Participants

Michael McMullen; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; Metals Acquisition Ltd

Morne Engelbrecht; Chief Financial Officer; Metals Acquisition Ltd

Daniel Morgan; Analyst; Barrenjoey

Sam Catalano; Analyst; Wilson Advisory and Stockbroking Limited

Eric Winmill; Analyst; Scotiabank

David Radclyffe; Analyst; Global Mining Research

Tim Hoff; Analyst; Canaccord Genuity (Australia) Limited

Jackie Przybylowski; Analyst; BMO Capital Markets

Presentation

Operator

Hello, and welcome to the Metals acquisition first quarter 2024 results conference. (Operator Instructions) Please note that this call is being recorded. and I will be standing by should you require any assistance.
I would now like to turn the call over to CEO, Mick McMullen. Please begin.

Michael McMullen

Thank you. And thank you, everyone, for joining. I'll be speaking to the presentation slides today, along with Morne Engelbrecht, our CFO. We're going to give an update on our Q1 2024 results as well as a bit of an update on the business up until now.
So CSA, obviously we own them, is a very high-grade copper mine sitting in a Tier 1 jurisdiction in Western New South Wales and as most of the people on the call would know how it's been operating for a very long period of time. And so it's a sort of a known quantity in terms of infrastructure, great relationships with local stakeholders, and a very stable regulatory taxable royalty regime, which in this [day and age] is becoming increasingly rare.
The company has got just under 70 million shares in issue. We, as everyone would know, we're listed on the New York Stock Exchange as well as the ASX. And the enterprise value is near -- about $1.1 billion. We have a very strong register, large institutional banking, not a lot of retail in the company. And we view CSA as a great foundational asset for us in terms of a phenomenal resource in the ground with a lot of excess infrastructure.
We thought we'd put in a bit of a scorecard for us to sort of mark how we've progressed along our journey since acquiring the mine back in June of last year. And I think overall, we've delivered on many of the things that we said to people we would do. Obviously, closing the mine was the first of those, operate the mine safely and in a fully permitted fashion.
We managed to deliver on several key permits since we got the mine, including the Tailings and Stage 10 lift. We said we'd deliver a large resource increase. We always believe that the mineral resource and reserve have potential for significant expansion and as with our call last week, we've delivered on that.
We said we'd deleverage and simplify the balance sheet. And as you will see, when Morne starts to talk here shortly, you can see exactly to the extent that we've done so. We've indicated that we'd like to simplify our capital structure, and I would say that's a work in progress, but something that is front and center of our mind.
We've been building our team, both at a Board and management level. And I'd say that's a bit of a work in progress as well. And we have certain steps underway that we'd like to take in order to sort of further broaden our board diversification as well as management.
Operational turnaround. We've always said that CSA was a turnaround story in terms of it being a very small asset inside its previous owner, which is a very large company and perhaps didn't have the level of focus that the asset really needed. And so I would say we're partway along there in terms of operational turnaround, whereby no means where we'd like to be, but we see a good potential to further turn the asset around.
We said we'd deliver a meaningful reserve life upgrade, and we've now delivered that, which with an 11 year reserve life based on data up until the end of August. We -- clearly we have aspirations to grow the business, but we would be disciplined on M&A and I think we've demonstrated that. And for those of you who can recall from the closing of middle of last year, we had a reasonable sized deferred payment due to Glencore, which if we didn't pay it in cash by the middle of 2024, would have converted to equity and so on having paid that and we remove that potential dilution over and so. Three quarters into our ownership, I give us a reasonable score in terms of our delivery. And I think a few of those orange or yellow ticks there, we have plans in place in order to deliver on the remainder of those over the next 6 to 9 to 12 months.
