few things in there. Obviously, and you pointed out, we've been a -- dividends for Regis is not just a recent flash in the pan. We've been doing this for a number of years. And over the past 7 years, we paid out nearly $0.5 billion. So it's not as if it's something new to us. And we did contemplate -- there are a number of things that as part of the Board, we sit and we consider increases in the dividend. It's obviously a strong price environment, the generation, the capability of the business is quite strong. Matched against that was the -- what's clearly the near term -- how would you describe it, the near-term obligation or the near-term funding that's going to be required for McPhillamys. And as a result, we made a decision to -- there was certainly no case at this point to reduce it and -- because we've done our projections and should the gold price stay where it is, things are looking quite strong for funding of McPhillamys. We will also -- we've already started engaging in conversations around financing of McPhillamys, which is really important. And as a result, we thought it was certainly a strong case -- a very strong case to consider paying a dividend. But if we increase it, maybe that is something that -- it's a little bit more prudent and sensible to hold the value where it is and keep our powder dry for one of the better description as we enter -- we start to get closer to the demand that McPhillamys is going to make. So there's a couple of things in there, the messaging out of that. We'll always take quite prudent and careful consideration of what we think should be done with dividend distribution. We are carefully considering what our cash flow generation is looking like and the price scenarios going forward, and some of them, quite frankly, are pretty good. As part of that, we're also -- that equation, we're looking at how we should finance and pay for McPhillamys, we could -- options include not paying a dividend and paying it all out of cash. If the gold price stays up high, pay it all out of cash. Or put our balance sheet to work a little bit and put a little bit of debt on and leverage the project a little bit. So we sort of put all of that into the mix, David, and decided that it was certainly appropriate to continue to pay dividend, monitor the situation. And basically keep some of our powder dry for the demand that McPhillamys is -- we're anticipating will be potentially within the next 12 months.

Your final question comes from Levi Spry from JPM.

Questions following on from the McPhillamys sort of funding. So I think you said at the start that CapEx of $15 million could grow to $50 million later this year, is that right as you do get the permit and commence the spend? Did I get that right?

Yes. It could top out at $60 million, 6-0. And really, that's a pretty aggressive number in there. But what we've got at the moment, we've got provision for our ongoing team to keep doing what they're doing to progress the permitting process, the RTS, and then they will be engaging with the Department of Planning, continuing that engagement, community work, more studies, optimization studies. We also have some provisions in there for early engineering. And I think we had about $4 million or $5 million for property -- some more property purchases, which we are going through at the moment -- or one of them is. The additional funding over and above that would be for long lead items. And we've got to make an assessment on that, and it's a little bit early for us to say it's -- we're prepared to put some money down on a new ball mill and HPGR and the like. But we'll monitor that. And certainly, we'll get a good sense of potential timing as we start to get the feedback, and this kicks from the Department of Planning with their recommendations and conditions and then it goes to IPC. That's a -- we've seen some pretty good outcomes. I think it was just in the last couple of weeks that Vickery's was approved by the IPC within the 12 weeks that had been designated by the minister recently to deal with that. So that's given us added encouragement that McPhillamys will certainly follow a tighter time line than perhaps other projects and other -- the approval process has followed in past years. The unfortunate circumstance of COVID is that people are looking for, it's difficult economic times. We all know that mining is a primary industry and does a great job in employing lots of people and providing lots of employment opportunities coming out of what is clearly a pretty difficult time across the country and, quite frankly, around the world. So we combine our enthusiasm for McPhillamys, we're pragmatically looking at what's going on and how we're starting to progress through. And yes, it could be $50 million or $60 million, not in addition to the $15 million, but up to that much. But we'll be very carefully -- we're not going to go out and basically blow a whole lot of money on a wishing to prayer, it will be carefully risk managed, but that's what it potentially could be, which will, quite frankly, if we get to that point, will be a pretty damn good sign, I think.

Yes, definitely. And so -- but just continuing on if that is the time line, so when would you update the CapEx number? And just remind me when first ore could be from that?

