Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Evolution Mining Limited December Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Peter O’Connor, General Manager, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you, Mel. My name is Peter O'Connor, as Mel mentioned. I'm General Manager, Investor Relations for Evolution Mining. Welcome to today's call. This morning, we posted two releases to the ASX platform. They include the December quarter 2023 quarterly report and update, and also a separate release on exploration entitled Exploration Success Continues at Cowal and Ernest Henry. These releases are also available on the Evolution website. Speakers on today's call include our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Lawrie Conway; our VP of Discovery, Glen Masterman, and might I add, Glen is calling in from Canada this morning. He is on annual leave, and more importantly, he has a very deep case of COVID, so thank him for taking the time out to do that for us, and our Chief Financial Officer, Barrie van der Merwe, as well. With that, I'd like to hand over to our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Thank you, Rocky, and good morning, everyone. I hope you had an enjoyable holiday season and were able to get some downtime with family and friends, and I do wish everyone a healthy and prosperous 2024. The December quarter was a mixed one, with some really positive outcomes and areas where we really need to keep on improving. Firstly, our production of 161,000 ounces at $1,618 per ounce was lower than planned, driven by the lower production at Red Lake and weather impacts in December at Cowal and Mt Rawdon. Notwithstanding these shortfalls, a full review of the plan for the second half has confirmed that we'll be within the group guidance range for the year of 789,000 ounces at $1,340 per ounce, ±5%. I'll talk to the details on that shortly. On the sustainability front, a recordable injury frequency rate increased to around nine. While the incidents were minor and they were in the holiday period, it is a slight increase that we're not happy with, and it's not where we want to be. On the positives, we generated nearly AUD 80 million of cash flow before debt, dividends, and any acquisition funding for Northparkes. This was an increase of over AUD 105 million from the September quarter on the back of an 85% increase in net mine cash flow to approximately AUD 132 million. It shows we are deleveraging the balance sheet, and momentum is expected to build in the second half of the year. Our cash balance at the end of the quarter was AUD 191 million, and the AUD 525 million revolver facility is undrawn. The closing cash balance includes approximately AUD 80 million of opening cash at Northparkes on acquisition. This provides us with AUD 716 million of liquidity. We successfully completed the Northparkes transaction in December, and in the first two weeks, the operation safely delivered around 1,200 tons of copper and over 1,000 ounces of gold. We made a concentrate shipment in late December, and the result was a positive cash flow of AUD 9.5 million post the Triple Flag Stream commitment. Work is progressing well on the mineral resource and all reserve statements for Northparkes, which we intend to release next month with our half-year financial results. Ernest Henry continued to demonstrate its quality, and it is back to normal operations with consistent production and around AUD 104 million of net mine cash flow, including an initial insurance reimbursement of AUD 18 million for costs associated with the March 2023 weather event. Cowal's performance was in line with the last quarter, but less than expected, due predominantly to high rainfall events in December, which restricted access to the open pit. While the grade increased, the weather reduced open pit tons by approximately 1.3 million compared to the September quarter. This resulted in about 7,000 ounces of lower production. The underground continued to ramp up, with its annualized mining rate averaging 700,000 tons in the quarter, and it is expected to increase to 1.4 million tons at the end of the March quarter. The paste plant is in the final stages of commissioning. The operation delivered over AUD 138 million of operating cash flow and AUD 50 million of net cash flow, and this will build as we move forward and the underground ramps up. Mungari and Mt Rawdon's performance for the quarter was in line with the last quarter, although weather did reduce Mt Rawdon's production by over 3,000 ounces. The Mungari 4.2 project remains on budget and on schedule. At Red Lake, the previously detailed materials handling constraints at Cochenour ore pass impacted the quarter. It required us to move all of the material out there, which added to dilution during the quarter. It was resolved by the end of the quarter, including the new permanent raise bore in place and the issue, and we also had an issue at the Reid Shaft. Restrictions on mining at Red Lake due to a seismic event continued during the quarter. These issues, combined, reduced production by approximately 13,000 ounces. While these operational issues were unplanned, Red Lake has not yet demonstrated the reliability that we need to see and that we are achieving at our other operations. As I've said many times, Red Lake must be more reliable in production as well as generating positive cash flow. Margins are more important than just ounces at this operation. Therefore, the team has worked on optimizing the plan for improved productivity and lower expenditure for the second half, which is anticipated to improve Red Lake's cash position. As a result, Red Lake's FY 2024 production has been changed to 125,000-135,000 ounces. In terms of group FY 2024 guidance, all operations except Red Lake are planned to produce at the midpoint of guidance or better. Cost reduction plans across the group continue to be executed to ensure that we offset the impact of the lower output at Red Lake. Therefore, our group guidance of 789,000 ounces at AUD 1,340 per ounce in a range of ±5% is maintained, and we have no changes to our capital guidance. Lastly, we announced today that after six years with Evolution, Bob Fulker, our COO, has decided to leave. Bob has been instrumental in the transformation of the company to the portfolio of assets we have today. Bob has faced many challenges, including the COVID pandemic, flooding