Perseus Mining Aktie

Good morning, and welcome to the Perseus Mining Investor Webinar and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and CEO, Craig Jones. Thank you, Craig.

Yes. Thanks, Nathan, and welcome to the Perseus Mining quarterly webinar to discuss our March 2026 quarter report, and I'm joined on the call today by our Chief Financial Officer, Lee-Anne de Bruin. It was a good quarter for Perseus. And looking at our operating performance for the quarter, we produced 107,000 ounces of gold, which was up 18,000 ounces on the December quarter and the higher production was achieved from all 3 of our operating mines.

The weighted average all-in site cost was USD 1,748 per ounce, which was lower than the previous quarter of USD 1,800 per ounce, and that's mainly due to the higher production. And we achieved a realized gold sale price of $4,143 an ounce, which was $706 an ounce more than the previous quarter. Our average cash margin for the quarter was USD 2,394 per ounce, and that gave us a notional cash flow of -- operating cash flow of USD 252 million from all of the operations, and we finished the quarter with $817 million of net cash and bullion and Lee-Anne will speak to that later on in the call.

Given the current global market situation, I just want to address the diesel situation. We acknowledge there's a fuel supply uncertainty globally at the moment, and we continue to closely monitor our fuel supply availability and our consumption levels and our inventory positions to mitigate the risk of operational disruption in the short to medium term. We have fuel supply contracts with reputable fuel suppliers who provide us regular updates regarding our fuel stock levels and broader supply chain conditions. And at this stage, we don't have any foreseeable fuel restrictions.

In terms of costs, diesel is approximately 10% of our group's all-in site cost. So if we see sustained higher diesel costs, there may be some limited impact on our cost base. This quarter, we made some important changes to our portfolio. But firstly, at our Nyanzaga project, our drilling program enabled us to deliver an updated ore reserve, which increased our ore reserve by 73% to 4 million ounces of gold since the Nyanzaga feasibility study was completed in April 2025. And that increase is underpinned by 83,000 meters of drilling that was completed since May '24.

The increased ore reserve has extended Nyanzaga's mine life to 16 years from 11 years, including 14 years of production at greater than 200,000 ounces of gold per annum. In terms of the project itself, there's been good progress at site and the quarter -- and during the quarter, and it remains on track for first gold in January 2027. In another development last month, we announced our decision to sell our 70% interest in the Meyas Sand Gold Project in Sudan. And this followed a lengthy review of the project and consideration of both development and divestment options. We decided that divestment of the project was the best option for Perseus, and it allows us to reallocate internal resources to our existing internal development opportunities. And that transaction was completed yesterday and all funds have been received.

We also made an investment of AUD 23.7 million in gold explorer, Aurum Resources. We participated in Aurum's recent strategic share placement, taking a 9.9% interest in the issued shares of the company. And Aurum is an emerging ASX-listed explorer with their key asset being the Boundiali Gold project, which is a 3 million-ounce predevelopment and prestudy project in Côte d'Ivoire and it's located to the south and just along the strike of our Sissingué gold mine and processing hub. And the northernmost tenements are adjacent to the company's current active mining area at Bagoé.

At Yaouré, we achieved a strong quarter with increased gold production and notional cash flow. Overall, gold production for the Yaouré open pit and CMA underground was 36,000 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of USD 2,049 per ounce. A key milestone for our CMA underground development at Yaouré was achieved in January with first ore coming from the Blika portal and 1,600 ounces of gold has been produced from the CMA underground during the quarter. Yaouré produced USD 68 million of notional cash flow during the quarter. So the underground is making great progress, and we'll commence stoping operations early in this coming -- in this quarter that we're in now.

For Edikan, we've produced 45,000 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of $1,539 per ounce. And whilst our AISC was stable for the quarter, the Government of Ghana has implemented a new royalty regime that came into effect in early March, introducing a sliding scale structure. And under this framework, royalty rates increased progressively in line with rising gold prices and are capped at a maximum of 12% when the gold price exceeds $4,500 per ounce. Some of the increase in royalty will be offset or has been offset by reductions in other levies. So the growth in sustainability levy rate was reduced from 3% down to 1% of gross revenue and this was implemented at the end of March, and a 6% levy on the supply of goods and services has also been removed, providing some relief.

Edikan produced a notional cash flow of $124 million for the quarter, and notably, the Fetish and Esuajah North pit cutbacks made progress during the quarter with the approvals being received by the government, and mining has commenced at Fetish early in quarter 4.

Our Sissingué operation saw a production increase with the ramp-up of the Bagoé Antoinette deposit and associated increasing grade and tonnes milled. The complex produced 25,000 ounces of gold during the quarter at a weighted average cost of -- all-in site cost of $1,708 per ounce. Production cost decreased by about 20%. And that was due to the higher proportion of the oxide material that's being mined at the Bagoé deposit.

The notional cash flow generated by the complex for the quarter was $60 million compared with $25 million last quarter. So overall, it was a very good quarter for Sissingué.

Looking ahead, we remain on track to deliver our FY '26 production and cost guidance with gold production between 400,000 and 440,000 ounces and all-in site cost between $1,600 and $1,760 per ounce.

So I think now I'll hold it -- I'll hand over to Lee-Anne and she can talk to the financial aspects of our quarter.

Thanks, Craig. As Craig alluded to, the strong operational performance from our 3 sites and with our dedicated teams has delivered a solid financial quarter, assisted by our increased exposure to the gold price upside with the hedge book being rolled off. This has allowed for continued delivery against our stated capital management objectives.

As Craig said earlier, we ended the quarter with cash and bullion of $817 million, which was up $62 million on the last quarter. And this is despite our strong investments in our growth projects, Nyanzaga, CMA Underground and ongoing exploration. Perseus' liquidity is growing and is sitting at USD 1.2 billion, and this includes a USD 400 million undrawn debt facility that was secured in December '25. And Importantly, this number of USD 1.2 billion excludes our USD 245 million of liquid investments in relation to Predictive Discovery and Aurum and excludes the $260 million that we will -- we've received in April in relation to the Meyas Sand Growth Project -- Gold Project, should I say.

During the quarter, Perseus Board also then approved a $0.05 per share interim dividend equating to $46 million. So this is up 100% on the prior year period and interim period last year. Where available, trading opportunities existed. We continue to execute our buyback in the market. Our share buyback program did a total of $26 million in the quarter at an average price of $5.39. And as mentioned earlier, we continue to wind down our committed hedge position during the quarter with a further reduction from 11% to 9% of the 3-year forecast production.

The increase in cash and bullion to $800 million gives consideration to the operational cash flows of $217 million that we delivered from our operations, capital investment in our growth projects. There was $63 million in the quarter invested in progressing in the Nyanzaga growth project -- or Gold Project. We then had $18.6 million invested in the development of the CMA underground. Exploration drilling at all of our assets equated to $8 million, and there was ongoing sustaining capital including numerous TSF works across all 3 of our sites. We purchased a 9.9% share in Aurum for AUD 24 million. And, importantly, we continued contributions to our host countries with $42 million in corporate and other taxes being paid.

We also then returned, as you can see, and I mentioned earlier, we returned to our shareholders $64 million, which included the interim dividend paid and $26 million on the share buyback. We just flagged this to show that we're tracking the all-in site cost that we present, we always track to at Perseus versus the all-in sustaining metric, which the World Gold Council reports on. And the key difference here is really the produced versus sold metric that we use as the denominator. And then we had an accumulation of inventory movements, which was largely inventory buildups at Yaouré with increased mining and building up of stockpiles and an additional small impact as a result of a shipment timing at Sissingué.

With that, I'll hand back to Craig to talk about our growth projects.

Thank you, Lee-Anne, and a great set of financial results as well for the quarter. So Nyanzaga Gold Project, as I mentioned earlier, remains on budget and schedule with first gold anticipated in January 2027. Overall, the project progress has reached 48% complete by the end of the quarter, and the total cost incurred to date is $220 million. As of the 31st of March, the project recorded over 5.4 million hours worked with no lost time injuries, and the workforce has increased to more than 3,162 personnel and continues to ramp up in line with construction activity.

Significant progress was made over the period on all major procurement associated with the project -- so all major procurement is associated with the process plant is complete. The fabrication of the mills, the gyratory crusher and the thickeners have been completed and are in transit to site. Structural steel fabrication has reached 78% completion and progressive site deliveries are underway. The TSF construction has commenced, and it's ahead of schedule. The pre-strip mining activities have commenced, the carbon in leach tanks installation is ongoing with the first 4 tanks nearing their full strake height and the non-process infrastructure is also progressing well.

So I look forward to continuing to provide more updates on this transformation project over the coming months.

The CMA underground project at Yaouré is also progressing well. As mentioned earlier, we had our first ore mined out of the Blika portal in January, paving the way for production from the first stope, which will be early in the June quarter. At the end of the March quarter, nearly 1,600 meters of lateral development had been achieved and the high-voltage electrical power supply to the underground portals was also completed. So the project is making great progress. We've spent around USD 63 million and the stoping ore, which is coming out this quarter is an important feed for the Yaouré mill. And from a sustainability perspective, we've had a strong focus on vehicles and driving across the business with the implementation of a number of key initiatives. including a review of our vehicle and driving standards, delivering defensive driver training and progressive installation of vehicle and driver monitoring systems. And this effort reflects the reality that vehicles associated with mining and particularly remote operation remains our highest safety risk.

So very key and very important focus for the business at the moment from a safety perspective. Our safety indicators remain strong with a TRIFR of 0.75. But as I've said before, our statistics only tell part of the story that true safety performance is measured in human outcomes, and we continue to drive ongoing safety improvements across our business.

In terms of our economic contributions in the countries that we operate, our total economic contribution for the quarter was $282 million, including $179 million in local procurement, $91 million in taxes and royalties and $1.3 million in direct community contributions. And we maintain about 95% of our workforce coming from the host countries from which we operate, which really does reflect a genuine commitment to building local capability, just not for our operations today but for our future great opportunities as well. So this was a great quarter for Perseus. We delivered a strong operating performance and continued to build on our cash position whilst making meaningful progress on our strategic growth projects. We made some significant portfolio improvements and all whilst maintaining high sustainability standards. So with a strong balance sheet, high-margin operations and a clear growth path, we believe we are well positioned to continue to deliver strong long-term value for all our shareholders.

So thank you, and I'll now open the floor up to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Richard Knights with Barrenjoey.

Just a couple of cost questions maybe to start with. Firstly, you mentioned that 10% of the all-in site cost was diesel. Is that an average over the past quarter? Or is that using current spot prices? Just trying to get a feel for where that sits.

Yes. So that would have been in our average for the financial year. So -- and it would have been with spot prices probably in about February.

Okay. And what are spot prices? What do they look like now relative to February?

It's slightly different for all the jurisdictions, which is hard to say. So for example, Côte d’'Ivoire is extremely regulated. So we're not seeing the massive increases. But for example, in Ghana, which is slightly less regulated, we are sort of seeing the roll-on of the spot effects there. So we're seeing sort of similar to what you're seeing in the Australian market in Ghana, where prices are going up probably 50%.

Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay, fine. And then Nyanzaga just in terms of procurement, I mean, I think you mentioned that you've finalized your -- everything is being procured basically. But is there any scope for cost escalation there? Or is that all -- is that pretty much complete now?

I think if you look at the -- what we've spent and committed, we're, I think, roughly 60-something-percent of the projects committed.

Yes. Correct.

So all the major items are covered there. So the short answer is we think it's manageable. We're running through kind of all of our definitive estimate work at the moment. And we'll obviously update the market when that's completed. But we're not seeing anything at this point in time that's giving us any concern.

Nothing material. I mean a large amount of our procurement was contracted and secured last year. So I'm not going to see -- I'm not seeing the major material items.

Yes. Okay. Great. And finally, just on Aurum, I mean I know you're limited in what you can say, but there's obviously some proximity to Sissingué. At a high level, do you see this as a sort of interesting stand-alone opportunity? Or is there potentially some synergy there with Sissingué coming to the end of its mine life?

Potentially. I think if you look at Aurum and they were running a placement in which we chose to participate in, I think it's a strategic investment on our behalf. I think that the -- as I said before, some of those northern tenements are nearby to where we're currently mining at Bagoé, but also Caigen and the team have done a great job of the exploration there, and we were keen to support that and see where things take this. But at this stage, it's really just a strategic investment.

Your next question comes from Adam Baker at Macquarie.

Just firstly, maybe on -- I understand, pretty good outcome there, $260 million from the sale of that project, a valuation significantly above what market expectations were. So just flagging, is there any use for the cash here? Like have you given any consideration to further shareholder returns through a special dividend or whatnot or are you just going to bank the cash at this stage?

We'll consider all that. I think, obviously, as we come towards the end of the year and we start talking about dividends and make decisions on what we're going to pay as a dividend this year. Obviously, it all contributes to our cash position and contributes to that conversation, but no decisions have been made at this point in time.

Yes. Okay. And secondly, at Sissingué, just the difference between sales and production. Was this just a timing issue? Or could you just touch on the difference there?

Yes. It's just a shipping timing difference. That's all, Adam.

Okay. And then thirdly, just on the fuel supply situation. I mean you mentioned that you've got contracts with all the major suppliers. You're not seeing impacts at the moment from a supply point of view. Could you just maybe talk to what sort of inventories you generally tend to store on site? How many weeks of fuel supply that you have there? And you mentioned you're not seeing any angst, I guess, all okay from that perspective. But yes, maybe you could touch on that.

Yes, sure. So we generally have between 1 to 2 weeks of fuel on site for all of our sites. I think just stepping back towards the supply issue, the supply issue for us is slightly different to your Australian mines because a lot of the fuel is sourced out of Nigeria in those areas and Côte d'Ivoire specifically has its own refineries. So that said, we are continually looking at whether there's opportunity to increase our stock levels.

In Ghana, we've got a long-standing relationship with Zen Fuel and they have got large quantums of fuel on -- actually in Ghana that they have set their stock up for just their mining companies. So we continue to manage the risk and looking at it. But all the work we've done in the last couple of weeks doesn't indicate anything around the supply issue. It's more just looking at the pricing issue. So -- but we will continue to monitor that on an ongoing basis.

The next question is from David Radclyffe at Global Mining Research. He's -- I'll just read it out for David. He's asked for Yaouré specifically, can you provide some expectations for this quarter? And also if the guidance includes the CMA pre-commercial ounces or not?

The guidance for the quarter is that we remain within the guidance range that we have published. And as we mentioned in the last quarterly report at the lower half of that guidance, so that remains. And yes, the CMA underground ounces are an important part of that production for the final quarter.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. So I'll now hand back to Craig for closing remarks.

Okay. Thanks, Nathan, and thanks, everyone, for your participation and interest. I really just want to make a call out to the great people that create the results that we presented today. Perseus has a dedicated team of people across the globe, and they show up every day and live the values of teamwork, integrity, commitment and achievement. And I just want to thank them all for their contributions and thank you for your attendance.

Good morning, and welcome to the Perseus Mining Investor Webinar and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and CEO, Craig Jones. Thank you, Craig.

Yes. Thanks, Nathan, and welcome to Perseus Mining's December 2026 (sic) [ 2025 ] Interim Financial Report. I'm joined today on the call by Lee-Anne de Bruin, our Chief Financial Officer. and I'll hand over to her shortly. But before I do, Perseus produced a strong operating result during the half.

And with our low cost and favorable gold prices, we're pleased to increase our interim dividend to $0.05 per share. And the other news that we released today is a substantial increase in the ore reserves and mineral resource estimate for Nyanzaga, which extends the life of that mine by 5 years and really highlights the quality of that asset. So I'll pass over to Lee-Anne now to take you through the details of our report. However, before I do, I'd like to acknowledge Lee-Anne and her team for the tireless work to produce this financial report, and thanks go to her and her team for the excellent work.

Thanks, Craig. And hi, everyone. Welcome to our call. The 6 months to December delivered a very strong solid operational performance as our mines transitioned into new mining areas and we made significant progress with our capital growth projects. Perseus produced 188,841 ounces in the 6 months with an all-in site cost of $1,649 per ounce.

