Aurelia Metals Ltd

ASX:AMI

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q2

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Aurelia Metals Quarter 2 FY '22 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Dan Clifford, Managing Director. Please go ahead.

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

Thanks, Melanie, and good morning to everyone. I have Ian Poole, Peter Trout and Adam McKinnon with me this morning. Earlier today, we uploaded 3 announcements across the quarterly report, Federation exploration and operations update and also the eagerly anticipated set of work done on the Great Cobar Pre-Feasibility Study and also the December 2021 quarterly update and the outlook presentation that we'll be referring to throughout the talk this morning. To making a start, half 1 was on -- it was on plan. Our activities are all aligned to what we're heading for, for the year, but also the threats as well. And when that threat looms, the only option for us is to absolutely front foot that, and that we did. And with COVID-19 and Omicron, I'm immensely proud of what our site teams through and through have delivered in terms of protecting the businesses and our shareholders' investments into us, the business, with that threat coming at us. I look back over the last couple of years, and I don't think anyone would be surprised to say that I think as a business, we've got quite match fit in regards to this and how we manage this threat. And with Omicron coming on over the last couple of months, whilst it's been -- it's not been without impact to us, the actions that we've taken within the business has contained all of this, and we may remain well within the commitments we've made to the market through the course of this year. This morning, we're going to cover off on that performance in light of those comments, particularly resourcing, but also covering off the consistency of our metal production and the tailwinds we've got with our forecast position on gold equivalent with both production, grade and commodity pricing. We'll look through our solid footing as we look forward with the business, with some minor adjustments to our production, improved cost outlook and a really strong cash build. We'll move on to a discussion with Great Cobar and Federation, of which, for us, and we've talked about this quarter-on-quarter, represents a huge opportunity for our business. Absolutely classic examples of organic growth. And we are, again, moving towards -- step by step to execution of these projects. Just moving into Slide 6 of the presentation deck uploaded this morning. I'm going to start with a couple of comments around our sustainability performance. If you look at our injury frequency rates, again, halved over the last 12-month period as we push our business forward towards what we believe as a management team good looks like. That will continue with the businesses we mature. Group environmental incident frequency did see a slight tick-up during the last quarter, particularly through November, to minor, contained, water-related issues at either Peak -- or at both Peak and Hera, contributed to that small uptick. But overall, over a year, still very constant and consistent delivery of improvement across the business. Moving over to Slide 7. We've -- for a long time as a business now, we have been focusing on those fundamentals of injury frequency rates and environmental performance. More so this year, the business has really focused on the durability of the foundation in which we bring this business forward. During the quarter, we've taken significant steps forward in terms of ground truthing -- I'd like to call it ground truthing. What we see, think and feel about how our business is being run. We launched our first full employee survey across the business. This survey is and can be internationally benchmarked in terms of responses. And we've got a 75% strike rate on people contributing to that ground truthing of working within Aurelia. We launched our diversity inclusion working groups, and we've assessed how we're performing in that area so we can get the experience of working within this company to be significantly improved. And also, when it comes to code of conduct and how we want this business to perform, how we conduct ourselves in the business arena, 50 -- over half of our workforce now gone through our code of conduct. Added to that, we're deep in year 1 of our response to climate change within the business. Again, I use that ground truthing term of understanding what our risks and opportunities are as we establish that foundation in the business. I'll hand over to you, Peter.

[Peter Trout, Chief Operating Officer]

