Aurizon Holdings (ASX:AZJ) Q4 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to Aurizon's FY twenty twenty six results presentation. Aurizon delivered strong execution across the business with earnings per share increasing by 29%. Underlying EBITDA was above the midpoint of guidance, supporting full year dividends of $0.23 per share alongside the completion of the $250,000,000 on market buyback. I'll focus on three themes today. Strong financial performance, positive contributions from network coal and bulk, together with a clear pathway to containerized freight to achieve EBITDA breakeven in FY 2027, and progress on our strategic priorities including duty five plus coal recontracting, bulk growth and expansion into vehicle logistics.

0:53 We're in Brisbane today, therefore I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Turrbal and Yargra people, and pay my respects to the elders past, present, and future for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture, and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. We must always remember that under the ballast, sleepers, rail systems and office buildings where Aurizon does business was and always will be traditional Aboriginal land. I'm joined on the call by the group executive team, Ian Wells, who commenced as CFO in April. Turning now to safety. Our focus at Aurizon is protecting our employees, customers, and the communities in which we operate.

1:40 While the reduction in serious injury frequencies is encouraging, the increase in total recordable injuries is not where we want performance to be. It was pleasing, however, that the second half had a much lower injury rate than the first half. I'm pleased to announce that in FY twenty twenty six, we completed our TrainGuard rollout in CQCN, deploying the technology across 2,000 kilometers of network and more than 100 electric locomotives. As a result, one third of our national coal fleet now operates with supervisory braking protection, helping prevent signals past the danger and uncontrolled train movements. Level crossings continue to be a safety issue for the rail industry, and we've updated our community engagement programme, reframing the importance of waiting at our level crossing as an act of responsibility for the people that matter most.

2:35 Billboards have been rolled out at target locations and used across social media. Our focus continues to be on improving safety performance through stronger frontline safety disciplines, enhanced intervention activity and continuing targeted engagement with employees, contractors and community. Before discussing the year in detail, I want to summarise why Aurizon remains a compelling long term infrastructure investment. We own and operate strategically significant rail assets, including approximately 5,000 kilometres of rail infrastructure, and have Australia's largest rail fleet. These assets connect key commodity basins and exhibit the characteristics of what has been described as high well assets heavy assets with low obsolescence risk and high barriers to replication.

3:32 We're also drawing volume away from road as demonstrated in our bulk and containerised freight business units. Our earnings are supported by contractual and regulatory frameworks. Our haulage contracts generally include indexation mechanisms and fuel and energy cost pass throughs, supporting resilience through inflationary cycles. Together, these attributes provide investors with exposure to high quality infrastructure assets, resilient cash flows, a diversified commodity portfolio and disciplined capital returns. Finally, our capital allocation framework has delivered more than $1,800,000,000 to shareholders over the past four years through dividends and buybacks. Turning now to the full year results.

4:23 FY 2026 was a strong financial result with underlying EBITDA up 9%, NPAT up 24%, and importantly, earnings per share increased by 29%. Underlying free cash flow was up 11%, and the board has declared a final dividend of 10.5¢ per share, fraked at 90%. This once again represents a 90% payout ratio of underlying NPAT. At 23¢ per share, full year dividends are up almost 50 compared to last year. A reminder that we also completed the $250,000,000 on market buyback at an average price of $3.72 This is a strong result for shareholders, high earnings, strong cash generation, a materially high dividend, and additional returns for our completed capital management program.

5:20 Turning now to the business units. Network underlying EBITDA increased 8% driven by higher regulatory revenue, partly offset by increased operating costs. Importantly, UT five plus was submitted to the QCA in December 2025, and the QCA draft decision supports material components of the proposal. Coal underlying EBITDA increased 2% with revenue yield and disciplined cost management driving this result. Since July 2025, over 60,000,000 tonnes of annual volume has been recontracted. This includes today's announcement that major Central Queensland customers VMA and Whitehaven have been recontracted in our competitive market.

6:09 Bulk delivered a very strong result with underlying EBITDA up 38% driven by customer growth and the non recurrence of doubtful debt provisions from prior year. The successful start of the BHP's South Australia logistics contract during the year is a good proof point for our bulk strategy. Containerised freight continued to build momentum, with national interstate TEUs up 25% against the prior year, including a significant uplift in non foundation customer TEUs. We have reached an important inflection point with EBITDA breakeven expected in FY twenty twenty seven, driven by continued customer growth. Importantly, we've made our entry into vehicle logistics with major new contracts as part of our land bridging strategy, which I will cover shortly.

6:59 Turning to network. In December 2025, we submitted UT5 plus a proposed ten year access undertaking to the Queensland Competition Authority. The proposal was lodged with customer support approximately eighteen months before its scheduled commencement, providing potential for greater long term regulatory certainty in the network business. In June, the QCA published its draft decision. In material respects, it supported key elements of the proposal, including the WACC methodology, accelerated depreciation profile, and the throughput payment. The draft decision also establishes a pathway towards final approval, with submissions currently invited.

7:50 The slide shows regulatory revenue under UC5 plus increasing by almost $200,000,000 in the fifth year of the undertaking. These figures are based on our December submission, which included a placeholder WACC of 7.79%. This indicative figure is now approximately 8.3%, but the final WACC will be determined using prevailing market parameters in 2027. As a rule of thumb, a 25 basis point increase in the risk free rate would increase network revenue by approximately $15,000,000 per annum. The undertaking is subject to QCA's usual process, and we expect to see progress through the calendar year.

8:36 Turning to the coal contract book. It has been a significant year for coal recontracting, with more than a quarter of the portfolio recontracted since July 2025, and with these contracts now expiring in the mid to late 2030s. This includes major Central Queensland customers BMA and Whitehaven. The BMA contract represents 100% of the tonnes tendered for recontracting and services their five Coking coal mines in the Bowen Basin. The contract is effective from 07/01/2028 for a period of up to twelve years. The Whitehaven Coal Contract is a new ten year contract for the haulage of coal from their Central Queensland mines Blackwater and Dornia.

9:21 Aurizon will continue to be the exclusive rail provider for Whitehaven's Central Queensland coal portfolio. The contracts began on 07/01/2026. Although the 60,000,000 tonnes of recontracting has been undertaken in a competitive environment, we've not seen a material change in the haulage rates. As shown on this chart, and when looking out to FY 2028, the task is not yet complete and recontracting discussions are taking place with around 10 counterparties at the moment. Before turning to vehicle logistics, I want to provide some context on coal markets. The relevant consideration for Aurizon is not simply the outlook for total global coal consumption, but the outlook for seaborne traded markets and Australia's position within them.

10:15 The key point is that demand for Australian coal is not simply a function of global coal consumption. It is more specifically linked to seaborne traded markets, which are increasingly concentrated in Asia. For steel producing coking coal, India is expected to be the largest driver of seaborne coking coal demand over the coming decades. India has a deficiency of high quality domestic coking coal and sources over 90% of supply from the seaborne market. India is already the largest destination for Australian coking coal exports, accounting for more than a quarter of export volumes. For thermal coal, global import volumes are around record levels at over 1,200,000,000 tonnes per annum.

11:01 The share of Asian demand has increased from 35% of the import market to almost 90% last year. When we look at the average age of coal fired electricity assets in Asia, it is just fifteen years, compared with an expected retirement age of forty years. Over 99% of Australian thermal coal is destined for Asia. As demonstrated on this slide, the demand for Australian coal remains strong, but there is no doubt opportunity is being lost to competing supply nations like Russia and Indonesia. Despite significant reserves of premium coking coal and thermal coal, Australian supply is not keeping up with demand, which is flowing through to diminished export volume and in turn are above rail contract book.

11:50 There are a number of factors contributing to this, including Queensland's coal royalty regime. Finally, want to turn to vehicle logistics, which is an important development for containerised freight and land bridging. Following our earlier engagement with major vehicle logistics providers, Aurizon has customer contracts to transport vehicles using our containerised freight network and a lanes bridge through the Port Of Darwin. The first is a long term partnership with CEVA, operator of the largest national vehicle logistics network. Aurizon will transport vehicles by rail through the domestic market, which is a significant road to rail conversion.

12:36 Initially, vehicles will be carried on existing containerised freight services in CEVA owned and Aurizon owned car containers. The service is expected to transition to purpose built auto wagons following their delivery in mid FY twenty twenty eight. The contract commenced in June and also includes general freight contributing additional volume in FY 2027. The second contract provides for the initial movement of 7,000 imported vehicles per annum from the Port Of Darwin for logistics partner NYK. While this initial volume is subscale, as it involves only partial vessel discharges in Darwin, the longer term objective is to move to larger scale volumes through full vessel discharges.

