Welcome to the Resolute Mining Limited Half Year Financial Results Conference Call for the period ended 30th June 2021. Throughout the presentation, I would like to remind attendees there is an option to submit written questions via the Q and A tab in the top right of your screen. I will now hand over the conference to Mr. Stuart Gale, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, Ollie, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Resolute's half year financial results call. We released on both the ASX and LSE presentation, which you can hopefully see in front of you today and from which I'll draw on a few charts. We've obviously also had a number of releases out over the last month or so, specifically our quarterly operations update, where we specifically spoke about some of the key operations and issues that have been going on. We obviously also had an impairment note, which was released pre these financial results, which came out about a week ago, and also really pleasingly, we provided an exploration update, which had some, I think everyone will agree, some really good results from an exploration perspective at both the Tabakoroni underground area and also in the northern area specifically around some oxide potential at Syama North, but the focus today is obviously on our financial results and some of the key initiatives that we've been undertaking over the last little period of time.
I think it's probably fair to say that this last 6 months has seen a lot of pretty significant changes across our operations, and there's been none more so really than the people side of things at Resolute, where we've seen a change in our Board. Peter Sullivan has retired from the board after a good period of time as a non executive director and also as a CEO of Resolute, which he started back in the very early 2000s. Adrian Reynolds has come on board and he brings a great geological experience and experience with a lot of African gold miners, including Randgold and including spending some time working at Syama. But we've also had changes at the executive level. Obviously, the CEO, COO and CFO are all new folks.
And probably most importantly, though, we've had changes of our senior management at site. And a lot of those changes have been brought about by requiring to think about our operations in a different way. I'll specifically identify Terry Ullaha, who was on the call at the quarter, but Terry's not based in Perth. He's based in Central Europe. He gets down to site on a very regular basis a lot more easily than what we can.
And I think as we brought some of those other key people on, for instance, a new GM of technical services who's based in South Africa, a new group at Allegis who's based in South Africa, we obviously had a number of key general manager positions that have come into the sites that we've spoken about previously. It's brought a new approach and a new focus to our operations, and I think with some of that, a renewed enthusiasm for just identifying and fixing some of the challenging issues that we've had over the last little period of time. And I guess with that, we're starting to see some positive results across all of our operations. They haven't quite translated into gold produced just yet, but we certainly, that's what the focus is, and we're expecting that as we continue to get little wins across the board, and that's going to help us to deliver an improved gold production, therefore, improved cash flows. But specifically, some of the green shoots that we've seen coming from the operations have really been reflected, I guess, in the June quarter at Syama, where we saw the underground mining at record levels.
We also saw processing throughput at our oxide and sulphide plants at record levels. And likewise, our roaster throughput was also at its highest level. So, we're seeing some of those initiatives that we've been working on for a while and just people's focus really lift up and we're starting to see that translate into performance across the board. The thing that just held us back during the last, I guess, the last half really were our gold grades. They're a little bit lower than what we expected, a little bit lower than what our reserve would indicate, but we're expecting that this is a short term issue that will sort itself out fairly quickly, and we're not expecting any life of mine impacts to those grades.
I should say that Mako has just continued to deliver in line with all of its targets. And we couldn't be more pleased with the way that things are going at Baco. It's been a terrific acquisition. It's generating good cash flows and it's doing really well in terms of its cutback to extend its mine life. From a corporate perspective, we're also hoping pretty busy during this last 6 month period.
Obviously, we're really pleased that we will have been able to take $30,000,000 from our gross debt during the course of the period. Debt is very clearly one of our top priorities, and we really, really want to bring that down as rapidly as we can. So that's what a key focus is for free cash flows, And we'll go into that in a little bit more detail when we get to the balance sheet. The other key thing was BVI. It presented us with a few challenges early on in 2021.
It's great that we were able to overcome those challenges and it was really pleasing to see the culmination of the SAIL transaction with Assante about a month ago now. So, you know, we've now completed that transaction. We've received $30,000,000 The asset is now in Assante's hands. They're taking full responsibility for that. And we will, as part of the consideration that we received, which is $90,000,000 there'll be $30,000,000 which is paid in 6 months' time and then $30,000,000 paid in 12 months' time and that's unconditional.
