I'm Paul Armstrong from Read Corporate. After some challenges associated with the production ramp-up at its Warrawoona Gold Project in the Pilbara, Calidus has been getting some solid runs on the board recently. This has been reflected in the company share price, which has moved up from AUD 0.13 earlier this month to AUD 0.23 last week. The increase has come on the back of some important announcements, including a 111,000-ounce maiden resource of 4.1 grams per tonne at the Bulletin deposit near Warrawoona. This is all part of Calidus's strategy to continue growing the inventory, production, and mine life around Warrawoona, and enable it to leverage the existing production infrastructure they have there. Calidus has also unveiled a deal with global lithium major SQM. That will see SQM become a 40% shareholder in the Pirra Lithium joint venture in the Pilbara, alongside Calidus, which also has 40%. Calidus Managing Director, Dave Reeves, will talk about both these developments as part of today's presentation. If you'd like to ask a question, please click on the Q&A tab and type it through, and we will endeavor to put as many of those questions as we can to Dave upon completion of his presentation. Over to you, Dave. Thanks very much, Paul. I think you've hit most of the highlights there that I wanted to talk about. Maybe I should hand the presentation to you in future, but, all good. Thank you very much, everyone, for listening in. It has been a while since we've done a webinar, and there's quite a bit to go through. Gonna be touching on the quarterly results, and then, as Paul said, really focusing on why we see this as a pivotal time for the company, with a lot of the announcements we've put out recently regarding both gold and lithium, and how that will impact us as a company, moving forward, and why we are very excited about, all of those, various bits of the jigsaw puzzle that are finally coming together. So just to... We are gonna talk about various names. So just to orientate everyone as we walk through the presentation, our main operation, which we call Warrawoona, is based around the Klondyke open pit. We will be talking about the Blue Bar deposit, potentially Mickey's Find, and also Bamboo Creek, which does host the Bulletin deposit. So all situated in the East Pilbara of WA, around the town of Marble Bar. I think a couple of key things before we delve into the quarterly. We will talk in a lot more detail about where we're heading, both with gold and lithium. But I also think it's worth reflecting on where we've come. We did as Paul said, we did have a, you know, a difficult start to life into production. A lot of those issues have now been solved, from a technical aspect, with mills, water, mining rates, et cetera. A special shout-out to everyone involved in the company and the operations for the enormous amount of work that that has taken. During this time, debt is reduced from AUD 110 million to AUD 75 million. Our hedged ounces is reduced from a maximum of 165,000 ounces to 95,000 ounces. Those liabilities are rapidly decreasing, and will continue to do so, especially with what we've got planned over the coming couple of years. Touching on the quarterly, it was a soft quarter. It will be a soft first half, with a lot stronger second half. It's partially due to a mill shutdown in the first quarter, but also to do with the access to higher-grade ore in the Klondyke pit, which I'll take you through on the next slide. Even with such a soft quarter, the operations still generated AUD 7 million in operational cash flow. Our cash position did go backwards because we also had debt and interest repayments of AUD 8 million, and a hedging loss of almost AUD 7 million. So what we're seeing at the moment is obviously cash inflow from the operations not quite matching the cash outflows, and we intend to address that by both increasing ounce production, which increases cash flow, and we're in discussions currently with our lender to adjust our hedge and debt repayment profile, to better match the ounce production profile that we see coming with these new initiatives. So if we look at where we are in the mine, so we've talked about strip ratios dropping as of the start of next year. This cross-section shows that where we're currently mining in the pit, we are mining this cutback on the southern side of the pit. That's a lot of waste we're having to move at the moment, so our strip ratio is higher. With a higher strip ratio, that's more material moved per month, which is more cost per month. So we're actually gonna be dropping our total movement rate by about 100,000 BCMs a month, and it costs around AUD 15-AUD 17 a BCM at the moment to move material. So call that AUD 1.5 million saving in costs per month, at the beginning of next year when we don't have to move that waste. The other thing that, with that cutback that's impacted is our access to really the guts of the ore body. These cutbacks are occurring in the middle 1-1.5 km of the pit, which is where our highest grade ore is. And from a safety point of view, we can't have people operating underneath that cutback area, and as such, we've had to mine the peripheral areas to the East and West of the ore body, during the quarter and the coming quarter, which is why you see the grade down slightly in these two quarters, and that will again go up in the first half of next year. So reduced costs due to reduced