Greatland Resources Limited (GGP) Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Greatland Resources September 2026 Quarter Investor Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to welcome Shaun Day, Managing Director to begin the conference. Shaun, over to you.

Thanks, Paul, for leading us in there, and welcome, everyone. Thanks for dialing in to Greatland September 2026 quarterly results. With me on the call is pretty much a full house of the executive team. We've got Andrew Rowan Krasnoff Richard Maniola also Nick Strong, our new Chief Operating Officer, is joining us on the call. What I'll do is I'll start by turning to Slide 5. Look, just a really solid quarter we thought from an operational outcome. Beat the street both in terms of gold production and all-in sustaining costs with both being better than planned. And that was really driven particularly by strong processing performance. And that was particularly encouraging given we had the planned major shutdown for the year of 15 days, and that ran like a Swiss lapsed that site did a great job to bring that back online and a really significant just derisking as part of the -- in terms of production, doing just over 70,000 ounces of gold, we thought was very strong, particularly the copper production of well, just over 2,900 tonnes of copper. We thought was really encouraging. And this just puts us very comfortable in terms of that guidance range of 260,000 to 300,000 ounces for FY '27. I all-in sustaining costs, I thought that outcome was particularly strong, coming in at AUD 2,925. That's right at the bottom of our all-in sustaining cost guidance for the year. When you look at that, this all delivered an operating cash flow of $289 million. We saw a net cash build, and that net cash build was notwithstanding, we actually paid 5 months of tax during the quarter as we transition from a quarterly payment system to a monthly installment system. So notwithstanding that extra tax burden for this quarter. It was still a strong cash build performance. Plus, of course, we got the full permitting on Caverin. So we started increased spending there. We still closed the quarter with over $1.3 billion cash at bank, debt-free. And together with the undrawn $500 million debt facility, it means we have $1.8 billion of liquidity available. And what's really important about that is it derisk, it gives us a clear pathway for delivering the organic growth profile we have at Haveron Bullosa across Telfer, which we'll talk to a little bit more through these slides. The core highlights for this quarter, to my mind, was the permitting coming through on Hain. That's been a journey, but we're delighted to have received that. And now we're in a position to go into the construction phase on our flagship have on development. The team has done a great job of spinning up in the week since that approval, and you've seen work, particularly at surface around setting up those evaporation pond construction, and also clearing the pads for the ventilation blind boards. With that summary of third quarter, I'll pass across to Otto Richter.

Thank you, Sean. If we turn to Slide 7, we'll now look at the key drivers of this good start to the financial year. We firstly look at the open pit Wisdom. -- the orbit total material mined, again, saw an increase quarter-on-quarter to just under 8 million tonnes, [ 7.9%. ] This is our seventh consecutive quarter-on-quarter increase in total material mined since Greatland took ownership and represents a 79% uplift in productivity since our March quarter last year. The continued growth is the result of higher trucking availability from our new and rebuild trucks consistent bigger productivity and an ongoing focus to improve bench turnover and opening up those larger, more productive working fronts in Stage 7. The open pit ore mined was also a record under great men ownership at 4 million tonnes for the quarter. World grade was consistent quarter-to-quarter on our 0.45 grams per tonne. Stage 7 growth stripping continues with 2.8 million tonne waste mined for the quarter at a strip ratio of approximately 1.7%, down again from the 2.3% swap ratio we had last quarter. The Stage 7 stripper ratio is expected to be around at 1.4, 1.5 million for the remainder of FY '27. If we now turn our focus to the main dome underground -- you can see that the underground ore mine was also a record and a great land ownership at 0.4 million tonnes for the quarter and up 19% quarter-on-quarter. The underground grade is at 1.33 grams per tonne gold, and this is in line with our plan for the quarter. Underground development. So a seventh consecutive quarter of record development meters with just over 2 kilometers achieved. And a good focus there or highlight is the second development drive to West Dome underground, which is now complete with the breakthrough occurring just after the quarter end. The big benefit here is this extends that primary ventilation circuit to the Western Dome underground platform location and now allows us to open up more headings on that West front. If we then turn to Slide 8, we can see the processing outcomes from the quarter. We milled 4.9 million tonnes at 0.5 gram per tonne gold head grade with mill tonnes being a key area of strength, while having successfully executed the planned 15-day mill shut, as Shaun highlighted. Our gold recoveries of 85% were in line with the plan. and our prior guidance commentary at 85%, while our copper recoveries at 83% was definitely a standout for the quarter. On to our stockpiles. This quarter, we processed about 0.4 million tonnes of stockpile material, significantly down from the 1.3 million tonnes in the prior quarter. And this is due to the record times directly from the open pit, and lower processing volumes during the plan in the quarter. While we note that stockpile will remain an important contributor to our mill feed in FY '27, we remind our listeners that our 1.4 million tonne of remaining high-grade stockpile will be blended into the mill feed evenly through the rest of the year. Our stockpile balances at the end of the quarter totaled 21 million tonnes, containing about 236,000 ounces of gold and another 10,000 tonnes of copper, which significantly derisked the remainder of the year. On projects, if we look at the TSF8 Stage 4 construction. This remains on schedule for completion in our third quarter of FY '27, and this will provide us capacity for processing out to the second half of FY '28. A -- and I'll now hand over to Mani to talk to the costs.

