Sandfire Resources Limited (SFR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Sandfire Resources Financial Results FY 2023 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Brendan Harris, CEO. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hello, and good morning from here in Perth. My name is Brendan Harris, and I'd like to welcome you to our financial results conference call, my first as CEO. We're thrilled to have the opportunity to connect with you again so soon after our June quarterly call because we're excited about the future. Copper will play an increasingly pivotal role in global mobility with the proliferation of electric vehicles and the delivery of carbon emissions free energy, irrespective of its form of generation. With our strategic position into highly prospective copper belts, 50% growth in copper equivalent production, and the potential to advance a broader suite of development options, it's hard to imagine a better place to be than Sandfire. As you may know, I've been in Botswana since we last spoke for the official opening of our newest mine, Motheo. And I must say it was one of the most humbling experiences of my career and today where we could all celebrate the incredible contribution of the team that discovered and developed this wonderful mine. I'll provide another important update on Motheo in a moment, but before I do, I'd like to welcome my colleagues to the call. Matt Fitzgerald, our CFO, for his last results conference call with Sandfire, Jason Grace, our COO; Richard Holmes, our CDO; Scott Browne, our CPO; and for the first time, Catherine Bozanich, our new CSO; and Victoria Twiss, our new CLO; and [indiscernible]. A very warm welcome to the 2 of you. We're going to stick with the format of our last call given the positive feedback we received. I'll talk to our key highlights for the year and the strong outlook ahead before quickly turning to Q&A. So you can again direct us toward the questions on your mind. But first, I hope you've seen our new shared purpose that was co-created by team members from across the organization in the last 5 months. We mine copper sustainably to energize the future. Each word has real meaning for all of us. We're particularly proud to be part of the mining industry, part of our local communities, helping to make real change for the better. And we have to work safely every day, everywhere, protecting each other and the environment because if we are to be the successful and sustainable mining company, we must do the basics well. That's how we'll protect, generate return, and recycle capital over the longer term and grow per share value for our owners, and create lasting value for our communities and host governments. And that's the perfect segue to our refined strategy. You'll see it on Slide 19 of the presentation we released today. Admittedly, it's not rocket science. It's intentionally simple by design and sharpened our focus on 5 strategic pillars: empower our people and define clear lines of accountability; deliver safe, consistent and predictable performance; reduce our carbon intensity; increase our reserves; and demonstrate capital discipline. You'll see in the quick reference guide in our slide deck that we've aligned our achievements for '23 and our commitments for FY '24 with these key strategic pillars. So to the empowerment of our people. We were pleased to have 73% participation in our latest people survey and see that 84% of our team members are connected and engaged with the business. As we share our personal stories and foster a shared belief in our new purpose, we'll build on those great outcomes, including our record safety results. I firmly believe that having a safe business is not only nonnegotiable it's at the core of productivity. We're also building the foundations that matter for more consistent and predictable performance. You'd recall copper equivalent production of 99,000 tonnes marginally exceeded revised guidance for the year, and we're looking to grow production by 3% this year. We also did relatively well on costs, and we're looking to deliver a modest reduction in underlying mining costs next year in euro terms for a mine operating cost of $78 per tonne. You've no doubt seen that our depreciation guidance at Motheo was broadly on the money, while capital expenditure was at the bottom of the guidance range. Motheo's D&A charge will, of course, decline as the acquisition is amortized primarily over reserves, while capital expenditure at MATSA should stay relatively steady year-on-year at $117 million, with continued investment in underground development and ventilation, designed to open additional mining fronts and established degrees of freedom so we can push mining and processing rates to 4.7 million tonnes per annum in the medium term. And as I said on our last call, we'll also build around 100,000 tonnes of ROM stocks so we can better optimize our processing blends and increased recoveries, particularly for copper in our poly line. Shifting gears to Motheo. We know it's time to deliver. It's as simple as that. Across the first 50 days of FY '24, Motheo operated at an annualized rate of 2.8 million tonnes per annum on average, achieving a maximum copper recovery of 95.9% and produced approximately 14,000 tonnes of concentrate with an average copper content of around 30%. It's still early days, but we couldn't be happier with the performance of our processing circuit and I'm pleased to say that Motheo has achieved commercial production, and it will be consolidated in the group's P&L from the commencement of FY '24. In further good news, our operating and capital expenditure projections continue to align with the definitive feasibility study estimates. But as a word of caution, we wouldn't be surprised to ultimately see a 5% to 10% increase in Motheo's previously disclosed life of mine C1 unit cost of $1.47 per pound even though we're yet to see the impacts of inflationary pressure. Given the outstanding planning and execution credentials of our project team, it's hardly surprising that our $397 million capital expenditure estimate for the overall 5.2 million tonne per annum project and the deferred stripping profile for T3 and A4 are both tracking to plan. In readiness for the projected kick in throughput from the end of CY '23, we're also investing $27 million in FY '24 to complete the construction of the second cell of our tailings dam. Having been granted approval for the extension of our mining license to encompass a for we are firmly on track to produce more than 50,000 tonnes of copper at Motheo in FY '25. More broadly, we've made an important commitment today to reduce our carbon emissions by 35% by FY '35 from our FY '24 baseline, that of course, includes Motheo. Our granular pathway to achieve this important goal is set out on Slide 20. While MATSA starts in a privileged position having access to 100% carbon emission-free electricity, Motheo will require direct investment and supportive policy change. And we've included around $21 million in this year's budget for the construction of a dedicated solar array that will reduce carbon emissions by around 60,000 tonnes. It's too early to determine if this investment will be added to our capital expenditure guidance for FY '24 as its treatment will depend on the ultimate form of any agreement. From there to support ongoing investment in the decarbonation of our business, we need exploration success, more reserves and longer mine lives, of course, to underpin the economics. With our growing confidence in the prospectivity of the Kalahari Copper and Iberian Pyrite Belt, our exploration effort will become far more focused as the identification of additional reserves within close proximity of existing infrastructure is likely to generate the best return on discretionary investment. In Spain, we will test the mineralized extent of the recently discovered San Pedro zone at Aguas Teñidas and Olivo at Magdalena. In parallel, in Botswana, we will test an open extension of the high-grade A4 deposit, undertake a medium-density drilling program at A1 with the objective of identifying a maiden resource and test numerous other targets within an economic distance of Motheo. Rounding out our regional exploration program, we plan to drill a number of holes in Montana to test the extent of the high-grade horizon that forms part of the Johnny Lee deposit at Black Butte and will further assess the potential of our landholding in Portugal. Overall, this will see our regional exploration spend declined by around $12 million in FY '24. So we have a lot on our plate, but that's precisely how we like it. We generated underlying group EBITDA of $259 million in FY '23 at a robust margin of 32%, and the outlook gets better from here. MATSA is performing well. Motheo is hitting its straps. We're working hard to mitigate cost inflation and we're using our capital wisely. And together, we'll deliver more than 50% growth in copper equivalent production across the next 2 years, and we're excited by the exploration potential we see. So suffice to say, we're energized, like our purpose and look forward to discussing our results with you. With that, can we please have the first question?

