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Northern Star Resources Ltd
ASX:NST

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Northern Star Resources Ltd
ASX:NST
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Price: 15.11 AUD 2.86% Market Closed
Updated: May 21, 2024

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2018-Q4

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Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Northern Star's June 2018 Quarter Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Bill Beament, Executive Chairman. Please go ahead.

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William James Beament
Executive Chairman

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. On the call today, we also have our Chief Executive Officer, Stuart Tonkin; our Chief Financial Officer, Shaun Day; and our Chief Geological Officer, Michael Mulroney.As today's record results show, we have arrived at our target annual production rate of 600,000 ounces per annum this calendar year, and we've fulfilled our promise within 6 months to spare. It is important to note that hitting our targeted production rate of 600,000 ounces a year is in itself not a cause for celebration. We have always maintained that production growth for the sake of it is not the objective and that Northern Star is always a business first and a mining company second. What matters is that we achieved that increase through organic growth. This means that the increased production translates directly to increased financial returns for our shareholders. And as today's results show, we produced gold last quarter at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 982 an ounce and obtained an average gold sold figure of AUD 1,731 an ounce, generating in excess of 50% EBITDA margins. The June quarter production culminated in Northern Star generating record underlying free cash flow of $93 million in the quarter. And that was after outlaying $46 million in exploration, expansion capital and carrying the full underground mining cost of the newly acquired South Kal underground due to third-party toll treating agreements restricting access to our mill. This record resulted in the company continuing to expand its sector-leading balance sheet during the quarter by $73 million to $511 million in cash and equivalents, and this is even after paying out to our shareholders $27 million in dividends.So in that context, the growth in production and increased cash generation is highly rewarding for our shareholders. But while we have arrived at our 600,000-ounce a year destination, the journey is far from over. With the results like the ones we have announced today, you'll appreciate why we have already embarked on the next leg of organic growth.To that end, we've budgeted $60 million for exploration in FY 2019, and that is a record spend for the company and an increase of 1/3 on what was already a significant commitment last year. This is a large spend, but we see the potential to deliver a material upgrade to mine lives in the middle of next year.Our recent exploration results and continued organic resource and reserve growth over the past few years have provided overwhelming evidence that there is a lot more gold to be found around and in our existing asset base. This success is demonstrated by the fact that in our most recent inventory update, we had a reserve ounces at a cost of just $24 an ounce. And we look forward to growing our resource and reserve base in the coming years. Accompanying this investment will be a further $74 million in growth capital. Of this investment, nearly half will be in -- will be put into dual-purpose drill drives across all of our assets to deliver the next leg of growth in resources and production growth across our asset base. It is truly an exciting time to be involved in the Northern Star business. This investment will continue to see Northern Star deliver sector-leading returns on invested capital, sector-leading low levels of capital intensity and help to deliver further profit growth for the business. We have demonstrated this cycle of exploration, development and production growth delivers outstanding financial returns. So as they say, when you're on a good thing, stick to it, and that's what we are doing. I will now pass to Stuart Tonkin to shed some more light on today's results.

