Ann: June 2024 Quarterly Activities and Cashflow Report, page-117

I think the greatest concern at the moment is will Ballama be placed in care and maintenance sometime in the next 2 quarters, will they run one good campaign and then park it for a period of time? The last quarter production cost was less due to the length of the run but it appears that sales are not at a level to support such runs going forward.

Ben Lyons
Thank you. Good day, Shaun. First question on Balama, please. There was a statement in the release that without a substantial improvement in Chinese import demand, the expectations currently for the second-half of the year fall short of the minimum levels required to incentivize production under the current operational framework. Just wondering if you can possibly elaborate on that statement, are you implying that there's a potential scenario, where the asset might pass into care and maintenance out of campaign mode into a closure scenario in the second-half of the year if you don't observe Chinese import demand? Thanks.
Shaun Verner
Thanks, Ben. I think there's an interim stage, certainly before any decision around further reduction would be considered. And ultimately what we're saying there is that the target of seeking to sell consistently each month and run at least one campaign through each quarter is compromised at the moment, or was compromised during Q2. And in the absence of an improvement in import demand from China, that we would have to consider how many campaigns we run, and also consider the cost initiatives that we have available to us particularly to manage the standby costs and try and reduce further that $4 million a month it's currently costing us when we're not operating.