Jupiter Mines Ltd

ASX:JMS

Q4-2025 Earnings Call

[Operator]

Good morning, and I would like to welcome everyone to the Jupiter Mines' Q4 call. Today, we have Jupiter Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Brad Rogers; and Chief Financial Officer, Melissa North, to provide a brief update on the fourth quarter of the 2025 financial year, and then we'll open up to questions from callers.

Thanks. Brad, please go ahead.

[Brad Rogers, executive]

Thanks, Mel, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. For those of you who have had a chance to have a look at the quarterly activities report we released to the ASX this morning, you will see that it summarizes, in particular, for the full financial year, an outstanding operational set of outcomes. And I'll run you through those outcomes, both for the quarter and for the full year on the call today, and then I'll open the call up for any questions that might be out there.

So before I get into the operating outcomes, just briefly on safety. There was unfortunately one minor lost-time injury that occurred during the June quarter. That was a laceration injury that was suffered by a contractor and maintenance staff person. It was a minor laceration. The root cause identified for that injury was around lighting and supervision and corrective actions have been taken. Our TRIFR, total recordable injury frequency rate, notwithstanding that injury during the quarter remains at 0.38, which was exactly where it was at, at the end of the March quarter.

Moving on to the key operating performance KPIs that are set out in the quarterly activities report. Firstly, you'll note that the sales performance in the quarter was very strong, above 1 million tonnes of ore sold for the June quarter, obviously, equating to more than a 4 million tonne per annum run rate, which is well above trend and well above target, and that contributed to a record sales outcome that was achieved for the full financial year of around 3.6 million tonnes.

Production outcomes, whilst they were slightly lower quarter-on-quarter, and that was due to some pit -- in-pit water, which impacted both mining volumes and processing volumes for the quarter. But notwithstanding that challenge that was managed through the quarter for the full year, all ore produced through the crushing circuit also achieved a record. So very strong overall for the full year as we finish FY '25 in terms of both of those 2 important metrics.

Prices for the quarter, and I'll give a little bit more information both on the quarter-to-quarter movement in manganese prices and then what's happened subsequent to the quarter moved around during the quarter quite a bit. But if you look at the average realized price for the June quarter compared to the average realized price for the March quarter was about 4% lower in the June quarter than we saw in the March quarter. Subsequent to quarter end, as I'll explain in a moment, prices have increased from those average levels that we saw through the June quarter.

Cost per unit was a bit higher quarter-on-quarter, and there's 2 main factors to be aware of there. The most important one and the key driver of that increase quarter-on-quarter was the lower high-grade ore production out of the mine. So you had fewer tonnes to amortize the fixed costs over. There were also some year-end accruals. So if you look at quarter-on-quarter, there was an increase in unit costs of 14%. But if you compare to the prior corresponding period, the June quarter of 2024 costs were lower this quarter by about 6% compared to the June quarter of 2024. And I think particularly when you're talking about quarters ending the financial year end and accruals that can be made in those respective quarters, it is important to make the Q4-to-Q4 comparison as well as the quarter-on-quarter comparison.

Earnings were down commensurate with the slightly lower prices and slightly higher unit costs. But if you look at the trend across the line, it's pretty clear that there's a direct correlation to explain what's going on in terms of earnings. And cash was slightly lower at Tshipi. Notwithstanding there was quite a strong operating cash flow generation during the quarter, we paid our year-end taxes and royalties. So that explains the slightly lower cash quarter-on-quarter. Cash was slightly lower at Jupiter as well, but that was purely because of normal operating corporate costs.

If we move on to mining volumes, as I mentioned a moment ago, water in the pit during the quarter impacted both graded ore mining volumes and also naturally processing volumes with lower feedstock to the processing plant. But overall, if we look at the close out of the financial year, again, like I've mentioned with sales and with production, overall mining volumes for the full financial year achieved a new record in FY '25. Production exceeded the full year plan and total ore tonnes through the processing plant represented a record for the year.

Logistics on quarter was slightly down. And obviously, with the higher sales numbers, we were able to use some at port stockpiles to achieve those outcomes, which on the logistics and sales table, you can see again, repeats that record achieved both for the quarter and for the full financial year, but logistics were only down slightly. We did up the usage of road haulage during the quarter due to some operational issues affecting volumes on rail.

