Now when Genesis presented at Diggers last year, we had just taken the keys to our Leonora operations and were putting the finishing touches on an M&A program that underpinned and set the strategy for Genesis as a business moving forward. It's important to note that the gold price at the time of these acquisitions was just less than US$1,800 per ounce. Now as we fast forward to today, where the gold price sits just in excess of US$2,400 per ounce, It's quite clear that in the gold industry space there is a theme and a bit of a buzz phrase around M&A at this year's forum. However, for Genesis, we move and have moved into the next chapter of our story and that is all about accelerated growth, hence the title of today's presentation. What I'm about to show you is our clearly mapped out strategy and well-defined plan for unlocking the value of the assets we acquired just over 12 months ago.
And this will be achieved by accelerating production, reducing costs and ultimately increasing cash flow in the process. Now, Genesis closed the financial year with cash and bullion of $173 million. This was an increase of over $17 million in our first 12 months of ownership, despite investing over $100 million in genuine growth capital and exploration.
Now the combination of our strong cash position, no debt and minimal hedging means that our balance sheet is in an exceptionally strong position. Also draw your attention to our significant inventory of over 3.3 million ounces in reserve. And this gives us over 10 years at 300,000 ounces per annum and over 15 million ounces in resource. All between 2 mils, less than 100 kilometres apart.
At this point I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the audience for their support. to acknowledge and thank the board of directors for putting their trust in me via my recent promotion into the COO role and I look forward to repaying that trust through consistent reliable production from all of our mining operations underpinned by a safe people first culture We are unashamedly a growth business and we have a laser-like focus on the Leonora region of the Western Australian goldfields, approximately 250 kilometres to the north of where we sit today in Kalgoorlie. Now the key tenant of our strategy has been to pair underutilised mills at Leonora and Laverton with stranded resources. And this was achieved via the combination of the Genesis 1.0 tenure with Dacian's Laverton operations and St Barbara's Leonora operations. Ultimately, we have built a portfolio that enables us to match the right ores with the right mills.
Now following an intense period of corporate activity, Genesis is focused on execution of our five year plan and accelerated organic growth. Now the growing Genesis team has had a very busy but very rewarding past 12 months and very proud to have achieved midpoint of guidance in just our first year of ownership of the assets and underpinned by excellent delivery by our Gwalior team. Throughout FY24 we continue to see significant improvements in our safety performance, not just the measurable performance statistics but importantly on our leading indicators. We've also been able to start or even accelerate our development timetables for our key growth assets, specifically the Admiral Open Pit, which came with our first Genesis Mining Services fleet, the Ulysses Underground, and preparation for a potential early restart of the Laverton operations.
This was all aided by great people and strong cash build throughout the year, with investment in the future, as I touched on earlier. So we now turn our attention to our all-important group production outlook, where we have devised and communicated a base case plan with visibility beyond 10 years, despite only owning the assets for just nine months. at this point when we delivered this plan in March. Genesis is one of the few gold producers able to delineate a long-life plan due to possessing over 10 years in reserve already at 300,000 ounces per annum. As our production profile increases year on year, our costs come down at the same time in parallel, again always underpinned by that strong balance sheet.
As an aggressive growth company, and having already turned our attention to optimising the plan to aspire for sustainable delivery of 400,000 ounces per annum, as well as bring ounces forward in that production profile, we do look forward to articulating our updated FY25 guidance next year. month in September. So first I'd like to step you through Leonora operations. A key observation to make here is the growing production profile year-on-year similar to our Laberton operations as Leonora Ops builds towards that 200,000 ounces per annum.
underpinned by the Gwalior Underground, which is forecast to be consistent at approximately 700,000 to 800,000 tonnes per annum, which will deliver between 120,000 and 130,000 ounces per annum. Pleasingly, this was exactly the profile that was... articulated upon the acquisition of the asset and exactly what we have seen at delivery in FY24 is all it needs to do moving forward.
With that focus on quality over quantity we are not asking any more of Gwalior. Year on year we actually take the pressure off Gwalior from being the only ore source for the mill which we started this year with the immediate beneficial addition of the Admiral open pit ore feed. As Ulysses Underground starts to deliver that higher grade ore feed very shortly the Leonora production profile can grow grow through the displacement of that lower grade open pit feed with a higher grade underground ore.
At the same time, there is genuinely considerable value to unlock through the realisation of operational synergies holding two underground mines approximately 35 kilometres apart, operated by the same principal underground mining contractor in McMahon, and we are absolutely only in the early stages of this opportunity. So on that note, I'm going to bring Leonore operations to life. So what we're looking at here illustrates our operations. operational hubs relative to where we sit today in Kalgoorlie.
And we're zooming in on the location of the three million ounces of gold just north of us here that constitute the Bardock assets, all of which currently sit outside the 10-year plan, as we simply haven't had the time or bandwidth in that first 12 months to focus on and assess the three million ounces, which is a pretty fortunate position to be in. So we move and we zoom in on the globally significant Leonora Gold District, with the blue tenure representing all of Genesis. ownership in this great region.
