Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today for this presentation of the African Rainbow Minerals results for the financial year ended 30 June 2024 . Please note this is a hybrid presentation, so we have people joining us online via webcast, and we also have people joining us in person. Thank you very much. For those online, please note that there is a question dialogue box that has been provided. So should you have any questions, please feel free to type into the dialogue box, and they will be read and answered as part of the Q&A session that we'll be having at the end of the presentation. At that time, we will also take questions from the floor. Without further ado, I would like to hand over to the ARM Executive Chairman, Dr. Patrice Motsepe, to take us through the results. Thank you.
What's forward? What's backwards?
Forward.
Okay. Forward, backwards. All right. Thank you. Now, I'll turn them off.
Okay.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Let me start by thanking everybody who's here. It's a great honor and a privilege to have you, and very particular thanks to our partners. I'm told the finance director from Assmang, where is he?
Yeah.
Oh, hey, so wonderful to see you. The women are usually better, smarter. That's what my mother said, and she was 100% correct. We are honored to have you. Pass my regards to Des and to Patrick and, we've got a partnership that we are deeply committed to and privileged to have. Thank you so much. And, all the other partners, Anglo Platinum, Impala, and, Glencore.
Glencore. Glencore as well. So you've got the... and of course, Bongani and Piet, our board members, thank you so much. And, and the management team from ARM, I'm so proud of the excellent work and the excellent leadership that Phillip is providing, and, it's during these times when the businesses that we're involved in are very cyclical and at times volatile, that you want to make sure that young men like Mike, like Mike Schmidt, our former CEO, you keep on to them and every other one of the management team that we have that's world-class. Any company is only as good as the quality of the management and the people we have the honor to work with. Thank you so much, Mike André , and the management team, everybody. Imran, where's Jacques? Imran, Jacques, Derek, excellent. Oh, and Kaizer and Marike as well, and Rolette. I can spend the next 30 minutes mentioning names, but thank you so much. You are the people who make this company a world-class company. Michelle, where's Busi? Busi, Busi. Okay. So this is gonna be a quick presentation. You've got the booklets. I'm just gonna highlight a few very important things, but the three points I want to start off with is to overemphasize. We've now been. We took over Evander, I think, more than 20 years ago, and before that, we started with ARM Gold, and we merged ARM Gold with Harmony.
I'm very proud of how Harmony has grown as the results, and we've continued to have a commitment, and it makes me happy when many of the shareholders over the last 20, I don't know, 22, 23 years since the merger, have emphasized that, not just the ARM shareholding, but the historic merger. When we merged ARM, ARM Gold and Harmony, they wanted to call it Harmony ARM Gold, and I said, "Don't do that. Just call it Harmony, and in the middle of Harmony, put ARM to show the historic link." And some of our shareholders were saying, what are we doing with the great share price and the copper in Harmony? I think in future, there will be a question mark whether in the context of the importance of copper long term.
You'll also see that we've been to Canada and are looking at opportunities there. But the bottom line is, tomorrow, the Springboks will be playing the All Blacks, and all of us know who's going to win, and at the end of the match, it is the results. I'm going to fetch a glass there.
Check here.
I don't want to. Because otherwise we, I'm worried Sue will say I'm expropriating a glass, and she'll say, "Compensation." We don't have time for. You're not going to expropriate it without compensation. So the point I was gonna raise is that, again, talking about the Springboks and the All Blacks, it's about results, results, results, results. You have to win. You've got to win. You've got to win. Shareholders buy ARM shares, and we've got a clear understanding. We've got to win. We've got to win. We've got to win. We've got to deliver good results. We've got to deliver good results. The critical thing is we're in a long-term business, and when the good times come, Derek, so good to see you, eh? Thanks for the great work. When the good. And Sue, thank you so much, yeah. Thank you so much for your leadership.
When the good times are with us, you know, you've got to invest in the future, save for the challenging times. The global market is going through a very challenging time right now. You know, Africa is in China. They've been looking at China, discussions in China. China is going through a difficult period. It has an impact, not just on the commodities, that we produce and sell, but also on the prices of the commodities. And, so you will see from the results that headline earnings, dividends, and various other indicators in line with mining companies all over the world, have gone down.