Moving on to the next slide, slide 6. Obviously, we've increased the life of mine and the reserves very significantly. And I think, again, based on the call that we had last week, the fact that the 11-year mine life actually only goes down 95 meters beyond the bottom of the current. A decline is very important in terms of the requirement for development going forward.
We've had a very large increase in resources. And again, the top 850 meters of the ore body actually are not in that resource. Q1 production was down a bit from where we'd like it to have been. It was 8,700 tons of copper. And similarly, because of the high fixed cost nature of the operation, our C1 went up about GBP0.15 a pound relative to the prior quarter.
I would say, and I did indicate on the call last week that sequentially, we expect quarters to be better production during the course of the year. We spent about USD13 million of capital, which again was sort of exactly where we guided to before. And look, as everyone knows, the copper price has been increasing. We did achieve slightly higher than the average price -- the spot price during the quarter. So, again, we're achieving a better price relative to the market.
Balance sheet at the end of the quarter, we had about EUR100 million (sic - see Presentation, page no.4, USD100 million) of liquidity, so AUD155 million. We did pay down $127 million of interest-bearing liabilities. We've been very clear that one of the key things from operating cash flow and the ASX IPO was to deliver the balance sheet, and we have some further simplification that we'd like to do there. And we've also put in our first sort of guidance for the three years there indicating that by 2026, we'll be producing in excess of 50,000 tons of copper.
So, in terms of production, look, it was a bit of a weaker quarter relative to the prior quarter, and that was a combination of really a couple of -- two or three things. One was we did see a bit higher labor turnover in absenteeism, which impacted the production a little bit. It was also partly with the planning of the stope.
So, as we've said before, the mine would turn over circa 70 stopes a year. The top half a dozen of those could be as much as a third of your metal. And so if you're out of those, then you have weaker production, if you're in those as we're seeing -- in two of those stopes coming online or have come online during Q2, then obviously, you get a large increase in metal. So, we do have a bit of variability or volatility quarter-on-quarter in terms of production.
The other thing in Q1 was that we announced we had a three-day complete power outage to the mine due to that storm to the east of us. And we did lose a bit of momentum coming out of that. So, that was a sort of 500-600 ton copper impact for the quarter.
C1 really was driven by the volume and so we did see a little bit of an increase in C1. We do expect Q1 for 2024 to be our weakest quarter for the year. And part of the scheduling is we were mining a reasonable portion of ore from the East and West deposits, which are shallower, but they are quite a bit lower grade and so we did see that come through in the average grade.
So, again, as we move out of those East and West deposits into QT's North and QT's Central, which is really what the new mine plan is based on. We expect to see grade start to tick back up again.
Similarly, development meters were down. Now, we did a couple of things in the quarter. One was that we did a fair bit of rehabilitation meters, which are included in the primary development meters. We went back and did a fair bit of extra ground support, but also under the new mine plan because we -- we only need to advance about 95 meters below where we currently are for the next 11 years. It does mean that we actually need to do a bit less development relative to where we had been before.
So, again, we focus very much on productivity. So, productivity was in line with the previous quarter, well above where it had been a year ago. And similarly, CapEx was basically exactly as we'd sort of forecast in the previous couple of quarters.
We are doing those TSF works and in the quarterly report, we put some photos there of all those earthworks. And so as those things roll off during the course of the year, we expect the capital spend to drop back down. But again, it was exactly in line with where we guided the market to be. At this stage, we don't have any growth CapEx. It's all-in sustaining CapEx and so it's trending exactly where we said it would be.
I'm going to hand over to Morne, our CFO, for the next three slides, as he talks about the cost side of the business.