Your first question comes from Daniel Morgan from Barrenjoey.

Maybe just starting with what are you hopeful to call success over the next 12 months? So when you're standing here giving the briefing in 12 months' time, what is the key message you'd like to say that you've achieved?

Look, Dan, thank you. For me, first and foremost, if our [ strip ] is 1.6% and lower, and we've had no serious incidents, impacting the health and safety of our people, that will probably be it. The reason for that, I think if we're doing that, it tells me we're doing the basics well. It tells me we'll probably be delivering the productivity we're looking for. In addition to that, I want to see the culture that we're trying to embed to continue to, if you like, grow. And that really is around the simple way of working where we very much want to empower our assets. We want to celebrate the local cultures, but we want to see those core and common elements play through. And as you would have seen in the strategy we've talked to today, primarily, that's around this consistency, predictability that we know is not only valued by everyone here at Sandfire, we know it's valued by our owners as well. So really, it's about delivery. It's about making sure that Motheo ramps up successfully. As we see it today, it is doing well. Everything is on track with regards to that ramp-up profile. I think, to be honest, it's been quite a stunning success to date. But admittedly, we're only 50-odd days in, at least the data that we've presented to you is only 50 days in. We've had a couple of issues with the filter press. They're actually being resolved. We've had additional plates installed. And you can see that we're not only producing healthy levels of concentrate the trucks are departing and heading down to the port of as well. So that's probably it for me, Dan, starts with the safety of our people and really around culture.

