Earnings call transcript: Perseus Mining sees steady production in Q4 FY2024

Perseus Mining Ltd (ASX:PRU), with a market capitalization of $37.25 billion, reported its fourth-quarter results for fiscal year 2024, emphasizing steady gold production and a strong cash position. The company produced 121,237 ounces of gold in the quarter, contributing to a full-year total of 496,051 ounces. According to InvestingPro analysis, Perseus currently appears undervalued based on its Fair Value calculations. Despite a slight increase in all-in site costs, Perseus Mining maintained a healthy cash margin, supported by a higher average gold price. The company is advancing several key projects, including the Nyanzaga project in Tanzania, and remains focused on long-term growth.

Key Takeaways

• Perseus Mining produced 121,237 ounces of gold in Q4 FY2024.
• All-in site costs increased slightly to $1,417 per ounce this quarter.
• The company reported a net cash and bullion position of $827 million.
• Perseus is advancing the Nyanzaga project with plans for first gold pour in Q1 2027.
• The company maintains a competitive cost structure and strong cash generation.

Company Performance

Perseus Mining’s Q4 FY2024 performance was marked by stable gold production and a robust financial position. The company’s production of 121,237 ounces of gold in the quarter contributed to a total of 496,051 ounces for the year. Despite a slight increase in all-in site costs to $1,417 per ounce, the company benefitted from an average gold price of $2,977 per ounce, resulting in a cash margin of $1,560 per ounce.

Financial Highlights

• Gold production: 121,237 ounces in Q4; 496,051 ounces for the full year
• All-in site cost: $1,417 per ounce in Q4; $1,235 per ounce for the full year
• Average gold price: $2,977 per ounce, up $515 from the previous quarter
• Net cash and bullion: $827 million, an increase of $26 million

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Perseus Mining has set a FY2026 production guidance of 400,000 to 440,000 ounces with all-in site costs expected to range from $1,460 to $1,620 per ounce. The company maintains a strong financial position, with InvestingPro data showing sufficient cash flows to cover interest payments and liquid assets exceeding short-term obligations. Analyst consensus suggests positive momentum, with price targets ranging from $88 to $136. The company is preparing for a production ramp-up at the Nyanzaga project in Tanzania, with the first gold pour anticipated in Q1 2027. Additionally, Perseus is exploring potential underground mining opportunities and greenfield exploration projects to sustain long-term growth.

Executive Commentary

CEO Jeff Quartermaine expressed satisfaction with the company’s performance, stating, "We have had another good performance on all fronts during the quarter." He emphasized Perseus Mining’s strategy of producing 500,000 to 600,000 ounces of gold annually at a cash margin of no less than $500 per ounce. Quartermaine also highlighted the benefits of operating across multiple countries to mitigate volatility.

Risks and Challenges

Perseus Mining faces several risks, including potential delays in the CMA underground project due to regulatory changes, market volatility in African mining sectors, and geopolitical risks such as the upcoming Ivory Coast elections. However, the company maintains a "Fair" overall financial health score according to InvestingPro’s comprehensive analysis, which evaluates multiple financial metrics and risk factors. For detailed risk assessment and complete financial analysis, investors can access Perseus Mining’s Pro Research Report, part of InvestingPro’s coverage of over 1,400 US equities. Additionally, fluctuations in gold prices and operational challenges at different mines could impact future performance.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the potential delay in the CMA underground project and its impact on production timelines. Perseus addressed these concerns, noting ongoing discussions with regulatory authorities. Analysts also questioned the company’s exploration strategy and spending, to which Perseus responded with a focus on strategic growth and long-term value creation.

Full transcript - Perseus Mining Ltd (PRU) Q4 2025:

Nathan, Conference Moderator: Investor Webinar and Conference Call. All attendees are in a listen only mode. If you would like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function. I’ll now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and CEO, Jeff Quartermaine. Thank you, Jeff.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Thanks, Nathan, and welcome to Perseus Mining’s quarterly webinar to discuss our June report. I’m joined on the call today by one of my colleagues, Leanne DeBrain, who, as you know, is our CFO. Leanne doesn’t really need any introduction as she’s been an integral part of Percy’s lead leadership team for some time now and, of course, has participated in many of these webinars and other most market facing events. But welcome, Leanne.

Leanne DeBrain, CFO, Perseus Mining: Thank you.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: The agenda for today’s webinar is the same as usual. I’ll start by providing an overview of what proceeds achieved operationally during the quarter. Leanne and I then speak to aspects of the presentation, and then we’ll hold a q and a session to dive into anything any specific matters that haven’t been addressed to your satisfaction during the presentation or indeed in the market release of the quarterly or the market release that we put out last week on the drilling results from Neon Zaga. For those of you who are participating in the webinar via your computer, you should be able to track the presentation visually on your screens. And for others, we have released it to the market along with it quarterly, so you’ll be able to review it at your leisure.

So, look, in summary, as I’ve said every quarter now for the last four or five years, our team at Perseus is consistent consistently delivering on its promises. And during the three month, six month, and twelve month periods ending thirty June, we have once again delivered with strong group gold production, competitive all in site costs, and, of course, with the help of a rising gold prices, we’ve expanded our cash margins and increased free cash flow and cash balances. Relative to many of our peers who’ve already reported this quarter, our operating performance and closing cash balance is demonstrably better than many in the gold sector. Now notwithstanding our solid operating performance over a long period of time, we we don’t seem to receive due recognition in terms of relative share price performance. We were advised that one explanation for this anomaly was that doubts existed regarding the longevity and quality of Perseus’ asset portfolio relative to some.