The average gold price achieved was up 38% at $3,241 an ounce. And our cash margin per ounce was up at $1,592 per ounce for the 6 months, generating notional cash flow of $301 million and ending the half year with $755 million in cash and bullion on the balance sheet. The operational performance delivered by our Perseus sites has translated into a great financial performance for the 6 months ended December '26 (sic) [ '25 ].

As CFO, I have the privilege of being able to share these results with you, which represent the efforts of all the Perseus team over the last 6 months. Thanks to each member who has contributed to this result. We couldn't do it without you. Revenue for the 6 months increased by 5% against the 2024 comparative period to $608 million. And this was largely due to the 38% increase in the average gold price realized, as I've mentioned, offset by our anticipated reduction in gold produced during the 6 months.

Just quickly focusing on cost of sales, which plays into the EBITDA number. This increased on the comparative period, and this is largely attributable to the higher royalties during the period, culminating with higher gold prices. In addition, as we've mentioned in our quarterly, we had a 2% increase in royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire, totaling $20 million, which was included in this period, of which $9 million related to the 6 months ended June '25.

Further, the primary ore resources for Yaouré have transitioned to the Yaouré open pits and Edikan has transitioned to the Nkosuo open pit, both of which have higher concentrations of waste and lower overall grades.

This obviously would increase the total cost to produce each ounce compared to December 2024. The slight increase in revenue was offset by the increase in cost of sales and delivered an EBITDA of $316 million for the 6 months.

Moving to profit after tax. This was -- this achieved was USD 186 million, 8% lower than the comparative period. Key items to note were that the depreciation and amortization decreased by 46% on the comparative period, mainly driven by lower ore tonnes mined, resulting in lower mine property and deferred stripping amortization. And this was also as a result of the completion of the Edikan, AG and Fetish pits and the Yaouré Stage 1 and the CMA Stage 3 pits by June '25.

We also incurred a foreign exchange loss of about USD 27 million, which was due to the impact of the weaker U.S. dollar against the euro on a certain balance sheet transactions such as bank balances. Overall, the group has maintained stable profits during the period and generated net cash from operating activities for the half year of USD 194 million. EPS for the period was at $0.1210 per share. And as Craig mentioned earlier on, Perseus Board of Directors approved an interim dividend of $0.05 per share, which is up 100% on the December '25 interim dividend, and I'll speak a little bit back to that shortly.

Importantly and always has been a focus of Perseus as we pivot to the balance sheet, the financial performance in the 6 months has positioned Perseus well to deliver on our future growth opportunities. As mentioned earlier, we ended the year with USD 755 million of cash and bullion on our balance sheet, and this is after investing USD 175 million in our growth projects and exploration.

In December '25, Perseus successfully refinanced and upsized its existing USD 300 million facility to USD 400 million. This also includes a $100 million accordion option and has a 3-year term with options to extend for a further 2 years. The cash and bullion, coupled with the newly upsized and undrawn facility, give Perseus just under $1.2 billion in liquidity to deploy in further opportunities.

In addition to this, Perseus also had listed securing investments of about USD 230 million, which, as you'd be aware, include our 17.8% investment in Predictive. And capital returns to shareholders, in line with our dividend policy, which aims always to reward shareholders, while maintaining balanced capital structure to fund our corporate growth objectives.

The Perseus Board resolved to declare an interim dividend of $0.05 per share, up 100% on the FY '25 interim dividend. This dividend was declared by the Board, giving consideration to the balance sheet position and upcoming forecast cash flows from our 3 existing operations and the development of the project in Tanzania, Nyanzaga.

In addition, during the 6 months, Perseus renewed the share buyback program at AUD 100 million in August last year. And as of today, Perseus has repurchased AUD 9 million worth of those shares of the renewed share buyback program. Perseus has maintained a disciplined commitment to its articulated capital management framework during the 6 months, and we've ensured operational discipline to deliver reliable and strong operating cash flows, while obviously ensuring we meet our commitments to all our stakeholders.

As I mentioned, the 6 months delivered $301 million in notional cash flow. Importantly, we paid $144 million to our host governments in corporate income taxes, withholding taxes and royalties. And we made further economic contributions of $340 million, which includes local procurement and community contributions.

We've then also focused on our balance sheet resilience, which I've spoken to earlier on with a liquidity of $1.2 billion. And then we have then invested ongoing discretionary investment, and this is evidenced through USD 175 million we've invested in our projects, of which $150 million went to growth capital at Nyanzaga, CMA underground and Bagway and about USD 25 million in exploration, some of which has delivered the increase in the Nyanzaga reserve that was released this morning. This brings me to the end of the financial presentation, and I'll now hand back to Craig.

Yes. Thanks, Lee-Anne. And looking ahead, so for FY '26 and as outlined in our December quarterly release, our production guidance remains unchanged. So group gold production in the range of 400,000 to 440,000 ounces and with production obviously weighted to the second half of the year.

Our group all-in site cost guidance range has increased as we outlined in our quarterly from a range of $1,460 to $1,620 per ounce to a new range of $1,600 to $1,750 or $1,760 an ounce. And that really has been -- the guidance has been updated to reflect the increase in gold price assumptions and the resulting increase in royalty costs. We've also allowed for the 2% royalty increase in Côte d'Ivoire for Yaouré and Sissingué, whilst we discuss the fiscal arrangements with the Ivorian government to result in a fair and equitable distribution of mining proceeds through these unprecedented gold prices.

Our gold price -- our gold production is weighted to the second half and with the inclusion of the new higher-grade ore sources at Edikan and Sissingué and as per our mine plan. And it's also expected that Yaouré will produce in the lower half of its cost guidance -- sorry, our production guidance.

Nyanzaga, so during the quarter, we progressed our organic growth work, which focuses on resource to reserve conversion at our existing mines. It is also focused on brownfield exploration and the development of a greenfield's exploration portfolio. And along with our half 1 '26 results this morning, we're pleased to release the updated ore reserve for the Nyanzaga Gold project in Tanzania to 4 million ounces. This represents a 73% increase from 2.3 million ounce ore reserve reported in April 2025 and as part of the updated Nyanzaga project feasibility study.

The mine life is extended to 16 years, and that includes 14 years of production at greater than 200,000 ounces per annum, which cements Nyanzaga as a long-life, low-cost mine and a cornerstone asset for Perseus for many years to come. The ore reserve increase at Nyanzaga is based on further cutback to a large-scale open pit mining operation as outlined in the feasibility study.

The total gold production over a 16-year period is currently estimated to be 3.5 million ounces based on JORC 2012 probable ore reserve of 90.9 million tonnes at 1.38 grams a tonne for 4 million ounces of gold production. And gold production exceeds 200,000 ounces per annum from FY '28 to FY '41.

Applying Perseus's assumed long-term gold price assumption of $3,000 an ounce, the Nyanzaga AISC metric updated to $1,621 an ounce over the life of mine. I recently got back from my second trip to Tanzania and the progress we're making on the ground in Nyanzaga is fantastic.

The steel erection has commenced in the milling facility and pre-stripping of the Tusker deposit has also commenced. So the project is well on track to enable first gold pour in January 2027. We're also progressing with updated mineral reserve estimates for our other existing mines with an update to Yaouré expected towards the end of this financial year, and Edikan will follow in December 2026.

So those 2 updated estimates are focused on extension of the mine life of our existing assets. This slide really highlights the diversified nature of our portfolio. Operating across 3 African countries, we have ore reserves of 6.69 million ounces and an additional 2.85 ounces in foreign estimates at Sudan.

The release of our update to the Nyanzaga reserves and resources is the first step of our work to highlight the potential of our existing portfolio through resource conversion, and we look forward to updating the market on Yaouré and Edikan later on this year. Alongside our financial and operating performance, Perseus continues to deliver tangible value to our host communities and governments. This slide captures the breadth of our contributions.

In the first half of 2026, our economic contribution reached $484 million across our host countries, and this includes $308 million in local procurement, which directly supports national supply chains and local business development. We also contributed $144 million in taxes and royalties and $3.37 million in community contributions as we continue to support our local development funds and key community initiatives.

Our workforce is overwhelmingly comes from the regions in which we operate with 95% of our workforce coming from our host countries, and this is a reflection of our commitment to building local capability and building the skills base that our future growth depends on. For our safety indicators reflect a strong safety performance, but the reality is that true safety performance is ultimately reflected in human outcomes, not statistics and the recent fatalities at Sissingué are a testament to that.

Sustainability is at the core of our purpose and guides how we deliver results, creating value and building resilience. And that's what makes Perseus a trusted partner in achieving its mission of creating material benefits for all stakeholders in fair and equitable proportions. During the half, we continued to deliver solid operating performance, generate strong financial returns and progress our strategic growth objectives, all while maintaining high sustainability standards.

With a strong balance sheet, high-margin operations and clear growth path, we believe we're well positioned to continue delivering long-term value for all of our shareholders and stakeholders. So thank you, and I'll hand over to the floor for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Ben Wood.

I was just going to ask one on the government negotiations with the Côte d'Ivoire government on royalties sort of moving forward, what sort of impacts? Do we know the granularity of what to expect moving forward? Or are they still sort of taking place?

Thanks, Ben. Yes, I mean we sort of have a little bit of understanding, okay, but we're not in a position to sort of put that out there. But I think the important thing is we don't see any radical change from what we've got today and Ivorian government are being very open and very pragmatic around the impact of wholesale royalty changes. So the point of the whole thing is that they will be releasing a new mining code sometime this year, and they want to make sure that any changes are ratified into the new mining code.

And so they're sort of consulting various companies and engaging strongly, are they...

Yes, they...

Then [indiscernible] a hard line on it. No, very highly engaged, very open. We had meetings. The industry are very unified together in this. So it's actually probably one of the best I've actually seen in my history of working where the industry has mobilized and working very collaboratively with the government...

There are no further questions at this time. So I'll hand back to Craig for closing remarks.

Thanks, Nathan. I think we're pretty pleased with our results and the performance of the company in the first half, and it really sort of bodes well for our delivery of the second half. I'm very pleased to be able to release the $0.05 per share dividend. I think that's a positive indication of how things are going and also the upgrade in the resource and reserves at Nyanzaga, which really shows that Nyanzaga is a cornerstone asset for Perseus for many, many years to come and will be a long-life, low-cost asset.

So some fantastic work going on the business. I really want to thank everyone within the organization for their support and their efforts to create the results that we have created and look forward to presenting the next round of updates in the next quarter.

Good morning, and welcome to the Perseus Mining Investor Webinar and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining, Managing Director and CEO, Craig Jones. Thank you, Craig.

Yes. Thanks, Nathan, and welcome to the Perseus Mining quarterly webinar to discuss our December quarterly report. And I'm joined here today with Lee-Anne, our CFO.

Let me start by acknowledging the tragic loss of two employees of our haulage contractor, Binkadi, who work at our Bagoé mine, and they are involved in a tragic off-site vehicle accident 2 weeks ago. These deaths have been incredibly sad for the team at Perseus and particularly our Sissingué operations, and we've been supporting the families of both individuals, as well as the entire team at Sissingué since the accident incurred and will continue to do so in this very difficult time.

We've commenced an internal investigation into the accident and cooperating fully with the relevant Ivorian authorities to ensure appropriate processes a following. Nothing is more important to Perseus than the safety and well-being of the people that work for us and with us. And this remains our highest priority across the group.

We are committed to the rigorous application and oversight of our safety systems and to ensuring that all employees and contractors carry their work in a safe and responsible manner. This tragic loss reinforces the need for constant vigilance in all aspects of our work, including travel associated with remote operations.

As we turn to our operations through the December quarter, our performance reflected a period where all of our sites transitioned into new mining areas, transitioning to new mining fronts introduced as new complexities to mining operations. And despite this, we delivered a strong operational result and continue to generate robust cash flows at the same time as making meaningful progress on our growth initiatives.

Our gold production for the quarter was 88,888 ounces at an all-in site cost of USD 1,800 per ounce. The increase in our all-in site cost to USD 1,800 per ounce, versus Q1 FY '26 is primarily driven by higher royalties linked to the increased gold price achieved during the period and an additional 2% royalty paid on revenue at Côte d’Ivoire. The payment of the additional 2% was done in good faith as part of ongoing negotiations between the mining industry and the government of Côte d’Ivoire in relation to formalizing a revised fiscal arrangement, which takes into account their inequitable distribution of profits in the current high gold price environment.

A total of $20 million was paid in FY '26 Q2 in relation to the additional royalty of which $4 million related to the current December quarter, $5 million related to September quarter and $11 million related to half 2 of FY '25. So just to reiterate, the Q2 FY '26 all-in site cost in this report only includes the additional royalty paid in this quarter. Combined gold sales from all three operations totaled 86,607 ounces sold at an average sale price of USD 3,437 per ounce, delivering a robust cash margin of USD 1,637 per ounce, capitalizing on strong market conditions.

The notional cash flow for the quarter was USD 145 million with the quarter ending with a net cash and bullion of USD 755 million. For the December half, the group produced 188,841 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of USD 1,649 per ounce and an average sale gold sale price of USD 3,241 per ounce, generating notional cash flow of USD 301 million.

Yaouré produced just over 32,000 ounces of gold for the quarter, which was down 42% on the previous quarter. The quarter-on-quarter decrease in production is primarily due to lower mill head grade resulting from a higher reliance on lower-grade stockpile material than planned, along with the planned transition in all sources from the CMA open pit to the Yaouré open pit. The implementation of improved grade control practices at Yaouré along with higher strip ratios during the period resulted in lower direct mill feed from the Yaouré pit, and the need to supplement lower grade stockpiles in greater proportions.

The grade control process is now well established at Yaouré and mining rates have substantially improved, resulting in increased direct fee of the Yaouré open pit ore. This, along with the addition of higher grade -- the higher-grade CMA underground in half two is expected to result in higher grade mill feed. Production cost for the quarter was USD 1,574 per ounce at an all-in site cost of USD 2,092 per ounce. The jump in all-in site costs versus Q1 was driven primarily or predominantly by lower gold production, resulting in higher fixed cost per ounce, as well as higher royalties and timing related increase in sustaining capital as a result of the timing of the life of mine tailings pipeline relocation.

We sold 34,000 ounces of gold from Yaouré at a weighted average sale price of USD 3,243 per ounce, which delivered an average cash margin of USD 1,151 per ounce. National operating cash generated by Yaouré for the quarter was USD 37 million. Reconciliation between the block model and the mill for the last 3 months is 20% positive on tonnes and 11% negative on grade for a 13% increase in contained gold ounces. This continues to trend from the previous quarter with higher mine tonnage offsetting lower grades through the -- though the overall metal reconciliation has slightly improved. The upper levels of the Yaouré open pit is continuing to yield more gold as grade control drilling extend mineralized structures.

Edikan delivered a strong quarter with 38,000 ounces of gold produced at an increase of nearly 17% on the previous quarter. Production cost for the quarter was USD 1,097 per ounce and the all-in site cost of USD 1,535 per ounce, which was down 4% on the previous quarter. We sold 37,000 ounces of gold from Edikan at a weighted average sale price of USD 3,700 per ounce, resulting in an average cash margin of USD 2,165 per ounce, and national operating cash generation of USD 83 million.

Mill time and recovery were 89% and 87%, respectively, largely in line with the targeted key performance indicators. Reconciliation between the block model and the mill for the last 3 months is 9% positive on tonnes and 3% negative on grade for a 5% increase in contained ounces, which is a substantial improvement on the last quarter.

This improvement in operating outcomes for the quarter is largely due to full mining access being available at the Nkosuo pit, allowing the mining sequence to be restored and improving mining conditions. Edikan's gold production is expected to continue to increase over the next 2 quarters as grade from Nkosuo continues to climb. Plan to mine cutbacks of Fetish and Esuajah North pits are currently progressing with applications submitted to the relevant regulators for approval to commence mining in both areas.