13:23 This has the potential to reduce port calls and improve fleet utilisation for our logistics partner. A reminder that a total of 1,250,000 cars are imported into Australia each year. The Aurizon auto wagons under construction are fully enclosed with a ventilated sidewall design to protect vehicles during long haul moves. They are double stacked and engineered to the exterior dimensions required to fit under bridges and access Melbourne and Sydney directly, and the only rolling stock in the country able to do this. The initial order has been made, with associated CapEx of around $100,000,000 through to FY 2028, including around $20,000,000 outlayed in FY 2026. Returns are expected to be in line with previously outlined IRR targets of low double digits.

14:16 This is another example of using Aurizon's strategically significant assets to drive growth for the business supported by customer contracts. Importantly, vehicles will be transported using Aurizon's existing containerised freight services including the Takula to Darwin rail line driving asset utilisation. On that, I'll hand over to Ian to present the financial results in more detail. Thanks Andrew. It's great to be joining you today for the first time as CFO and Group Executive Strategy of Aurizon. Since joining the company, I've taken the opportunity to visit some of our strategically significant infrastructure and meet with employees. And I've got to tell you, I'm impressed with what I saw. I'm excited for the opportunities ahead for the company, and I acknowledge the quality of employees delivering against our strategic objectives.

15:07 And it's a privilege to be presenting today's results on behalf of the team and it's a strong financial performance. To start, we've delivered against all major metrics EBITDA of $1,700,000,000.07 18,000,000 combined sustaining and growth capital, as well as FY '26 total declared dividends of $0.23 all within guidance. A couple of headlines. Group revenue of 4,200,000,000 increased by 6 percent that was driven by higher regulatory revenue and network, bulk customer growth, as well as the above rail coal business performing consistent with 2025 levels. Underlying EBITDA increased by CAD148 million or 9% and importantly, we delivered a significant increase in shareholder returns.

15:55 In the face of elevated fuel prices and inflationary pressures combined with customer growth in bulk and containerized freight, total operating costs increased by 4% compared with the prior year, reflecting the focus on cost discipline and targeted savings program implemented from the start of the year. We expected an under recovery of fuel costs of approximately $10,000,000 but by year end, we had fully recovered these costs at a consolidated group level. Depreciation and amortization was steady year on year, net finance costs increased by 3%, and there was no change in the effective tax rate. That delivered an underlying net profit after tax, which increased by 24% to AUD $433,000,000.

16:44 At a statutory level, EBITDA was AUD 1,620,000,000, that's AUD 101,000,000 lower than underlying EBITDA. And statutory net profit after tax was 71,000,000 lower at $362,000,000. So important context for our results are the key items in the underlying earnings reconciliation, which includes the recognition of network revenue, that's a timing difference and the exclusion of two expense items. As Aurizon indicated to the market in August 2025, we disclosed the intention to align network revenue recognition with the cost of operating and maintaining the Central Queensland Coal Network. The disclosure advised that from FY 2026, the full regulatory allowable revenue that's including the revenue cap timing component would be recognized in underlying earnings regardless of actual volumes hold.

17:39 Actual volumes were lower than the regulatory assumption this year, which has resulted in $27,000,000 being recognized in underlying earnings. So turning to the two expense items, the first one is a AUD 54,000,000 non cash impairment, which was recognised against our New South Wales coal assets. And that's after undertaking a carrying value assessment, which included the changed New South Wales contract book, intercompany transfer of locomotives, as well as operating cost changes. And just for context, this impairment represents less than 3% of the above rail coal asset base. And the second item was a $20,000,000 expense for enterprise resource planning system upgrade and some redundancy costs associated with the cost out program.

18:29 And I just note a full reconciliation to statutory earnings is included in the appendix of this investor pack. So moving to the next slide, slide 14. One of Aurizon's key strengths is the quality and consistency of our cash generation and the metrics on this slide demonstrate how that underpins sustainable shareholder returns. Return on invested capital increased by 1.4 percentage points on the prior year to 9.5, driven by higher earnings and therefore improving returns from our invested capital base. Importantly, it was another strong year of cash generation with underlying free cash flow, that's free cash flow before growth CapEx increasing by 11%. This year, we've also added free cash flow to equity. So that's the bottom line cash available to equity with no adjustments.

19:19 Free cash flow to equity is equal to operating cash flow, less total CapEx, less interest paid. Turning to dividends, the Board has declared a final dividend of C10.5 dollars per share 90% franked, including the interim dividend of C12.5 dollars Full year declared dividends of C23 dollars represents a payout ratio of 90% of underlying net profit after tax. So you can see that free cash flow translates into higher shareholder returns with FY 2026 dividends per share increasing by 46%. The successful completion of our buyback reduced shares on issue by a further 3.8% in FY 2026, on top of the 4.9% reduction in FY 2025.

20:05 And the reduction in the shares supports growth in earnings per share, dividends per share and therefore enhancing shareholder returns. Turning now to our operations and the network business. Network EBITDA increased by AUD74 million or 8% to AUD1.03 billion. And turning to the bridge on the right on slide 15, access revenue increased by £95,000,000 reflecting a higher allowable revenue driven by increased returns on and off capital, together with a higher maintenance cost allowance. These figures are shown net of energy costs, which are passed through to network customers. Although volumes increased by 2%, the regulatory assumption of two twenty one million tonnes was not reached, leading to an under recovery and future revenue cap.

20:53 The regulatory regime sets the per tonne revenue based on a forecast of two twenty one million tonnes, when actual volumes were lower at 212,500,000 tonnes. The regulatory mechanisms allow Aurizon Networks to receive the under recovery in cash in FY 2028, and this under recovery of AUD 27,000,000, which I mentioned earlier, is recognized in underlying revenue in FY '26. The inclusion of this timing difference matches revenue with the cost of operating and maintaining the CQCN, providing increased transparency, consistency and predictability of the network and the consolidated Aurizon Group. Looking forward to FY twenty twenty seven in terms of the broader maximum allowable revenue, we see a further uplift of around AUD 60,000,000 inclusive of the FY twenty twenty five revenue cap adjustment.

21:49 And we expect approximately 60 of this to flow through to increased FY 2027 EBITDA by an expected step up in maintenance costs and other costs. As usual, the appendix has got a full table on the maximum allowable revenue. Just to focus for a moment on UT5, Andrew has provided important context for where we are at in the process. The UT5 regulatory reset takes effect from FY 2028, and it provides an additional ten years of certainty on the single largest contributor to the group's earnings and cash flow. Moving to bulk. Bulk's underlying EBITDA increased to AUD233 million, that's an uplift of 38% year on year. And the result was driven by contracting customer growth, including a 6% increase in rail volumes and the non recurrence of a prior year provision for doubtful debts.

22:49 Bulk revenue was up 10% to billion, driven by base metals, grain and new iron ore customers in WA, partially offset by lower iron ore volumes in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Excluding the prior year identified doubtful debt provision, operating costs increased by 11%, including costs that are not expected to flow through to FY 2027. So turning your attention to the waterfall, after adjusting for the prior year provision, the increase in revenue can be seen in the first green column, and then we're showing two cost elements. The second element is AUD23 million of one off margin impacts around fuel timing that is expected to recover in FY27, with the balance attributable to start up costs and a number of new contracts that commenced in FY twenty twenty six.

23:39 On the fuel timing, some of our bulk contracts adjust quarterly rather than monthly, so the June quarter uplift was not fully recovered within the financial year. On contract start up costs, establishing and standing up these contracts do involve upfront investment, and that doesn't always align perfectly with revenue. So we don't expect this margin impact to reoccur in FY 2027. So looking ahead, we expect bulk EBITDA to grow again in FY 2027, supported by higher contribution from the BHP South Australia copper contract, higher grain volumes and the reversal of the fuel timing impact. These benefits are expected to be partially offset by lower iron ore volumes in South Australia. Regarding containerised freight, whilst it's not reported as a separate business unit, I'd like to call out some performance indicators for the year.

24:32 Andrew mentioned that National Interstate 20 foot equivalent units or TUs were 25% higher than the corresponding period. That's representing growth from both existing and new customers. And transport revenue as shown in the segment note increased by 32% to AUD150 million. As a result, containerised freight monthly EBITDA run rate has improved over the course of FY 2026, though not yet at a breakeven level. So two things change from here for containerised freight. Operationally, we expect continued growth from existing customers, increased utilisation and the SCT Logistics Agreement is now operational. And we've successfully mitigated the third party rail network outages in South East Queensland that constrained us this year. So on that basis, containerised freight is expected to reach breakeven in FY 2027.