On Page 26 of the presentation, you talked about what MATSA is now and what it could become. What is the plan to consider the future state? What sort of time frame are we talking about this potentially evolving? And when might we hear more?

Look, why don't I throw it to Jason Grace, and then I'll fill in any gaps.

Look, Dan, from our point of view, we've made already made significant inroads to improving the overall performance and reliability at MATSA. We've invested heavily since taking ownership there on geological understanding. And with reference to Slide 27 in the pack there, this has already led to the discovery of San Pedro and the Olivo zones. But more importantly, from my point of view as COO, we're spending a lot of work there on making sure that our orebody knowledge is superior and that we understand what we're mining and able to predict orebody characteristics. in advance of mining, which will give us further stability. Coming back to that slide on 26, we are investing as well on very -- a lot on particularly improvement initiatives across the mine. So our metallurgical recovery improvement program is already delivering benefits, and they will continue to do so going into next year. And our mine productivity improvements, there are already improving dilution as well as overall production rate. And when we bid that down with that orebody knowledge what that will translate to is overall stability and reliability going forward.

Yes. Thanks, Jason. I think for me, the core tenet of what we've released today, more broadly, that really highlights and I know a couple of the analysts have sort of picked up on this is the prospectivity we see in our base business, the internal focus that we think we can bring to bear. And in doing so, the value that can be liberated. And of course, a very big part of that is what we see from a resource and reserve potential perspective and the programs we have underway, the success that the team has had to date and as I've said many times before, as we term out that resource as I expect we will, the potential to choke feed that centralized processing facility with Magdalena and Aguas Teñidas ore really creates an enormous amount of opportunity to think about what Sotiel could become? How we could think about it, whether or not we still think about it as a copper mine with byproduct credits of other metals or indeed, is it a zinc mine that we can optimize in a different way with a different process circuit and unlock a different level of prospective growth into the future. There's a lot of ifs in that and a lot of potential. That's what we're going to be working hard to really come to strips with over the next 12 to 24 months.

And last question is Slide 22, which is Motheo exploration potential. You've got a few stars there, and it's the distance between the targets and the processing facility, can you just outline the body of work you're going to be doing on the exploration piece?

Yes. Look, maybe I'll take that 1, and Richard, you can add any additional information. I've said before that loosely because, of course, it depends on what one discovers. We think 70 kilometers is, is broadly the economic trucking distance by which we can bring material back to the now developed Motheo processing facility. We've only shown obviously a snapshot here. Indeed, we have more than 12 targets that, that we are actively pursuing. But the team is also undertaking -- maybe Richard can expand on this, a very detailed survey to get a much better handle I think for the first time for anyone of the actual formation and structural characteristics of the basin and the belt more broadly. And we think that's going to help us a great deal to further prioritize these targets. Suffice to say, our real objective here is to make sure that we're operating at Motheo in 20 and 30 years and beyond. We've just got a lot of work to do to unlock that potential. But Richard?

Yes. With the [indiscernible] which we're obviously gaining from mining at T3 and the work we've done at A4 and A1 when you combine that with the large-scale AGG survey, it's given us a much better understanding of the structure of the lithological controls on the orebody. So building a sort of basin-wide model is really healthy targeting. So the targets there are the -- just the sort of the tip of the iceberg or the ones that are closest to the processing facility. They'll get tested first once we finished doing the resource drill-out at A1 and then we'll move further out and progressively test those more regional targets.

