Next up, folks, we have Brad Rogers, who is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Jupiter Mines . Brad's got a background in strategy and corporate finance, and previously he was the MD of Biz Industries and Head of Corporate Development for GRD Ltd. This is his second year presenting at Diggers and Dealers. A fun fact about Brad is a few years ago, he was the third-best 12-year-old breaststroke swimmer in Western Australia. He's still a tragic basketball fan today, I believe. Please welcome Brad to the stage, everyone. Thank you.
Thanks, Paul. Thanks for the overdue recognition of my pre-teen swimming achievements. Jupiter is the major investor in a really good manganese mine. It's one of the world's largest, and as I'll explain, best manganese mines. It's up and running as a producing asset. It's got no debt. We don't either at Jupiter. It's low cost, more than 100 years of mine life remaining. In the last six and a half years since Jupiter has been listed with our share of that mine, we Jupiter have paid our market cap in dividends, notwithstanding Tshipi, the underlying asset that has actually supported those cash flows, has more than 100 years of mine life remaining. This is an established, successful story already. Jupiter's value proposition to our investors, as I'll explain, is partly that.
It's partly continuing our strategy of providing exposure to that great cash flow from this really well-run, really fantastic resource. That's up front and center in our strategy. We also, by virtue of the fact of this investment, are the largest pure play listed manganese miner in the world. The manganese price, for various reasons, is volatile over time. Tshipi makes money and pays dividends even through the bottom of that cycle. When the manganese price goes up, naturally, Tshipi's earnings go up, Jupiter's share price goes up. That's another part of our value proposition. I'll take you through more of that detail in a moment. On top of those two established points of value proposition, Jupiter has a growth strategy to grow shareholder value on top of what we've already been very successful at doing. I'll take you through more of that detail.
You can see there on the page an aerial photograph of our mine, Tshipi. It's located in the Kalahari manganese field, which is in the northwestern area of South Africa, quite near to the Namibian and Botswana border. It's iron ore and manganese country and very much the leading manganese district in the world. Tshipi's ore production this year was 3.6 million tons for a 30-June financial year just ended. That's slightly above its average of 3.4 million tons. On that 3.6 this year, we'll probably be the third largest producing asset in the world. Tshipi has consistently been one of the top five producing manganese mines in the world. It has more than 100 years of mine life remaining. I'll show you the cost profile in a moment.
One of the hallmarks of this asset, as I'll show you on the next page or the one after that, is very stable operating outcomes and very stable costs. The combination of those two facts, as well as the fact that there's no debt at the mine either, means really predictable cash generation. We think that this is a fantastic asset. We think this is a fantastic jurisdiction. When I come to our strategy, it is about growing our exposure to this commodity we know well, to this asset we know very well that has produced these great results and driving some of the benefits of that consolidation in South Africa. You can see there an aerial photograph of the Kalahari manganese field in which the Tshipi is located.
This is a really unique area in that, as you can see on the page there, the Kalahari manganese field, or the main area in which the Tshipi mine and these other important mines are located, holds 73% of the world's manganese resource in an area that is less than the distance between Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie. I can't think of another mineral that has globally important mines located cheek by jaw with each other. That proximity of these important mines, where in that photo you have five of the top 10 producing assets in the world to date, and all of the top remaining mine lives of already producing assets today in that photo, is significant. Obviously, when you have that situation, there is an opportunity to combine ownership and drive consolidation value. Everyone who's familiar with this situation can see that.
It's been challenging for various reasons, but that is part of Jupiter 's strategy. We think there's material value available from executing on that strategy. I'll provide you an update and a bit more of an overview of that part of our strategy in a moment. This is a busy slide. The key takeaways are the Tshipi , right back to the time of Jupiter 's listing of our investment in this asset. The asset's been operating since 2012. Jupiter listed its share in the Tshipi in 2018. You can see all of these data points back to the time of our listing and all of that history. You can see really uncharacteristic but fantastic stability in terms of sales and production on the first graph, in terms of safety outcomes on the second graph. The third graph shows costs relative to manganese prices.
Important there is the gap, obviously, because that's what supported our ability to pay dividends even at the bottom end of the cycle. You can see that in the graph on the bottom right as well. This is now financials in Australia, millions of dollars for Jupiter's 49.9% share of the mine and cumulative dividends that we've distributed to Jupiter shareholders in that period of time. One mine, but we've paid $410 million to our shareholders in the last six and a half years, notwithstanding the mine's got more than 100 years of mine life remaining. The next dividend is due to be declared by Jupiter on the 29th of August. That'll make it seven years neat. These on the page here, six and a half years. At our share price today, that coincidentally totals our market cap in dividends in the last six and a half years.
Jupiter has a really good track record by virtue of the fact that this is a fantastic mine. I've given you a brief overview of that in a moment. Two of the elements of our investor value proposition that I'll go through in a moment are based on continuing that really established, successful story to date. The third part is about doing more on top of that. You can see that set out on the page here. There are four limbs to our five-year growth strategy. The first limb is about continuous improvement. This mine is already a great cost performer. There's obviously more that you can do. A large part of our continuous improvement focus at Tshipi is around improving bulk logistics. This mine is a long way from port.
We don't have enough rail allocation, and we road haul a lot of the material that is produced from Tshipi. There are opportunities to improve financial and operational outcomes by focusing on logistics in particular. We think, as I outlined a moment ago, that there's an opportunity to grow our exposure and grow value around doing so, around this thematic that you are going to have on the supply side looking forward. Important manganese mines that are running today and have been running for the last 50 years come to end of mine life. Our mine has more than 100 years of mine life remaining. There are a few others around us that are in that situation as well. South Africa already is the leading jurisdiction in terms of market share for manganese exports. It's going to grow its share over the coming 10 years or so.