Thank you, Dan, and I'll talk to Slide 8 on the presentation deck with our operating results and pick up on a theme that Dan stated earlier. It's really pleasing to see the consistency coming through from our operational performance. It's something we've been working on in recent years to improve. And you'll see from the December quarter's results, we again delivered around 27,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of just below AUD 1,400 per ounce, consistent with the prior quarter. This is a real credit to our site teams, those who worked incredibly hard to deliver safe production over the last quarter while dealing with the challenges of a tight labor market, restricted mobility of people and changing protocols to manage [indiscernible] COVID-19, both our workforce and our local communities. We recorded lower quarterly lead and zinc metal production, which was partly offset by higher copper output. And this reflected a single lead/zinc mill seed campaign and 2 copper ore campaigns at the Peak Mine over the quarter. Production at Peak was constrained by underground mine ore delivery, which is 8% below the prior quarter in processed ore tonnage. Our underground mining performance was mainly impacted by labor shortages, with around 10% of roles unfilled over the quarter. We have initiated a series of changes to mitigate these impacts and are working with our mining contractor on a longer-term resolution. Moving to Hera. Our processing rates through the concentrator were again constrained by very high base metal fee grades, and this led to record monthly base metals feed grade and concentrate production rates over the quarter. And there was some good work done around partial debottlenecking of the filtration circuit to maintain reasonable throughput rates with the higher base metal feed grades. And the December quarter highlights at Hera were Redpath's successful mobilization and commencement of underground mining activities at the start of January. And we also started development to the Upper Hays deposit, which will contribute several months of additional mill feed to extend Hera's mine life by several months. Moving to Dargues. The operation delivered to expectations over the quarter with consistent quarterly results for ore mined and processed, feed grade and gold production. We also saw better gold recovery and concentrate grade as a result of the higher gold desalter ratio in the ore feed and optimization of the flotation circuit. We resumed underground infill drilling for mineral resource estimation and mine planning purposes. And we also identified an opportunity to develop a new stoping area in the upper section of the deposit, which will see a continuation of sustaining capital expenditure into the June quarter. And on that note, I'll hand over to Ian to talk to our financial performance.

[Ian Poole, CFO & Company Secretary]

Thanks, Peter. Another good quarter for Aurelia as it tracks its FY '22 operating guidance. [ I really finished the ] December quarter with $95 million of cash on hand, an increase of $29 million compared to the September quarter and is well positioned to continue to fund its exploration program as well as the Federation and Great Cobar growth projects. In the quarter, there was a 38% increase in sales. Revenues were largely volume-related, although realized prices for all Aurelia's metals remained robust. Compared to the September quarter, realized gold price was unchanged, realized copper and lead prices increased by 12% and zinc decreased by 2%. Dargues operating cash flow of $9 million was positively impacted by increased sales due to the realization of concentration stocks which had built up in the prior quarter. Peak's operating cash flow of $32 million was also positively impacted by increased sales of gold and the realization of lead and zinc concentrates, which had built up in prior periods. During the quarter, Aurelia spent -- spend was $2.3 million on the Hera-Federation Village, which is enabling works for the Federation project, $1 million on studies for Federation and Great Cobar projects and $700,000 on environmental approvals. During the quarter, exploration spend was $4.3 million on infill drilling and exploration at Federation and $1.8 million on drilling at Great Cobar. Aurelia continues to strengthen its balance sheet and made debt repayments of $4.1 million relating to the term loan, which is scheduled to be fully repaid by September '23. Aurelia also cash-backed $5.5 million of its bank guarantees used for environmental bonding. I'll now hand back to Dan, who will update you on the FY '22 operating guidance.

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

Thanks, Ian. We slightly amended our outlook for the year, particularly in light of being halfway through the year and also the deep consideration of where we are with Omicron and COVID-19. While we've guided to the lower end of the original range, it's predominantly coming from Peak. As we -- as Peter alluded to, we are having some resourcing issues there. And also in looking forward this year, a smoother quarter-on-quarter production on Q3 and Q4 than what was previously indicated in the first half of the year. Lead and zinc are at the upper end of the range. Copper/zinc, on the range or remains unchanged. And in light of both metal prices, productivity and activity levels we see going forward, we're reducing the all-in sustaining cost guidance to $1,350 to $1,550, down from $1,500 to $1,700. I mentioned we've factored in COVID into this. It's really important to note here for us that we, as I mentioned earlier, have seen the impacts of this coming through, not only in our operations but in society in general. We factored these in. We see that, particularly in New South Wales, that we've gone through the peak. And we're making that assumption as we go, that our labor constraints, supply chain constraints start to alleviate as absenteeism or absences from work alleviate as the way it goes through. Important to note that, but we are still very confident on where we're heading for the year. Half 1 was exactly on plan, and we look forward to continuing that through the course of this year. And back to you, Peter.

