Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Gold Road Resources December 2023 quarterly results 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 via the phones, you will need to press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please enter it into the Ask a question box and click Submit. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Duncan Hughes, General Manager of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you, Lexi. Welcome everyone to our December 2023 quarterly analyst call. In the presentation today, we will be referring to the quarterly results slides that can be viewed on the live webcast, our website or the ASX release. Those on the webcast and on the phone are able to submit a question for us to address at the end of this call. On the call today, we have Duncan Gibbs, Managing Director and CEO, John Mullumby, Chief Financial Officer, and Keely Woodward, Joint Company Secretary. Moving to slide three now, for a summary of December quarterly results. Gruyere continues to operate safely and reported no lost time injuries during the quarter. Gruyere is now over 1,000 days LTI free, a great result from the operation. Gold Road's 12-month LTI frequency rate is 1.9, and that's significantly below industry average. As released at the beginning of January, the December quarter saw gold production from Gruyere of 74,659 ounces. The all-in sustaining cost was AUD 1,973 per ounce for the quarter. Higher quarter-on-quarter, largely due to the lower gold production in that quarter. The lower gold production is largely the result of mining underperformance and lower than planned ore mining. Something the JV partners and the mining contractor are working hard to resolve. Despite the strong spot gold price during the quarter, we sold less gold and free cash flow fell from the AUD 52 million generated in the September quarter to just shy of AUD 14 million of free cash flow this quarter. We closed the quarter in a strong position with just shy of AUD 150 million of cash and again, no debt drawn. The lower quarterly production resulted in Gruyere delivering to the lower end of our CY 2023 guidance at 322,000 ounces. This was delivered at an attributable all-in sustaining cost for the year of AUD 1,662 per ounce. That was AUD 2 per ounce outside of our annual guidance range. 2024, we'll see continued work on the Golden Highway, bringing it into production from 2026. We'll also see a return to drilling below the current pit, with the aim of extending the resource and reserve. Our strategic investments continue to hold good value. Following a placement in De Grey Mining in early October, we returned to our strategic holding of 19.9% of De Grey, and these investments are worth around about AUD 440 million today. We continue to explore across our exploration portfolio in Australia, with drilling at Mallina completed and resource definition drilling is set to commence at Gilmour in 2024. I now hand over to Duncan Gibbs to talk through our quarterly results in more detail. Thanks, Duncan, and thank you for joining us today. Gold production for the quarter was clearly below our expectations, with production impacted by mining underperformance. Gold production decreased quarter-on-quarter, largely a result of mining less ore tonnes, particularly late in the quarter. As a result, head grade was down due to the processing of low-grade stockpiles rather than the planned high-grade run of mine ore. Average grade mined at 1.2 g gold for the quarter was lower quarter-on-quarter, reflecting the areas available for mining and mining practices, resulting in higher than desired levels of dilution. Mining early in the quarter started reasonably well, with MACA mobilizing new equipment in line with plan and promising results early in the quarter, delivering against daily targets. That improvement was short-lived and largely driven by insufficient personnel numbers for the expanding mining fleet, with impacts to drill and blast, maintenance and operators. Recruitment, of course, in the market has been challenging over the last year across the mining sector. With Gruyere's expanding mining fleet, we are likely feeling a greater impact than others. Despite repeated assurances from MACA executives that the workforce issues were under control, clearly they were not. The labor issues were particularly accentuated over the Christmas and school holiday period, with high levels of approved and unplanned leave. As a result of the tonnes of ore mined in the pit, lower grade stockpiles continued to be blended with mined ore through the process plant, resulting in a lower mill head grade of 1.11 g per tonne. An 8% drop in grade that directly impacted on the gold ounces produced. Ore tonnes milled were approximately 2.2 million tonnes, which was also lower quarter on quarter, driven mainly by processing plant availability, and there's no really individual issues driving that. Gold recovery, I guess, was a positive, with processing plant continues to show higher levels of the recovery than we've first modeled, sitting at around 93% quarter, really reflecting improved operating practices in the plant. Construction of the pebble crusher was completed on schedule in early December. Normal operation of the pebble crusher commenced in early January, with early indications being that it is operating to expectations. All-in sustaining costs was higher quarter on quarter, at AUD 1,973 per ounce, and largely attributable to the lower gold production, as