events, fires, multiple seismic events, and the integration and the divestment of various assets. We thank Bob for his contribution to the company and wish him and his family all the best for the future. I have not touched on the exploration results, which are continuing to deliver across the portfolio and excite us about both near-term and medium-term growth and extension potential. I'm going to leave that to Glen, who will provide those details now. Thank you, Lawrie, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to turn your attention to the exploration announcement we released this morning, describing the continuation of exciting drilling results from Cowal and Ernest Henry, along with the completion of two new earning exploration joint venture agreements in Queensland and Ontario. At Cowal, the results are expected to further expand the mineral resource in the underground mine across to the newly named Edradour Zone. At Ernest Henry, drilling results received during the quarter confirm extension of the near-surface Bert ore body, expands Ernie Jr. along strike, and establishes continuity between the main ore body and Ernie Jr. Importantly, the results described in this morning's announcement were received after our data cut-off for the December 31, 2023 calendar year MROR update. As such, these results will be incorporated in model updates at the end of the 2024 calendar year and will not be represented in the 2023 MROR statement we will release next month. The Edradour target at Cowal, which we've named in keeping with the single malt theme adopted for our other underground ore bodies, returned results in the quarter, which highlight new potential to increase metal in areas adjacent to planned development. The drilling is returning very thick intervals of mineralization at the northern end of Dalwhinnie, which extend this ore body towards Edradour at similar grades to the underground ore reserve. Pleasingly, these wide intervals typically host a zone of higher grade within the core of the intercept, which is illustrated nicely in hole RDU 62, in figure 1 on page 2 of the exploration announcement. Adjacent at Edradour, we are receiving excellent results, showing potential for very good underground mining grades in this relatively under tested area between Dalwhinnie and Regal. Further drilling is designed to test continuity of mineralization across the entire Edradour target, which, if successful, will drive additional ounces per vertical meter in this area of the mine, very close to planned development on either side at Dalwhinnie and Regal. Turning to Ernest Henry, the significance of the results received from Ernie Jr., outlined in figure two on page three of this morning's announcement, is an expected increase in the mineral resource proximal to the footprint of the feasibility study. This continued delivery of exciting drilling results from Ernie Jr. has driven a decision to expand the scope of the feasibility study, which is now designed to incorporate the additional metal being delineated in these results. Elsewhere, at Bert, mineralization remains open down plunge and signifies a significant resource growth opportunity that can be potentially extracted independently of the shaft. Drilling is planned to further delineate the opportunity at Bert to inform potential options for future incremental production growth. Lastly, we recently entered into two new earning joint venture agreements on two early-stage exploration projects. The first is located in North Queensland, not far from our Ernest Henry operation. The project is known as Cloncurry North, and we will be exploring undercover geophysical targets in rocks similar to those hosting copper-gold mineralization at the mine. The target, if successful, has potential to unlock incremental production growth with the aim of utilizing latent capacity at the Ernest Henry processing plant. Evolution can earn an 80% interest in Cloncurry North by spending AUD 8 million over 4 years, along with staged cash payments totaling AUD 200,000 over the term of the agreement. Our other new project is October, which is located 100 km southwest of Timmins in Ontario. What we like about this opportunity is that it represents a rare example of an underexplored land position on an extension of the Larder Lake-Cadillac Break, which is one of Canada's most prolific gold-bearing structural corridors in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. This is a rare opportunity indeed, and we are very pleased to have secured such a prospective land position. Our Greenfields pipeline is now fully recharged, with 2 new projects located in excellent geological addresses. I look forward to updating on progress of these exploration opportunities in future quarters. With that, I'll hand over to Barrie. Thank you, Glen, and good morning, everyone. During this quarter, we started to deleverage, and cash generation has gained momentum. The revolving credit facility was fully repaid, and we have $191 million in cash and available liquidity of $716 million. All operations contributed positively to cash flow before major capital of $291 million, increasing 19%. The all-in cost margin per ounce increased 30% from $520 per ounce to $676. Net mine cash flow continued its positive trajectory and was up $60 million, an 85% increase. Ernest Henry continued its steady and predictable delivery and strong cash generation, and Northparkes contributed $9.5 million to net mine cash flow after allowing for stream commitments of $2.3 million. AISC per ounce at Cowal, Mungari, and Mt Rawdon were lower than last quarter. Group AISC was flat quarter-on-quarter at $1,618 per ounce, despite planned increases in sustaining capital expenditure of $65 and 6,000 ounces less concentrate sales at Red Lake that benefited the previous quarter by about $60. The favorable impact of production increases in the second half, as well as our continued focus on cost control, which is starting to show positive signs, will drive AISC down to full year guidance of $1,340 ±5%. As an example of our cost control focus at Red Lake, mining and processing costs in CAD is well below plan, and savings will continue into the second half. As mentioned by Lawrie, the Cowal underground mine is ramping up well. It is expected to reach commercial production at the end of March, when it will achieve an annualized mining rate of more than 1.4 million