So So during the June, we’ve sought to address this matter head on by publishing Perseus’ five year production and cost outlook. And I’ll return to the subject in more detail later. But from what we published this quarter, I I think it should be fairly clear even to the most cynical of observers that based on the platform that we’ve built, the future of Perseus looks strong. And that is before we start to deploy our considerable financial capacity to expand the asset portfolio either through exploration or m and a initiatives. Now speaking of exploration or organic growth, we’ve been active on this front during the quarter, and we returned some excellent drilling results from the phase two confirmatory drilling at the Nianzaga project in Tanzania.

And as I said earlier, these were documented in a release that was made to the market last week. Now speaking of Nianzaga, I should also mention very briefly, because I will return to this, the very solid progress that’s been achieved on the development of the mine itself during the quarter. It it is impressive. That’s for sure. So without further ado, let’s let’s go to the presentation, and you’ll just you’ll see what I’m talking about.

So looking at the the operating results, a hundred and twenty one thousand two hundred and thirty seven ounces for the quarter, which is pretty much in line with the last quarter. The all in site cost of $1,417 an ounce was up slightly on the previous quarter, and there are reasons for that, which we’ll discuss, not the least of which, of course, is the gold price, which was up $515 an ounce to 2,977 per ounce. And and when I’m talking about the impact of the gold price, bear in mind that a significant portion of our cost base is gold price related charges. The cash margin that we generated was $1,560 US per ounce, so that’s up $307 an ounce. National cash flow, a 189,000,000 US dollars, leaving net cash in bullion of $827,000,000 at the end of the quarter, which was up 26,000,000, notwithstanding some fairly significant expenditure during the period, and Liam will talk to that in a moment.

Now what that has done is it’s translated into an excellent financial year for us. So for the full financial year, production at $496,005 51, a touch under the 500,000, but certainly in line with what we had been anticipating. All insight costs for the year was $1,235 an ounce. The average gold price, $202.02 point $22,005 43 per ounce, up $529 an ounce on the previous year. And, of course, that cash margin at $1,308 an ounce, it’s significantly above the target of $500 an ounce that we set ourselves some time ago.

That’s all translated into notional cash flow from the operations of $650,000,000, and as I said, left us with a fairly healthy balance at the end of the year. So what that means is that Perseus is firmly on track to continue funding growth and firmly on track to continue returning capital to our shareholders. Now if you look at, you know, how that’s that result stacks up relative to guidance in in in terms of the full year guidance, we have finished at about the 77 percentile of the of the guidance range at 496,000. And on the cost 1,235, we finished below the bottom end of the range and a similar result in in terms of the half year as well. So half year, it was around the same sort of level, finishing below the bottom end of the cost range.

You know, the the the the picture the numbers on that slide tell a a pretty interesting story, and they do demonstrate the the the merit of having having a diversified portfolio, having more than one operation at our disposal because the operations do have good times and bad times. But if you look across the group, it’s pretty consistent performance where one will outperform to compensate for for maybe some underperformance at another mine. Now looking at the three operations themselves. So Yaoure was the biggest contributor of the of the three as as has been fairly normal over time. About 53% for the full year came from from the 58% for the for the quarter.

And that was done at a at a very attractive all in site cost of $11.80 per ounce or or 1,100 for the for the full year. I mean, it’s it, you know, was a was a year of two halves in a sense. We certainly struggled a little early in the piece, but picked up very strongly as the year wore on and and and turned in a a pretty solid performance. The national cash margin of $18.24 dollars US per ounce, I mean, that certainly, you know, puts us into a fairly strong position in terms of cash flow generation. Now one of the one of the areas that has challenges, we’ve moved from well, we’ve been mining in the CMA pit.

We moved over to the to the Yaori pit, which is geologically very complicated, much more complex than than CMA. And we’ve been working very solidly on trying to upgrade our grade control processes and the like to to improve the reconciliation between rock model and the mill. Now we we’ve certainly seen an improvement on that over the last quarter, but we still have some distance to go to get to where we would like to be. So at the moment, we’re recording 25% for the last three months. It was 25% positive on tonnes, 15% negative on grade, 6% overall plus in terms of contained ounces.

So that is you know, it’s it’s better than it was, but it’s not where we need to be. The other piece, of course, around Yaoure is the underground, and I’ll speak to that in just a moment. We’re waiting on a presidential decree to get going on the mining there. Now Edikan, Edikan’s had a had an interesting year. I mean, you know, we’ve we’ve finished off mining in the a g in in a fetish pit, and we’re just about to finish mining in the Aigi pit.

So there’s a bit of a change in the whole production profile. We have been moving into the Ankasui pit, which is a largely an oxide pit. It’s a higher grade oxide pit that we we will be mining from. We we have had obviously, the costs were impacted by lower production relative to previous periods. And and also, of course, we’ve got we got hit with royalties and various other charges and also some increase in sustaining capital where we were making compensation payments to to landowners.

