Project in South Africa. I'm delighted to introduce our speakers, Managing Director Rudi Deysel and Chairman Michael Quinert. Rudi and Michael are going to provide an update on recent key milestones and discuss how West Wits is positioning itself to deliver long-term value for shareholders. Just a reminder, shareholders' attendees are in listen-only mode. If you'd like to ask a question, please use the Q&A box in the Zoom app to type in your question. I'll hand over to Michael first, who will provide an update on recent funding, the DFS modeling update, and promotional activity before Rudi provides an update on pre-production activities occurring at site. Over to you, Michael.
Thanks, Andrew. I thought it was a timely opportunity to update. Just to recap first on where we've gone in the last three months, which has been extremely busy for the company. Some of the stuff sort of gets under the radar with investors because we can't announce everything every day, but I think it's useful to regroup and have a look at where we've come from and where we're going. The key milestones I think to focus on in the last three months is the first one I've got on my list, the June capital raise. That was pivotal for us, biggest capital raise we've done in about five years. Critical because it enabled us to actually increase our holding in the project at this really opportune time, back to 74%. That was a key use of funds out of the cap raise.
We had good support from a lot of existing shareholders and some new shareholders, particularly in Asia, that came into the company, which is the first time we've seen that sort of institutional participation in the company. Those people are still engaged. I've actually been up there since then, and we've actually got some good engagement going with those parties. It also enabled us to fund the DFS upgrade, which was important given the change in the gold price and other fundamentals in the two years since we'd done it. It enabled us to start mobilisation and pre-production works, which Rudi will talk about soon on the site, which is really exciting to see the site moving in that way. At the end of June, we signed the definitive banking documents.
It's a lot of work to do that, but I think that's again a key thing because it locks in in a legally binding sense the $50 million U.S. facility, which underpins our development program. In mid-July, I think we made it, from my perspective, it was a very important announcement, we elevated Rudi Deysel, who's on the call today, to Managing Director, which I was very happy to do. He's more than earned it and is more than proving his worth to us in doing that. He upped from CEO to the full board. We also appointed Keith Middleton, who's been a great supporter of the company for a few years. The updated DFS came out in late July, the last week of July. Just to recap, we had some fantastic results there.
Our peak funding requirement, we talk in terms of peak funding for the financing, was reduced by $10 million to $44 million. Our payback period from peak funding reduced to eight months, which was significant from where we were. The post-tax NPV raised to $500 million , up from about $367 million , which was significant. We had a total revenue increase up by over almost $1 billion t o $2.7 billion . Free cash flow, almost $1 billion , up from just a bit over $500 million . All that done with an all-in sustaining cost being contained at $1,299 over the life of the project and just under $1,200 for the steady-state production, which will now run for 70,000 ounces over 12 years. Very pleasing.
Basically, what the DFS has done is show that we can produce a lot more gold early on in the project and therefore really accelerate the value of the project and increase all the economic fundamentals to the project. That has been a very worthwhile process and was funded by the capital raising. From the day we finished the capital raising, I made it clear to the company and I had the support of the board that we would get back on our bike, so to speak, and start promoting the company, which we haven't done properly for a long time because we've been waiting for the banking documents to be signed and we've been waiting for the further funding. Just to give you an oversight of what we've been doing in the last two or three months on funding, it's been a flurry of activity.
We presented at the Gold Coast Investment Showcase where we met some great contacts and I think we got some good support out of that. We conducted a Hong Kong roadshow in July, which I conducted and revisited some of the funds that had come in in June, but also attracted, I think, some new potential interest there, which we're still engaged with. We went to Diggers & Dealers in West Australia and had some really meaningful discussions there, particularly with local brokers who became interested in the story. Off the back of that, we've organized a roadshow next week on the East Coast of Australia in Sydney and Melbourne, which Rudi is coming out for on the weekend. Rudi and I will be together on the road next week for basically five days in a row.
We've got, I'm told this afternoon, I haven't told Rudi yet, we've got a full book of meetings the whole way through and we've got two lunches we're doing for high net worth and family offices, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney. That's been very good and encouraging to see that local interest in the company because we've always struggled a little bit to get the Australian investors and bigger investors on board. I think that's a really good sign of what's happening there. Post that, the company's also next week represented at Africa Down Under in Perth, which we usually attend. We've got a Director there, Simon, our CFO, will be there. Also, Tozama, a jgovernment and regulatory stakeholder engagement person, is over there making the keynote address for us.