So why don't we just scroll through the presentation? I guess at a high level, we generated revenue of $261,000,000 from gold sales of about 151 1,000 ounces. Pleasingly, our average price received was $1723 Our hedge book has improved markedly over the last 12 months. So we're heading in the right direction in terms of that hedge book, although I do note that we have to maintain 170,000 ounces of hedges. Gold production was 163,000 ounces, so we build a little bit of gold inventory.
And obviously, there's just a little bit of timing differences that's rolled out. EBITDA was 78,000,000, operating cash flow, 69,000,000. And after taking into account some non cash impairments and provisions for taxes, we ultimately generated a net loss after tax, but, you know, there's a good chunk of non cash that sits within there. So, we'll talk about that in a second as well. I won't spend too long on this slide.
It's just really the key takeaway from here is that we're seeing the improvement at the Syama Underground operations. We know that Mako production was down in this half to 63,000, 63,500 ounces, and that's really reflective of the status of them undertaking the cutback and processing some lower grade material as they're undertaking that cutback. Brading margins were sitting at around about 30%, so there's the EBITDA at $77,000,000 $78,000,000 and I'll just pause on this because I think it's important that we just run through the depreciation and amortization of some of those non cash charges. As we look at it, D and A was down significantly relative to the comparable period last year, and that's really reflective of the extension of the mine life at Mako and also the fact that our production is a little bit lower. Well, I should also note that the comparable period in 2020 includes the Ravenswood numbers.
So if we remember, we sold Ravenswood, effective at the end of March last year, but these numbers haven't been adjusted to remove Ravenswood. So anyway, D and A, you know, that's probably a reasonable run rate as we look at that moving forwards. Obviously, it is production dependent though. Net interest and finance costs, really there, we're seeing the benefit of the refinancing, which was done in March 2020. So, you know, we took out some more restrictive higher cost project finance type debt and put in place some syndicated facilities, which obviously at a much lower interest rate and cost to us.
So that's really been reflected through there, reflected through there. So, fair value movements and unrealised treasury transactions, pretty significant charge to the profit and loss account, but it is a non cash item. So, it's basically $26,000,000 of foreign exchange adjustments on intercompany loans that are reflected in either Aussie dollars or West African francs. So, when you start converting things into US dollars, when the US dollar has been a bit weaker, you have that loss that's flowing through on a non cash basis. Included in there as well, we've got some net realisable value adjustments.
Again, a non cash thing that we have to have as we're continuing to revalue some pretty significant stockpiles. Impairment expense, you know, we obviously put an announcement out about the impairment expense last week. Really, that impairment expenses is reflecting a couple of changes in key assumptions when it comes time for an accounting, from an accounting perspective to review our models, obviously, Syama, and that impairment has arisen as a result of a change in those assumptions around the long term gold price in particular, an increase in the discount rate that we've used to reflect an increase in the risk free rate. We've also held our operating costs constant. So, throughout the period, we've just looked at operating costs as they are at the moment and haven't reflected any improvements for volumes or just cost savings initiatives that we think we'll be able to achieve.
That's very much accounting driven. So, they're really the key things that impacted that $172 odd,000,000 charge that's flowed through there. Again, it's a non cash item. The other key point there is that we've got $28,000,000 or so worth of taxes and provisions that have hit the accounts. 10,000,000 of that relates to the reversal of a deferred tax asset, again, non cash.
It's just something that's been sitting around there, recognized a tax loss a few years back, and we've removed that. And then we've made some provisions for acquisition and disposal transactions that occurred several years ago and which have come under scrutiny by the various tax jurisdictions. So, they're really the key components that make up those tax expenses. Cash flow analysis, we've rolled this chart out now for certainly the last few quarters and I think gives a pretty good understanding of what's actually going on from a cash flow perspective. Really just highlight a couple of things.
Royalties is sitting at $6,200,000 for the half. That ultimately reflects the fact that we've been offsetting our other taxes and royalties at Syama against VAT that we have receivable from the Malian government. So, yeah, that is not our actual royalty expense, but we've actually that's what we've actually paid because we've been offsetting those announced against the VAT credits. The VAT and taxes effectively reflect the Mali VAT tax that we pay on every single invoice. So, again, that's why we want to offset our royalties against that.