Now that has been an issue for us. We are, you know, in the in the final stages of getting full access to the Nkaseyo mining area. It has been a bit of a challenge along the way. There’s a few people who were struggling to come to terms with what we were doing, notwithstanding the law being on our side. But, anyway, that that that is coming to an end, and and we’ll be have full access in the next quarter, which will improve grade, which will improve production from from Edikan. In terms of reconciliations at

Edikan, we’re 10% positive on tonnes, 11% negative on grade, 2% negative overall on contained ounces, and that’s pretty much within acceptable limits. So that that’s fine. Looking into the future, we are working fairly solidly on, you know, various initiatives to extend the mine life at Edikan through to 2032 through a series of cutbacks of some of the previously mined pits. That that is an important exercise, and we’re working closely with the the the local people and government to to get that initiated. One of the things we did do during the quarter was that we did seed a section of the mining lease back to the government, and that is to be allocated to local citizens for small scale mining.

So, hopefully, that will that will give them some confidence that continuing to work with Perseus going forward makes is in their interest. Now Sissingue’s had a a fairly troubled quarter, I must admit. Production was slightly up slightly higher than the previous quarter, and costs were slightly better, but they’re still not where we really want them to be. We are at at an interesting stage up there where we’re getting towards the end of the, you know, one of the satellite pits, and we’ll be moving down to Bagua fairly shortly. But in the intervening period, we’ve had to had to make do with what we’ve got and have had a few challenges with our our contractor, etcetera, etcetera.

I mean, we do call material up the road and and then wet weather that also provides some challenges as well. But generally speaking, I think we’re we’re in a position where in the next twelve months, it’s going to be quite different to the most recent twelve months as we get into material that is that is a better grade, etcetera, etcetera. The operation is cash flow positive, and that that’s that’s obviously pleasing. In terms of reconciliations on a on a twelve month horizon, 18% positive on tonnes, 10% negative on grade, and 6% positive in the contained ounces. So that’s a reasonable position.

It has gone up and down a little bit over the last period of time, reflecting the particular ore bodies that we’ve been working in. But, certainly, it’s it’s it’s in a reasonable position, but we’re also doing more work on that as we speak. As I said, we’re in the process of getting ready to move down to Bagway, so constructing facilities down there, and we should be operating in that part of the world probably in about November year, I would think. Now if you look at the the the the three mines put together, I mean, it has been a a pretty solid performance from them over the last four years. We’ve averaged around 509,000 ounces of gold at an all in site cost of a thousand and $48 per ounce.

Doing that in a period where we’ve also enjoyed fairly significant growth in gold prices, which has expanded margins and certainly generated a lot of cash. The thing that stands out from this chart here, of course, is the consistency of performance. And this goes to the point I made earlier around the portfolio effect, where in any given period, one or other of the main mines may be struggling a little as Sissingue has been doing for the last short period, but at the same time, some of the others pick up, and we managed to still maintain that consistent performance. Now looking forward, as I said earlier in the piece, we felt it necessary to share with the market what the next five years of purchase looks like, and we put out a out a a release to this effect about a month or so ago. And you can see that there is fairly solid performance coming through over the next five years at least.

Now there is a a short term dip coming through in fiscal twenty six, which is really a scheduling function. We were anticipating producing from our Maya sand gold project in this period. But as people are aware, that project was put on hold some time ago due to conflict in The Sudan. So our production is down slightly this year, but from here, it picks up. And it picks up quite materially as the Nianzaga project comes on stream.

And as I said, we that’s being developed in Tanzania, and we’ll talk about that in a little more detail. And, certainly, the cost structure that we are expecting to see across the group is well within the marks of or or in line with with global cost structures at the at the current time, particularly with the gold price assumptions that we have we have used in this analysis. So the point I’m making here is that looking forward, the next five years are very strong after a small setback. Now in terms of the guidance for next year, we are talking 400 to $440,000 an ounce at all in sight cost $14.60 to $16.20. Now it it it it does reflect the fact that Yaoure will be reducing production from where it has been this year as we go into the underground.

But on the other side of the coin, it also reflects the fact that Sissingue will pick up in production as we go down to Bagua into the higher grade material there, and Edikan keeps plugging along. The higher costs that Edikan relate to some cutbacks that we’re planning on doing in in the for the forthcoming period with at the elevated gold prices that we’re seeing, we’re still able to to make significant headway in terms of cash margin. The other the other factor affecting Edikan gold mine next year, of course, is that we will be we will be our main source of ore will be from the Inkasuwai deposit, which is an oxide deposit, of course, recoveries of oxide material at Edikan are lower than fresh material. Now people who who would want to, you know, focus on the costs and be concerned about the costs, I would refer you to the chart on the right there, which shows what Perseus has done relative with its cost guidance over the last five years or so. And it’s fairly clear that, you know, for one reason or another, we have outperformed our expectations on the cost front.

Now, you know, one might say, well, it’s a function simply that you are very conservative in your forecast, and that may be the case. But what it also says is that at Perseus, we don’t just take things for granted. We work continuously to keep a lid on our costs and where possible to reduce them. So we have a number of programs going continuously to try and find ways of of improving our performance. And while we’re forecasting fourteen sixty to sixteen twenty next year, you know, we will be doing everything within our power to do better than that.