During the quarter, the Sissingué complex produced 18,000 ounces of gold, which was up nearly 60% on the September quarter. This Sissingué complex results are attributed to mining and processing operations at Sissingué Gold mine, together with satellite mining operations comprising of the Fimbiasso gold mine located approximately 65 kilometers from Sissingué processing facilities and the newly developed Bagoé gold project located approximately 137 kilometers from Sissingué processing facilities.

Both the Fimbiasso and Airport West pits were completed during the quarter, and ore is now being sourced from the Sissingué Main Pit and the Bagoé Antoinette deposit. Mining at Bagoé commenced during the quarter at the Antoinette deposit following the completion of the Fimbiasso operations. Production cost was USD 1,545 per ounce, and an all-in site cost was USD 1,044 per ounce.

The improvement in the all-in site cost is largely driven by -- driven following the introduction of the high-grade ore from the Bagoé Gold project, partially offset by higher royalties resulting from higher realized gold prices and the additional royalty payment to the government of Côte d’Ivoire described earlier. We sold 14,000 ounces of gold from Sissingué at a weighted average sale price of USD 3,227 per ounce, resulting in an average cash margin of USD 1,383 per ounce and a national operating cash of USD 25 million for the quarter.

Mill run time improved to 97% from the previous quarter, 91% the previous quarter is 91%, and gold recovery was steady at 89.5%. A reconciliation between the block model and the mill for the last 3 months is 18% positive on tonnes and 17% negative on grade for a 2% reduction in contained ounces. The lower grade performance is the result of mining narrow variably mineralized structures at Sissingué Main, Fimbiasso West and Airport West Pits with higher-than-anticipated dilution in several benches.

Operational controls, including blast design and refinement and improvement -- improved ore mining control initiatives remain in place to minimize dilution and maintain alignment between the model and mill outcomes going forward. As mining is now focused on the Antoinette peak at Bagoé and the Sissingué Main pit as the primary mill feed sources, mill feed grade is expected to increase for the remainder of the year with the introduction of the higher grade ore from Antoinette.

Looking ahead for FY '26, our production guidance remains unchanged. Group gold production in the range of 400,000 to 440,000 ounces with production weighted to the second half of the year. The group all-in site cost guidance range has increased from USD 14.60 and USD 16.20 per ounce to USD 1,600 and USD 1,760 per ounce. The group all-in site cost increase in guidance has been updated to reflect increased gold price assumptions and the result in increase in royalty costs.

We've also allowed for the 2% royalty increase in Côte d’Ivoire for Yaouré and Sissingué, whilst we discuss fiscal arrangements with the Ivorian government that result in fair and equitable distribution and mining proceeds at these unprecedented gold prices. As we've discussed previously, our gold production is weighted to half 2 of FY '26 with the inclusion of the new high-grade ore sources at Edikan and Sissingué that are included as part of our mine plan. However, due to the performance of Yaouré in Q2 FY '26, it is expected that Yaouré will produce in the lower half of its guidance.

Before I hand over to Lee-Anne, I just want to briefly discuss growth. During the quarter, we progressed our organic growth strategy, which focuses on resource to reserve conversion at our existing mines, brownfields exploration and development of greenfields exploration portfolio. We're progressing our update to our mineral reserve estimates for our existing mines with an update -- updated estimate for Nyanzaga anticipated in quarter 3 of FY '26 in the March quarter, followed by an update to Yaouré towards the end of the financial year. Edikan will follow towards December 2026. These updated estimates are focused on extension of mine life of our existing assets.

From an inorganic growth perspective, Perseus progressed an offer to acquire the remaining shares of predictive discovery during the quarter. Perseus first acquired a stake in predictive in August 2024 for a total investment of just under AUD 90 million, initially securing a 19.9% stake in the gold explorer and were later diluted down to 17.9%, whilst we remain as predictive largest shareholders.

This has been a great investment. And at our current share prices, the investment is now valued at more than AUD 400 million, more than 4x what we paid for it. Our decision to make an offer to acquire the remaining shares of predictive was supported by our knowledge of the asset and Perseus' strategy to build a superior portfolio of African gold assets.

At the end of the day, Robex revised matching offer full predictive was ultimately deemed superior by Predictive forward and resulted in the rejection of our offer. While at this stage, we have no plans to revise our position on Predictive, we will continue to monitor the market conditions. In terms of inorganic growth, we're constantly assessing the best ways to execute our growth strategy and provide best value outcomes for our shareholders.

Now I'll pass over to Lee-Anne to speak on some of the financial aspects.

Thanks very much, Craig, and hello, everyone, and happy New Year. I just thought it's too late to be doing that. The quarter delivered a very strong closing cash and bullion balance of USD 755 million, which was down $82 million on the previous quarter. And this is built up as a result of the contribution from our operating margin of USD 132 million.

We continue to invest strongly in our capital investment programs, about $60 million went into that, which included development capital for the Nyanzaga Gold project of about $28 million and the CMA underground of about $14 million during the quarter. We will continue to make contributions to our host governments with $30 million paid in taxes during the quarter.

Perseus balance sheet remains strong with increased liquidity, we're looking forward to further strong forecast cash flows through the fiscal year. We also, as you would have seen in December announced that we refinanced and upsized the debt facility, replacing the existing $300 million facility. The amended facility has been increased to USD 400 million plus a USD 100 million accordion option. It has a 3-year term plus an option to extend for 2 years. So this takes it out to 2031.

We achieved very competitive pricing through strong demand, resulting in a total margin reduction of 125 basis points from the existing facility. Amendments were made to provide Perseus with more flexibility across a range of terms, including our financial covenants, and this really reflected the continued enhancement of Perseus' credit profile. And I'd like to thank Nedbank and Citi for their assistance and all the banks that have come on board through the process and our continued support of our financiers.

Shifting our head to hedging. In this current rising gold price environment, Perseus has continued to ensure the hedging strategy evolves, ensuring we remain focused on measured downside protection, whilst always maintaining as much upside opportunity as possible. During the quarter, we further reduced the committed hedging position from 14% to 11% of our 3-year production rolling off a large number of the fixed forward contracts. We continue to protect against the downside -- downside with -- and this is obviously to ensure that as we make investment decisions for all life of mine extensions across all our operations, had some level of downside protection, and we have about 215,000 put options, which are all uncommitted in place at an average price of $2,619 per ounce.

As always, to provide for clarity reconciliation between the all-in site costs used by Perseus to the all-in sustaining cost metric with the key variances relating to produce versus gold sold as the denominator and corporate administration costs. The average all-in site cost for the quarter, as Craig has mentioned, was USD 1,800 per ounce, which is higher than the Q1 FY '26 restated all-in site cost of USD 1,516.

This increase in the -- in this quarter-on-quarter is largely attributable, as Craig spoke to, is to the higher royalties driven by increased gold price achieved during the quarter and the additional 2% royalties paid on revenue in Côte d’Ivoire. The additional 2% was paid to the government of Côte d’Ivoire despite how our stability afforded to Yaouré and Sissingué, and the Sissingué conventions. Agreement was reached with the government to pay an additional 2% for FY '25 in a good phase as part of our ongoing negotiations between the mining industry and the government of Côte d’Ivoire and in relation to formalizing a revised fiscal arrangement, which takes into account fair and equitable distribution of profits in the current high gold price environment.

We'll update you as we go through that, but we are appreciative of the nature and the style in which we're engaging with the Ivorian government and which the industry is working collectively together to get an outcome that is -- that works for both industry and the Ivorian government.

I'll now hand over to Craig.

Thanks, Lee-Anne. And then we'll move on to our organic growth projects. We'll start with Nyanzaga. So Nyanzaga remains on budget and schedule with first gold anticipated in January 2027. Construction activities on site continued during the quarter with several key workfronts achieving significant progress. A total of $262 million has been committed up to the end of December, which is half of the approved budget, and of the USD 262 million $161 million has been incurred.

The resettlement housing project is closing in on completion with the final 10 homes expected to be delivered before the end of January. Fabrication of the SAG and Ball mill continued during the quarter, the construction and installation of which are on the current project schedule, critical path and are progressing well ahead of schedule. The camp construction progressed to 70% complete with 32 senior rooms occupied and a further 30 rooms expected to be handed over by the end of January. And the tailings storage facility remains ahead of schedule with clearing and topsoil removal. Detailed design is complete and procurement is well advanced. Importantly, the pre-strip activities for the Tusker deposit have commenced.

At our CMA underground development at Yaouré, Q2 FY '26 saw strong progress with all four declines under development and a total of 800 meters of development achieved to date. We achieved a major milestone this month with -- this is in January with the first ore mine from the Blika portal. First ore was achieved through development mining and the stoping operations are anticipated to commence in Q4 of FY '26.

Project development is progressing to plan with USD 44.8 million incurred up until the end of December 2025, and commercial production remains scheduled to be reached in Q3 FY '27. The CMA underground total development capital has increased by $9 million from the approved $172 million to $181 million due to the requirement for remediation of the eastern wall in the CMA pit to medicate access risks from ground instability.

Alongside our financial and operating performance, Perseus continues to deliver tangible value to our host communities and governments and this slide captures the breadth of our contribution. In the quarter, our total economic contribution reached USD 269 million across our host countries, and this included $167 million in local procurement, which directly supports national supply chains and local business development.

We also contributed $85 million in taxes and royalties and $1.5 million in community contributions as we continue to support local development funds and key community initiatives. Our workforce is overwhelmingly comes from the regions in which we operate with 95% of employees coming from our host countries. This is a reflection of our commitment to building local capability and building the skills base that our future growth depends on.

Although our safety indicators reflect very strong safety performance with a TRIFR of 0.83 and an LTIFR 0.00 up until the end of December. The reality is that the true safety performance is ultimately reflected in human outcomes not statistics, and our recent fatalities at Sissingué are a testament to this. Sustainability is at the core of our purpose and guides how we deliver results, creating value and building resilience, and that's what makes Perseus as a trusted partner in achieving its mission of creating material benefits for all stakeholders in fair and equitable proportions.

Before I hand over to any questions, I want to acknowledge the hard work and commitment from our teams across the business. The quarter reflected a challenging period as all of our sites transition to new primary ore sources. The teams completed this challenge at the same time as continuing to improve operating practices and discipline. Despite this, we continued to deliver solid operating performance, generate strong financial returns and progress our strategic growth projects. or while maintaining high sustainability standards. With a strong balance sheet, high-margin operations and a clear growth path, we believe we're well positioned to continue delivering long-term value for our stakeholders and shareholders.

Thank you. Now I'll open the floor up to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Richard Knights at Barrenjoey.

Just on Yaouré, can you give us a feeling as if -- are you still feeding the plant with stockpiled ore? Or are you now getting all the ore from the Yaouré pit? How should we think about the grade going forward over the next sort of 6 months to end the year?

Yes. So we're predominantly feeding expert or moving forward for the rest of the year. So a lot of that's dependent on stockpile is behind us.

Okay. Any -- can you perhaps be a little bit more explicit with that in terms of a grade range or...

So if you look at -- I mean, the Yaouré grade, I think, is in our mineral reserve estimates. So that will give you an indication on grade from Yaouré. And then obviously, in the second half, we're starting to bring in the CMA underground ore and with the stoping, so the bulk of the ore really in that fourth quarter is when you'd expect to see the bulk of the underground ore starting to be delivered.

Okay. And maybe just one on the new fiscal regime in Côte d’Ivoire. Can you give us an indication about the kinds of things being discussed? Is it just an increase in royalty rates? Or are there other elements being discussed as well?

So I think -- I mean with gold prices the way they are. Obviously, governments are looking to maximize their sort of recovery of revenues as a result of high gold prices. So we're discussing just general taxation and how governments take their share of proceeds from the operations.

So basically, we're having broad conversations at this point in time on that.

The reason we decided to pay the royalty in good faith is we wanted to be having a productive conversation on how to best achieve the desired outcomes of both ourselves and the government. And we didn't want to be talking about penalties and all these other things. So that's why we took the decision to do what we did. But the conversation is productive and proactive between industry more broadly and the government, and we're continuing about those conversations.

Yes. And do you have a feeling in terms of the sort of time frame to finalizing the new fiscal region?

No, not really. I think these things are -- they're complex conversations and could take a little while.

Yes. I mean the Ivorian government is obviously formalizing the new mining code, which is understood. So they're wanting to finalize it before they release the new mining code so that they can capture it in that. I think just importantly, it is important for you just to emphasize, we do have stability agreements. But we are -- we do understand the government's position that in these high gold prices, they don't necessarily have the structures in place that they feel can give them an equitable share.

To answer your original question, just in terms of are we only talking about royalty, I think we're trying to steer the government to other mechanisms like increases in corporate income tax and other things that we think are sort of more effective in distribution of profits.

But it's been a very collaborative engagement, and I probably in my history in mining, I don't think I've ever seen the industry working so well together as we have been in Côte d’Ivoire, so we are looking forward to getting an outcome that's supportive for both the government and industry and ongoing investment in Ivory Coast.

Yes. Okay. Is there any risk that it could be retrospective in nature?

No. I mean, I think just as a bit of background, remember, last year, the Ivorian government implemented this 2% additional royalty into the Finance Act, which doesn't apply to companies that have stability agreements. So that's -- so effectively, the only way it's going to be applicable is in that we've paid the FY '25 with them in good faith and as part of negotiations given that the average gold price for the year was about $3,500 an ounce last year, spot price, remembering that in Ivory Coast, you pay royalty on spot price, not on sales price.

And so no, so there's very low likelihood that it's going to be retrospective. The Ivorian government are, in my experience, very -- they do understand investments and they have got a lot of projects ongoing and being developed in Ivory Coast that any sort of retrospective change would be pretty detrimental to those projects.

Your next question comes from Levi Spry at UBS.

Maybe can we just follow up on the royalty piece. So maybe just a refresher or around the grounds on what rate is included in your cost guidance across the 3 sites and the development site?

So hopefully, I'll answer your question correctly. So just to backtrack. So the royalty that was included in the $1,800 that's been reported, for example, includes only the 2% relative to that quarter.

So if you talk about the December quarter, yes, we've got -- we've included that. In terms of the guidance, similarly, we have guided conservatively because we don't actually know the outcome of this, but we've included the 2% royalty in the guidance that would apply to the period. So it would apply for -- from 1st of July 2025 to 30 June 2026. We have included a 2% royalty assumption for that period. We have not included in that what we paid for Q3 and Q4 of FY '25. Does that makes sense?

I think so. But can I just confirm the absolute number that you're budgeting to pay in Ghana, in Côte d’Ivoire and then...

So the Ghana royalty is the 5% that we -- plus the 3% GSL. So we've got -- so they've got a 5% royalty and then something that they call a global sustainability levy, which is 3%. So we're paying a total of 8% in Ghana. And then in Ivory Coast, now Ivory Coast has got a scaled royalty, but at current gold prices, you're going to be paying -- we've assumed 6% plus a 2% additional royalty across all of the sites in Ivory Coast.

Yes. Got it. And maybe just moving to PDI. So like can you just flesh out intentions now and the potential to recycle that capital going forward?

We have no plans at this point in time with PDI. So we'll just continue to watch and monitor how that develops. In terms of our position in PDI, there's been no decision on any changes to that position. So I mean, we've -- it's been a pretty good investment for us. So we'll continue to sit on that at this stage.

Okay. And then just Nyanzaga, obviously, big value driver, a key project. Just a bit more detail around next steps as we think about first production only 12 months away?

Yes. I think we've obviously continue to work through the construction phase. So it's really moving into tank erection now. Steel erection will be starting shortly. The concrete is progressing well. We have -- the bulk earthworks are predominantly done, and it's really now start to pre-strip and get ready for all presentation and commissioning in the back end of the year.

And just -- you probably mentioned it, but just confirming critical path sort of type items.

Yes, mainly through the mills.

Your next question comes from David Radclyffe at Global Mining Research.

Okay. Looks like there's some mic issues there. There are no further questions at this time. So I'll now hand back to Craig for closing remarks.

Okay. Thanks, Nathan. Well, as I said, at the end of my presentation, it's -- I really do want to acknowledge the hard work and effort by the teams in Perseus.