There's some small taxes as well that flow through there. Exploration and capex takes into account our sustaining project, sustaining a project CapEx and also exploration. Exploration was probably about $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 over the period. And then we've seen the results of that in the exploration update that we've recently published. Importantly, we had debt repayments of $30 odd,000,000 20 of that was a voluntary repayment on our revolving credit facility.
And we're going to look at how we can continue to capitalise on available free cash flow by utilising that RCF. You'll note the bullion balance went up and relative to the prior period. And as I said, that just reflects a portion of unsold bullion that we had at the end of the year, just a tiny thing, nothing more than that. A quick snapshot on the balance sheet. As I said, we've repaid 20,000,000 of that revolving credit facility.
So, we've got a total RCF of 150. It currently sits at 130. We've got another $150,000,000 worth of term loan that amortise every 6 months. And the first amortisation starts at the end of September. And we're obviously, you know, we don't, not looking at having any issues at all in paying that, so there's no issues there.
The gold hedge book is summarised in the top table, and pleasingly, as I said, that's improved significantly over the last little period of time. So, forward contracts averaging out at $17.21 and we still have a few zero cost collars that are in place, although they're less appealing at this point in time. We'll touch on it in a little while, but we do have a bit of balance sheet upside when it comes to Bibiani and Ravenswood. Really important, I think, that we just also focus a little bit on some of the key initiatives that we've been working on for a while now and that are just starting to come into play. So, you know, importantly, these are all production focused and a number of these initiatives relate to Syama that can just as easily be rolled out to Mako over the longer term.
But, you know, specifically, those commonalities lie in management operating systems and making sure that we've got good systems and process in place for our people to follow. And it may it takes pressure off things and keeps a constant operating vibe through our systems. The Onstream analyzer is a tool that we've been working on implementing now for a while and, again, just gives us better control and understanding of what's going into the roaster. We're in the process of reinstalling some cleaner cells in Syama, which again should just give us improved sulfur management through the roaster system. At Mako, we're installing a mill slicer just to increase the throughput through the bore mill.
So, those sorts of things will give little increments in terms of our overall productivity, and that's all that's important that we'll continue to focus on a number of initiatives. And we also have a number of initiatives that that are smaller and are not reflected here. Projects, the power station, at Syama is now up and running, which is fantastic. So, it's been fully commissioned. Power is consistent, and we're using less fuel than what we'd expected there.
So, well, sorry, less The fuel is less than what we were using previously when we were using 20 odd diesel generators. It's in line with our expectations. An important one as well that we haven't really spoken about very much is the conversion of a number of our contractors to employees, specifically at Syama. It makes our overall operations a little more smooth and should have some cash flow and longer term productivity improvements that can flow through there as well. So that's been something that's been keeping the team fairly busy as you would expect when you have a transition of workforce at any particular point in time.
But look, it's really around that whole people system process focus, and as I said, we're starting to see some of those benefits flow through at Syama and also Mako for that matter. Just touching on Syama, look, I'm sure we all know Syama has, really does have a significant gold endowment, it's got significant resources and reserves, and should be rolling it about $1,000 an ounce in terms of an all in sustaining cost across the life of the mine. We had some great exploration results, which are a little further on in the slide pack, but really do show that that mineral resource will be increasing over the longer period at Syama. At Mako, it was a terrific acquisition. It's a high margin, good cash flow generating asset, and whilst we have 6 years left at NACCO, the important thing is when we look at this slide is that we have a number of those JVs that are near mine that will start our exploration programs up on in the very near future.
So, you know, key for us is to be able to extend that mine life beyond 6 years, and we think that we'll have some opportunities as we get into some of those newer areas and those JV areas. Obviously, at Syama, as I noted before, we had some great exploration results, a couple of which are noted here, but really, our focus is to make sure that we capitalise on our oxide legacy at Syama and get as much of that as possible because it's important to make sure we do that to extend the timeframe around taking Tabakoroni underground. The Tabakoroni results are also fantastic, and we continue to drill there, and we're expecting to see a pretty good increase in the resource at Tabakoroni as we get into that, well, as we prove that up and put it out to the market later this year. A little bit of regional exploration activity is also underway through Guinea, but it's really early stages, although Guinea is a pretty hot area at the moment. Our strategic investments have been maintained through the course of the half, so, you know, Orca, Turaco, formerly Mannes, Oclo and Longcore, you know, we keep a really close eye on what those companies and the management teams are doing there, so we're pleased with those investments, and I guess we can, it gives us a little bit of optionality as we look forwards.