But for us, you know, I said this 25 years ago and 20 years ago, 15 years ago, and I'll say it for as long as I'm Executive Chairman of African Rainbow Minerals. These are times that creates opportunities for those who have been there long enough. And we are confident, very confident that in the medium to long-term prices will stabilize. You will see from what Phillip is saying, there's a huge focus on costs. There's a huge focus on efficiencies, and there's also a huge focus because when prices are down and you've got a capacity to increase volumes, it has an impact on your profitability. So, you know, Sue started off by saying that she wants to highlight this headline earnings for the financial year 2024.
Martin Creamer, good to see you. You are becoming younger and younger and younger. It's very good. Very proud South African. So headline earnings decreased by 43% to ZAR 5.1 billion. You see the gap between last year. You know, if you look most probably 5-6 years before that, you'll see that the 5.1 billion is much higher than what it may have been 6-7 years ago. We are very clear in terms of our global competitiveness, the commitment to continue paying a competitive dividend because, you know, shareholders buy ARM shares for, of course, because we have to compete with all the others. But the bottom line is the sort of value that they receive from ARM, so dividend is very important.
Our financial position remains robust with ZAR 7.4 billion in the bank, so that's very important. Okay. Back. Next. Okay. Disclaimer, there's a wonderful staff members, and just as a repetition of what I said, ARM Ferrous's 9% down to 5.1 platinum. This is the whole issue of what does the future of platinum look like? And as I said, we have to take a three, five, seven, 10-year perspective, and we remain confident.
You know, a week ago, I was at the Hamptons in America with some of the top CEOs in the world and also some of the top politicians in the world, and they talk about what's happening with China, but in the context of platinum, China in terms of its importance in global trade. But for us in platinum, the whole emphasis on climate change and CO2 emissions and reduction of those CO2 emissions, the hydrogen economy, you know.
So we look carefully at what our partners are saying, Anglo Platinum and Impala, in the context of our investments in platinum, because we were in Lubambe, in copper, about ten, twelve years ago, and we had a partnership with Vale, world-class ore body, but for a period of two to three years, the prices went down enormously. Copper is a commodity of the future. We have confidence that our PGMs will be part of that suite because there isn't any single commodity that will be able to make the significant contribution. The hydrogen economy, green hydrogen, blue hydrogen, there has never been a more realistic assessment of the transition to a global economy where all the cars are electric vehicles.
There were some ambitious targets that were set about two, three, four years ago, and there is now a much more realistic assessment that the transition is gonna take a little bit longer. The objective initially was by 2030 . I know California passed a law, and the thinking was there would only be electric vehicles in California and Europe also took a very aggressive line. Now, we are deeply committed to climate change, to initiatives that reduce climate change. Deeply committed to making sure that we make a contribution to significantly reducing emissions. Anybody who's who doesn't take cognizance of the challenges of climate change is not just unrealistic, lives in another world.
But we also have a duty in terms of job creation, in terms of the livelihoods of our people, that the transition must be a responsible transition. And I think that there's greater consensus now worldwide in terms of the tempo and the momentum, and from an ARM perspective, it creates exciting opportunities for us in PGMs, and we got ZAR 391 million from our investment in coal, and it's a great opportunity for us. Dividends per share, the slide is self-explanatory. 9 ZAR. Do you wanna say $9 too? 9 ZAR, okay. ZAR 9 per share . Phillip wants to make it 9 EUR, but let's stay with ZAR 9 per share .
The dividends we received, ZAR 5 billion from Assmang, and you see that the dividends in ARM, ARM coal went down by 29%, to ZAR 422 million, and the dividends from Two Rivers in comparison with last year, it's 100% downwards. I mean, last year we received ZAR 486 million, and Harmony paid a dividend of ZAR 166 million, which is good in comparison with the ZAR 17 million. Of course, Harmony is sitting on a lot of cash, but it also has huge growth projects. If you look at the segmental EBITDA split by commodity, last year the contribution of iron ore was significantly less than what it is this year. This is when your diversified portfolio comes into play and is hugely beneficial.