25:25 Now turning to coal. Coal EBITDA increased by AUD 13,000,000, which is consistent with consistent year on year demand reflected in haul volumes remaining at 192,000,000 tonnes. The moving parts on tonnes haul showed higher volumes in the Blackwater, South East Queensland and Goonyella corridors, and they were offset by lower railings in the weather impacted New South Wales, Ewlands and Maura. Operating costs, that's operating costs excluding access and fuel were flat. And importantly, controllable unit costs, which are operating costs excluding access and fuel, reduced by 1% on a net tonne per kilometre basis, reflecting the cost discipline across the business unit and matching operating costs with volumes hold. At the start of the year, we had expected yield to be negatively impacted by customer mix, and that is exactly what happened.

26:17 The cost escalation protection within our haulage contracts is reflected in a £10,000,000 year on year benefit of access, including $7,000,000 of fuel cost recovery benefit. Noting on a group basis, there was no impact because coal offset bulk. Moving to an update on the contract book as we move into FY 2027. As noted on slide 18, FY 2027 contracted volume stands at two eleven million tonnes, which is a 20,000,000 tonne reduction when compared with prior year. Half of this volume is the non renewal of a major Hunter Valley contract announced this time last year, and the majority of the difference relates to customers rightsizing their contracted volumes to match against respective production plans.

27:05 In FY 2027, we expect rail volumes to remain at a similar level to FY 2026, which against a lower contract volume will see contract utilisation lifting from around 83% to over 90. Whilst there's a cost to rising holding capacity to match contracted volumes, the direct operating cost is relatively low and the fixed revenue coming out therefore carries a higher margin. The impact is that coal earnings reduce even though the haulage task doesn't change. So in response and to mitigate the earnings impact, we have a three year coal transformation programme targeting £30,000,000 in annualized savings. And the programme includes deployment and rolling stock optimisation, overhead reduction and consideration of train guard or single driver only services across the diesel fleet in Queensland.

27:59 At the same time, we remain focused on the contract pipeline to maximise renewals, improve asset utilisation and repricing approach. Progress cost to serve initiatives and further redeployment of New South Wales capacity. Our focus is on the areas within our control, including disciplined management of controllable unit costs and aligning our cost base with contracted volumes. Finally, a tighter contract utilisation does come with greater opportunity for surge and spot volumes where customers are seeking to push more volume into the market and maybe hitting the contractual volume ceiling. In closing on operations, the FY 2026 results and future outlook highlights Aurizon's portfolio with the network and coal businesses underwriting shareholder returns while continuing to support investment in growth.

28:47 So I'll just switch gears now and move to the balance sheet, gearing and capital allocation. Having reviewed our funding and balance sheet, one of the things that stood out to me is both the diversity of Aurizon's funding sources and the strong support we received from globally diversified lenders and debt investors. This reflects the quality of our asset base and resultant investment grade credit profile. And our funding strategy remains the same. At a group level, available liquidity comprising cash and undrawn facilities at June 30 was AUD1.1 billion. Net debt of AUD 5,200,000,000 is unchanged. Interest costs are hedged to 95% and group gearing, that's the book value of net debt over net debt plus equity is 57.

29:34 Importantly, a key component of our capital allocation framework is our commitment to maintain strong investment grade credit ratings. Aurizon operations and Aurizon Networks credit ratings are both BBB plus from S and P and the equivalent Baa1 from Moody's. And this commitment is supported by group net debt to EBITDA of three times. Turning to capital allocation, slide 20. Strong free cash flow generation combined with lower capital expenditures continues to support higher shareholder returns through both dividends and share buybacks during the year. This has been reflected in total shareholder returns for FY26, which was 45 including reinvested dividends. Having spent time understanding the business and other observation, Aurizon's capital allocation framework strikes a good balance between maintaining a BBB plus credit rating, funding reinvestment capital back into the business, returning capital to shareholders, while also allowing the flexibility to invest in growth options.

30:36 The overriding objective, of course, is to optimise each individual part of the the framework to maximise returns to shareholders. And I'd like to make one point on durability. A 90% of underlying NPAT payout is supported not by a single year of low capital expenditure, but by the structural improvement in free cash flow that follows the completion of our elevated investment phase. As capital expenditure normalises to the levels I'll come to shortly, we expect dividends to remain in the upper end of the policy to target 90%, 70% to 100% of underlying NPAT. We also remain disciplined in our approach to capital expenditure, as shown in the chart. Over the past four years, we've moved through a period of elevated investment and now seeing the benefits with lower capital expenditure and the growth in earnings from those investments contributing to cash flow generation.

31:29 As a result, the proportion to shareholders has increased in FY 2025 and 2026, noting that share buybacks were funded principally with debt, not operating cash flow. Looking ahead, we believe the framework continues to position us well to optimize shareholder returns, reinvestment and growth CapEx, as well as maintain balance sheet strength. Based on the dividend guidance that Andrew will speak to shortly, we expect similar proportions allocated to shareholder returns in FY twenty twenty seven. So in closing, Aurizon has the privileged position to operate critical national infrastructure and deliver returns to our shareholders and other stakeholders across Australia. Aurizon has a disciplined capital allocation framework and cash generation that is both consistent and predictable.

32:16 That combination is what converts the quality of this asset base into returns for shareholders, and that is what we will be focused on protecting and improving. We'll continue to focus on the things that we can control, which include safety, volumes and costs to deliver long term shareholder returns. Thank you, and I'll now hand back to Andrew. Thanks, Ian. FY 2027 Group underlying EBITDA is expected to be between AUD 1,725,000,000 and AUD 1,775,000,000, with full year dividends of AUD 23 to 24 per share. Non growth CapEx expected to be between AUD $590,000,000 and AUD $660,000,000 including AUD 25,000,000 of transformation capital.

33:02 Growth CapEx is expected to be between $70,000,000 and $120,000,000 Network earnings are expected to be higher than FY 2026, reflecting increased regulatory revenue, including the final recognition in underlying earnings of prior year revenue cap adjustments, partly offset by higher direct costs. Coal earnings are expected to be lower than FY 2026, reflecting reduced contracted volumes and yield, with haul volumes expected to be broadly flat. Bulk earnings are expected to be higher than FY 2026, driven by full year contributions from new customer growth and non recurrence of one off costs, offset by reduced iron ore volumes in South Australia.

33:50 Other earnings are expected to be higher than FY 2026 with containerised freight expected to break even on an EBITDA basis. As usual, guidance assumes no significant disruptions to supply chains or customers, including major derailments, extremely prolonged wet weather or inability to access fuel. Overall, the FY 2027 outlook reflects stronger network earnings, continued bulk growth, improvement in containerised freight and a reset in coal as contracted volumes become more closely aligned with customer production plans. To conclude, FY 2026 was a strong year for Aurizon. We delivered earnings growth, strong cash flow, a higher dividend and completion of the AUD $250,000,000 buyback.

34:43 Bulk continued to demonstrate our strategy in delivering new customer contracts and earnings growth. We secured over a quarter of the coal contract book. We progressed UT5 plus with the QCA draft decision supporting the material components of the proposed undertaking and providing a pathway to final approval. The progress against our strategic aims can be seen on this slide, with Aurizon's resilient networking coal businesses continuing to support growth in bulk and containerised freight, while at the same time supporting shareholder returns. Thank you, and I will hand over to the operator for questions. Thank you. Your first question today comes from Anthony Moulder from Jefferies.

35:39 Please go ahead. Good morning, all. I have a few questions, if I can, on coal. The BMA contract that we start with at 65,000,000 tonnes is what I remember. It signed that previously. It's now down to 37,000,000 tons. I appreciate that includes the sale of Blackwater and Dornia. But should there also be some lower nominations that they're making for that reduction from 65 less those contract to other sale of the mines down to 37, please? Oh, hi, Anthony. I'll get Ed to give you some background on the on the VMA contract. Thanks, Andrew. And thanks for the question, Anthony. The way you think about VMA at the 65,000,000 tonnes is with their current nomination. I won't get into the specifics of their actual nominations.

36:31 But if you add back in, as you rightly say, the volume associated with the divestment of Blackwater and Dorney Air to Whitehaven, but also the previous divestment of BMC, that's how you'll get back to the 65,000,000 tonne portfolio. Right. Okay. So no change. Importantly, no nomination changes from BMA on the mines that they've still got? That's commercially sensitive for for BMA. And so I I won't get into that. Suffice to say, nominations can go up or down unless the in with these with our portfolio of contractors, which is what our customers seek. Yeah. So secondly, if I can on still on coal that that resigning you've resigned 60,000,000 tonnes of coal contracts in the last twelve months. Can you comment then on the competitive intensity that you're seeing and the yield pressures that you're seeing more broadly across that recontracting phase, please?

37:28 Thanks again, Anthony. I can't get into the specifics of the contracts, of course, and the negotiations. But we've not seen, as Andrew said in his speech, we've not seen material change in freight rates or deterioration during recent contracting since July 25. It remains a competitive market. Every renewal has its trade offs around price, flexibility, risk sharing and performance. However, as I said, across the portfolio, we're not seeing a material change in rate per tonne and flowing through to FY '27. Right. But some of these contracts are obviously signed for beyond 2027, so that that's still potentially hit. Is that fair to think?

