Subiaco, Western Australia Aug 28, 2015 (Thomson StreetEvents) -- Edited Transcript of Paladin Energy Ltd earnings conference call or presentation Thursday, August 27, 2015 at 10:30:00pm GMT TEXT version of Transcript ================================================================================ Corporate Participants ================================================================================ * Alexander Molyneux Paladin Energy Limited - CEO * Craig Barnes Paladin Energy Limited - CFO * Darryl Butcher Paladin Energy Limited - EGM Technical and Project Development ================================================================================ Conference Call Participants ================================================================================ * Stefan Hansen Morgan Stanley - Analyst * David Talbot Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst * Glyn Lawcock UBS - Analyst * Chris Drew Royal Bank of Canada - Analyst ================================================================================ Presentation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [1] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the June quarter and year end 2015 conference call and investor update. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. (Operator instructions). I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, August 28, 2015. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker for today Mr Alexander Molyneux, Chief Executive Officer. Thank you. Please go ahead. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [2] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, thank you Raphael. I'd like to welcome everybody to our Paladin Energy annual results for the 2015 financial year. With me in the room here in Perth I have Craig Barnes our Chief Financial Officer, Darryl Butcher, our Executive General Manager Technical and Project Development, Andrew Mirco, our General Manager Corporate Development and Investor Relations. We have a slide show that is available in PDF on the TFX and the ASX news flow and also there is a link where a webcast to the presentation is available via our Paladin Energy website. I expect this slideshow to take approximately 30 minutes and then we'll allow for questions and answers after that. I'll turn your attention to the disclaimer, which is on page 1 of the presentation and it just covers JORC and NI 43-101 reporting, as well as provide some information with respect to forward looking statements. So moving on. Paladin, we just describe here on page 2, who we are in a nutshell. We are going to touch on some of these points in the context of the results, as we go through this presentation. But we should be aware that Paladin is a global uranium leader. It owns Langer Heinrich, which is a strategic tier one mine. Optimisation is a core competency for us and we provide the best senior leverage to uranium and the upside expected in the uranium market. Reminding you about our global leadership status. We have two mines with a combined capacity of 8 million pounds per annum. Included then as well, is a portfolio of advanced and early stage exploration assets. We have assets in four of the five leading global uranium production countries. We're the only real publicly listed independent pure play uranium mining exposure that's in the top 10 global uranium producers. Our peers are state owned enterprises, divisions of major miners or have non-mining business units that dilute their leverage to uranium. Langer Heinrich is a tier one mine. It's the lowest cost open pit uranium mine. It's top five in terms of single point sources of global uranium production scale. It has a 20 year plus mine life. For the costs, we're pushing them well into the second quartile of the cost curve. These features make Langer Heinrich highly strategic. When we say strategic we really mean in a couple of senses. Number one, it represents a potentially meaningful source of consolidation for other senior uranium producers. It's also an important independent source to be defended for major uranium customers. The value of Langer Heinrich and its strategic nature was confirmed in the 2015 financial year, where we received $190 million for a 25% joint venture partnership stake from the China National Nuclear Corporation. This shows an enterprise value of $760 million. I'm going to hand over now to Craig. He is going to cover some of our achievements during the financial year. He is going to cover our results and review of some of our progress with respect to capital management. Following Craig, then he will hand over to Darryl, who will then focus on optimisation for us. Thanks Craig. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [3] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you Alexander. Good morning everyone. On slide 5 we just highlight some key achievements for 2015. Production in 2015 decreased by 13% to 5.04 million pounds because of a large decrease in plant throughput, which was primarily as a result of a major scaling incident that occurred early in the year, which has now been resolved. Recoveries were also slightly down at 87.6%. The average realised price for 2015 was $37 a pound, which was 3.4% above the Trade Tech Weekly Spot Price average for the year. As a result of the lower production, C1 Cash Costs for 2015 increased by 5%. However C1 cash costs in the June quarter decreased to $26 a pound, in line with our expectations for that quarter. The $1.8 million gross profit achieved for the year was a turnaround from the $65.1 million gross loss in 2014. Our cash balance at June 30, 2015 was $183.7 million, an increase of approximately $95 million. The Bicarbonate Recovery Plant was commissioned in March and was operating at 118% of design capacity in the June quarter. The sale of the 25% interest in Langer Heinrich was completed in July 2014 for $190 million and a 15% strategic investment by HOPU was completed in December 2014. In March we issued a new $115 million convertible bond and successfully repaid the $300 million 2015 convertible bond. On the next slide, slide 6, we just highlight some key features of our profit and