First of all, I'd just extend my thanks on behalf of the Board and the team here at WAF to the site team who continue to do an excellent job and also to our international fly and fly out expats and their families who are continuing to put up with the situation certainly here in Australia, but also around the world where a number of them have to sit through hotel quarantine and return to their country of origin. So just quickly moving on to health and safety, we've had another good quarter with 7,000,000 hours works LTI free. So that's about 20 6 months LTI free on the project now. We've maintained continuous milling and mining operations during Q2.
And we're managing with the COVID pandemic on-site and in our supply chains and with international travel, but we're seeing significant disruptions with particularly our Australian fly fly out workers with limited seats returning back to Australia and often people being bumped from Perth to Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane. So we're dealing with that for the time being and hopefully with the Phase 4 rollout announcement recently that fully vaccinated travelers will be able to quarantine at home in the near future. We're kind of watching that very closely and hopefully that actually takes place. The ramp up with regards to production, the ramp up continued in Q2 with ounces up to 14% to just under 64,000 ounces. Costs decreased from US9.57 dollars an ounce to US9.28 dollars an ounce.
And we averaged just over $1800 an ounce in unithold sales. We're currently tracking well against our annual production plan and we remain on track to meet our production guidance of $250,000 to 280,000 ounces at US720 dollars to US800 dollars per ounce, all in sustaining costs. In the underground, mine ounces were up significantly on Q1. They're up 116% and ore tonnes increased by 66%. Ore grades were up as well, 10 grams versus about 7 grams in the previous quarter.
And we've now moved into the production cycle of continuous stoping and we'll be in that phase for the remainder of 2021. During the quarter, 855 meters of development was completed underground versus about 800 meters in the previous quarter. And at the end of the quarter, the decline was about 3 40 meters below surface. So, it's a really good work going on there. We've also finished developing Panel 2, which is obviously beneath Panel 1 and that's going to enable more continuous production from 2 underground oil panels.
On the underground ore panels. On the open pit, that was steady. Tonnes are down slightly on the previous quarter and great as well as we've been feeding in some lower grade oxide material as the plants got a bit harder with increased hard material coming from the underground. Processing, another good quarter from the processing team with ounces produced up 14% from about 740,000 ounces, blended heat grades come up to about 2.9 or just under 3 grams, which is up significantly from the previous quarter of 2.3 grams. And we're seeing that we've seen that quarter on quarter since last year with the increased proportion of higher growth from the underground.
Recovery is also steady at 94% with mill throughput in line with the previous quarter. On capital, we got a number of significant projects finished during Q2. We lifted the water storage dam, which was completed before the wet season. So lifted and mined that, increased capacity by 50% and that really derisks the future of price test water supply for the project. We've completed the or largely completed the aggregate crusher and cement batching plant for the backfill on the underground.
We took advantage of having a lot of extra gear on-site and accelerated the tailing storage facility. That work is largely finished now as well. And we're kind of expecting to have lower outstanding capital over the next two quarters. In financial and corporate, we finished the quarter with AUD61 1,000,000 cash on hand. We generated AUD62 1,000,000 from operating activities and we held about AUD24 1,000,000 in unsold 1,000,000 at the end of the quarter.
We made some significant payments during the quarter. Obviously, we repaid $51,000,000 in debt to tourists. We paid $19,000,000 in Burkina Faso, 2020 income tax and also made a $2,000,000 distribution to the government as part of the profit and the government being a 10% owner of our in country operating company, Sumesa. So over the sort of the quarter, notional net debt decreased by $19,000,000 to $57,000,000 So we're making very good progress in getting that debt down. We also completed some good work in the local communities as part of our environmental and social investment.
We saw several milestones achieved across this area, including improving our waste management on-site, starting work with some of the communities regarding Florida production for their cattle and for their animals that they're grazing in their local area. We've completed a greenhouse gas agreement, which allows us to align ourselves with quota principles, so we know exactly how much greenhouse gas emissions we're producing. We also finished off work on 1 of 3 schools that we've built in the area. We've provided solar power program solar power installation on another 5 schools. A lot of good work regarding local restoration, soil improvement programs, training programs for local women and also for some of the illegal former illegal artisanal miners in the region who have been receiving trade trading programs and tools.
So we've got to employ them and give them some new opportunities. Just on growth, we've been working hard on the Tuiga feasibility study during the quarter. We had almost finished the resource definition infill drilling program at the
end of
June. We look forward to releasing some of those results over the coming weeks. We've also we're also on track with our environmental and social studies and permitting for Tuwego, the for both the Tuwego mine area for the whole road back to San Brado. And we expect to submit those studies to the government in Q4 this year. Because we're in the middle of wet season, we've halted work on other exploration projects, but we will report results from the work that's been completed in the coming months when we get results in from the ore drilling programs.
So just moving on to what we're focused on for this quarter, obviously, delivering our mine plan and continuing to increase gold production further than 64,000 ounces last quarter and also reduce our costs further and continue on with the 2 acre feasibility study. Just on that, I'll just turn it over to Simon again to see if we've got any questions.