And when we look at that production, I mean, we have we’re almost finished the first month of the of the twelve month period. And based on what’s happened in the first month of the period, we’ll be finishing in the upper part of that range, I would think, all things being equal. Of course, now having said that, I’m tempting fate for sure, but but certainly, we’ve started the the the new financial year quite strongly. Now I’ll pass over to Dan to speak, some of the financial aspects, if I may.

Leanne DeBrain, CFO, Perseus Mining: Thanks, Jeff, and morning to everybody. As you can see, we’ve had a very strong quarter generating a $189,000,000 of notional cash flow, which was an increase of about $37,000,000 or 20% on the last quarter. And this is largely attributable to the $515 per ounce increase in our average gold price achieved in the quarter of two thousand nine hundred and seventy seven dollars. Our cash and bullion increased by $26,000,000, which I’ll speak to a little bit later, and our debt remains undrawn at $300,000,000 US dollars. The increase in cash and bullion to $8.27, I think it’s important to point out, was after a number of key expenditures during the quarter.

We did, as Jeff alluded to earlier on, the organic growth investment in the period was was extensive, including exploration drilling at the Nienzaga pit well, the Nyanzaga resource, should I say. And those results were released last week. And then we’ve done some drilling at the Nkutumsu deposit in in Ghana as we seek to continue looking for extension opportunities at Edikan. We also then spent about $80,000,000 in sustaining and development capital in the quarter, which included $25,000,000 on Nianzaga, about $18,000,000 on the CMA underground, and we spent $17,000,000 purchasing increased land at Yarra to ensure an extended capacity for our extension of the life of mine at that asset. We’ve continued to make contributions to our host countries, making $70,000,000 of tax contributions, which included tax payments in Ghana for income tax and a withholding tax payments on dividends we declared out of Ivory Coast.

In addition, we then also spent about $50,000,000 returning funds to our shareholders, and this included a $22,000,000 interim dividend paid in April. And we’ve, in the quarter, done $28,000,000 on the share buyback. That me moves us to a key focus for us and in particularly my role as a CFO, is being our hedge program and and focusing on, as we we always say, is to continue focusing on maintaining our hedge program to ensure downside protection while retaining as much upside opportunity as possible. And this is really done while we try and observe prudent cash management practices knowing that gold price as much as it can go up, it can go down. With that in mind, we had to think about the selection of our hedging instruments during the period.

And during the quarter four in June, we purchased 55,000 put options at a 2,600 US dollar per ounce price for a cost of 2,900,000 and put those out over twenty seven and twenty eight. Importantly, the committed hedge position of the group was reduced in the quarter from 24% to 16% of the forecast three year production. Moving on to our capital returns to shareholders. In FY ’25, we have returned Australian dollar a $107,000,000 to our shareholders via our interim dividend paid in April and our continued commitment to the share buyback. Since our maiden capital return in f y twenty f y twenty one, Perseus has returned a total of 275,000,000 Australian dollars to share to our shareholders.

And this will be a continued focus for us going into August. And lastly, just on our share buyback, importantly, as you all remember, we announced this 100,000,000 Australian dollar share share buyback on the August 28. And where opportunities have presented itself where we’ve been able to purchase, we have, as at the July 11, progressed that to 73%, and we will continue to focus on that now as we are able to go back into the market with the release of this quarterly.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Okay. Thanks very much, Leanne. Yes. This issue of capital management is something that is exercising our mind at the moment. We’ve received a lot of feedback from our shareholder base as to their preferences between dividends and share buybacks, and we’ll be discussing this at some length, I expect, with our board in a month or so’s time.

But, certainly, the share buyback concept has worked extremely well for Perseus, we believe, in the over the last or since it was started in August, twelve months or so. We are somewhat constrained at times by blackout periods, you know, where we are about to make announcements, etcetera. So we’re we have to stay out of the market. But, nevertheless, when we can buy back, we have done that and have done it reasonably consistently, and I think it’s been beneficial to the share price. The the dividend allocation, you know, has has been steadily rising over a period of time, and we’ll see where where the board sits on this at in August, as I say.

But, certainly, this has been a good year, and I think that will be reflected not only in in the financial results that are going to be delivered on the twenty eighth of next month, but also in the in the returns to shareholders that are announced in the same at the same time. Now looking into talking about capital management, I mean, basically, we with the with the excess cash that we’re generating, returns to shareholders is important, but it and and also managing our balance sheet is important. But one of the other key focus is on the organic growth of the And there are a couple of initiatives that are worth commenting on, I think, in that respect. We’ve mentioned the Niyansaga project a couple of times throughout this call. Now where we stand at the moment, the the schedule going forward is that we’ve started work on the on the foundations, etcetera, for the for the process plant.

We’ve been working on the relocation action plan, which is housing of people impacted by the operation for some time, and that’ll be completed in around October. We’ve been working on upgrading the the the camp in the in the at Nyanzaga because we’re going to have a very significant influx of of people very shortly, particularly when we start mining early next year. The plan is the current plan is to start in April 26. However, we’re doing our best to bring that forward by three or four months to start in in January 26. So we’ll have a a mining group alongside a construction group on the site the same time, which will make the site a very busy place to be.