And maybe just to fill it in as well, to bring it a little closer to home. Now what we're excited about in the next 12 months is we're going to have 1 drill rig effectively going flat out 24/7 across the year. We're going to test an extension -- an open extension of A4. That's, of course, where we've had the grade benefit in our planning. We think there's 1 to 2 years and hopefully more that we can identify there of resource reserve life. And then, of course, A1, which Richard talked to, we want to drill that at a density that we hope can give us a maiden resource come into the mine plan. And then the objective beyond that will start to be this active prioritization of targets to really focus on where we think we can either get scale, but primarily grade to try and bring grade forward into our mine plan. And as we've said all along, but the objective for us has got to be to try and maintain that copper production above 50,000 tonnes per annum for as long as possible.

Your next question comes from Ben Lyons from Jarden.

Maybe the first one on Motheo, please, Brendan. Firstly, obviously, some fantastic physicals, early doors as the asset ramps up. So congratulations on the performance to date. It's really pleasing to see. I'm just trying to square away the capital profile between the DFS numbers that we get and that, that let's call it, $500 million of life of mine capital that you alluded to in the preamble. Just reconciling that back to the CapEx disclosure on Slide 16, where you've given some more granularity around strip ratios, et cetera, I guess the question is, it doesn't appear on that reconciliation that there is any material capital increase that we're calling out today. But maybe just some timing differences like the TSF 2 appears to maybe have been accelerated a little bit, but I assume it was already incorporated in that $500 million life of mine. And possibly, there's also a bit of smearing between what was ultimately treated as OpEx or CapEx, like those, the pre-strip of the A4 pit, for example. But is it correct to assume there's no major CapEx escalation that you're calling out at Motheo?

Yes. Look, I'll pass to Matt to give you a broader rundown. But I think in answer to your first point, you're absolutely right. Between the DFS and what we're seeing in our plans today, there is minimal change. In fact, as I said in my introduction, we're not yet seeing the impacts of inflation coming through. I think it is an allocation of OpEx versus CapEx. What we've done today is to try and, if you like, increase the level of transparency. So you'll have an even greater understanding of where those numbers are going to fall out. Whether they're going to report into operating expense or whether they're going to report into capital. And indeed, as Matt, I think, will tell you, is the difference between what we historically talked about as being the C1 cost, and the all-in sustaining cost. Those elements are all bucketed in that differential, the deferred stripping, particularly. But maybe, Matt, you can just explain the slides a little more clearly. But thanks, Ben.

Sure. Ben, yes, as Brendan mentioned, as you mentioned, we put out the combined DFS between C3 and A4, it's actually about this time last year. And that gave, as you said, some capital guidance. It also gave some C1 and all-in sustaining. So if we look at the all-in sustaining and remembering these are DFS numbers, but the relativity still hold, as Brendan mentioned. All-in sustaining is about, as we've disclosed in the DFS, that 30 -- just over USD 0.30 a pound higher than operating -- unit operating costs in terms of C1. That relates through about $300 million over the life of mine of sustaining CapEx, and that is predominantly the stripping profile that we're showing you on Slide 16. There is some complexity, of course, once you get into the individual pits at C3 and A4, they're dealt with separately, and that's why we spell that out in terms of the deferred stripping profile. But as Brendan said, really on track, subject to any of those inflationary pressures that we may see in the next, in the next 2 periods between that sort of 5% and 10% that Brendan talked about, but very much on track with those DFS numbers. The life of mine capital numbers, more around the project and then some other projections in terms of future closure costs and those sorts of things, but certainly captured in the all-in sustaining numbers. And also remembering the DFS, we also gave an overall pretax net cash flow of just under $1.1 billion around this time last year in terms of a rounding of some of the economics of the project at that time.