Morne Engelbrecht

Thanks Mick. Good evening and morning everyone. My name is Morne Engelbrecht and I'm the CFO for Metals Acquisition. I'll take you through the next three slides and also the high-level liquidity order flow at the end of the quarter.
Before we get into slide 10, if you look at through our risk -- S-K 1300 report, we issued in the US and copy on the ASX as well. You'll note that in that BDA report, they note that around two-thirds of our overall costs are being fixed costs from a mining point of view, which impacts to a large degree, our cost per ton and cost metrics as presented here, especially if volumes are down.
Going to slide 10 and to the left, there's our processing cost per ton in US dollars, which remained pretty steady with a slight uptick of around 2% on the lower volumes compared to last quarter. And due to the higher fixed cost nature of our mining cost per ton will also impacted by those lower mining volumes as Mick has already covered off on.
That metric is also impacted by the fact that our capital development meters were down by almost 45% compared to last quarter, which just means that less of that sort of fixed cost component, it's capitalized and therefore, had to be distributed over the mining volumes as well and therefore, it allows a net higher cost per meter.
Going on to slide 11. You will see there that the volume gain is critical once again, with two-thirds of the G&A costs being fixed. There's little room to move when volumes drop off.
The underlying costs are still high for my liking and we are actively working to reduce these overall retendering contracts where possible. As added before, on the development meters side, we're almost 45% lower on quarter-on-quarter. And as Mick has outlined, this is predominantly due to more meters being completed, which is not part of the weight calculation. And then we're also pivoting in the new mining plan where they're going to mine higher grades areas going forward.
On slide 12, here I wanted to take you through a high-level liquidity update as at the end of March 2024. As you can see, we started off the year with liquidity of around USD32 million, which included the drawdown of our revolving facility of USD25 million.
We then completed a very successful oversubscribed equity raise on the ASX, which brought us in so much needed liquidity of around USD215 million or AUD325 million before cost. Almost immediately, we paid a deferred Glencore consideration of around USD83 million, which was one of our higher debt costs on our balance sheet as it carries the same interest as the [mayor] states facilities, so immediately accretive to earnings.
Alternatively, this liability could have been converted to shares, which would have been RDWS, so paying that back as soon as possible was the best thing to do for us there. We then reduced further some additional interest-bearing liabilities by repaying the revolving facility of $25 million and reducing some of our principal on our senior facility as well of around $8 million.
We ended up the quarter with around $100 million of liquidity, which is around that AUD155 million is -- Mick has outlined as well. I think it's very important to note that this liquidity does not include the two shipments we referred to previously as well on our previous calls of around USD48 million, which was shipments around -- one of the shipments was the last week of March and the other one in the first week in April.
And if you look at that sort of liquidity graph, you will see that we carry, obviously, all the costs in the quarter for those two shipments during the quarter, but there's no revenue or cash to offset that.
So, you will see that coming through in the next quarter. And that's just based on our terms and offtake agreement, which sort of states that title doesn't transfer until that provisional payment is made, which can be around two weeks after the ship is loaded. So, that's just a cash flow timing issue there. And then also there's no revenue accrued at the end of March for those two shipments as well. So just I wanted to make that very clear.
Also of note, this subsequent to quarter, we paid the stamp duty on the acquisition of the CSA Copper mine, which is around $24 million, which you will see coming through the next quarter as well.
And then as Mick has mentioned, we are looking at ways to strengthen our balance sheet and simplify our capital structure. As I mentioned before as well, so we're looking at a number of options there, which we can report on over the next couple of quarters.
With that, I'll hand back to Mick.