movement, increased grade due to accessing the main part of the ore body again. You know, add those two together, and you're seeing some significant turnaround in cash generation from the ops, just from the open pit itself. Talking of grade, we did come out with a new resource model at the end of June 2023. I'm very pleased to say that resource model is reconciling 100% with what we're seeing in the pit now. That helps enormously with our long-term planning and our confidence in where we're heading. We have a very good understanding of the geology of the deposit, and that certainly assists us planning where we're heading over the next couple of years. Where are we heading over the next couple of years? So at the moment, we're showing a seven-year mine life, averaging around 85,000 ounces per annum, but I think the key things to look at here is, we are not including any of what we call a Haoma joint venture deposits, and I'll talk about that next, and our relationship with Haoma. But those deposits have the potential to add at least 30,000 ounces per annum, to us moving forward. So you can imagine where that takes us, as a run rate. And also, if you look beyond financial year 2027 on, we are treating higher grade underground ore through the mill then, so our tonnages have dropped, even though our ounce production doesn't. But that spare mill capacity gives us a lot of optionality to increase production with some of these satellite ore deposits as well. It's some of those opportunities that we're starting to turn our attention to now. The baseload of the next five years is well, just the open pit is gonna be moving into the underground. Just to remind people, we've really only drilled that to 170 m average below the pit. It is open. As I say, we've got a lot better understanding on the geology, what we'll be targeting in the underground. The main load is performing very well in the main open pit, so we'll be intending to do some grade control drilling shortly on that. We're starting to get ready for portal positions, where are we gonna put them? What do we need to do geotechnically to get ready for that? Our mind is starting to turn towards the underground because it is providing a lot of the baseload moving forward. What I really wanted to focus on today, though, is where we see significant near-term upside. So we've got a joint venture with a company called Haoma. We've also formed Pirra Lithium with Haoma, so we've got a very long and established working relationship with Haoma, who are an Australian-based company. Haoma has operated up in the East Pilbara for over 40 years. They have a lot of deposits through the East Pilbara, and their heart lies at Bamboo Creek, which is 60 km away from Warrawoona, where they actually mined 220,000 ounces at just under 9 g themselves back in the 1980s and 1990s. If you have a look at the size of deposits Haoma have, they're generally smaller than the big baseload at Klondyke. And when you have a look at what we've got, we've got a big, efficient mill, low cost, some spare capacity coming up. So if you combine these smaller, if you like, semi-stranded deposits with our big, efficient mill, it's a win-win situation for both Calidus and Haoma. And as such, we've structured a joint venture, 60% Calidus, 40% Haoma, to exploit these deposits. And I really want to focus in on Bulletin, which is at Bamboo Creek. But just to touch briefly on Blue Bar. Blue Bar is only 20-22 km from Warrawoona and Klondyke, and there's existing stockpiles there. We've declared a maiden inferred resource at 2.5 g, so well above our own resource that sits around the 1 g mark. We are intending to do a small pit there in the first half of next calendar year and start seeing some of that grade coming through. And that, combined with what I talked about before, the Klondyke open pit, cost reducing and grade going up, we'll see a dramatic turnaround in our ounce profile in the first half of next calendar year. As I say, it is small, so where do we go from next? We recently announced Bulletin. The Bulletin deposit was drilled by Haoma back in 2003, and they did a small trial mine on Bulletin. We've gone and remodeled all the historic drilling, and we've come up with an Inferred Resource of 832,000 tons at 4.1 g for 111,000 ounces. So that is an incredibly high grade open pit for this day and age. It is inferred, even though the drill density is to an Indicated spacing, it is historic results, so we have put that in the third category. So our priority here is to get that into Indicated and Reserve status, and we'll be looking to get that drilled out before Christmas onto an Indicated status. And as those results come in early next year, we'll do final pit designs and permitting with the aim of commence mining in the second half of next calendar year. This provides one of the real game changers to the production profile over the next few years. Couple of things to point out, it's really only 100 m depth below surface. There's some absolute cracking intercepts at the deepest point, 13 m at almost 5, 10 m at 9.5, 15 at 3.5, 16 at 6... at 19, these are all the bottom sort of intercepts of that ore body. There's nothing to say it doesn't continue at depth, and certainly as part of this drilling, we want to put a couple of deeper holes in as well, and start to see how big Bulletin could really be. Because this sort of grade, you know, would be well, easily