Yes. I think so, Matt, in reality, this is an accounting outcome because it gets back to your assumption of life of mine strip. And you need to think about the 2 pits separately. If you're going to model it accurately, you can't just look at it as 1 lump, and we've tried to again show that on the slide you're referring to, Ben. I think one of the key reasons as well for us wanting to bring this level of transparency is so that people don't copy right. I mean what you can see is beyond 2028, we have zero deferred stripping in the plan. And obviously, in the next 2 years from '25 and '26, you start to see quite a sharp decline before you go into that real significant cutback, the Stage 2 of T3. So look, I do hope that provides a little bit more clarity and shines a light on some of those elements for you, Ben.

Absolutely. No, thank you very much both of you for the further detail. That's really reassuring. Just a quick follow-up on -- from an ESG lens in bots. As you're thinking about TSF 2, are you maintaining your very high level of ESG credentials by triple lining that facility as well, given the sensitive environment that you're operating in over there?

Yes. Look, thanks, Ben. I'll throw it to Jason in a moment. Look, we were obviously over in Botswana, Jason, our Chair and myself for the opening. And we took the opportunity to go out to the cell and works are very well advanced actually. And I can assure you that we will uphold exactly the same standards which are absolutely aligned with the broader ICMM standards that we believe are particularly important for the industry, not only ourselves to follow. Jason?

Brendan is absolutely right. Ben, it's -- the design of Stage 2 is exactly the same as design for Stage 1. So we're still holding those standards very high. And just circling back to your question before about Stage 2 CapEx, we originally had planned that we would commence that work in this financial year. What we have done is accelerate that work a little bit to around the wet season. So we learned a lot from initial construction and particularly not to do lining of that facility during the wet season, it just adds in terms of time and cost. So in essence, what we've set up to do is do all of the bulk earthworks prior to the wet season. And then as soon as we get through the summer period, and it dries out again, we'll go into the lining.

And Ben, just for completeness, if I can, because I know you've followed this very closely. Ultimately cell 1 and cell 2 in the next uplift beyond what we're doing today. it becomes one large dam across the life of the mine.

Yep, yep, noted. Just one final question around that optionality in the business that you called out earlier in the conversation, Brendan. I'm just note the significant resource growth at Sotiel. It's clearly a huge resource now. And then there was a line in the slide deck about kicking off a stand-alone concept study for that deposit. Clearly, a different mineralization type that possibly is not ideally suited going through those existing lines at MATSA. But can you talk broadly about the parameters of that stand-alone concept study? Like at this stage, do you have a conceptual mining rate that you think that underground can be optimized to without a huge capital investment or some of the processing outcomes that you're possibly considering?

Yes. Look, great question, Ben. Hopefully I understand, I'm not going to go there. And that's actually because there's just such a broad array of alternatives. And one of the things that we're trying to be very disciplined with is actually to make sure we have truly divergent thinking as we go into this concept study to test all of the alternatives, and that includes various processing routes. You would know some other players in the region developing hydromet technology to extract the polymetallic mineralization or metals from these ores. So we want to understand that as well. I think the critical element here is we have a fully developed mine. We have a very large resource. It is obviously a different grain size and mineral composition than what we have at Magdalena or Aguas Teñidas. It works fine going through the current flow sheet. But ultimately, there's got to be a better way. And I do think that in the fullness of time, it does present us with another growth opportunity. We need to understand it. So apologies, just be patient with us bear with us, but I do think there's going to be certainly a lot of news coming out of Sotiel probably the next couple of years.

Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Citi.

There's a lot of focus on organic growth with the refined strategy in the deck and you also called out value per share. Can I read into that, that we can count you out of the bidding for your neighbor in Botswana or anything you can say on that, please?

Yes. Look, lessons in life have told me not really to comment on processes. I'd just reiterate what I've said to anyone that's asked me about this over the last number of months. What you should be seeing in our deck, hopefully, in what we're saying today is that we see enormous opportunity over the medium and longer term in this business. And that's code in my language for saying that the bar should be set very high for anything that we look to do that would be considered inorganic. So a very high bar for us to allocate capital outside of the business. It doesn't mean we shouldn't look. It doesn't mean those opportunities aren't there. But you can expect that we are very focused on unlocking the value that exists within our existing portfolio.