Really quickly again, Bibiani touched on that earlier, but $90,000,000 of proceeds unconditional, and we received the balance, which is $60,000,000 in 6 months 12 months. Ravenswood, I think this probably slips under people's radars a little bit, but we have 250,000,000 Aussie dollars that remains outstanding on the Ravenswood transaction. So 50,000,000 of that's a promissory note. It comes payable in 2024. There's only a 6% interest at the moment.
We have a gold price promissory note, which is contingent on gold prices staying above a certain level. They're well and truly above that level, together with a production requirement. And then there's another $150,000,000 that is determined based on the liquidity, a liquidity event with DMR and Ravenswood. So, you know, I guess call it a sale, if you like. But we share any upside associated with that.
So I think that's something that people just forget about, and these things are full due effective from March 2024. Obviously, sustainability, that's a good picture at Mako, but we are really focused on that. Sustainability report came out at the start of this year, and really, all of that's governed by the World Gold Council's Responsible Gold Mining Principles. So, that's something that we're measuring ourselves against and will be continuing to report on. We're well and truly down the track in terms of delivering on those obligations.
Quick update on guidance. Guidance revised earlier in the year to reflect the 1st 6 months' worth of production, some of those grade issues that we just briefly discussed, but that's the revised position as we sit there looking at between 350,340,000 ounces for 2021. So look, I'll wrap it up now and move back to questions. But really, there's been a lot of investment in Resolute over the last period of time, in particular around Syama, but also the acquisition of Mako. We think we're very well positioned to capitalise on that, but we do recognise that it's important to ensure that we've got the right people and that those people are equipped with the right system and process to reliably deliver day in, day out.
So, that's the really important focus from everyone at Resolute. From that, cash flows will flow and we'll apply that and be disciplined with those cash flows to the balance sheet. So, we're also very conscious that we are an exploration company and the best exploration that we can do just at the moment is continue to understand exactly what we've got around Syama. It is a big greenstone belt, 80 odd kilometres that we've got in terms of strike length. So, we've still got quite a lot of drilling to do there.
So, I think with that, Ollie, why don't we have a look at the questions? Just bear with me here and see what we have.
We would like to remind attendees, should they have any questions for Stuart, please type them using the Q and A tab in the top right hand of your screen.
Well, I think, team, with that, very, very happy to take anyone's questions. Should they have them, please feel free to reach out to us at any stage. This one just popped up, and the question is, does the impairment at Syama have any impact on the DNA outlook for the mine? And so the answer to that is, you know, what we do with the impairment is we allocate that across all of our assets, and the allocation of that, you know, dollars 170 odd 1,000,000 to all of our assets obviously will reduce some of the carrying value, so yes, there will be an impact. We need to do that allocation, but I'm not suggesting it would be significant because the majority will really go to the mined properties, which are not depreciable, but we can back to you with a little bit more detail on that.
The operations at Syama in July August, how are we going? Been really wet actually at Syama for both July August, so we're obviously into the wet season and it's a normal wet season, well it's a bit worse than normal wet season we think, but we're running along broadly on track with our expectations and we're probably running fractionally behind as a result of it being a bit abnormal, but we'll be looking to get back on track. So look, thanks for those couple of questions. As I said, you're very happy to have a chat with anyone at any point in time, maybe next week after the bank holiday. Please feel free to reach out to myself or James Virgo.
Hopefully, you've got our contact details. And look, with that, I'll probably conclude the call and say thanks again. I should also thank all of our teams for the support and effort over the last 6 months. It's certainly been a challenging period. COVID hasn't made our lives straightforward.
We're certainly, I think, getting better at managing that. And we've, you know, we have vaccinated over 1100 employees together with or in conjunction with the the Malian and Senegalese governments, and that's good for their welfare, good for the communities, but also good for business as well. So So that's moving along well. And I think, you know, we've got to think about things a little bit differently in this environment as well, and that's part of the whole change in location for some of our employees who, in particular, have a key skill sets that need to be bought to sites. Much easier for those skill sets not to be based in Australia, I have to say, because it's difficult to get in and out at the moment.
So we're starting to see the benefits of some of this focus, and I look forward to providing you all with an update again on how we're going after the next quarter. So, with that, I'll also thank you very much for organizing again, Oli and