MAC Copper - Q3 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mick McMullen, CEO of Metals Acquisition Limited. Please go ahead.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Thank you, and thank you everyone for joining. I'll be presenting the slides today along with our CFO, Morné Engelbrecht. So, this is our Q3 quarterly results presentation, and we'll also give a bit of an update on our exploration activities. As usual, we've got our disclaimer at the front, that this presentation has been lodged on the ASX platform, and you can read that at your leisure. You know, I would characterize the quarter as another business as usual quarter. The team delivered a very strong result of just over 10,000 tons of copper at a head grade of 4% milled.

I think after our very strong Q3, you know, there were some questions around whether we could sustain that sort of 4% plus head grade, and the answer is yes. C1 came in at the bottom end of the range. We'd recently guided to $0.90 a pound U.S., which is continuing a downward trend, and Morné will talk about, you know, how we managed to arrive at that. We have a clear pathway to 50,000 tons plus of copper out of this mine here within the next couple of years. We again had a very strong EBITDA margin through the year, about 50%, and we convert about 77% of that margin to cash.

Post the recent equity raise, we've got pro forma liquidity of about $226 million, which, you know, is well over AUD 300. Again, all numbers in this presentation are in U.S. dollars, unless we specifically call them out. But, you know, it is a very large liquidity position for a company of our size. Provides us with a lot of optionality. So I'd say it was a good quarter, another business as usual quarter. And, you know, despite production being down slightly quarter on quarter, our C1 was also down, and we guided the market to Q3 being down slightly, just with the sort of scheduling of the stopes. And then we expect Q4 to be the strongest quarter of the year for us, actually.

We realized broadly the spot price, you know, so copper prices went down a bit during the, quarter on quarter periods, but we broadly get spot. And as I said, we expect Q4 to be, our strongest quarter. Pardon me. We have a very strong liquidity position. As I said, we ended the quarter, Q3 with about $81 million of cash after paying off some debt. We are, again, tracking towards the midpoint of guidance, as we've guided people towards around that 40.5 thousand tons of copper. And again, copper grade is hanging in there strongly at around about that 4%. On the exploration front, I'll talk about, we've had some really good success here.

QTS South Upper continues to confirm some high-grade copper hits, as well as some zinc. We are drilling out much of the inferred, which allows us to incorporate that into our reserves. And we've actually had some really good success in stepping out into virgin country to really expand the resources. We spent about $2 million in Q3 on exploration. Our big capital projects, so the vent project is well underway. That's integral to sort of getting our production up well over that 50,000 tons of copper level. And QTS South Upper to commence in Q4, well, actually, it commenced this morning, where we took the first cut out of that take-off drive to head out towards that deposit.

We invested just under $13 million in capital projects. Again, we've guided the market to $52 million for the year. We continue to track sort of bang on where that number was, and then post-quarter, obviously, we raised AUD 150 million in equity. That de-levered the balance sheet, gives us a lot of flexibility to pursue strategic opportunities and also to retire that mezzanine debt. I'm gonna hand over to Morné, our CFO, to talk about a couple of the financial slides, and over to you.

Morné Engelbrecht (CFO)

Thanks, Mick. Good evening, morning, everybody. I'll be taking you through, as Mick said, through this slide and then the next slide as well, which covers the cash flow waterfall for the quarter, and again, in U.S. dollars, and a quick recap on the recent equity raise, as well. Then I'll cover some productivity slides later on. Also, please note that all these numbers are unaudited, and we have more detail in our operational and financial performance, noted in the quarterly report released today as well. On Slide six, overall, we have a very healthy pro forma liquidity, as Mick mentioned, as at 30 September of around $226 million, as indicated there.

This includes the most recent successful equity raise completed after the quarter end, which provided a boost to the MAC balance sheet of around AUD 150 million, $103 million before costs. This positions us in a position of strength and further boosted by the fact that we had an undrawn revolving facility of $25 million, unsold concentrate ready to be shipped, outstanding QP payments, and also successful listed investments in Polymetals, which total around $17 million that contributed to that liquidity. If we look at the operational corporate side of the quarter on quarter movements, there are a few key drivers there to keep in mind that impacted the cash flow for the quarter. Firstly-...

You will remember that in the previous quarter, we sold concentrate that was ready for shipment after a material buildup of inventory. This means that more than 2,000 tons of copper was sold in the June quarter. That shipped in the September quarter with all of that cash flow recognized in the June quarter. That's meant that around $25 million of cash was captured in the June quarter that would have otherwise been recognized in the September quarter. In saying that, we still had a very healthy free cash flow from operations of around $30 million for Q3. An important point to note is that we have now also largely worked through that backlog of concentrate that we spoke about previously in the previous quarter.

With the closing volume of unsold concentrate representing about $9 million as at 30 September, which is in line with where we saw it reducing to by the end of this quarter. So for the December quarter, we would expect again that the copper tons sold should be in the same ballpark as the tons produced for the quarter, all things being equal. Secondly, we further reduced our senior debt by another $8.1 million over the quarter, with our senior facility now sitting around $166 million, down another 5% over the quarter. Then with the equity raised, we also have a pro forma net gearing ratio, 30 September, of around 16%.

