Perseus March qtr: 107,144oz gold, AISC US$1,748/oz, cash and bullion US$817m, FY26 guidance kept

What investors must know

1. Gold recovered was 107,144 oz in the March 2026 quarter, up 21% on the 88,888 oz of the December quarter, with AISC of US$1,748/oz against US$1,800/oz in the prior quarter.
2. Cash and bullion was US$817m at 31 March 2026 (cash US$680m plus bullion US$137m) with zero debt, plus US$254m of listed shares including 9.9% of Aurum Resources.
3. FY26 guidance is unchanged at 400,000-440,000 oz and AISC of US$1,600-1,760/oz; year-to-date output of 295,985 oz means the June 2026 quarter needs about 104,000-144,000 oz to land in range.
4. The Meyas Sand sale for US$260m was completed with US$250m received on 22 April 2026, after quarter end, so it is not in the 31 March cash balance.
5. Nyanzaga is 48% complete with US$227.3m spent (43% of the US$523m budget) and first gold targeted for January 2027; the CMA Underground budget was raised by US$9m to US$181.7m.
6. About 14,500 m were drilled across the programs described in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, but no assay grades, intervals or drill-hole table were released.

The drill intercepts, normalised

Holes reported

84 of 189 drilled (18 pending)

Metres drilled

14,513

Drilling

RC at CMA SW Extension, Zain 1 South, Papara and Ayanfuri; diamond and RDD at Edikan-area programs; Yaoure Pit drill type not stated

True widths

Not stated - intervals are down-hole

Hole spacing

Spacing not stated. Papara is described as infill, CMA SW Extension and Zain 1 South as extensions along strike, and Nanankaw as bridging data gaps between pits.

Depth

No hole depths, collar coordinates, RL, dip or azimuth are given for any hole. Program totals only: Yaoure Pit 3,549m in 41 holes, CMA SW Extension 2,991m in 27 RC holes, Zain 1 South 2,040m in 16 RC holes, Papara 1,432m in 18 RC holes, Ghana 4,501m in 87 holes. holes_drilled is the sum of these stated program counts; holes_reported counts the 84 holes in the three programs with a qualitative result statement.

Against the project's earlier holes

DrillScore holds no earlier intercepts for Perseus, so no comparison with earlier holes can be made. The report says CMA SW drilling followed positive mapping last quarter and that the Yaoure Pit program is now complete, but gives no grades to compare.

Against similar explorers

No grades or widths are reported, so the drilling cannot be measured against gram-metre benchmarks (50 good, 100 really good, 200 excellent, 500 stellar). The company's Q3 average cash margin of US$2,395/oz is the only margin figure given, and it is a production result, not drilling.

Gram-metre calculator - gram-metres explained - the leaderboard

Disclosure checks - the ASX's own focus areas

• Drill-hole table (collars, dip, azimuth, depth, every intercept)

  Required for exploration results on a material project.

  fail
• JORC Table 1, Section 1 - sampling techniques and data
  fail
• JORC Table 1, Section 2 - reporting of exploration results
  fail
• Competent person statement
  fail
• No metal equivalents - grades as assayed
  pass
• Balanced reporting - low and high grades both shown

  Results for three programs (84 holes) are described only as positive or qualitative ('extends along strike', 'continuity... with moderate grades'). No nil or low results are reported, and the 87 Ghana holes and the Papara program are described only as activity. Hole counts and metres are given, but the reader cannot see the spread of grades.

  fail
• No visual estimates - assays only
  pass
• Down-hole widths only

  Down-hole intervals can overstate how thick the mineralisation really is.

  caution

Red flags and notes

Why these matter: JORC Table 1 - metal equivalents - balanced reporting - visual estimates

Money: can they follow it up?

Period ending

2026-03-31

Cash

$950m

Debt

$0

Exploration spend (quarter)

$11.0m

Shares on issue

1,346.4m

Options, rights & convertibles

8.6m

Gold produced

107,144 oz

AISC

A$2,443/oz (margin about A$4,199/oz at the day's gold price)

Guidance

FY26 (year to June 2026) guidance unchanged from the Q2 report: group production 400,000-440,000 oz and AISC US$1,600-1,760/oz. Mine ranges: Yaoure 168,000-184,000 oz at US$1,620-1,790; Edikan 154,000-169,000 oz at US$1,470-1,620; Sissingue 78,000-87,000 oz at US$1,810-2,000. Guidance assumed gold at US$3,900/oz for January to June 2026 and royalties of 8% in Cote d'Ivoire and 5% in Ghana. Year to date 295,985 oz at AISC US$1,685/oz. Q3 AISC of US$1,748 sits inside the group range. Not yet met or missed because the year has not ended.