[Peter Trout, Chief Operating Officer]

Thank you, Dan, and I'll move to Slide 13 of the presentation deck and talk to the Great Cobar project. During the quarter, we finished the Great Cobar Pre-Feasibility Study, and the study demonstrated the technical and economic viability of developing a new satellite mine at Great Cobar, with that operation to feed the Peak process plant over a period of approximately 5 years or so. This baseload feed from Great Cobar will also underpin feed from other sources so that we can better utilize the available process plant capacity at Peak. In our approach to Great Cobar, we followed a similar methodology to what we've done for our Federation project. And we now have sufficient information from drilling and studies to provide confidence to invest in an exploration decline, and in itself, provides an economic return on the cost of accessing and producing from an initial mining area. This provides us with a lower-risk approach to establishing underground drill platforms that will allow us to unlock the potential of the deposit and shorten production lead times, assuming further success in our drill programs. In the PFS at Great Cobar, we evaluated 4 mine design options around an initial mining block. And that initial mining block was based on the higher confidence indicated portion of the 30 June 2021 mineral resource located near the part of the exploration declines. The design we've selected uses the same mining methods employed at the Peak mine. It's also important to note there's no process flow sheet changes required to treat the copper-gold feed from Great Cobar, which we expect to produce a high-quality copper-gold concentrate and the [indiscernible] products. The PFS project economics, when considered on a stand-alone basis, are highly leveraged to metal price and provided Aurelia with greater exposure to copper prices as part of our copper-ready strategy. And as a result of the PFS, I made an ore reserve of 840,000 tonnes that's been declared at Great Cobar, and this forms part of the Peak mines ore reserve. The ore reserve at Peak at the end of December 2021 has increased by 19% to 3.2 million tonnes, and this allows for mining depletion from the prior estimate and the addition of Great Cobar. The PFS also identified some great opportunities to realize more value from Great Cobar. And I'll hand over to Adam, who will take us through those.

[Adam McKinnon, GM of Exploration & Business Development]

Thanks, Peter. As you mentioned, the PFS identified significant value uplift opportunities from further mineral resource growth, mine life extension, the potential processing of the high-grade lead/zinc mineralization in the deposit, higher metal prices and the potential discovery of additional economic mineralization in the proximity of the deposit. In the last quarter, the company announced some very strong results down plunge of the project PFS area, including 5.4% copper over 13 meters and 4.2% copper over 12 meters. These results extended the mineralization by up to 100 meters below the previous mineral resources, but due to the timing of the data cutoff were not included in the PFS analysis. In the last quarter, surface drilling at Great Cobar continued, testing the zone up to 300 meters further down plunge again. Due to the extended assay turnaround times now being experienced across the industry, full assay results for this particular program remain pending. Moving to Slide 15 of the investor presentation. Aurelia has now completed more than 31,000 meters of diamond drilling at the Federation project in the first 2 quarters of FY '22 as the project moves closer to operating status. Latest assay results for the program continue to see the incredible grade profile of Federation confirmed. With this set of results announced today, the best we have seen to date. Some of the outstanding results include 18 meters at 34% lead/zinc and 13.1 grams per tonne gold, 57 meters at 24% lead/zinc, 30 meters at 24% lead/zinc and 3.9 grams per tonne gold and an incredible 18.6 meters at 48% lead/zinc and 1.3 grams per tonne gold. It's worth noting that these results include some bonanza-grade base metal intercepts, including 5 meters at 62.7% lead/zinc and 10 meters at 61.6% lead/zinc. For context, there's a higher combined lead/zinc price than the bulk concentrate product currently being produced at the nearby Hera Mine. The recent results have also confirmed the presence of a new high-grade gold corridor at the southwestern edge of the main deposit, including 5 meters of 47 grams per tonne gold and 3 meters of 23 grams per tonne gold, with the area remaining open or sparsely drilled along strike. Drilling data cutoff the Federation feasibility study [indiscernible] this month, although notwithstanding the extended assay turnaround times previously mentioned. Intensive drilling to upgrade and extend the Federation resources will continue throughout the March quarter. I'll hand back over to Peter.