Okay. Got it. I'll read into that. And then just moving to MATSA, the strategy to build stocks there. Given that your mine constrained, I think it would make sense to fill the mill and maximize metal or bring forward metal. I know it's not a huge amount of ROM stocks, but how are you thinking about that decision? Does it add more value than producing that metal now? Or it's about providing flexibility that will set you up for the future?

Look, I'll pass to Jason, but maybe just a very, I guess, quick philosophical perspective. It's very hard to find high-quality resource and reserve in this day and age. It's sort of as I just alluded to, it's even harder to buy. So as I'd like to say, if you've got it, once, value it appropriately and treated with care. So to me, that means minimizing dilution, first and foremost; and secondly, making sure you're getting the best recovery as you can. And we've got a platform, as you saw on that slide that we talked to earlier that really, I guess, describes how we've set that mine up that we think is going to set us up with the platform to grow. So we're not mine constrained that we can grow to 4.7 and potentially beyond. But maybe, Jason, you can color that in a little.

Look, building on Brendan's points there, Kate, this is all about our value proposition. So what we do see at the moment is one of the biggest opportunities at MATSA is increasing overall metal recovery through the process plant. The best way that we can do that is actually understand our orebody, predict the characteristics, track it through our processes and make sure we're giving a stable feed to that mill, and that's what we're focusing on at the moment. Once we can do that and unlock that higher metal production as a result of recoveries, we can then look at dialing up our overall throughput rate and realizing both of those opportunities.

Okay. Got it. So it's not really fair then to say for this year that your mine constraint because you're dialing down the processing plant for stock kind of get built anyway?

If you look at it, overall, we are trying to build stocks. So this year, theoretically, we're not mine constrained. But overall, there is additional capacity beyond what we're planning to process this year in the overall processing plant.

Yes. And maybe if I can just add that it may be at risk of repeating ultimately, when you're running a multisource polymetallic operation, your ability to have control of what goes into those flotation circuits in the different lines is what's going to determine your success, determine the levels of efficiency and performance you get, particularly in recoveries. If you've got no stocks on surface, then you have to put in there whatever comes. So actually, over the next 12 months by establishing that 100,000-tonne stockpile, that's going to give us, as Jason said, that ability to have greater control in what we present to those circuits. It's really as simple as that. Once we've done that, we'd like to hold some stock, but then somewhere in the next 24 months, I'm hopeful we'll be in a better position to start pushing throughput rates higher and then continue to push that through the circuit.

The next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies.

Sort of a follow-on to some of [ Ben's ] questions with regards to MATSA and the long-term potential future state. You're really talking to stepping up both Magdalena and Aguas Teñidas to 2.35 million tonnes from each of those 2 operations. Conscious that we don't have a long history to look at in the public markets. But I guess what's driving that improvement is the heart of my question? Are you trying to change culture? Or how do you think you'll get that improved mining rates?

Yes. Look, so it's all linked. Everything we're doing here is linked. It starts with the reinterpretation of both the geotechnical information and all of the geological information and the establishment of that, that overarching geological model. And coming out of that or emanating from that is the exploration success we're having. As we've mentioned, the discovery of San Pedro, very exciting for everyone here. Within 100 meters of existing underground infrastructure at Aguas Teñidas at a shallower depth. If we continue to see the results we're seeing can come into the mine plan very early. 2026 is not out of the question. We're now seeing similar things at Olivo, which you would have seen with very attractive grades equally close in terms of access to infrastructure. We've been investing heavily in underground development. It's all about opening more mining fronts. So we've got, again, as we've said, more degrees of freedom. You combine that with what's possible potentially at Aguas Teñidas and Magdalena, that is what then starts to give you much more flexibility. You can imagine, Mitch, one of the greatest constraints on productivity is if you have a challenge in a strip and anyone who's run an underground open strip operation, particularly in the setting that we have will recognize, not every strip is perfect. If you have a challenge, but you've got nowhere else to go, you lose productivity not only of your equipment, but your people. If you've got more degrees of freedom, that's when you have the ability to make sure everything keeps moving and keeps working. That starts to unlock additional productivity. But more than anything, it's really about getting access over time, we hope, to some of these additional resources and reserves and really enabling us to choke feed that mill from those 2 primary sources of Aguas Teñidas and Magdalena.