38:16 Yeah. That's fair to think. If I can just ask quickly on the breakeven that you're expecting through containerized freight, sounds like it's not currently breakeven, but expected to get to that point throughout the throughout f y twenty seven. So will it exit f y twenty seven breakeven or will it it report a breakeven results through throughout FY twenty seven on average, please? I might get George to talk about that. Anthony? Hi, Anthony. We're expecting over the full FY twenty seven for it to be breakeven at an EBITDA level. Maybe just to give you a bit of a sense on the three things we need to deliver that. The first one is volumes. So we grew volumes by 25% in FY '26. We need to grow volumes again by 25% in FY '27 to hit that.

39:03 We're expecting half of that growth to come from new contracted volumes, including CEVA, where we're moving cars in containers, and also general freight, and then the other half to come from non contracted customers. So we're expecting to see that growth come through. The second lever is on the cost side. I've talked before about our new terminal in Perth, Kewdale. I'll remind everyone, we currently operate at Forestfield, which is 300 meter tracks. We'll be moving to Kewdale in September when it will become operational, and we'll be able to bring in to 1,800 meter train. So that'll reduce shunting time, reduce train crew costs. So that gives you a sense of some of the cost efficiencies that help support that earning shift from FY '26 to '27.

39:54 Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Andre from UBS. Please go ahead. Thank you. Maybe if I could pick up on that question around containerized price. I guess, I look broadly at the other segment that includes it, we're seeing minus $3,000,000 EBITDA move year to year. But I think if you take out the lease settlement benefits from last year, it would have been more like plus 17,000,000 So I'm just curious to understand how much of that plus 17 would have come from movements in corporate costs versus the movements in containerized by itself.

40:40 I guess whether or not what's required, as George laid out, to get to breakeven in FY '27 is as big a step as what we saw as an improvement in '26? Ian, I might get you to try and help Andre with that. Yeah. So when you unpack it, Andre, the the costs include so you've quite rightly identified legal settlement in other income. And then when you unpack the cost is corporate costs or unallocated corporate costs in there. And so that'll give you a better idea of what the EBITDA contribution from CF was, which for the year was obviously a loss, which we've called out an EBITDA loss. I guess I'm just talking about the scale of improvement.

41:29 If it improved by 10 to 15 mill, is that the same order of magnitude that you've got to improve by in FY 2027 as well? George, do you want to see if you can help? Yes, sure, Andre. No, it needs to be a bigger improvement from an earnings perspective in 2027 compared to what we saw in 2026. A few things I'd call out that are behind that. The first one is we only started moving the CEVA volumes in April contracted in June. So we'll get the full benefit in FY 2027 of that. Secondly, we'll get QDAL online in September, which will drive the cost benefit. And then the other thing I'd say is in the second half of FY 2026 in containerized freight, we had multiple weeks of track outages, which we're not assuming to repeat. And that's consistent with how we provide our guidance to the market.

42:20 Sure. That's perfect. And then maybe one for Ian, just to pick up on the comments he was making earlier in the prepared remarks about the capital intensity. Guess if we look at the above rail coal maintenance CapEx to D and A, I know this is a topic we've spoken about before, but it fell again year on year to only 39% for FY 2026. So I guess I'm curious to understand how much of that is a factor of where you are in the cycle and reflecting the investments that you've made in terms of asset productivity, but also a more broad question about what's a more normal rate going forward? And is that a combination of CapEx coming up and D and A coming down because you're now a less capital intensive business? Or just how we should think about that?

43:15 Yeah. Okay. Well, there's a there's there's a few moving parts. So firstly, I'd say with respect to to coal, that it is part of the cycle. And that's point number one. And point number two, if you separate sustaining capital from growth, which I think that what you're looking at is that we are investing at less than depreciation, which as a major infrastructure company, that's what you would expect. However, we will go through peaks and troughs. A big part of coal, for example, is refurbishment programmes, which you do over time. But this is all scheduled and known and taken into consideration of all of our operating and capital cost planning. Okay.

44:01 Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Matt Ryan from Baron Joey. Please go ahead. I just had a question on the contracted coal volume expectations for the next four months. And I guess specifically around those customers that have rightsized their their whole contract nominations. So so I guess I'm trying to sort of interpret what's happening here. I'm just interested in your thoughts on whether this is being driven by the expectations for haulage being lower or whether it's perhaps driven by some sort of cost saving initiative.

44:47 And the expectation is maybe that they potentially will hold, won't have the certainty of volumes, like potentially moving to the spot market, for example. So it's interesting your thoughts on what's happening there. Sorry. That's a great question, Matt. Look, when I I'll start at the top, actually. If you look at demand for the coal in the markets of Australia applies supplies to, it's quite strong. And then you can see Australia is actually losing market share in countries like India, and we're losing it to Russia, etcetera. And if you step back and say, if that's happening, what there's something probably a challenge with supply.

45:35 And if you look in both states, there's different reasons for why supply is not keeping up with demand. And then if you look at the just by way of the example, and I mentioned it very briefly in my speech if you look at the Queensland coal royalty situation, then you've clearly got a lot of angst being expressed by our customers publicly quite strongly. So you've really got a policy setting and supply side settings driving Australian supply into a high demand market. So if I think about having managed a lot of mines in the past, if I think about my reaction to those sort of situation and if I put myself in Queensland, particularly, I and I'm taking a view that actually royalty, the royalty situation is, not conducive, to investment, then I'll and I add in the second thing, which is cost pressures, which the customers are clearly under and have talked about regularly in public communications, you'll be reacting to that. So to your very point, one of the ways that you can actually manage your cost exposure, if you take a view that from a contracting point of view, you might risk reducing the

47:06 volumes that you contract closer to your actual mine plan, which mine plans are updated all the time, and they reflect all the assumptions that our business will make about its near and medium term to longer term future. So you make that cost decision. No decisions risk free. So one of the risks that you actually get when you actually make a decision like that is if there if there is the world turns out to be to the upside from a production point of view, then you'll have to compensate for those decisions probably, you know, for example, in the spot market and those sort of things. So that's hopefully, that gives you some color as to what we believe is happening.

47:54 And look, I I should also it just occurred to me that when Ed finished his answer to to Anthony, I think it was, I should make it clear that there is no material change in hoist rates for the 60,000,000 tonnes recontracted since July 2025. It just reflected that there might have been a possibility of misconstruing what he said. And then if you think about what's seen on the contract expiry chart, which he was talking to at the time, we still have contracts to renew and that the outcome of those negotiations will, of course, coal earnings in future years, but you've to get through the contract negotiation cycle to actually get to that point.

48:41 Just to be clear on those right sized contracts, your guidance, you've effectively taken a hit for the capacity charge that you would receive going down, but you haven't assumed anything to spot volumes that would offset that at all? So it's exactly if you think about what happens in the way the coal business gets its revenue, it gets it from the supply of capacity. So the capacity sits there and doesn't it's just available, and you've got to be able to supply it on demand. And then you get a payment that's associated with how many tonnes you actually move, and that's to incentivize the moving of the volume. So when we talk about the capacity contracted volume going down being the driver of revenue, you can see that in that the volumes we're talking about the volume being flat from year to year. So it's actually that capacity charge that's actually being reduced. It's up there.

49:45 Fair enough. And then just the decision not to announce another buyback today? So the decision making behind buybacks from a process point of view, if you look at the way the board's done it in the past, make it based on your assessment of where things are at moment in time and where you think the world will be. I mean, it's pretty generic sort of statement. If you look at Aurizon's practice with announced buybacks at the full year and at the half year, and there's no we're not necessarily trying to establish a pattern as to what time of the year that we would actually announce a buyback. So the Board will consider the matters that lead into a decision like that and make a decision at the right time.

50:40 Right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Your next question comes from Jacob Tekhanas from Jarden Australia. Please go ahead. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Ian. I just wanted to pick up on the other segment, if I could, please. It's probably not the first time that we've had the expectation that we get back to breakeven for that division. But notwithstanding that, there's been really strong volume growth. So I'm just trying to tie together the volume growth and the operating leverage in that business. It looks like FY '26 EBITDA for containerized freight was at or around the FY '24 levels. So what gets us back to breakeven from here? Appreciate that there's some cost, but how do we get confidence that volumes the driver that George was just describing, please? Yeah, I might get George to talk through those details rather than Ian. Hi, Jake. Yeah, I'll start with '26, then I'll move to '27.