well as increasing waste movement. Gold revenue benefited from the strong gold price, but was lower quarter on quarter, a result of the lower gold sales. Quarterly corporate all-in costs were $2,390 per ounce. Turning to annual guidance for 2024, we're placing that at 330,000-335,000 ounces on a 100% basis, at an attributable all-in sustaining cost of $1,900-$2,050 an ounce. As we have previously flagged, the rate of waste mining needs to step up to a life of mine average of approximately 5.5 to 1, with a catch-up now required in early 2024. There's sufficient mining equipment to do all of that at Gruyere, to deliver the mining volumes we've required, and in fact, a new 600-ton face shovel arrives in late May as a replacement machine and could be used to augment the fleet capacity as required. As I've indicated, the key mining performance is around the adequate number of skilled personnel. In 2024, we've been reading about the pullback of mining operations, and of course, the curtailment of Sebrie Battery Metal and the Ravensthorpe operations. Of relevance to Gruyere, is this includes one of the MACA sites, and a contingent of employees have already been moved to Gruyere. That's a positive development. Getting Gruyere to a highly productive, high-performing mining operation of both the MACA and Gruyere is likely to take some time, and we've considered the current situation in setting guidance. Clearly, guidance we are providing is lower than what Gold Road reasonably expected it to be and has communicated in the past. On the cost side of the equation, all-in sustaining cost is primarily higher to the projected all, gold production. Sustaining costs have increased, with mining totaling, targeting total movement rates of up to 60 million tons, and continuing construction of a TSF raise with approximately AUD 15 million on a 100% basis to be spent in 2024. At Gruyere, the studies continue at Golden Highway in preparation for mining in 2026, and of course, that can augment the ore supply also coming from the Gruyere pit. Within the quarterly report, we've provided an update on annual resource and reserve statement with little change, except for, of course, the anticipated depletion that arises from another year of mining at Gruyere. So the ore reserves now, as reported, sit at 3.67 million ounces, and mineral resources are reported at 6.04 million ounces. Gold Road also reports an underground resource below these open pit resources of 0.98 million ounces on a 50% attributable basis. As shown in this image, there's over 3.5 million ounces of largely inferred below the open pit reserve at Gruyere, and, as well as drilling that's intersected the ore body, about a kilometer below surface. In 2024, the joint venture will recommence exploration below the open pit to examine pit expansions and underground mining options, and we would expect the resource and reserve growth to continue for, as a result of these programs. We'll start to look at the potential to extend from that. We'll start to look at extending the mine life beyond 2032 with this drilling. Turning to Gold Road's exploration activities, of course, we hold a diverse portfolio of exploration properties throughout Australia now, including in Yamarna, the Pilbara, and in Northeast Queensland. At Yamarna, we continued air core drilling through the previously unexplored stratigraphically along strike at Gruyere, at Hopwood and Jatz. RC and diamond drilling followed up the targets at Beefwood and Hopwood South, with some extensive alterations on the zones intersected. However, results returned so far don't look like a new ore body. The focus in Yamarna in 2024 is going to shift to the 100% Gold Road resources, and our intention is to get those to the point where they're mine ready. Gilmour, which is already at the most advanced stage of processing, will be our first priority. Gold Road's conceptual studies indicate that these ore bodies can deliver value by processing us in at Gruyere, particularly if there's a shortfall in available JV ore, and therefore, surplus plant capacity. Drilling has commenced at Yamarna early last week. At Mallina, diamond drilling was completed and followed up encouraging RC results reported in the previous quarter. Drilling has intersected a large, intensely altered granodiorite intrusive, which is within the Mallina basin sediments. The intrusive occurs over a 500m strike length, which remains open, and we've seen zones of alteration of 150 m-200 m wide. Not all samples are assayed, but the assay results to date indicates gold is predominantly associated or localized to narrow, high-grade, late-stage veins. We've identified multiple intrusive targets from geophysics at Mallina, and drilling of these targets will resume once heritage surveys have been completed. In Queensland, with the cyclone, it's obviously very wet over there, and that's likely to delay the start-up of field programs. But we have a couple of solid drill targets to pursue in 2024. The new property at East Laverton, which is an unloved greenstone belt midway between Tropicana and Sunrise Dam, where past exploration has been limited to nickel targeting in the ultramafics. Work in 2024 will be an initial phase of regional data sets, including geophysics and geochemistry, along with heritage surveys, so that we can get in and identify and test targets. With drilling likely to be either later in the year or into 2025. I'll now hand over to John Mullumby to take you through the quarterly