Thanks, Anne. We'll now move to Slide 9. As Sean outlined earlier, we achieved an all-in sustaining cost of 2,925 for the quarter, comfortably within the FY '27 guidance range of 2,900 to 3,330 per ounce. The strong all-in sustaining outcome was supported by good cost control, strong copper production and pricing and gold production being ahead of plan. Our all-in sustaining cost margin for the quarter was a little over $3,000 per ounce resulting in an all-in sustaining cost margin of over 100%. Looking at the key operating items, mining costs of $88 million were lower than the previous quarter despite higher total material moved largely due to improved productivity aided by a higher proportion of mining volumes from the mill productive Stage 7 mining areas. Processing costs of $90 million were in line with plan, but higher quarter-on-quarter, primarily from the costs associated with the planned major maintenance shutdown in July. Sustaining CapEx of $37 million was in line with plan, though higher than the previous quarter due to increased underground development activity. And finally, [ SatService ] costs of $42 million was in line with plan and prior quarter's performance. Turning to cash flow and finance on Slide 10. We generated net revenue of $485 million from sales of 72,000 ounces of gold and 2,700 tonnes of copper. Gold sales were achieved at an average realized price of just less than $6,000 per ounce. This resulted in Telfer's operating cash flows of $289 million and a $25 million cash build, which was after a tax payment of $100 million and a step-up in growth investment following formal project commencement at Havieron. We closed the quarter with $1.3 billion of cash, no debt and available liquidity of $1.8 billion. As a reminder, Greatland remains fully exposed to any upside in the gold price with downside protection via gold put options are September 2027 at an average strike price of 4,850. From a tax perspective, $100 million paid in the September quarter comprised of June's quarterly tax installments of $64 million and an additional $36 million in tax payments for July and August as we moved from quarterly to monthly installments in the quarter, so effectively 5 months of tax paid in September's quarter. Looking forward, ongoing monthly tax installments will be made for the rest of FY '27 based on an assessed rate of approximately 12% of revenue from the ATO. In addition, a catch-up payment that relates to FY '26 of $155 million is anticipated in the December quarter, given tax installments haven't commenced until the June 2026 quarter. Finally, depreciation and amortization was $73 million. Full year depreciation and amortization is expected to be $280 million to $320 million weighted towards the second half of FY '27. The increase in depreciation from FY '26 to FY '27 results from the increased capital base established at Talpa following significant investment made since acquisition, particularly from the underground development Stage 7 stripping, and the TSF construction list. I'll now hand back to Shaun for the remainder of the presentation.