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Bill. And first, I would like to acknowledge the enormous effort supplied by our staff and our contractors to deliver these outstanding June quarter results. The quarter contained many highlights of achievement, culminating in that final delivery of 184,949 (sic) [ 183,949 ] ounces produced, which is a record for the company and I'll try to condense in my summary, some of these highlights. The June quarter result underpins the full year outcome well above market guidance production with 575,000 ounces produced, which importantly also demonstrates the ability of our asset base to maintain above 600,000 ounces per annum going forward. Jundee achieved growth in both development and production physicals in the June quarter, with our contract partner, Byrnecut, extending efforts to deliver a 21% increase in total ore, achieving 473,000 tonnes, which is a 1.9 million tonne per annum run rate from that underground at Jundee. Our processing team answered the call with that and increased 16% for throughput of 532,000 tonnes, which is a 2.1 million tonne per annum run rate, just to prove that we're still mine-constrained. Kanowna underground maintained a consistent performance for mining physicals and enjoyed a lift in grade as we had a grade contribution of the Velvet and the upper level ore as that was mined and processed. But where Kanowna operation really shone was in the processing plant with delivering a full year throughput of 1.994 million tonnes. This is the highest yearly throughput in the 25-year history of this Kanowna plant.The East Kundana Joint Venture produced a standout mining performance in the quarter, with over 4.3 kilometers of development and 24% increased stoping to achieve 385,000 tonnes of ore. This equates to a mining rate of 1.54 million tonnes per annum, and this value is nearly 4x the mining rate we inherited at this asset on acquisition 4 years ago which, like Jundee, the narrow-grade high-grade -- narrow high-grade mine is outstanding production and productivities.Commercial production of our 50,000-ounce Millennium mine was reached in April, and we are rapidly accessing the adjacent Pope John and Centenary zones to grow this center. The acquisition of South Kalgoorlie Operations secured key processing infrastructure to maintain Kalgoorlie Operations at greater than 300,000 ounces per annum, with throughput capacity now of 3.2 million tonnes per annum available to us in Kalgoorlie.The HBJ underground, which is under the South Kal ops, was mined and stockpiled during the June quarter due to a contract third-party toll mill commitment, which ends this month. So the stellar June quarter result was without contribution from the HBJ underground, but going forward, we have full access to that Jubilee plant for our own ore. This HBJ operation was only held up for 3 months. It's presently high cost, and we have been conservative on its contribution to FY '19 guidance until we get greater clarity of the operation and apply our standard operating approach.So in summary, the operations are in outstanding health to maintain greater than 600,000 ounces per annum and offer continued opportunity for organic growth. Our teams are energized to start a new financial year with a new set of performance benchmarks that they have proudly reset. I would now like to pass to Shaun for finance.

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Shaun Day
Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Stuart, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be able to present the June 2018 quarter results. I will take you through some of the key financial aspects.The cash flow generation of Northern Star remains the centerpiece of our results. Turning to the waterfall chart on Page 4, it provides an overview of cash movements for the quarter and the generation of $162 million in operating cash flow. This underlying operational strength has driven our cash and equivalents balance to over $0.5 billion, and of course, Northern Star remains free of bank debt.The second chart on Page 4 provides a reconciliation to the $93 million of free cash flow generation for the quarter, which is a record quarter in the history of Northern Star and represents over $1 million of free cash flow generation per day. The June quarter's free cash flow generation provides investors an appreciation of the growth delivered by our substantial investment in organic capital to drive future returns to our shareholders. The free cash flow generation is $186 million for the full fiscal year.Northern Star delivered a full year result just above the top end of production guidance at 575,000 ounces. In terms of the cost structure, all-in sustaining cost for the June quarter was just AUD 982 an ounce, being the lowest cost quarter of the year. The full year all-in sustaining cost is comfortably within guidance at AUD 1,029 an ounce, which translates to around USD 761 an ounce. During the June quarter, in April, Northern Star paid a fully franked $0.045 per share dividend, totaling $27 million. This is our interim dividend in respect of the first half of the FY '18 year. The final 2018 dividend will be announced with the full year financial results. The market expectation for this dividend should be based upon our guidance towards 6% of revenue, which was in excess of $500 million in the second half.Finally, the Northern Star hedge book stands at 259,000 ounces at AUD 1,752 an ounce. This hedge book, mark-to-mark, is presently $23 million in the money. In respect of the upcoming September quarter, there is approximately 53,000 ounces hedged at AUD 1,776 per ounce. This hedge book strength positions Northern Star very well to continue achieve elevated revenue and strong financial metrics in the coming quarter.The June quarter's run rate of in excess of 600,000 ounces per annum and subsequent free cash flow generation provides investors an appreciation of the growth delivered by a substantial investment in organic capital to drive future returns to our shareholders.I will now pass across to our Chief Geological Officer, Michael Mulroney.