The third point I wanted to make here is that we paid interest of around $9 million over the quarter, with about $5 million relating to the mezzanine debt facility, which is the high-cost element of our debt stack that we focused on specifically in the recent equity raise, which I'll cover in the next slide. The other key elements of the cash flow note is the sustaining CapEx, as Mick mentioned, sit around $13 million, which is largely in line with Q2 and also in line with our broader CapEx guidance, 2024 of around that sort of $15 million.

So in summary, we are in an excellent position from a balance sheet strength point of view, where we've delevered the balance sheet and have the ability to reduce our high-cost debt and continue to generate strong free cash flow from our operations as well. On slide seven, as we outlined earlier in the year, a couple of our strategic goals for twenty twenty-four were to not only simplify, but also delever the balance sheet. We have delivered on these goals by not only reducing our net gearing by more than 6% since the start of twenty twenty-four, but also simplifying our balance sheet by redeeming our private and public warrants early in the year.

Furthermore, as we announced on the ninth of October, we completed that successful placement, as we noted, of around AUD 150 million, $103 million. The placement, as I said, was extremely well-supported from both new and existing institutional and sophisticated investors, both in Australia and offshore, which we are very thankful for. We are now well-equipped to further optimize our balance sheet through the retirement of the existing $145 million mezzanine debt facility at the earliest practical date, with sixteenth June twenty twenty-five being the backstop date for that. So, while also providing additional flexibility to pursue strategic inorganic growth opportunities.

I suppose a key piece of feedback, as we noted during the call with the equity raise as well, is from investors over the last year was around our cost of debt, and in particular, the mezzanine facility, which carries a minimum interest of around 13%. And with that increasing to 17% of the copper price had to reduce to below $3.40 a pound. So at 13%, this takes up around $19 million of our cash every year. So definitely worthwhile in terms of being accretive from a capital raise point of view to obviously raise the equity and pay that debt back as soon as we can. So, and to put this into context, we currently pay around 7.8% on our senior facility.

So quite a big difference in terms of opportunity for us to reduce our overall debt cost. We do need consent from the mezzanine debt provider to repay the debt before the sixteenth of June, 2025. So failing that, we will definitely be targeting the repayment of that debt on the sixteenth of June, next year. So either way, the debt will be retired by then. So in summary, with the great support from our new and existing shareholders, we're now in a very strong and commanding position, and arguably the... I mean, we are in the best position from a balance sheet point of view since the inception of the company.

As we noted, we've got some $226 million of pro forma liquidity, pro forma net gearing down to 16%. You know, we have the cash in the balance sheet to retire that high-cost debt and also provide that flexibility, if and when we need it. With that, Mick, I'll hand back to you.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Thank you, Morne, and I think you've only got to look at the cash waterfall to see the interest that's gone out the door to understand why we've taken the proactive steps of raising that equity in order to you know I think get a debt facility or series of debt facilities in place that are more reflective of the high credit quality that we are today versus when we closed on the acquisition, so moving on to the operational side, again, strong quarter, you know, business as usual for us. I think just over 10,000 tons of copper. C1 again came down.

You know, we saw a reduction in mining unit rates, a total cash cost of about $2.70 a pound, which is pretty consistent with the previous quarter, and as I said, we broadly achieved spot price, give or take a few cents a pound, sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse, so we had $30 million of operating free cash flow, which, you know, just continues to show, you know, the strong cash flow generation potential of this asset, and again, Q4, we do expect it to be the strongest quarter of the year. We sort of expect to exit the year in the fourth quarter, more or less at the run rate of midpoint of guidance for next year already, so you know, that's an encouraging sign, I think.

Grade again, after you know, sort of a weaker grade in Q1, which was sort of partly planned because of the stopes, the areas we were mining. Then we had the change of mine plan to focus our efforts in areas that, you know, gave us the best bang for our buck, I suppose you could say. And again, around that 4% head grade for the quarter, which was sort of as planned. We are getting better dilution control, actually, due to better mining practices, and so that's helping a bit on the grade as well. I have had some commentary that we're mining above reserve grade, and yes, we are. That's sort of the plan, but when the areas we're mining, we are seeing better grade out of it than the plan.

If you recall, the 2023 reserve was the first sort of new reserve this mine's had in a very long period of time. We did adjust the modifying factors quite a bit, and perhaps we've been a little bit heavy on the dilution, modifying factor because we're not seeing that amount of dilution when we mine this stuff now, and so in the 2024 R&R, we'll look to address that, and perhaps that has a positive impact on the reserve grade. The other interesting thing on this slide to note is development meters picked up again. We've had some commentary around Q1 and Q2 that perhaps we aren't doing the development that's required.