So we're going to dive deeper into the prolific belt, specifically Gwalior, which possesses over 10 million ounces of inventory and counting, as well as Tower Hill just to the north with almost 2 million ounces of inventory that I'll touch on a bit later during this presentation. So on that note, I'd like to take you on a journey underground to explore the phenomenal asset that is Gwalior. So first, we are going to be looking at all drill traces at Gwalior.
with results above 5 grams per tonne. Now there's two key observations. First is the density of those high-grade results and the way this high-grade presents all the way through to the deepest holes. The intercept you can see in the deepest hole includes a result over 23 grams per tonne which sits just over 2.8 kilometres below the surface and is 1.1 kilometres down plunge of the base of our existing reserve which sits around that 2.2 kilometres. below surface.
The second observation is that the infield drilling that has been completed, of which there is a significant amount, highlights the consistency of this phenomenal ore body, with Genesis immediately doubling the amount of underground drill rigs at Gwalior to ensure that we de-risk that mine plan. So as I remove the drill traces, this allows us to clearly see the scale and history of the mine, with the upper levels mined from the turn of the 20th century when gold price was around US$20 per ounce. To put all this into perspective, the red development and production that you can see is the mine plan for the next two full years at Gwalior. The addition of the blue advance now demonstrates the mine plan for the next five years, which requires just 40 metres of vertical advance from our current decline face position.
We have in fact already fully developed the stoping levels required for mining the heart of gold for the next three years. Now the true eye-opener is the life of mine plan beyond five years, illustrated by the green development and stoping and this takes us out to FY39 and this does not take into account the significant untested potential of higher in the mine that you can see. The comparison of perspective between Gwalior and the upcoming year. Ulysses'life and mine plan is quite remarkable. So on that note, I'm going to take you 35 kilometres south to the Ulysses mine.
Now, despite the distance, it is in fact 30 minutes faster to deliver a truck of ore from the base of Ulysses compared to the depth of Gwalior. So we're going to spin around to the south and take you underground. Now the key observation here is the extensive drilling that has been completed at Ulysses, with again all assays above 5 grams per tonne shown.
In contrast to so many mines that are not sufficiently drilled by companies, The first three years of the mine plan at Ulysses have been de-risked via grade control drilling down to a very tight 12.5 by 10 metre spacing. Here we're now looking at that initial five year reserve for Ulysses and we can clearly see the shallow, well-defined plan. Ulysses has only been drilled to 350 metres below surface, is open a long strike and at depth, presenting a clear growth prospect for Genesis.
Having commenced the portal in late March, we are pleasingly running 55% faster than our five-year plan forecast. What this means is that we're bringing forward ore delivery that has us on track to fill the mill at Gwalior with high-grade ore for the first time since 2015 and move us towards that aspire 400,000 ounces per annum run rate. So you now have a clear snapshot of the two assets that are going to underpin the return of Leonora back to 200,000 ounces per annum. So having taken on Gwalior with the cupboards effectively bare, we have seen the immediate benefit of the addition of the Admiral Open Pit ore feed.
With Leonora ore stocks increased from around 5,000 tonnes at the start of the year to a closing stockpile. in excess of 300,000 tonnes of ore by the end of the year. This is a key element of our strategy to ensure the future-proofing of our Genesis business.
A direct result of having these stockpiles is the ability to switch lean ore operations... from mine constrained, where it has been for probably the past eight years, to now mill constrained. And the subsequent de-bottlenecking and optimisation has resulted in impressive increases in mill throughput ahead of the five-year plan, and that is an absolute testament and credit to the team. Well done. So we're going to move now to the labour and operations, which will also see consistent year-on-year growth in production profile, commencing with a modest contribution in late FY25 from a legacy stockpile immediately adjacent to the crusher that already has all mining costs sunk and hence enables us to de-risk that mill restart.
The Genesis team is potentially looking at an earlier restart of the mill and again updated guidance will be articulated in September. Now the key value driver over the next the medium term is Tower Hill represented by the red bars on the graph you can see which only really kicks in in FY 29 and this takes Laverton's production profile upwards of 125,000 ounces per annum. If you think back to the 10-year production profile displayed earlier, Laverton hits 200,000 ounces per annum by 2034 which is all grade driven and all from Tower Hill.
Additionally any ability to pull this plan forward will assist in driving down down that cost profile, heading towards that all-in-sustaining cost of $1,600 an ounce as a group by FY29. So let's dedicate some attention to what we consider to be the key growth driver for Genesis in Tower Hill. A simple, shallow, bulk and undeveloped open pit mine right on the doorstep of Gwalior, from which we barely scratched the surface in our... five-year plan.
Now Tower Hill is genuinely a globally significant plus 1 million ounces plus two gram per tonne undeveloped deposit that will come into our production profile in the years to come. It has produced some phenomenal drill intercepts. including 50 metres at 5 grams per tonne, with the listed results here actually all strong underground grades that we are going to be mining as an open pit.