Michael McMullen

Thanks, Morne. And for those of you who are trying to sort of back calculate our free cash generation during the quarter from operations, I think the point around that $50-odd million worth of two shipments right at the end of the quarter and dropped into the 1, I think it was the 2 of April. We have booked all the costs associated with those shipments, but none of the revenue. So, if you were sort of lining up on an accruals basis, you would need to put that $50 million back into the revenue line.
And so you can see even at $3.87 copper that was our average price during the quarter, the mine is generating quite strong free cash flow. Clearly, at $4.60 copper, the prices are even better. And each of the shipments today is worth around about $28 million to $29 million of bode load. So, it does make your cash flow somewhat lumpy. But at the end of the day, the mine is generating quite strong free cash flow.
And again, just rolling into some of the information we put out the other day, we think coming out with an 11-year reserve life really sort of gives people confidence that this truly is now a long-life asset, all of those ore bodies are outlooked. That's on information up until the end of August. We continue to drill at some pace.
And so you can see on the graph there, it truly is a significant increase in the resource and reserve. They have historically been very successful at maintaining a sort of a certain level of resource and reserve despite annual production. You can see how significant this R&R update has been relative to where it's been in the last 10 years.
And we see opportunity subject to exploration success and sort of economic factors for that to continue to increase. We have run those resources and reserves at a $3.76 copper price, obviously, $4.60, everything becomes economic.
So, again, circa 1 million tons in contained copper at a fantastic rate of 4.9%. Again, everything is open. Really, we now see the opportunity to be to try and produce this faster than what the current mine plan has us doing.
We did talk the other day about some of the shallower mineralization in the ore body. So, again, QT South Upper is that little thing on the top left in green, we do intend to get in, and start mining that fairly soon. But interestingly, we've been mining the historical data, so to speak, and have discovered that there is substantial zinc mineralization in the upper portion of the mine, very proximal to existing infrastructure within 50 to 70 meters of the decline in most cases.
And at drill hole had about 16 meters of massive sulphide zinc-rich sitting right up in your surface, so around about 300 meters below surface. So, we're very excited about this. We're not specifically chasing zinc. We still see CSA as a predominantly copper ore body. But if there's a free ore body, we'll take that as well.
Again, reserves, very significant upgrade in the reserve status, which underpins some of the discussions that we've touched on in terms of balance sheet simplification. This is one of the key building blocks along with the ASX IPO and the large equity raise and then obviously, the operations generating strong free cash flow. They're really the three pillars upon which you can replan our balance sheet in terms of where you'd like to be.
Again, guidance, we see guidance, production gradually picking up. Again, we'd like to see if we can improve on that as our knowledge of the ore bodies change and we can now focus our development efforts on unlocking that bottom of the mine through additional ventilation, which is really the -- one of the key changes in the development plan is to not have to be driving down as deep, but actually take those meters and use some of those on pushing that ventilation in because that's really the key in terms of actually unlocking production.
So, just coming back to our highlights, again, a little bit weaker quarter in Q1. We do expect sequentially the quarters during 2024 to improve and costs up slightly, again, fixed cost base, but really at $4.60 copper, this mine, clearly, with the C1 having that $2, $2.15 a pound level, clearly is generating significant operating free cash. And then the CapEx of sort of historically, we've guided the market to around about USD50 million to USD52 million for the year. It obviously generates some very good free cash.
I think the simplification of the balance sheet is something that we see as pretty critical here going forward and obviously, generating lots of free cash and paying down interest-bearing debt is right on the top of that list of things to do.
And so with that, I think that's really the summary of the update. I'm happy to turn it over to questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Daniel Morgan, Barrenjoey.

Daniel Morgan

Hi, Mick and team. First question just relates to production and outlook. Do you expect production to improve sequentially each quarter during the year? And if that is the case, what are the drivers of tons and grade? Thank you.

Michael McMullen

Sure. Yes. Look, we expect to see probably Q2, Q3, I think, will be the stronger quarters just based on -- and it's really just sequencing of stopes. As I've said, we've got two of those big high-grade stopes that are coming online or have come online during Q2, and that will drive a fair bit of production growth there.
So, with a bit of luck, we don't have another three-day power outage, which realistically actually knock 500-600 tons of copper out of Q1. And I guess I could look on the bright side and say, well, we didn't produce that and sell it at $3.87 and now we can produce it in Q2 and sell it at $4.60 if I'm looking at the bright side of things.

Daniel Morgan

Sure. And on the financials, I know that you have -- you're simplifying your debt structure and you are paying down debt. Just wondering why perhaps you're not deciding to pay down more of the senior facility to perhaps defray interest because you've got a lot of cash. Is there costs of redrawing that facility if required? Thank you.

Michael McMullen

Well, we're seeing here, if we -- obviously, the revolver, we can repay and draw and we fully repay back, the senior principle, if we repaid, it is not withdrawable. But I think it's a good point in -- we have other -- I guess, we've paid the debt down in the order of cost of capital that we could and perhaps there's other bits of capital in that stack that are more expensive than senior that we are working on to see if we can reduce that cost in priority, I suppose.

Daniel Morgan

Okay.

Morne Engelbrecht

The other thing maybe (multiple speakers)

Operator

Sam Catalano, Wilsons.

Sam Catalano

Yes, good day. Mick and Morne, I just wanted to -- you're conscious that you referenced the increase in unit costs given fixed cost leverage and the decline in volumes. But you've also spoken a bit on the call and in the release about the split between capitalized developments and what hits the operating cost line?
I wonder if you can give us any feel for how that might move around over the next sort of year or two as part of the mine plan because our sense that's probably going to be a key determinant in the headline figure that you end up disclosing quarter-by-quarter on a unit cost basis.

