Good morning, and welcome to the Perseus Mining investor webinar and conference call for its December 2021 half year report. All attendees are in a listen only mode. If you would like to ask a question, please enter it into the Q&A panel within Zoom. I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and CEO, Jeff Quartermaine. Thank you, Geoff.
Thank you, Nathan, and welcome to Perseus Mining's webinar to discuss our financial results for the six months ending 31 December. Today I'm joined on this call by Perseus's Chief Financial Officer, Lee-Anne de Bruin, who in a moment I will invite to take you through the details of the very solid results that were released to the market earlier today. Before handing to Lee-Anne, though, may I just say a few words about the December 2021 half year from a corporate perspective to give you some context to the results that Lee-Anne will present. Now, during the six months to December 31, our company, Perseus, has performed very strongly in both an operational and financial sense, and has also delivered positive drilling results from our exploration programs designed to generate organic growth.
In terms of inorganic growth, our teams have also been active evaluating opportunities with the aim of boosting future growth prospects. Now, in doing all of this, Perseus is now well-positioned to drive to the next level in our quest to become a reliable, profitable and geopolitically diversified mid-tier gold company. Now in terms of market guidance, in July 2021, we forecast production of 225,000-255,000 ounces at an all-in site cost of $925-$1,025 for the December half year. In fact, as previously reported, we produced 241,164 ounces for the half year at an all-in site cost of $949 per ounce US.
Now that was in the upper half of the guidance range for production and well into the lower half for cost guidance. Now during the half year, two of our three mines, namely Yaouré and Sissingué in Côte d'Ivoire, performed exceptionally well relative to their guidance and in the process exceeded most of our internal, technical KPIs such as runtime, throughput rate, recovery, head grade, etc. Our third mine, Edikan in Ghana, was challenged by lower than expected grades, but given that we now have multiple mines in the portfolio, the impact of Edikan's performance didn't detract too much from the overall performance of the group. We did, after all, establish a new production record by increasing our production by 26% half year on half year. Once again, Perseus has done what we said we would do, and then some.
We are on course to achieve our stated aim of producing around 500,000 ounces, 500,000 ounces or more of gold a year at a margin of in excess of $400 per ounce from FY 2022 onwards. In fact, on an annualized basis, we achieved this production rate in the December quarter. Now looking to the future, our market guidance for the next six months has us producing 230,000-265,000 ounces at an all-in cost of $915-$1,085 per ounce. I'm pleased to say that after one and a half months of the new half year, we are tracking very well against that forecast. Without further ado, let me now pass to Lee-Anne to take you through the half year financial performance.
When Lee-Anne is done, we'll both be available to answer any questions that you may have either on today's announcement or anything else about the company. Lee-Anne, could you please pick it up from here? Thank you.
Hi, everybody, thanks, Jeff. It's obviously a great pleasure as the CFO to be able to talk to the incredible financial performance of the Perseus group for the six months ended December 2021. These kind of results are largely attributable to the culture of teamwork that resonates at Perseus, and I would be remiss not to thank our Chief Operating Officer and the operational teams in West Africa who have worked tirelessly at our three operations to deliver this outstanding performance, strongly supported by our Perth and Abidjan offices and our business growth team who have been very busy under our GM Business Growth. I've put the normal cautionary statements out there for everyone to read.
If we just focus on our strong performance against key financial metrics, it's through these immense efforts of all of our people, we were able to deliver the strong performance across all these areas for the six months. Namely, we delivered a 90% increase in our revenue, delivering AUD 546 million. Our profit after tax was up 159% at AUD 126.9 million. Sorry, I'm on the wrong slide about that. Just fix that up. Our operating cash flow was an immense AUD 254.9 million, and this was just a 137% increase on the H1 2020. Our net tangible asset position increased 20% to over AUD one billion.
Our board has supported the declaration of an interim dividend of AUD 0.081 per share, in line with our recently announced dividend policy. Taking a deeper focus on each of these key financial metrics, earnings metrics. The revenue, as I said, increased to $546 million, and this was compared to December 2020. The uplift is obviously largely attributable to the inclusion of the Yaouré Gold Mine for the full six months since the declaration of commercial production in April 2021.
This incredible increase in revenue increased our EBITDA by 101%, and this was also not without a strong focus on our cost management at all three of our sites, despite an ongoing COVID-impacted environment. The profit after tax of AUD 126.9 million was after bringing into account AUD 99 million of depreciation and amortization charge, which was up 118% on FY 2020 due to the inclusion of the Yaouré assets and its associated depreciation and amortization charges for the six months. There was also an exchange loss of AUD 7.7 million, corporate and admin costs of AUD 8.5 million, and finance costs on our debt facilities of AUD 5.4 million.