51:34 So there's three things to be aware of in '26. Yes, we had strong volume growth 25% higher to use, but we had three things that impacted the business. The first was, we're paying SCT to do that hook and pull arrangement. Now we have to enter into that because we couldn't get into Brisbane for a quarter of the year with the Cross River Rail closures, which will continue for three years. So there's an extra cost to that, that we have to offset with volume. The second driver was particularly in the second half, we had about three weeks of track outages, which impacted us on the revenue line, but we've still got to keep paying train crew and paying for track access in other parts of the country, where the track wasn't out. And the third thing to note is we stood up a new service.

52:21 So we started the year running for Melbourne to Perth services, we're now running five Melbourne to Perth services, and it takes some time to utilize those. So there's three things in FY '26. When you look at the biggest step we've got to take now from an earnings perspective in '27, you've got the contracted CV volumes, you've got cost efficiencies, and then you've got the broader market growth. Now that third one, don't contract for volume, we don't have capacity charge in containerized freight. So it will depend on how the broader macro economy goes in Australia. But we have seen volumes in July up about 10% on the prior corresponding period. So we're getting there. But hopefully, gives you some color. Thanks, George. Yeah. So GDP growth is is that the right way to think about volumes for that business? Obviously, July trending better than that. I'm just trying to draw the link between volume and the earnings, the balance probably being right. Like, how do we think about that with utilization?

53:24 Consistent. It will be volume growth. So I mentioned that 10% growth versus the prior corresponding period. We need to see about 20% to 25% volume growth to get that breakeven earnings number. And what you tend to see in containerized freight is a strong October, November, it's called peak period leading into Christmas. And then you see another mini peak coming into Easter. So October to November, kind of our grand final quarter, put it that way. Understood. Thanks for the color, George. And just one for Ed. It's been a while since we've seen the take or pay mix across the business generally, particularly for coal. But can you just give us a sense where that stands from a portfolio perspective, taking into account the recontracting place?

54:12 Yes. Thanks for the question. At a portfolio level, it's not changed materially. We're still sitting between the 5060%. Thank you. Your next question comes from Justin Barack from CLSA. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Thanks very much for the opportunity today. Maybe a question for Andrew, sort of coming back to your, I guess, holistic response to Matt's question on, I guess, coal shipments out of Australia. I guess, given the context of everything that you sort of said there, it's amazing to read like it may be difficult to get new growth in that coal business for a couple of years or the next few years without meaningful volume growth.

55:02 Is that is that fair to say or by I guess, misread, I guess, some of your comments there? I I was talking about the potential for volume growth specifically, when when I was, answering the question. At the end of the day when you're talking about any other factors that come into play, it'll depend on the competitive environment that you're in at that moment in time, the decisions that the customer is trying to make and when they're trying to make those decisions. So I I would I was making comments about volume. Okay. Understood. And then just with the Hunter Valley contract volumes that you lost, I guess, based on Slide 18, which is which is super helpful.

55:50 I guess I sort of read that that there was a fair bit of take or pay that will help increase that utilization into FY '27 with those volumes. And so with the the PMA recontracting that you announced today, how should we think about utilization potentially into FY '28? Do we think it would would step up again? Is there a reduction in take or pay as part of that recontracting that should drive that utilization potentially higher again into '28? Ed, do you want to talk about your Sure. Thanks for the question. I can't get into the specifics of the nomination in relation to any particular customer, including the cessation of that previously announced contract loss. I mean, what can say is our customers value some collective nomination flexibility, so ups and downs as their end user demand for their product changes.

56:45 But at a macro level, as Andrew and even have outlined, whilst the headline contract volume number has come down by 20,000,000 tonnes, We actually expect haul volumes to be broadly flat. And that will mean that contract utilization will rise closer from 82%, the low 80s, to closer to 90%. So it will move the same volume, but the revenue mix will shift toward a lower yield and usage charge. Okay, great. Thanks for that. Thank you. Your next question comes from Rob Ko from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Good morning. I just wanted to make sure I understood some of your transformation and efficiency initiatives.

57:38 In coal, you've called out a $30,000,000.03 year target. I wonder if you could give us any color on the timing of that and the cost to achieve. And is that cost to achieve included in the like the $25,000,000 CapEx guidance this year for transformation? And then I guess there's also a 50,000,000 transformation project costs scheduled for this year. I wonder if you could just help me understand which buckets I should be putting those numbers in, please. Ed, do you want to talk through the coal transformation programme that you've been launching? Yes, thank you Andrew. I can certainly talk to the capital for our programme. So maybe just at a high level I'll just reiterate what Ian said that we're really focused on what we can control and we've got a track record for disciplined cost management.

58:28 Starting with that, I wanted to make the point that we intend to hold costs flat again in nominal terms, which will be the third and second year. We should also keep in mind we're working hard to secure the contract pipeline and maximise those volumes. So there's value levers in addition to the coal transformation program. We've already right sized the workforce and locomotive fleet after the contract cessation in New South Wales, having retained some capacity for spot volumes, we're trying to pick up at the moment. So in terms of the three year coal transformation program, which you've rightly articulated, is 30,000,000 over three years. Looking at to give you a bit of color, we're looking at opportunities in the deployment, really the planning, scheduling and deployment of our assets. So focus on productivity, on maintenance efficiency, on overheads and general operating model improvements.

59:28 In relation to the capital, the capital is phased over the three years. So we have to approach it in a digestible way and some improvement initiatives follow on from others. So the first thing we're going to look at is the integration of some technology integration in our deployment center during the course of this year to enable us to make better use of better decisions on the day of operations and and and make better use of the capacity deployed. And Rob, you you made reference to a $50,000,000 transformation program. So there was the SSR program that was implemented and is flowing from from previous year. I might you I'm not sure what the question is.

1:00:16 Well, the only thing I can think of, Rob, is are you reflecting on the ERP technology upgrade and migration, which is a Yeah. Yeah. That's It's on slide 13. You said Yeah. Okay. That's so that is the replacement of the ERP program that is occurs over a number of years and which I think we announced twelve months ago. So that in itself is not a transformation program, Rob. That's we have SAP. We're replacing it with a better SAP with AI tools in it and changing some of the ways that the business processes interact with the ERP program to get more efficient operations.

1:01:07 So we'll get some benefits from that point of view. But it's not I don't want to be selling to you that the ERP upgrade is a transformation process by project by itself. Just looking at the slide, Rob, what it is, is the second part of transformation goes back to the SSR, and so there's some redundancy costs associated with that, which we've called out, which pretty much won't be happening going forward. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the ERP project is 50 mil, and then there's a separate 25 transformation. And then it sounded like Mr. McKeever's efficiency gains is actually pretty small and phased over the three years. You've it. That's all operational, the stuff that Ed was talking about.

1:01:55 Yeah, lovely. Okay. If I can ask your shiny brand new CFO a question about debt, just looking at Slide 19, there's a reasonable debt tower coming up in FY 'twenty. Know you've got plenty of time. Just wondering if you can give us a steer on how you're thinking about that refi and would that versus what it's hedged at now, would that be with current market rates be higher or lower? Just any thoughts there, please. Yes. So we'll approach that maturity concentration in advance, as you would have expected in the past, and we'll look at the various markets. But I guess, the big point that we've called out is that 70% of its bank debt, we've got great relationships with our banks.

1:02:46 So it's always better when it's done, but nonetheless, high confidence in relation to that. In terms of the current interest rates, I guess, naturally, you would expect them to be higher because of a higher interest rate environment. But we are at the good credit rating. So therefore, we'll look to reduce the cost as best as best we can. But then I'll also note that at the same time, we are heading into UT5 territory and the regulatory reset on that and the WAC associated with the revenue that we earn on the network. All of these things are happening at the same time. So we've got, I guess, the natural hedge associated with current refinancing, as well as hedging that we'll do during that regulatory measurement period. So confident on the refi.

1:03:46 Yes, interest costs are going up. But remember, a fundamental premise of our business is our protections, particularly under the regulatory regime. Okay. Cool. So may I mean, you could probably find it in the network accounts, but is of the 1,690,000,000, how how much of that is network? About 70%, think, probably consistent with the bank that I yeah. The guys are confirming, yes, 70%. Yes. Okay. And that's where you've the natural hedge in the revenue, so that's all good. Alright. Maybe just a final question. If I, look at your coal volumes, I think for the second year in a row, you're including a bit of, grain volumes in the coal volumes. And I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the wider exposure to agri this year and what's potentially a El Nino year, please? George, I think that's a question for you.

1:04:44 Sure. Yeah, Rob, we do very a little bit of grain in New South Wales in Ed's business. Our main grain exposure is Western Australia and South Australia. If you look at those two markets, Western Australia depending on the years about 40% of Australian grain exports, South Australia around 20%. But those two states are also where they get winter rain, so they tend to experience a lot less volatility than the East Coast. If you look at South Australia's grain outlook, I think there's been GI WA is a good report to look at South Australia looks like being at average or slightly above average for this next harvest. I think WA looks like being about on average for this next harvest, which of course is down from the record year last year. One of the things we'll benefit though from in FY '27 is we have volume that we're still moving from the last harvest. So our July grain volumes in WA were much stronger than the corresponding period.