extracted from, an underground scenario and could provide, you know, a steady feed source to Warrawoona over years to come. So very excited about that. Need to get that into the production profile, and that really changes, both our ounce profile, and our cash flow significantly. And as I say, aiming to get that into production second half of next calendar year. Beyond that, we continue with our own exploration. We've talked about, our sulfide plant previously to treat Blue Spec and Gold Spec. Just to remind you, they're down near Nullagine, about 70 km away, 190,000 ounces at 24 grams a ton. So again, another incredibly high-grade deposit. It does require flotation, so we sell it concentrate. Antimony credit pays for the smelter charges, and antimony is now a critical metal. So we are actually getting a lot of inbound interest into that. For the moment, we've pushed that out, especially within Pilbara deposit. We've pushed that out of financial year 2027 to look at commencing that. And that gives time as well to look a bit more at Felix. So Felix made discoveries 5 km West of Blue Spec down near Nullagine. 6 m of 4, 41 m of 2.4. There's some really nice intercepts down there. Looking at the greater Mosquito Creek Basin, where only over 1.5 million ounces has been identified before, it certainly appears to be the largest soil anomaly ever seen at Mosquito Creek. And some base, some work done by UWA on probability gold distribution shows that it's got real potential as a deposit. So we certainly intend to spend more time proving up there, and maybe we can get a bigger hub going down there in Nullagine. So that's touching on the gold. Setting a base through improved operations at Klondyke, and then really accelerating production and cash flow through the inclusion of the Haoma Joint Venture projects. Moving on to Pirra Lithium. So there's been a few announcements out on Pirra, in particular, SQM now becoming a shareholder in Pirra, which I think is a fantastic tick of approval in the prospectivity of the ground. So at completion of the deal, we'll have Calidus 40%, SQM 40%, and Haoma 20%. We did talk about IPO-ing Pirra earlier on, but we did do a bit of navel gazing and reflection and look at what we have done with their lithium ground previously. And there's a few examples there. Ramelius to Liontown, AUD 30 million-AUD 3 billion. Ora Banda to Delta, AUD 11 million-AUD 415 million. And Breaker, with Ramelius from AUD 87 million to now AUD 360 million. So we see that there's been significant value generated in these projects, and we feel that the best way of providing that value to Calidus shareholders is to keep that in Calidus, short- term to medium- term. You know, depending on the results, we'll see what makes sense as we go. Certainly not ruling out IPO at some point in the future. What we want to do is just get on the ground and start exploration, because we have had that on hold for the last year. There's two main areas, the Tabba Tabba South project near Port Hedland, the East Pilbara projects, at our earliest stage, Northampton project. So focusing on Tabba Tabba South to start with, you know, this is an area of great excitement at the moment. The Tabba Tabba Shear is a well-known geological structure through the West Pilbara. FMG have defined an 11 million ton resource on there, a small extent of tenure. While they're having some phenomenal success and on a AUD 40 basis, I think are over AUD 1 billion now, market cap, some really nice intercepts through their landholding. We're moving to the De Grey tenement. De Grey did a soil sampling program through here and just drilled two holes right down on the boundary with our tenement, which is shown in green, the Pirra tenement. They had some very nice intercepts in there, 17 m at 2.5, 13 m, and 8 m, 1 from 27. So there is a lithium pegmatite sitting only a few hundred meters from our tenement boundary. All the geology comes into our tenements, and as such, we see that as a very high priority. We'll be putting out an update on that very shortly. We have commenced works on the ground there with soil sampling, and we look forward to providing an update on how we're gonna move Tabba Tabba South forward in the very near future. In the East Pilbara, we have, as part of bringing in SQM, they identified a package that Haoma had out to the west of Spear Hill, as being of interest. It covers a lot of green stones near granites, where you often find larger pegmatites. So as part of this recent transaction, we brought in another 300 sq km of ground into Pirra, with that, and it's added into the extensive ground holding out in the East Pilbara. Just to remind people, Global Lithium have Archer over 10 million tons near Marble Bar. What we've got is a couple of old tin, tantalum mining areas at Moolyella and Spear Hill. You know, these are the places you want to look. Quite often near the old tin, tantalum areas is where you see some of our largest lithium deposits in Wodgina and Pilgangoora. That's where they started life. We did do some very limited drilling out at Spear Hill when we mapped an outcrop. It was thin, a couple of meters at 1% lithium flat line, but it does show we've got the right chemistry in the ground. And we need to get out, back out on the ground, more mapping, more remote sensing, and now with a well-funded Pirra with AUD 5 billion at its disposal, we can get cracking on the greater ground holding. As