financial results. Thanks, Duncan. So on the screen currently is the usual chart showing the movement in cash and equivalents quarter-over-quarter. Starting at the top, sales for the quarter were AUD 113 million as a result of the strong gold price environment across the quarter, and also our production. This translated to AUD 70 million of operating cash flows out of Gruyere and a free cash flow result of AUD 14 million for the quarter. We also ended December with AUD 6 million of unsold bullion and Doré on hand. We'll see that across the quarter, cash and equivalents decreased AUD 150 million at the end of December. This is primarily following a one-off payment for investments into De Grey's placement in October, of AUD 63 million, and a half-year dividend, which we returned to shareholders of AUD 11 million. Closing off with two last points around our financial position at the end of the year. So Gold Road remains debt-free, and we have an undrawn revolving corporate facility, AUD 150 million there to be utilized at any time. And Gold Road's listed investments, which were valued at roughly AUD 465 million at the end of December, and are valued today as of AUD 440 million. Thanks, and back to you Duncan Hughes. Thanks, John. That brings our results presentation to a close. Now, happy to take any questions you may have. I'll hand the call back to Lexi. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question via the phones, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type your question into the Ask a Question box. Your first question comes from Alex Barkley from RBC. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just some questions around that 2024 guidance, particularly the cost guidance. Was there any expense from the pebble crusher, the tailings upgrade, some of the, some of the 2023 stuff, is that rolling into next year, or... And, and is there any other one-off cost sort of thing in, in next year to call out? Or is that, is that pretty much where you think costs will be, steady state, if, if material movements hold at that level? Thanks. Look, the pebble crusher is completed, so other than perhaps a few spares, there's no more costs to come through on that. The single, you know, large capital item for the year is the tails dam, and as I spoke to on the call, we're estimating that to be about AUD 15 million for the year on a 100% basis. Yeah, okay. Thanks. Just a couple of ones on exploration. At Yamarna, is there any—I see there's still some assays pending to come back. Are there any sort of key targets that are a bit less tested coming up, or are you getting a bit back more to just systematically assessing the whole field? Or is there, you know, any sort of exciting targets you haven't checked yet in that belt? Look, there's still some quite encouraging targets, Alex, but they require more work for us to work through heritage issues to gain access to those. So the timing of when we get to those remains a bit uncertain. I'd say there's one target that I think is really quite promising to the south of Gruyere, and we do want to get in there, but we've got to work collaboratively with the, you know, native title holders to do that. But as I flagged, outside of that, you know, our major focus at Yamarna really is, is starting to put together a string of, you know, convert our existing resources there so that we, you know, have the optionality to put them through Gruyere. And, you know, there's quite a lot of value to Gold Road if we're processing our 100% ore through the plant, particularly if the plant has surplus capacity. So we're gonna be pushing hard on Gilmour as the first priority to get it to that status. Yep, that was sort of my last question, just following up on that. It was sort of my understanding that the JV-owned mines, Gruyere and maybe Golden Highway, would go through the mill. Obviously, Gold Fields has exposure to those, and Gilmour might be more of an end-of-life kind of thing. You mentioned there could be potential shortfalls in the mill utilization. Is that just something that could sort of happen? It just seems interesting that you might, you know, pay the capital to develop a mine and maybe not actually have a mill to process that. Yeah, sorry, if that makes sense? You know, I thought it was more of an end-of-life kind of thing, and you'll just throw it through the mill, or is there an opportunity earlier than that? Well, the highest value to Gold Road is clearly if there's surplus mill capacity. I guess we've always looked at Gilmour, or as you've expressed, to put it through later in mine life. I guess we've really got two critical moving parts as it sits right now. You know, once the pebble crusher comes online and we bed that down, I expect that to kind of take a couple of cycles of mill relines to really optimize the circuit. And we'll see where we really get the plant to, so that essentially could be a bit more upside than what we're modeling in terms of plant throughput... and indeed, what we've factored into the guidance at the moment, that we've got kind of a high level of confidence about. The other side of things, of course, is, you know, I've talked about mining and labor and the challenges there. You know, pretty critical that, for us, that, that both the joint venture and MACA work hard to sort that out. But having the optionality of alternative ore sources clearly is a risk mitigation strategy for Gold Road, and that's part of the reason that we're going to be driving that hard. That's very helpful. Okay, thanks very much, guys. That's all from me. Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Bowler from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Good day, guys. Just after a little bit more color about your comments about labor availability issues. Duncan, I think I heard you mention that obviously, you know, there's been some, some battery metal miners that have, that have come into a bit of trouble, and, and one of those sites being a, a MACA site. Does that get you close to full labor at Gruyere, or is there still, still some hiring that needs to be done in excess of that transfer from that other MACA site? Look, I guess it depends on the exact details, 'cause obviously that news was pretty much hot off the press in the last week. We know and in fact, there's some individuals that already come across. It depends exactly where that lands, of course. But if the full contingent of people that are available come across, it certainly goes a long way to addressing the current situation. It won't be an immediate solution in that you know, operators, as an example, have to be trained up on the specific equipment that we've got at Gruyere. You've got to get a team headed down and working effectively and driving a high-performance operation. So I think realistically, that's gonna take us, you know, a bit of time to get to that point. And, you know, we also need to understand if there's any critical skill gap within the labor, within, particularly the MACA workforce, for us to, you know, be able to operate. It's not just operations, of course, it spans across drill and blast, and particularly maintenance as well. Is it fair to say that your guidance for calendar year 2024 was set before that, you know, call it a sugar rush of incoming labor from that other side? Like, did this sort of recent development, you know, bolster your confidence in the outlook for calendar year 2024, or did you already factor that in the last week? Look, I guess as I've indicated, I mean, I think guidance is, you know, it's kind of fairly set at the moment from the current situation where we're at. And, you know, we need MACA to step up and deliver. And, you know, as I said, there are some risks around whether all of that, contingent or all of that workforce is coming to Gruyere, because obviously that's also a decision made by their individual employee. No worries. And just last one from me, just leading on from Alex. So I think, Duncan, also, you mentioned that the Pebble Crusher looks like it's going well and there's potential, you know, for throughput above the internal plan at the moment. Can I take that to mean above the sort of stated 10 million tons per annum long-term goal, or is that just more heading from the 9.4 million ton per annum in CY 2023 up to that 10 million tons per annum mark, you know, sort of over the next year or so? Yeah. So look, I mean, I think you've got to be thinking we're at 9.4 million tons at the moment, and, you know, we've always seen getting to 10 as kind of the target. As I spoke to, there's a couple of. You know, we're gonna need to do a couple of relines, which changes the details of the mill configuration to really then get the full benefit of the pebble crusher. But the early indications are that the pebble crusher is operating to expectations, but there'll be a tuning phase before we really know where that, you know, lands out in terms of the throughput capacity of the plant. No worries. That's all from me. Thanks very much. Bye. Thank you. Your next question comes from Levi Spry from UBS. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good day, Duncan and Duncan, thanks for your time. We might have to sort of delve a bit deeper into some of these questions, so we'll come back to the physicals in a minute. But, but can you go through MACA a little bit more? Like, so what are the numbers here? Like, how many people are they missing? We note that you've only just renewed the mining contract here, so I guess probably thought things are starting to loosen up a little bit over there. How many people do they need? How far behind are they? And then we can maybe go to the physicals after that, if that's okay. Look, the objective, I guess, was to ramp up to an annualized rate in the high 50-60 kind of million tons by the end of the year. We haven't got to that level. We've mobilized- Yep. and effectively have all the equipment. There's still a couple of trucks to come in, but that's more about, you know, balancing all distances over the longer term. So the equipment basically is on site, and that is largely on to schedule. But the manning, the personnel numbers have not ramped up as quickly as they needed to. And as I flagged, I mean, we actually started the quarter pretty well, and we were hitting daily numbers up at the level that we needed to. And particularly over the sort of school holiday period and Christmas and New Year period, there was a high level of both planned and unplanned leave. So, you know, we weren't able to operate all of the fleets, and a number of unplanned outages and what have you, occurred over that critical period. In terms of, you know, so where we are is basically a macro personnel problem. And of course, it's, you know, it's not just numbers, it's having the right skills, particularly when you're getting into things like maintenance areas, for blast crew and, and those kind of areas are probably the bigger pressure points in the sector at the moment. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So you can't quantify in terms of number of personnel? I guess, as you probably appreciate, I don't have, you know, daily detail as to the number of personnel. But, I mean, we effectively were down an entire fleet over the Christmas and New Year period. I mean, sometimes, you know, missing critical loaders and things like that as well. So, you know, that the equipment availability is driven by maintenance, of course, rather than number of units being available. Yeah. Okay, thank you. And so just thinking about the guidance for 2024, can you sort of step us through the physicals that sit behind that? And just, I guess, you know, in the context of any previous sort of short to medium-term guidance you've given, like, how we think about material movements through the year, accessing the grade, you know, getting the plan up to 10 at the good grade, and even, you know, whether the impacts can be pushed into 2025. Yeah. So look, I mean, there's three mining areas at the moment. The main current ore supply is out of the stage three pit, and, I mean, that, all that ore is exposed. In fact, the bottom of that pit is pretty much wall-to-wall ore. The key bit for ore delivery this year is we have to drive the stage four pit, and we have to get pretty good advance rates on that, which requires not just manning, but, you know, reliable, continuous operation. So it's an equipment reliability piece. And then there's the stage five pit cutback area, which is less material, of course, to this year's production, but we need to get that stripped, to support the operation into the longer term. So the mining position that we've got to at the end of this year has not accelerated stage four to the level that we would need to, but that we were aiming to be really due to lower than targeted movement rates, particularly in the last quarter of last year. Okay, thanks. And mate, can I just confirm the, I guess, the total material movement budget? Well, we're targeting to be in the high 50. I'd like to see it crack 60 million tons. Yep. Okay, but there's been no change to the mine plan or the strip ratio? It's just this year. Well, I mean, we're in a bit of catch-up mode from, you know, particularly the last quarter, not ramping up on total material movement rate and, getting through stripping and, you know, that results in us having more limited work areas than we would like to have. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for your time, Duncan. Thank you. Your next question comes from Al Harvey from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Yeah, good day, team. Just maybe you can just step us through the underground scoping study, what options you're assessing there, news flow, timing, and just how you're thinking about weighing up the underground versus extending the open pit. Yeah, look, I guess, you know, we're recommencing the deep drilling under Gruyere as the first piece. And that's a combination of deep drilling under the pit, as well as if you look at the section that we provided, some shallower drilling on the northern end. I think there's some potential for that to, you know, depending on what exactly comes out of it, there could be some opportunity to expand the pit, as well as looking at, at underground. So, so both, I think, are first and foremost, both of those are actually in the mix in terms of what we're looking at. You know, really, we've been looking at underground operations really as a mine life extension opportunity, rather than, something that, can be brought in in parallel with the open pit. Great. Thanks. And then just following up on Mallina, do you mind just giving us a little bit more, around, you know, what was particularly encouraging about that? I know it is quite, narrow and high grade. Just kind of want to get a sense of what the go-forward plan is for, exploration at Mallina. It's in quite an interesting area, along strike from De Grey, and also a few lithium projects. So just how you're thinking about that area now. Yeah. So look, certainly what we've intersected is a very large-scale alteration system with overprinting and intrusion. So you know, analogous to what De Grey is reporting in that area. The results that we've got to date out of that, more narrow, high-grade intersections associated with kind of late stage veins within that, you know, extensively altered. Really, the rock texture is obliterated by the alteration. So to date, you know, as we've reported, we've got narrow, high-grade intersections rather than the large bulk zones of mineralization that De Grey have been reporting. Really, it's the first target that we've tested and was driven by what heritage surveys that we could get done in the course of last year. And the guys, in fact, girls up in that part of the world have done a great job in the work programs that they actually successfully did for us last year. We've got at least three other targets that we can see off our geophysical data, and we're using more of a geophysical targeting technique at Mallina to get us directly onto things, and we've got multiple other zones up there to go and drill test. But we've got to do some heritage survey and work through all of that before we can go and test the other targets. And the first target that we've tested isn't, in fact, our highest-ranked target. It's simply the one that we could get to first. Great. Thanks, Duncan. Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Frydman from MST Financial. Please go ahead. Sure. Thanks. Morning, Duncan and team. Firstly, can I just ask or can you just give us a bit of context, exactly on how you guys derive, derive the 2024 guidance? I, I guess I'm thinking, you know, are these your internal numbers? Is, is this the JV's budget that's been set for next year? You know, are, are these Gold Fields numbers? Obviously, they haven't given their 2024 guidance yet. I think their result is probably about a month away, but, you know, could, could we see... Will we see the same numbers from them, or do you expect that, you know, maybe they, they may give different numbers? I'm just trying to understand, I guess, you know, how this, how this guidance has been derived. Obviously, we've presented in a budget, but Gold Road has taken its own view of what we think is delivered. And, you know, Gold- as you've indicated, Gold Fields is yet to put out their own guidance. Obviously, in us doing every market, any market release, that is passed by Gold Fields. But the guidance we're putting out is Gold Road's judgment based on the current mining position that we're at. Great. Okay, thanks. And would you say that judgment was more sort of conservative than the budget that JV presented, given some of these factors that have sort of been constraining the operation in the back end of last year? Or I guess, what sort of, what sort of stance did you sort of, sort of apply to that, to those numbers? I think what. Well, I mean, obviously, we have, you know, obligation to provide to shareholders, you know, factual information. So it's our and Gold Road's reasonable best judgment as to what we think is possible this year, taking into account both the budget that's been presented to us and the position that we found ourselves in at the end of the calendar year. As you probably appreciate, in a larger organization like Gold Fields, the budgeting process goes over about six months, and we'll make some assumptions based on, you know, where the mine was actually at several months before the end of the year. Got it. Thanks, Duncan. That's helpful context. Secondly, you've obviously cited that all-in sustaining costs next year will be impacted by increased material movement costs, I guess, you know, both from inflationary pressures, but also just physically moving more material. I'm just trying to sort of get a sense of how much of those increased material movement costs are gonna fall into operating expenses versus sustaining capital and what you've implied in guidance there. I guess to think of it in another way, and hopefully, you follow the logic here, and I'm making sense. But all-in sustaining costs in the December quarter was basically the midpoint of what you're guiding to in 2024, and you spent about AUD 70 million in sort of cash on sustaining costs. But, but that included nearly AUD 30 million of capital, your share for the pebble crusher, and you've only flagged, I think, was it 50, five zero million dollars for the TSF on a 100% basis for next year in terms of CapEx? If that's right. So obviously a sort of big quantum in the amount of CapEx that you're pointing towards for 2024. So is it fair to say that we'll see a step down in sustaining capital into 2024, but that will be offset or fully offset by an equivalent lift in mining costs? Look, I guess the first point I'd note is that Gold Road is pretty clean in how we report our all-in sustaining cost. So we're not putting part of the mining cost into growth capital, which seems to be a fairly ubiquitous theme across the sector. Check my numbers here, but I think total mining volume by the end of the year is about 38 million tons. We're stepping up to, you know, targeting about 60. And obviously within that, there's a bit of a need to do some catch-up with mining from, you know, the volume that we moved in last year was below what we were planning to do. So that's, that's quite a big driver in cost. I mean, order of magnitude, total mine cost is about AUD 5. Then, you know, the single large capital item for the next year is TSF raise. There obviously are a number of other components to sustaining CapEx. We have to do another small village expansion and other odds and ends, but there's nothing of great note to call out within all of that. Yeah. Okay, thanks, Duncan. That's pretty clear. Yeah, agree, your all-in sustaining costs reporting is very clean. Was I right in hearing that the TSF is AUD 50 million, 50, on a 100% basis, or is that AUD 15 million, 15? 115 in on a 100% basis for next year, and it's probably gonna take us somewhere into the third quarter before that's completed. Got it. Thank you. And then just finally, you've, you know, as we've been talking about and you just, you know, you cited that the catch-up in stripping that's required through 2025, you know, particularly in stage four, will elevate that material movement temporarily, I suppose. But do you expect to demobilize fleet once that catch-up is done and the mine's trending back towards life of mine strip ratio? Or is this the right level of fleet going forward as the mine gets deeper and, you know, waste dumps get further away? Well, life of mine strip ratio now is about 5.5:1. We need to push hard in the next 12 months to provide, you know, continuous ore supply, and particularly if, you know, we see better performance out of the plant. You know, Golden Highway becomes an important part of completing keeping the mill full, and we're actively working on that through the study type phase, and certainly targeting to get that into the plant by 2026. So, I mean, the, you know, strip ratio is gonna stay up with a 3 mining fleet for, I think it's about 5 years. So we're gonna be holding a similar level of total mining cost, total mining volume, that I've sort of spoken to. Got it. Thanks, Duncan. That's, that's very clear. Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniel Morgan, from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. Hi, Duncan and team. I think it's fair to say that inconsistent performance has persisted, and, you know, it's been a frustrating time for all them involved with the mine delivering below its potential. Is this a view shared by your JV partner? Is the JV working well? Is there an opportunity to be more activist on your side or even, you know, approach your JV partner to go back to 100% and you run the whole thing? As it's, you know, as maybe it's not delivering to what you think it could do. Thank you. Well, I'd concur with your comment that it's not delivering to what the ore body should be capable of doing. In terms of Gold Fields, probably worth highlighting that there's very significant changes in the Gold Fields executive that have occurred over the last 12 months. That includes, obviously, at the corporate level as well as the Australian region level. I'm hoping and optimistic that the incoming leadership is gonna drive higher performance than what we've been seeing. Is it, is it something you would contemplate where you would take an activist role and say, "Well, there's value to be made if we go back to 100% ownership and cut them a check?" Is that something that could be contemplated and create value for your shareholders? Thank you. Well, I don't think I can really talk to whether Gold Fields is a willing seller or anything like that. I mean, of course, we'd love to own 100% of Gruyere, and then, of course, you can be masters of your own destiny. But, I mean, from where we are at the moment, the important thing is to basically work with what effectively is a new leadership team in Gold Fields to drive better and more consistent performance. And how active is your role in that JV and decisions like the, you know, the selection of the or the extension of the mining contractor, MACA? You know, were you a very active participant in that, and, you know, can you bear more influence over the performance of that contract and the performance of the overall operation? Thank you. I'd say our role is more active than you would expect for the partner, but he's not the manager of the site. I think it's fair to say that Gold Road took a very active role and leadership role in the re-tendering of the contract. We certainly, and I personally, rewrote big chunks of it, to set it up for the longer-term future. We went through a tendering process. The reality is that in terms of the time we looked at pricing and risk of changing out, MACA to another party, it was very hard to see, one, the economics of that working. Of course, changing out the entire mining team, to a new contractor added another level of risk. I guess we're also quite optimistic that MACA, of course, is now owned by Thiess. Thiess, if you're not aware, is really the largest global tier one contractor. On the scale of Gruyere operations, sits firmly within the central part of their capability in terms of the capacity, equipment, scale of operation, and all those kind of things. So, from that point of view, we looked at Thiess ownership as being a positive. And, you know, certainly I've worked with other contractors that, you know, have delivered better performance than what we've been seeing. But the change out risk for Gruyere was pretty significant and hard to see an economic value for us in doing that. I've also been very active in conversations with MACA executive, and far more to an extent than you'd expect from a non-managing partner of the joint venture. Sorry, last question. What, what happens if the performance, you know, does not lift and meet your standards? You know, what, what course of action can you or will you take in that situation? You know, is there avenues to move to, you know, owner-operator in order to better manage this productivity? Thank you. I think the contract, like any contractor contract, has all of the full legal avenues that you can utilize, up until, up until and including termination of contract. But of course, exercising those rights needs to be considered very carefully, because there's significant risks in changing out a contractor of the scale of operations that we have at Gruyere. Okay. Thank you very much for your perspectives. Thank you. Your next question comes from Mitch Ryan, from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Morning, Duncan and team. Just sort of following on from Dan's line of questioning there. Given your interaction with MACA has been sort of probably higher than you would have expected from someone in your position, are there—what's your perception? Are there ongoing cultural issues at site that have led to this lack of labor? And is there an appropriate focus for MACA on the site in addressing this from your perspective? Look, I think you probably have to put things in context, because, of course, MACA purchased the business off Downer. And certainly, you know, Downer was not capitalizing their mining business. So, you know, if you recall, I spoke in June about challenges with drill rig reliability. To give MACA and Thiess, the new owner, credit, they have actively worked on addressing the unreliable equipment. And, you know, they've brought in all the trucks and things like that, that we require. Obviously as I spoke to during the presentation, we're in a phase where we are lifting the mining rate. That obviously means bringing in additional personnel, and we've struggled to, or MACA have struggled to get them in of the right quality, skills, and numbers, at the rate we needed to deliver to our own plans. And as I flagged, particularly over the Christmas school holiday period. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Paul Kaner from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks, gents. Most of my questions have been answered, but maybe just honing in a bit more on that 2024 guidance and the grade expectation. How should we think about sort of open pit contribution and then the sort of stockpile contribution through 2024? I mean, specifically this quarter we're in right now, given the issues you had in the December quarter. I think you're gonna be looking at the plant head grade of being about 1.1. You know, the reserve grade, of course, is 1.3. We don't see there's anything. Fundamentally, the reserve grade is correct. We've—there's two components. We're obviously blending in stockpiles of about 0.8 to get to that 1.1 grade. And with the restricted mining areas that we have got at the moment, we've got some less than optimal mining practices, which are undoubtedly creating some extra ore loss and dilution within. Yeah, no, understood. And then just maybe looking at the life of mine plan. I mean, we got the staged picture and then a presentation a few months ago. I mean, has that stage approach changed at all? I mean, have those physicals of those various stages changed? No, they're still the same. I guess within the quarterly, we update the resource and reserve, but effectively there's no change to the reserve from resource, other than just the mining depletion of the year. We don't see there's a need to change the resource and reserve. It's purely mining operational factors that are driving the performance. Yeah, understood. That's it for me. Thanks. Thank you. There are no further phone questions. I'll now hand it back to Mr. Hughes for the webcast questions. Thank you very much. A number of webcast questions, but, a number of them have already been answered through, through the Q&A on the phone. So picking aspects that have not already been answered, Larry Hill from Phoenix Gold Fund has a question on: How long is the contract with MACA? And, I think we already touched on if performance doesn't improve, are there options available to us to improve that? So the contract, this contract was put in place from middle of last year. It's a five-year contract with various options to extend. Yes, of course, there are provisions within the contract where you can terminate it for various reasons. The reality is that doing so is quite challenging in terms of changing out a fleet and creates other risks. So the reality is, we need to work with Thiess as the owner of MACA, and with the MACA executives, to drive better performance. Thank you. I've got one here from Bradley Watson, from Bell Potter. His question essentially is: If we achieve our CY 2024 plan, will Gruyere be back on track to achieve a sustainable 350,000 ounces of production through to 2032? Look, I think it should be a 350,000 ounce mine. It's fundamentally driven by, you know, mining performance is our critical issue at the moment, and, you know, the overall management of the site to drive delivery. Now, I'm just going through, because there are lots, to see what has not already been answered. There's a question here from Tom Limb. Given the heavy reliance on high gold prices at the moment, what is the company doing about reducing expenditure to maintain profitable in the assumption that gold price doesn't stay as high as it is now? Look, I guess at any point in time, of course, we, you know, run strategic options as to how we might react in a more subdued gold price environment. In terms of the life of mine plan and what we're doing at the moment, I think it's appropriate for the current setting, but it's always something that can be reviewed by management if necessary. Thanks. Other questions that were already dealt with on the phone, so I'll hand back to the operator now to see if there's any more coming through from the phones. Thank you. There are no other phone questions. Thanks very much. Well, that brings our quarterly call to a close. Obviously, last quarter was disappointing. We are working very hard with MACA and the operator to resolve this. Gruyere is still long mine life, at least to 2032, and as you heard on the call, we're drilling beneath that to look at extending this situation. We're in a strong position for growth. Our investment portfolio is around about AUD 450 million today, and hold strategic positions in companies we like the look of their projects. We are still actively exploring, and our strategy hasn't changed there. We're looking for mine two through the drill bit. Cash flow for the quarter is AUD 14 million. Cash flow for the year is obviously to be been good, and would average higher than that. Our cash and equivalents is AUD 150 million, and we are debt-free. We did pay a dividend, in October. As you all know, we, we pay a dividend every six months. Thank you for your attendance today. Speak to you next time. Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.