The first question is from Roger Fitzpatrick at Charlton Asset Management. Richard, can you please provide some detail on how the underground ramp up is progressing?
Okay. Thank you, Roger. Well, we've moved into a back to back scoping cycle now, which is where we've been wanting to get to for the last kind of 18 months. We've now got, I think, 7 levels developed and 2 main areas of stoping ore production, which is going to give us continuous stoping ore feed for the rest of this year. We set ourselves a target of hitting an average of 1,000 tonnes a day from the underground.
And the last 6 weeks, we've been exceeding that and that looks like it's going to continue for the rest of the year. So we're very pleased that we're finally into this more continuous stoping phase and we should see the benefit of continued grade improvement over the back half of the year. Great.
Thanks, Richard. Next question. How much does sustaining capital costs make up of the total costs and will this continue?
Well, go ahead. This is Patrick O'Donohue, our CFO, who's also here with me.
Hi. The sustaining capital makes up about US76 dollars per ounce of the all in sustaining cost. It's going to continue at lower levels on that. We're thinking about $40 or so or less per U. S.
Dollars per ounce going forward.
Great. Thank you. Next question is, how is Sanbrato's performance reconciling to the resource and reserve modeling? And have there been any significant variances to date since the start of production?
We're tracking very closely to reserves. Well, we have had some production from outside reserves, but early on when we first ramped up in the 1st 6 to 8 weeks, we had a negative reconciliation, but that was generally due to near surface artisanal activity, which and some of the bulk densities that we'd included in the resource work. But after the 1st sort of 6 or 8 weeks, it's corrected itself and we've kind of we've tracked up, we've tracked slightly down, but on average, we're tracking very closely to our reserves.
Great. Thanks, Richard. Next question is regarding the company's debt. Is it likely to be repaid in 2021?
Padraig, I'll pass this one back to you.
Our current modeling goal is to repay it in Q1 of 2022. But I guess if gold prices really did well and production came ahead, then we would look opportunities to pay it down early because we just want to get the interest put away and open up our optionality on our cash going forward.
Great. Thanks. Can you please comment on the security situation within Vakena?
Right. Well, the situation in Burkina has not improved in the last 4 or 5 years. There is a significant humanitarian crisis in Burkina. I think 1,500,000 people have been displaced from Southern Mali, Northern Burkina Faso and also from Niger. This is something that the Burkina government is dealing with and with their limited resources.
And since 2015, about 1500 people have also been killed on the border with Mali and Niger. So we continue to see unrest in that region and much of it's really due to the eastern 2 thirds of Mali being ungoverned. And it's a place where some Islamic insurgents are operating. So that's very unfortunate and something we're watching very closely. Coming into sort of the central part of Oakena where we're located, we don't see a lot of local issues regarding the security.
We are the biggest employer in our area and we've got very strong links with local groups and the local security forces in the arming of the police. So it's something we're monitoring. We obviously take precautions when we're moving our people around. And right now, for the foreseeable future, we believe we can operate safely in the country and also do our part to help improve the situation by being a large royalty and sort of royalty payer and tax payer to the Perkinah government.
Great. Thanks, Richard. Just on Tooegh, feasibility timing, is it still late calendar year 'twenty two? Any additional met test work required?
Right. So part of the drilling program that we've completed, the first thing we did was we completed a number of met holes and geotech holes. Both those selected bore samples are back in Perth being tested at the moment. We as I mentioned just in the description before the Q and A, We have completed most of the drilling for the resource work. There's only sort of 3 or 4 holes to go.
We have made really good progress with wet season sampling. So we've started all the aquatic sampling for permitting and also prior to that, we've been doing dry season sampling as well. That's that part of the feasibility study is lined up to be finished by Q4 and submitted to the government. So that's all part of the permitting process. So we would expect to get fully permitted towards the back end of 2022, which kind of lines up well with our original timeline.
Thanks, Richard. Can you please give an update on the progress of accessing the higher grade ore in the M1 South open pit?
We're accessing it. So that's the update really. It's the pits have gone well. So once we got down through the artisanal zones, which was pretty extensive at M1 South, part of the increase in grade that we're seeing, we've gone from 2.3 to 2.9 grams per tonne in the last quarter. Part of that increase is coming from M1 South open pit as well as the underground.
Perfect. Thanks. Dividends being considered post repayment of the Taurus debt?
Look, we will probably look we're going to look at our capital management program later this year and we'll take some advice on that. So we'll look at a range of options, but certainly paying dividends or buying back shares will be on the table. We need to pay Taurus back before we can implement those programs. So that's our focus right now is to pay back the debt as quickly as possible.
That concludes the Q and A segment. I might just hand it back to you for closing remarks.
Thanks, Simon. Look, thanks again. It was another good quarter of increased production and decreased costs, and we expect that to continue for the rest of the year, while we remain on track to meet our maiden guidance.
Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Richard, and thanks all for joining.