Michael McMullen

I might let Morne handle that one.

Morne Engelbrecht

Yeah. Can you hear me, Sam?

Sam Catalano

I can. Yeah.

Morne Engelbrecht

Yeah. Look, I think going forward, we'll obviously look at that consistency coming back into the mining plan going forward. So hopefully, over the next year or so, that lumpiness will be taken out of the mine plan, which will then impact the lumpiness in terms of our development costs being capitalized.
We will look at how we can smooth that, I suppose, going forward as well in terms of that sort of calculation. So, if you look at the depreciation side of things, that's a forward-looking calculation on a dollar per ton basis. So we look at how we can sort of work that into those numbers as well. But it's really beholding to the mining plan in terms of what we do on a quarterly basis and therefore, impacting those sort of calculations.
I'm not sure whether we can be clear in terms of pre-empting what those developments look like on a pre-emptive on a quarter-by-quarter basis. But again, we will see whether we can make that easy and some soft being sort of more predictable, I suppose, from a financing point of view going forward.

Sam Catalano

And thanks, Morne. And just to be clear, so the stats that you released on, say, mining cost per ton, that would include development and whatever capitalized and expensed?

Morne Engelbrecht

Yeah. Look, that's -- that release is sort of on a net basis. So you take your capitalized development costs out of that number. So -- and you can see that coming through the stat accounts as well that we issued more recently. So, in terms of your modelling, that will be mostly a fixed dollar per ton that you apply to those -- per meter, sorry, for those development meters, which is then capitalized.
So, if you don't do a lot of development meters, then a lot of that fixed cost then stay in your mining costs, which is then spread over whatever volume is mined in the first quarter's K, that's obviously, a lower volume than the previous quarter, which then exacerbates the difference, I suppose, from a cost per ton point of view.

Sam Catalano

Yeah, okay. Thank you.

Operator

Eric Winmill, Bank of Nova Scotia.

Eric Winmill

Great. Hi Mick and team. Thanks so much for taking my question. Just a follow-up question here on the ground support requirements you talked about in the rehab. Any additional commentary in terms of where in the mine that is? And do you think that will continue into Q2?

Michael McMullen

Yeah. Most of it was back up in the shallow areas of the mine. As everyone knows, it's a relatively deep mine in the Australian context, but great ground actually conditions at the bottom are not bad. It's more around historical development areas that in the past, probably haven't quite had as much rehab as they should have.
And so I guess you moved from a reactive mode to a proactive mode, which is where we are now. So I -- back up halfway through the mine, a bit of work up on the shallow part of the decline. And I guess we had the opportunity to go and do that. I would think we've got a little bit more to do in Q2, but I don't -- it's not really a big work stream that's going to happen year in, year out.
We obviously will do rehab as we go, but there's been a bit of catch-up work that's been required. So, that's happened in Q1. And as Morne said, the mining costs are sort of one bucket and a portion gets allocated against primary meters of development, but not rehab. And so you end up -- if you do less primary meters of development, your mining unit rate goes up as well.

Eric Winmill

Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Maybe just one more for me, if you don't mind. The geophysical survey sounds interesting, I know it's still underway. Any thoughts on when you might actually -- or what you might do in terms of additional exploration there and when you might actually see some drilling there, or lots more work to do this year maybe?

Michael McMullen

Yeah, everybody is extremely busy in the exploration world, certainly in Australia. And so it does take a fair while to get information back. That's probably more of a Q3, Q4 top sort of thing. The reality is we're focused on exploration, which is not real -- true exploration in the way we just sort of pushing out the known boundaries -- of the boundaries of known ore bodies.
So, our focus for really this quarter and really into Q3 is going to be on that. And then as we get the results back from the various surveys, then we'll start chasing up some of that other stuff towards the back end of the year.

Eric Winmill

Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Michael McMullen

Sorry, but as part of the ASX proceeds, we did raise a reasonable amount of money for exploration and we're trying to push on with that as quick as we can. But it's a very underexplored package is the short answer.