Yes. Look, the CapEx number, I think the historic number was way back before it -- really the estimates are taken into account, planning requirements and more conventional requirements of New South Wales was $215 million plus or minus 25%, which, I think, put it at the top end of about $270 million. And basically, we've said, look, if you're doing that estimate today, that would certainly -- that top end of that range would be the bottom end of the current range, and that's still where we're seeing. Clearly, we're going to have a number with a very solid 3 in front of it for the cost of the plant and water pipeline. So we expect the timing on that -- and there's a lot that still moves around on our capital, which is why we've been holding off, that depends on this reengineering that we've been doing as part of the EIS. We get the submissions. We have been making some -- in some cases, some quite material design changes to improve things around things like the tailings dam and the waste dumps to give sand barriers and these sort of things. Once we've got all of that settled, I'm expecting that in the back end of this year, certainly in the December quarter sometime that we'd be able to give a bit more of a decent update on what we see the CapEx in the pre-mining would likely entail. Timing-wise was the other question you asked. If this follows what it could do, which is we submit our RTS within the next couple of weeks, which is we're right on track for that, we see the Department of Planning could take 3 or 4 months, that means that there's potential that the recommendation from the Department of Planning could come out before Christmas. Now normally, Australia shuts down over Christmas for a month, as we all know, which would be a delay in this. But we don't know, frankly, COVID -- what does COVID mean for Christmas holidays. I hope I get them, but I'm not sure what it really means and whether things will be quite as conventional over January. But the minister has indicated to the IPCs, they want the decisions out of them within 12 weeks, unless there's a very, very good ground agreed with the -- I think it's the Secretary of Department of the -- DG of the Senior Bureaucrats in the Department of Planning that would approve an extension on that. But again, I'm very encouraged by the fact that the Vickery's coal line saw its approvals come through within that 12-week period. And we all know how topical that commodity is. So if that comes in, then we could get IPC -- then it is possible that we get IPC approval in early in the June quarter. Even with IPC approval, there still are a number of other more routine approvals that are required, and you can't make traction on those until you've got IPC. So you can sit there staring. Everybody sits around, stares at each other, saying, "Yes, I know you want to apply, but you can't until get IPC." Once you've got it, you can go. That probably takes 3 months. So there's a conceptual time line where we could be commencing construction early in the new financial year. Early -- sometime in the -- what would be the -- early in the September quarter. If that was the case, 14, 16 months construction, we could see commissioning of the plant in the back end in the -- in rough numbers, I'd say, the December quarter of 2022, obviously all very dependent on this approval process. But clearly, we're a lot more confident in how that might look now than we were probably 6 months ago. But that's -- Levi, I hope that gives a bit of color. That if we can get approval after April, we could be turning dirt in -- early in the new financial year, and we could be producing gold on that basis late in calendar '22.

Yes. Perfect. And just last one for the Garden Well Underground. Can you just give me the timing and potential for the CapEx there as well?

Yes. Look, we're still working on that. That hasn't gone yet to final investment decision to the Board. We are expecting that, that will be later this calendar year, later in the -- what is the month?

August.

August. Time flies when you are having fun. So sometime in the December quarter, we'd see a -- if we can get it there, we'll see approval. We're obviously optimistic at this point. CapEx is still a work in progress. But we've indicated that these styles of underground, they're all probably, broadly speaking, fairly similar. So the initial setup is not going to be too different to what Rosemont was, Rosemont Underground. That's a pretty good number to -- as a back-of-the-envelope number at the moment on the assumption that we can get it approved. And obviously, once we do, we'll be out with a lot more detail on CapEx and also production profile costs -- and unit costs, obviously.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Beyer for closing remarks.

Thanks, Rachel. And thanks, everybody, for joining us on the call. As always, if you've got any follow-up questions from -- if anybody else on the line, please give us contact -- our contact details are on the release. Thanks for joining us, and have a nice day.