Just given the drop in the development meters, we had guided to development meters picking up in the third quarter, and that's precisely what's happened. And partly the reduction in development meters that's required is the new mine plan, where we're focusing our efforts in a couple of areas. We're also, as you'll see in the exploration section here, seeing significantly more strike length on the ore body in QTS North, and therefore, tons for vertical meter are picking up, which means you actually need less development to get your ore tons out. And then the last impact, obviously, is the Vent project.

So, as per the plan, we are, you know, we expect to see development meters continue to pick up a little bit, but good result by the team to, to have a, you know, a 60-odd% increase quarter on quarter, as we've moved, you know, to the new plan. Morné, I might let you take the cost section of the slides here.

Morné Engelbrecht (CFO)

Yeah, great. Thanks, Mick. So, on slide 10, we're covering the processing and mining costs per milled and mined ton respectively. First, the processing cost per ton milled in Q3 was around $26 per ton, which was around 18% lower than Q2, with the key difference being the 10-day shutdown in Q2, which impacted the previous quarter, while processing rates for Q3 were pretty stable at 261,000 tons for the quarter. Going forward, we would expect this to stabilize at the Q3 levels, and as we maintain operational consistency. On the mining cost per ton comparison, we were 7% lower than previous quarter, mainly due to a high portion of development meters incurred in the quarter, with development meters, as Mick has mentioned, up 64% from Q2.

Again, going forward with the commencement of both the QTS South Upper and the Vent project, I would expect the level of development meters to increase, which will drive further the level of capitalized cost from that perspective. Going to slide 11, we cover G&A and the development cost per meter. On the G&A side of things, it's worth noting that we're getting more consistent on this metric, with the main driver for the G&A being slightly higher than previous quarter, being the one-off adjustments we made in the previous quarter, which was the reallocation of some of the consumables that were captured in G&A, that should have been captured in mining and processing costs.

So we are now better managing and reporting those costs from an operational point of view. So again, going forward, I would expect these costs to be consistent with Q3, all things being equal. So, on the other side, development cost per meter, albeit increased from the previous quarter, represents an average of the previous three quarters and are slightly elevated due to not only the higher development meters as mentioned before, but we also have a slight increase in the equipment and workforce to cater for the new developments that has commenced, but also obviously increasing the production rates as well, or keeping that consistent while we develop QTS South Upper and the Vent project as well. Slide 12.

So this is moving to tons milled per employee. We do note the decrease in the metric, albeit this is due to increase in mining headcount, as I mentioned previously, by around 5%. This is to ensure the coverage from all positions to keep production consistent, to carry out as we carry out the higher levels of development. Sustaining CapEx decreased slightly over the quarter, again, largely driven by diamond drilling and vent expansion drilling. We continue to spend capital in accordance with our previous guidance, as we said, around that sort of $50 million for 2024, so consistent quarter on quarter.

So overall, the main focus here is on consistency in our operations and that's assisting to drive down our costs, increase efficiencies, while we commence the key development projects that will materially drive and increase our production of around 25% over the next couple of years. So really, consistency is the key, and as we previously mentioned, we do have a large component of fixed costs. So, the more consistent you can get and the more you can increase production, the better from a cost per tonne point of view, obviously. With that, Mick, I'll hand back to you for the remainder.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Thanks, Morné. And I would just note in terms of tonnes milled, as we get better at dilution control, I'll always rather haul less tonnes of high-grade material up the hole than just hauling barren dirt up. So, again, if we can continue to drive dilution down and maintain that higher head grade, you know, we may not actually mill as many tonnes, but as long as we get the copper out, that's a better outcome for us, actually. Moving on to the next slide, slide thirteen. And we've just put out a more fulsome exploration release that, you know, has these diagrams in a broader format so you can see them. So, you know, we have delivered a significant resource and reserve upgrade last year.

What's still to come? Well, we continue to drill away. Obviously, our reserves are only based on Measured and Indicated. We have, you know, a significant amount of Inferred, and then that green material there, which is mineralized, so it doesn't quite make it into a resource. Of note, I will run through a few of these slides, but of note, you can see there, there's a couple of drill holes that have skewed off to the left, which is the southern side of QTS North. And if you refer to the exploration release we put out, you can see the impact of those. They have extended the strike length of QTS North by 25%.

And one of those holes, the furthest one out, managed to get 13.3 meters at 9.2% copper, another 4.9 meters at 10.9% copper. So, pretty exciting stuff actually, that the team at site are discovering there. And look, this ore body clearly is not closed off in any way, shape, or form. And we've been very successful at expanding that resource, and it continues to throw up the kind of high-grade results that we've become a bit accustomed to, but perhaps are actually still quite special if you aren't working at CSA. So, just looking at the slide.

So the drilling has very much been focused on converting that inferred mineralization and pushing the reserve or the material available for reserve down. And, you know, again, super high-grade material. You can see that our red material is the measured, the orange is indicated, and yellow is inferred. And they just cut off at RL, so they're flat lines. As we drill sort of at the bottom of the indicated and into the inferred, that just pushes your measured indicated further down. And again, we continue to see very strong results. You know, we always have something that's around 10-15 meters at 10+% copper, which is exceptional. And that high-grade core that is present there, you know, allows us to mine all through the cycle, right?