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Michael Geoffrey Mulroney
Chief Geological Officer

Thanks, Shaun. Once again, we've had a very active quarter from the development and exploration point of view, with most of our activity at all of our mining centers focused on resource conversion ahead of our new resource-reserve statement due to be released in a few weeks. The results we're seeing across all the mining sectors, particularly at Jundee, at Kanowna Belle and also at the Raleigh deposit within the EKJV, give us good confidence that we'll be -- continue our trend of reserve and resource growth this year, building on our success from past years. That, continued with the growth that we see at the new discovery at Ramone around Jundee and also at the regional Paradigm operation north of Kalgoorlie, has really motivated us to increase the exploration spend for the full year to $60 million to continue an upward trend of organic growth within our operations. It's a particular interest that will give us the opportunity through the coming year to start to extract the value out of the new South Kalgoorlie operation, and the capital spend will be directed in some of those areas to put the underground drill platforms that we [ thrive ] and need to continue to drive that organic growth across the operation. Elsewhere, regionally, we've started activities again on the Tanami district, and we've also completed a new seismic survey at Paulsens. So again, it's been a very active year, and we expect the trend of those exploration dollars in the ground to continue to grow and provide value for the shareholders. I'll pass you back to the moderator now for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from David Radclyffe from Global Mining Research.

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David Radclyffe

So I had a question regarding the Kalgoorlie FY '19 guidance of 320,000 to 340,000 ounces. Just wondering if this actually assumes the full 3.2 million tonnes of processing capacity utilized. And if so, could you give us a bit of color on the tonnage split? Because I was having a look and if I look at the current rates, it would only imply maybe -- so 400,000 tonnes for Millennium, 1.4 million tonnes for EKJV, about 1 million tonnes for KB. So should we therefore assume maybe 400,000 tonnes from HBJ?

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Okay. So it's Stuart here, David. Look, I'll -- we will give a lot more color on this at our Strategy Day, but just to give you those numbers, Kanowna is going to be at that 1 million tonne, Millennium will be 800,000 tonnes, EKJV at 100% will be 1.3 million tonnes, and HBJ is likely to be 500,000 or 600,000 tonnes. But again, we've put -- we've been conservative in how that gets treated. There is -- obviously, that beats the 3.2 million that's currently accessed -- secured through toll treatment through a third-party plant and that deals with our JV partners. So we're very confident. The acquisition of South Kalgoorlie secures our ability to toll treat -- or sorry, our ability to deliver that north of 300,000. The decider and the conservative review needs to be on the HBJ underground, and we'll give more -- greater color in [indiscernible] over that 3 months, and we'll give greater color on that in the coming weeks.

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Slifirski from Credit Suisse.

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Michael Slifirski
Managing Director

My question is pretty similar. Just trying to understand also the context of the June quarter with the Kalgoorlie Operations throughput. So you say pretty definitively on the first page that there was no contribution from South Kalgoorlie Operations, but does that exclude the Jubilee pit? Was it there any -- sorry, the Jubilee mill? Was there any Jubilee mill capacity that contributed to the June quarter? Because I can't quite reconcile how you got that huge throughput otherwise.

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Okay. So it's -- definitely, it did Michael. So split the 2 in your head, the plant and the infrastructure, then there's the HBJ production center. So the HBJ underground was stockpiled during the quarter. It did not contribute to the total produced ounces. You'll see in one of the tables in the quarterly that our contained metal went up from 95,000 ounces to 108,000 ounces, I think, on Page 4 of the quarterly. So that's where that ore has been stockpiled. The infrastructure of the Jubilee plant did treat third-party ore during the quarter, but we also utilized other toll treat places during the quarter, so greenfields likely. So really, there was a lot of moving parts in that month just through the transition. It's what we understood had to happen. But going forward, it's much cleaner, much simpler. Really, the deciding factor is on the margin that we're going to achieve at HBJ underground. So we're not about growth for growth's sake. It is about margin. It's about maintaining the 50% EBITDA margin. So the jury's out on HBJ, apply our business model and make sure we can get that margin back, and that's why we put that guidance the way we have.

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Michael Slifirski
Managing Director

Okay. So 2 follow-ups from that then. How much mill capacity did you utilize on your various ore sources in the June quarter from Jubilee? Was Jubilee for exclusive treatment during the June quarter of your ore? Or did it include joint venture ore?

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

So there'd be half-half of that Jubilee plant was our ore, but we also utilized greenfields.

