AIC Mines IR Manager speaks with Proactive at the ASX SMIDcaps Conference

With me now live from the ASX Small Midcaps conference is AIC Mines IR Manager, Duncan Bristo.

The company focuses on copper and gold exploration, development and production. Its key projects include the A's copper mine and Jericho Copper Deposit in North Queensland. Duncan, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too, Lauren.

Firstly, you're targeting a doubling of production at the 100% owned A's Copper Mine over the next three years. Talk us through how you get there.

Yeah, so currently, you know, the Copper mine um produces about 13,000 tons of copper a year. has done the last few years. Um, three years ago we acquired our neighboring um, some of our neighbors and that included the Jericho Copper project. So in the last three years we've gone about um permitting and developing that project. Um, and we developed towards Jericho from underground. It's only 4 kilometers away from from the underground decline.

Um and we actually reached Jericho earlier this calendar year in in January. Um and so the plan is to bring Jericho on as our as our second source of of or feed for um the A's processing facility. So currently 13,000 tons per year just from Eloise, um developing Jericho allows us to increase that to over 25,000 tons by FY29. And that happens in a staged fashion.

Now, copper's had a strong run as a thematic investment. What does AIC mines specifically stand out as a way to play that story?

Absolutely. Well, as as we mentioned, you know, we we've hit guidance in at well, we we hit guidance the last three years um producing about 13,000 tons of copper. Um that's not really changed. Our costs have remained um relatively flat around $5 Australian per pound of copper sold. Um in FY26 though, we produced $64 million of cash at net mine cash flow. That's more than the two prior years combined. So, what that kind of highlights is

that, you know, our production and costs are steady, but our cash generation has, you know, um increased substantially and what's changed there is the copper price. So, what that really highlights is the leverage that I see mines provides to the copper price and um if everybody out there is is as bullish on copper as as I am, then we know where this is going, you know, the all you have to do is is a bit of a quick math in in your head, you double production, things keep going the way they are with the copper price as you say, and then you can see the cash generation going in the same direction.

Now, just back on guidance. You you did mention that you've hit guidance three years running. So what is driving that consistency?

So really it's it's the um the effort and and the expertise that the site team and the company has garnered from the acquisition. So um was acquired five years ago. The first two years of ownership was difficult. It required a lot of recapitalization. Prior to IC Mind's ownership, the asset had been run towards closure, needed some investment in tailings infrastructure, in underground infrastructure and mining fleets.

Um IC Mine spent the first two years of ownership putting that investment in place. Um as you say since then, you know, um continued to to meet guidance three years in a row um so around that 13,000 ton um of copper per annum. Um the understanding of um the all body um helps us keep the the costs in line. Um as I said, sort of flat costs around a $5 Australian per pound salt. Um and what's also important is is the precious metal exposure.

I should have mentioned that earlier, you know that um 10 to 15% of of revenue from from, sorry, comes from um precious metals and that's um throughout the deposit and the Jericho deposit and that provides a really important um additional uh diversity in in the revenue stream they actually mind has.

And lastly, Jericho underpins the stage plant expansion. Beyond that, what does the exploration and growth pipeline look like?

Absolutely. So our stated objective is to to become the next Australian mid-tier copper producer through development, the Jericho piece as you said, exploration and acquisition. So exploration, we have a currently have 2500 km squared of of tenure south of Concurry uh across two projects, A's regional project and the Bramby, uh the Canton project, sorry, to the south of A's. Um recently we've had some really good expiration success at both of those projects including near A,

so that provides us potential optionality for future sources of all near A. And then also at the Bramby prospect near the Canon in mine, um just south of A. So recently we hit um 40 meters at about 3.6% copper, which was a great and that was the first hole we drilled of that prospect we picked up last year. So really exciting expiration growth potential for us in our in the region. Um and then also today we've just announced um that we've entered into defining agreements to acquire the Mount Cuthbert copper project uh from current owners metals,

a private group. Um and, you know, we've we've looked at everything in the region from an inorganic point of view. Uh we do consider ourselves um one of the consolidators of that region and uh the Mount Cuthbert project, you know, is a is um a 2400 km squared exploration tenure including mining leases. Uh it has established mineral resources on it of um about 18.7 million tons at 1.3% copper. So that's uh 246,000 tons of copper we're adding to the to our balance sheet.

Um and we think it's a really value of creative deal for the for the company. Um increases our copper um exposure by uh about 30% on in terms of a resource. We'll now um have a total combined resource of about um 870,000 tons of copper. Um and what's important about the customer project is it's really been under explored recently. Um in the last 20 years, um it's been um quite undercapitalized, not had a lot of exploration done on it.

Duncan, thanks for your time.

Thanks very much, Lauren.