Eric Winmill

Yeah, great to hear. No, I appreciate the extra color. I'll hop back in the queue. Thanks.

Operator

David Radclyffe, Global Mining Research.

David Radclyffe

Hi, good morning Mick and Morne. First question is just on reconciling the cash of $75 million. And I get the point about the two shipments post the end of the quarter. Maybe it would help if you could give us the actual tons sold in concentrate during the quarter? And any guidance you can give us on where -- what are the current levels of concentrate stockpiles are and where they sit at the mine or the port?

Michael McMullen

I wouldn't have that off the top of my head. Morne, do you have that?

Morne Engelbrecht

Not the tons sold. I think just looking at a spreadsheet yes, it's -- yeah, probably around that 8,200 sort of mark.

David Radclyffe

Okay.

Michael McMullen

Sorry, -- well, we can take it offline, perhaps, but the stockpiles at the end of the quarter would have been pretty wonderful shipment because we had that vessel go out on the 2 of April. So, 31 of March, would have had one full vessel, and we had another vessel load on the 24 of March as well.

Morne Engelbrecht

Yeah, I think there's another -- so that will be around that sort of 5,000-6,000 tons, I suppose of copper that was in that sort of inventory at the end of the quarter.

David Radclyffe

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Tim Hoff, Canaccord.

Tim Hoff

Hi team, I think most of my questions have been answered. I think probably just looking at your cash levels, are you happy with where they're sitting at the moment? And I guess, how do we look at that going forward, which you expect to see some cash build over the next quarter?

Michael McMullen

Well, maybe I'll start with that one, Morne. And yes, look, obviously, as anyone who's known me for a long time, I actually like to run my business as net cash. We're clearly not there yet because we took a reasonable amount of debt to buy the asset. So, more cash is better.
I think to one of the earlier calls points. Clearly, having cash in the bank earning is 3%, 4% versus paying out double at an interest is not a great long-term solution. So, look, our view is built as much cash as you can and then use that to pay down paydown all your interest-bearing liabilities. And so that's sort of part of the further simplification of the balance sheet to come. But I think having AUD150-plus million worth of liquidity on hand is where I'd like to be.

Morne Engelbrecht

Yeah, I think the other thing to add there is just the lumpiness of the cash flows currently. So, I suppose, in terms of the current cash hold, we'd like to see -- how the next quarter plays out from that point of view in terms of liquidity.
And then as Mick said, from my past sort of management of balance sheet and like to be in a net cash position as well, clearly not there yet. But the sooner we can pay off interest-bearing liabilities, especially on the more expensive side of that, the better and more accretive for shareholders as well.
But for now, happy with where we're sitting on the liquidity side and just seeing how the next quarter or so plays out, especially with the higher copper price, which will drive higher liquidity and also dealing with the simplification of the equity -- the capital structure that will play out in the next couple of quarters as well. So I think you'll see that simplification will come through pretty strongly.

Tim Hoff

Thanks very much guys.

Michael McMullen

Again, just to reiterate the point, Tim, as much cash on the balance sheet as possible. And the least amount of interest-bearing liabilities on the balance sheet as possible and to pay down the more expensive of those in that order, which is sort of what we've done.
Clearly, we have one other one there that we have a call date in the middle of next year. And so our view is that we think given where the mine is positioned, given where the cost of the production costs are relative to the copper price, we're generating good free cash, and we would like to sort of deliver the balance sheet as quickly as possible.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Jackie Przybylowski, BMO.

Jackie Przybylowski

Thanks very much for taking my question. Just I'm looking at the productivity charts in the release and thanks for providing those are super helpful. But the -- some of the metrics like the tons milled per employee or the development cost per meter, I mean, they do look like they've sort of levelled off or maybe gotten slightly higher in the tons milled category.
Mick, can you talk a little bit about what drove the productivity improvements from here? Was this quarter just really a function of the power outage in the beginning of the quarter that threw you guys off? Or how do you continue to get better?