loss. Sales revenue, in 2015 we sold 5.37 million pounds of uranium at an average realised price of $37 per pound, resulting in a 38% decrease in sales revenue. Sales volumes were down 38% on the previous year because Kayelekera is on care and maintenance. As I've said, the growth profit of $1.8 million that we achieved for the year was a turnaround from $65.1 million gross loss in 2014. The impairments of $193.1 million after tax comprise of $180.1 million after tax write-down of the Queensland exploration assets and an $8.4 million impairment of the big relief exploration asset, together with some other smaller write-downs. Finance costs for 2015 were down 5% to $57 million. In 2015 admin, marketing and non-production costs decreased by 12% to $19.3 million, as a result of cost reduction initiatives and Kayelekera being placed on care and maintenance. Exploration expenditure of $5.7 million for the year was 30% compared to 2014. On the next slide we have a waterfall chart on slide 7. It provides a breakdown of movement in Paladin's cash balance over the year. As you can see, our cash balance increased by $95 million to $183.7 million at June 30, 2015. There was a net cash outflow from operations of $24.7 million in 2015, which was made up of the following. Langer Heinrich generated cash before CapEx of $23.7 million for the year, while Kayelekera utilised $3.6 million. The net cash outflow from corporate and exploration expenditure was $16 million for the year. Net interest paid amounted to $28.8 million. Cash outflows from investing activities are $15.6 million for 2015, comprised of capital expenditure mainly at Langer Heinrich, amounting to $11.5 million and exploration expenditure of $4.2 million. Financing activities during the year included $167 million net proceeds from the sale of the 25% in Langer Heinrich in July 2014, $167 million net proceeds from the private placement and rights offer completed in December 2014. $145.7 million net proceeds from the 20/20 convertible bond issued in March 2015. $39.9 million was repaid on the Langer Heinrich Project finance facility during the year and, as I mentioned, the $300 million 2015 CB was repaid in April 2015. The chart on slide 8 shows how Paladin's debt has decreased since June 2012. Since June 2012 debt has reduced by $429.6 million, including a debt reduction of $189.9 million in 2015. The table at the bottom of slide 8 provides a breakdown of Paladin's debt, being the Langer Heinrich's Syndicated Loan Facility of $61 million, the 2017 CB of $274 million and the 2020 CB of $150 million. The next debt maturity is the $274 million 2017 CB, which matures in April 2017. We will address this upcoming debt maturity by improving operating cash flows. We are also considering various initiatives to address the 2017 CB. I'll now hand you over to Darryl, who will take you to the next slide. Thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Darryl Butcher, Paladin Energy Limited - EGM Technical and Project Development [4] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, good morning. As Alexander mentioned earlier or stated earlier, optimisations of core competency at Paladin and in late 2012 we advised the market that we will be embarking on a significant cost reduction program. This slide demonstrates the impact of that cost reduction program. In the first graph in the top left-hand corner there, the processing cost optimisation, we've pulled processing costs down from about $19 a pound down to approximately $13 a pound in that period, a 30% reduction over the period. It's largely been achieved through the reagent cost optimisation initiatives of which BRP is the key element. In 2014/2015 we were able to pull the reagent costs down from $13 down to about $12.50. That was achieved mainly through behavioural changes on the site. But then in the last quarter of 2015, when the initial impacts of BRP (inaudible) that roughly $12.50 a pound came down to $9.20. To achieve this outcome, Paladin does maintain a world class technical service team and that team focussed on both cash flow optimisation and cost optimisation. As I've mentioned, the key project delivered reasonably with bicarbonate recovery, the BRP Project. This is a project that had a relatively modest capital cost of $6.8 million. It is now performing -- or in the first full quarter performed at 93% of -- 93% utilisation. It came online very quickly and very successfully. We believe it will achieve in excess of 95% utilisation in keeping with contemporary design standards. The recovery of sodium bicarbonate was 118% by the end of the first quarter. That's 118% of design and value that performance continues to improve. At the moment we are seeing -- well in the last quarter we saw total direct cost saving projected to be about $3 a pound, roughly greater than $15 million per annum. We do expect to see further substantial additional secondary benefits. Thank you, I am done. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [5] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks Darryl. On the next slide we are going to take you through some of our 2016 or FY16 cash flow optimisation initiatives. This slide has a graph on it which is in US Dollars per pound. It shows you our all in expenditure, which includes mining, CapEx, debt servicing, overheads, exploration and Kayelekera care and maintenance costs. It also shows you how we start, which is where we were at for the FY15 year. Then we walk you through key changes in our expenditure profile that give you guidance as to how we expect to achieve cash flow break even for the 2016 financial year. So we start at the top of this chart at $50.75 per pound, which was our all in cost for 2015. Firstly, there are a couple of initiatives that are not controllable or specific optimisation acts that are actioned. These initiatives include exchange rates. We get roughly $5 million improvement for every $1 change in Namibian dollar move per US dollars. We are now using $12.60 for the Namibian dollar exchange rate to forecast our 2015 cash costs versus an average year rate of $11.48 for last year. It's over $13 right now. There