We're also booked to go, Rudi is leading the charge in Hong Kong next in September for the one-to-one conference, which we're already getting meeting requests for. I should have said September, not October. We're also attending in November the Noosa Gold Conference, which we've had trouble getting into and we've now been invited to go to that. We're going to the Noosa Conference, which I think will be a really valuable uplift for the company to present to that audience. We've also been invited to go to a Munich conference at the end of the year, which I think Rudi has arranged to go to with our Non-Executive Director, Warwick Grigor . I just wanted to also provide a little bit of an update on the funding, where we're at. Obviously, that's the question everyone asks quite a lot.
We've had recently, we've had a little bit of a fill-up to our cash bags because we've had a lot of people exercising options that were around for a few years off the back of some of those previous raises. I think we're almost at $1 million in the last week and a half of money exercised on options. That's been very encouraging to see that support and certainly to see the volumes and support in the market that enable those options and the shares to be traded. We're very happy with that. a .
If we can break through $0.04 and sustain that, there's potentially another $10 million - $12 million worth of option exercise money that could come through that option allotment that's about to happen. We're just in the process of finalizing a prospectus to enable that to happen. The big question though on the final funding, our funding amount moves around. We don't publicize a figure because it moves around and it also depends on how we fund it. We're in key discussions with a number of groups at the moment. It is advancing in line with our expectations and we're confident that in the near term we'll be able to give you some news on that. I can say people, you know, what I often say is, you know, people make a lot of assumptions. We need to be careful to make assumptions.
For example, there's many ways to fund a gold project and it's not all about just issuing equity and diluting the shareholders. We're doing our best to minimize dilution on you guys and make sure that we're doing it in the most effective way for you and the company to preserve value. I think just in that sense, you know, it's not like, you know, people, we've done some fundraising, we've done a lot of work recently. I just noted when I look back just to make the note, you know, when we did the fundraising in June, our market capitalization was sitting at around $69 million, $65 million, $70 million and today it's somewhere around $115 million. We've been able to do that fundraising and implement these plans while also building the value.
I think also the volumes going through the market you'll see are very encouraging in terms of the interest and the eyeballs that are on the stock. That's sort of my spiel, I suppose. We'll obviously get questions later. Rudi, I think what people would also like to know is if you can give us, you're on the ground in Johannesburg before you get on the plane and come out here with me next week, but you can give us an overview, an update of where we are on the ground in the pre-production works that you've been doing now with the funds that we raised in June.
Right, thanks Michael. Yeah, so it was quite a busy period the last few months. In the last week of June, start of July, we started mobilizing all the contractors to site. All these supply agreements are now fully executed.
Everybody is on board. The EPCM team also started mobilizing on site, which was the start of a big kickoff of a lot of activities happening at once. One of the big things was as well that we received our first LHD that will assist us with just preparing the site for full production. That arrived. We already started to open up the shaft again. We've put the power back on site and as well as the water so that we are fully functional. There are a lot of concurrent detailed design work that needs to happen, especially if we look at the grid power that we need to link up with sites so that we can achieve that 70,000 steady-state ounces per annum.
We've also been busy to prepare the roadway in the box cut, which is critical to carry vehicles up and down the decline over the life of mines. That work has already started this week after a period where they did the detailed design for that. The intention is to complete that before we go into production. In the decline itself, we are busy with a bit of siphoning work just to make sure that any possible bottlenecks for hauling off material are sorted out. That work is already going well and we're almost completed with that. Some of our production equipment has already been brought underground so that we can actually equip some of the first step, which is also a very exciting time for us to get into that all production very quickly. There's a lot of action happening currently.
We've also adjudicated a few contracts currently and steadily are following the employment profile according to the project program. We also have now a full senior team on board, which includes the Mine Manager, the Project Manager, as well as the Finance Manager, and our Engineering Managers. Those positions are already in place to ensure that all legal positions are covered as well as running this project. Great times, busy times, and the teams are extremely excited that they could start. We're also awaiting our first full suite, which we expect in the next month with the start of production. That's almost one of the bigger excitements. Thanks.
Excellent, thanks Rudi, thanks Michael. I think you certainly covered off on a lot of information there. Just a question that I had was when will those pre-production site works finish and when are you anticipating first production?
The intention was always to have a three-month mobilisation phase. The intention is to start producing as quick as the beginning of October. This is all dependent on our whole funding process and when it's completed, but it will still be in that vicinity.