[Peter Trout, Chief Operating Officer]

Thanks, Adam. Federation is just an outstanding ore body and deposit, and we're very excited to see the contribution that it can make to the future of our production hub at the Hera site. The latest drill results are particularly encouraging because many of the intercepts are located outside and immediately adjacent to the mining area that was delineated by the March 2021 scoping study. And the long section on Page 3 of the announcement shows where these recent results sit in relation to that scoping study mining area. As such, we expect the latest results to contribute positively to the feasibility study mine design. Feasibility study program continued across multiple work streams during the December quarter, and the study remains on track for completion in the middle of this calendar year. In addition to the study program, we also reached an early project milestone with Stage 1 of the Hera camp expansion completed to schedule and budget. This facility is now ready to accommodate the additional workforce required for the underground work that will commence in the coming months at Federation. And there's a photo of the camp expansion on Slide 5 of the presentation deck -- Slide 15 of the presentation deck. In terms of site works, we've engaged contractors to undertake the civil works, box cut excavation and development of the exploration decline at the project site, which will give us a better insight into the geology of the deposit and allow us a bulk sample as well. Regulatory permitting activities for the full project approval also remain on track. And we're assisted by the Commonwealth government's confirmation that the full mine development does not require approval under the EPBC Act. Dan, I'll hand back to you.

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

Thanks, Peter. And a quick wrap-up before we head into question time, do it in reverse order. I think the -- you can see the excitement with the team with what we've got coming in terms of execution across these projects, these organic projects within the business. And the point I really want to draw out here is, as we close through these feasibility studies, either prefeas or final feas, drilling continues. And the upside that's pouring out of these results is giving us even further opportunity across all 3 of our assets. Through the year, including last year and this first half of this year, we've really secured a strong footing, and that's put us in a fantastic position to lead into the execution of these projects. Declines, box cut surface work, civil work, ventilation work across particularly Federation and Peak in the not-too-distant future. And with the strength in the balance sheet, the operating performance and our outlook, we really are in good shape to take the business home. Even amidst these threats that are coming to the business, we're very confident on where we've got the business positioned and where we'll get it through by the end of this year. So with that, Melanie, I'd like to hand over to questions, please.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Dylan Kelly with Ord Minnett.

[Dylan Kelly, Senior Research Analyst]

Congrats on literally a great result. Amazing to see some of the numbers falling through, particularly cash flow. Great to see. Look, there's a lot to get through, so I'll try to be punchy here, and I'll circle back with more questions. But just in terms of the guidance changes, particularly on costs, can you just walk us through the different moving parts on that? I understand the sector right now is heading in the other direction in terms of increasing cost guidance. You guys are going the other way. So what's this in terms of -- is it mostly base metal prices, lower TCs? Can you just marry that up and if you're trying to strike with that and perhaps a labor or development crew availability at the moment?

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

Dylan, it's Dan. I'll give a round out of that. I think it's pretty evident going for us going into the year that we had -- we took a view on base metal pricing going into the year that was probably positioned or pinpointed in about April or May. Since then, we have seen base metal commodity prices rise. And that goes to the tailwinds of a reducing all-in sustaining. Added to that, we're seeing some great grades come out of particularly Peak and Hera in regards to base metal grades. So you see the combination of guidance for base metals being at the upper end or on range. The commodity prices and, to a degree, somewhat some of the activity levels underground when we're short staffed has driven that all-in sustaining cost down by that bracket of $150 to $200.

[Dylan Kelly, Senior Research Analyst]

Okay. Understood. And I suppose if Hera is pushing out at, what, $46 an ounce, that also -- even that's a small amount, it's still not the right direction. Okay.