You know, we always have a very high-grade zone that we can always mine no matter what. So QTS Central is our other ore body, 20-odd% of our metal. Again, you can see here that we've you know, it's a very lateral sort of you know, classification system. And we've been quite successful at drilling down into the inferred and towards the bottom of the inferred, and getting those sort of you know. Well, in fact, there's an interval there that's about 25 meters at 5% or 6% copper, true width, which is probably 15 meters, but still it's a probably broader interval than we're used to seeing out of QTS Central.

And then you've got your more typical 6-7 meter intervals at 10% or 11% copper, which in most other mines, people would be doing, getting very excited about. For us, it's just another day at CSA. So the drilling has gone very well. We continue to sort of, you know, expand, both expand the resource, but also convert all this inferred material to indicated and measured. QTS South Upper, you know, we've talked about this for a while. We've been drilling it. It is narrow, you know, 3-4 meters wide, but it is very high-grade. So again, you can see there that drill result of 3.8 meters at 17%. It's shallow, down at 150 meters below surface.

It's about 600 meters laterally from the decline to access QTS North. You can see here, we've elected to self-perform this work. We have all the fleet on site. I'm told that we took the first cut out of that this morning, actually. So we've started development. We expect around about 10 months to first ore production out of this thing. It is not connected to the rest of the mine. It is not included in any of our guidance. The majority of that material is in inferred, you know, it's sort of, you know, we expect to be mining 100,000 tonnes of ore out of this thing at sort of 5-6% copper.

So you can work out what we think we're gonna produce out of this thing, in about a year, or just under a year. So pretty exciting stuff. First new ore body that's been opened up here at CSA for some time. So, we're pretty excited about this thing. We do have that high-grade zinc mineralization up near surface, so, over the east and west lodes, you know, the old mine, which we continue to drill out. We do have a zinc lode that sits over the top of QTS South Upper. Again, it's narrow, but very high grade, and we intend to access this through this development that we're actually just starting today.

And we have an agreement with Poly Metals to be able to toll treat that material up at the Endeavor Mill. And it does look like Poly Metals are funded to get going and should be going sometime in Q2, I think, next year, which will give us an outlet for that zinc material. So, as some of you would know, we produce a very clean copper concentrate at high recoveries, 97%-98% copper recovery. We don't want to send the zinc stuff through our plant. So this was a great solution for us, actually. As Morné noted, our little investment in Poly Metals is well in the money, so that's pretty pleasing as well. Safety and TSF update.

Safety, we're gradually turning the corner on the TRIFR. We would like to see it at lower. I would note that, in terms of recordable injuries, you know, the TRIFR is being driven by the rates that we had back in sort of March and April. Pleasingly, we've significantly cut the number of recordable injuries in the last four or five months. It's just the one-year trailing annualized effect that sort of is continuing to sort of see it up. So as we move forward and we move out of that period, from earlier in the year, being counted, we expect to see this thing come down fairly quickly. No recordable incidents or pollution events or license breaches or anything during the reporting period.

I think that's evidence of the very strong community commitment that we have. We are about to commence stage 10 lift, which will sort of see the capital, you know, that we've indicated, sort of, start flowing through. We've been spending a little bit under where we thought we'd be for capital, but you know, we expect to be back on the trend line for that, which is really this TSF lift. So in terms of, you know, what's the look forward? Everyone thinks about, Well, that's great, you know, you've delivered a good quarter again. We keep getting told consistency is the key, so look, we are delivering consistently. We're well on track to deliver at the midpoint of guidance for this year.

You know, we have obviously the productivity improvements that we're doing, the ventilation project, and sort of the midpoint of 2026 guidance is just over 50,000 tons. QTS South Upper is not currently in our guidance, and I've sort of you know given you some indications of where that might come out, but we have now started that project. You know, we're feeling quite confident about that pathway to plus 50. We do know that you know that the processing plant will handle what we've rounded to an annualized 80,000 tons of copper, which is nameplate. Our infrastructure will handle it. It's just a question of getting the ore out of the mine, and that's why we're doing some of these projects.

You know, ventilation is really critical for us, but also QTS South Upper, which is not connected to the Vent, at the bottom of the mine, is also quite critical for us as well. You know, in terms of our potential, you know, this is where we see our production going. You know, clearly our C1, as volume goes up, you know, should come down a bit further from where we are, and as Morné indicated, our net gearing right now is around about 16%, which is a very comfortable level for us. You know, we think we're in a great position actually. Having options is great.

Having lots of liquidity gives us, you know, lots of opportunities to do things, but clearly, we would like to retire that mezzanine debt at the first possible opportunity we can. And so with that, you know, in terms of summary, you know, I think we're operating the mine very safely. We've got a ten-plus year reserve life. You know, I think we're looking at the mine a bit differently than what has been the case for the last, well, generation, really. We have significantly delevered the balance sheet, and we managed to get into the ASX 300, last quarter and the previous quarter, and into a few of the Russell indices in the U.S. So we are delivering on our strategic goals.