Paul said, you know, the share price has recently, but still a long way off. We're very well aware of that. We are very well aware that as well, that when we look into the future and we're looking at that +100,000 ounce run rate across Wodgina through the hedge, you know, we generate significant cash flow. And really, this is now an exercise in patience as we reconstruct both our cash flow and our repayment profile, bringing in these new deposits, looking at what successes we have with lithium, and we see some really exciting times ahead for all shareholders. And I do thank you for your patience during this time, but I think over the last six months, in particular, with the strategy we've adopted, you know, we really have set a good platform for growth moving forward. So that's it in summary. So just going over the main points. Start of next year, Klondyke, costs drop back onto the good grade material, so we start to see great cash flow coming out of that. We start tapping into the Haoma high-grade deposits, so see a significant boost in production very quickly. Got a good baseline moving forward with the underground, good optionality with our sulfide plant when we break that in. Some good exploration potential, not just on our own ground, but also Haoma's, further down the line. So the gold business really starting to look, actually at scale, million capacity, increasing ounces and, and growing mine life. In the meantime, we've now got a funded lithium, stage of a funded lithium company, with SQM and, and their, you know, great technical expertise across all their various projects in WA. We are on the ground. We hope to see some good news flow coming out of that, and we do see a very exciting year ahead for Calidus. So on the back of that, Paul, I think I'll hand back to you and let's tackle some questions. Thanks, Dave. A couple of questions about your exploration spend. Essentially, a couple of people are asking, is the exploration budget restricted by the debt arrangements? Yeah, so we haven't done a lot of exploration because we've been very mindful of our cash position. But when we talk about, say, the drilling at Bulletin, for instance, we only need to do about 3,000 m of RC to bring that into reserve. That's AUD 200,000. We have been doing exploring. We've had the team out in the field this year doing lower-cost exploration, so we've done a lot of infill soil sampling, a lot of mapping, especially down at Pilbara, to better understand the structures before we drill again. We know there's something there, but before we start with the, you know, expensive drilling programs, again, we actually have used this time very well to understand the deposit in a lot more detail, so our drilling is a lot more targeted and a lot more effective when we start drilling again. A couple of questions, Dave, regarding the Haoma arrangements, etc. Essentially along the lines of, are you including Haoma's share of the joint venture in your production guidance, and how does it work? Is it a 60/40 JV? Does that assume 60/40 as a profit split after costs? Yes. So in our seven-year graph there, there's no Haoma deposits included at all. So we haven't provided guidance with Haoma, and we really can't until we get Bulletin into reserve. So that would be first quarter of next year. Then we can put out a totally revised mine plan and explain, you know, how good that can look. On how the joint venture works, yes, it's essentially a 60/40 profit share. So we'll put the capital in, which is, you know, these deposits outcrop at surface. There's no real capital needed at all. Bamboo Creek's got accommodation, comms, water, so there's really no capital. And then we look at sharing the profit 60/40 out of the deposits as they're put through the plant. And also a couple of questions re the debt. Are you aiming to renegotiate that, restructure it, et cetera? Oh, absolutely. I think it's essential for both our lender and ourselves to better match where we're heading. You know, there's been a significant change in strategy here, and that does affect you know, various profiles. So I think it makes absolute sense for both our lender and ourselves to better match debt repayments, hedge profiles, with a revised production profile. One final question, Dave. What grade are you expecting to mill from the Klondyke open pit in the second half? Good question. That's... I'm not sure we've actually put anything in the public domain, on that, so I would look at trying to address that in a future release. But, as you know, we've got to address, but certainly significantly higher than what we've seen in the last quarter. Right. I think that's all. There's one more question, Dave. You've reaffirmed the FY 2024 production cost guidance. Can we expect the second quarter to be similar to the first quarter? Look, I'd hope it's a little better than the first quarter. But really, the main change, it is gonna be a step change, unfortunately, not a gradual one, as we get access to that higher-grade material and bring in Blue Bar. So we will see a significant step change, at, you know, for quarters three and four of this financial year. Right. That's, that's it, Dave. That's, that's all the questions. Thanks very much, Dave, and thanks to everybody who's joined us today. It was a fantastic turnout. I hope that was helpful, and we'll be back with news of our next webinar shortly. Thank you.
Loading workspace