Your next question comes from Kaan Peker from Royal Bank of Canada.

Good to see further exploration success with MATSA, Olivo. I know it's early, but size sort of looks relatively limited, and similar to San Pedro. Is that the view -- the initial view is that these would be incorporated into a mine plan post sort of 2026 to increase grades to the plant?

So this is the question. What we can't do is provide specificity at this stage. We need to keep drilling holes and working out the lateral extent of these zones of mineralization. One thing we haven't talked about, I didn't talk about in my introduction is if you look at the diagrams on -- or in our presentation, you'll see the 1,200 meter hole that we put down to test the down plunge extents of Magdalena. It actually fell below the mineralized horizon. We saw all the characteristics from a lithological perspective that we would hope to see. The irony is if you're going to miss the target, and that happens in drilling, particularly deep holes, in that setting, it's actually better to miss to the low side. And that's because the electromagnetics that you run work much better looking up. And what we've done, and we've only seen the initial results with that EM analysis tells us that there's a large conductor sitting proximal to the drill hole that we need to test. But what we actually saw was interesting is the indications of the second conductor which effectively would be down dip from Olivo. So what we don't know until we drill it is whether that is giving us a real indication of what is there. But suffice to say, that's really going to be the focus over the coming years for us is determining the lateral extent of not only matter but also now this Olivo zone and working out how far we can, if you like, extrapolate and then start to build that into our -- at least our longer-term mine plan.

Sure, understood. And the second question, in terms of the degrees of freedom with regards to mining that you referred to. On a guidance on that to development CapEx is $91 million for FY '24. How do you view this in '25 and so over the medium term?

Good. I'll pass to Jason in a minute to give you a little bit more color around the planning and how we think about it. Look, I can tell you at the moment in the internal projections, development actually starts to decline quite considerably from '26 and '27, having invested heavily through '23, '24. And it remains at a similar level in '25, and possibly 10% to 20% higher depending on what we see. But I guess I would caution you in assuming we see this level of reduction because, as I mentioned, as we hopefully continue to have success in some of these new mineralized horizons that will encourage us to actually, if you like, do the work to get out to those zones, which will involve development. So we're not going to provide specificity at this stage because, again, it's going to be dependent on the drill bit. All I can say is we're very hopeful that we'll have to spend more money because that will actually be a very, very good thing for us. But maybe, Jason, if you can sort of talk about the broader philosophy.

Yes. So. Brendan, was it right. So we had originally planned that we would have higher capital development rates in FY '23 and FY '24, and then start to reduce in FY '25. So if you look at that combined CapEx between sustaining and underground development, longer term, we see that around or probably closer to that $100 million mark, and that's where we've been longer term. Now the big disclaimer on that is exactly what Brendan said, is that we've got so much potential there in terms of ore body extensions and ore reserve extensions so that we do want to be in a position to unlock those and use those strategically to improve our mine going forward.

Sure. And just squeeze a third one in, if that's okay. Maybe asking the question around site a little bit differently. If you dropped out Sotiel from the feed into, I think, plant 1. How does the recoveries change?

Yes. So look, maybe just if I can step back for a second because I just want to make sure we also don't miss what we're aiming to deliver this year in any case with Sotiel still forming part of the blend. This ultimate objective of really working hard to understand every shovel of dirt as it makes its way into a truck to the ROM pad coarse ore stockpile and then how we presented into the processing circuit. That's really all designed to give us in the order of a 2% to 3% increase in recovery, copper recovery in our poly line. So that is one thing we're doing as a base case. But maybe, Jason, if you want to talk a little bit more about how we would see things play, Sotiel wasn't part of the flow.