Yeah, excellent. Now we've got a large number of people who are attending today's webinar. If you do want to ask a question, please just use the Q&A box down the bottom. Michael, you've talked about the promotional activity and talking to different funds in Australia and internationally. Just wondering, what has been the feedback and what would they like to see before some of the funds actually start to invest into West Wits?
It depends on the geographic region. I mean, in Asia, particularly Hong Kong and some in Singapore, they have invested and others are saying they will invest. I think we're quite advanced. In the U.K., we haven't got back there yet because, to be frank with you, they've been on holidays for six weeks and basically there's not one fund manager in London that's been at their desk. That's sort of been a bit slow. In Australia, I think of all the jurisdictions, we probably get the most, you know, sort of tentativeness in terms of investing, but we're working on that. It's good to see that in the next week in this roadshow in Australia, we have quite a few funds and brokers in that that have taken up the invitation.
I think with us, it's always like one of those situations, Andrew, if we get our foot in the door and get to talk to them, we get a lot further advanced and we get acceptance at more than otherwise you would expect because it's a really good project and because people are overemphasizing, you know, the Australian mindset in particular about the negativity on the jurisdiction is overblown. When you can actually put some facts in front of them and the objective data, which we have at our fingertips, you break through. If people are open-minded, some people aren't open-minded, they're simply, you know, closed to the idea. I think that's just a matter of knocking on more doors, which is what we're doing.
I noticed someone asked a question, I did see a question about should we get another consultant to start helping us improve the market cap of the company. We're doing that, you know, that's why we're doing the roadshows and the promotions. I think at the moment in the last three months or four months, West Wits would be probably the most active promotional company going around in terms of where we've attended and what we're doing. We're doing everything we can. To some extent, it is being reflected in the share price. Once we get the project fully funded and people can see it's seamlessly going into production and not stopping again, I think you'll see a lot more of those more conservative funds get on board because they can see it's completely de-risked.
Some of these guys, remember, are quite happy to invest at a higher value. They just want to make sure it's going to happen. They're more risk-averse.
Yeah, everyone's got their own risk profile. Are you able to provide a little bit of insight into the relationships that you've built over a long period of time in South Africa and how this is going to actually help during this pre-production phase and then once in production?
Yeah, I mean, I think Rudi can answer most of this, but I'll just say, because Rudi will talk about the contractors and the day-to-day community stuff. We have got, West Wits has been operating in South Africa and I've been operating there for over, it's almost 20 years for West Wits, but I've been going there for 20 years. We have a good range of people, both professional level, financial, and others. JSE, we meet regularly. We have a good sort of index or address book there of people we deal with and who help us. In terms of the actual project, Rudi, I think it's better that you talk about what you do, the people you're working with on the supplies and the contractors and so forth .
Yeah. Look, just to add to that, we're also part of the Minerals Council , which is an extremely huge, important, and positive thing for us. There's a lot of assistance in terms of how we deal with, for instance, government as well as legislation and, you know, all the other unions and that type of things, which is critical. That's a big assistance. They also assist quite a lot in terms of the industry way of looking at safety and all the operational type of things. That's a great, great advantage to be part of the Minerals Council of South Africa. Furthermore, you know, all our manufacturers are actually in South Africa, which is a great advantage for us in terms of turnaround lead times and, you know, managing your maintenance of your equipment and space and all of that.
I think all aspects in terms of how we deal with relationships and the relationships that we already have in place is great. It assists. If you just look at how successfully we could actually follow a project programme, it's purely because of basically the skill of the people and relationships we have with the stakeholders around us. Yeah.
Great. Just a question that's coming just in regards to any technical risks that could impact the project?
I think we need to understand underground mining always has risks. There are those like geological features, geotechnical type of risks that you deal with. I think all the upfront work that we've done for this project, we were able to de-risk a lot of those issues. We've got a lot of flexibility in our production plan. We've got multiple accesses to the ore body. From that point of view, you know, technical risks are very much minimized in terms of the mining side. In terms of infrastructure, we are lucky. We are in the middle of Johannesburg, which is totally different from a typical mining operation out in the bushes. We have access that's all been established around already to power, to water, to roads. All our suppliers are like 10 minutes away at least.
I mean, from a risk point of view, technical point of view, we are in a good space.