And there and and that will culminate in first gold being poured, we believe, in in the first quarter of twenty twenty seven, if not sooner. And, certainly, I know all of our team are highly motivated to to do it a little bit earlier than that, but this is where we’re predicting at the present time. And just looking at what is happening on the side, I mean, there has been a lot of building activity on the camp and on the, you know, the wrap housing, etcetera, etcetera, and getting ready. You can see some photographs on the right hand side of that work that’s going on there. We are using some pretty interesting construction techniques using our local local labor, etcetera, etcetera, and that’s going very well.

You can see the foundations of the camp fairly clearly on this particular photograph. We’ve also been working on putting in bypass roads to minimize the impact on our local community when we bring goods into the into the mine site. So that work is on ongoing, and we’re doing that in a in a very professional manner to ensure that those roads are accessible under all weather conditions and will last the community long after we we leave. On the resettlement program itself, we we’ve been getting along pretty well there. We’ve completed 65 and handed over houses out of two sixty two.

There’s quite a lot more that another 40 or so will be handed over very shortly as soon as we get some more doors to put on. But you can see some of the some of the housing on in the photographs here. It is interesting, actually, the relocation housing. It it it’s quite different in in every country we operate in, and the people we understand are extremely happy with what what is being received. And, you know, in certain instances, not only do they have water supply, but in certain cases, they’ve also got electricity as well.

So it’s quite an important program. Now I did make mention earlier on on the the drilling that we’ve been doing, the stage two of the resource definition drilling. When we when we put out our our final made our final investment decision in in April, it was based purely and simply on the first phase of drilling. And at that time, we announced the reserve of about I think it was 2,300,000 ounces. Now what we did say at the time was that we were undertaking a second phase of drilling and that that we would upgrade the the mineral resource by the time we started production in ’27.

We put out a release the other day, which, excuse me, reflected some of the results that we’ve achieved today. And, you know, you can see from this slide here that there are some very, very good intercepts have been have been achieved, and these intercepts give us enormous confidence in being able to make a fairly significant increase in the reserve for this project when we release that next year, and that is is material that will be mined from the open pit. But one of the other things that also has come out from that drill results is that there’s very clear evidence of mineralization extending at depth. Now we don’t want to offend the regulators here by saying too much other than to say that there is certainly very strong encouragement that if we continue drilling and continue to get the results that we’ve been seeing in recent times, then there’s every prospect that we may be able to continue mining well below the bottom of the currently envisaged pit and using underground mining techniques. And if we are able to do that, of course, it will extend the life of the Nianzaga project quite a substantial way.

So this has been a a very important and exciting development at at Nianzaga that has come to life over the last six months or so. Now the other project that we’re busily working towards is the is the CMA underground project. I mentioned that we have just about finished in the CMA pit open pit itself, and we’ve moved over to the Yaoure Pit. We we took a development a a final investment decision to go underground earlier this year, and we’ve been working very strenuously ever since then to get ourselves into a position where we will will start to to mine underground very shortly. We appointed a a an excellent Australian underground mining contractor, Burncut, as our primary mining contractor, and they mobilized on the site and and ready to go.

Now we are the only thing that’s really standing between us and cutting portals at the present time is that we are awaiting a presidential decree to to give us a the green light on this. This is something that only emerged very, very recently. We’d previously the advice that we’d previously been given around how the government would approve this exercise seems to have changed, and we now need to to get the president to sign off, which we hope will occur in the next week or so. But, anyway, the the operation itself is is well and truly ready to go. We’re going to have two four four four portals being being built on the CMA pit, two intakes, two exhausts.

The work on all that has been is well advanced and is, you know, pretty much ready to roll on on all four of those on those sites. We’ve been working getting our our services up to scratch, so both power and water are more or less in place. There’s a little bit more work to be done in some areas, but generally speaking, the power and water supplies to the mining are in very good shape. We’ve we’ve ordered, you know, the equipment, and that should be arriving on the site fairly shortly. That will be installed as we go deeper underground.

And, of course, we’ve been working fairly strenuously on putting in place all of the facilities that are needed for the mining services contractor and and our team to be able to work on the underground mine. So all in all, at CMA, everything has moved along very nicely, and we are ready to to take the next step and to start cutting portals as soon as possible. One of the things that is pleasing about the way we’ve conducted our business, of course, is that we have been, you know, observing all of the areas to ensure that we we have a sustainable operation. We’re particularly happy with with our our safety record running a TRIFR of point six for fiscal twenty five, which is, you know, the best result that we’ve turned in. And one that’s actually, you know, very credible in terms of global terms.

I mean, the safety record is is is is very, good on the side. And, you know, this is not a case, I can assure you, of poor reporting. This is a case that we have committed a good deal of money and effort to working on the safety front over the last few years and introduced a number of initiatives, including the failure risk management control process and what we call SHED, which is safely home every day interactions. And between these two initiatives, I think our workforce has has come on board, and and we’ve delivering some very good outcomes. In terms of our host communities, government and communities, they’re receiving very substantial benefits from what we do.