I think they're what make the business tick. And it was a challenging quarter as we went through quite a lot of change in the business, and they performed well and to get through that process, and we're really looking forward to delivering the second half of this year and continue to build on the value that we've created as an organization and progress our growth projects towards commissioning and ultimately production.

Good morning and welcome to the Perseus Mining Investor Webinar and Conference Call. I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and Chief Executive, Craig Jones. Thank you, Craig.

Yes. Thanks, Nathan, and welcome to the Perseus Mining quarterly webinar to discuss our September quarter results. Firstly, it's an honor to assume the role of CEO of Perseus Mining following Jeff Quartermaine's retirement, and he's left a lasting legacy at Perseus. And I'm joined here on the call today by our CFO, Lee-Anne de Bruin. So thanks, Lee-Anne. And also, let me just start by acknowledging the exceptional efforts of our teams across the globe who worked tirelessly to deliver another strong quarter of performance for Perseus.

So the September quarter marked another solid performance for Perseus in a year where all of our sites are transitioning into new mining areas. Amongst the change, we delivered strong operational results and continue to generate robust cash flows at the same time as marking meaningful progress on our growth initiatives.

Firstly, our 12-month rolling average TRIFR is currently sitting at 0.6, which is a very credible performance. From a safety perspective, we're continuing to focus on our fatal risk management process and our Safely Home each day engagement program as the key pillars for our safety approach.

Our gold production for the quarter was just under 100,000 ounces at an all-in site cost of $1,463 per ounce. So whilst our production is lower than the previous quarter, it's in line with our expectations and in line with our full year guidance.

Combined gold sales from all 3 operations totaled 102,000 ounces sold at an average sales price of $3,075 per ounce, delivering a robust cash margin of $1,612 an ounce, capitalizing on strong market conditions.

The notional cash flow for the quarter was $161 million, and we continue to build on our cash position with the quarter ending with a net cash and bullion of $837 million.

The September quarter marked significant transitions for mining locations at Yaouré and Edikan. Yaouré transitioned from the CMA open pit to the lower grade Yaouré open pit, and Edikan's focus moved to the higher-grade Nkosuo pit following the completion of mining at the AG and Fetish pits. And I'll provide further details on this as we progress through each site's performance for the quarter.

Starting with Yaouré. As mentioned, Yaouré gold mine operations have transitioned from the CMA open pit to the Yaouré open pit during the quarter. Yaouré open pit is geologically more complicated than CMA open pit, and there's been a strong focus on improving grade control practices to improve reconciliation to account for the shift in geology. We saw a significant improvement in reconciliation over the quarter with September's reconciliation being in line with normal tolerances.

For the quarter, Yaouré produced just over 55,000 ounces of gold, which was 21% down on the previous quarter, but in line with our expectations. This reduction reflects the lower grade Yaouré ore consistent with the mine plan, and we can expect to see lower grades associated with the Yaouré pit for the remainder of the year.

Production cost for the quarter was $829 an ounce with an all-in site cost of $1,110 per ounce. The all-in site cost decreased by 6% compared to the previous quarter, notably due to a decrease in sustaining capital associated with the timing of ongoing works on the tail storage facility, which was higher in the June '25 quarter -- FY '25 quarter.

57,000 ounces of gold was sold at a weighted average sale price of $2,959 per ounce, which delivered an average cash margin of $1,829 per ounce. Notional operating cash generated by Yaouré during the quarter was $102 million, so continuing to generate strong cash flows at Yaouré.

Mill run time was steady at 94% with gold recovery remaining stable as per the previous quarter at 94%.

Reconciliation between the block model and the mill for the last 3 months is 17% positive tonnes and 10% negative on grade for a 5% overall increase in contained ounces.

A final goodbye cut was taken in the CMA open pit with the pit now being used as the access for the CMA underground development, which began during the quarter. The CMA underground will be the first mechanized underground mine in Côte d'Ivoire. And I'll speak further to the CMA progress later on in the presentation.

At Edikan, during the quarter, Edikan produced 33,000 ounces of gold. Majority of the mining during the quarter was conducted at the Nkosuo pit following the completion of the AG and the Fetish pits. The land access of Nkosuo pit was mostly resolved during the quarter with mining of the footprint progressing. There were some challenging wet conditions from sustained rainfall that impacted the ore handling and dilution, resulting in processing of some of the lower-grade stockpiles during the quarter.

Stripping was higher due to face positions and access sequencing of the pit as mining areas became available.

Production cost for the quarter was $1,232 per ounce and an all-in site cost of $1,603 per ounce, which is $121 per ounce higher than the previous quarter, and the increase is mainly due to mining costs resulted from higher stripping waste stripping at Nkosuo.

31,000 ounces of gold was sold at a weighted average price of $3,337 an ounce, resulting in an average cash margin of $1,734 per ounce and a notional operating cash generation of $57 million.

Mill run time and recovery were 94% and 87.7%, respectively, largely in line with the targeted key performance indicators.

Reconciliation between the block model and the mill for the last 3 months is 11% negative on tonnes and 6% negative on grade for a 16% reduction in contained ounces. And this is mainly associated with the commencement of the Nkosuo pit and some of the challenging conditions that were experienced during the quarter.

Plans are progressing to commence further cutbacks at the Fetish and Esuajah North pits in the next calendar year, consistent with the plans that we articulated in the 5-year outlook in June.

During the quarter, Sissingué complex produced 12,000 ounces of gold and the Sissingué complex results were attributed to mining and processing operations at the Sissingué Gold mine and mining operations at the Fimbiasso pits located 65 kilometers from the Sissingué processing facilities.

Production cost for the quarter was $2,458 per ounce and an all-in site cost of $2,745 per ounce. The increase in all-in site cost was a combination of increased royalties linked to gold price and higher production costs resulting from scheduled mill reline and surge bin apron feeder maintenance and an increase in waste stripping at Fimbiasso West, Sissingué Stage 4 and Airport West to access high-grade ore.

13,000 ounces of gold was sold at a weighted average sale price of $2,953 per ounce, resulting in an average cash margin of $208 per ounce and a notional operating cash flow of $2 million for the quarter.

Mill run time was 91%, which was down from the previous quarter's 96% due to maintenance activities and gold recovery improved marginally to 90.9% from 88.3% in the previous quarter.

Reconciliation between the block model and the mill for the last 3 months is 4% negative on tonnes and 14% negative on grade for an 18% reduction in contained ounces. The lower gold grade performance reflects the continuation of higher dilution than anticipated when mining the narrow variably mineralized structures of Sissingué Main, Fimbiasso West and Airport West pits.

The 6- to 12-month trends demonstrate improving correlation with gold contained now tracking within 7% of the block model over an annual period and work is ongoing to -- on operational controls to minimize dilution.

Ore grade is expected to increase with the mining of the Antoinette deposit at Bagoé, which is scheduled to commence in Q2 of FY '26. Construction of the site infrastructure is progressing well and remains on schedule. All major contracts have been awarded, and key contractor mobilization is proceeding as planned.

So looking ahead for FY '26, our guidance remains unchanged. Gold production will be in the range of 400,000 to 440,000 ounces with production weighted to the second half of the year. Our all-in site costs will be between $1,460 and $1,620 per ounce. So our guidance includes Yaouré production reducing from this quarter, as we mentioned before, with all of the ore now coming out of the Yaouré pit. And Sissingué will increase production with access to the higher-grade material at Bagoé. Edikan also increasing production with the main source of the ore from the higher grade Nkosuo pit.

So now I'll pass over to Lee-Anne, and she can talk about the financial aspects of the quarter.

Thanks, Craig, and hi, everyone, on the call again. As mentioned by Craig, we have ended this quarter strongly with $837 million of cash and bullion on the balance sheet, slightly up on the June '25 quarter. The balance is after operating margin generated by our sites of USD 170 million. We've also spent on continued investment in organic growth at the sites about $14 million.

Capital expenditure was in the region of $67 million for the period, which included $48 million that's been spent on the progression of the Nyanzaga development project, and about $12 million on the CMA underground at Yaouré.

There's been continued investments in our host countries through the payment of a USD 29 million dividend payment, which was made to our government partner in Ivory Coast in relation to Yaouré and their 10% shareholding and ongoing payment of taxes in the country.

Included in this cash flow was also $11 million on the previous share buyback program, where we purchased back AUD 84 million in total of the AUD 100 million share buyback commenced in September '24. The share buyback was renewed in September '25 for another AUD 100 million. We remain debt-free with the USD 100 million facility undrawn in place.

Looking at our hedge position. As previously advised, Perseus continues to evaluate its hedging strategy in the current gold price environment. Our hedging program focuses on maintaining downside protection whilst retaining as much upside opportunity as possible while still observing as we do, prudent cash management practices.

Giving consideration to the rising gold price environment we're in, during the year and particularly during the quarter, we have continued to roll off existing forward contracts, reducing our committed hedge position. Since the end of March '25, we have reduced our committed hedge position from 24% to 14% of our 3-year forecast production.

In addition, during the quarter, we spent USD 1.7 million purchasing uncommitted put options at about -- at a strike price of about $2,600 per ounce as part of our capital allocation strategy, which seeks to maintain balance sheet resilience under a range of trading conditions.

With that, I'll hand back to Craig to now talk about our organic growth across the group.

Thanks, Lee-Anne. So moving on to the organic growth now, and there's been some fantastic development of our Nyanzaga project and CMA projects over the quarter, but we'll start off with Nyanzaga.

So during the quarter, there were several important milestones achieved at our Nyanzaga project in Tanzania. We announced the signing of the critical elements of -- the critical agreements between the Tanzanian government and Perseus, mining subsidiary, Nyanzaga Mining Company Limited, locking in the key fiscal arrangements related to the project.

We've been very active with our drilling program. And during the quarter, activities consisted of resource definition drilling on the Nyanzaga's Tusker and Kilimani deposits, along with sterilization and exploration drilling within the Nyanzaga mining license. Reconnaissance drilling on a cluster of exploration targets within the exploration tenements surrounding the Nyanzaga mining lease was also undertaken. This drilling continues with encouraging results that could support the potential for a resource and reserve update later this financial year.

In terms of construction activities on the ground, you can see from the photos that we've been very busy. There's blinding, formwork and steel fixing commenced on the primary crushing, milling and CIL circuits and a second contract -- concrete contractor has been mobilized to site to provide additional capacity.

Fabrication of the SAG and Ball mills are progressing well and are ahead of schedule. Both of which are on the project critical path.

We've completed the bulk earthworks at both camp accommodation and treatment plant work areas and the roofing has been installed on the first accommodation blocks. The other buildings are progressing well as we work towards occupancy later this quarter or this coming quarter.

Contracts have been awarded for the installation of the transmission line and transformers for the tie-in of the permanent power supply. We also continue to make great progress on the resettlement housing project with 163 of the total 262 houses have been delivered to project affected families. And as of the end of 19th of October, the number has risen to [ 181 ] homes. So overall, the Nyanzaga project remains on budget and on schedule with first gold anticipated in January 2027.

As we announced during the quarter, a Presidential Decree Was granted authorizing the development of the -- and operation of the CMA underground at Yaouré. The first cuts of the Pauline decline were taken on Monday, the 29th of September, marking a significant milestone for the CMA underground project. You can see from the photos it's starting to look like a mine. And as of today, the Pauline decline has progressed to 69 meters.

Phase support of the remaining 3 portals continued and mining of all 3 will commence early in quarter 2 of this current quarter.

The administration building and fit out of the support buildings is complete. Other surface infrastructure, including camp facilities, electrical and maintenance areas to support the underground operations also continued during the quarter.

With the commencement of mining of the decline, the next major milestone for the CMA underground project will be first ore production scheduled for Q3 of FY '26 with commercial production scheduled for Q3 of financial year '27. So great progress at CMA.

So with sustainability. So alongside our financial and operating performance, Perseus continues to deliver tangible value to our host communities and governments, and this slide captures the breadth of our contributions.

In the first quarter of FY '26, our total economic contribution reached $215 million across our host countries. This includes $141 million in local procurement, which directly supports national supply chains and local business development. We also contributed $58 million in taxes and royalties and $1.87 million in community contributions as we continue to support local development funds and key community initiatives.

Our workforce overwhelmingly comes from the regions in which we operate with 95% of our employees from our host countries, and this is a reflection of our commitment to build local capability and building the skill base that we need for our future growth.

Safety remains at the core of how we operated and achieving a TRIFR of 0.6 and an LTIFR of 0, making the full year without a lost time injury. That's a significant milestone and a testament to the safety culture that's embedded within our organization.

We've also published our FY '25 Sustainable Development Report, which includes a refreshed sustainability strategy and a double materiality assessment. This ensures that our ESG priorities reflect both our business risks and the issues that matter most to our stakeholders, and I encourage you to read that on our website.

Sustainability is at the core of our purpose and guides how we deliver results, creating value and building resilience. This is what makes Perseus a trusted partner in achieving its mission of creating material benefits for all stakeholders in fair and equitable proportions.

So we continued -- so the September quarter capped off another successful quarter for Perseus. We continue to deliver solid operating performance, generate strong financial returns and progress our strategic growth projects, all while maintaining high safety and ESG standards.

With a strong balance sheet, high-margin operations and clear growth path, we deliver -- we believe that we're well positioned to continue delivering long-term value for our shareholders.

So thank you, and I'll now open the floor to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Reg Spencer at Canaccord.

Congrats on another good quarter. My first question is just in relation to Sissingué. Those -- that delay that you mentioned with respect to the mining conventions, is that got more -- does that delay more to do with the elections or the changes that were recently made to the mining code? Just trying to get a handle on the overall environment in Côte d'Ivoire.

I mean the elections were held on Saturday in Côte d'Ivoire. And while accounts seems to have progressed pretty well, we obviously keep watching that over the next couple of days. In terms of the mining convention, that's -- we're just working through the process of obtaining those. It takes a little bit of time.

Yes. I think, Reg, to your question, I think, no, it's unrelated to the mining code. But it's just -- as you know, during election time, it's hard to get people to put pen to paper. That said, we're quite progressed, and it's likely we'll get it sorted out. The mining convention, however, is not relevant to us commencing mining, however. It's just a matter of making sure we've signed up to all the fiscal arrangements that are agreed.

Understood. And last one, feel free, Lee-Anne or Craig to answer this, but I'd be interested to get your views on hedging. Gold price clearly very high at the moment. You've got a relatively low percentage of hedging, and I suppose that's good for cash flow at this point in time. But the outlook, is there an argument to put more hedges in place to lock in gold prices?

Yes. I mean if I had a crystal ball and I knew where gold price was going, I'd be much richer than I am now, Reg. That said, as you know, we're always focused on disciplined cash management, and that's why we've shifted to the structure of paying some of our capital towards buying puts, which are relatively cheap at the moment.

So although our committed hedging has come down, which is our forward book and our calls, the shift to puts allows us to protect the downside. So we still have -- we're still maintaining that downside protection through putting the puts in place. But those puts are not committed hedging. So we don't have to deliver them, but they are then allowing us to make sure that if gold price drops below $2,600 that we're relatively protected there.

Your next question comes from Richard Knights at Barrenjoey.

Just a quick one on Edikan. Obviously, production was down a little bit quarter-on-quarter. Just wondering about the access issues at Nkosuo. And I think you mentioned they're largely resolved. What is remaining? And is that going to have any impact over the rest of the year? And I suppose how should we think about the run rate at Edikan over the rest of the year?

I think the way to think about the run rate for Edikan at the end of the year is, as we've said, it will increase to -- continue to increase in production as we get deeper into the Nkosuo pit. We've -- when I say largely complete, we've got the majority of access to the entire footprint now and continuing to mine down, which we do get a little bit out of sequence with the access issues we were having. So hence, the stripping that we talked about being a little bit more. And so we're just getting back into sequence now in the pit and don't expect to see any constraints for us moving forward.

Your next question comes from Levi Spry at UBS.

Maybe just at Yaouré, can you just maybe talk us through the profile over the remainder of the year as the underground ramps up?

