Rox Resources

Director and CEO of Rox Resources. Over to you, Phillip.

Thank you. So at Rox, our primary focus is unlocking the growth potential of the Youanmi gold system. We’re a fully funded, fully permitted gold developer operating in Western Australia. We’re online one of the highest grade undeveloped projects in Australia at the moment. So disclaimers, feel free to read at your leisure.

But ultimately, we’ve got strong execution to date. We’ve been delivering our project on time, on budget, and now we’re also looking to what is our growth opportunity. We’re sitting in a globally recognized premier gold province within Western Australia. It’s the host of multi-million ounce mines, a lot of them, and we’re in one of those small pockets where there hasn’t really been much work done. We’ve an accelerated de-risk pathway to first gold, so again, fully permitted, fully funded into production. We’ve got all development well and truly underway. We’re building high-grade stockpiles. We’ve got multiple mining fronts with three deep declines under development and a mill which is well over 30% constructed.

I’ve put together a team that’s experienced with a proven record in delivering projects in Western Australia. So throughout the whole team, all of us have had exposure in bringing something online, whether it’s a mine, a mill, the funding. It’s something we’ve all done before. And then we’ve got a growth process in place well beyond our DFS. Our DFS was a bankable study. It was a conservative plan because we went through project financing, and now we’re looking at what are the options above that. We’ve got an oversized mill which we’re building. We’ve got a large ground position, and we’ve got drill rigs spinning on the ground, and that’s all about what can we get out of the Youanmi province.

So again, with our DFS, we released this in November last year, followed by an FID, which was made in March of this year. It’s a low-cost, high-margin operation. Aussie dollar terms, it’s just under A$2,000 per ounce, all-in sustaining cost. Free cash flows at today’s gold price, we’re close to $3 billion pre-tax and a pre-production capital requirement of $383 million. The production profile averages 117,000 ounces per annum over an initial seven-year mine life. Met recoveries were just under 91% in our plan, and that’s based on a unique mill which often utilizes fine grind oxidation with leach circuit to produce a gold bar on-site.

Mentioned before, we’ve got a 1 million ton plant is the nameplate of what we’re building. Our mine plan is 900,000 tons per annum. So we have the latent capacity there to increase the tonnage, to increase the ounce base. And that goes into our aspiration to grow, make this mine bigger. What other options could we bring in throughout our system as well? And to help de-risk the project, prior to production starting, we’re looking at 190,000 tons at 3.3 as our minimum stockpile, and that’s well underway for being built. NPV IR numbers on the page up there, they’re significant. It’s a super high return operation with a payback of circa 1.2 years at these prices.

Reserves, resources, we updated this a couple of weeks ago. It was more of just a small update for the annual basis. We didn’t do a huge amount of drilling in the prior 12 months, but that’s changed with drill programs which have really kicked off in April this year. We’ve confirmed now with the resource base, we’ve got 2.2 million ounces at circa five and point four grams a ton. The underground itself is 2.1 million ounces at six. And we’ve got a reserve of 727,000 ounces at 4.7 and a mine plan which is seeing 900,000 ounces at 4.8. So it’s an extremely high-grade operation.

And then we’re fully funded. So in November last year, we did a $218 million equity raise with an 18 million SBP. And then we followed that up in March, getting commitments from four tier one banks for project development financing for 320 million plus a secured bond facility or bank guarantee. And that’s what allowed us to do the FID in March this year. Project financing hasn’t been very common in Australia for a while, particularly through the tier one banks. And where the real benefit is, is it’s cheap. The interest rates are extremely low. There’s no hooks, no barbs. We don’t have any mandatory hedge booking in place, and we can pay the debt off at any point that we wish. So we don’t have to wait. We don’t have to deliver a forward hedge or any of that. We can close this out with our cash flows.

And that’s where with the accelerated development of Youanmi. That chart on the page is about the last 20 months, which is just about when I started in the business. We rebuilt the management teams. We recapitalized the business, started drill programs, worked through the permitting process. We grew the resource base for the underground. This was all building off what was a previous PFS done just beforehand. That then allowed us to start dewatering. We had the confidence that this mine was gonna start. We took another placement, which allowed us to start building camps and start looking at bringing in mining contractors. We’ve got most of our permits in place prior to getting the DFS out in November.

Straight away, we started mining. We’ve got Barminco Australia as our contractor, and they started on a northern decline first. Since then, debt’s been done. Final permits have come through. We’ve called the FID. We’re building ore stockpiles. We’re now building a mill. We’ve updated reserves, and ultimately, we’re growing the project. With those images, the left image, that’s our main pit. We’ve got two portals showing there, one on the left, one on the right, which is main and Pollard. Process plant site in the middle. Again, tracking pretty well on that front. And then a tailings dam on the right-hand side.

And then again, the de-risking, it’s building stockpiles. We started mining early, and it was all about making sure we got in, so when this plant turns on, we’ve got plenty of dirt in front of it. We can get it operating and have a low-risk startup process. Ore development’s been completed on the first two levels. We did an infill program from surface and agru those levels before we started mining. We added another 125 meters of strike to each of those, and not of low-grade, significantly high-grade veins. Some example faces are showing on the screen there with loads running at two at twenty-three, three at twenties. So it’s very high grade what we’re seeing.