Now, I just want to be clear with the image here. Our 10-year plan is based on the beige pit shell, which is that 1 million ounces at 2 grams per tonne. However, the blue shell represents an additional 400,000 ounces that can be mined by a larger cutback or from an underground operation, neither of which have been factored into our...
our five nor our ten year plan. Now the past 12 months has seen positive progress towards Towie Hill production with environmental approvals fast tracked and excellent engagement and buy in from both local and state government. I would like to take the opportunity to express my thanks to Peter Craig, and Ty Mattson, Rita Safioti and Ellie Kent, as well as the great community of Leonora.
We have formed an excellent relationship and friendship with the traditional owners, the Dalo Group, who anyone who was able to be at our Hoover House dinner and the articulation of our five-year plan in March can attest to. Now, finally, with regards to the rail... This has been a significant focus from our Managing Director, Raleigh Finlayson, over the past 12 months, probably accounting for around 70% of his time. And we continue to have excellent engagement with all rail users and are well advanced relative to the timeline displayed here. I would again like to thank the Deputy Premier who was able to visit site and the PTA for their support and guidance throughout this process.
Now let's also bring Tower Hill to life. So this first view delineates the proximity of the 1.5 million ounce Tower Hill resource to Gwalior and we can journey beneath the surface. So here you will be observing all drill traces at Tower Hill with intercepts above one gram per tonne, with a higher grade core visible via the warmer colours, the reds and the pinks.
We now see the addition of the planned reserve pit, which, whilst it doesn't appear that big, will deliver one million ounces at that grade above two grams per tonne, courtesy of the phenomenal width and grade tenner that this ore body presents, all amazingly within a... depth of only 300 metres below surface. Excitingly, upside beyond the first 10 years is clear at Towie Hill.
Here you can see all mineralisation above 5g per tonne, as we saw Gwalior earlier, that can be exploited in the future by either those underground methods or a further cutback, which optimises at prices considerably lower than today's spot price. Now this comparison gives you an appreciation of the scale of the relatively under-drilled Taui Hill versus Gwalior, noting that Gwalior has an endowment of 10.7 million ounces to date whilst Taui Hill has an endowment of 1.8 million ounces for now. So as we zoom out, we gain an even better appreciation of the drilling that has gone into Gwalior compared to Tower Hill.
As I mentioned earlier, we have already defined Gwalior to a life of mine plan of 15 years. We are now focused on testing Tower Hill and then eventually moving to the next obvious question, what is in between? So as we look here at all intercepts above one gram per tonne across Gwalior and the Tower Hill region, it is clear that more work is required in the future to build upon the very little drilling that has occurred adjacent to Gwalior.
Whilst our initial focus will be the opportunities closer to surface within the existing historic Gwalior levels that I highlighted earlier, as well as the depth extensions at Towie Hill, there is an old saying that the best place to find more ore is in the shadow of the head frame, or in this case, perhaps, in the shadow of the giant that is Gwalior. So as you can see, Genesis is a conservative gold miner. We have no debt, cash and bullion of $173 million, and 91% of our 10-year plan is underpinned by reserves.
We also have a very strong growth outlook with a clearly mapped out strategy for increasing production to 325,000 ounces per annum by FY29 and then beyond with our Aspire 400 aspirations. This will absolutely drive down costs lead to substantial increase in cash flow. This combination may seem like a bit of a contradiction, but we have deliberately positioned the company in this way because it genuinely gives investors the best of both worlds.
Thank you very much for your time. Well done Matt, that was a great presentation. I think we can all agree Genesis will stand the test of time as one of WA's great mining companies. We've got time probably for two questions, so I'll kick it off. Where might we see additional ounces come into the outlook over and above the five year?
plan you outlined early this year. Yeah, thanks, Toby. Look, what I'd point to there is probably the fact that we've only owned all these assets for 12 months, just over. We've actually bought together operations and assets. assets from five different companies.
And the difference between that reserve base of 3.3 million ounces and 15 million ounces is absolutely the opportunity when we have time and bandwidth to go assess these other assets to bring them into the mine plan. So even Gwalior on its own has three million ounces available to convert and obviously the underground potential that are highlighted for Tower Hill, for Ulysses, for our future hub open pit mine and let alone things like the Bardock three million ounces. So a lot for us to work on.
to work through. And just one last question. So in the context of a very tight labour market, what incentives does GMD offer to employees to help retain and attract new employees to the team?
Yeah, thanks Toby. Probably a pretty timely question actually. We've just had a bit of a recruitment drive out there as we look to bring on our next open pit asset in hub for the Leonora operations, just about 50 kilometres to the north east. And looking at that potential restart of the Mount Morgan operations. potentially looking to employ up to 200 personnels.
So what do I believe has been or attracted personnel to what has been a pretty successful initial recruitment drive is probably two things. That growth story is generally mapped out for everyone and what that means is people can also map out their own career growth journeys, which is really important. And the other one is we absolutely at Genesis live and breathe our Aspire values. So we spent 12 months building those values from the ground floor up, which means we have buy-in across all levels of the business, and I think that's pretty visible and something that people want to get around and get behind.