Thanks, Monique. If we jump across to Slide 12, I'll speak to CapEx briefly. But we invested north of $37 million into Telfagrowth capital during the period. This is just this ongoing investment in mine life extension at Telfer. I think that for me, the highlight of the quarter was we completed the second drive out to the West Dome underground. That completes the ventilation circuit out to West Dome underground. So I think that really sets us up for what we can achieve out there on the balance of the year. And you've seen that ongoing investment in the open pit mining fleet that enabled. That 7.8 million tonnes of total material moved during the quarter, which is now an increase of 79% over the productivity of that open pit measured by TMM when we first took over. So it's just an outstanding result by the team. Moving across to Slide 13. I think the narrative here is really that we're going through this investment phase, and you're going to see the real benefits of this investment phase bringing in future years. But you're just starting to see the benefit of that open fleet renewal in FY '27. You'll see that consistently across FY '28 and beyond. And also things like the power station upgrade. This is a derisking event as we upgrade that power station and the switch room. And we think that just gives us a basis to be again, more derisked, more consistent as we move forward. And then, of course, you've got Havieron spinning up we've done the evaporation clearing for the evaporation ponds, also clearing for the blind bars, which is an important part of the ventilation circuit there. And you've seen the start tendering. And so far, that tendering has been encouraging. So we continue to kind of walk that forward, but we are early in this Havieron process. I'll now just jump across to Slide 15. And really, you can see our guidance metrics for FY '27. We were ahead in terms of or slightly ahead in terms of gold production for the quarter. And also we're right at the bottom end of that all-in sustaining cost guidance. We still believe we're modestly second half weighted in terms of ounce production getting behind us [ the the ] largest of the planned shutdowns for the year. I think was really positive. Again, the team did a good job and it's a derisking for us. So overall, our guidance is unchanged, both in terms of gold production, all-in sustaining costs, but also for CapEx as well. I'll now turn to Slide 16. And this is where for the last 2 quarters or so, it's been around just executing that initial growth phase out of Telfer. But really, as we go into the balance of this financial year, we feel there's a lot of catalysts coming up. Firstly, the West Dome underground drilling that Pinnacle step out, that took the strike length of West Dome underground from 600 meters to 1 point -- potentially 1.2 kilometers. So we're excited about that. you've seen we've completed about 12,000 meters of drilling, underground drilling into that West Dome underground area. That's that core area. That's where we've actually driven out to. Then we also have -- we're going to move from 1 surface rig to 3 service rigs as we better understand that 1.2 kilometers of additional strike length, which potentially takes West Dome underground to a 1.8-kilometer strike length still open in both directions, plus vertically up and down and further out to the West. But we're really excited just about the expansion opportunity there. Then we move into updating the [ Dark ] resource. That's a really significant update for us. We've had -- we've presently got 12 rigs on site. And they've really been spending for most of the last 12 months, the drill cutoff for our last resource update was 31 December 2025. So we think this is a substantial update a lot of focus on target -- targeting conversion, but you're also going to see that growth, particularly in the West Dome underground, West Dome open pit, but we'd also like to put a maiden resource around that [ name ] in open pit. And that's important because, again, we love the fact that we've got this life extension availability at West Dome open pit, but to have the contingency, the flexibility, the resilience of also having a mine plan around that main [ Dome oven ] pit, I think is really encouraging for us. Plus historically, that was a notch high grade. So again, it might give us some flexibility about how we approach that. We then go into the studies, the West Dome underground. That should be the first cab off the rank. It's really a Phase I study because we're just going to be looking where that 12,000 meters of underground drilling has gone into that first 600 meters of strike length. But with the 2 drivers out there, we've already started work on the third drive being the haulage drive, back directly to the underground crusher and hoist to surface. And that has a lot of latent capacity in that. It's rated for 6 million tonnes per year. Presently, we used it for 1.25 million tonnes a year. So it's really encouraging to have this high-grade opportunity. Then we look at the vertical software study. This sits below the old sublevel cave. Again, we think there's an opportunity to potentially bring this online. There's about 35 million tonnes of material in that over certainly well north of 1.2 million ounces there. And again, we could bring it up that late in infrastructure in terms of the underground crusher and hoist. So those studies, I think, are really encouraging. Then we should complete our jaws reserve. That sets us up to really start describing how a long-term integrated intel and have Ron look together. And then finally, obviously, we've got this world-class Acalaans tungsten deposit -- we're looking at multiple ways to unlock value, but it's certainly a focus for us to unpack this during the course of FY '27. With that, I'll now just turn to the summary slide, which really just talks about this being a strong quarter in terms of north of 70,000 tonnes of gold production, plus the outperformance on copper and a bit of a derisking event in terms of the processing infrastructure Haveron is now underway. We got those secondary permit approval. So really, we're just spinning up now, but we're really pleased and tremendous hard-working team. The liquidity and the robust treasury situation with $1.3 billion of cash at bank, no debt, together with undrawn debt gives us $1.8 billion to deliver that growth that portfolio of growth projects and highlighting as well that not just West Dome underground but also we're now underway at Havieron. And then finally, look, we continue to have 12 rigs spinning a site and the opportunity to update that Joc resource, cork reserve, and then be in a position to describe not just have wrong with the multi-decade mine life. But both Telfer and Havieron as a gold copper mining complex, with multi-decade life. With that, and just before I pass across back to Paul for questions. We do have our new COO on deck, Nick strong. We're delighted to have Nick join us, joins us from Northern Star, but he's really hit the ground running over the -- since joining at the start of this, I spent a lot of time with the team at site. And it really completes that executive team. But also like to just acknowledge to who's done a magnificent job as COO over the last 3 quarters, and you can see the success we've had Autos also been very focused on our long-term mine planning. So he will retain that Chief Technical Officer role, which will be his focus and really that link between auto with these with multiple open pits, multiple underground production centers, bring them into the mine planning and into the life of mine. -- and then passing across to [ Nick for ] execution. So the interaction between Nick and Otto is going to be a really important element of us moving forward. And I think that's been really positive to see since Nick's joined. So with that, I might just offer just to dial neck in here and just to read him just to your first impressions, Nick, as you've joined Greatland's month.