Yes. So obviously, we talked last quarter about the delays we were having in getting our Presidential Decree. So that's now resolved and behind us, and we're basically ramping up our mining progress for the CMA underground. And as I mentioned before, we're quite a way down the Pauline decline now, and we'll continue to get our rhythm and cycle times refined as we move forward.

We're pretty confident that, that's going to progress well, and we should recover some of that time. But obviously, we need a little bit more time of mining before we can really go out and say that we are going to do that. So that's our primary focus at the moment is to get the mining operations efficient and turning over the heading so that we can recover that time.

And Levy, I mean, just high level, as you know, as we happily mentioned it is because we're entering the Yaouré pit, your production that will come off slightly for Yaouré over the next 2 or 3 quarters given that you're in the lower-grade Yaouré pit and ramping up the underground.

So we're essentially -- the majority of the gold for the year comes out of the CMA pit. There's only a small contribution from the underground.

Yes, from the Yaouré pit.

Sorry, the Yaouré pit. So that's our primary focus now is continuing, but the grades are lower.

Yes. Okay. And if I can just ask one about Nyanzaga. So I think you mentioned the reserve and resource update coming this year. How do we think about the materiality of that, I guess, given the stage it's at, potential upside and then even the pricing assumptions that were used in the last cut?

I think we'll have to wait and see for that work to be completed before we can give you any sort of indication on the materiality of that. But as we continue to do the drilling, we'll continue to update our models. We'll look at our assumptions around prices and so forth. And -- but everything seems to be going in the right direction at the moment.

Yes. Okay. Maybe just on that. So the updates we get on the grade reconciliation across the operations, is there anything that has caught your eye in the time you've been in the seat when it comes to that?

Look, I mean, that's obviously a core focus for us. I talked about Sissingué, trying to close the gap on that. There's been some good progress in terms of Yaouré, closing the gap on the reconciliation and tightening up our processes and mining practices, and we've seen some positive movements in that regard. So it's something that we'll be continuing to focus on. I mean there's a reason we put it in the report so that we can demonstrate that we are -- we have reliability in our ore bodies, and we have to mine them reliably as well. So very much a key focus for us.

Your next question comes from Andrew Bowler at Macquarie.

Just following on from the hedging questions. I'm not sure if you mentioned it earlier, Lee-Anne, but just the cost of those puts. I'm assuming that's caught up in the working capital and other line on the waterfall chart and just [indiscernible] that and how much you're willing to spend, I guess, every quarter from now?

Yes. I mean we spent about, as I said, USD 1.7 million in the quarter. We've got a mandate from the Board to spend -- to not overspend on it, and we're continually looking at the cost of it, but puts at the moment are relatively cheap. I think we're paying between $40 and $70 an ounce or something is what we've been paying.

No worries. And just another one, interesting comments on Sudan just talking about gradual improvement in security recently. I'm just wondering if that's going to affect the rate of spend for that project. Will we see an uptick for the remainder of the year? Or is the budget and it doesn't really matter if security improves, that's all we'll see -- excuse my voice, I should say?

Well, I mean, look, the reports coming out of Sudan are positive, which is a good thing. Obviously, there's a little way to go before we see how all that pans out. But we'll keep watching that.

In terms of our current plans, our current plans are as per our budget. And if things change to the point where we think that, that would change, then we'll let the market know. But at this point in time, we're continuing to progress towards our budget.

Yes. And remember, Andrew, we've always said the security issues are quite minor for us given where we're located. The thing for us to make a decision there is to make sure the supply chain and logistics pieces are working because that's the most critical part probably to the project over and above security of our people.

Your next question comes from David Radclyffe at Global Mining Research.

So it's early days for the question, maybe a little bit premature. But look, any thoughts on the opportunities you might have identified in the business so far? And then when you think to the overall strategy, are you sticking to this? Or have you thought of any way you might sort of think to tweak this in the future?

Yes. Thanks for the question, David. Look, the plan is still the plan. So there's a solid platform that Jeff and the team have built over the years, and the company has enormous optionality in it. I think for us moving forward, we'll be focusing on delivering the 5-year outlook that's been presented to the market. And that means we need to continue to deliver on our operating performance. We need to focus on the delivery of the Nyanzaga project and ramp that up in the March quarter of 2027.

We need to build and operate the CMA project. So that's a shift, the first underground mine in Côte d'Ivoire. But we'll also be focusing on extending the life of our existing assets and doing more exploration in the exploration space. So a lot of focus on near-mine exploration. We're also doing some greenfield work as well.

And then beyond that, if any other options come our way, then we'll assess them on their relative merits. But the plan is to continue to run safe and efficient operations to continue to generate strong cash flows, continue to return capital to shareholders and continue our growth options at the same time. And we think that we're in a position that we can do that. So that's how we're thinking -- well, I say that's how I'm thinking about it, and we're thinking about it at the moment.

Great. That was very clear. Then maybe a follow-up on Edikan. So Nkosuo is ramping up a lot of volume of low-grade stocks processed this quarter. So is that going to be -- is that going to flow through to next quarter? And then when do the other cutbacks start to deliver ore?

Yes. So the -- let's start with Nkosuo. A lot of the reason for the low-grade stocks at Nkosuo was the wet season, obviously, in Côte d'Ivoire at the moment, and that finishes pretty much this month. So we're expecting conditions to improve substantially for the rest of the year, and that will just really get us into the rhythm in Nkosuo and starts to deliver the higher grade that we're expecting. So you should see that grade improve throughout the year.

With the other 2 pits, we'll start that stripping activities in the next half. And there's a fair bit of stripping before we get into the ore there. So it's more focused on next year's grade than this current year.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. So I'll now hand back to Craig for closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone. We're very pleased with the quarter that we've delivered. We're pleased that we're continuing to deliver strong operating performance and create strong financial returns. And really thankful for the hard work of our people across the globe who do put a lot of effort in, and that's one thing I've noticed about this company is there's a huge amount of personal ownership and discretional effort that sits within the organization, and that's what helps create the kinds of results that Perseus is known for.

So thanks very much for your time, and have a good day.

Good morning, and welcome to the Perseus Mining Investor Webinar and Conference Call. All attendees and are in listen-only mode. If you would like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function within Zoom.

I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining, Managing Director and CEO, Jeff Quartermaine. Thank you, Jeff.

Thanks very much, Nathan, and welcome to Perseus Mining. We're now to discuss our annual report for the financial year ending 30 June. Now as you are aware, this annual report these days includes both our annual financial report and our sustainability report; and these documents, along with a range of related documents were released to the market this morning.

I'm joined on the call today by my colleague, Lee-Anne de Bruin, who, as many of you on the call would know, is Perseus' Chief Financial Officer. Lee-Anne and her team have been working very hard to produce the financial report that's been released today. And once again, Paul thanks go out to all team members both in Australia and offshore, and of course, our auditors Price Waterhouse Coopers through all their excellent work in preparing the document. And while I'm thanking people, I should also thank Mel Pollard, our Chief Sustainability Officer and her team for their work on preparing the sustainability report.

In just a moment, I'll ask Lee-Anne to take you through the details of the financial report, and then I will pick up on the sustainability report. And then when we have finished our presentation, so share a few thoughts with you on the way forward for Perseus, and we will then conclude today's whether now with a Q&A session, as Nathan, I think you already mentioned.

Now if you're listening to this webinar through your computer, you should be able to follow the presentation on your screen. If not, it has been released to the market, and you can take a look later. And I'll try to make the presentation as relevant as we can for those who aren't seeing a screen.

So just moving forward before handing to Lee-Anne, I'd just like to talk a little bit about the operations that have led to today's financial results. And I'm showing you a graph that shows our production on a quarterly basis over the last or 5 years. The thing that stands out about this is that is the consistency of our performance over that time. We've averaged around 509,000 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of $1,048 an ounce for the last 4 financial years. But of course, as everyone knows, we've done that in an environment of a climbing gold price, which has given us an increased margin. And of course, has certainly contributed to the excellent financial results that we speak of in just a moment.

In terms of the most recent 12 months, of course, our performance relative to guidance, both production guidance and cost guidance has been very, very good. I think we ended up in about the 77 percentile of the production range and right to -- or just below the bottom end of the cost range. So that was a very credible performance once again. And you can see from the chart that's on the screen, the value of us being a diversified company, in other words, having multiple mines in multiple jurisdictions. While one or other of the mines may not have performed as strongly as they have in previous periods, the others have picked up the slack, which has led to this very good and consistent performance at contributes, as I say, to the financial results.

So with that, I'll pass to Lee-Anne and she will take you through what we've actually achieved in terms of operations and finance. Lee-Anne?

Thanks, Jeff. As you say, our teams across Africa and Australia have again worked to deliver excellent operating results, and these have culminated in us delivering excellent financial outcomes for the FY '25 financial year. Despite production being slightly down by 2.6% on FY '24, we produced just under 500,000 ounces of gold over the 12 months, and this is on the upper end of guidance.

All-in site cost was up USD 182 per ounce at $1,235 an ounce. Average gold sales price increased by USD 529 per ounce, delivering a price of USD 2,543 per ounce, and this is largely due to the increased gold prices, and this delivered a cash margin for the group of $1,308 per ounce. Collective effort of our teams then generated a notional cash flow for the 12 months of USD 650 million or 990 million and ending with net cash and willing at the end of the financial year of USD 827 million or AUD 1.3 billion.

Moving on to the key financial metrics. Revenue was up 22% at $1.2 billion or AUD 1.9 billion, largely due to the gold price. Profit after tax up 16% at USD 421 million or AUD 651 million. And our operating cash flow, importantly, was up 25%, delivering USD 537 million or AUD 826 million.

This result was generated, as I've said previously, due to the increase in revenue due to higher gold prices. offsetting our decrease in gold production from Sissingue and Edikan during the year. The increase in revenue was in turn offset by an increase in cost of sales due to higher mining costs, particularly at Yaouré and higher royalties from an increased gold price.

Increase in the income taxes expense went up by USD 13 million to USD 142 million, with purchase success enabling further contributions to the government of the countries in which we operate our gold mines. Net tangible assets have increased by 56%, delivering USD 1.9 billion or AUD 2.9 billion.

Moving on to the growth in earnings. FY '25 with all of the -- with the operating excellence has delivered strong growth in our earnings across all of our metrics. EBITDA, up 18% at USD 740 million or AUD 1.1 billion. The gross profit from operations, up 22% at USD 587 million or AUD 906 million. Basic earnings per share has increased 14% to USD 27.02 per share. And then very importantly, a very key focus on Perseus' team is our earnings per ounce was up at USD 853, up 19%.

Cash flow. We've generated another year of strong cash flow, you're able to see in the results. The operating cash flow per share was USD 0.39 per share, up 25% on the previous financial year, and our operating cash flow per ounce is up 29%, delivering USD 1,086 per ounce.

Moving towards the balance sheet. Perseus ended the financial year with a cash and bullion balance of USD 827 million or AUD 1.3 billion, with no undrawn debt on the U.S. dollar $300 million debt facility. And the total assets of Perseus Group of USD 2.5 billion and net tangible assets of USD 1.9 billion. So a very strong position as we go into FY '26.

Perseus continues to focus on deploying capital, which ensures delivery of reliable and strong operating cash flows, whilst always maintaining a balance sheet resilience under a range of trading conditions. This year, we have generated USD 650 million, as I've said, in notional cash flow. And this has allowed us then to also just to make distributions to our local government shareholders through dividends of USD 36 million or AUD 55 million, and we have paid income tax and withholding taxes to our host countries of a total of USD 131 million, which is at AUD 200 million and something we're extremely proud of.

Perseus looks to also deploy discretionary investments to ensure that our assets are performing optimally. We're focused on our growth strategy, and we've done that this year to making the decision on the CMA underground and the investment that we're making in the Nyanzaga gold project in Tanzania. And we also want to be continuing to be able to deliver sustainable returns to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.

With that in mind, purchase Board resolved to declare $0.05 per share final dividend, bringing the full year dividend for FY '25 to $0.075. in addition, this year, Perseus returned capital to shareholders by its share buyback, executing AUD 83.6 million of the buyback at the time of releasing this report. Since 2021, when we launched our dividend program, Perseus has returned to its shareholders a total of AUD 354 million, through either capital returns, dividends or buybacks. And finally, the Board resolved as well to renew the share buyback program in FY '26 with up to AUD 100 million to be invested over the next 12 months.

So I'll hand back to Jeff after delivering those results to talk about our sustainability performance and other aspects.

Okay. Thanks very much, Lee-Anne. So they were very, very good results as you could tell. But the pleasing thing is that in delivering those results, we've got about our work a sustainable and particularly and in a safe manner, something we are proud of. Now this year, we have, as I say, put a sustainability report out at the same time or as part of our annual report. And this is a very comprehensive document, which outlines the work that we've achieved this year.

Now just a couple of slides to summarize what some of the significant achievements have been. One of those is to very firmly think through our path on sustainability to make sure that the strategy that we are delivering upon actually delivers where it counts most. And in getting that strategic framework, we have responded to our shareholders' expectations. And we've said very clear targets that will drive performance in the future.

Our sustainability strategy is built around 4 key pillars, people, environment and climate community and economic development and government and risk. And basically, what this does is it outlines what is important to us and what is important to our stakeholders. Furthermore, what we have done during the period is we've had an independent material -- second materiality assessment completed to look at our strategy to make sure that we are very much focused on the things that are going to make a difference to those who count.

If you look at the results that we have actually delivered during the course of the year, as I said, safety is one where we have done particularly well, a 43% improvement in our TRIFR, which came in at around 0.6%, which I think anybody who understands safety metrics would acknowledge that, that result is as good as you will see anywhere in the world. In fact, it's not better. which is something that people don't often associate with African operations, 0 fatalities we've incurred, which is something which is extremely important to us.

In terms of our people, the mix of women in our workforce and men is improving over time. I think the point to be noted in this respect is that we are operating in a cultural setting that is very different to the Western world. And so the results that we achieved in this area of diversity are not those that you would achieve in a Western setting but nevertheless, very considerable.

In terms of environment, we've made some very significant advancements in our tailings management, aligning with best global practices and standards. We have had 0 events during the year. We have been involved in land rehabilitation and monitoring carbon emissions, et cetera. As Lee-Anne has already noted, we've made some fairly significant contributions to our host countries and communities. In fact, if we add it all up, about $813 million has been injected into our various host economies in terms of economic value. That includes a range of things. It's not only taxes and royalties, but it's also local procurement, employment, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm sure you'd agree, that's a fairly substantial sum of money which has been injected into our communities.

Across the board, about 94% of our employees are national people, which is great in terms of being able to drive those economies. We've also made significant contributions at a community level, which is very important. I mean that investment is not only just on infrastructure, but also in important areas of education and health. And I think it's fairly clear that we are making a difference to the lives of a lot of people, which is something that we are proud of.

In terms of governance and risk, we take that very seriously. And we're working to global standards. We are aligned to the World Gold Council responsible gold mining principles and maintain compliance with conflict-free gold standard. So I think that the work that is being done on the sustainability front is something that we are quite proud of.

So that's a quick summary of the results. And let me just say a couple of closing words, if I may. These financial results and operating results that we've delivered this financial year and about which we just spoke and reflect a continuation of the elevated gold prices, but also our strong and consistent and sustainable operating performance at all levels of our business throughout the year.

Since our maiden dividend distribution occurred back in August 2021, Perseus has returned [ $826 million ] to our shareholders via a combination of dividends and share buybacks. That's to date. And as noted, given our strong financial performance in fiscal '25, our Board has decided to increase capital returns to shareholders by declaring the final dividend of $0.05 per share, bringing the full fiscal '25 dividend to $0.75 per share. And that's about 50% more than the total dividend paid in the previous financial year.

As Lee-Anne said, we've also decided to continue our program of buying shares back by investing a further $100 million in buybacks over the next 12 months. noting that for many shareholders, this is now the preferred form of capital return. So I think that we're trying to -- we've listened to our shareholders and we are doing what they seem to believe is the preferred way of receiving capital returns. So hopefully, that will be well received.