Our tax reduced slightly due to Edikan's performance in the half year, and obviously our Yaouré and Sissingué operations are both still in tax holidays. This all culminated in an incredible basic earnings per share growth of 202% to AUD 0.0908 per share. Our increase in earnings per ounce by 38% through the contribution of the lower cost profile of the newly introduced Yaouré Gold Mine into our portfolio. Turning to our cash flow. The cash flow from operating activities for the six months was AUD 245.9 million, up an immense 137 on the comparative period. This strong cash flow allowed Perseus to early pay down its debt by a further $50 million, considerable investment in business growth, exploration and evaluation activities.
As you'd all be aware, paying a capital reduction of AUD 18.2 million in December 2021 to its shareholders. Importantly as well, the operating cash flow per share was up 132% to 0.2004 AUD per share. Overall, a considerably great performance in the growth and cash flow area for the business. Shifting our focus to our balance sheet, the growth in the operating cash flow has positioned Perseus well going into 2022, with a net cash position of AUD 223 million, which is comprising cash and bullion of AUD 292 million and total interest-bearing liabilities of an equivalent AUD 69 million.
The balance sheet now has a strong total asset position of AUD 1.5 billion, with net tangible assets sitting at AUD one billion. Jeff has mentioned, Perseus produced 241,164 ounces for the six months ended December 2021, with the portfolio diversifying further now that Yaouré is fully operational. Our guidance for the financial year 2022, as previously published in our December 2021 quarterly, remains to deliver between 471,000-506,000 ounces at an all-in site cost of $932-$1,020 per ounce. H2 will no doubt be another exciting period for Perseus, where performance will benefit from the contribution of our third operating mine and obviously significant reduction in capital expenditure now that Yaouré is up and humming.
Perseus will continue to remain focused on the continued building of a strong balance sheet through financial discipline. As communicated via our dividend policy in FY 2022, Perseus aims to reward its shareholders through its dividend policy while maintaining the focus, as always, on a balanced capital structure and ensuring funds are available to meet our corporate growth aspirations. Our dividend policy, as we've stated, intends to make semi-annual dividend payments representing cumulatively at least a 1% annual dividend per share. We obviously, as everyone's aware, declared the maiden dividend in the form of a capital reduction in August 2021, and further distributions will be considered in excess of this 1% annual yield.
With that policy in mind, we are also then pleased to announce this morning that the board supported the payment of an interim dividend in line with the 1% annual yield, with further dividends to be declared or to be considered in FY 2022 based on the financial performance and corporate growth aspiration requirements. As the CFO, I can say this has all in all been a fantastic six months for Perseus, and we're all very excited as a team to see what the next six months and beyond will deliver. Thanks everyone for listening, and I'm now gonna hand over back to Geoff and possibly some questions from everybody.
Okay. Well, thanks, Lee-Anne. You can tell that the team's obviously enthused by the results. As I said earlier on, what we have done through this six-month period is lock ourselves into a position where we're generating our production in line with expectations. We're keeping a lid on costs in a fairly challenging environment. In fact, our cost base is coming down. We're paying our debts down, so managing the balance sheet. We're returning capital to shareholders in the form of dividends, and we're working at delivering future growth for the company. All of the things that we have set out to do over the last several years, we are now doing.
It is a fairly exciting position to be in, and we believe that from here we can move to the next stage. We're looking forward very much to delivering further results to you in coming periods. Thanks very much for your attendance today. Very happy to take any questions that you may have, as I say, either on the detail of the financial report, which I'll ask Lee-Anne to pick up or alternatively on questions on the broader strategy or positioning of the company, I'll deal with those. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Your first question comes from Patrick Collier at Credit Suisse. He's giving his congratulations on the result, and then he's asked, with regards to maintaining half a million ounces to the end of the decade, can you talk about what's required from each of these assets to achieve this, and to what extent inorganic growth is factored into that aspiration?
Okay. Well, what's required from the operations as they stand today is they need to keep performing in line with expectations. Fairly straightforward. In terms of organic growth, we are drilling around all three sites at Yaouré, Edikan and in the Sissingué area. We're achieving significant success at each of those sites as we have documented in releases to the market over the last month or so. We do expect to bring out an updated resource reserve statement following the end of the financial year, so in the September quarter. I believe that what that will indicate is that not only have we replaced the ore that we've processed this year across the group, but we'll substantially add to that position.
Of course, that helps us to maintain that level out towards the end of the decade, which is what we're aspiring to do. In terms of inorganic growth, though, that the results of inorganic growth, such as they are not factored into any of our expectations at this particular time. We did announce a small foothold position in a company recently, but, you know, that isn't built into our forecast at this particular time. Should we do that M&A, then, you know, that would clearly be an addition to the aspirations that we've stated already.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Kate at Citigroup. Citibank, sorry. She's also congratulated Perseus on the result, and then she's asked: Is there an update on discussions with Orca regarding a larger transaction playing out?
No, is the short answer. There is no update on that.
Okay. No problem. There's no further questions at this time, so I'll now hand back to Jeff for closing remarks.
Okay. Well, thanks, Nathan. Well, yes, as you said, it is a solid result and we are looking forward to what is coming down the turnpike and we believe that the future is extremely strong. We're looking forward to delivering you further good news as we go forward. Thanks very much for your participation today.