So the countries where we are received something like 231,000,000 US dollars in total for the last quarter, taken in a range of a range of ways, of course. 83% of our procurement comes from local suppliers, and we also make investments into into various social aspects as well. Employment, it runs at around of local people is around 94% or so, which is a fairly credible thing given that, you know, what is important in the countries where we work is that, you know, try to maintain as much employment as possible to continue to support the economies. Environmentally, of course, that goes without saying. We observe all of the the the the regulations that are in place and and and are determined to leave the mine sites in better shape than what we found them.

And from a governance point point of view, once again, that goes without saying those things are, you know, are done to to ensure that we are transparent and above board in everything that we do. So, look, in conclusion, as I said at the start of the call, you know, we have had another good performance on all fronts during the quarter half and full financial year, and we’ve delivered on group gold production, weighted average cost, cash generation, etcetera, etcetera. And I think when we release our fiscal twenty five financial report and and our sustainability report, I should mention as well, you know, in about a month’s time, it’ll be just even more clear as to what a good year has passed. And as I said earlier on, the pleasing thing is that we’ve done this in a very, very safe manner so that our staff have have been able to come to work every day, go home every day, and not be incurring injuries or anything worse. Looking forward, as noted during the presentation, we will experience a slight reduction in our production next year relative to prior periods.

But as I pointed out, in comparison to future periods, next year is also a dip. So what we’re saying is that it’s a short term dip resulting from scheduling of events rather than and those events were beyond our control rather than through poor performance, and we have a clear strategy in in place to recover from that, particularly with the with the commencing of production at Nianzaga. But beyond that, we’ll also get further production from our existing operations. You know, what we do have, I think, is very clear evidence that our strategy of producing 500 to 600,000 ounces of gold a year at an average cash margin of no less than $500 an ounce, but usually a lot more. It will continue well into the future, and and that will occur even if we fail to grow our existing asset portfolios through exploration or m and a.

I think that it’s fair to say that from our perspective, you know, the concept of us looking to grow our our diversified portfolio is and will remain a very important feature of this business. We believe that through engaging in multiple operations in multiple countries, we’re able to remove a lot of the volatility that comes with operating on the African Continent and still deliver outstanding results. We will continue to remain receptive to new ideas, and if a value creative opportunity comes along, and I stress the point value creative, you know, with the cash and debt financing capacity at our disposal, Percy’s in a great position to execute and to continue our growth journey. So as a company, our focus on generating material benefits for all stakeholders, including us, governments, communities, employees, providers of goods and services, and importantly, our shareholders, our investors, remains as strong as ever, allowing us to consistently achieve our stated mission the stated mission of our company, and that’s something of which we are quite proud. Now, finally, in conclusion, I do once again want to acknowledge the wonderful contributions made by all of the men and women who make up the Perseus management and operating teams in all of the countries in which we operate, including here in Australia where we’re headquartered.

I’ve said many, many times that you can have the best assets and the most amount of money in the world, but unless you have good people to execute your plans, you’ll not realize your potential. Perseus has very good plans and currently has very good people. But more importantly, we’ve operated well as a team, and long may that continue. And to all those employees, I wish to acknowledge all of your contributions and sincerely thank you for all your efforts in helping us to continue to deliver on our promises. So thanks everyone for attending today’s webinar.

This brings the presentation to a close. And if you have any questions, we’re happy to try to answer. Thank you.

Nathan, Conference Moderator: Thanks, Jeff. Your first question comes from Kate McCutcheon at Citi. Please go ahead, Kate.

Kate McCutcheon, Analyst, Citi: Jeff. Thank you. Just on guidance for the year. Year. So your five year outlook is pretty fresh at $4.20 to $4.40 and cost topping out at that 1,500 an ounce mark.

And then today’s guidance, I guess, is a bigger range on ounces and cost higher than what’s in that outlook. What has driven that tweak to the outlook for ’26 in the past month or so? I guess I’m looking for conviction in that five year outlook because once you put these things out to the market, you tend to get help to it.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Okay. Thanks very much for sharing that with us. That that had never occurred to us, if that might be the case. But no. Look.

I think there’s a few there’s a few factors in there. We wanted to just, you know, take into account where we sit at the present time. And, also, I think that there is a difference in terms of the the gold pricing that we’ve been using, which has had some impact on various things. Leanne, would you like to add to that?

Leanne DeBrain, CFO, Perseus Mining: Yeah. So, Kate, when we did the the five year forecast, we were using a $2,400 gold price for the long term five years. And then so with this guidance now, we we brought in the gold price of 2,000 between 2,007 and 2,800, which will def which impacts the royalties, importantly remembering that, you know, Edikan and Ivory Coast have quite extensive linkages to gold price, including the community benefits, the global sustainability levy, and then the royalties. And then I think just in terms of the actual the the guidance for the ounces, I think we just decided to for for this financial year, given with the underground, just to increase the range effectively from what we put out in there in the five year forecast. So so effectively, we just put down the downside.

It went from $4.20 to 400.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Yeah. I mean, there’s nothing too sinister in in in that, I have to say. I mean, we are being a little conservative perhaps, but I guess we we feel that that’s appropriate given that we are a little late starting with the CMA underground relative to the recent Yeah. Recent change with the government. But I think that, as I said, where we sit at the present time, I mean, if the first month is any guide, I don’t think people need to be too concerned about where we’re gonna end up for the year.