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

Yes. It's important to note with Hera, too, and Peter didn't mention it, but we've pushed that plant so hard. It's producing metal outputs well above its nameplate capacity. And there's a reason -- that's the key reason why its throughput is down. We're going to throttle it back. And on a per tonne basis, it's coming out above nameplate and that absolutely helps in all circumstances. And you can see what that's done for the forward view on gold equivalent as well, not only off the back of the half 1 performance, but what we see coming forward in half 2. So it has been a great outcome for us.

[Dylan Kelly, Senior Research Analyst]

Good to hear. Does this open the door to perhaps tracking some ore up to Peak with -- when you start getting into some of those higher grades? Or is that still a bit of a minority cases where it's too high grade for the mill to handle?

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

I think, at this point, the economics would say we're probably better off building stock a bit, to be honest with you, particularly if we've got any headwinds on labor availability. So at this point, we do that. But I think as most investors will be aware, we're looking at that -- well, we're driving towards that flexibility with the approval status of the Federation project to give us that flexibility of chucking up the road or leaving it on that side.

[Dylan Kelly, Senior Research Analyst]

Okay. Fair enough. Second question is just to do with Great Cobar and the study. Just trying to understand the options. So the options that you looked at in terms of the volume, I mean, 450,000 to 500,000 tonnes, how do we think about that in terms of the strategy of filling Peak's mill? Is this going to be like a 50-50 split, 60-40 between Peak and Great Cobar and the existing sort of Peak North operations there? Can you just walk us through that? And then we can just come back into timing.

[Peter Trout, Chief Operating Officer]

Dylan, it's Peter here. When we looked at the different options for Great Cobar, there are 2 major constraints. One was ventilation, air flow. And the second one was the capacity to cycle through the stopes and sustain a consistent production rate. The option we selected gives us the best ventilation quantity, and it will get us up to that 0.5 million tonne per annum rate through Great Cobar with the sequencing and turnover of stopes with the mining methods we've used. In terms of its composition for the overall feed, it will vary on a year-on-year basis, depending on what's happening at our other deposits within the Peak complex. And we've commented before that we're driven by value. And so we're looking at any particular period at the best NSR material to go through the plant. Balancing that off is the logistical challenge of campaigning, separate lead/zinc and copper feeds through the process plant. We find the best if we can build a reasonable stockpile of material and feed it through for more than a month to minimize the losses we have when we stop the plant, clean out and change over another feed. So I guess that's a long-winded explanation to say it's going vary period to period, Dylan, depending on what's happening as part of the overall operation.

[Dylan Kelly, Senior Research Analyst]

Okay. So further to that in terms of when this is going to be a possibility of presenting to the mill. So forgive me if I'm -- if I don't get this correct. So timing is -- permits by the end of this calendar year 18 months of development times. So where does that place us in terms of first ore some time in 2024?

[Peter Trout, Chief Operating Officer]

I think if you look to the back of the presentation deck, Dylan, on Slide 20, we've given the time frame there around Great Cobar. And as you said, we're looking to get the full permitting for the full mining operation at the end of this year. We've already submitted the EIS and gone through the public submissions and feedback process. The exploration decline itself is currently permitted, looking to start that off the middle of this calendar year and then roughly an 18-month period to develop in and access the deposit with first stoping production around the start of calendar year '24.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Sam Berridge with Perennial.

[Samuel Berridge, Equities Analyst of Small Caps]

Just a question on costs at Peak. I see your all-in sustaining costs were up marginally quarter-on-quarter. But obviously, the by-product credits are up materially, suggests that your sort of your gross dollar million costs before by-product credits were quite a bit higher. It looks materially so. I mean you spoke to sort of staffing issues and whatnot. But just curious if anything else is impacting that and what's the read-through for the quarters going forward.