And then finally, if we look at cash, you'll see in the direct comparison that cash both at Jupiter and at Tshipi, if you're talking about materiality was relatively stable. There was a slight reduction at Jupiter because of corporate costs. There was a slight reduction at Tshipi because of ZAR 433 million of tax and royalties that are due to be paid at this time of the year. Outside of that, there was actually a strong generation, ZAR 519 million of cash for the quarter and positive cash generation of ZAR 432 million prior to the payment of tax and royalties.

In terms of what's going on with the manganese market, I mentioned that there was some movement during the quarter. If you look at the table in the quarterly activities report summarizing the quarter end prices, you can see that the FOB price at the end of the June quarter was $3.20 compared to the FOB price at the end of the March quarter that was $3.62, so about 12% lower quarter-to-quarter. We had movement within the June quarter where prices went down to as low as $3.05. They're currently, as you can see, today at $3.27. And those price movements during the quarter were really driven by what was going on, on the supply side. The quarter end 31 March price of $3.62 was enough to encourage an increase in manganese ore supply during the quarter.

Naturally, that drove the manganese price down a bit to a level that saw supply then retreat and prices start to improve again towards the end of the quarter. And subsequent to the quarter, prices have improved a little further, as you can see on the table in our quarterly activities report, and that's both due to supply side support, but also it's due to better demand sentiment in China. There's better futures pricing for alloys, a little bit of hope around infrastructure stimulus. And so for the first time in a while, we've seen some nascent hope on the demand side, whereas manganese prices have otherwise through this period of time and through the June quarter being driven by more supply side factors.

Freight rates are relatively low compared to where they've been over the last, call it, few years. You'll see that March quarter to June quarter end, as summarized in our quarterly activities report, freight rates were relatively stable at around USD 23 per tonne. As they sit today, they've increased slightly. That's due to seasonal factors, demand for the same sort of ship that we use for manganese ore shipping from South American grain exports. So that should be a temporary factor, and it's one that we see, obviously, on a seasonal basis every given year.

If you look at stock at Chinese ports today, relatively stable, 30 June to now, a little bit higher than we saw at the end of March. 3.6 million tonnes of manganese ore at stockpile in Chinese ports at the end of March, 4.3 million tonnes at the end of June and 4.4 million tonnes today. So those levels, whilst they've increased slightly, and that was because of what I mentioned before, an increase in ore supply encouraged by the higher manganese prices that we saw at the end of the March quarter. And so that's resulted in end June stockpile volumes being slightly higher than they were at the end of March. Notwithstanding that, it's still a lot lower than the average we've seen over the last 5 years or so of about 5.9 million tonnes. So although stockpiles have increased slightly, we're still under the level of supply that's been sitting in port on average for the last 5 years or so.

That FOB price I mentioned a moment ago that we're sitting at today of $3.27 FOB according to Fastmarkets is slightly lower than the 4-year average, which is around $3.34. The 4-year low is $2.86 and the 4-year high is $5.55. And so what we're seeing at the moment, absent any demand factors is supply driving manganese prices, and that's nothing new. That's been the case for the last few years now.

Tshipi's focus, as we're all aware, and it's been a very successful focus, and we've seen it again in FY '25, is to be focused on unit costs that see us profitable when others aren't. And so we've seen another demonstration of that during the June quarter where we've been able to generate positive earnings and positive operating cash, whereas during that quarter, others have been at their cost support level. And if we do that, we're not too concerned about prices at this level. We're able to enjoy prices that move up supported by supply coming out from other suppliers. But again, encouragingly, we have seen some demand factors playing into an increase in the price. We'll see if that's sustainable over the coming months or so, but we've seen some better demand sentiment in China over the last few weeks or so.

So in summary, on the activities reported on the volumes and earnings side, in particular, very strong operational outcomes for the full year. Q4 saw record sales as well. Mining volumes, production volumes for the quarter were impacted by the in-pit water conditions. I wouldn't be too concerned about that. That's normal mining challenges.

The focus for Tshipi and for the stakeholders, including Jupiter involved in Tshipi is to hit the full year numbers, which Tshipi has done handsomely, including records in most of the important KPIs. So quarter-to-quarter, you're going to have some of these challenges. And if you look at our production and sales and mining volumes quarter-on-quarter, you'll see some movement up and down. And that's normal in the course of an activity of mining. But what we're looking to do is hit our full year numbers. And so that's been ticked off again.