Leanne DeBrain, CFO, Perseus Mining: Yeah. It’s the it’s just to to accommodate for the underground ounces that are included in the FY ’26. You know, if there is a delay in that, we wanted to have we we didn’t wanna sort of put some downside advice on that guidance on that.

Kate McCutcheon, Analyst, Citi: Okay. Cool. That is crystal clear. Thank you.

Nathan, Conference Moderator: Alright. Thank you. Your next question comes from Al Harvey at JPMorgan. Please go ahead, Al.

Al Harvey, Analyst, JPMorgan: Yeah. Morning, team. I just wanna get a bit more of an explanation of that that change in the CMA underground process going forward. So did you mention that you’re expecting the presidential decree in a week or so? Would you guys expect to announce this to market?

And I suppose, what are the options the team has up their sleeve to mitigate potential delays here?

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Look. The situation is just that we were told about two or three years ago of a process that needed to be followed. We followed that process and done everything that was asked of us. And only last week, we we received some advice that, in fact, on reflection, the government had had changed its perspective. Now there is a a meeting of cabinet next week, I think it is, and we have been assured that everything will be done appropriately.

If it isn’t done appropriately, well, we’ll just have to regroup at that particular point and see what we do. There are some options available to us that I don’t really wanna be going into at this particular juncture. But, yes, we will keep the market fully informed as we always do. But with this stage of the game, we’re fairly optimistic that the government will do what they have said they were going to do and and get this signed off, and we’ll be moving forward fairly quickly. Now we have lost a month or so on it, I must admit, because we were looking at cutting portals on the first of this month.

However, you know, we have a a very committed mining contractor and team of people there. And if, you know, history is any guide, Perseus will find a way to recover ground. You know, we we seem to have a have a knack of being able to do that, and we will do it again, I’m sure. But, you know, in terms of the guidance and everything, we thought that rather than rather than be sitting on a knife edge, we would give ourselves a little bit more protection just to see how how things go. But I have every every faith in in what’s going to occur and that I believe that we will be, you know, delivering, if anything, towards the you’re certainly into the upper half of that range, you know, when we when the year next year comes around.

Leanne DeBrain, CFO, Perseus Mining: Yeah. I mean, there’s just to to add to that, there’s about 20,000 ounces of underground that was, you know, in that region for in the underground coming into FY ’26, so we’re not talking about huge amounts. Yeah. And there is opportunity there to look at the remaining CMA under the CMA pit from an open pit perspective.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Yeah. So just just to clarify what Leon has said is that the contribution from the underground this year is not enormous, but there is some there is some contribution. And, you know, we’ll be doing our best to to bring that in through through various means.

Al Harvey, Analyst, JPMorgan: Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. Maybe just to follow-up. I I guess just with the presidential elections coming up in Cote D’Ivoire, do you feel like there’s any any impact there or as to why this this decision has been taken and I suppose

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: No. I don’t I don’t think I think it’s completely unrelated to that. I just think that, you know, look. There’s various processes that they follow, and some things can be approved at a ministerial level. Some things can be approved at a presidential level.

And I think that that this is the first underground mine in Cote D’Ivoire. So this is the first time they’ve had to deal with this situation, and they were started off considering that this decree could be issued by the by the the minister. But what they’re saying is that this is actually a change to the original mining lease. And given that the original mining lease was signed up by the president, this needs to be signed up. Now it would have been helpful if this was discovered two years ago or three years ago, but the fact that it’s only occurred last week, you know, we just need to work around it.

So I I don’t think there’s anything to get too excited about. You know, plenty of people have made observations about, you know, the ups and downs of operating in Africa, and this is just simply one of those. We’ve been dealing with these sorts of things for fifteen odd years, and we do find a way to get our our way around them. So I wouldn’t make too much of it, to be frank. And if there is something to be made of it, we’ll certainly keep the market informed.

Al Harvey, Analyst, JPMorgan: Sure. Thanks, Jeff.

Nathan, Conference Moderator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Wood at UBS.

Ben Wood, Analyst, UBS: Just wanting to hopefully get a little bit more color on FY ’twenty six and just drill into the detail a little bit more. How should we think sort of about the profile across the year itself? You know, June quarterly run rates at Yaoure sort of suggests stronger start and potentially a weaker finish, but hopefully just sort of wanting, yeah, a little bit more color on that if if possible.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Well, look, you know, I’m tempted to well, what what what will happen is that, for instance, Yaori’s first half will be stronger than its second half. I’ll give give you that much. Enikan’s second half is going to be substantially stronger than the first half because in the second half of the year, we do get full access to the Pancasua deposit in the much higher grade material there. And similarly, Sissingue, the second half is going to be stronger than the first half because we will have a full six months of Bagua Oil, which once again is higher grade than what we’re seeing in the first the first six months. So the thing is that, you know, each of the operations have their ups and downs.

You know, we have in the past provided the market with guidance six monthly guidance, but we were told, you know, repeatedly by analysts that you didn’t want six monthly guidance. You wanted 12 monthly guidance. This is what you’ve been given. So we’re responding to requests from the market in giving 12 monthly guidance.

Ben Wood, Analyst, UBS: Appreciate that. Thank you for the color.

Nathan, Conference Moderator: Thank you. Your next question comes from David Radcliffe at Global Mining Research. Please go ahead, David.