1:05:42 August is looking the same. And that's why Andrew and Ian made the comments that we expect to move more grain in FY '27 than FY '26. Cool. Alright. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next question comes from Sam Sia from Citi. Please go ahead. Morning, guys. Thanks for letting me ask the question. I just wanted to ask, I guess, post rightsizing some of your contract book, you know, that toll guide implies, you know, low 90% utilization. I just wanna understand how reflective that that number is across the whole book or, you know, how we should think about where those contractual volume ceilings are and and maybe where that spot opportunity may exist? Thanks.

1:06:29 Ed, do you want to see if he can help? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the question, Sam. I I think you're asking me about I I think you're asking me about the the rightsizing and how and whether or not we'll we'll think it'll be stable for the outlook. If not, please please let me know. I think I think what I'd say about the rightsizing is we've seen we've seen of we see this as a as a as an isolated event for now as some customers in Queensland have looked at that profile that Ian showed and have decided that to match their production output with their rail contracts. We see the rightsizing driven, as Andrew said, by three factors. One is their cost focus.

1:07:20 Two is that some mines have changed ownership and the new owners are reviewing the production plans, cost structures and other priorities that they inherited from the previous owners, and also the broader investment environment that Andrew spoke about. So at 90%, with the trimming then of those contracts to more align with their production, we really will see contract utilisation lift to 90%. 90% now is sustainable, and we think that the risk of future right sizing is reduced as whole tonnes will now be within 10% of contract tonnes. I guess on the other side, can I ask, know, that 90%, you is that particularly seen anywhere or, you know, expanded anywhere? We just I just want to try to understand, you know, if you do have opportunities to spot times where the market does turn, where they're probably most likely to appear? Thanks. It's difficult to say in advance, Sam. That's the nature of spot volume.

1:08:27 It is very localized and time dependent. And so I made the comment on an earlier question around investing in the deployment center. I mean, that's exactly the type of thing we're looking at to be able to take advantage of perishable capacity in the day of operation by taking advantage of emerging spot business. As the largest coal hauler in the country, we have assets delivered to nine coal seaports. We've got 50 odd load points we collect from And and there's and we're about 50% of the market share. So there's there's it's very dynamic, difficult to predict in advance. Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe just on the impairment. Can we maybe just talk at a high level to some of the underlying assumptions?

1:09:16 I think, you know, obviously, it's quite small versus the asset base, but, you know, is is that just the contract, or is there anything, you know, other changes in, you know, forward assumptions that you'd like to call out? Thanks. Ian, do you wanna talk through the Yeah. Sure. Quite quite simply, the the the trigger for an assessment is losing a major contract, which is what occurred. And so you do a DCF, you look at your expectations for re contracting and you look at your DCF relative to the asset base. And as you say, the result is a AUD 50,000,000 write off, which is non cash and it's written off against hard assets. So it's as simple as that.

1:10:02 Got it. Thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Your next question comes from Tom Payton from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Andrew, Ian, and hope you're feeling well. Let me thanks for the question. FY '27. If I look at slide 20, and this is just me trying to interpret a chart that is clearly a draft. When we look at buybacks and dividends in FY '27, the dotted line on the angle, am I to interpret that as f y twenty seven, we're just saying dividends, so that dividend figure is growing to the full amount? Or how how should I think about that f y twenty seven split between dividends and buybacks?

1:10:50 So think about it as the proportion of shareholder returns. And and that's going up to show the proportion of dividends will be higher because it doesn't reflect a buyback. We haven't done a buyback in '27, haven't announced a buyback in '27. So that's what the charts meant to be showing. Alright. Awesome. Thank you. And just on the CapEx distribution, if I am correct, you're moving away from coal and into freight, but keeping the sort of headline CapEx figure consistent across periods. Is that the trend that we can expect to continue moving forward? Well, I think if you think George went through the capital programme, particularly for finished vehicles.

1:11:43 So we've spent some money on that in '26, we're going have some more in '27. And then the balance will be in '28. So that growth element is probably brown numbers, maybe going to be consistent in '28. Not that we're guiding '28 for the moment, but then the discussion on the existing business, that's not going to change particularly depending on the cycle that we're through and that lumpy capital is probably further out than in the medium term. Thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from Laura Tifedruzek from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hi, team. Thank you for taking my question.

1:12:31 With locomotive capacity becoming available from coal, does that provide additional flexibility to accelerate growth opportunities in bulk? How is the balance between the additional locomotive capacity that will be redeployed versus a new customer growth that Barca's seeing? And will this additional capacity be used up straight away, or will there potentially be some softer utilizations? Yeah. Good question, Laura. I'll get George to talk through, what he's doing with some of the extra capacity that has been sent his way from the coal business. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Lara. It's a combination of both. Some are deployed straightaway. We've seen that in the early part of FY twenty seven. Some will be deployed over time. To give you a sense of those deployments, we've leased a couple of locomotives to SCT as part of our hook and pull arrangement.

1:13:20 We've also deployed a handful of locomotives into our CF business containerized freight and handed back some locomotives that we had leased as part of the startup exercise. And then there's a few locomotives that we expect to deploy in calendar year '27 as we're seeing growth projects, particularly in the Northern Territory, some higher grade iron ore, some phosphate rock projects that are coming on there. So it's a combination of deployed straightaway and deployed over time. Right. That was so helpful. Thank you. And just one more if I may. To what extent in containerized freight is your benefits from the existing terminal locomotive capacity already within the group versus and volumes grow, how capital efficient do you think this business can become relative to Vulcan coal?

1:14:13 You want me to answer that one, Andrew? Yes, please. I think when you're talking about containerized freight, you're moving volumes over thousands of kilometers. And so you won't ever get the same type of productivity, or say tonnage moved per train set as you do in coal, where the average haul length is about two fifty kilometers. But what I would say is we're making incremental improvements each year. So FY '27, we're bringing on QDAL, which will be a big step change in our Perth terminal. To remind you, we've got eight services a week that run from the East Coast into Perth. So it's a really important end destination for us. Then in FY '28, we've got auto wagons coming online, which Andrew mentioned. We called out 100,000,000 of capital that we're spending on those auto wagons backed by the CEVA and NYK contracts.

1:15:05 The great thing about that capital is that's just the auto wagons. You actually put those auto wagons on the back of our existing containerized freight services. So you're just lengthening the train sets, you don't need extra locos, you don't need extra train crew. And so we're seeing incremental improvements each year and we've got other targets for FY '29 and FY '30. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. Your next question comes from Ian Myles from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Just on the last point, firstly. Can you send me the length of the contracts with Sabre and NYK for $100,000,000 spend? Ian, I cannot tell you that because it's commercial in confidence. What would say is one is a very long term contract, dissimilar to our coal and bulk contracts.

1:16:01 The other one is a broader partnership. So we don't just look at the haulage contract itself. We've also looking at landside logistics with NYK. And so we've got a broader partnership with NYK. And we're looking to grow their volumes in our order wagon supported not just by the haulage, but also landside logistics. And one of the things that makes me excited about that is what NYK has committed to Aurizon and we've called it out in Andrew's slide at 7,000 vehicles per annum is less than 4% of the volume they bring into Australia today. So there's lots of room to grow for us and NYK to change that supply chain going forward. Does that mean you have to buy some land or and actually set up a for one of a better word service center in each of the individual capital cities?

1:16:54 Keep going, George. Alright. We will have different terminals because we'll need car parks in each capital city. You know, I've mentioned Forestfield and Kewdale a few times in Perth. Forestfield will become our car park in Perth. So our containers will move to Kewdale and Forestfield will become the finished vehicles logistics center in Perth. The other thing we've done is already bought significant landside land in South Australia. So we've got about 800 hectares of land in South Australia that within YK we're looking to turn into a vehicle logistics precinct. Before you ask Ian, yes, that has been included in our growth CapEx. But given where the land is located, it was a fraction of the price that you get in a capital city.

1:17:41 I can imagine. But does that mean you've got another above and beyond the 100, you've got to spend another, I'm gonna make up a number 50 to get all these sites up to speed? What I would say is when we started up containerized rate, we said that startup would be about $425,000,000 of capital. Now we've spent already, if you include FY '26, about $3.50 of that $4.25. Now what we're saying is add 100 to that $4.25. And that should be sufficient to move the volume we've announced for NYK and CEVA. Obviously, if their volumes grow, and we hope they will or we attract new customers, then we will need to expand those terminals. And yes, there'll be more CapEx attached to it. But we'll tie that to future contracts.