Now in determining the quantum of these capital returns, we have carefully assessed our quite considerable cash flow generating capacity as well as the capital investment program that lies ahead to purchase as we develop both the Nyanzaga project in Tanzania and the CMA Underground project at our gold mine in Cote d'Ivoire. And we look at extending the lives of both the Edikan and Sissingue operations through cutbacks of existing pits and various other initiatives. So there is quite a lot of work to be done in the coming periods which will require investment.

And as I've already noted, we are mindful that in addition to investing in the future growth of the company. We need to invest in our social license to operate by continuing our current practice of contributing materially to the economies of our host countries and host communities and also paying fair salaries to our local and expatriate employees who have been the ones who have delivered these outstanding results. having achieved our corporate mission of generating material benefits for all stakeholders in fair and equitable proportions in '25. As a company, we're looking forward to continuing to operate in this manner for many years to come.

Now finally, as many of you know, this will be my last webinar representing Perseus. I'll be retiring from the company shortly and will be replaced in the role by [ Craig Jones ] who has been recently joined Perseus the CEO designate. I trust that Craig will work tirelessly to not only continue Perseus' traditions of delivering on our promises and generating material benefits for our stakeholders, but also continue to grow the company and to leverage from the base that's been successfully set up by our team over the last few years. And in doing that, realized Perseus is a very significant potential. So good luck to Craig and the team. And once again, many thanks to our employees, shareholders and friends.

Thanks very much. Any questions, please?

Thank you, Jeff. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Ben Wood at UBS.

Jeff, congratulations on your tenure and the result I just have a question around just sort of hoping a look at the timing for the CMA Underground, just checking that that's all sort of on track for this quarter. Yes. And just sort of, I guess, ramp-up assumptions as well for Nyanzaga, which all appears to be on track based on the recent releases.

Yes. No. Okay. Well, look, since our quarterly report was put out was that about a month ago, I guess, it is, we have made significant progress. So the approval of our contractors, subcontractors license was signed through the other night. So that's very good, which means there's no problem in terms of bringing the equipment we need through the ports, et cetera, et cetera.

And I think we mentioned in the quarterly report that we are now requiring a presidential decree as opposed to a ministerial decree to move forward. Very pleased to say that the parliament in Cote d'Ivoire is currently in summer recess, but they do resume. And I think it's about the or ninth of September, and the matter of our decree is firmly on the agenda for the attention of both the covenant and the President. So we're very confident that by the end of the quarter, we will have all of the things that we need, and we'll be moving ahead at full steam.

So we have lost a couple of months on the schedule. However, we've been using that time very wisely to be working on infrastructure and getting everything ready to move very quickly. The impact on production is fairly modest as it turns out, and we have identified other areas within the Yaouré operation, where if everything works to plan, we should be able to recover most, if not all, of any production loss by the slight delay. So we're fairly happy with the way that's progressing.

And when come to Nyanzaga, I think we put out an announcement early this week, I think it was Lee-Anne was in Tanzania last week and signed the agreements with the government modifying the various the framework agreement and stakeholder agreement. That was a terrific outcome. We were always confident that the signing would occur, given that we had done a lot of work last year in reaching a landing with the state. We were very happy with it as with. I think it's a genuine case of a win-win situation where both the government has been served and as is our shareholders. And we've got a set of arrangements in place now that we can move forward working to and feel very confident that we know what we're doing in terms of our arrangements with the government.

On the ground, things are moving along really well actually really well. And we've said publicly some time first gold in January '27, but I think that I know that our teams are certainly motivated to do a bit better than that, but it's a little bit early to call at this particular juncture, but I can assure you that everyone is very focused on delivering that outcome. So all in all, that is in really good shape, much better position than when we came to the market with our quarterly report about a month ago.

Your next question comes from Al Harvey at JPMorgan.

Yes. Jeff, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. .

Yes, I just want to add, Mike, congratulations to Jeff done a great job there. Just wanted to follow-up on the Nyanzaga recently announced executed agreements there. There was a quote in that release that did indicate that there's still some work to be done to fully implement the agreed ranges. So I just want to get a sense of what that remaining work is?

I'll ask Lee-Anne to address that, particularly because she has been working on that.

Yes. So thanks, Al. The next steps are really just the agreement sort of puts all the fiscal ranges like the bad exemption in place. But part of that is that the government has committed to make sure that we get government -- formal government notices from the various departments to ensure that we don't have any issues along the way, getting those put in place. So it's just the last step in the process, and it's -- I think it should take another 2 or 3 weeks, hopefully, to get done. However, that said, we are of the view, we probably can just use our framework agreement to access those exemptions.

Yes. The agreement is rock solid. It's just about having piece of paper to show to various government departments as we move through the process.

Your next question comes from Reg Spencer at Canaccord. Reg, I bet you're on mute there, Reg.

There we go. Sorry about that. Always forget I've got no questions on the results. Just wanted to say congratulations for everything that you guys have done, especially you, Jeff, over very long period of purchase from someone who's covered the stock for well over 12 to 13 years. So again, congratulations, Jeff, and all the best. Hopefully, get to catch up soon.

Yes. Thanks, Reg.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. So I'll now hand back to Lee-Anne for closing remarks.

Thanks, Nathan. I just wanted to just publicly just say thank you to Jeff from myself and all the staff at Perseus. When I joined the group 5 years ago, I couldn't have imagined the journey that I was going to be on, and I remember asking somebody how do things work here and someone say, "Look, you just got to keep up with Jeff. So I just want to say, thank you, Jeff, for your personal investment in myself and all the staff here you're going to be deeply missed. And we will continue to hold up your legacy and deliver the Perseus dream of doing what we say we're going to do. So thank you, Jeff. You will be deep in missed by us and everybody across the group.

Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, thanks to all the listeners, and let's see we have the future unfolds.

Good morning, and welcome to the Perseus Mining Investor Webinar and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and CEO, Jeff Quartermaine. Thank you, Jeff.

Thanks, Nathan, and welcome to Perseus Mining's quarterly webinar to discuss our June quarter report. I'm joined on the call today by one of my colleagues Lee-Anne de Bruin, who, as you know, is our CFO. Lee-Anne doesn't really need any introduction as she's been an integral part of Perseus' leadership team for some time now and of course, has participated in many of these webinars and other market-facing events, but welcome, Lee-Anne.

Thanks, Jeff.

The agenda for today's webinar is the same as usual. I'll start by providing an overview of what Perseus achieved operationally during the quarter. Lee-Anne and I will then speak to aspects of the presentation. And then we'll hold a Q&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 Nyanzaga.

For those of you who are participating in the webinar via 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 the 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 4 or 5 years, our team at Perseus is consistently delivering on its promises. And during the 3-month, 6-month and 12-month periods ending 30 June, we have once again delivered with strong group gold production, competitive all-in site costs. And of course, with the help of the rising gold prices, we've expanded our cash margins and increased free cash flow and cash balances.

Relative to many of our peers who have already reported this quarter, our operating performance and closing cash balance is demonstrably better than many in the gold sector. Notwithstanding our solid operating performance over a long period of time, we don't seem to have received 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 during the June quarter, we've sought to address this matter head on by publishing Perseus' 5-year production and cost outlook. And I'll return to this subject in more detail later.

But from what we published this quarter, 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&A initiatives.

Now speaking of exploration or organic growth, we have been active on this front during the quarter, and we returned some excellent drilling results from the Phase 2 confirmatory drilling at the Nyanzaga 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 Nyanzaga, 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 is impressive, that's for sure. So without further ado, let's go to the presentation, and you'll just -- you'll see what I'm talking about.

So looking at the operating results, 121,237 ounces for the quarter, which was 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 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 USD 1,560 per ounce. So that's up $307 an ounce. Notional cash flow, USD 189 million, leaving net cash and bullion of $827 million at the end of the quarter, which was up $26 million, notwithstanding some fairly significant expenditure during the period, and Lee-Anne 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 496,551, a touch under the 500,000, but certainly in line with what we had been anticipating. All-in site cost for the year was $1,235 an ounce. The average gold price $2,543 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 million. 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 how that result stacks up relative to guidance. In terms of the full year guidance, we have finished at about the 77th percentile 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 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.

The picture -- the numbers on that slide tell a pretty interesting story, and they do demonstrate the merit of 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 maybe some underperformance at another mine.

Now looking at the 3 operations themselves. So Yaoure was the biggest contributor of the 3, has been fairly normal over time, about 53% for the full year came from there, 58% for the quarter. And that was done at a very attractive all-in site cost of $1,180 per ounce or $1,100 for the full year. I mean it was a year of 2 halves in a sense. We certainly struggled a little early in the piece, but picked up very strongly as the year wore on and have turned in a pretty solid performance. The notional cash margin of USD 1,824 per ounce, I mean, that certainly puts us into a fairly strong position in terms of cash flow generation.

Now one of the areas that has challenged us, we've moved from -- while we've been mining in the CMA pit, we moved over to the Yaoure pit, which is geologically very complicated, much more complex than CMA. And we've been working very solidly on trying to upgrade our grade control processes and the like to improve the reconciliation between rock model and the mill. Now 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 3 months, was 25% positive on tonnes, 15% negative on grade, 6% overall plus in terms of contained ounces. So that is -- 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 has had an interesting year. I mean, we've finished off mining in the Fetish pit, and we're just about to finish mining in the AG pit. So there's a bit of a change in the whole production profile. We have been moving into the Nkosuo pit, which is largely an oxide pit. It's a higher-grade oxide pit that we will be mining from. We have had -- obviously, the costs were impacted by lower production relative to previous periods. And also, of course, we've got hit with royalties and various other charges and also some increase in sustaining capital where we were making compensation payments to landowners.

Now that has been an issue for us. We are in the final stages of getting full access to the Nkosuo 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 is coming to an end, and we will be -- have full access in the next quarter, which will improve grade, which will improve production 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's fine. Looking into the future, we are working fairly solidly on 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 is an important exercise, and we're working closely with the local people and government to get that initiated.

One of the things we did do during the quarter was that we did cede a see 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 give them some confidence that continuing to work with Perseus going forward makes -- is in their interest.

Now Sissingue had a fairly troubled quarter, I must admit. Production was 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 an interesting stage up there where we're getting towards the end of the -- one of the satellite pits, and we'll be moving down to Bagoe fairly shortly. But in the intervening period, we've had to make do with what we've got and have had a few challenges with our contractor, et cetera, et cetera.

I mean we do call material up the road, and then wet weather, that also provides some challenges as well. But generally speaking, I think we're in a position where in the next 12 months is going to be quite different to the most recent 12 months as we get into material that is a better grade, et cetera, et cetera. The operation is cash flow positive, and that's obviously pleasing.

In terms of reconciliations on a 12-month horizon, 18% positive on tonnes, 10% negative on grade and 6% positive in the contained ounces. And 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 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 Bagoe, so constructing facilities down there, and we should be operating in that part of the world probably in about November this year, I would think.

Now if you look at the 3 mines put together, I mean, it has been a pretty solid performance from them over the last 4 years. We've averaged around 509,000 ounces of gold at an all-in site cost of $1,048 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 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 5 years of purchase looks like. And we've put out 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 5 years, at least.

Now there is a short-term dip coming through in fiscal '26, which is really a scheduling function. We were anticipating producing from our Meyas 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 Nyanzaga project comes on stream.

And as I said, 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 in line with global cost structures at the current time, particularly with the gold price assumptions that we have used in this analysis. So the point I'm making here is that looking forward, the next 5 years are very strong after a small setback.

Now in terms of the guidance for next year, we are talking 400,000 to 440,000 ounces at all-in site cost $1,460 to $1,620. Now 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 Bagoe into the higher-grade material there and Edikan keeps plugging along. The higher costs at Edikan relate to some cutbacks that we're planning on doing in the forthcoming period with -- at the elevated gold prices that we're seeing, we're still able to make significant headway in terms of cash margin.

The other factor affecting the Edikan mine next year, of course, is that we will be -- our main source of ore will be from the Nkosuo deposit, which is an oxide deposit. And of course, recoveries of oxide material at Edikan are lower than fresh material.

Now people who want to focus on the costs and be concerned about the cost, I would refer you to that chart on the right there, which shows what Perseus has done relative to its cost guidance over the last 5 years or so. And it's fairly clear that for one reason or another, we have outperformed our expectations on the cost front.

Now 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 improving our performance.

And while we're forecasting $1,460 to $1,620 next year, 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 almost finished the first month of the 12-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 certainly, we've started the new financial year quite strongly.

Now I'll pass over to Lee-Anne to speak on some the financial aspects, if I may.

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning to everybody. As you can see, we've had a very strong quarter, generating $189 million of notional cash flow, which was an increase of about $37 million 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 $2,977.

Our cash and bullion increased by $26 million, which I'll speak to a little bit later, and our debt remains undrawn at USD 300 million.

The increase in cash and bullion to $827 million, 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 extensive, including exploration drilling at the Nyanzaga pit or the Nyanzaga resource, should I say. And those results were released last week. And then we've done some drilling at the Nkosuo deposit in Ghana as we seek to continue looking for extension opportunities at Edikan.

We also then spent about $80 million in sustaining and development capital in the quarter, which included $25 million on Nyanzaga, about $18 million on the CMA underground. And we spent $17 million purchasing increased land at Yaoure 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 million of tax contributions, which included a tax payment in Ghana for income tax and withholding tax payments on dividends we declared out of Ivory Coast.

In addition, we then also spent about $50 million returning funds to our shareholders, and this included a $22 million interim dividend paid in April, and we've, in the quarter, done $28 million on the share buyback.

That moves us to a key focus for us and particularly my role as a CFO, has been our hedge program and focusing on -- as we always say, 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 4, in June, we purchased 55,000 put options at a USD 2,600 per ounce price for a cost of USD 2.9 million and put those out over '27 and '28. Importantly, the committed hedge position of the group was reduced in the quarter from 24% to 16% of the forecast 3-year production.

Moving on to our capital returns to shareholders. In FY '25, we have returned AUD 107 million to our shareholders via our interim dividend paid in April and our continued commitment to the share buyback. Since our maiden capital return in FY '21, Perseus has returned a total of AUD 275 million to our shareholders. And this will be a continued focus for us going into August.

And lastly, just on our share buyback, we -- importantly, as you will remember, we announced this AUD 100 million share buyback on the 28th of August '24. And where opportunities have presented itself where we've been able to purchase, we have, at the 11th of July, 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.

Okay. Thanks very much, Lee-Anne. 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, over the last -- or since it was started in August last year, 12 months or so. We are somewhat constrained at times by blackout periods where we are about to make announcements, et cetera. So 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 dividend allocation has been steadily rising over a period of time, and we'll see where the Board sits on this in August, as I say. But certainly, this has been a good year, and I think that will be reflected not only in the financial results that are going to be delivered on the 28th of next month, but also 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 excess cash that we're generating, returns to shareholders is important, but -- and also managing our balance sheet is important. But one of the other key focus is on the organic growth of the business. And there are a couple of initiatives that are worth commenting on, I think, in that respect.

We've mentioned the Nyanzaga project a couple of times throughout this call. Now where we stand at the moment, the schedule going forward is that we've started work on the foundations, et cetera, 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 will be completed in around October. We've been working on upgrading the camp at Nyanzaga because we're going to have a very significant influx 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 3 or 4 months to start in January '26. So we'll have a mining group alongside a construction group on the site at the same time, which will make the site a very busy place to be.

And that will culminate in first gold being poured, we believe, in the first quarter of 2027, if not sooner. And certainly, I know all of our team are highly motivated 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 site, I mean, there has been a lot of building activity on the camp and on the RAP housing, et cetera, et cetera, 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 labor, et cetera, et cetera, 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 mine site. So that work is ongoing, and we're doing that in a very professional manner to ensure that those roads are accessible under all weather conditions and will last the community long after we leave.

On the resettlement program itself, we've been getting along pretty well there. We've completed 65 and handed over houses out of 262. 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 housing in the photographs here. It is interesting actually, the relocation housing. It's quite different in every country we operate in. And the people, we understand, are extremely happy with what is being received. And 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 drilling that we've been doing, the Stage 2 of the resource definition drilling. When we put out our -- made our final investment decision in April of this year, 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 2.3 million ounces.