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

I think the -- Sam, it's Dan. I think the biggest driver for us at Peak at the moment is the lower throughputs. The actual dollar spend and operating costs and sustaining capital aren't materially higher than where we plan to be for the year. So I think at this point, in terms of what we're seeing for Peak, cost per tonne will be higher than what we planned for the year on the basis that the [ suspect ] throughput will be under.

[Samuel Berridge, Equities Analyst of Small Caps]

Yes. Okay. I've got that. I might [indiscernible] a little bit more off-line. Moving on from there then, just with those cracking grades from Federation drilling coming through, I mean, is there room or is it even worthwhile considering like a DSO component for that ore feed as part of the feasibility study? Or is it too -- these ones are too small at the moment you're best off just to blend it through?

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

Look, I think at this point in time, we'll just blend it through.

[Samuel Berridge, Equities Analyst of Small Caps]

Yes. Okay. Got you. And just lastly, on Dargues, group gold guidance still sort of requires a bit of a tick-up in grade, it seems, in the second half from that deposit. I'm just sort of curious whether there's any sort of stopes or individual stopes and stuff coming through that you've seen that give you some confidence that, that -- the grade for the second half are going to be achieved.

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

We've done the drilling out. We're deep into the second round underground drilling and -- well, drilling at the LOM, in fact, Sam. So we're confident we'll see a stronger second half on average contribution from Dargues than we've seen in the first half. As we drill through, we see some ups and downs, but we're still confident that we've got a stronger second half out of Dargues.

[Operator]

Your next question is a follow-up from Dylan Kelly with Ord Minnett.

[Dylan Kelly, Senior Research Analyst]

Sorry, guys. Me again. Just in regards to the timing for the Federation, also for the Hera mill being refitted, just looking at Slide 21 of the deck. Is there a window in 2023 when we start talking about development into an early production of trying ore back up to Peak in the current situation? How should we be thinking about that?

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

[ Open ] options are wide open to us, Dylan. We're still finalizing feasibility now. And we'll test those once the final decisions made on what that configuration of that mill looks like. But in the planning we've been going through now for a fair period of time, we're working towards making sure that optionality sits there. And it will become what -- for us, with a longer mine lives coming with this drill out, particularly in Federation, becomes what's the best cash flow situation in the early stages of the development and commissioning the operation. So whether the material can -- and depending what the final decisions we make on mill configuration that goes through the existing Hera plant produced a bulk con versus the economics of trucking it out the road for separate pump. So there's costs associated with better payabilities and there's simplicity with leaving it through the Hera mill with a bulk con, but you get lesser payability. So it becomes purely economic. We're making sure both options are open to us to get the best cash flow outcome in the early stages of the project.

[Dylan Kelly, Senior Research Analyst]

Okay. I understand. As far as my mind is coming back to this point around filling the mill at Peak and how we model this going forward, so from 2023 onwards, should we be assuming that the mill is running [ hot shot ]?

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

That's it. That's our intention. I mean we've -- year-on-year over the last, what, 2 to 3 years or 3 years, in fact, year-on-year mill feed or throughput has been lifting double-digit numbers. That's our absolute intention to get to that. What we see with Great Cobar coming on is significant baseline and good grade for copper to come through that plant to support further discovery, I guess, of lead/zinc, gold ore bodies in and around the existing Peak operation. It's absolute intention is to choke it.

[Dylan Kelly, Senior Research Analyst]

Okay. Fair enough. Do you mind if we just circle back into Dargues? Any comments from Sam's question regarding expecting an uptick in the second half? Great expectations. How come it's sitting at sort of like a sub-4 at the moment? Do you still have a bit of dilution coming through? What's happening on the ground there in terms of expectations in the model versus what you're finding? And also, just on the same point, what's been holding it back? And what's this opportunity that I think Peter highlighted before that you've got some stopes that are a bit higher up in the sequence? Could you just give us some color on that?