1:18:29 And one more on that issue. The amount of wagons you've ordered, how many cars would that facilitate the movement of per annum? I would say think about it as if we can move about a thousand vehicles a week with the wagons that we have bought. But of course, it depends on the origin and destination pair. You know, if you're moving from Darwin to Melbourne, it's fewer. If you're moving from Melbourne to Adelaide or Sydney to Adelaide because you're relocating, Ian, then it would be more. Okay. That's that's that's great. My plan is going to South Australia just yet. In terms of the pay contract renewal, one of the comments you always made was it had a very high take or pay relative to the rest of the contracts.

1:19:18 Has that renewals seen a normalization that take or pay to what would be typically seen in your other contracts? Thanks for the question, Ian. I can't as you would expect, I can't talk about the specific terms within that contract. Thank you. Okay. And can you clarify, I wasn't quite understand at the beginning that 65,000,000 tonnes were made to the 43 still with DMA. And you said that the 37 is the the same amount. I was just confused on how that maths worked. Yeah. It would over the when the contract was last was last tended back in 2012, actually, started in 2016 twenty fifteen-twenty sixteen.

1:20:05 It was contracted prior to the commencement of BMA Rail, so you've got to also factor in the BMA Rail volume as well. Broadly Aurizon's contract was a 65,000,000 tonne headline contract And and there's been changes in nominations over the years, ups and downs. And if you add back in the the the divestment of the Blackwater Dorney assets and also the BMS, the BMC Southwark Creek Portrell assets, you get back to some something in the vicinity of the of the original volume. Okay. Okay. And in terms of cost reductions, you're going to drive those operations.

1:20:50 Have you been able to retain that within your recontracting, is that being passed back through to your customers? Do you go into a single driver operation? I'm sorry. Could you restate the question, please? So you think you've been moving to a single driver operation up in the green yellow and the black water corridors, you've gone through recontracting. Have you been able to retain that productivity benefit? Are you passing that back through your customers? A little bit of both. I mean, it's a competitive market. And we have to first, what I'll say is that the Trangard investment we've made stands alone on its own business case. And we've seen the opposite productivity and the safety benefits associated with that. When you get into a competitive process, you'd appreciate, we really reset our structured cost base. And so we I will say, as I said earlier in the call that based on the more broadly, based on the basket of contracts we've renegotiated since July 25, we've not seen a material change in rate, all this rate.

1:22:00 Okay. And so we're coming into this FY '28. I presume we should be seeing most of those contracts get rolled this year or is it and I guess where I've come from is when you look at the broader market, is it really just AZJ which carries spare local capacity or is there still spare capacity across the industry? It's difficult to say. I can't speak about our customers' capacity. I mean, we always focus on keeping our capacity utilized. It's and up until the cessation of the previously announced contract in the Hana Valley, we were it was finally balanced our capacity. So we're looking, as we've talked about earlier, in that regard to deploy the bulk and also retain for growth because we've got some customers, including Mac Energy, they've got their MOD8 application through on Friday, looking to actually increase volume. So there's a little there's some spot, there's some growth and there's some redeployment.

1:22:59 And so rather than talk about more broadly the industry, there's not been a material change in the fleet deployed in coal haulage. In relation to the stack, the FY twenty seven-twenty eight stack on the slide that Andrew spoke to. What I can say is we're in live tenders or late stage negotiations for all of that remaining contract volume expiring over that period. So I obviously can't get into customer specific details. We're also though, just to remind you, we're competing for contestable competitive volume that isn't actually shown in that current pipeline at the moment as well. So the near term the difference between the near term recontracting and and the contracting we've just announced is that it's around 10 smaller volume contracts rather than rather than another large base load recontract like the one announced today.

1:23:58 Okay. That's great. And then one final question on the CapEx side. The drop in the CapEx spend for coal in FY for the sustainable side in FY '26, Is that a reflection that you just didn't need to do the maintenance on a whole lot of wagons and locos because contracts come into your range and you're gonna pass them in sheds and the equivalent? And so it's just a permanent step down? Not at all, Ian. It's partly cyclical in timing, and also, I may suggest the result of good planning over the last decade. I mean, to to give you some color, we have done the midlife overhauls for our entire 105 strong electric local fleet in in in Queensland over the last ten years.

1:24:49 We've also we also built our own Gill Allen wheel overhaul facility in Gill Allen, and we're now halfway through our 5,500 wagon midlife overhauls. We've invested in the Southeast Queensland or the West Morton Corridor to grow with our customers there. So our fleet has been renewed there as well. And now we're starting on our overhauls in New South Wales as well. So we've changed on previous calls, one of the ways we're able to get more capital efficiency is by we move from monolithic overhauls of our locomotives to component level change outs of those components. So we're not replacing things early that don't need to be replaced. The other thing we've done, we're doing a lot better in recent years and certainly still a focus for us, is making sure the periodicity of our maintenance intervals are optimised and that is by fleet also by by the by the corridor where those particular assets are deployed. And and if I could add in, optimize means longer periods Yes. Between the dimensions.

1:25:56 So can I can I extrapolate? Because there's a lot of information. I'm a bit dim. I'm gonna extrapolate that that you're actually having in coal a CapEx number, which is sustainably lower than what it's been for, say, the average of the last five years? I I think I think the short answer is yes. I wouldn't depart too far from the there's a timing there's a timing impact associated with it, and it's and it'll be it'll be dependent again on recontracting and customer nominations. It will remain in the zone. Possibly the heart of your question is that there have been deliberate changes to the way maintenance is done in coal and in bulk that takes better drops the level of planning down to a component level from a unit level, and in doing that, and application of the right technology, information technology, you can actually make really good decisions to push out the inspection and replacement intervals and can move to more condition based for your fleet. And in doing that, you'll see a to to something that Ed was trying to point to is you see an immediate impact because you're just pushing the time frames out.

1:27:24 But over the longer term, because you've pushed those time frames out, you also see some benefit in the future. But the key benefit you see is in the first couple of years that you actually do that work. You know, I'd I'd if you look take a five year view, you probably we're probably spending a $100,000,000 a year. This is 82 or something last year. So that's that's the cycle. So it's gonna be a bit more in the future to to cover that off, but not a material change. So don't assume it's a a step change. It's we're still shipping a 192,000,000 tonnes. So in in theory, you should be spending the same amount of money, plus you've probably got inflationary pressures as well. So it's not a material drop. Okay. That's great. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you.

1:28:13 You. Your next question comes from Cameron MacDonald from E and P. Please go ahead. Just on the coal transformation of the $30,000,000 benefit, we is that the right number to be sort of thinking about the earnings headwind that you've been trying to offset because of the recontracting and the yield pressure that you're seeing come through in 2027? Yes, sure answer is yes. It's going to take you three years to get back to f y twenty six earnings effectively, all other things being No. No. So maybe it I can I can I can help with that? So we we we told you about the recontracting and the, you know, so what are you gonna do about it? So this transformation is about improving the underlying cost and productivity to get back. The plan is $30,000,000 per annum is what we're targeting.

1:29:09 So therefore, that run rate, you take forward. Yeah. But, yeah, if that if that is an earnings headwind in '27 and it takes you three years to get to that run rate, all other things being equal, were you saying coal earnings will be lower for the next three years than they were in '26? No. We're saying that the transformation benefits are we're we're putting them in to protect earnings going forward from the '27 level. We give guidance by business unit, Cameron, as you know, and as Andrew has noted, will be lower in FY '27 because of the lower contract volume and lower yield. We've got more recontracting to do.

1:29:59 It will depend. We're very focused on I'm very focused personally on rebuilding rebuilding earnings and recovering earnings. That's why we're announcing the transformation plan today. Okay. Great. Then just on the network, next year or this year, FY '27 is the final year of getting some previous period revenue cap adjustments coming through. What is that number expected to be in '27, please? Because on the slides, you've got something between sixty and one hundred and one. Yeah. The number in '27 is sixty, six zero, and we we we expect about 60% of that to drop to EBITDA.

1:30:46 Okay. So 1627. Yeah. 60% EBITDA. Yep. Cool. Thank you. We're just in terms of where you're at in terms of the building, and this is the BHP South Australia contract. You're building a depot at Pimba and to facilitate all that. Where are you in that process and how much is more is to spend in FY twenty seven? So just to go back a little bit into where we started the contract, we started with a temporary terminal, and we then we talked about moving from a temp as the volume is built, we would have to exit the temporary terminal and move into a the permanent terminal. So George, do you want to just talk about where we are in that process? Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. The the team did a fantastic job getting that temporary terminal up and running in what was three months Cameron for the first train to run on the October 1.