Next levels, we’ve got our next two ore levels under development now. Also, on the next decline, we’ve just turned out off the Youanmi main. And again, they’ll be in ore drives quite soon. And again, stockpile-wise, 190,000 3.3. That’s our base case. We do expect to exceed on that as well.

And on to delivery. So in November ’24, I put out a pathway to production. I had three key dates in there. The first one was November ’25 to get a DFS out. We ticked that box. Have the project funded the first quarter of this year. We’ve ticked that box. Gold production was targeted for the middle of 2027. We are firmly on track to make that happen. At this stage, the mill should be commissioned prior to the end of this financial year, so we should have those gold bars in our hand.

And that goes to what is our growth potential beyond this DFS plan? So again, it’s a base case plan, the seven years and 117,000 ounces. The production profiles on that chart there, the core years from ’29 to ’33 is 131,000 ounces average. This is where with the oversized plant, just on nameplate alone, we’ve got 11% capacity. If we can fill that up with a bit more resource growth, reserve growth, we can get back to that 144,000, 145,000 ounces per annum. Push a little bit further, the mill is always over-engineered. We’ve got plenty of capacity within that circuit. That’s how we expected that 150. Do it organically and do it without any extra capital. And this also has our extensive exploration potential down our tenement package, which could be further growth throughout mine life and production.

And this is where we’re demonstrating the high-grade nature of this mine plan. The image on the left, that’s a resource called, sorry, forgot what it is now. Interceptor. We found that one early last year, a bit by accident. It was a hanging wall load, which we didn’t know existed. We’ve got a few stopes there in the mine plan. We did a follow-up drill program in around May this year, and that’s gonna extend out there. Those turnouts have already started off the Youanmi decline, and will come into the plan as we go forwards.

Image on the right, that’s recent infill drilling. We’re getting significant intercepts in there, well in excess of what we’ve got in our resource model. Some of the exciting ones, though, is the width. Most of the model sits at two to four meters wide, and we’ve got the average of six grams for the underground. We’re seeing several areas where we’re getting that five, ten, twelve-meter intercepts at fifteen-plus grams a ton. There’s been a belief that we’re gonna have these high-grade plunging shoots going to the southwest, and we’re starting to see more of this in drilling. Now, we’ve actually gone into these ore drives and seen some of them. We can start now mapping these out, putting some more drill meters into those, getting some more confidence, then we can put those into the mine plan as we move forwards.

As of today, we’ve got one rig underground spinning at the moment. That’s targeting about 3,500 meters of infill and growth drilling a month. And we’ve also got a surface rig. That surface rig is looking into what have we got further down. So again, to lift our production rate, the key for us is to get some more tenure at depth. We can deliver much higher production rates in the early years in a mine plan. But with the DFS, we smoothed it out to make sure we can do it for a long period of time. So to get up to that 1, 1.1 million tons, it’s not gonna take much. But to do that consistently, we’ve got to grow down deeper. And that’s what our growth drilling area, which is indicated on the bottom left there, is all about.

The top 300, 400 meters of this ore body average 4,000 ounces of vertical meter. And when you look at the image, you can see that’s where we’ve drilled. That’s excluding all the ounces which have already been mined out of this system in the Youanmi ore body, where there’s a decline, it goes 600 meters below surface. With the plunging into shoots, we can see some easy extensions on there. If we can get our first area we’re targeting, about a bit of production increase. If we can then extend it at depth, where there’s no reason it doesn’t, it’s a shear zone. And with multiple events, we’ve got these high-grade shoots. We’ll keep pinning those down. That’s where we expect to extend our mine life.

To the south, we’ll start targeting those later this year. Pollard Decline, the key focus on that is to put a drill platform in. We wanna get in there, get a drill rig in there in January, which will be our second underground rig, and start getting a better understanding of that system, plus growing that system at depth, along with the southern targets, which we’ve got at Pollard South, Paddy’s, Midway, Bunker, all within close proximity.

And then regionally, throughout the Murchison, it’s a very underexplored area. Unless there’s been an old mine there, there’s not really much drilling which has occurred. Within the Youanmi system, we’ve got 62 kilometers down in Youanmi Shear Zone, which is a feeding structure. The only areas which have really been drilled below 40 meters is Penny West of Hermulus and Youanmi. Youanmi, circa 3 million ounces. Penny’s been about a half million ounce, really high-grade ore system. Two very different types of mineralogy going on in there. One’s free milling. Youanmi, we’re a sulfide host shear zone. We have some arsenopyrite, which we have to oxidize. And then we’ve got a bifium, which sits here as well.