I could add to that as well, Andrew, that you know, it's a bit unusual for a small company like West Wits that we have had two banks go through a full due diligence on the project. To the extent that yes, there's recognized risks inherent in underground mining, but the way we've managed it and presented the mine plan, those technical reviews have concluded that Rudi's position is sound. You know, otherwise we wouldn't have a bank facility.
Yeah, excellent. A question just about some of the funding. Will the money spent on mobilisation reduce the peak funding amount needed?
It does. There's some of the money that we've raised and applied towards the pre-production site works will credit against what the equity requirement is.
Will the options from the latest cut raise, will they be listed?
That's a matter. The intention is to list them, Andrew. It's a good question, but the actual ultimate decision on whether options are listed is one the stock exchange makes, and it's dependent on spread. By the look of the applications, we believe they are eligible to list, but at the end of the day, we don't say in the prospectus they are listed because it's a matter for that. We have to issue the options, then we make the application for listing, and the ASX will make its decision. I'm pretty confident they will be listed.
Okay. Can the pathway to the 200,000 ounces per annum be part of presentations going forward?
You can talk about that, Rudi.
Absolutely. We've already done some benchmarking work to define the scope of that project, and we already have feet on the ground in discussions with parties around us and stakeholders around us to make that a reality. We need to kick off a pre-feasibility study to just define that scope or define that project, but most certainly, that must go forward. We intend to grow this company, and this is one of those strategic paths forward.
Yeah, I suppose the point though is well made that can we put more emphasis on in the presentations? It won't be in any more emphasis in the next one because it's already being printed. I take the point. I think Rudi, it probably needs to be a little bit more advanced on the technical side because otherwise it's just an aspirational target and we can't say a lot about it. Other than to say we think it's doable, we can't sort of start talking about feasibility and what we're going to do. I suppose we can map out the program of what we're going to do and plan to get there. We may give some, it's a good point and we'll give some thought to that.
Yeah. A question just around the mining. What are the potential risks facing narrow-vein mining and are there other narrow-vein mines operating in South Africa?
Yeah, South Africa are basically just narrow-reef mining. It's really, it's not really bay mining. We call it reefs because you're actually in a, the ore body is 1 m - 1.5 m thick, which has quite a consistent distribution of mineralization.
You can see it too, Rudi. There it is. You can see it.
Yeah.
That's the actual reef.
Yeah. Now, the one aspect is that it's quite difficult to mine it mechanized. Otherwise, we've done it a long time ago, especially, you know, all platinum and gold mines are mining like this. It's very labor intensive. We do have people in that, but we try to, or not try, we've got designs and new technology in this project to be, you know, to work on the safety side. Obviously, as well as efficiencies, you know, the fact that we actually use hydropower in our stopes, which is very much power sufficient, you know, in terms of advances of those faces or fronts. Hydropower's got a much bigger penetration rate. That's a big upside in the production side. We do total mechanized development for our infrastructure.
As much as we can and what the ore body allows us to do, we do mechanize and use technology to work against those risks that you do get in thin tube and tabular type of mining environments.
Excellent. Look, there's been a few questions that have come back about funding again. Maybe some people entered a little bit late into the webinar. Michael, could you just sort of reiterate again, just funding requirements, options, timelines, of which you're allowed to talk about?
Yeah, I'll step carefully. The point I made was that we have received almost $1 million in option exercises in the last 10 days because of the share price strength. That's been encouraging and helps us, you know, increase runway. We are about to issue, I think it's 325 million options that they exercise at $0.0385. There's some prospect in the next period if we get this thing going that they will be exercised at some point, providing up to another $10 million or $12 million. We're not relying on that. I'm just, that's a potential source of funds. We, you know, we are looking at, in terms of the key funding to get the project into its pathway of full production and development. We are well advanced on several initiatives there. Obviously, we have a priority set against those of which ones we're pursuing harder.
You know, we're making good progress. I'm asking people, as they have been to date, very patient, just be patient. We will get there, I believe. We'll, you know, have something to say hopefully in the near term. As I said, and I also said people shouldn't assume it's all equity and it's all dependent on equity. There's alternative ways to fund gold projects. I saw someone, Andrew, also asked about the prospecting right. That's easy to answer in the sense that it is still on the minister's desk or the department's desk. There's nothing wrong with it. It's been approved. I can only say to you that it's probably they're introducing a new cadastral system there and everything's held up waiting for that. The actual prospecting right will give the market, no doubt, a fill-up and it extends enormously our longer-term production, you know, opportunities.