That's it. So if you think about the contributions in terms of total tonnes, so it generally constitutes around that 450,000 to 500,000 tonnes a year. Now it is at a lower overall recovery from copper and zinc. And to a degree, some of the other byproduct elements there as well. So we would see an overall lift in that recovery. The other thing that I would expect to see if we took Sotiel as the blenders, so we would see the average grade, particularly from a copper point of view, lift as well.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Lyndon Fagan from JPMorgan.

Just back on recovery at MATSA, I'm wondering whether you're able to give us a bit of a medium-term horizon on how quickly you're expecting copper recoveries to pick up? And what, I guess, the target is longer term given all the different ore feeds, et cetera?

Yes. Look, I don't want to go further at this stage, Lyndon, because I also think it's -- all these things as a degree of ambition, 2% to 3%, as I said, in that poly line, which is a significant component of the mix. I'm happy for us to be held to account on that. We've got to deliver that. It's really important. We've got to find a way to get more cash out of MATSA, given that the investment that we've put in there. But again, I'll probably leave it at that. But look, as we learn, as we hopefully have success, very eager to give you more information as we see it playing out, particularly as we understand San Pedro, Olivo, and any other extensions and what that means for our mine plan and ultimately the likely sort of mix of ore feed. But for now, I'm just going to hold it at that.

And Brendan, is that 2% to 3% measured off the 71% achieved last half or the 74% for the full year. What's the baseline there?

Yes. So it's a year-on-year extrapolation. And again, it's for a component of the feed that relates to our poly line.

Right...

And I'm sure, then, we'll be happy to take you through that if you want to go into in more detail. I understand...

So what does it imply overall for the business mix in '24? If you get to 3%, what's the sort of all-in recovery?

Jason will go to that, I think.

Lyndon, I'll just refer you to Slide 35 of the pack. It actually outlines their actual copper, copper only, copper poly, zinc and lead recoveries for FY '23 actual as well as FY '20 guidance. So that should give you all the information that you require.

Right. That's very helpful. And do you...

Sorry, Lyndon, just while we're on that, all the appendices, please, we encourage people to have a good look if you get a chance. We had one question. I know it came through offline just around treatment charges and disclosure. Those treatment charges are also separated out in those appendices if people are looking for them. Sorry, Lyndon.

Yes. Look, the other one just on Black Butte. You mentioned you're going to be drilling it out a bit this year. What's it costing roughly per year just to keep that option alive. I noticed it's not in the CapEx guidance slide as a specific kind of column...

Yes. So I think if you look in there, a big slab of that spend in that other, if you like, area, is Black Butte. It's -- it is the majority. There's about $2 million of wind down, if you like, capital in Australia. It's close to -- it's close to around 10, which is not just exploration because there's also the evaluation work that's ongoing there.

Great. Thanks for that. I'll turn it over.

And it's probably fair to say, Lyndon, that just for completeness again, there's a time horizon on that. We're obviously either going to find a way to convince ourselves that we really do have the project we currently see that's going to be investable in the fullness of time as we get the permitting approvals finalized, and obviously address the legal challenge. So that spend will either go up considerably because we'll be building a mine and hopefully convince you that there's a lot of economic value there, all that spend will obviously dissipate.

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

Look, thank you, everyone. I know you've had no doubt a busy reporting season, we only spoke a little while ago with the quarterly. Just before I go, I just wanted to might mention, I did say upfront that this is the last results call for my colleague, Matt Fitzgerald. We haven't worked together for that long, but I've certainly seen the power of effort that Matt puts into this full year reporting process, and I've been very thankful for that. But look on behalf of the Board and also the broader management team and all of our people just wanted to thank Matt for all of his efforts and contribution. He's been here for well over a decade. He's seen this company through a lot, what now is a fundamental transformation and taking Sandfire from being a junior explorer in West Perth to the company that it is today with international operations. I know he'll look back very, very proudly to his contribution. And again, we appreciate it. So we'll miss you Matt, but we all wish you very, very well in the future, and we look forward to seeing what you do after you have a break.

Yes. Thanks, Brendan. Appreciate it. Thanks, everyone on the call as well. Thank you.

All right. Good day.