tons, which is 70% of its targeted mine design capacity and be generating cash long-term prices. At the start of the year, we said we would assess this at the half year. The slower-than-expected ramp-up of the paste plant has contributed partially to the delay in commercial production. However, gold production of 20,000 ounces is expected in the March quarter, which, at the year-to-date realized price, results in a break-even operating mine cash flow. Group cash flow for the quarter was AUD 80 million, a AUD 105 million improvement last quarter. We paid our dividend of AUD 37 million in the quarter, and Northparkes had cash of AUD 80 million at acquisition. Quarter-on-quarter, liquidity improved by AUD 213 million, and the cash balance is AUD 191 million, with no amounts drawn on the revolving credit facility, which is fully available and committed until October 2025. As outlined in the announcement of the Northparkes acquisition, there are approximately AUD 100 million in stamp duty and working capital adjustments, which will be paid in the second half of the year. As expected, major capital was AUD 10 million higher, with the Mungari 4.2 project execution ramping up. The project remains on schedule and budget. You may recall that 120,000 ounces were hedged at an average price of AUD 3,185 per ounce over the next 2.5 years to cover the Mungari 4.2 project. The first 20,000 ounces will be delivered in the second half at the price of $3,100 per ounce. This is our only hedge, and more than 95% of our production is fully exposed to the spot gold price. With production increasing materially and cost improvements in the second half, cash generation momentum is expected to increase and deleveraging to continue. I will now hand you back to Mel to open the line for questions. Thank you. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Rahul Anand with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, Happy New Year. Good morning, team. A couple from me. Look, the first one's around your guidance. So you've maintained guidance despite the downgrade at Red Lake. I guess, the key question then becomes, you know, most of the assets are still running below year-to-date run rate required for the guidance, ex Ernest Henry. So where do you see the most uplifts into the second half? That's the first part of the guidance question. And then the second is around your Red Lake comments on no update to cost guidance for that asset, despite the production cut. Where do you see the sustainable cost out to be able to come back within guidance and, and obviously, take costs much lower in the second half? Thanks, Rahul. Look, on the production guidance, you know, in terms of run rate at the halfway mark- ... You know, Cowal is actually on plan, only slightly behind because the second half, as the underground ramp up takes place, is where we see that benefit coming through. So, it's an asset that will be at midpoint, better than the midpoint of the guidance as we put into the release. So that is partially offsetting Red Lake. Ernest Henry is on plan at the halfway mark, and that will continue through to the second half of the year. And as we had expected at Mungari, it is weighted to the second half of the year. It's only slightly off at the halfway mark to that midpoint of guidance. Mt Rawdon was just materially, sorry, minor impact in the December month of those 3,000 ounces, but it's got access into the pit now that allows it to get back to guidance, and Northparkes remains on track. So what we see, as I said, all of the assets except for Red Lake, will be at midpoint or better, based on their plan for the rest of the year. In terms of Red Lake, you know, we haven't updated every asset's guidance costs. We know that if Red Lake comes down to the 125-135, their AISC will go up. What John and the team are working through and what they have presented to us is a plan that increases productivity and reduces their costs and their spend, both OpEx and CapEx, in the second half of the year. But what we're focused on is what is the impact on the, the group AISC. Got it. Okay, perfect. And then, look, final question, I guess, around obviously Bob's departure. You're gonna run a process. Do we have an interim person in the seat? What's your tilt? Is it gonna be more someone internal, or is the search largely external there? So we've Bob finishes at the end of March, and then we've got internal transition plans in place, as well as the search, which is underway. And those announcements will be made in due course there, Rahul. Okay. That's my two. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Levi Spry with UBS. Please go ahead. Levi, your line is now live. Please go ahead. You there, Levi? Thank you. Your next question comes from David Radclyffe with Global Mining Research. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, Lawrie and team, and, and Happy New Year. My question's on Northparkes, and look, I'll caveat by saying it's pretty much looks like it's very hard to break out just two weeks of data, but it's what we've got. So just wondering if you could provide some more color on that two-week period, to better understand things like the operating costs and the sustaining capital, 'cause obviously the operating costs look like they were running at about $60 a ton of ore, and sustaining costs were running quite a bit off the guidance that you'd been applied. So just trying to get a bit of flavor for how that period kind of looked to what you're, you're talking about for the rest of the year. Yeah, David, look, that was a difficult one where you have to do two closes in a month and work out what related to the fifteenth of December and what related to the second half. I mean, realistically, our guidance is for the second half is what's we're really focused on there. And whilst we haven't got that detail yet, our expectation is to be able to provide more of that breakdown into the half year results. But what we did see in the first half of the... or the second half of the month, that all of their costs in terms of mining, processing, and the like, were pretty well in line with plan. But happy to get some more of that information for you post the call as well. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay, I'll plug it on. Thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. Hi, Lawrie and team. Can you just expand on, you know, some of the issues at the Cowal Underground? So what has delayed ramp up or delayed commercial production? More interested in the, in the physicals rather than the accounting. Thank you. Thanks, Dan. Look, the main thing for the underground was that the paste plant commissioning was slower than we would have liked, and it took a little bit longer than we would have liked. So in terms of the mining, the mining is actually been progressing to plan, if not better. So it is been able to keep up to what we were expecting out of the underground, but obviously we needed the paste plant running at the same rate as the mine. So we saw that in the latter stages of the quarter. That is now building into this quarter, where we will see the ounces go up to about 20,000 ounces this quarter, as the mining ramps up to match the paste plant. When the paste plant was running in the back end of the quarter, it was actually going better than nameplate, so that's providing Joe and the team some opportunity to look at how to accelerate the mining into the back end of the third and the fourth quarter of this year. But they were the main issues, was around the commissioning of the paste plant. Okay. Thank you very much. And switching to Red Lake, obviously a bit of a disruptive quarter with the Cochenour ore pass and the seismic issue. You said that these issues have been resolved, so maybe taking the Cochenour ore pass to begin with, like, is the new permanent one, is that operating well and in line with expectations? And my second question relates to this, is the seismic issue. I presume that's the one that happened at the end of the September quarter, and then you know, restoring access to those areas is you know, being delayed through the quarter. Can you just expand on that, please? Yeah. Dan, look, I mean, and you, you were there, so you saw some of these things. So Cochenour, as I outlined in the call, that work has all been done now. The old passes have been emptied. That gave us some further dilution to get all of that material out. The permanent pass, the raise bore, is now in place. It is operating, and operating well. And at the same time, I think it's one area where John and the team have got right, is they've got contingency in that space, and that is working well. The seismic was related to the incident in the September quarter. We had expected, following all of the work that we needed to do to get back into there, we had expected to get back in by the sort of end of November, early December. We had a prohibition order over that, which actually didn't get released in December. So there was some additional works that the regulator wanted that therefore took that material out until this quarter. And then the last one, which wasn't the one that we said was resolved. The Reid was two incidences within 24 hours, in terms of water reporting in the past one, and then the Reid hoist became unserviceable because of electrical issues. Those two items combining in the same time meant we weren't able to have people in certain areas underground because of no second means of egress, and at the same time, we needed to bring a scoop over to tele remote because of the inrush, and we basically lost about, you know, 10 days in that one, but that one was resolved by the end of the quarter. Just expanding on the seismic event, if I could. I imagine there was some stopes that you were expecting you might be able to fire the December quarter, which you didn't have access to. Does that mean that you're set up pretty well for the March quarter once you've got access restored? Yeah. So we expect access this month, so we're finalizing with the regulator. That's Hanging Wall Seven and the like, that will then come out in this quarter, is what we're expecting, Dan. Okay. Thank you very much, Lawrie. Thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from Matthew Frydman with MST Financial. Please go ahead. Sure. Thanks. Morning, Lawrie and team. I might just carry on from Dan's questions there on Red Lake, and if I look at the implied guidance for the second half, you did about 50,000 ounces of production in the first half, obviously impacted by all those issues that you've just been talking about. Your revised guidance needs you to lift that to about 80,000 in the second half. So just wondering if you can give a bit of a split based on all those factors and the recovery of mining in those areas, of how much of that uplift is gonna be driven by volume, and how much of that uplift is gonna be driven by grade? And I guess to dive into a bit more detail, I guess, particularly on grade, but how, how much grade control exists in the mine plan over the next six months? And I guess, you know, how, how robust is that in your view? Clearly, some of that material that you're expecting to mine has been carried over from those issues in the first half, so potentially you've got a good handle on that. But just, just trying to get a sense of, I guess, how, how robust that mine plan is, particularly if, if a big chunk of that uplift is gonna be driven by grade. Thanks. Thanks, Matt. Two parts to that question to unpick. So if we do look at it, the second half is predicated on accessing those higher grade areas in the mine. That is in the planning. So we actually get more tons and we also do have the grade. It is access to that area in Hanging Wall Seven is a key thing for this quarter, and then into the fourth quarter, we see the grade lift up. So it is a combination of grade and tons into the second half. We would see that in the third quarter, we're expecting, you know, to get up to 30,000 ounces and then into 40,000-45,000 ounces in the fourth quarter. Thanks, Lawrie. That's helpful. And then in terms of your confidence around that higher grade material in the fourth quarter, how extensively would you say that material's been, I guess, grade controlled relative to, you know, to best practice or to where you would like to have it in terms of operating that mine sustainably going forward? Yeah, look, I mean, the grade control in talking with John and the team, yeah, that is well planned and well done for the second half of this year, so there's a higher level of confidence there. I think where John and the team have to get better at, and which we didn't see in the first half, is, you know, that mining to plan, avoiding the dilution, and basically then resulting in the lower overall grades