And if you look at the operating performance for Tshipi for the last 7 years that Jupiter has now been listed around its investment in Tshipi, you'll see incredibly stable and reliable outcomes across the board, including operating and financial outcomes. So that's always been a hallmark of our investment in Tshipi, and congratulations has to go to the team there to deliver another fantastic outcome that is in line with expectations and in a couple of important areas actually achieved records for the year.

Manganese prices for the quarter slightly decreased on average quarter-on-quarter, but started to increase towards the end of the June quarter and subsequent to, and Chinese port inventories increased quarter-on-quarter, but are still well below 5-year average levels.

Looking forward, we're seeing a market that on a supply basis is relatively stable at the moment and the price, although it's moved up and down a bit, has range traded on supply side factors. Hopefully, we see a continuation of this positivity that's quite nascent on the demand side, and that's the sort of thing that would encourage the manganese price to break out of the range trading it's been in for the last several years, frankly. But for the last several years, notwithstanding the range trading around supply side cost support, Tshipi, because of its positioning on the cost side and because of the very stable and reliable operating outcomes, the lack of debt, et cetera, has enabled Tshipi and Jupiter to produce the very strong financial returns that we continue to produce.

Outside of the operating outcomes during the quarter, you would have seen post the completion of the quarter, Tshipi has announced a ZAR 300 million dividend for the second half of the FY '25 financial year. Jupiter will be announcing its dividend to its shareholders on the 29th of August, in line with the reporting of our preliminary financial results for the year.

And during the quarter, although we've discussed it before, just as a reminder, Exxaro announced their agreement to acquire the 50.1% of Tshipi that Jupiter doesn't own to effectively become a partner to Jupiter in that existing shareholders' agreement. Nothing changes for Jupiter unless there's a further agreement in terms of our rights and the way that our investment has operated to date. At completion of that transaction, which is subject to South African regulatory approvals and so is some months away. Exxaro will also become a 19.99% of -- shareholder, sorry, of Jupiter by acquiring that amount from Ntsimbintle Holdings at a price -- Jupiter share price that equates to about $0.32 per Jupiter share.

So with that, Mel, I'll just open the call to see if there are any questions having provided a bit of an overview of what I think are the most important points contained within the quarterly activities report.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Mark Fichera with Foster Stockbroking.

[Mark Fichera, analyst]

Brad, congratulations on the quarter. Yes. Just a question from me on Exxaro. Just obviously, they've got to go through the regulatory approvals and they've guided, I think, first quarter of 2026 to complete their transactions. I was just wondering, have you got any sense of how that's tracking and whether they'll get -- achieve that time line or maybe later or earlier?

[Brad Rogers, executive]

Thanks for the question, Mark. So there are a number of things that Exxaro needs to do in order to get to completion. It is a binding agreement they have signed subject to those things and mostly what they're looking at in terms of the completion prediction that they have made, which, as you said, was that they would be completing this transaction in the March quarter of next calendar year.

The key thing that they'd be looking at there is the attainment of the Competition Commission approval, which is a South African Competition Commission approval. There are other approvals in addition to that, something called Section 11 in particular, which is a mines department approval when you're changing the ownership of a mine, but that's a lot more predictable and formulaic.

The Competition Commission approval typically takes 6 months. It can be a little bit quicker. It can take a little bit longer. So I think that their prediction of the March quarter feels right to me. It's a little bit longer than 6 months. So there's a possibility that they'll be able to complete quicker than that. But obviously, they're closest to it, and they're the ones that have made that call. But the critical path to completion will be the Competition Commission approval, notwithstanding there are other approvals that they need to achieve. They're typically a little bit faster and a little bit more predictable than that one.

[Mark Fichera, analyst]

Great. And just a final one for me. Would you be providing any like formal production guidance or cost guidance for FY '26?

[Brad Rogers, executive]

So you'll know, Mark, that we don't do that traditionally. However, you can look at our figures where I think I've mentioned before, we are seeking to deliver sales and production for a full year of 3.4 million tonnes. And if you look at the last 7 years, we've averaged debt on that. This year has been a little bit higher. We will be looking to deliver 3.4 million tonnes as a target again. And to the extent that there's an opportunity to push that a bit higher because it's valuable to do that, and that's obviously been the case this year, then we will seek to do that again. But you should be thinking about that 3.4 million tonnes.