are Australian dollar impacts for us on FX, but not as meaningful as the Namibian dollar. The change in exchange rate, we estimate to reduce our cash all in expenditure by about $1.08 per pound. Then there is a bunch of changes for the mine plan. These just incorporate combined impact of great change, strip ratio, overall production volumes, etc. The main impact here is 9.6% reduction in head grade to a current forecast for the year of 694 parts per million. Now just to be clear, this does represent a small revision from the July 30 announcement and the average grade for the year is actually going to be 11 parts per million higher. Then at the plant announced at that time. However, it's still that 9.6% reduction compared to last year. The grade reduction has been more than offset by overall volume increase in comparison to last year's volume and we expect the mix of these factors to reduce our expenditure per pound by $0.71. The next group include optimisation initiatives. We are currently implementing a new alliance style mining contract. This is the largest line item within mining, which represents about one third of our overall C1 Cash Costs. We now expect to come in with reducing mining rates in somewhere in the low 20%. The impact of our revised mining costs -- our revised mining contract, which is expected to be effective back to July 1, 2016, should be another $0.68 reduction in our overall expenditure per pound. Then are the plant optimisation initiatives, which we currently forecast for a combined $4.39 per pound of reduction. This includes bicarbonate recovery plant, being the full year impact of that and also for it to operate at a higher expected performance above design. In fact, we expect around 200% or more. Now, if you remember, there is roughly $3 achieved in the fourth quarter of 2015. So we believe these changes are real and deliverable. The secondary impact, one of the secondary impacts here is that we will also improve wash efficiency and overall recoveries. Now all of these costs that we've got to so far, before we talk about CapEx and other items, go to our C2 Cash Cost. Last year the Langer Heinrich C2 Cash Cost was $34.54, roughly two thirds or more of the overall 2015 expenditure. Coming into capital expenditure. There is not much change there. Kayelekera care and maintenance. We continue to move that and it moves more into a steady state care and maintenance program. We have approximately $7 million savings on capital and plant consumables and personnel. That saves us $1.32 per overall production pound. Corporate costs. We have eliminated or reduced more than 50% of our corporate staff. This action happened last Friday and -- now to be clear, the cuts that have been made do not impact our optimisation initiatives for safety and environment related areas. The savings we get from reducing our staff numbers and also other savings, including travel, IT, these kind of areas, are almost $6 million on an annualised basis. Exploration has been moved onto a care and maintenance style program. What we mean by that is we will do the minimum to make -- in terms of meeting minimum required licensing commitments or JV commitments. But we will not invest above that in exploration at this time. With exploration on care and maintenance, we roughly expected to be in the US -- and expenditure -- an ongoing expenditure of $3 million to $4 million per annum, around $2.5 million less than 2015. Our main exploration expenditure will be on Carley Bore this year, which is broadly integrated with our Manyingee project. Carley Bore has a minimum exploration commitment for this year of $1 million. We also have some expenditure in Canada that are a result of a summer exploration program, which is currently being wound down, but was already active for the first two months of this financial year. So let's talk about the uranium market, starting on page 11 and going forward. We believe we are already in the early stages of a uranium market recovery. The price finished -- is finished 2015 at 29% higher than at the start of the year. We can see here on the chart on the page 11 one quite important point. Uranium has remained robust whilst other commodities have been sold off. The chart makes the point that uranium and oil don't necessarily move together. To be clear, substitution isn't something that we see in a nuclear versus oil basis on any short or medium term level. It's certainly something that doesn't apply for the new growing uranium markets like China. Now, moving onto page 12. We have some positive recent news in the uranium market. Not the least that due to electric power, it completed the restart of its Sendai number 1 reactor on August 11 of this month. That becomes the first Japanese reactor to restart. We also have South Africa clearly defining their new nuclear power growth program, which is for another 9600 megawatts of nuclear power. They've now moved this plan into the implementation phase and have started the procurement process for the initial reactors for this. We expect the construction of nine reactors to be built by 2023 in this program. We have new good connections in China in the last few months and we have India announcing that they are going to build a strategic stockpile of the uranium materials. 