You know, I think, as I said, Q4 should be a little bit stronger quarter. You know, I again keep getting told that it was a little disappointing when we delivered a very strong Q2, and so that we had some commentary, "Well, you can't repeat that." Actually, we can repeat that. Not only can we repeat it, but we can do a little better now as we get our arms around the mine. I'd say Rob and the site team have done a great job stabilizing the business now. That's the phase of operations we're in. We've gone through sort of the large turnaround and significant change of site. I would say we're now in the stabilization phase of the operation....

And it's just consistent delivery is the key from here. With that, I'm happy to turn over and take questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, press star, then two. Our first question is from Sam Catalano with Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.

Sam Catalano (Senior Metals & Mining Equity Analyst)

Oh, yeah. Good morning, Mick. Good morning. Yeah, very, very good quarter. It's nice to see the operations, as you say, sort of showing a bit of stability. Just a couple of questions. Firstly, just on your on your development meters, obviously, the stat that you're mostly talking about is the capital development meters, but in your release, if you add in the operating development meters, the last two quarters are still a bit below the prior two quarters before that. Is that just mine plan rather than sort of development limitations? I'll leave it there and ask the second question in a sec.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, it is mine plan related and partly related to the double lift stope strategy that the team have implemented at site. It actually requires, you know, less operating meters per ore tonne.

Sam Catalano (Senior Metals & Mining Equity Analyst)

Mm-hmm.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

So, you know, yeah, like the short answer is, we're doing the development that we have to do to get the ore tonnes out.

Sam Catalano (Senior Metals & Mining Equity Analyst)

Okay. Fine, and just with regards to QTS upper, you've mentioned a few times that obviously it's inferred. It's not included in your guidance, and your waterfall chart makes clear the potential for upside to overall capacity from, you know, from material coming out of there longer term. But in the medium term, you know, once you sort of get out there in, I think it's, you know, the back end of next year, would material from that potentially add to your nearer term guidance or just displace other material from that sort of two, three-year guidance type figures?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

No, the benefit of this thing is it's completely additive. We're not mill constrained, and so, yeah, this would be on top of the current guidance.

Sam Catalano (Senior Metals & Mining Equity Analyst)

Okay. And then last question, Mick. Obviously, there's been a little bit of press around sort of talking about your involvement or otherwise in Neves-Corvo. I wonder if you're in a position at all to say anything about that?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Look, I think we've been clear that we look at every opportunity, you know, if it's copper in a decent jurisdiction, we look at everything. I'd say not everything fits our criteria, in terms of, you know, sort of, value. So and sometimes things are competitive processes, and so we're very value focused, right? So, as you know, I'm sure you're aware from another process.

Sam Catalano (Senior Metals & Mining Equity Analyst)

Mm-hmm.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Look, you know, hard to say where you land on any of these things, right? We—I would say, we're active across lots of different things, but our fundamental thing is value for shareholders, right? So, you know, when things-

Sam Catalano (Senior Metals & Mining Equity Analyst)

Understood.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

are very competitive, sometimes it's difficult to get to value.

Sam Catalano (Senior Metals & Mining Equity Analyst)

Yeah. Understood. Thanks, Mick.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Danielle Morgan with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.

Danielle Morgan (Mining Equity Analyst)

Hi, Mick and Morné. First question is just simple one: Have you initiated discussions with Sprott over the mez facility changeout? I appreciate it's a short time since you raised the equity.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Short answer is yes. There's ongoing discussions actually with all the lender group. And again, to be clear, as we said, when we launched that equity raise, this was not a lender group-driven equity raise. This was a MAC proactive, you know, opportunity. You know, we felt that, you know, by having the cash on the balance sheet, put us in the best position to have that conversation with Sprott. So yeah, it's a work in progress.

Danielle Morgan (Mining Equity Analyst)

You mentioned just then that a broader discussion with the rest of the lending group. Would you think that you do that after the discussions with Sprott and the mez piece are concluded, or is it a parallel?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Well, both is the short answer. You know, like, you, when you have the amount of liquidity we have, I guess, you have a lot of options. So, you know, I think we wanna be in a position of strength when we have those conversations. And, you know, look, when we put the current lending stack in place, I'm not sure we're in a position of strength. And so you end up with, you know, I think the feedback we've had from investors has been the cost of the mezzanine debt, seeing you not so much, but also the complexity on that debt stack, right? So what we're trying to solve for is, you know, A, cost, but B, we'd like to solve for simplicity.

So, you know, I know what Morné would like to see on the debt stack, but yeah, look, they're ongoing live conversations, right? So I can't really go into the detail.

Danielle Morgan (Mining Equity Analyst)

Appreciate that. Just pivoting to the ops. So you've obviously flagged and guided for a better year in 2025 and beyond, but in 2025, simply, is the production growth expected to come from mostly tons? So far, the better production, as you highlighted, has come from grade.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Similar grade, slightly more tons. But as I say, you know, we expect to sort of exit Q4 this year, more or less at the midpoint of next year's guidance already, right? So it's not like we're sort of having to do a, you know, a huge step change in order to get there.