It also indicates that if you look at platinum's contribution in terms of the segmental EBITDA, in 2022, it was 42, it went down to 36. And yeah, in future, we think the contribution of PGMs will be significant. And iron ore is going through challenges in the short term. We were told that even though the Chinese economy has got challenges in the short term, but in the medium term, there will be strategies to try and resuscitate because there's hundreds of millions of people that have to be brought out of poverty. Our safety indicators are self-explanatory, 19% decrease in lost time injury frequency rate. We unfortunately had one fatality. That is one fatality too many.
We want zero harm, zero fatalities, and the commitment in that regard is as strong as it has always been. 19% reduction in the total recordable injury frequency rate. Black Rock Mine achieved 12 million fatality-free shifts over 15 years. Modikwa achieved 3 million fatality-free shifts over 2 years. Excellent. Our commitment, as I said, the carbon emissions, 5% decrease in carbon emissions and 4% reduction in the water withdrawal or the extraction of water. And I think the key thing for us is that ARM Ferrous Northern Cape mining operations have definitive feasibility study for solar.
You know, we look at how the impact of solar from a cost perspective, how that impact will have a hugely positive contribution to reducing our cost, but also in the process, contribute to profitability, and also diminish our dependence on what has happened in Eskom over the last few years. It's good that we haven't had load shedding, but it just indicates the world-class nature of the CEOs we have in this country. We've got a problem with Eskom, we've got a problem with electricity, and this requires innovation and creativity to make sure that we continue with our operations, and a lot of good work has been done. Diminish dependence on Eskom.
Eskom will always have a role to play in, but in the medium to long term, we will be significantly, have a significant portion of our electricity, being from this partnership that we've established for renewables, for solar, the solar partnership we've built. The strategy slide is self-explanatory. At the heart of this is what distinguishes us, what makes us different from our competition. We have a management skill and a culture, and that's why we recruit the smartest and the best, both young and those who are not so young. We are entrepreneurial, which is very important, and we are privileged to have a world-class, world-class management team, but also a world-class employee workforce.
Part of our duty is to make sure that every single employee of the tens of thousands of employees that work at ARM believe that this is the best company in the country and in the world that they should work for. We've got a huge duty and a commitment to the communities that are neighboring our mines, and we make significant contributions to their development and growth. The whole role of technology is something that we're intensely involved in because there's some exciting innovation, really world-class innovation, that is taking place within ARM, and we will make announcements in that regard in due course. Phillip Tobias will now come in, our CEO. Can we clap hands for our CEO?
Welcome to all attendees, those attending in person and also online, and also just to say thank you very much, Chair, and a special welcome to our board members, our JV partners, and also the executive leadership team and operational management. Good morning. Just taking you through the production performance. Production volumes at Modikwa and our iron ore operations were largely flat. You can see just a 2% improvement year-on-year on the iron ore side, and then on the platinum side, very flat. Manganese ore production was down 15% due to some operational challenges at Nchwaning Shaft, and I think during the previous results, we did comprehensively give the details of what challenges we're faced with. Pleased to mention that we have really had a turnaround intervention plan, and that plan is really on track.
We are now on track, getting back to the levels where we ought to be, yeah, in terms of performance. On the manganese alloy, production down 10% as a result of the soft market demand. Iron ore division. Headline earnings as a percentage in terms of, the total headline earnings amounts to about 97%. The executive chair has already mentioned, I mean, we see the importance and the impact of a diversified portfolio. You know, when some of the commodities are on the lower side, then you have something that can really come in and still have a positive contribution. Cost reduction remains our key focus, and we're making progress in that.
We remain focused in terms of enhancing quality mining, in terms of making sure that we increase and improve our volumes, improve our mining rates, and reduce our waste dilution, and we'll talk to that when we get to the detailed slides. Ferrous headline earnings were 9% lower, driven by a 90% decrease in headline earnings in the manganese division. This was partially offset by 19% increase in headline earnings in the iron ore division. Headline earnings in the iron ore division were largely driven by an increase in the average realized iron ore prices, slightly higher sales volumes, and the weaker rand did also play a positive contribution to our bottom line. Lower headline earnings in manganese were mainly driven by a decrease in the average realized U.S. dollar manganese ore prices and increased railage tariffs.