[Peter Trout, Chief Operating Officer]

Yes, Dylan. It's Peter here. I don't want to get into commentary on every single stope performance at Dargues. It's like all of our sites, we have unders and overs with all -- each stope and how it performs. I will say that the -- we've got more information now that feeds into our grade control model, which is what we use for our short-term planning. And over the last quarter, that model was reconciled very well. We have encountered areas where there's more geological complexity than the wide space resource drilling suggests, and we have losses in those areas. At the same time, there are other areas where we find upside. And over the course of a quarter, a year, they will vary. What we're doing is with our infill drilling program and our development, trying to get the best information possible to inform our mine plans. And out of that has come this upper levels opportunity to go in and establish another mining front, which puts us in a good position to lift capacity if we need to down the track. It also gives us a bit more operational flexibility, so we're not locked into a tight retreat sequence in stoping areas. Where if we do have a hiccup, it does have downstream consequences on the North feed. So as with all of our underground operations, it's a little bit a balancing act around all of this and key to it is trying to get the best information ahead of time so we make good decisions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from [ Anthony Wallace ], who is a private investor.

[Unknown Attendee]

Gents, great results. I just wanted to ask a question about some marketing and public relation activities for the year. And then I was talking to a market analyst there before Christmas. And he saw -- I think, [ Daniel Macquarie ] presentation and said was really, really impressed. But he said you guys are just off the radar a lot for articles and conferences and things like that. Are you looking at increasing some of that marketing this year?

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

Absolutely, yes. We've resourced through half 1 of the year to -- as we -- as I talk about sustainability and nonfinancial performance of the business, a lot of maturity and foundational buildings we're doing and we've done that during the course of the year. We've appointed senior position within our business to really accelerate our performance in that area. And you will have seen that come through at the back end of the year. That being said, though, Anthony, it's been incredibly different -- difficult, I should say, actually to get in front of people due to, obviously, travel restrictions, not only domestically, but also internationally, which is a key part of our Investor Relations work. To counter that, we've done, and I think I'd be -- I wouldn't be alone in saying in this comment, probably the actual efficiency of online conferences now is incredible. And we've loaded up with every opportunity we can across one-to-ones, across Europe, North America and APAC. And we're starting to see some entrants on the register now from those jurisdictions. The answer is yes, we are working towards maturing and accelerating our performance in that area. It's right on our radar.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Clifford for closing remarks.

[Daniel Clifford, MD, CEO & Executive Director]

Thanks, Melanie, and thank you, everyone, for your time this morning. I understand it's a busy period for a lot of you. Just in some closing comments. The pursuing and delivery and the constant strengthening of our foundation is really what's driving us. At this point in time, we've got a great problem to have. And that's these fantastic opportunities for optimization with our portfolio as we get these feasibilities coming together, some cracking exploration results that don't make the cut to those feasibilities. They're leading to further resource extension. With the feasibilities coming through now, we've just seen it with a milestone with Great Cobar now with reserve conversion. We've got mine design work as a part of this and constant assessment of the capacities within the business and the execution of these opportunities that really, when you think about it, that's the ultimate -- that ultimately what delivers value for our shareholders. So that optimization exercise for us. And I mentioned earlier about the upside that's pouring out of the -- every time we put a drill bit around these 3 assets has been great. And added to that, taking a view on the [ adaption ] of the business and being agile to adapt our business to suit these opportunities and the upsides that have been delivered to us, and that's a great advantage of the team we have. And being small, mid-cap business, we can move very quickly on these. So that's the key highlights for us for the quarter. And looking forward, we've got half year results in February. We look forward to that. And as Adam and Peter have pointed out, with the delays in assays exploration results, there's going to need to be some patience around that for everybody. We can't be putting out results until we've got them externally assayed. So that's just life for us at the moment. Just then a final comment. I think the market will be aware this is Adam McKinnon's final quarterly presentation with us. And so on behalf of the management team and I think on the shareholders' behalf, in particular, thanks to Adam for your dedication of the business. We look forward to seeing you on the airwaves with other businesses. And the value you've added to the organization has been immense. So thank you very much, and good luck. Thank you, everybody, for your time. We will be back with a conference in February for our half year results. Thank you, everybody.

[Operator]

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.