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Michael Slifirski
Managing Director

Okay. So in terms of your guidance then for the '19 year, you've been talking about that 600,000 ounces for quite some time, 300,000 from Kalgoorlie, 300,000 from Jundee. If I look at the increments you've got in the Kanowna Belle plant compared to what you've achieved historically, if I look at the increments you've got in the Jundee plant and then I add the 1.2 million tonnes of new capacity, the potential numbers you can get for production increments are enormous. So how should I be thinking about all that incremental capacity? How much gets used versus the implied very low grade if you use ore? I'm trying to sort of put it together in my mind because if I use your average grade and recovery across all operations for the -- achieved in the '18 year on that delta on throughput that you'll have in '19 over '18, you can get some enormous production numbers. I'm trying to understand what your assumptions are around the 2.

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Okay. So at 3.2 million tonnes per annum, as you said, at average grade at recovery, there's about 330,000 ounces that can be achieved through that. Now you can lift that up or down because we have enormous flexibility in the [ absence ] of underground mining to change our grade and be selective and not deplete that resource. What we are focused on is that margin. So as the gold price goes up, that all-in sustaining cost can be lifted to maintain those margins. If it comes off, you can contract to do that. What we are also utilizing, we have access to, is any other toll milling capacity in the gold fields, and we've got some secured there for the next 24 months. So that's the buffer. That is, there's opportunity to keep those margins strong, we can actually go above the 3.2 million of our own secured milling capacity and go after 4 million tonnes per annum. As you saw, the run rate achieved in the quarter delivered over 100,000 ounces from that asset base without HBJ in that June quarter. So [indiscernible] that same Kalgoorlie can be a 400,000-ounce center plus HBJ. What we're aiming to be is conservative to make sure we've got the reserves, the resources, the margin in place before we grow, and that's where this exploration expenditure this year is very important to get greater clarity and good understanding of those assets prior to taking that next stage of organic growth.

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Michael Slifirski
Managing Director

So not wanting to waste your time, given that you've got all that milling capacity, how do you balance between efficient utilization of Jubilee versus maintaining toll treatment? Is it based on a proximity or cost? Or how do you think about that?

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Okay. So when we're saying toll treatment, we will not toll treat other party's ore other than our Rand and Tribune joint venture partner, okay. So we're not saying we're offering capacity to others. That commitment ceases this month. What we're saying is we potentially access other people's plants in addition to Kanowna and Jubilee if we have -- if we can make adequate margin of that surplus. Otherwise, we can stockpile it and wait, and you can say the emphasis growing on the stockpiles presently. So it's not about us looking at business case of toll treating other people's ore at all.

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Michael Slifirski
Managing Director

No, I was [ meaning ] sort of -- you're using -- utilizing third-party toll treatment facilities. So that's what I was trying to understand how do you -- you said you have rights to third-party toll treatment, and that would be used for JV ore. So I'm trying to understand how do you balance that versus getting efficiency out of Jubilee and loading it to capacity.

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

We can't -- look, we can give you greater detail. In fact, maybe take it off-line. But fundamentally, we're putting all that ore through Jubilee and Kanowna. There's obligation to take our Rand and Tribune JV partner and we discuss with them the opportunity to extend or expand that. But it's margin-focused, not total ounce focused.

Operator

Your next question comes from [ Jared ] from [ ABC ].

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Unknown Analyst

I was just curious where the lion's share of that new exploration budget, the $60 million, where that's going to be headed?

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Michael Geoffrey Mulroney
Chief Geological Officer

[ Jared ], it's Mike here. It will be split typically around 65% in mines at the various operational centers, and that's evenly split between Kalgoorlie and Jundee; and about 35% on regional activities, which largely will be around South Kal but also in the broader Kalgoorlie and Jundee districts. So the core of it, as always, will get spent in and around the operating mines.

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William James Beament
Executive Chairman

Just to add on that, [ Jared ], is, as Stu highlighted before, we've just had the South Kal operations only for 3 months. So it's like a new car. It's getting a bit of love, a bit of care and attention, but we are conservative. But as Mike said, we've got a large exploration spend on South Kal operations. It's only 10 to 15 kilometers along strike on the great silver pit, and it's very -- it's hardly had any spent -- money spent on it in the past 20 years. So we see a huge geological upside in 6 major structural corridors ripping through the guts of that 1,000 square kilometer tenement package. So we're quite excited about South Kal and what it could -- future bring out for Northern Star.