David Radcliffe, Analyst, Global Mining Research: Good morning, Jeff and Leanne. My first question is on Edikan. Recoveries for the year just short of 90%. You’ve stated that there’s probably an impact in ’26 given the higher rate of oxide material. Could you maybe give a bit of quantum on that?

And then within that, you’ve obviously been waiting for access to the new pit for a while. You’ve mentioned the government’s intervened, but every quarter, it seems to be just getting pushed out. So Barry,

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: just just to clarify that, we have been mining out of Encasue now for six months. So what we’re what we’re looking for is full access to ground for waste dumps and things of that nature more so than than actual the pit as well. I mean, there is some access in the pit, but it’s really about getting into full scale mining mining conditions. So that is that’s, you know, that’s fine. And as far as the government is concerned, the government is is fully on board with this project and is fully supportive of it.

And there’s no issue on that particular front where we have where we have had some discussions is with the local community. And, you know, we wanna make sure that everybody not is is is happy about what we’re doing. We don’t wanna go ahead with, you know, full resumption of land and if there’s anybody who’s not happy about it. So we’re just being a little bit cautious on that on that front. As to the recovery, the recovery recovery excuse me.

The recovery the the oxide ore does have a lower recovery, but what we do what we tend to do is that we blend that that oxide material with, you know, lower grade fresh stockpiles that have been accumulated over many years. So we will probably see a drop down in the production in the in the recovery. Not not too dramatically, but it will be below where it’s been in the last, you know, twelve months or so. If you look at actually, at the plant at Edikan, I mean, really is quite remarkable. I mean, here we are now, 2025.

This thing started in 2011. The run time and recoveries that we’ve achieved at Edikan over the last ten years have been spectacularly good. It it really is a very good plan. And I wish that we had enough board to go for another ten or fifteen years, but it doesn’t look like that will be the case.

David Radcliffe, Analyst, Global Mining Research: Okay. Thanks, Jeff. So then maybe on the exploration spend for next year, obviously, big step up this year, and you had a lot of drilling to do, especially at 9 Zygren and such like. So do we expect the level to be maintained through this year?

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: It’ll certainly be maintained. I mean, look. With our with our exploration approach to exploration, it’s a fully gated exercise. So it really depends on, you know, the the level of success people are having. And and if if we’re being successful, then we will find money to to fund it.

One thing that we’re going to be doing this year that we haven’t done a lot in the past is is to really embrace, you know, greenfields exploration. Most of our exploration to date has been relatively close to existing infrastructure and the like for the obvious reason that that that that they’re the cheapest answers that we can we can get. But we also think, you know, looking forward, and particularly taking into account the fact that there’s not that many opportunities around for acquisition, we we do think that with with x or with with large amounts of capital available, we really should start at a greenfield on the greenfields program and see if we can generate some deposits that way. Now the fact is that it’s not gonna happen in the short term. We need to make a long term commitment, and that means making a commitment of money and people.

That’s something that that we as a company are are about to do.

David Radcliffe, Analyst, Global Mining Research: Okay. Thanks. And then just the the last one, Yooray and Edikan, all in sustaining costs up at cut a part of $100 per ounce. Was that all just related to compensation payments? Were there other things in there?

Leanne DeBrain, CFO, Perseus Mining: So a couple of things in there. So just talking specifically about the assets. I mean, Edikan had about an $80 per ounce increase due to royalties. And then there is quite a lot of expenditure on tailings expansion in this quarter for Edikan. And there was actually a big payment in the quarter for land compensation as well and related to the extension of the mining lease.

Yare similarly has got about and and when I say royalties, I’m talking about everything. So that’s also the community spend. There’s also links to the to the gold price. It was about $70 per ounce at Yara. And then additionally, there is a big there was the big finish up off of the TSF expansion for for Yara in this period.

So it was those two contributors, really.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Yeah. So so three things, essentially. Royalties in in the broadest possible sense

Leanne DeBrain, CFO, Perseus Mining: Yeah.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: The price related costs, if you will, community compensation, and sustaining capital. I mean, we so so Yaoure is one of these ones that actually is worth commenting on. I mean, I guess when we when we developed Yaoure originally, if we made a mistake, we probably didn’t plan for the success that we’ve actually had. And we have you know, with the underground coming on and and other, you know, shallow deposits, it’s pretty clear that we need more space. We do need more space to to to for tailings and and also for for waste dumps.

And so we have had to actually go out to the community to pick up some more land, and then we’ve also needed to, you know, to actually build the structures, etcetera, etcetera. So, you know, in a sense, it’s it’s it’s a price that we’re paying for for the successful expansion of that operation.

David Radcliffe, Analyst, Global Mining Research: Brilliant. Thank you. I’ll pass it on.

Nathan, Conference Moderator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, so I’ll hand back to Jeff for closing remarks.

Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO, Perseus Mining: Okay. Well, look. Thanks very much, Nathan. Yes. We’re we’re pretty pretty comfortable with where we’re positioned at the present time, and we’re looking forward to to the future.

And I think that, you know, investors can have a a similar level of optimism, particularly when you look at the quality of the team and the efforts that are being put into delivering outcomes on a consistent basis. Anyway, yes, we’ll look forward to bringing you more news as and when it’s relevant. Thank you very much.

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