Danielle Morgan (Mining Equity Analyst)

Yeah. So that would imply that tons this coming quarter should lift on what we've just seen in September.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Well, that could be right as well. Let's see how we go. But yeah, I think-

Danielle Morgan (Mining Equity Analyst)

Yeah.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

We sequentially, you know, we'd expect to see slightly more tons. I would know, though, if we can continue to get dilution under better control, you know, it's metal tons that I'm worried about, right? So, you may not need to get more ore tons out, if we can continue to squeeze that dilution in.

Danielle Morgan (Mining Equity Analyst)

Sure. And just on that dilution, is there any way you can quantify the dilution outcomes you've been experiencing recently, what versus what you've embedded in the reserves? Just to give a feel for the potential upside, we're talking about with the grades that we've looking at on the reserve grade.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, we're probably seeing 10%-15% less dilution than expected. So, you know, we the previous reserve was at 4%. We were typically mining 3.7, 3.8. We then reduced the reserve grade to 3.3, give or take. And now we're sort of seeing a bit higher grade. So yeah, I think we're likely to. The work hasn't been finished yet, but, you know, if we squeeze that dilution in a bit, you will expect to see the grade go up a bit.

Danielle Morgan (Mining Equity Analyst)

Thank you. And then, last question, just, what is the expected timeline on the cutoffs for drilling, and the next resource reserve update? Just reiterate that.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, like, like all North American companies, we will aim to get our R&R out towards the end of February, just in time for that other company's large conference. So typically, yeah, so the cutoff, we will cut off at the end of, I think we're gonna try and cut off at the end of October this year.

Danielle Morgan (Mining Equity Analyst)

Okay. Thank you so much, Mick and Morné.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Bye.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Tim Hoff with Canaccord. Please go ahead.

Timothy Hoff (Mining Analyst)

Good day, gents. First question I had was just around the mine tons versus mill tons. It's the first quarter, I guess it's been lower. Is that a draw on stocks? And just noting that, I guess, I get from previous site visits, it didn't feel like you had a whole heap of stockpile capacity, but just talking to lifting that mine tonnage next quarter.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, it'll be milling a bit of stock. Between everything we've got, I don't know, we've probably got 40,000 tons of stockpile between the bins in front of the mill and the stockpiles underground, probably. Yeah, in an ideal world, we'll mine exactly the tons that we mill. It doesn't always quite work out like that.

Timothy Hoff (Mining Analyst)

Yep. And in terms of, I think it's the June quarter numbers that you've reported, I think there's quite a few revisions to those numbers. Recoveries, I think copper sold. What else is in there? There's a few other bits and pieces. Would you mind stepping through some of those? I think TCRCs went up.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Uh-

Morné Engelbrecht (CFO)

Yeah, so Michael, maybe cover that. So, in the June quarter, as you remember, we brought out our quarterly, which was, you know, in terms of the timing, was before sort of the half year report and reporting the additional pre-sold tons. So when we reported the quarterly, it didn't include that, those pre-sold tons and obviously the associated costs that go with that. So if you look at the half year report, that we issued for the June half year, you will note that those have been updated in that June half year report.

All we've done is basically just fall back those in terms of the quarterly numbers as well, to make them match up to the half year numbers, in terms of that sort of timing difference with the pre-sold tons.

Timothy Hoff (Mining Analyst)

Yep. And then I think perhaps finally, in terms of QTS South Upper, cash burn that we'd expect on a quarterly basis is a couple of million AUD a quarter, sort of fair to look at there?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, that's probably not far off the mark. Two to maybe three when it starts picking up. You know, it'll be that takeoff point, you know. It does interact with the rest of the mine for about the first, I don't know, hundred and twenty-five, hundred and fifty meters.

Timothy Hoff (Mining Analyst)

Yep.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Once we get out there a bit further, we can tie into a vent rise out there, and that allows us to go independent firing. So it'll be quite slow for that first, you know, I don't know, hundred and fifty meters of development. And because we're self-performing the work, we can sort of, you know, use that fleet in other parts of the mine and use that some of those people in other parts of the mine. So certainly a significantly lower cash burn than if we were using a contractor for it, right? Because it's actually gonna be relatively inefficient for a while until we can get out there. And actually, because we can use those people on other things, it'll be relatively nominal for a while anyway.

Timothy Hoff (Mining Analyst)

Yeah. Yep, brilliant. Listen, I think that's it for me. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Eric Winmill with Bank of Nova Scotia. Please go ahead.