Air and mag survey was completed late last year. We got the results back early this year. We’ve got some structural specialists who have been reviewing that data. And we’ve come up with what we’re calling Youanmi structural analog. What’s interesting in that is, structurally, we can see some Penny similarities and some Youanmi similarities. So we believe if we’re gonna find another big ore system, that’s the likely location, and that’s a target for us early next year. Coupled with that, we’ve got the Hope Prospect. That’s about five kilometers to the north. We’ve got the Commonwealth Prospect, which we’ve drilled recently. We’re doing a new resource update on that at the moment. We’ll see what that looks like as a potential backup feed for the mill, an oxide feed. And then further to the south, we’ll start working through those over the coming months.

And again, pulling into the team. We’ve got an experienced board. We’ve got the mine development experience in the board. And then in the operational management team or executive management team, we’ve got significant experience. All of us in this team have been through those startup processes. Corporately, we’ve got 1.4 billion shares on issue. Circa 60 cents Aussie this morning was the close on the market for about an $840 million market cap. Cash in the bank start of quarter’s $152 million. In saying that, we’re building up an operation now. The cash burn is there. We’ve got a $320 million debt facility, and we’re about to draw down on that for the first parts. Significant shareholders are highly supportive of this project, but also supportive of what’s next. What’s next for OZ? What else can we see us doing?

Which then comes through to highlights, so production pathway. Stockpiles are underway. We’re on track to pour gold in the middle of next year. And the production ramp-up states in late ’27, so we’ve allowed a six-month ramp-up on the mill for an initial seven-year plan, which we do believe will grow. High-grade resource and reserves, 4.9 gram mine plan. The opportunity to grow and scale. So what we’re just running through, down dip, a long strike. We’re drilling one rig underground at the moment, one on the surface. We’ll have a second underground rig in January and probably bring another rig in from the surface not too far away either. And it’s all about increasing production rate, fill the mill, lift the ounces.

The economics, we are gonna be one of very low-cost producers. It’s gonna be very interesting to a lot of people, but it’s gonna give us a lot of opportunities as well. We’re gonna generate a lot of cash flow from this. If we look at our base case scenario at 120,000 ounces per annum, with today’s gold price, it’s a $4,000 an ounce margin. That’s four hundred and eighty-five hundred million a year in free cash flows. We have an $840 million market cap today, so we’re not too far off those numbers.

And that comes into rewrite potentials. You and me, we’re going through development, building the mine, we’re building the mill, we’re gonna be into production middle of next year. That’s where we see the real opportunity, where we’re gonna get a big kick-off there. In the lead up to that, we start seeing the mill come online in late March. We’re commissioning. The stockpile’s gonna be quite large. Once that turns on, we put a gold bar out, it’s gonna be pretty exciting. Fully funded, tier one banks are behind us as well. And all in all, the technology we’re bringing in this, the opportunities, we’re gonna change the mining industry. So we have an ore body that needs oxidation. Not too many people have been developing that in the Western world for a long time. Once we get it out, low capital, low operating cost, the opportunities in front of us are gonna be pretty substantial. Open to questions.

Thanks very much, Phillip. Any questions from the floor?

Phil, quick question. You touched on the refractory side, just in the region, other opportunities. What do you see, potential consolidation or how you… What does that look like?

Yeah. So I guess most operators around Western Australia, there’s a refractory component to the mines. Some deal with it, some don’t. We got the opportunity to blend the oxide to get the benefits, but there is a lot of stranded assets. We can see things close to us within trucking distance, good grades where we know they’re amendable. They could be a bolt-on asset for us. It could be a quick way to lift the production rates or extend the mine life or even sit in a case where do we expand the mill. We’re confident this mill can do up to around 1.15, 1.2 in its current configuration. To get that extra little bit on top of there, put some more tanks in, leach tanks, another oxidation tank, change the float circuit with a cleaner. There’s certainly a lot of opportunity and yeah, we do see a lot of assets sitting within trucking range of the Youanmi site.

Phillip, maybe one from me. Seems like activity in Western Australia is certainly heating up and maybe you guys have beaten the queue a little bit there. Could you maybe tell us how you found it, building out your workforce and attracting people to the business, which you obviously would have done 12 months ago and potentially got in front of some of the squeeze that I suspect is happening at the moment?

Yeah. It’s an interesting time. It’s unprecedented in my career. There’s at least half a dozen mills under construction now. We’ve got three mills planning on turning on at a similar time to us. We did start building our team up very early. So March or Feb, March last year, I started bringing the management team together to build the mine, the permitting teams. As the year progressed, around June, we got the mine managers to came in. We got the geologists starting to build them up. So we did really get to the front of the queue on pulling all that forwards.

Then moving forwards, a lot of that’s been, well, what are we doing to make sure that people are gonna work for us? It’s the infrastructure we’re putting in place. It’s the culture we’re building within the company. We’re trying to make sure people want to be part of this project, and now we’re into building the processing teams. We’ve got our manager in place. We’ve now got the next couple of tiers of management in place for that as well. We’ve got people who are just really excited. They wanna be part of what most people believe is going to be the path forwards in the Australian mining landscape for processing.

Great. Any last questions? Okay, we’ll leave it at that. Thank you very much, Phillip.

Thank you all. [audience applauding]