Michael McMullen

Yeah. Look, good question, and I'll just move back to slide 9. And in terms of tons milled per employee, it's sort of flatlined quarter-on-quarter. As you've seen in a few of these turnarounds I've done, you start out rightsizing your business in terms of workforce and everything. But eventually, you can't cut your way to further profitability. You need to grow your production and your revenue line. And that's really the key from here and in.
Yes, and that power outage was sort of two-thirds of the way through the quarter. And it did depart from the three days power outage. We lost a fair bit of momentum out of that. So, again, that's one part of it.
Again, we've had a fair bit of elevated labor turnover and absenteeism which is, I would say, is the other impact we've seen. So, I think we need to stabilize the workforce. We need to actually just get better at our job. And so we've talked about ventilation is our constraint eventually. But quite frankly, in Q1, ventilation wasn't our constraint, it was consistency or lack thereof was actually our main constraint.
One extraneous factor through the power issue, but it's just operating. So, I'll be spending a bit more quality time adding [code] from this point on just to sort of try and see if we can improve that. But yes, you need to get more production. And so productivity needs to improve with the current headcount. That's the key.
Again, if you were to sort of put this up relative to Australian averages, these are still not -- these are not aggressive numbers. Where we are sitting is still well and truly in the lower quartile, I would say, for a variety of reasons, but this mine can do better, I believe that we can do better as a company. And so it's very much around planning, motivation, consistency.
It's no point running like a race car for a week and then dropping off after that. We have to just be consistent day in, day out, and that's really the focus for the business right now.
And then look, when we get these very big high-grade stopes come on, that's great. But we, as a company, can do better than where we've been and that's what we have to do going forward.

Jackie Przybylowski

No, that makes sense, and I appreciate the answer. And just one other question. I'm just curious how you're thinking about the Board. You mentioned at the beginning of the call that you're looking to improve Board diversity or realign the Board sort of with the -- I guess, the profile of the business.
As you look for future acquisitions, and I know in the past, you've mentioned Australia, but also some other countries like Canada as well and maybe in terms of where your future acquisitions come from. Like how do you think about your board composition? Do you wait until you have an asset or two additional under your belt first to see sort of where the portfolio kind of finds its center of gravity first? Or can you make the changes that you're looking at on the board without doing that first?

Michael McMullen

Well, I think we can be proactive and sort of make some changes as we go along. And you're right, we've been very clear in terms of our strategy in terms of growing the business, very focused on value, obviously, but Australia, Canada, some states in the US, Chile, Europe are sort of our hunting grounds. And so yes, that may will frame where we want Board members in terms of their -- maybe their applicability to each of those jurisdictions. But that's no reason for us to not move forward on adding to the Board.
I think the one comment I would say is for a company of this size, we actually have a very high-performing Board that probably punches above its weight for this sized company. And so the challenge is to try and find Board members who would be at that level. And so we've been working very hard on that.
And obviously, we'd like a bit more diversity on the Board. But I think it's a bit like assets, Board members, when you find the right one, you grab them as opposed to sort of waiting for some event or something that might happen if a very high-quality candidate presents themselves, then you grab them when you can.
And so we're working hard on that, and we'd like to see the Board evolve again. If we do some M&A, and we end up in a different jurisdiction, then we may add some other people with specific expertise in those jurisdictions. But right now, we have an asset in Australia, it's copper and so the attributes we're looking for would be someone who has knowledge of that.

Jackie Przybylowski

Makes sense. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Thanks.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) It appears we have no further questions. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to CEO, McMullen for any additional or closing remarks.

Michael McMullen

Well, thank you, and thanks, everyone, for attending and your questions. Obviously, we try and put as much information out as we can. In summary, I think on the scorecard that we've decided to mark ourselves against. We've delivered on most of those goals. I believe that the others we had well in hand and I would say, from an operational turnaround perspective, I think people sometimes expect miracles.
And we've been clear that these turnarounds are not linear upwards in a straight line. And so Q1 was our weakest quarter for the year. I think we expect a pretty substantial improvement over the coming quarters. But look at the end of the day at $4.60 copper, having a high-grade, long-life asset in a great jurisdiction like Western New South Wales, it's a great time to be in copper.
And with that, I'd like to thank everyone for your time and we look forward to the next call.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect at any time.