Yes. Thanks, Shaun. Look, as Sean mentioned, I recently joined Greatland about 3 weeks ago, on the fifth of October, and I've spent most of that time on site so far getting to know our team and getting up to speed on those operations. My first impression is that we've got a very solid motivated team in place, the operations and infrastructure are in really good shape. It's an exciting time to be there and certainly no shortage of work as we look to significantly upgrade our mill feed by delivering multiple high-grade underground growth projects. I think the key things I'll be focused on in FY '27 are our operating discipline and our risk management as we manage multiple expansion fronts and continue to deliver into the FY '27 plan. Havieron an obvious growth front for us. However, there appears to be plenty of life Telfer underground, and that's a very exciting place to be operating and expanding at the moment. I'd like to share my appreciation for auto has done a great job leading our operations since February, which is evident in these operating results. Otto and I'll be worked closely together going forward as we plan and execute on the integrated Telfer have online plan. So I look forward to interacting with the investors and analysts. I get my friend to the desk, and it's a great start so far. Thanks, Shaun.

Thanks, Nick, and welcome Board. With that, Paul, why don't we open it up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question if from the line of Kate McCutcheon of Bank of America.

Well done on the new Ronick. Just to September quarter is annualizing below the CapEx ranges for the full year guide. How do we think about the cadence over the coming quarters for that Telfer growth CapEx?

Look, for Telfer, I think it will be a steady progression as we go across the year. I think it ramps up a little bit across the financial year. You'll probably see that we have run as well, obviously, as we go through the year. But again, we should be staying within that guidance as we see it today.