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Unknown Analyst

And just while I've got you, if I could quickly ask what you got -- your sort of thoughts or you're -- even you, Stuart, on the sort of workplace trends we're seeing out here in the region. The labor market really is starting to tighten. I just want to see what your thoughts are.

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Look, we don't really see that. You will see generally in the trades, electrical, mechanical that have ability to be [ flighty ]. But looking at teams, they've motivated -- got great results. We see those skill sets in underground since -- stay in that space and underground gold mines, I believe, it's the period of underground nickel and copper. So we're in a good spot. And the main thing is visibility of mine life. And that's one thing we delivered mid last year, which gives employees confidence for their future. And things get testy when it's 12 or 24 months and they start looking around, but we've really shown them that their efforts have delivered their own future to them. So we're not seeing that pressure, but we keep -- we do keep an eye on it.

Operator

Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan from UBS.

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Daniel Morgan
Director and Analyst

A question back to the guidance which has been a popular topic, obviously. It's throttling back over the next 12 months versus delivered run rates. Is -- can you just maybe talk about grade in addition to what you've talked about on -- with regards to the [ billing ] capacity?

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William James Beament
Executive Chairman

Yes. Thanks, Daniel, I'll just start and I'll throw to Stu. It's -- just understand, I think we've said earlier on, we are conservative on South Kal. So just take that point. The second point is we'll elaborate more on the Strategy Day coming up early next month. But we're spending a record amount on exploration. And when I say exploration, it's a record amount on resource to reserve conversion. We see the potential to materially upgrade our mine lives mid next year, which then gives us the flexibility to look at the next stage of our production growth. So we'll give a bit more color on the Strategy Day on that. But it's not we're spending $60 million for this. We've got a great cash balance burning a hole in our pocket. We see the opportunity to materially grow those mine lives, which then gives us the flexibility to look at this great infrastructure that we're accumulated for 3 years that we can potentially do another step change. So -- and I'll hand over to Stuart more on -- cover the guidance.

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Sure. And the question is pointed towards grade and we do hear grade becomes our focus. We still stress we're margin-focused. We're business first. Mining comes second. We are able to achieve those margins at half the grade at some other companies that can't get to that through mining costs or productivity. So grade is important. Grade can cover a lot of things, but you've seen over the time, this asset extension and mine life has been lowering achieved grade that is not just because of gold price going up. That's because we brought the all-in sustaining cost down, which allows you to change your cover price, which allows you to bring more incremental material into your plant. So it works against you by dropping that grade and building your cost per ounce up, but there's a lot more mineral, like the difference between [ just being ] ore or mineralized waste becomes that margin. And that's what we're focused on.

Operator

Your next question comes from Sophie Spartalis from Merrill Lynch.

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Sophie Spartalis
Vice President and Senior Resources Analyst

Michael has covered a lot of what I wanted to ask, but just an extension on that, the mining constraints. Can you maybe just talk through, just particularly at the Kalgoorlie mines, what are the mining constraints there given that you have the option on the infrastructure capacity now?

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Okay. So I guess constraints, it really becomes on -- if anything, it's probably the labor constraint is down, but we're trying to focus that we're building the pipeline, like Mike's doing in the drilling front end to get the information in front of us and the planning. But as far as the multiple production centers contributing through, we have that flexibility in those assets. But yes, the constraint really is the rate at which we can grow Millennium, and that's really how rapid we can bring on Pope John and the Centenary [ roll up ] section into that plant. But the [indiscernible] directs the ore running quite productively, and unless you require another significant capital injection, that's where you're going to get that next step-up. So at the current levels resources, we're quite happy with how they've been -- with how they are productive. But as far as anything else like power or vents or anything, it's quite -- the engineering fixes are there. The other part on constraint, we've got open pit ability. So the milling capacity, we think -- I think about Paradigm, Carbine up to the northwest of Kalgoorlie hasn't yet come into that plant. The next step-change in potential investment for a processing upgrade would be related to the open pit material that we're drilling and proving up and will come into our resource-reserve statements, but they've yet to be firmed up in a mining plan. So we're focusing on underground.