Eric Winmill (Vice President and Equity Analyst)

Great. Thanks a lot, Mick and team, for taking my questions. Nice to see the results out. I think a lot of my questions have been asked already, but maybe just quickly on the zinc mineralization, the upper zones, I assume you'll be mining that with your crews? Are you gonna use contractors there, or what's the plan?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, well, that, that actually is one of the reasons we've gone owner mining in QTS South Upper, because it's all, it's all up in the same area, right? So, we're not quite ready to sort of get going on that zinc mining yet. We just want to focus on QTS South Upper first. But yes, that's the plan, as we can flick those crews, and that fleet between those two opportunities right in the upper part of the mine, eventually. And look, we couldn't scope that up for a contractor right now, so just easier to do it ourselves, and we've got full flexibility at that point, right? So yeah, that's the short answer, is we'd like to do that, with our own teams.

Eric Winmill (Vice President and Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate it. And, just on slide seventeen, you talked about the tailings. Any additional detail there in terms of additional lifts, or you mentioned here this northern tailings facility?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah. So, we've got the stage 10 lift that we're about to start on. You can see in the background of that photo, there's a sort of a light brownie looking thing over on the top right there. That's the north facility that the state government owns. We don't actually own that. So there is an ongoing conversation about, you know, I think they'd quite like to see us take that. I think, you know, subject to the agreement, we can get around historical liabilities, you know, that potentially is an option for us for the next lift, probably after stage 10. So that's an ongoing conversation. It will take some time, but, you know, that's why we're building stage 10 now.

We've split it into two lifts, but the full stage 10 takes us out to about 20-30, 20 to 31 capacity, and then that gives us the time to see whether we can do something on that north facility out there.

Eric Winmill (Vice President and Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. Thank you. Really appreciate it. All right, well, congrats on the quarter, and I'll hop back in the queue. Cheers.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if you have a question, please press Star, then One. The next question is from Paul Hussey with Moelis Australia. Please go ahead.

Paul Hussey (Analyst)

Thanks, moderator. Just a couple of questions from me, Mick and Morné. I just... What is the, I guess, the official sort of capacity on the mill at the moment? I know you've resolved some constraints with access to water, et cetera. Just trying to think about how, you know, how the growth arrives over the next couple of years. Clearly there's some more ore sources coming online and better underground productivity. What's the plant currently capable of doing?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yes, well, it depends which bit of the plant, but, you know, I guess the wet end, the back end, can do eighty thousand tons of copper a year. And look, we have, you know, run it when we have the ore and the grade, we have run it at that rate, you know, for days on end, so it's not like a theoretical capacity. So eighty thousand ton of copper is the short answer. Front end, one point eight to two million ton a year, depending on what we're feeding into it. Water capacity is actually our first constraint. With the water that we've got from Polymetals now, about one point seven million tons a year is where we could get to.

And if you look at the guidance that we put out and the tech report that's out there, which is, you know, a year and a bit out of date now. So, you know, we, the current guidance has us getting to about 1.45 million tons a year. Additive to that would be QTS South Upper, which is, you know, 100, maybe 150,000 tons of ore a year, pretty high grade, that doesn't come up the shaft, goes completely separate. So yeah, so, you know, do I think we can get to 80,000 tons a year? No, I'm not sure I can see that today. You know, can we get into the mid-fifties and maybe a little higher? Yeah, I think that's where we can see us going on.

Paul Hussey (Analyst)

Okay, thank you. Just a question, just a quick question on TCRCs. Maybe this is a bit mechanical, but, do you guys pay a fixed rate through the year, and then that sort of gets reset at the start of every new year with benchmark discussions? Or can you just talk us through TCRCs?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, look, that's actually a very good question. So we are on a, as people know, you know, we've recut the offtake agreement, to a very, you know, proper market arm's length, offtake. So we are on annual benchmark TCRCs. We were in LME Week a few weeks ago. Hard to say where TCRCs will settle. Lower is the answer. So we're currently, you know, TC benchmark for this year is eighty and eight. In my mind, I'm thinking forty and four for next year. Could actually be lower. We've seen negative TCRCs in the spot market. But at forty and four, Morné, I think we worked out we'd be saving around about $0.09 a pound off our C1, come January.

Morné Engelbrecht (CFO)

Yeah, that's, that's right. Yep.

Paul Hussey (Analyst)

And then that number, and wherever you guys settle, that's the number you pay for the whole twelve-month period, right?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

That's right. Yeah. And it's the, you know, normal benchmark TCRC that settles, you know, with China. It could well settle lower than that, quite frankly. Would I be surprised if it's thirty and three or twenty-five and two point five? No. But in my mind, I run forty and four, you know, just to be conservative. But look, clearly, we're gonna see, you know, a substantial clip off our C1 come January, right? $0.09 a pound, maybe a little more.

Paul Hussey (Analyst)

Yep, great. And then just one last question for me, and it's just around the capital raise and the funding, I guess. I just want to have a chat a little bit more about the timing. I mean, I think you perhaps answered the question partly earlier when you said, yeah, having this money in the bank puts you in a stronger position to go and talk to your lenders. But I guess I was particularly interested in the comment you made around, you know, having the additional capital to provide greater flexibility to pursue strategic inorganic growth opportunities.