Okay. And then Haveron, I know that you're just getting started that with tenders, et cetera, but compared to where you thought you would be when you made that FID, are there any key areas you're ahead of the plan there? And conversely, any areas where there needs to be some catch-up, I guess.

Look, we're 3 weeks in, so I'm going to say we're bang on setup. But I think give us maybe another quarter before we start trying to pick where where there's any divergence. But so far, look, I think what was impressive is I think we got the permitting at 10:00 on a Australian Western Standard time on a Friday, and by 3:30 that afternoon, we've started work. So we were talking a lot to the EPA and to the National EPA. So we had a sense that was coming that week. So we spun off during the week. So we got off to a really good flying start. Probably the other key for us. So I think the surface works are going to schedule. I think the other element to me, which I think will play itself out is the tendering that we're doing presently to get some of those EPCs squared away. So far encouraging, but again, give us a little bit of time to get them contracted before we start being too definitive.

And your next question comes from the line of Levi Spry of UBS.

Shaun. Maybe can you just talk through the next steps that have on a little more. So just confirming on the permits, what is outstanding? Is there anything outstanding in terms of activities, what's happening over the course of the remainder of the year? And then this year, you mentioned the EPC for the tendering, what are the big ones coming up?

Yes. Thanks, Levi. Look, in terms of -- well, let me start with the terminal, all the secondary permits are now in place. So effectively, we are we are actively working both at surface and in the underground there and indeed doing -- starting the process for the upgrading the haul road back from Telfer to have Ron and indeed doing the plant modifications at Telfer. So everything is spinning up. What you've seen initially, the focus for us is the worth the evaporation pond that surface -- you might recall we're just sitting above that lower confined aquifer. We wanted additional evaporation pond capacity so that we could pump through that [indiscernible]. So that's effectively been the focus for us with that clearing. We've also been doing the blind pool pads. Those blind flows are also on the critical path in terms of getting that ventilation down into that underground before we do stoping. So that's encouraging in terms of the underground decline itself. Just to remind people, we are 340 meters vertical because this is already effectively half filled. So we've started moving that forward. But again, it's very measured progress until we actually have those evaluation ponds or at least evaporation ponds online, which is still more at the end of October before we have that actually online. And then in terms of tendering, that's underway. We have the EPCM tender, which is complete. We have the haul road. We have the mill modifications, the power line and the blind boards. Those are probably the 5 has main kind of contracts that spring to mind is kind of under the 80/20 rule. We have the blind boards in place with [indiscernible]. Again, that's largely consistent with the study vagarities an Australian group, 1 of probably the 4 world-leading blind ball organizations in the world. They do a lot of work in that Hunter Valley. We think they're really well placed to team up with us. And remember, we already have [ windborVR1 ] in place, and then this is effectively putting in VR2 and VR3. The power line and the haul road and indeed, the mill modifications are all live tenders. So we're positive about where we are. But yes, as I said to Kate, just give us weeks and months to actually get the outcomes of those before are more definitive. But hopefully, that gives you some pretty good color on where we are thereby.

And your next question comes from the line of Adam Baker of Macquarie.

Sean, and welcome, Nick. Thanks for the update. Just maybe touching on the underground volumes. I mean, pretty solid performance during the quarter, 378,000 tonnes looks like it's been your best performance underground in 3 years there. And you've also noted that you've had record development meters over the course of the quarter over 2,000 meters. So just wondering, could this flow through to higher state volumes in the upcoming quarters? And what are we expecting from underground volumes for the rest of the financial year.

Yes, Otte here, I'll take that one. For the rest of the quarter, we're looking at a fairly similar trend to what we currently have, especially in terms of that ounce production. Telfer underground does offer quite a range of mineralization ranging between narrower, lower tonnes and higher grade versus more [ Voltistockworks ] at lower grade, and where we are currently, while we're opening up that West Dome underground, the focus is expanding those current areas, but also we've put some focus on the ESC over the last few quarters, and that's currently one of our main production areas. So from an ounce profile point of view for the remainder of the year, we're looking at remaining consistent on that profile, and that will be a mix, as I said, between higher higher tonnage lower grade and lower tonnage higher rates depending on which areas we're mining in the sequence through the year.