1:31:45 We're now going through the approval process with the South Australian government and also an indigenous land use agreement to then build the permanent terminal adjacent to the temporary terminal. How much of that permanent terminal we get built and how much CapEx we spend in FY twenty seven will depend on how quickly those approvals and bill you is get in place. But I'd be saying it could be 10 to 20,000,000, and we'll have a better idea when we come to the half year results. So happy to give an update then. But that range I mentioned is reflected in our FY 'twenty seven CapEx guidance. Okay, great. And then Andrew, just while you've got the floor, there, TGE has been in the press either looking for a new owner or looking for some capital support, you know, with a with a partner.

1:32:38 Can you either confirm or rule out that, you know, Aurizon would be looking to inject capital of any description into TGE? It's not a particularly fair question, is it? I'm talking about one of my customers, but what I would say is when we started the contract with and the business of containerized freight, which was based on a the key customer of TGE, we said we'd learned a number of things from the past. And we weren't where we've made mistakes, and we weren't looking to repeat them. And amongst those decisions or those learnings, one of them was that we would not be a freight forwarder and compete with our customers.

1:33:28 Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Nathan Lee from Morgan. Please go ahead. Hi, gents. Thanks for your presentation. Just first one for me, the FY twenty seven EBITDA guidance range, just what are the factors that swing it from top to bottom? Do you want to talk through any factors? Can do. Can do. I think you go through each of the business units and they'll have different reasons for, I guess, the risks and the opportunities if you wanted to frame it that way. Network we know is consistent and predictable. In terms of coal, we've talked a lot about coal today, the pluses and minuses associated with that.

1:34:20 But similarly, off the base of a predictable hauled tonnage. George is talking about, spoken about bulk as well, know, and so the key things there are probably mostly the things that we cannot control, which would be weather, track access, those types of things. And CF is in largely the same boat, albeit we're in a much stronger position from the perspective this year than we were last year. They're the pluses and minuses and that's the balanced position. When we look at probably the balance is corporate costs, you'd expect corporate costs will be consistent. If not, we'll be trying for lower but nonetheless. So they're the they're the things that we've put in place.

1:35:07 Probably nothing different than you what you've heard in in previous years. Yep. Okay. Great. Second question is with the the new coal coal haulage contracts. You've you've spoken about the sort of, the mix of capacity revenue and volume based revenue. I just wanted to and and also you've talked about sort of the the haulage rates, but just wanted to just get confidence that the escalation type formula for these long dated contracts hasn't changed or if there's anything going on on that front? If you mean CPI escalation and fuel Yep. And energy pass through, Nathan? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. No. No. No. No material change. Okay. Great. Just sort of thinking about that, I suppose, from the sort of the credit quality of the coal segment.

1:35:56 A final one from me just for you, Ian. I suppose just, you know, you've you've had a chance to look into the capital management of the business. How much debt capacity do you think the group overall has within its current credit ratings? Yeah. Well, we've got roughly a billion dollars of available capacity. So that's probably an area that I'd sort of look at that's available. That's the, I suppose the balance sheet, the extent to which the capacity we have, I guess, if you like, we generally use that capacity for refinancing. We'll use that as part of our refinancing as well. But if you said what was the hard number of of what we could raise within the the credit rating boundaries, then it'd be around that number.

1:36:46 Around a billion dollars. So I suppose the the question then goes back to what's stopping you doing more buyback? So, Nathan, I deliberately said and went to the process that the board uses to make a decision. I didn't say anything about stopping or starting a buyback. The board makes a decision on buybacks based on all the information it has at the time. If you look at the history, we've made decisions, and only last year at the half and at the and at the prior full year. And then ran not randomly, but different times through previous periods. So the board will make a decision based on the the information it has at the time.

1:37:33 Nathan, I was really hoping you'd ask me about the capital allocation framework. That would be a way more exciting discussion. The point being what Andrew is saying is that we've got a very clear and disciplined capital allocation framework in which the objective is to maximize shareholder returns. And we'll look at all of all of the the opportunities to do that through that lens. Well, just on, I suppose, on capital allocation. I mean, Andrew, you've previously said about how painful it had been to reduce the payout ratio. Can we assume that 90% is kind of steady state at the moment, and then, Frankie, you can kinda continue that 90 or above? So I I think, the way I've answered that question before, Nathan, and there's no reason to change it, is that, we want a payout ratio that is a good reflection of where the business is, which was when we're a business that is not ex growth.

1:38:31 So we need to take that into account. But we are also a business that generates an awful lot of cash from our network and our coal businesses. So the payout ratio at 90% reflects that judgment. When it comes to franking, so I'm not an expert in all of the stuff that goes into generating the franking calculation, but equally you don't want to forecast franking too far into the future, but rather look at what we've done in the past. And we've been fairly well franked in the past, and I think that's some some indication where we can be in the future. Did you want to add anything to that? Yeah, think it's important to note, if you have a look at our free cash flow equity, bottom line free cash flow and have a look. If you look at either our statutory or underlying the two NPAT and free cash flow are quite aligned.

1:39:37 That means reinvesting back into the business at or around depreciation, which we've discussed about today. And then we've probably got a pickup on tax, because we're currently paying less tax than earnings, which the good news. So that's good news, but that also limits the franking. So two things. One is NPAT and free cash flow aligned. So therefore, a 90% payout of NPAT also means a 90% payout of free cash flow. That's important. And the second part is franking is a function of accelerated depreciation, which is good because it means we pay less tax, which means we have more capital to allocate. Great. Thank you.

1:40:25 Thank you. Your next question comes from Scott Ryall from Rimor Equity Research. Please go ahead. Hi there. Thank you. I've a very quick question, hopefully, so I'll just rattle through. On slide 16, George, this is probably for you. Could you just tell me over a three to five year timeframe of those business units that you put, hopefully down on the bottom left hand side, which is the ones that excite you most over a three to five year timeframe? Yes, Scott, if I heard you right, it's the chart that shows revenue broken down by commodities. Is that right?

1:41:10 Correct. Yes. Got it. Okay. I mean, look, when I think about growth of the bulk business, there's three broad categories we drive growth. The first one is in better operational performance. The second one is in relation to growing with our existing customers. And the third one is new customers. If I tackle it that way, and then I'll circle back to your question. So we improved our cancellation performance in bulk, quite significantly in FY twenty seven. Just in WA alone, we took 1,300 cancellations in FY twenty five, and we dropped it down by 300. We want to do that again in FY twenty seven, and then further improvements across the business the next two years. The second lever I mentioned is grow with our existing customers. There are two that have public growth targets out there. The first one is CBH that wants to increase its average harvest, and also push more of that harvest out in the first six months of the year post harvest. The second one is BHP copper, who have public aspirations out there, of course, subject to investment decisions.

1:42:15 The third one is growing with new customers. And I mentioned earlier in the call, iron ore, I mentioned phosphate rock, and I mentioned rare earths. So if you step back to your question, then Scott, grain, I'm excited about the growth in grain, particularly in Western Australia and South Australia. The second one is copper. South Australia has two thirds of Australia's copper reserves. That's the reason why we invested in the one rail business a few years ago. And the third one I'd mentioned is phosphate rock and rare earths. And when we talk about rare earths, they're not big volumetrically in terms of exports, but much like copper projects, they need inputs into the mining process.

1:43:01 And some of the rare earth projects, particularly in the centre of Australia, but also Western Australia, we're excited to look to partner with long term. So if I was to project five years down the track, I'd love to see a bigger percentage of grain, bigger percentage of copper and a bigger percentage of rare earths in that diagram. And I think containerized freight volumes will hopefully grow with GDP longer term. And then if you were to combine it with containerized freight, I expect you'll see a big wedge there called vehicles post their investment in auto wagons, which as you can tell, I'm pretty excited about. Alright, thank you. Ted, on call on slide 17. I'm a simple person, and I love waterfall charts. So can I just summarize? You've given a number of answers to this over the course of the call. So you you talked about if I could look forward to fiscal twenty seven and and look at what's changed relative to '26.

1:44:02 So you said volumes are about the same, some folds are about the same. Operating costs, you said a similar kind of, yeah, expectation for '27. I'm thinking pricing expectations shouldn't change too much, but most of the yield change should be the red bar, the customer mix. And then I'm not sure that net access and fuel actually having a gain year on year is is achievable again. So can you just correct me on anything I've said there? Just I'm trying to wrap it all into one package for my simple brain. Thank you. Thanks, Scott. I think you summarized it very well. I mean, especially the bit of our net access and fuel not not not repeating in FY twenty seven.

1:44:49 Alright. Fantastic. Thank you. And then, Andrew, just last question for you. You mentioned the ERP earlier on the call. Can you just remind us when that goes live, please? So that's due June next year. June yes. We 07/01/2027. Okay. So a year away. Okay. Thank you. That's all I had. Thank you. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. And that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.