Cash of US$680m is converted at A$1 = US$0.7156, the 22 April 2026 AUD/USD rate in the context (the report gives no rate and no quarter-end rate). Cash excludes bullion (US$137m, 29,722 oz) and listed securities (US$254m). The report has no Appendix 5B, so burn, funding quarters and operating and investing cash flows are not stated. Notional operating cashflow of US$252m is a non-IFRS measure (margin times ounces produced), not cash; the cash bridge shows an operating margin of US$217m, capex of US$137m, tax of US$42m, dividends of US$46m and buyback of US$18m. Exploration is the Table 15 business growth spend of US$7.9m at the same rate. Production is gold recovered (107,144 oz); gold sold was 96,260 oz. AISC of US$1,748/oz is converted to A$2,442.7 at the same rate. Debt is zero as stated. After quarter end, the US$250m balance of the Meyas Sand sale was received on 22 April 2026. By quarter end, A$26.3m of the A$100m buyback had been used. The report does not say whether the cash figures are in US$ or A$ in every sentence; the cash bridge is in US$.

Appendix 5B explained - why runway predicts raisings - every company's runway

Resource / reserve

Contained metal

4.00 Moz

What changed

Nyanzaga ore reserves up 73% to 4.0Moz, as reported in the 20 February 2026 ASX release and summarised here (previously reported). Edikan and Sissingue estimates were updated on 21 August 2025 and are not restated here. Tonnes, grade and category split are not given in this report.

Resources vs reserves explained

How the price reacted

From the last close before the market could trade on it ($5.59 on 22 Apr 2026), with day-1 volume 0.7x the 20-day average.

PRU's past price-sensitive news

After 8 earlier announcements, PRU rose on day 1 5 times and fell 3 times - an average move of +4.8%; after quarterlies alone, -2.4%.

• 26 Oct 26-3.0%
• 25 Aug 26+9.5%
• 25 Aug 26+9.5%
• 25 Aug 26+9.5%
• 25 Aug 26+9.5%
• 29 Jul 26-1.8%
• 16 Jul 26-3.1%
• 12 Jun 26+8.8%

No past share price reactions are on record for Perseus in DrillScore's database. Since release the share price is up about 13.6% (A$5.59 to A$6.35), while the sector fell over the same period: GDX -13.6%, GDXJ -21.2%, COPX -18.5%, XGD -1.5%, and the S&P/ASX 300 Metals and Mining index -5.8%. The price move on the day of release is not supplied, so how the quarter was received on the day cannot be read from this data.

Past reactions describe what happened, not what will. How prices react to results

The historical pattern

What share prices did after past results like this one, from DrillScore's own records. It describes the past: it isn't a forecast for PRU and it isn't advice.

A strand leans up or down when its day-5 average is 1% or more either way. Each is shown on its own and never added up into a prediction: small samples swing, and every result is different. The full backtest - how it's worked out

The market it landed in

Guidance was built on a US$3,900/oz gold deck. Gold was US$4,608/oz at 31 March (company figure) and US$4,753/oz on the release day, so margins were wide at release. Spot is now US$3,886/oz, close to the deck. Q3 realised price was US$4,143/oz. A simple gap of Q3 AISC against spot is about US$2,140/oz at today's price and about US$3,005/oz at the release-day price, before royalties, tax and hedges, so it is not the company's margin. The AUD fell 5.3% against the USD, so the A$ gold price fell less than the US$ price (-13.6% against -18.2%). Copper was flat. Silver fell 37% but is not a Perseus product. The US 10-year yield rose to 5.15% from 4.29%, and the US dollar index rose 4.9%; both are generally a headwind for gold. Sector mood is weak: GDX -13.6%, GDXJ -21.2%, COPX -18.5% since release. Oil fell 4.7% since release but is up 50.9% on a year ago, relevant because diesel is about 10% of AISC. Perseus has 140,000 oz of committed hedges (fixed forwards at about US$2,538/oz and call options at about US$3,692/oz), plus 210,000 oz of put options at about US$2,624/oz.

Against PRU's own history

DrillScore has no earlier record for Perseus, so no comparison with earlier intercepts, raisings or cash history is possible. Within the report: cash and bullion rose US$62m to US$817m in the quarter, but cash alone was US$680m against US$682m at 31 December, so the rise came from bullion. Production rose 21% on the prior quarter. Guidance is unchanged from the Q2 report. No capital raising was made, and buyback purchases are running at A$26.3m of A$100m.

Questions worth asking

• What AISC and production does management expect for the June 2026 quarter, given the 104,000-144,000 oz needed to reach the guidance range?
• How much of the Ghana royalty increase is permanent, and what is the FY27 AISC outlook for Edikan after the GSL reduction?
• What will the US$250m Meyas Sand proceeds be used for, and how much of the buyback and dividends will be extended?
• When will the Yaoure Pit, CMA SW, Zain 1 South and Papara programs be released with grades, intercepts and a drill-hole table, with JORC Table 1?
• Why are Yaoure and Sissingue mill tonnes well above reserve with lower grades, and when will the reserve models be updated to reflect the ore being mined?