And if I just augment that, Adam, I think where we see the real step changes when we bring on that West Dome underground. And obviously, Otto's is leading the study on that. But that's this beautiful confluence of really high grade, the highest rate you've seen it Telfer since 2005 or higher average grade and an independent mining area, which I think will allow us to [ lift terms. ] And that's why that latent infrastructure, having an underground crusher underground hoist rated for 6 million tonnes. We're using about 25% of that. So the capital intensity of bringing West Dome underground online, we think is really attractive. Right now, we plan to see that in FY '28. But we've been really encouraged by the development we're getting out there. And then, of course, with Nick's background in pedigree, we're really keen to unleash him on that underground as well.

And your next question comes from the line of David Radclyffe with MR.

First question was just a follow up on Kate's question about the Telfer growth CapEx. It's obviously quite a way below the pace of the guidance, and you'd need to average probably close to $100 million for the balance of the 3 quarters to get to that level. So if I could push a little bit more to just understand what's happening there. So is the spend behind schedule? And if so, what's driving it?

I'll grab that one. Effectively, our first quarter was always going to be a little bit slower in terms of CapEx spend for growth at Telfer purely because there are some low lead items that we were looking to place. So it's definitely a ramp-up that was planned for the rest of the 3 quarters of FY '27. I would also highlight we have around $25 million of CapEx spend on the mining open pit fleet that we have spent, but hasn't yet been converted into CapEx, purely from an accounting perspective, we treat that as a prepayment until it's delivered to site. So those long lead items, while we are progressing them, they just haven't actually hit CapEx yet. So I think very much on track to [ meet ] the guidance for FY '27 with a lower.

And importantly, to Monique's point, we've spent the cash, but it doesn't appear in CapEx, it appears in prepayments.

Yes. No, understood. That's actually -- that's very helpful. Then maybe a follow-up there. I mean, you mentioned the ventilation is now done for West Dome. The plans for '28, but it's certainly feels like it could come in a lot earlier. So what has to happen to West Dome before we see some production this financial year rather than next?

Look, let me answer that in 2 parts. So Firstly, we're doing this third drive out. That will be a dedicated haul drive that's about 1,500 meters of development and that will bring [ ore ] directly back to that underground crusher in voice, which we think is a long-term really eloquent elegant training solution. Right now, with that ventilation in with the 2 drivers, that gives us access. I think we're going to get 4 headings in there, which we think can be productive. We stand off around 280 meters from that ore body. So what's most important for us right now is the drilling we're doing to make sure we put that infrastructure in the optimal position to deliver West Dome underground efficiently over the medium to long term. We probably could drive in there a little bit quicker if we wanted to. But right now, it's about doing it well. This is potentially transformational in terms of gray and volume to that Telfer underground. It's just we're not about doing record quarters or about consistent delivery. So although we're right now, we're kind of really happy with where we are and we probably could look at accelerating and perhaps there's a little bit of development ore in that June quarter, which is not in our budget or plan, but that's certainly the opportunity for us. But right now, it's about getting it right.

And from a static point of view, if I can jump in this, that info drilling is planned to run through to roughly the end of the year. That will then give us our resource update. And if you look at our previous resource that was released for waste per miner ground there's a significant resource that needs conversion into reserves. So as Shaun said, we're just waiting for that drilling to be finished, getting the assays back, updating the resource model and then finishing the study in this Phase I process to get the reserve done and placement of that major infrastructure and then waiting in serious anticipation for the remainder of the Pinnacle sales the come in.

Your next question is from the line of Daniel Morgan Barrenjoey.