Mines like Tshipi that are part of that endowment will have the opportunity to grow our market share as well. There's also an opportunity to consolidate ownership and generate value from doing so, both at Tshipi and beyond Tshipi. The third limb is about ESG. The mine already has a great track record in this area. Jupiter has been doing a better job in the last few years as part of this strategy and reporting that and focusing together with mine operations on things that grow value financially and grow value from an ESG perspective. Putting in solar and battery solutions at Tshipi are a good example of that. We also have an exciting upside opportunity at Tshipi and at Jupiter to position for optionality around producing battery-grade manganese. We already produce at Tshipi a grade of manganese that's ideally suited to beneficiation into battery-grade manganese.
It's suboptimal through the steel cycle. We have an excess of that material already sitting on the stockpile. Jupiter is entitled to half of that material as part of our marketing agreement. Jupiter is doing the work on positioning ourselves based on that set of facts to be a leading supplier of battery-grade manganese in the future. That's part of our strategy as well. Just an update on what's going on with manganese prices at the moment before I give a summary of our value proposition and where we're up to. Supply has been driving manganese prices for the last few years. Chinese demand is sideways. This is really a steel story. If you're familiar with iron ore demand drivers, you're familiar with what's going on with manganese as well. That's fine for Tshipi because we're a low-cost producer.
Even when you have a market like we've been in for the last few years, we're still making good money and paying dividends. That's a nice place to be. There is support for the manganese price right now. It's sitting at around average levels, but it's increased over the last couple of months. That's partly because, as you can see on that bottom graph, stocks of manganese ore at port in China are still quite low. They're 26% below average levels for the last four years. Rounding out on our investment value proposition for investors in Jupiter, there's really three elements, as I've highlighted earlier in the presentation. The first one is a commitment to the dividend policy that has been unchanged since the time of our listing, that has been underpinning the dividends that we've paid to date, and has resulted in that really impressive dividend track record.
We've paid an average 12% yield since listing against an ASX 200 average of 5%. The mine has no debt. It's stable. You've seen the costs. We beat and achieved our record production and sales this year. The stability of the mine and the stability of our costs has supported the dividend track record. That's a commitment to continue that looking forward. There's an obvious upside that I'll show you in a moment by virtue of the strong correlation between the Jupiter share price and the manganese price. The manganese price, mostly recently for supply disruption reasons, can be volatile. The Jupiter share price provides that upside as well. There's an obvious play there. If you're at average prices or below, and we're at that situation at the moment, investing in Jupiter provides upside to that manganese price.
There was a period last year where there was a supply side disruption. The Jupiter share price doubled in that period of time. That's part of the opportunity to investors as well. Finally, the growth strategy that I just mentioned a few slides ago provides opportunities for investors to grow value through investment in Jupiter, in addition to those first two limbs. This slide just provides you a summary that I think I've labored enough in relation to Tshipi's strong track record and Jupiter's strong track record in paying dividends, low cost, stable sales, low costs at Jupiter. We fund our corporate costs through our marketing activities. That provides us the ability often to pay 100% or sometimes more than 100% of the dividends that we receive from Tshipi out to Jupiter shareholders.
This chart here shows you the correlation that I mentioned a moment ago, the correlation between the Jupiter share price and the manganese price. Manganese price goes up, as it has done right through that historical four or five years or so. Jupiter share price does likewise. This obviously provides a fairly no-brainer opportunity to invest around the times when manganese prices are at average levels or low and wait for something to happen. That could be around demand drivers. We think that'll be the case longer term, or if anything pans through in terms of Chinese stimulus. In the meantime, all of the peaks you can see there have been around supply side disruptions. There are five manganese mines in the world that make up 44% of the world's manganese supply. Ours is one of them.
If there's any issue in the interruption of supply from one of those manganese mines, it immediately goes to price. Pretty much all of those spikes you can see there have been related to some sort of supply side disruption. There was an important recent development which is really supportive of and complementary to our growth strategy. That was a little under three months ago, a large South African company called Exxaro , who are one of South Africa's 50 largest companies listed on the JSE. They've been focused on coal production and are a significant player in that space.
They're now looking at diversifying into other minerals. Exxaro has agreed to buy the other 50% of the mine that we don't own, as well as 20% of Jupiter at the completion of the transaction at a price of $0.32 per Jupiter share, compared to our price today of $0.21 per Jupiter share. Exxaro is coming into this situation with a strategy aligned to Jupiter's own. We're very supportive of and excited by this development because we see it as being one where we can collaborate with Exxaro to generate value around further consolidation. That's something that they have as part of their own strategy and is obviously central to the Jupiter shareholder value strategy I showed you a moment ago as well.
In summary, we have here a situation where we've got a fantastic mine that's up and running, that's stable, that really has the runs on the board, both in terms of sales, costs, and ultimately cash flow and dividends. That's supported Jupiter as the major shareholder in that mine to be a great dividend payer to our own shareholders. We've got another dividend due to be declared at the end of this month. There's manganese price upside here as well. That's part of the story that I don't think people necessarily pick up. It's a pretty obvious one given the complete look through, no debt, low cost, positive cash generation, stable sales. That means the manganese price is pretty much the sole driver of upside here. We do make money and we do pay dividends at the bottom end of the cycle.
When the price increases, as I've just shown you, it has fairly regularly. Our price goes up as well. That's something to be aware of. Finally, we've got a strategy here that we're embarked upon that we're delivering against today. There's been a recent development that we think really underpins the execution of the consolidation part of that strategy. That was Exxaro coming in as a co-investor and also as the new major investor at Jupiter , priced at a premium to our share price today. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks.
Thank you very much.