We obviously have, as part of our strategy, the idea that Tshipi at the right point in time should increase its sales and production. And there's an ability to do that. We've got a long-life open cast mine. We have infrastructure that's well designed with headroom capacity. It's a relatively straightforward ore body and mine plan. And so that's the thought there.

In a market that we're seeing right now where you're essentially balanced from a supply perspective, there's a question as to when you should pull the trigger on that. And so that's the question for the Tshipi Board. There's a market element to that and the strategy element to that as well as an operational planning element. So when we actually planning to pull the trigger on that, we will let the market know. In the meantime, you should be thinking about the historical average that we've been targeting. And we've hit that again this year and a bit better, achieving those records. And so that's the type of approach we'll be taking again.

Unit costs, you can see the trend. The $2.36 we've delivered for this quarter was a bit higher than I was expecting, but that was because of the lower volumes in the main. There was a little bit of additional cost on a unit basis around year-end adjustments, but the vast majority of that was driven by the lower tonnes to amortize the fixed costs. If you look at the full year number of about $2.30, that's about where my gut feel is. It can go a bit higher and a bit lower than that in any given quarter. And again, the important thing for me is not to get too drawn out into things that happen in any given quarter, it's what we're seeking to do over the full year. And for me, absent exchange rate movements, which can actually help or hurt in terms of the reported U.S. dollar per dmtu unit cost, $2.30 for now feels about the right level, and we've been both over and under that in the last year, but that's the number we've delivered for the full financial year.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Marcus Burns with Spheria Asset Management.

[Marcus Burns, analyst]

Yes. Just a quick one on maybe just if you could run us through the expected CapEx at Tshipi for the next 12 months or so, that would be great.

[Brad Rogers, executive]

Yes. So CapEx for Tshipi is de minimis, and that's not going to change. It's been AUD 6 million to AUD 8 million in that type of range per annum in terms of Australian dollars. Marcus, for the last few years. There's nothing that we are planning to do to change that. The reason why it's so low, there's a couple of factors there. One is that you'll recall that the mining at Tshipi is undertaken on an outsourced basis by a contractor. And so any CapEx associated with diggers, trucks, et cetera, which can be quite material is in our OpEx line, not in our CapEx line.

We also have a relatively well designed and within its capacity and fairly straightforward processing flow sheet. And so we don't see anything in terms of major CapEx in terms of the crushing circuit, for example, there on a maintenance CapEx basis. And so what you have left over is relatively minor CapEx every year that makes up that AUD 6 million to AUD 8 million range, a little bit of workshop CapEx, a little bit of -- in the last year, we've had, for example, putting in new safety monitoring systems, tracking, et cetera, collision avoidance on vehicles at Tshipi. So there's no change there.

We obviously have some growth opportunities looking forward around that could be more material CapEx. So putting in a connecting conveyor, for example, to remove the haulage fleet, which moves material from our crushing circuit to our train loadout fleet. That's something that has quite an attractive payback, but I don't think we'll be pulling the trigger on that in the next financial year. So in summary, if you look at the type of CapEx that we've been spending for the last few years, that should be a general guide to where we'll be landing for this year.

[Marcus Burns, analyst]

Okay. What would the CapEx look like for the conveyor? And any sense of savings? Or is that a project that hasn't gone further yet?

[Brad Rogers, executive]

Yes. So it's between AUD 20 million and AUD 30 million, Marcus. So the major -- and there's a payback of around 4 years on that CapEx, and that's from removing the labor, the fuel and the capital that is associated with operating that fleet that rehandles between those 2 points of the mine. So it's a more meaningful amount of money, but there is an attractive payback, and that's why it's in our plans.

The reason that trigger hasn't been pulled yet is that, that conveyor will have to go right down the middle of the mining flow sheet. And so there's a bit to think about in terms of how you safely do that in a way that doesn't disrupt production. And in the last year, where we've seen fairly wild gyrations in the manganese price where the team at site was firstly servicing a high manganese price for a brief period in the front end of the financial year and then dealing with the reverse of that through some of the rest of the year. It was kind of decided that we shouldn't push ahead with that too aggressively given what they were having to manage operationally. So that's probably the largest of the capital -- growth capital items that we're thinking about, but there's more scoping work to be done on that this year rather than actually pulling the trigger.