2015 volumes in the market were still low, but it's definitely picking up. We are seeing increased liquidity in the spot market at the same time as those prices are moving up. So far we have roughly 31 million pounds of material be traded in the uranium spot market through to mid August of this calendar year, which is quite a bit more than the 24 million pounds that was in the spot market for all of the 2014 calendar year. We know that higher prices are needed for uranium. Mine supply is actually falling and fell about 10% in the last calendar year. We need a 40% increase in mined uranium supply by the end of 2020 in order to meet forecast demand projections. Now a number of analysts have studied what kind of incentive uranium price would be needed to deliver these kinds of production growth outcomes for miners. For example, JP Morgan has estimated that the industry would need more than $80 a pound to achieve this. You can see by the chart here on the left, that the equity analysts community can see for uranium the clear upside for our commodity. I want to remind you here that Paladin offers unique leverage to uranium upside. So, what's Paladin's strategy? Our strategy here is currently built around four key areas. Number one, we are going to absolutely maximise operating cash flows at Langer Heinrich, through optimisation initiatives that preserve the integrity of the long-term life of mine plan, ie we're delivering real cost saving and improvement initiatives, rather than focussing on short term initiatives like high grading. Number two, we are going to maintain Kayelekera and our exploration portfolio on a minimum expenditure care and maintenance basis, so the value of those assets are preserved for a time when the uranium market normalises, but that they don't drain significant cash flow from our operations at the moment. Number three, we are going to minimise corporate and administrative costs. Number four, we are going to consider strategic initiatives with respect to partnership, strategic investment, funding and corporate transactions. Where we say this point number four, it obviously elicits lots of questions. We can't really say we have a specific initiative at the moment, we have no -- so we have no specific initiative to announce immediately and we have no timing to be able to say when and if an initiative will take place. However, we can say that everything is on the table and we certainly recognise the strategic value of our assets. Moving on to our FY16 guidance. Our production guidance remains in the range of 5 to 5.4 million pounds of uranium this year. We can say that the guidance has not changed here. But I do believe we have quite -- that we are increasing our confidence in this guidance number. We are going to provide clear guidance as well with respect to average selling prices. We have a number of contracts with fixed price elements and some of the even go as high as $71 a pound received price expected for, during the course of 2016 for specific contracts. This, we believe, will result in a current -- in a volume weighted average selling price premium of around $4 per pound, assuming current spot price, that is we would expect to be selling around $41 per pound for the year average. One thing I warn you is this number can change quite dramatically from quarter to quarter, depending on how deliveries move between quarters, under specific contracts. Langer Heinrich C1 Cash Costs were forecasting in the range of $25 million to $27 million per pound. That is 7% to 14% lower than the 2015 financial year and references back to the cost optimisation chart that you saw previously in this presentation. We've $19 million to be spent in combination on corporate and overheads, Kayelekera care and maintenance and exploration. It's roughly $10 million Kayelekera, $6 million corporate and $3 million exploration. Now, we are going to have $6 million of one-off restructuring charges that include redundancies and the cost of initiatives that then save cash costs, going forward. Those we expect to be almost entirely recorded in the current quarter to September 30, 2016. We need to also give you some impression of how our cash flow profile works during the year. Firstly when we say we're going to be cash flow neutral for FY16 excluding the one-off restructuring charges it really means that we're aiming to finish the financial year with around $180 million in our Group cash balance, fairly close to where we started the year. How the cash flow builds during the year though is; in the first quarter we will have a material usage of cash flow. So we expect to finish at September 30, 2015 with around $120 million to $130 million Group cash balance at the end of the quarter. That's a drop of almost $60 million to the mid-point there. I'm going to help you understand that. There are two key contract deliveries that move into the start of the second quarter of the financial year. What it is -- so what we have to see is there is a swing of roughly 500,000 pounds of material that moves from that first quarter into the early part of the second quarter. So we need to imagine this. It's not just 500,000 pounds. The way it works is on high level numbers imagine we have the cost of roughly 1.3 million pounds of production in each of those quarters. But the movement of 500,000 pounds means we will receive cash for the sale of something like 800,000 pounds in Q1 and then 1.8 million pounds in Q2. So it's almost 1 million pounds difference between the two quarters. Based on the valuation of those contracts and received pricing we expect this item will move $43 million worth of cash received from customers from Q1 into Q2. Then of course the next big item is we have our one-off restructuring costs. We have short term mine plan impacts and the build-up of optimisations during the year that mean our C1 cash costs at Langer Heinrich are expected to be $2 to $3 a pound above our annual guidance level for that first quarter. There's another $4 million. The rest of the capital difference is timing of exploration expenditure and CapEx. As you can imagine, we tend to spend money in -- for example Kayelekera has a higher CapEx spend during the dry season as we prepare some initiatives for the wet season. We also have a higher exploration -- most of our exploration expenditure being incurred in this quarter versus the rest of the year. So we then, after we finish that September quarter, we expect a big bounce back in Q2, and then the cash to build for the remainder of the 2016 financial year to reach that full year neutrality level. So that finishes it for us. We have a couple of slides in the appendix that have a little bit more detail on our operations. Now I would like to hand back to the operator and ask for the question and answer session to be co-ordinated. Thank you. +++ q and a -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [6] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ladies and gentlemen we will now begin the question and answer session. (Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Stefan Hansen of Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [7] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning everyone. I've got a few questions but I'll ask a couple now and circle back if there's time. Just quickly on the guidance slide -- just confirming your expectation of cash flows over FY16 -- that's based on spot plus a $4 premium or is that based on consensus forecasts for this year? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [8] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That is based on spot plus a premium. So actually what we're showing you on that cash flow slide is where our all-in total expenditure gets to. So actually our cash flow neutrality is really up to you if you like. What we're showing you is that our 2016 all-in guidance range is $39 to $41 a pound. Average spot price for the year to date has been above $37. It's currently roughly almost $37 so that would have us $4 plus $37 equals $41. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [9] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, cool. On the cost optimisation slide on slide 10 -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [10] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [11] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can you talk to me a bit on the production plan saving $0.71 a pound. You've already got in there $0.68 a pound for a mining contract saving. I'm just wondering how you get a saving when you're increasing volumes from the mine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [12] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's simply that -- so the grade has gone up yes. But we're increasing -- let's say if the mid-point of our guidance is 5.2 million pounds and last year's production was 5.0 million pounds, the amortisation of our fixed cost elements at the mine over that higher volume is more than offset in grade. There are a couple of other items in there but that's where the saving comes from. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [13] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is there an element of increased volumes meaning more capitalised waste getting netted off that number? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [14] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No Stefan. It's really increased production. So from FY15 we made that. Yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [15] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [16] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [17] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alright thanks. Just then on to the debt -- earlier in the presentation the debt was referred to as the Langer Heinrich syndicated facility. I just wanted to confirm that it's a debt facility that's not -- it's a corporate facility not a project facility as such. I remember when you refinanced it there were -- I don't think there were any project life covenants that sort of thing attached to it. I just wanted to confirm because in the annual report it talks about project life covenants associated with that debt. I also wanted to confirm that it's still covenant-free for now. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [18] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Correct. So there was literally just a name change. It was changed from a project finance facility to a syndicated facility agreement. That occurred about the CNNC equity sale in July 2014. There are the same debt covenants attached to that facility despite the change in the name. However there is still a debt covenant holiday out until June 2016. So we are free from any defaults if there were any in those ratios or in the covenant until June 2016. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [19] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is it June 2016 or December? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [20] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh sorry, my apologies -- December 2016, sorry. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [21] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay cool. Alright just one more if I can please. Just on the exploration impairment, why not write it all down? How did you get to the $100 million number for the Queensland assets? Why did the Canadian assets -- why were they immune to any write-down if you're going to be pulling back expenditure across all of them? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [22] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So Stefan what we did was we did a comparison to recent transactions. There was a whole range of valuations per pound which we looked at. We basically selected a number that worked within that range that we were comfortable with; also based on some analyst valuations as well. Yes, that's the main reason. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [23] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If I could just add to that that the -- so there are other valuation elements as well whereby the Michelin assets are security against the EDF pre-payment. That has to be taken into account with respect to consideration of valuation of that asset. Hence why Queensland was written down and we were not asked to reconsider the valuation of Michelin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [24] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay thanks. I'll leave it there for now, cheers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [25] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [26] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your next question comes from the line of David Talbot of Dundee Capital Markets. Please ask your question. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [27] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good morning or afternoon gentlemen. I'm wondering about the cash flow optimisation at Langer Heinrich. Will you see any drop in production in the first quarter this year because of that? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [28] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not due to the cash flow optimisation, no. But as you see our usual behaviour always sees our major annual shutdown. So there will be a slight decline in production but purely due to the August maintenance shutdown that we have regularly every year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [29] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay so that's really just a week or 10 days? It's not too extensive? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [30] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's correct. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [31] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. It looks like CapEx is really the only thing going up this year even just slightly, so let's say $12 million. Is that entirely sustaining or should there be other projects in there as well? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [32] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No it's not entirely sustaining. There are some other projects in there as well largely as part of this optimisation strategy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [33] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. Do you have the breakdown of what might be sustaining and what might be one-offs? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [34] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's okay -- no we don't have that breakdown for you now. We can provide that later if you need it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [35] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, sounds good. Now just one more question. I'm trying to reconcile this $50 million to $60 million T1 cash burn. The restructuring costs and interest are pretty much straightforward. The 500,000 pound sale to CNNC the sale -- my understanding from the press release -- sorry I don't have it in front of me -- but that all sales are going to be booked in Q1 so they'll hit the income statement but payment is going to be pushed to Q2. So to me that looks like there is going to be a large increase in the accounts receivable. But how does the large carrying cost play into that? Let's assume you push 500,000 pounds that you don't get paid for you still have to pay the, let's say $34 C2 operating costs on that. You've got to carry that, correct? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [36] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. So basically all the revenue -- the cash receipts for that revenue for the first quarter are going to only be received in the second quarter. So yes, you're correct. Costs are still incurred and that's why you see a reduction in our Group cash balance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [37] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, but even if there was 1.3 million pounds that was deferred, at $34 a pound C2 cash costs, that's still -- with my math it's $44 million or so. Am I missing something here? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [38] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, well the other -- I mean as Alexander mentioned there are other costs including the retrenchment costs. There is obviously our ongoing corporate and exploration expenditure. There is also a CB interest payment -- the first convertible bond interest payment for the 2020 CB that flows through in the next quarter. So yes all of those add up. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [39] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't understand. Maybe you need to clarify the question. Firstly by the way it's not just CNNC. There's another contract there. So it's at a meaningful weighted average receipt revenue above spot that that revenue slips into the next quarter. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [40] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Right okay. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [41] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So out of the $60 million the impact of the delivery deferral is $43 million. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [42] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Right, that's sort of -- a $41-ish realised price correct? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [43] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [44] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay so that seems to me like it's twice as much as what I'd expect. If you're only moving -- or maybe I'm -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [45] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's a swing of 500,000 pounds -- 500,000 pounds less; 500,000 pounds more -- equals 1 million pounds. Does that make sense? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Talbot, Dundee Capital Markets - Analyst [46] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm going to stay here a little bit more. If I've got any more questions I'll give you guys a ring. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [47] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. That'll be good. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [48] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your next question comes from the line of Glyn Lawcock of UBS. Please ask your question. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glyn Lawcock, UBS - Analyst [49] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good morning Alexander. Two questions -- just firstly slide 10 -- is that all delivered now? What's outstanding to deliver on that? Where is the risk of not delivering that in slide 10 to get to the $41? Then what issues -- you've got a range, $39 to $41, do you think you can get it down to $39? What other actions are you thinking to get that extra $2 a pound? The second question is, just on the uranium price, I noticed I think it's slide 12 you talk about 85% spot-related exposure this next 12 months. You mentioned you have one contract as high as $71 for the year. I'm just wondering with the spot-related contracts how much leverage do they actually have to the price? Are there caps and collars on that spot-related sense that if we get the price outcome that the analyst community is expecting -- let's say the analyst community has probably been wrong now for the last few years -- what is the upside leverage in Paladin really? I think a lot of the spot contracts still are collared. When you say spot are you saying completely exposed, uncontracted? I'm just trying to clarify the difference. Thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [50] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, so the first question -- everything that is on slide 10 are initiatives that have already been implemented or are in the active final stages of implementation. So the mining contract has broadly been -- the new contract that's broadly been negotiated there are some very minor outstanding items that are not expected to impact that substantially. BRP is the main element of plant optimisation which is predominantly a last year initiative as now we're really seeing the full year impact of it. Plus it's starting to increase its performance relative to design as well. The corporate cost cuts have already been implemented. Care and maintenance of Kayelekera that's very controllable for us within our expenditure. Exploration cut-backs have already been implemented. So these are initiatives that are, let's say, being delivered or at least predominantly being delivered by the end of this quarter. When you look at our quarterly cash flows you'll see some noise in the September cash flows not just from that -- the movement of the sale to those two contract deliveries but also the implementation of some of these initiatives. So really then you should see a full clean quarter of the impact of these initiatives in December quarter going forward. Now, there are additional initiatives that we're looking at, and possibilities. But for now this is our guidance. But certainly it's our key focus, is to maximise our cash flows. The question about our contracts -- our spot related contracts give you relatively pure exposure to spot I would say. In particular we have some sales that are uncontracted for the year and will literally be sold on the spot market, and of course the CNNC contract which is -- 25% of Langer Heinrich production is very clean exposure to spot. It doesn't have a floor or a ceiling. So we don't want to give clear proportions with respect to contracted, uncontracted or whatnot, because that impacts our interaction with customers. But the 85% that is not fixed exposed is very -- will move in a let's say almost 100% correlation with spot. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glyn Lawcock, UBS - Analyst [51] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks. The $4 premium then -- it's hard to say but if the price went up $10 that premium would come down a little bit. But it looks like if you've got 15% at sort of high 60% -- 65%, call it average -- the other 85% all at spot, that gets you the $4 premium it seems to be if you do the maths. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [52] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roughly yes. That's probably a good way to look at it. Yes you're right if the spot price moves up radically, if it goes to $50 a pound or something like that you will see a -- an observable decline in our dollar premium to spot. But it doesn't drop back too quickly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glyn Lawcock, UBS - Analyst [53] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alright, thanks very much. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [54] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your next question comes from the line of Stefan Hansen of Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [55] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi guys. Sorry, just a follow-up one quickly -- Andrew your predecessor talked about Kayelekera restarting at a price -- it was close to the greenfield incentive price level. Is that still the view of Paladin to get Kayelekera running when we get up towards $75 or $80? Is it going to be more when it can make decent cash flow given costs came down pretty substantially before it was put on care and maintenance? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [56] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes there are a couple of things. Number one, we have been preparing an internal feasibility study that looks at a restart -- looks at the economics of a restart at Kayelekera. It's fair to say that there are initiatives that can potentially reduce the cost and you get some pretty interesting positive economics, certainly at prices below $70. In fact even at $55 a pound we have numbers that show very substantial positive net present value and IRRs for a restart. Now having said that when we look at -- if uranium moves to $70 a pound tomorrow -- if it was at $70 a pound tomorrow we would still I think take time to make a decision to restart Kayelekera because we want to make sure that any uranium price increase is sustainable. We want to run our business in a prudent manner and potentially get the benefit of cash flow generation from higher uranium prices before we make a decision to restart. So prices would have to be at a high level for some time and be clearly sustainable. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [57] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay no worries. Thanks. Craig just a quick one for you -- I think it's been about the fourth or fifth year running and Paladin has recorded reversal of impairments on inventories. Am I right to think that there's no more inventory held at net realisable value? We're not going to see that anymore? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [58] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sorry, we've got a fire alarm going off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [59] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But we'll speak to -- we have to evacuate now -- but I'll tell you what it's an impairment of inventory down to net realisable value in this quarter. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [60] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [61] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is that what you're asking? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [62] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No -- I'm just asking -- there's been about $122 million of reversals of inventory write-downs over the past four years or so but when you look at your finished goods inventories now it's all held at cost. I think there is no more held at net realisable value. I'm just wondering are we going to keep seeing these reversals every year or is this something that's going to stop? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [63] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If we've raised an impairment in the previous period and the -- so we would write -- let's say at the end of a financial period we would write it down to lower cost on net realisable value. If there is a higher price actually realised in the following quarter or the quarter after that, then you would write back the impairment. So we've just written down -- we raised an impairment now in this last quarter. If the net realisable value is higher in the next quarter then we'd reverse that impairment. That should be accounting for that. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Hansen, Morgan Stanley - Analyst [64] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay no worries, thank you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [65] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [66] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your next question comes from the line of Chris Drew of the Royal Bank of Canada. Please ask your question. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Drew, Royal Bank of Canada - Analyst [67] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good morning guys. Just a question on the grade. The 10% fall in FY16 is that a trend that's expected to continue? I seem to recall that the grades were expected to continue to climb for a fair few years. If that's the case is there scope to continue to offset that with volume uplifts? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [68] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, the grade will plateau now for this year and probably the next one. But this is part of the overall strategy to get the Langer operation to a state that it's able to treat the long term sustainable grade of the mine which is down at around 450ppm. So yes any further reductions will be offset with throughput increases and also further innovation that we have planned for the site. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Drew, Royal Bank of Canada - Analyst [69] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [70] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Operator Instructions). The next question comes from Glyn Lawcock of UBS. Please ask your question. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glyn Lawcock, UBS - Analyst [71] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, sorry just a follow-up -- the $50.75 a pound you talk about for the total cash outflows in FY15, I'm just trying to rationalise that against the cash flow statement you've published. If I think about it, you're only entitled to 75% of the volume. I'm just trying to work out, what volume did you use against the $50.75? I'm just trying to work out from the cash outflow and dividing by the volume you sold last year gives a different number, that's all? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [72] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you were to use the 5.04 million pounds that we produced -- 100% of volume. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glyn Lawcock, UBS - Analyst [73] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [74] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So we're looking at it from 100% -- on a 100% basis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glyn Lawcock, UBS - Analyst [75] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, but not all the costs are in there -- if Kayelekera, CNM, corporate costs, exploration that's all against your share, not against the 5 million pounds though isn't it? Because you don't -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [76] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, you're correct on that Glyn but these are Group consolidated numbers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [77] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I also want to make the point that that also includes debt repayments on the project finance facility as well, that number. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glyn Lawcock, UBS - Analyst [78] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. Okay I'm just trying to reconcile because that adds up to $255 million of outflows last year. I'm just trying to reconcile that against the cash flow statement. But that's fine. I'll figure it out. If I have trouble I'll call you this afternoon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [79] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glyn Lawcock, UBS - Analyst [80] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Barnes, Paladin Energy Limited - CFO [81] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [82] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Operator Instructions) No further questions at this time. I would now like to hand the conference back to today's presenters. Please continue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Molyneux, Paladin Energy Limited - CEO [83] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I would like to thank everybody for their time in joining the conference call. We look forward to the next one, so thank you very much. Thanks operator for organising it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [84] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you ladies and gentlemen. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.
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