It's not going to be something that comes into the mine straight away, but it will be pivotal to Project 200 that Rudi's outlined. We expect that to happen. There's no point in us really pushing and going to court and doing things on at the moment. They're just held up on everyone and it's not changing anything in terms of the next 6 to 12 months anyway.
Excellent. Rudi, you spoke earlier about the positions that have been filled. My question just came in about what level of interest has been with the jobs advertised. How would you describe the local support currently to roll out what is hoped to be achieved over the next six months?
Yeah, all the candidates that we got are top quality guys. We're able to have candidates that came from companies like Harmony Gold, Rio Tinto . It's really good to qualify a lot of these guys. I know personally I've worked with, which I trust, and that's important to be successful, you need to have people that you trust around you. We've got that team extremely strong in those areas. On the way forward, there's a lot of work done in terms of communications, communicating these positions because it's critical for us to fill those positions in time to follow all the activities that we do have because during a project development as well as producing ore, there's quite a few balls in the air. We do have an active on our website. All those positions are advertised as well as a lot of communication through social media.
We do utilise some of the professional guys to assist us in employing these guys. For the next six months, there will be a product growth in that in the labor force.
Andrew, just one other thing I want to pick up on. Rudi, someone asked you just a minute ago about the narrow vein mining, which you said it's really reef mining. I just want to remind people because it sometimes doesn't come up for a while. You know, Harmony Gold, one of the largest gold producers in Africa, is also very active in New Guinea, is actually producing next door to us now on the same structures, except that they're producing from stopes that are now 2,200 m deep. Effectively, Harmony Gold, if you're worried about the profile of this project, they've been mining for 25 years on what we're supposed to be doing right next door on the same extension of the same ore body. It's not like we're doing something new or something novel. We're just going to replicate what Harmony have been doing for 25 years.
They're coming to the end of their life because they're at 2,200 m depth. You know, we're not, we're at surface, we're at level two, I think Rudi, at 35 m depth. When people have concerns about that, I understand that. Just remember, and if you look at the Harmony website and it's releasing, I think it last year, I've got to get updated, but I think it's producing at a rate of about, it's certainly 100,000 ounces a year plus, they're still producing from those depths.
If I can just add to that, the mining method that we use is the standard mining method used in all of the platinum industry, in all of the gold industry. South Africa, till recently, were the biggest gold producers as well as platinum producers. It is very standard. We are just applying additional technology to modernize on this.
Right. Look, we've got time for one last question. Just how does uranium in the ore body impact the mining and sort of final product as well?
We have what's called National Nuclear Regulator certificates that waive any requirement for the Kimberley Reef. In relation to the other reef, the Bird Reef has some radioactive material that when we mine that, we need to comply with that. We have a certificate and license to do that. It's a good question, it's not, Rudi, I'll let you take over because it's a technical question, it's not something that's a problem, it is something that's regulated.
Yeah, it's regulated. We've got procedures for that, and all of that's been stated through that regulation of the National Nuclear Regulator. That's in place.
Excellent. I think it's about time to wrap up. If attendees, shareholders have further questions, you can always contact the company. Just one last comment from you both as we finish up and just to provide some key points that you're going to deliver next week on your roadshow.
The roadshow is part of the same. There's not one hit and miss on one or the other. We're building a brand here. We're building a platform. I've learned over the long term, as I'm sure you have, Andrew, you've been in the industry a long time. It's not done overnight. You have to hit the road and do this stuff progressively and build the brand and build the awareness. What I'm glad about though is, you know, we go into meetings now. We are very confident in our project. We have a good project to sell. We don't have to spruik. We don't have to promote, over-promote. We just have to tell the facts. I think that's resonating with people that listen to us. Once they get into the facts, the issue is getting in the door and getting the audience. That takes time.
I think you can see even in, as I said at the beginning of the webinar, it's only been three or four months that we've really been pushing again and promoting. We're seeing that reflected, I think, in the share price. We're doing more of that. We won't stop until we're there.
Absolutely. I think it's evident that we also get much more exposure now as well as locally. That puts the project more on the map, and we will utilise that and get that message out to the investors.
Excellent. Thank you everyone for attending today. We look forward to seeing all the progress that West Wits continues to make over that pre-production phase, and once they're into development. Thank you for your time.
Thanks, Andrew.
Great.
Thanks, Andrew.