We also have a plan to put in place a solar and battery farm. That doesn't really move the dial much financially, and that's something that you would probably best implement on a BOO or a BOOT basis. And so that won't be Tshipi's own capital. And the reason we haven't pulled the trigger on that is actually Eskom's supply of power has become more reliable in the last year or so, and that was a big part of that business case that we're having to use our own more expensive diesel-fired power station because of unreliable supply in preceding years from Eskom. But that's not as material in any sense, either the capital or the payback as a connecting conveyor.

[Marcus Burns, analyst]

Okay. And just sorry, on the potential expansion, I guess, at some point in the cycle, have you given us any number -- can you give us numbers on that? Or is that something that's sort of under long-term consideration?

[Brad Rogers, executive]

So it will be in the range of 3.9 million to 4 million tonnes, I think, Marcus, is what we're looking at. We've done the long-term mine planning end of that work, and we understand what would be required in order to move to that sort of volume. In any given year, we're -- as I said before in response to the earlier question, targeting about 3.4 million tonnes of total ore sales. And in any given year, that will be made up by 3 million tonnes of high-grade ore sales or maybe a little bit higher if we can outperform and the remainder from lower grade. If we move to 3.9 million to 4 million, we'd be looking at 3.5 million to 3.6 million of higher grade and the remainder from lower grade. So that's the kind of square bracketed plan there.

The other decision to be made then is when do you pull the trigger on that? Do you do that now because -- and you don't worry about any sort of sentiment trade-off in the markets we're putting materially more volume into the market when the market we're seeing is relatively balanced? Or do you wait until there's some broader market trigger, for example, when GEMCO is coming to end of mine life where there will be a gap in the market and an opportunity on a program basis to step in, expand our volume, take more of the market share without seeing a trade-off either in sentiment or actual market balance that impacts price negatively. So that second piece as well as a little bit of greater definition around implementation plans, et cetera, is the remaining work to be done there.

[Marcus Burns, analyst]

Okay. And roughly CapEx number around that to enable the mine to handle that? I mean...

[Brad Rogers, executive]

It's -- there shouldn't be much CapEx in that, if anything, Marcus, because the more capital that's required is on the mining side and the contract miner will be bearing the cost of that, and that will turn up in our OpEx. But with the higher volume, I wouldn't expect to see OpEx increase, it should actually decrease. We have enough crushing capacity within our circuit today to be able to support that much volume. And so there's a bit of further work to say, is there a bit of derisking or debottlenecking CapEx in the processing circuit that is to our account since we operate that ourselves. But it's not much CapEx to do that, it's more thinking about the implementation planning when is the right time to do that operationally and when is the right time to do that from a market perspective rather than thinking it's something that needs to be funded materially from our CapEx perspective. There will obviously be some working capital investment as you're ramping up volume, but no straight CapEx.

[Marcus Burns, analyst]

Okay. And then sorry, last one for me, Brad, if that's all right. Just on the amount of cash held at Tshipi, which is still high. Does that sort of surplus cash or buffer cash position potentially a change once Exxaro has got a decent holding that's gone through and then they've become the owner of the other half of the mine? Is that something that can be reconsidered, do you think at the Tshipi level?

[Brad Rogers, executive]

Yes. So potentially, Marcus, I obviously haven't had that conversation. It would be some time away. But the amount of cash that is retained at Tshipi is obviously a conversation that occurs between the shareholders and also management there. So you can see the sorts of levels that we've been relatively stable at and paying dividends, but with the new shareholder coming in. And obviously, that is a key part of the investor value proposition for this mine.

Both for Jupiter and if you have a look at Exxaro's announcement materials, I think the first page of their value proposition is their proud history of paying dividends that aligns with Tshipi's ability to do the same. So I don't want to preempt that discussion, but I think it is something that would obviously be discussed with the new shareholder.

[Operator]

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

[Brad Rogers, executive]

Thanks, Mel, and thanks, everyone, for joining our call this morning. Hopefully, you found it informative. Full year was really an outstanding one. So hopefully, that's come through loud and clear and notwithstanding manganese prices have been high and low, mostly below average for the year. It shows the operational strength of the team and the quality of the asset that we've been able to deliver the results that we have. So thanks again for your time and for your support. Look forward to talking to you next time.

[Operator]

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