coming through. What we saw in the December quarter was a much better reconciliation to grade based on the grade control. So, you know, John's confidence in the second half is a little bit better than where it was in the first half. ...That's helpful. Thanks, Lawrie. Maybe just quickly, the weather impacts that affected you at Cowal during the quarter, is it fair to say that they're mostly or fully resolved at the moment? There's no lingering access issues in the pit that are concerning you, obviously, in the absence of any further bad weather? No, look, I mean, the weather forecast for the next 3-6 months, so I can't give you that. What I can say- No. is that the triggers that Joe and the team are operating under does depend on the intensity of those rainfall events. So, you know, we're actually in December, because of the intensity of those rainfalls, we actually had to stay out of the pit for a longer period than we normally would have. If it was normal rain, then certainly we're getting back into the pit a lot quicker. So, you know, in the second half of the year, you know, depending on how that weather performs will determine how Cowal has access to that open pit. I think the thing that we look at with, with Cowal as well, though, Matt, is, you know, we've got a significant amount of stockpile material, so, you know, we will make sure it's safe to get into that pit. And if it isn't, we'll process the stockpile material. Yes, it'll give us lower production, but it certainly doesn't impact on the cash outflows for the operation in that period. And then when we look at Mount Rawdon, Mount Rawdon goes into the final stages of the pit in the second half of the year. So as you'd imagine, it's quite narrow to at the bottom of the pit, so, you know, it doesn't take a lot of rainfall there to put us out of that pit. Now, it's been okay through January to date at Rawdon, but with all the storms and everything they keep predicting for Queensland, it depends how much impact that has there. But again, at Rawdon, they have stockpile material that allows us to keep the processing going. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And also at Cowal, obviously, you've got the added benefit of the underground ramping up, which presumably is a little bit more resilient to wet weather. I'm assuming you don't have any issues accessing the portal, even if you have weather events at Cowal? Not at the moment, as I touch wood, Matt. Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. Okay, thanks very much for that, Lawrie. And I, I haven't heard Bob on the call yet, but, yeah, just wanted to say thanks for his engagement, particularly on these calls over the years, and good luck for any future endeavors. I'm sure we'll chat soon. Thanks, Matt. He's listening. Thank you. Your next question comes from Jon Bishop with Jarden Group Australia. Please go ahead. Morning, guys. Happy New Year. Hopefully, you are on the mend soon, Lawrie, and best wishes to Bob, of course. Moving on. Just a couple of questions, just around the paste plant. It may well be semantics, but I notice in the quarterly release there is some comment saying that it's still commissioning, and then there's another comment further down in the release saying that it has commissioned. It may be semantics, but can you just qualify that it is now fully operational and the quality is on specification? Yeah, John. Thank you. I hope to mend well soon as well. The paste plant is operating, as I said, to name plate or better, so we have got it to that point. The quality issues during the commissioning have all been resolved, and essentially, it's in those final stages of commissioning. So it was commissioned, it's been ramping up, and it's now in the final stages. And effectively, as we come into the March quarter, it's starting this quarter as essentially fully commissioned. Okay. So you're able to obviously feed it sufficiently to deliver the, the paste requirements? That's, that's what we should take away from this? Yes. Yes, and that's what's giving us the lift up in production in Q3. Against our plan in Q2, we had actually originally expected the Paste Plant to finish commissioning in Q2, and it was finished at the end of Q2. Great. Thank you. And just around the Red Lake timing, obviously, I think in the context of things, a relatively material downgrade to full-year guidance. Are you able to give a bit more granularity around the timeline that's led to that decision? I guess what I'm driving at is, you've obviously announced the Northparkes transaction a week or so prior to Christmas. You've retained full-year guidance, and then pro-rated it with Northparkes. You've reiterated that today. I guess intuitively, to take Rahul's question, it feels like you're gonna be hard pressed to meet that midpoint, and, you know, I'm obviously targeting at the low end of guidance range. It just sort of feels intuitively that perhaps the board might have taken a view just to reset things and set the low end of the original guidance as the midpoint. I'm just wondering what the decision-making was and the timeline driving it? Yeah. Look, I think there's two parts to that, John. I think, you know, when we look at Northparkes, start of December, Cowal and Rawdon were tracking well for finishing the quarter, weather hit them through that month. So, you know, you're essentially going 161 into the 170s. Red Lake was expecting to have access back into Hanging Wall Seven, getting that prohibition order lifted. That didn't happen through the month. So that's sort of what has happened through December. And then in early January, when we had the results for the quarter and the half, we did a review of what the second half looks like.... I think it's fair to say that when we were looking at Red Lake, and given that they haven't got to the stability and reliability that the other assets are doing, there was a plan that was put forward that could certainly give us more ounces than we've guided to today. Then there's the risk of, do we spend money to chase those ounces and in an asset that's not delivering as reliably as the others? So in discussion with the leadership team and the board, we had that reset on Red Lake to say that it's gotta get more reliable, but it's also gotta get its costs down in that period and get the productivities up to generate more cash. So that's what's happened in the first two weeks of January. That, that and COVID. Okay, that's my, that's my two questions. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon with Citi. Please go ahead. Hello, and happy 2024. Just coming back to guidance on Cowal. So you need to deliver 290,000 ounce quarters to hit 320, which is the midpoint of that guidance and will be a record for the site. Just trying to understand the conviction in that guidance. Is there an open cut grade keep coming through as well, or is it volumes in addition to the underground there? Is there any more color you can give on that asset? Yeah, thanks, Kate. In terms of Cowal, I think in assets where there's a little bit more confidence, that would be one of the higher ones up there with Ernest Henry. I mean, it is, as I explained to Matt, it is gonna be determined on the weather for the coming months. But what Cowal has demonstrated, and it did in FY 2023, when there was good weather, the productivities were high, and they were able to get good production out of the open pit. We'll see in Q3, as we said, 20,000 ounces out of the underground. That will lift materially in Q4 as it goes into full production and goes above the 1.4 million ton mining rate. So that will then displace some of that material, and then we would expect in Q4 some of the material that didn't come out of the pit in December and early January will come through into the back end of this quarter and into Q4. So you also have to take into consideration in this March quarter is the next main shutdown of the plant at Cowal. So it will be a slightly... It won't be at that, you know, rate that you were mentioning. It will be slightly lower, and Q4 is actually the higher quarter. But in terms of that confidence level, based on what we've seen consistently over the last couple of years or many years at Cowal, it handles the weather well. If it doesn't have weather impacts, it will deliver to midpoint of guidance or better, and if it does have some weather impacts, it'll still be around the midpoint. Okay, that's helpful. Thanks for the color. And then just on CapEx spend, it looks to be tracking a bit lower. You're annualizing AUD 313, guidance cut in half is AUD 335-AUD 382. Are there any revisions to call out or any spend to flag, or you're expecting guidance to be 2H-weighted? I think it's fair, Kate, to say that in terms of sustaining capital, it was always H2 weighted when we set the plan, knowing how we were to start the year and working on the balance sheet. We'll see a tick up there, but where it is actually at the halfway mark, it's tracking below sort of the midpoint, and Barrie and the team at the task of making sure we keep that discipline in place. The major capital, as we go forward, does ramp up in the second half as the Mungari plant expansion project gains some momentum. So what we'd sort of see is that there's no change in the major capital, and we've got to continue working on sustaining capital from a cash perspective. Okay. And then last question, although I am intrigued about the AUD 80 million at Northparkes, just cash tax light on for the quarter. Is there a benefit there to call out, or should we think of that as a one-off going forward? So, yeah, it was, it was pleasing around the Northparkes opening cash. The good thing is that when we look at the working capital, it's not something that then is gonna be burned through in the coming quarters. So that was, that was pleasing in that regard. In terms of tax in Q2, that's normally always the variable one, because our final installments on the prior year tax is due, and we actually received a refund in that quarter. So you'll see the tax payments in the third and fourth quarters revert back to their normal rates. Okay. Thank you, Lawrie. Thanks, Kate. Thank you. Your next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Morning, Lawrie and team. Thanks for the update this morning. Maybe just one on the thinking around the broader portfolio. You picked up some early-stage farm-ins, including one in Ontario, but in the past, you've touched around the potential to add other North American assets. I mean, do you still see the opportunities around potentially picking up some stranded assets in North America? And I guess, how important is getting Red Lake right before you meaningfully assess those opportunities? Hugo, thanks. I'll answer the second part first, and getting Red Lake right is the absolute priority, but it's not the gateway to asset acquisitions. It's actually about getting what we need out of that asset. In terms of North American assets, I think digesting Northparkes', getting that delivering to plan, getting the other assets, doing what they're doing, remains the primary focus.... and then we'll assess those other opportunities as they may come up. We're not expecting much, in terms of this calendar year, based on what we've heard about other assets that may be looking at getting divested. Great. Thanks, sir. Most of my operational questions have been asked, so I'll pass it on. Thanks, Hugo. Thank you. Your next question comes from Mitch Ryan with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Morning, Lawrie and team. My first question relates to Northparkes. So I guess you had the keys for all of one month, but just wondering if you could comment on any positives or negatives relative to the DD that you conducted on that asset and what you're seeing now that you're looking under the hood? Yeah, Mitch, I think it's fair to say within the first month, the positives are that it's safely delivering to plan. The team is excited about the transition into the company. In the DD, we were, you know, of the view that it was a self-sufficient asset, and it has shown that, so it's been able to operate the way it was before we took ownership. So that's been pleasing. There hasn't been anything really negative that's come out of it. I'd even think whether Glen wants to add to it, there's some real opportunities that he wants to look at in terms of starting some drilling programs out there as well. But, you know, in a month, it's probably hard to determine any sort of negatives, but there was nothing that was surprising against what we saw through the DD. Glen, anything you want to add on the exploration front? Yeah, look, Lawrie, I'll keep my powder dry for now, but just to suggest or indicate that there is some drilling programs ongoing that are underway, you