Now what we did say at the time was that we were undertaking a second phase of drilling and that we would upgrade the ore reserve mineral resource by the time we started production in '27. We put out a release the other day, which reflected some of the results that we've achieved to date. And you can see from this slide here that there are some very, very good intercepts 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 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 Nyanzaga project quite a substantial way. So this has been a very important and exciting development at Nyanzaga that has come to life over the last 6 months or so. Now the other project that we're busily working towards 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 took a development -- 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 start to mine underground very shortly.

We appointed an excellent Australian underground mining contractor, Byrnecut, as our primary mining contractor, and they are mobilized on the site and ready to go. Now we -- 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 give us the green light on this. This is something that only emerged very, very recently. We previously -- the advice that we've previously been given around how the government would approve this exercise seems to have changed, and we now need to get the President to sign off, which we hope will occur in the next week or so.

But anyway, the operation itself is well and truly ready to go. We're going to have 2 -- 4 portals being built on the CMA pit, 2 intakes, 2 exhaust. The work on all that has been -- is well advanced and is pretty much ready to roll on all 4 of those sites.

We've been working getting 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 ordered 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 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 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 observing all of the areas to ensure that we have a sustainable operation. We're particularly happy with our safety record running a TRIFR of 0.6 for fiscal '25, which is the best result that we've turned in and one that's actually very credible in terms of global terms. I mean the safety record is very, very good on the site. And 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 fatal risk management control process and what we call SHED, which is safely home every day interactions.

And between these 2 initiatives, I think our workforce has come on board, and we're 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 USD 231 million in total for the last quarter, taken in a range of ways. Of course, 83% of our procurement comes from local suppliers, and we also make investments into various social aspects as well.

Our employment runs at around -- of local people is around 94% or so, which is a fairly credible thing, given that what is important in the countries where we work is that we 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 regulations that are in place and are determined to leave the mine sites in better shape than what we found them. And from a governance point of view, once again, that goes without saying those things are done 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, 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, et cetera, et cetera. And I think when we release our fiscal '25 financial report and our sustainability report, I should mention as well in about a month's time, it will 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 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 place to recover from that, particularly with the commencing of production at Nyanzaga. Beyond that, we'll also get further production from our existing operations.

What we do have, I think, is very clear evidence that our strategy of producing 500,000 to 600,000 ounces of gold a year at an average cash margin of no less than $500 an ounce, producing a lot more. It will continue well into the future. And that will occur even if we fail to grow our existing asset portfolio through exploration or M&A.

But I think that it's fair to say that from our perspective, the concept of us looking to grow 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, with the cash and debt financing capacity at our disposal, Perseus is 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 host 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.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Kate McCutcheon at Citi.

Just on guidance for the year. So your 5-year outlook is pretty fresh at 420,000 to 440,000 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 costs 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 5-year outlook because once you put these things out to the market, you tend to get held to it.

Okay. Thanks very much for sharing that with us. That had never occurred to us that, that might be the case. But no, look, I think there's a few factors in there. We wanted to just take into account where we sit at the present time. And also, I think that there is a difference in terms of the gold pricing that we've been using, which has had some impact on various things. Lee-Anne, would you like to add to that?

Yes. So Kate, when we did the 5-year forecast, we were using a $2,400 gold price for the long-term 5 years. And then so in this guidance now, we brought in the gold price of between $2,700 and $2,800, which will -- which impacts the royalties. Importantly, remembering that 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 guidance for the ounces, I think we just decided to -- for this financial year, given with the underground, just to increase the range effectively from what we put out in the 5-year forecast. So effectively, we just put the downside went from 420,000 to 400,000.

Yes. I mean there's nothing too sinister in that, I have to say. I mean, we are being a little conservative perhaps. But I guess we feel that, that's appropriate given that we are a little late starting with the CMA underground relative to the 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 certainly a guide, I don't think people need to be too concerned about where we're going to end up for the year.

Yes. It's just to accommodate for the underground ounces that are included in the FY '26. If there is a delay in that, we wanted to have -- we didn't want to sort of put some downside advice on that -- guidance on that.

Your next question comes from Al Harvey at JPMorgan.

I just want to get a bit more of an explanation of 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?

Look, the situation is just that we were told about 2 or 3 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 received some advice that, in fact, on reflection, the government had changed its perspective.

Now there is 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 want to 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 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 having portals on the 1st of this month. However, we have a very committed mining contractor and team of people there. And if history is any guide, Perseus will find a way to recover ground. We seem to have a knack of being able to do that. And we will do it again, I'm sure.

But in terms of the guidance and everything, we thought that rather than be sitting on a knife edge, we would give ourselves a little bit more protection just to see how things go. But I have every faith in what's going to occur and that I believe that we will be delivering, if anything, towards the -- certainly into the upper half of that range when the next year comes around.

I mean just to add to that, there's about 20,000 ounces of underground that -- in that region in the underground coming into FY '26. So we're not talking about huge amounts. And there is opportunity there to look at the remaining CMA pit from an open pit perspective.

Yes. So just to clarify what Lee-Anne has said is that the contribution from the underground this year is not enormous, but there is some contribution. And we'll be doing our best to bring that in through various means.

Yes. Maybe just to follow up. I guess just with the presidential elections coming up in Cote d'Ivoire, do you feel like there's any impact there or as to why this decision has been taken and any closed loop?

No, I don't think -- I think it's completely unrelated to that. I just think that -- 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 this is the first underground mine in Cote d'Ivoire. So this is the first time they've had to deal with the situation. And they started off considering that this decree could be issued by 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 off by the President, this needs to be signed up. Now it would have been helpful if this was discovered 2 years ago or 3 years ago. But the fact that it's only occurred last week, we just need to work around it. So I don't think there's anything to get too excited about.

Plenty of people have made observations about 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 15-odd years, and we do find a way to get 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.

Your next question comes from Ben Wood at UBS.

Just wanting to hopefully get a little bit more color on FY '26 and just drill into the detail a little bit more. How should we think sort of about the profile across the year itself? June quarterly run rates at Yaoure sort of suggests stronger start and potentially a weaker finish, but hopefully, just sort of wanting a little bit more color on that, if possible.

Well, look, I'm tempted to -- well, what will happen is that, for instance, Yaoure's first half will be stronger than its second half. I'll give you that much. Edikan'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 Nkosuo deposit and 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 6 months of Bagoe ore, which, once again, is higher grade than what we're seeing in the first 6 months.

So the thing is that each of the operations have their ups and downs. We have, in the past, provided the market with guidance -- 6 monthly guidance, but we were told repeatedly by analysts that you didn't want 6 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.

Your next question comes from David Radclyffe at Global Mining Research.

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...

Sorry, just to clarify that, we have been mining out of Nkosuo now for 6 months. So what we're looking for is full access to ground for waste dumps and things of that nature more so 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 conditions. So that's fine.

And as far as the government is concerned, the government 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 had some discussions with the local community. And we want to make sure that everybody is happy about what we're doing. We don't want to go ahead with 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 front.

As to the recovery, the recovery -- the oxide ore does have a lower recovery. But what we tend to do is that we blend that oxide material with lower grade fresh stockpiles that have been accumulated over many years. So we will probably see a drop down in the production -- in the recovery, not too dramatically, but it will be below where it's been in the last 12 months or so.

If you look at -- actually look at the plant at Edikan, I mean, it 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 10 years have been spectacularly good. It really is a very good plan. And I wish that we had enough ore to go for another 10 or 15 years, but it doesn't look like that will be the case.

Okay. So then maybe on the exploration spend for next year, obviously, a big step-up this year, and you had a lot of drilling to do, especially at Nyanzaga and Sissingue. So do we expect the level to be maintained through this year?

It will certainly be maintained. I mean, look, with our exploration -- approach to exploration, it's a fully gated exercise. So it really depends on the level of success people are having. And if we're being successful, then we will find money 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 to really embrace greenfields exploration. Most of our exploration to date has been relatively close to existing infrastructure and the like for the obvious reason that they're the cheapest ounces that we can get.

But we also think looking forward and particularly taking into account the fact that there's not that many opportunities around for acquisition, we do think that with large amounts of capital available, we really should start at a greenfield -- on a greenfields program and see if we can generate some deposits that way.

Now the fact is that it's not going to happen in the short term. We need to make the long-term commitment, and that means making a commitment of money and people, that's something that we, as a company, are about to do.

Okay. And then just the last one, Yaoure and Edikan all-in sustaining costs up a couple of hundred bucks per ounce. Was that all just related to compensation payments? Or were there other things in there?

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.

Yaoure, similarly, has got -- and when I say royalties, I'm talking about everything. So that's also the community spend is also linked to the royalty that gold price was about $70 per ounce at Yaoure. And then additionally, there was a big finish up off of the TSF expansion for Yaoure in this period. So it was those 2 contributors really.

Yes. So 3 things, essentially. Royalties, in the broadest possible sense, price-related costs, if you will; community compensation; and sustaining capital.

I mean, Yaoure is one of the -- one that actually is worth commenting on. I mean, I guess 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 -- with the underground coming on and other shallow deposits, it's pretty clear that we need more space. We do need more space to -- for tailings and also for waste dumps. And so we have had to actually go out to the community to pick up some more land, and we've also needed to actually build the structures, et cetera, et cetera. So in a sense, it's a price that we're paying for the successful expansion of that operation.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. So I'll hand back to Jeff for closing remarks.

Okay. Well, look, thanks very much, Nathan. Yes, we're pretty comfortable with where we're positioned at the present time, and we're looking forward to the future. And I think that investors can have 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.

Good morning, and welcome to the Perseus Mining Investor Webinar and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining, Managing Director and CEO, Jeff Quartermaine. Thank you, Jeff.

Thanks very much, Nathan, and welcome, everybody, to Perseus Mining's webinar to discuss the 5-year production outlook that was published on the ASX earlier today. I'm joined on the call by two my colleagues, our CFO, Lee-Anne de Bruin; and Jacob Ricciardone, our Chief Development Officer. Lee-Anne requires no further introduction, I believe. But Jacob, who you may not have met before, I joined purses earlier this year to assume specific responsibility for exploration, development and technical services, including long-term planning. Now both Lee-Anne and Jacob will present details of the plan and will then be available to respond to any detailed questions that you may have later in the webinar.

In terms of the agenda for today's webinar, I'll start proceedings by providing a few introductory remarks before passing to Lee-Anne and Jacob. And they will then, as I say, outline exactly what it is that purchase is contemplating in terms of production and costs over the next 5 years. We'll then hold a Q&A session to dive into any specific matters that have not been addressed your satisfaction during the presentation or indeed in the release itself. For those of you who are participating in this webinar or computer, you should be able to track the presentation visually on your screens.

Before handing over to Lee-Anne and Jacob, let me first make a couple of observations. This is the first time that Perseus has published its 5-year outlook. Although let me assure you, it's certainly not the first time that one has been prepared. The reason why we've chosen to publish on this occasion is because we feel we need to clear up what we believe is that a major misconception about Perseus that seems to exist in certain sections of the market.

According to some, while Perseus has done very well in recent years, consistently producing in excess of ounces of gold per year at an all-in site cost that's well below most in the industry. And of course, in the process, amassing a very healthy cash balance. It stood at more than USD 801 million at the end of March. People believe that the music is about to stop as Perseus' assets have reasonably short mine lives compared to other companies, and this is a reason to look elsewhere when investing in gold equities.

Now the latter part of that -- this assertion is just simply not correct. And our 5-year outlook goes a long way towards demonstrating that it is grossly premature to be predicting Perseus' imminent demise. In fact, today's 5-year outlook is forecasting average gold production by Perseus over the next 5 years to ending in fiscal 2030 of 516,000 to 536,000 ounces of gold per year at an average all-in site cost of USD 1,400 to $1,500 an ounce.

Now this forecast is based on JORC-compliant reserves, about 93% of the productions from JORC-compliant reserves, while the remaining 7% is from indicated mineral resources. And these are reserves and resources that are currently owned by Perseus. In other words, this is a real and achievable plan based on real and actionable ore reserves calculated using reasonable technical parameters. There is no arm waving or smoking mirrors or hidden costs included. Like most things at Perseus, what you see is what you get. And what you will get is a production and cost profile of a very healthy and vibrant gold mining company, definitely not one that is in decline.

Now I should mention that the [ Mayor Sand Gold ] project is not included in our 5-year outlook, even though it contains a very sizable NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource and reserve that is likely to be expanded well beyond current estimates. Now for obvious reasons, we do not have -- currently have a clear line of sight on the development time line for this project, and therefore, production profile. So in other words, while these reserves are real, they are not currently actionable and hence are not included.

Now our decision not to proceed as planned with the development of Meyas Sand in 2023 has impacted our short-term production outlook slightly. But once the Nyanzaga gold mine comes on stream as expected in January '27, the shortfall will be rectified at our 500,000 to 600,000 ounce production target will not only be restored, but will be maintained well into the future if we keep doing what we are good at doing.

Now this 5-year plan is aimed at establishing Perseus as a reliable long-term producer of gold. In doing this, we'll need to continue to manage our capital in a balanced and responsible manner to ensure that we genuinely achieve our mission of generating benefits for all of our stakeholders in fair and equitable proportions. Now we've made a fairly decent festive this in recent years given the mix of growth and capital returns that we've delivered and today's plan demonstrates that there is plenty more of this to come even if gold prices are not maintained at today's levels into the future.

So without any further ado, I'll hand over to you, Lee-Anne and Jacob, to present the 5-year outlook in more detail. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Jeff. We appreciate you doing this call. So [indiscernible] like London, as you got around there telling our story. As we mentioned, we have gone through our normal life of mine processes and with significant input from Jacob. And the challenge this year was to extend the Edikan and Sissingue gold mines, optimize Yaouré and the CMA Underground and introduced the Nyanzaga Gold Project post FID into our portfolio. This process, which Jacob will elaborate a little bit more on later, involved focusing on adding additional ounces and then considering the increased cost profile that this would introduce obviously then against the backdrop of the current gold price environment.

As Jeff mentioned, this is all aligned with our corporate strategy to build our portfolio to include 3 to 4 operating mines, each located on the African continent with operating lives of 10-plus years, producing in the range of 500,000 to 600,000 ounces of gold per year at a cost cash margin of not less than $500 per ounce for every ounce of gold produced. So in front of you, you'll see the highlights of this versus this 5-year gold production outlook.

And our current portfolio expects to recover 2.6 million to 2.7 million ounces at an average of 55,000 to 535,000 ounces per annum over the 5-year period. It will produce these at an average all-in site cost of between USD 1,400 to USD 1,500 per ounce. And this won't vary more in plus or minus 10% year-on-year. To achieve it, we will invest $878 million of development capital over the 5-year period. And this includes spending for our Managed project, the CMA underground development and 2 large cutbacks as part of the Edikan extension at [ Fetish Pit ] and Esuajah North. And I will refer back to this point a little bit later in the presentation.

Importantly, at a long-term gold price assumption of USD 2,400 per ounce, our cash margin consistently exceeds our stated target upgrade of generating greater than $500 per ounce. And another important fact is our plans, as Jeff alluded to, are underpinned by a high level of confidence with 93% of the ounces in the plan coming from ore reserves.

As you can see from the graph, our 5-year gold production outlook delivers very strongly on our company's strategy. It delivers, as I said, an average of 515,000 to 535,000 ounces per annum. The production comes from 34% from Yaoure, 28% from Edikan and 10% from Sissingué with the introduction of Nyanzaga from early 2027, contributing 28%. And all of this is done at an all-in site cost of USD 1,400 to USD 1,500 per annum.

In line with our previously communicated capital allocation framework, our 5-year outlook continues to deliver on the targets and priorities that we set. Firstly, we're producing reliable and strong operating cash flows. Our technical and financial teams adopted a systematic process to assess and prioritize internal growth opportunities to continue our commitment to deliver these strong cash flows. Secondly, we have focused on continued growth on the strength of our balance sheet in the development of the plan, looking for ways to effectively allocate our USD 1.1 billion in liquidity to value-accretive investments.