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Sophie Spartalis
Vice President and Senior Resources Analyst

Okay. So when you talk about the rate of growth of Millennium, where do you see the steady state of Millennium in, say, 12, 24 months? Where's the potential at that mine?

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Look, we'll go through the greater detail of that on the strat day, but Millennium itself is a 50,000-ounce mine. You start comparing that to what we've achieved at the East Kundana joint venture. Albeit it's a lower grade, its ability to add sort of 30,000 to 40,000 or 50,000-ounce surfaces production out of the same portal exists. So as you add on Pope John, as you add on Centenary, Barkers, Strzelecki, our view is getting that towards the 100,000-plus ounces over the next couple of years.

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Sophie Spartalis
Vice President and Senior Resources Analyst

Okay. And then just one final question from me. You talk about Northern Star not wanting to toll treat other people's ore except for your JV ore. But just -- can you give us a sense of how much spare capacity is there in the surrounding area of Kalgoorlie in order for you to take advantage of any spare capacity?

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

We acknowledge there's a few plants that currently aren't fully utilized. So even if they are running, they have the ability to sprint faster. And look, it's more than we -- if we needed an extra million tonnes per annum, there's that capacity in the gold fields presently; contracted, yes or no, but that's -- we see that ability with the plants that exist there.

Operator

Your next question comes from Paul Hissey from RBC Capital Markets.

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Paul Hissey
Analyst

Just a couple of questions from me, and I apologize. I think Daniel might have already asked sort of broadly along the same lines. Just having a look at -- you speak about, I guess, managing to margin and you're not worried about volumes. Although -- I note that year-on-year volumes are going up, but year-on-year, your all-in sustaining cost guidance is going up incrementally as well. So I guess to play a devil's advocate from an academic perspective there, you are giving a little bit up on margin at least in a pro forma sense in exchange for adding those few extra ounces that you're going to deliver in the year ahead. Do you think that's a fair observation?

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William James Beament
Executive Chairman

No. I think the devil's advocate's is wrong there, Paul, because if you look at the gold price, it's been going up. So...

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Paul Hissey
Analyst

But you don't -- but you can't control that, Bill. So this is a matter of you guys being nimble, I guess, to try and capture that margin because you guys -- I know you've got a bunch of hedging in place. And so do you believe you guys are flexible enough over the course of, say, a 12-month period? If the gold price was to roll over and you chewed through a bunch of your hedging, you guys believe you could kind of pull back a little bit and defend that margin?

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William James Beament
Executive Chairman

Look, absolutely. That's the beauty of underground, selective, high-grade mining. It's not like an open pit where you're stuck into a big shell. We can leave stuff and come and get it later on. So that's the great thing about underground. We can adjust our [ flips ] very quickly. And we've done that over the course of the history of the company. But as you're well aware, the gold price has been going up for the last couple of years, and we've been managing our business very effectively. We've been growing EBITDA margins for the last 2 years. We've got the accounts that come out in August, and you'll see probably growth in EBITDA margin again. So while we're sitting at those plus 50%, that's how we manage our business. We don't set a sort of 3-year rolling average. We set it every 12 months and reset that. And we're in a good pricing environment at the moment and we have flexibility in our mine plan and continue to deliver those plus 50% margins.

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Paul Hissey
Analyst

And so you alluded a little bit to the -- how nimble you can be, but the gold price is down 5% in U.S. dollar terms over the last quarter. It's down about 1.5% in A-dollar terms over the last quarter. So if we were to see perhaps that trend continue, how soon before you might consider some sort of revision to your tactical mine plan in response to that?

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William James Beament
Executive Chairman

Mate, I think the 1.5% drop in the gold price is very small [indiscernible] again in the overall scheme of things, Paul.

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Paul Hissey
Analyst

Fair enough, okay. So just on -- just then quickly, you spoke about the 180,000-ounce run rate in the fourth quarter. Clearly, we're looking at a number annualizing lower than that. And apologies if this was a response to Daniel's question. I can look it up later. But clearly, that was suggesting a slowing in the run rate then over the coming 12 months from the record fourth quarter.