know, pre-acquisition. And look, we, you know, we want to sort of assess the results that we're seeing, but there's, you know, there's some encouragement there that, as we wrap our arms around this and sort of understand what those full opportunities are, to continue investing in, you know, in some of these, in some of these growth areas that are looking pretty interesting, and I'm hoping we'll be in a position to report on those in the next quarter. Thank you. My second question relates to Cowal and with regards to guidance. I know you're sort of. You're quite comfortable, and we've built on them for quite a lot, but you caveated it with the fact of weather. Is it, you know, that really high intensive storm activity we should be mindful of impacting access to the pit, or is it if you get a prolonged period of weather, you know, how much buffer do you have in inventory and stores and access to and water storage, et cetera? You know, how should, what should we be mindful of, I guess, is the question with regards to weather? Yeah, Mitch, the intense weather ones are the give us the most impact in terms of access to the pit and how long we're out of it. The steady ones don't impact us as much there. In terms of, you know, what we've got of stores and water and all of those sorts of things, the site's always been able to operate through extended periods. I think if you look at the second half of calendar year 2022, where there was just constant rainfall there, road blockages, we were able to handle that, and we do have over 40 million tons of stockpile material there, if we are out of the pit for a period. And as I said, you know, that yes, it impacts the production, but it does give a benefit that you're using stockpiles and not consuming cash, mining the pit. So there are some trade-offs there. But I think, you know, as I said to Matt, as we came out of that event in November 2022 and then had a dry run, the way the site was able to finish that year was an example of what they do at the site quite well. Thank you. I'll pass it on. Thank you. Your next question comes from Nick Evans with The Australian. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good day, guys. Good day, Lawrie. Just a couple of quick ones. Firstly, just on Red Lake. We're sort of four years on from the acquisition, and the mine still isn't producing what it was under Newmont. Has the board given any consideration to Evolution just cutting its losses and putting the asset on the market and moving on? And secondly, Lawrie, I wonder if you'd just give some sort of broader commentary on where the labor market is for you guys at the moment, particularly in WA. Is it still as tight as it was sort of a year ago, or it's easing up a little bit and sort of and just, yeah, general commentary in terms of, I guess, broader cross pressures in the sector. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Nick. Look, yes, we're four years in, and we haven't got it to where it needs to be. What we have, you know, we have to get it as reliable as the other assets. Having moved through a number of cultural issues and dealt with all of those, you know, you're now dealing with operational issues. But the thing that I think that Red Lake has to get to, as we have at the other assets, is you've got to have contingency in the system, you've got to be able to handle those issues, and you've got to be able to rebound from them quicker than what they have been able to. So our view is we still think that the asset can get to where it needs to be. There's certainly been more urgency over the last six months, and that will continue into the second half of this year. So that's what we see. We've got to see it deliver a lot more reliability than what it has. In terms of the labor market, yeah, look, WA still remains tough and tight. I mean, I think, you know, we were fortunate. We awarded the contract for the plant expansion, the EPC, where the contractor actually had the workforce in place. So that's worked well in our favor. We're in the market at the moment around tendering for the open pit mining areas and the different mining centers that we will have for Mungari. The contractors we're talking to are saying that they're coping well with the labor market in WA. And then when we look at our own workforce, it's the turnover rate has reduced, but it certainly still has a higher turnover rate than we have on the East Coast. So short answer to that is it's still a difficult market, but the site is actually doing quite well compared to where it was 12 months ago. Thanks, Lawrie. Cheers. Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrew Bowler with Macquarie. Please go ahead. G'day, all. I think most of the operational questions have been asked, so I'll ask an exploration one. Just on the Ernest Henry, I mean, a while ago, it was sort of, you know, touted as a potential ore source that could sort of top up the Ernest Henry Mill. Just after a bit more detailed update on how that's going. Obviously, some pretty solid results out for that particular body, so. Thanks, Andrew, and welcome back. I'll, I'll pass that one over to Glen. Thanks, Lawrie. Andrew, I... So your question was referring to Ernie Jr. Uh. And/or Bert? There was more- Okay, so- Yeah, more Bert, you know, sort of potential timeline to sort of top the mill up. I mean, you know, running it, you know, as an independent ore source compared to the main sublevel stope. Just referring back to the strategy day last year. Yeah, look, just to pick up on that. So the focus of the underground drilling, where we've had a couple of rigs, sort of plugging away in the first half. One of them has really been looking at, sort of delineating further extensions to Bert. So that's to sort of understand, you know, how big this could be in terms of volume, plus, you know, plus copper and gold grade. We've also had a surface drilling program just delineating, you know, what we already know, so some infill drilling just to define that resource better. So that's essentially where we are. I mean, as the concept as expressed during the, yeah, the investor visit, last year, it is still in play. So we have a concept study that's sort of running in parallel with the, with, you know, with the feasibility study, for the deeper ore body extension. The idea is that, you know, we will complete, another resource update at, at Ernest Henry, and including for Bert, towards the middle of the year. And that will be sort of the basis from which, those studies will sort of expand and determine, you know, what really is the option. I think, firstly, we just need to know, exactly what it is we're dealing with. As, you know, as I've, previously described, it sits, you know, just 60 or 70 meters into, you know, the, the, the north wall of the pit there at Ernest Henry. It's fairly shallow, so you know, there are certainly options to look at extracting it independently, you know, from the shaft, and we're still in the process of studying that. No worries. That's all from me. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Andrew. Thank you. Your next question is a follow-up from John Bishop with Jarden Group Australia. Please go ahead. I think it'd be rude if I didn't have a stab at a really weak accounting question, but can I please ask how often you're testing your book value for Red Lake? And I guess what I'm driving at, without you obviously flagging it, are we at risk of a write-down on that, on that asset transaction cost at all? John, I would have been disappointed if we didn't get an accounting question. Look, in terms of book value, all assets are tested at every reporting period. When we looked at it at the full year accounts and as we come into the half year, it has sufficient headroom, so there's nothing that we are flagging or expecting in terms of the book value or carrying value of the asset. Perfect. And just, probably just to take you guys' question a little bit further on your, your North American for, I think, did you say it's Timmins is the name of the asset? Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, just- Uh, that's- What... Sorry, Glen, you go. Yeah. I was just not- John, that's it. Yeah, it's October, near Timmins in Ontario. Near Timmins. Beg your pardon. Can I just understand what the broad strategy thinking is there by the board? Is it a standalone greenfield opportunity that you're looking to, and is that still part of what the board sees as Evolution's DNA? I guess I'm sort of looking at the business, it's quite mature now in terms of the number of operating assets. You know, the low-hanging fruit tends to be resources or new discoveries in and around existing operations. Are you still hopeful of making a standalone there, or is this something that could be leveraging off Red Lake, or have I got my geography completely wrong? I'm gonna hand that- Uh, geography? to Glen, and that he is in Canada. But the thing I'd say there, John, is that the strategy is also about looking out, you know, beyond year six and seven as some of these other assets tail away, is where are those opportunities for production to come into the portfolio? Glen, do you want to just talk specifically on October? Yeah, sure, Lawrie. So look, the thinking there, John, is exactly to Lawrie's point, and it's looking at that sort of plus 6-7 years out. We still, you know, and we're very sort of focused on the strategy in terms of the types of mineral systems that we'll go and explore for. We don't, you know, we're not looking across the smorgasbord of, you know, various different gold deposits. So we are looking at our key greenstone systems. We do believe that there are opportunities, particularly in the Abitibi in Canada. This one, you know, this one is sort of presented as a essentially, a block of ground on a really well-endowed structure, which is the Larder Lake-Cadillac, has, you know, 100, you know, 100+ million ounces of, you know, historic production and resources and reserves along it. It sits between the Côté Lake Deposit, which is IAMGOLD, and Sumitomo's construction project in Ontario. And then on the other side of it, we have the Borden, the Borden operation, which is one of Newmont's mines there. So we think it's a very good geological address. It's been underexplored, and this is part of our strategy for looking at sort of, you know, that longer term, you know, 7-10-year timeline on a standalone greenfield asset. Great. Thank you. And if I could just sneak one final one in, just around the Ernest Henry piece, whilst I've got you, Glen. I mean, dare to dream, obviously subject to resource numbers middle of this year, is the optimization work looking around just, location of infrastructure, or should the market start to, I guess, anticipate the potential of expanding production output out of, out of Ernest Henry, should Bert hang together in particular? Oh, look, I think, John, at this point in time, it's premature to sort of, you know, start to talk about what, you know, an incremental production opportunity might look like coming out of Bert, so we've still got to kind of work that one through. You know, obviously we're most advanced with the feasibility study underway now, looking at the mine extension, but as I mentioned earlier, we have expanded that scope of the study to take into account some of the growth that we've seen at Ernie Jr. What's particularly exciting about that is that, you know, in some of the drilling results that we've got out there this morning, you can see that there is the gap that previously existed between Ernie and the main ore body. It looks like it's gonna sort of close out and be continuously mineralized between, you know, between both of those targets. So what that does is it gives us the opportunity to establish more metal per vertical meter that will be accessed by that development, you know, that will be designed in the feasibility study. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Conway for closing remarks. Thank you, Marilyn. Thank you, everyone, for your time today. I appreciate you making the effort to join the call. I said at the outset of the call, the quarter was mixed, and our focus is on improving the areas under our control and focusing on margin and de-leveraging the balance sheet. I know the focus will be on the areas that we do have to improve, and we accept that. However, I do hope that the positives don't get missed, which is that we have seen momentum in cash generation starting to build this quarter, and expect it to build further into the second half of the financial year. We've seen Northparkes integrate into the business well at the start, and we need to keep that going. And we look forward to updating you next month on our half-year financial results and the MROR. Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.