And thirdly and importantly, in the process, we have been able to assess our growth opportunities at all of our operating mines. Yaoure, we've got the CMA Underground, has gone through an optimization process, working with [indiscernible] our highly experienced underground mining contractor. And this has resulted in opportunities to increase development rates, which brings forward development capital originally planned for post-commercial reduction to free commercial production and hence, will now be capitalized.

In addition, a review of the costs in this period have allowed for capitalization under the accounting standards, our previously expensed costs, namely royalties and G&A costs. And this is really just relates to timing and reclassification. We will also, as we've previously released to the market, invest in our Nyanzaga gold project at a function of about USD 520 million. And you will note that yesterday, we released our NI 43-101 technical part for this project.

At Edikan, through optimization of the various pits and balancing an increase of costs with additional ounces, we've been able to extend the life of Edikan out to FY '32, a great outcome for Perseus, the government of Ghana, our contractors and our valued employees. The mining stripping of costs -- sorry, the mine strip costs will be treated as developed and capital for these large cutbacks at Edikan and this is in the region of about $168 million to reach commercial production but it introduces about 200,000 additional ounces into the Edikan life of mine.

Importantly, all of the above capital employees continues to complement ongoing returns to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.

I'll now hand over to Jacob, our Chief Development Officer, to take you through each of the operations.

Thanks, Lee-Anne. Before we dive into each asset, I just want to highlight some of the objectives we want to achieve by putting out this 5-year outlook and the technical work that underpins it.

The first one is looking at the opportunities as a portfolio and how each of the mine sites complement each other over the longer period of time and resulting in the development of the production profile and that was presented earlier in the presentation. And the second thing that Jeff alluded to in his introduction was that really the we translate this from being a plan into something that's executionable and that delivers value for our stakeholders and shareholders of Perseus.

The most tangible benefit there at the obvious thing there is that we have used a high proportion of our ore reserve in producing this plant. But not only that, when we looked at growth opportunities, we've focused on the measured and indicated material -- we have not used inferred material in this plan. That's not to say that we're not looking at those opportunities further on. But what we want to do was to make sure that we had a tangible practical plan moving into the future.

If we focus on Yaouré now, the 5-year outlook for Yaouré is primarily based on the work completed for the Yaouré [indiscernible] in September '23. It's been updated since then to include the changes to the ore reserve in 2024 and the CMA underground FID that was presented in January '25. This plan has been updated for the assumptions and cost inputs as we see them on the ground at the moment and really understanding what that means going forward for the site. As I said, all the mining inventory for Yaouré is part of our current ore reserve. So we have a strong understanding of what the plan entails going forward.

As we prepare to start the underground operations next quarter, the site and operational change is the contractor have mobilized to site and start -- has started to adapt the plan for the existing conditions. This means we've optimized some of the portal locations, adjusted some of the mining rates that we had in our original feasibility study and some of the developments we are sequencing. And this is added to -- the modified plan has brought forward some of that capital development that Lee-Anne mentioned before.

In terms of sustaining capital, primarily, Yaouré is in midlife, and so we're looking at site infrastructure improvements and TSF construction being the primary driver of that capital going forward. We have spent a lot of time in recent in recent time looking at improving the planning and the future cost estimates, especially of the TSF structure that we have at Yaouré. Aside from the current ore reserve that we've got in this plan for Yaouré we continue to test on the brownfield exploration targets in and around the mine down dip of the current underground and some of the other targets we have with the brownfields team there, and we look forward to putting those into the plan as we test those extensions.

Moving on to Nyanzaga. This plan, as we put it into the 5-year outlook is as described in April's FID announcement and the NI-43 that was released yesterday. The project is scheduled to pull first gold in the start of -- sorry, in Q4 and FY '27, so Q3 FY '27. And Nyanzaga provides growth in the group's annual gold production moving to our strategic target of 500,000 to 600,000 ounces per annum. It also, as it is bring on -- as we bring this into production, it starts to reduce our group's weighted on sustaining costs and reduce our operating margin in the medium term.

The immediate priority for Perseus is to develop this project on time and on budget. This is the fourth mine that will be built and operated by Perseus and many of the construction team have been with us for both our Sissingué and Yaouré project builds. So we have good capacity within the business to execute on this project. Further work is being completed to achieve operational readies prior to construction and commissioning. This includes an infill drilling program to test the continuity of the orebody and also derisk some of the metallurgical and geotechnical assumptions that we had in the study. This program has yielded good results and has begun to -- we have begun to confirm some of the initial inputs that we've had into the study.

Moving on to Edikan. We had spent considerable time looking at the opportunities for Edikan. We have got an efficient mill and good operating position at Edikan. We wanted to understand what we could do to generate leverage off that. As part of that work, we have looked at the 5-year outlook including areas in Nkosuo, which we are mining at the moment. Esuajah North and Fetish pits, which we've mined in the past, and then the contribution from the ESS Underground.

What we did -- we did spend a lot of time looking at the opportunities in and around Edikan and how they might coalesce into a deliverable mine plan that is a large mill that demands or supply to it. Out of this process, we really identified Esuajah North and the Fetish cutbacks, extending the mine life at Edikan. While this comes at a marginal cost, it comes with relatively low operational executional risks as compared to other opportunities that we see not only within the business were outside. We have the installed capital. At Edikan, we have demonstrated capacity and improved operating performance that gives us the confidence to execute these plans.

Again, the majority of this plan is -- that forms part of this plan is part of our ore reserve base, and we are likely to move both the Fetish and Esuajah North into that as we update our ore reserve in August of this year. The additional mine life also allows us to develop Esuajah North underground. It formed part of the Life of Mine plan that was presented for Edikan in 2020. And the additional mine life provides the longevity for us to develop that plan. We are planning to initiate an update to the feasibility study in FY '26 in support of anticipated FID.

And finally, we move on to our fourth operation of the makeup -- that makes up this forecast, is Sissingué. So again, we are looking at different opportunities to extend the of mine at Sissingué. At the moment, we have using Stage 4 Airport Western in Bagoé as part of the current plan and then supplemented by another state cut back at Stage 5 of Sissingué that we assessed during this process. Both Bagoé and Airport West, the new mining areas that we will start in the new year and that provide additional offer to that Sissingué mill. And again, while this extends the mine plan out to 2030, it gives us some opportunity to test some brownfields exploration targets that we see as exciting opportunities within and around the Sissingué complex.

That brings us to the end of the update for each of the sites. So I'll hand back to Jeff to wrap up.

Okay. Thanks very much, Lee-Anne and Jacob. So look, in conclusion, looking forward, purchase outlook is very solid. We've got steady production, moderate costs and well positioned to generate significant cash flow, particularly if gold prices remain elevated as some very good judges believe is the case. Furthermore, the concept of Perseus continuing to look to grow our diversified asset portfolio will remain an important feature for us. We believe that through engaging in multiple operations, in multiple countries across the African continent, we are able to remove a lot of the volatility that comes from operating on the continent.

We also have a very experienced and capable management team and operating teams that has learned a lot of very valuable lessons since Sissingué came on stream back in 2011. And this is also critical in terms of being able to deal with the challenges before they become major problems and ensuring consistency in outcomes. Importantly, this means that as an investor, you can remain confident that your investment in Perseus will remain solid and is in very good hands. We will continue to remain receptive to new ideas and if right value-creative opportunities come along, Perseus is in a great position to execute to continue our growth journey.

So as a company, our focus on generating material benefits for all stakeholders including our host governments, communities, employers, providers of goods and services and very importantly, our investors is as strong as ever, allowing us to consistently achieve the stated mission of our company. something in which we're very proud.

So thank you very much for your attention today. This brings to a conclusion our presentation, and we are now happy to take any questions that you may have. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Richard Knights at Barrenjoey.

Jeff and Lean and Jacob, nice to see Sissingué and Edikan continuing to contribute up to 2030. I'm just wondering if you can give us any color about how you're thinking about those 2 assets post 2030. I know this is a 5-year plan but I suppose from a modeling perspective, how should we be thinking about the prospects beyond 2030 for both of those assets?

Well, I think we've already answered that question, Richard. As Jacob said, the life of Edikan I think goes to 2032, as it stands today, and Sissingué is about 2030. Now we also said that we'll continue to look for brownfields opportunities around the site in proximity to infrastructure. So look, the thing is this, we're not going to be sitting on our hands passing up new opportunities. If we can extend the lives beyond those dates, then we may certainly will. And I'd just remind you that when Edikan started back in 2011, I think it had a 9-year life ahead of it. And here we are talking about 2030 and 2032.

And as people will recall, when we started using back in 2018, it had about a 4.5, 5-year life ahead of it, and we're talking 2030. So look, our ability to convert brownfield opportunities into mineral resources and ore reserves is proven, and we must certainly will continue to do that as we go forward.

Your next question comes from Levi Spry at UBS.

Jeff and team, I might have missed it in the presentation back, but I didn't see it in the announcement. Can you just talk through the development CapEx sort of staging? So I know that's a number over the 5 years. But is there any more guidance you can give on how we think about modeling that, I guess, over the 5-year period?

Lee-Anne, I think that might be 1 for you, if you wouldn't mind, please.

Yes. So obviously, from teenage perspective, you'd model that over the next sort of 2 years. So in up from now the CMA Underground, Similarly, the ramp-up between now leading up to commercial production. So that's over the next 2 years. And then from the cutback perspective, pretty much we start doing Fetish in the sort of the first half of next calendar year, and that runs for about, I think, 20 months. And then the Esuajah North is a 30-month development and it starts at the end of FY '26 and runs for the 30 months after that. Hoe that gives you a bit more clarity. We did put that specifically in the presentation.

Your next question comes from David Radclyffe at Global Mining Research.

Jeff and team, just this portfolio, maybe could you talk to the approvals and what's outstanding to actually deliver this plant?

Okay. Well, if we're just running through the individual projects. Well, Nyanzaga is fully licensed, fully approved. We're going full steam ahead on that. No approval is required. Yaouré, we are waiting for the ministerial decree specifying regulations for underground mining in Côte d'Ivoire. Now we understand that, that has been all the approvals that are needed for that have been received, and that document is sitting on the desk of the Minister for mines in Cote d'Ivoire at this very moment, I believe. So that's imminent.

In terms of Edikan, we're looking -- we will be looking to the government to help us along give some approvals to some changes in blast zones for for a couple of those cutbacks. As you'd appreciate, since we stopped mining the people have moved within the 500-meter last radius, which is the standard in game and we'll be seeking some dispensation from that in a couple of those instances. Now there is precedent for that. In fact, I think Esuajah North, when we mined that the first time we I think the last one was down to 400 meters or something along those lines. So we have all the studies, university studies, et cetera, et cetera, that prove that, that is a reasonable thing to do. So -- we're not anticipating any difficulties in those areas.

And as far as the Sissingué is concerned, we have all our mining licenses. The things that we don't have at Sissingué at this particular point is a mining convention for the Bagoé pits, but discussions on that have commenced and will be finished shortly. We have had discussions around [indiscernible]. So that's also in practice. So those are things that affect the fiscal regime as opposed to the licensing piece. So look, everything is in very good shape. It not 100% correct to say that all approvals are in place, but the very vast majority of them are, and we'll be working hand in glove with our host governments and host communities over the next couple of years.

And as you'd appreciate, this exercise, it benefits provides very distinct benefits for the host governments and the host communities. So we are all in the same boat. Everybody is similarly motivated to extend the lives of these operations because the longer they run, the more benefits that they create. So we're not anticipating any real challenges in those outstanding approvals. We'll just need to sit down and work very closely with our colleagues in those countries.

Great. That's really helpful. Maybe if I could just follow up at Edikan in the underground there, if I could get a bit more color because before you've talked about sort of the risk reward not being right but now it looks like it has come into the plan, but you're still doing the study?

When we did that before, I think we used the gold price of about $1,300 an ounce, if I remember correctly. Times have changed a little since then. The other thing is that there's also been some changes around governance of underground mining in the country. And actually, our contractor on the site at the present time. [ Rockshore ] is in joint venture with I think it's [ Parenti ] somebody at [ Wassa ]. So they've gained a lot of experience in the interim period. So yes, the circumstances surrounding [indiscernible] South underground have changed quite a lot since we did that initial study many years ago.

And the other point that's worth noting is that, of course, we have done a lot of work at the Yaouré underground. And we've built up our internal capacity substantially in the underground mining area. So we're bringing a heck of a lot more expertise to the table now compared to when we did the original study, just now how long has been, probably 6 or 7 years ago, I think.

Your next question comes from Reg Spencer at Canaccord.

A lot of good detail in here, a lot of my other questions have been answered. A slightly different one for you. Have you got any updates as to the change of mining code in Cote d'Ivoire. I presume you're all-in sustaining cost forecast will incorporate in any potential change in royalties. But just curious as to that flag change in mining coding Cote d'Ivoire and when that might be expected to come through. And if -- if so, are there any other additional impacts that we should be mindful of?

Lee-Anne, I think I might ask you to answer that. You're in most contact with [indiscernible], please.

No problem. So we -- to answer your question, the mining code is in draft form and circulate. But importantly, the mining code in Ghana -- sorry, in [indiscernible] is going to be forward-looking. So it's only going to apply to new issued permits. So it will not be applied to Yaouré and Sissingué because it's got a step up stability agreement in place. Importantly though, just to flag what we have done with Bagoé because we are still finalizing the mining convention is we have made an assumption on the royalty because the royalty actually doesn't come out in the Mining Code. It comes out through the Finance Act and you get stability through the Mining Code and the Mining Convention. So the only potential impact would be on Bagoé. The rest are all on stability agreements.

Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon at Citi.

Just on the inorganic growth piece, what is the latest with your predictive stake, sort of what gates are you looking for next? Or is there anything we should think about there?

Actually, I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard you're on mute. I'd be a pretty wealthy bloke, I think actually. But look, just to come back to your question, Kate. There's nothing you should think about as far as that's concerned. We're not thinking about it too much at the moment. [indiscernible] when we look at the project at the moment, in our view, at the present time, it's too expensive relative to what we can get on the public data that's available. But we do have 18% of the stock and we're happy to sit and wait and watch what goes on. And of course, if somebody was to come and make a takeover offer that's extremely generous, then Perseus has never turned its back on making a profit in the past.

Alternatively, if we can find our way clear to acquire the property at a price that can generate significant value for our shareholders, and that's something that we would consider as well. So there's nothing really going on. like everybody else, we're watching with interest, the progress or otherwise that predictive is making vis-a-vis getting that mining license. We did note the other day that the government of Guinea has taken back a number of licenses from individuals, including predictive. So we're a little bit in the dark as to what that means longer term. But I guess that when predictive is ready, they'll share their views with the market around all that. So for the time being, we're just switching.

Okay. That makes sense. And then on the 5-year outlook, in terms of the all-in sustaining cost for the assets, you've given us the range. I think you've given us granular details for each of the assets around waste stripping grades, et cetera, but not the all-in sustaining costs. At any of those sites, are there any sort of lumpy years where we get a spike in those all-in sustaining costs to sort of call out?

No. Lee-Anne, I think I'm going to have to ask you to answer that one, if you wouldn't mind, please.

Yes. I mean I think sort of thinking about the overall profile, you are going to see probably Edikan in about FY '28 we'll have a slight spike up relative to the average. But otherwise, Nyanzaga remains pretty consistent and Sissingué remains pretty consistent as well.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. So I'll now hand back to Jeff for closing remarks.

Okay. Well, thanks, everybody. I think we've covered a fair bit of territory today. Thank you very much for joining us on this call. I hope that we've been able to present a convincing case to you that does show that Perseus indeed has a very bright future. And we look forward to bringing you further news of our assets as we move them forward in line with this plan. We have a quarterly report coming out in July. And I think that based on production up to the 9th of of June, so we're a couple of weeks out from the end of the year, things are looking very, very good vis-a-vis our guidance and the like. So we're looking forward to bringing you that short-term news and any longer-term news that comes to hand over the next couple of weeks. So thank you very much, and we will talk to you again later.