Do I take that to mean that, you know, the cash is there to pay the mezzanine debt when you can, but if an amazing deal comes along beforehand, then repaying the mezz debt goes back down the priority list, and you utilize this CapEx for a deal? I just wanted to try and unpack, I guess, the priorities there, and particularly in light of your commentary.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Oh, I think this cash is earmarked for repaying that mezzanine facility, and again, you know, I wouldn't want to presuppose anything, but, you know, if we were to find an amazing opportunity, and if it was great value, and if it required capital, we'd probably view that as a sort of standalone exercise, I guess, because you wouldn't want to come out the other side of something, whatever you did, if you did something, and you still haven't sold for, you know, the mezzanine debt package, so I think we're pretty clear that's what it's for.

You know, obviously, we're always gonna wanna maintain optionality, but, you know, I think there's a very clear use of proceeds for that funding, and it's just a question around timing, whether we can negotiate something earlier or as Morne said, the long stop date is June of next year. You know, that's what it's there for.

Paul Hussey (Analyst)

Yep. Thanks. That's very clear, Mick. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Hayden Bairstow with Argonaut. Please go ahead.

Hayden Bairstow (Head of Research and Executive Director)

Yeah, morning, Mick. I just wanted to clarify on the trucking and your tonnes up the hole. I mean, you sort of talked about this quarter after quarter really, and it does seem to be still the limiting impact. Just maybe more around your confidence of what you've actually done, and obviously, you having more people on site probably helps a bit, but just getting those tonnes out of the hole and the pathway to increasing that over time. Just get a feel for where we're at now and where you can get to by middle of next year, say, on trucking tonnes, and where can you push the capacity limitation to? Can it go away from that to something else?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, well, it's tonne, it's trucking the tonnes, but it's also having the tonnes available, right? So it's that whole combination, element, and stope availability. You know, I think we've had a big focus on dilution control because there's just no point trucking barren waste up the hole, right? Like, you just... Ultimately, we would become ventilation constrained, and so trucking barren dirt up the hole just takes ventilation away from trucking ore, right? Like, it's pretty simple. So we've got a big focus on it, and it's consistency. I'd say, you know, the quarter was pretty good from that point of view. I'd always rather truck less dirt at higher grade than the other way. I think they've got the bottom of the mine, you know, the development's caught up.

You know, when we got the mine, you know, they're a bit behind on development. We've sort of caught up. We've got the vent established down the bottom, the secondary vent down there. So that's quite helpful. These double lift stopes have actually been a bit of a game changer for us, just in terms of actually cutting the amount of operating development that's required per ore tonne, which speeds up our cycle, which allows us to get more dirt out. It's also reduced development dilution. So yeah, we just expect to see a gradual tick up in trucking movements going up. But I do. You know, I'm always telling people, "No point trucking barren dirt up the hole, right?

Like, if we can not truck it, we shouldn't do it. So, I think we'll just expect to see over Q4 and into 2025, just a gradual increase in volume, in our trucking volume. But again, if they can continue to squeeze that dilution down and keep, you know, keep the grade at or above four or a bit, you know, increase it, that's a pretty good result, I reckon.

Hayden Bairstow (Head of Research and Executive Director)

Yeah, for sure. And then just on the Q upper stuff, the zinc mineralization is not in the way or anything. We get to mine some of it and stockpile it if Poly's not going, or does it? Is it just totally separate?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

No.

Hayden Bairstow (Head of Research and Executive Director)

Or it doesn't matter?

Mick McMullen (CEO)

No, it's a separate lens that sits out there that. No, we don't have to tackle it. In fact, the mine plan that's done for QTS South Upper, admittedly based on mostly inferred, but you know, clearly we're not developing it without a mine plan. Specifically excludes that zinc material, so that'll just all be upside when we get there. I think Poly Metals, you know, I think, yeah, I think by mid-next year, they'll be ready to take material, and we won't be out there before then.

Hayden Bairstow (Head of Research and Executive Director)

Okay, perfect. A good quarter, guys. So well done. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

This concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to hand the conference back over to Mick McMullen for any closing remarks.

Mick McMullen (CEO)

Yeah, look, I think I'd just like to, you know, congratulate the team at site, you know, with a strong result. Again, it's all about consistency. We've moved into that consistency phase, squeezing, you know, increased production out of this thing. And look, as you can see from the exploration results, this is a phenomenal ore body that has a lot more to give. And so, you know, we expect to be able to be here for a long bit of time mining this thing. And I hope that people are starting to get a feel now that, you know, Q2 wasn't just a sort of a one-off. We continue to be pretty strong here in delivery and just expect to see this production tick up.

We're very excited about QTS South Upper. You know, this is, this is a whole new sort of mining area that we're opening up, completely disconnected to the rest of the mine. All of those constraints we've talked about, you know, vents, trucking, access, et cetera, all don't apply to QTS South Upper. So actually, we're pretty excited about that thing that, you know, this time next year, we should have some production coming out of, and it's completely additive to our current guidance. So thanks everyone for your time, and we'll talk to you again at the next quarter.

Operator (participant)

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.