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Stuart Tonkin
Chief Executive Officer

It's [indiscernible] there, Paul. It's Stuart. What Mike said about the drilling and the confidence that -- of the -- getting the resource and reserves visibility there. So you're making very prudent capital investment decisions with the visibility in the mine plan. So that comes first before individual organic growth, and that's what Northern Star has always done along our journey. The second part is we've only owned HBJ for 3 months, and we've stockpiled within that period. So that's a place, if all goes well and we've made a normal plan and the success is there, there's an opportunity for that to be the swing factor.. So -- but June quarter was the culmination of the year's efforts. Remembering in the same 12-month period, you had the transition of a team and a wind-down of the Paulsens operation in half 1. You had a ramp-up in a commercial production declared at Millennium in half 2 and, obviously, the acquisition of a processing plant and the catch-up of some stockpiles throughout that period. So there was a lot of material changes that were handled very well by the team throughout that 12-month period to deliver that full year production. Going forward, it's much more consistent. And quarter-on-quarter, you'll see that stability with that potential upside and organic growth based on our investment.

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Paul Hissey
Analyst

All right. And one last easy one then. Just on the exploration budget, can you just confirm? I think you said earlier $60 million budget, but the majority of that is going to go to, I guess, resource definition and infill. Or if not, about -- what would the breakdown be between money spent on bringing stuff into reserve and money spent on, I guess, extending current mineralization?

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Michael Geoffrey Mulroney
Chief Geological Officer

Yes. Paul, it's Mike. Just to reiterate what I said earlier, about 65% of that money will be directed in mine on primarily resource conversion, and the remaining 35% will be on regional and growth targets.

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William James Beament
Executive Chairman

Just to finish up that point, Paul. It reminds us of about 3 years ago when we saw the visibility across the geology and the ability to do a step-change in reserves and resources, which we delivered last year. We're in a -- it's like Groundhog Day for us.

Operator

Your next question comes from Paul Garvey from The Australian.

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Paul Garvey

A quick question for Bill. I'm just looking to get a feel for where you guys are seeing the interest level is from North American investors at the moment, whether in your sales and in the broader Australian gold sector. How does that stack up today? And how has it changed over the last little of while?

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William James Beament
Executive Chairman

Yes. Paul, a very good question, actually. Yes, look, our ownership is radically changing, has been for probably the last 2 years to be honest. We're now, I think, 56% offshore-owned versus 44% domestic. So that's a huge change now. Registered over last couple of years definitely out of -- predominantly out of North America, obviously, our largest shareholder BlackRock's in London -- been a great supporter of us. But that is -- and it's driven off, I guess, the overall resource industry. After going to a couple of major conferences this year in North America, what is very evident is that Australian mining industry, whether diamond or gold, nickel, coal or [ anything ], are putting best-in-class -- so we're not best in -- world-class operators, world-class allocators of capital, and world-class -- I guess extracting the most out of their ounces of ore or their tonnes in their commodity to generate margins for shareholders. So we're the best-in-breed across the resource industry, and that is well and truly recognized globally now. And hence, while you're seeing investors around the world, look at Australia and look at the great operations, the great ability to maintain those operations and run them. And also, we're in a Tier 1 jurisdiction. And it can't be understated. We've been talking about it for years internally and externally. Australia is a great place to do business. It's reasonably stable. And when you compare that to places like Africa where you've got a contagion going on at the moment, investors are really starting to look at that sovereign risk and take it seriously. And Australia has got the framework to attract that investment, and we're delivering it and we're not disappointing. And I think we've got fantastic management teams around Australia on all our assets and in commodity.

Operator

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

W
William James Beament
Executive Chairman

Thanks. Today's message is pretty simple. Our organic growth strategy has delivered outstanding results at every level. And as Stu, Shaun and Mike have just shown, we have every reason to believe it will continue to do so and reward our shareholders handsomely. We aim to continue growing our inventory, our production and our cash flow in this way. We will have more to say about how we plan to deliver our next chapter of growth when we publish our strategic update early next month at our planned Strategy Day on the 4th of August. This will be accompanied by an updated reserve and resource statement released in the week leading up to the Strategy Day. We look forward to discussing this strategy in further detail with you then. Thanks for joining us today on our record quarterly result.