Lower headline earnings in manganese alloys were driven by lower sales volumes due to lower demand. That is basically reflected in summary on this slide. As you look at our variance slide, you'll see the impact of the lower prices on the PGMs and also on the coal side. We remain committed to improving grade so that we can have a positive impact on the iron's production and also on our volumes that we produce. The key focus areas for us is to improve the quality of mining, as I mentioned earlier, is to continue to optimize mining grades and volumes, so that we can really improve our profitability, enhance, and also our margins as well.
The summary of the EBITDA margin slide, you can really see the negative impact that the prices had, and also just to see the contribution that iron ore had. I mean, year-on-year, almost stable performance and contribution on the iron ore production, and you can see the regression that we had on the PGMs and coal as a result of the basket prices. Just dialing deep into the ferrous. The top left variance analysis, you can see the decrease in USD prices, which were offset by weaker rand. And something that basically was a challenge is the cost of sales. And as I mentioned, we have put plans in place, and we are addressing the issues of the cost so that we can really continue to optimize on our margins.
Production volumes at Black Rock Mine, as I mentioned earlier, we had a 15% reduction due to those operational challenges at Nchwaning III, and also we really had to make certain decisions, production decisions, stopped producing unprofitable ore. Unit cost cash costs increased by 20% on the manganese side. Let me just go to the next slide. Our unit costs increased by 20%. I mean, over the past two, three years, Black Rock have really been doing well in as far as costs were concerned, but as I said, because of the operational challenges, that had the subsequent impact on the unit cost.
Looking at our iron ore business, Khumani has our Tier One asset, with 20 years remaining mine life and high-quality high-grade ore body, with a low stripping ratio, has really continued to carry this business. I mean, total sales were up 4% when compared to 2023. Export iron ore volumes increased from just below 12 million tonnes to 12.2 million tonnes, an improvement of 2% when compared to the previous financial year. World-class safety stats that were achieved, and especially at Khumani, with 6 million fatality-free shifts over approximately a period of nine years. Various cost-saving initiatives are being considered. Strategic sourcing is one of the initiatives that we were pursuing and really looking at, and also centralized procurement.
The biggest risk that we have set to our operation, iron ore operation, is that the single customer risk at Beeshoek. We still experience from time to time the water challenges. However, I need to mention that with measures and intentions that we've really put in place, we have not really had negative impact over the past six months, so we continue to work on that. And the logistics constraint, we engaging with the new leadership at Transnet. We still have challenges, but we do believe that through collaboration, we can really improve the situation.
We have really had an intervention where the stacker reclaimer was gonna really take about 10 weeks to repair, and because the operators came together in collaboration with Transnet, we were able to reduce that by 4 weeks. That really communicates that message that we are strategic partners. We need to get involved and really influence also the performance of TRF. On the manganese side, just on the positive side, Black Rock Mine achieved 12 million fatality-free shifts over approximately 16 years, and as I mentioned, we did have some operational challenges. This mine, we've really invested a good capital in it. It has an installed capacity of 4.5 million tonnes.
We can be able to ramp it up at really aligning our resourcing and all that. So we do have potential that we can really unlock on that. Export sales volumes of 3.7 million tonnes, mainly driven by rollover shipment from the previous financial year. Various cost-saving initiatives are ongoing at this mine. As I mentioned, that we had a 20% regression year on year, but there are measures that we have put in place to make sure that we turn that situation around. Manganese alloys, challenging sector with long winters and short summers, but the focus remains on improving efficiencies and reducing cost. High-carbon manganese alloy unit cost at Sakura decreased by 12%, mainly due to a 23% increase.
And then also, Sakura is positioned in the first quartile. I mean, this is a Tier One asset. However, with that being the case, we still have some challenges because of where the market is in terms of demand and supply. But it's a Tier One asset, and it has a low cost. It is in the low-cost quartile. Going into the PGM space, when we look at the variance analysis, you can see the impact of the price, the PGM basket price. I mean, we had approximately 33% drop, you know, year on year on the PGM basket price. But we remain focused on great improvement and increased volume, which will have a positive impact on a unit cost, and also focusing on cost, on factors within our control.
You'll remember that over the past reporting period, we had some few challenges with great challenges at Modikwa. Strategic decisions were made. We've converted basically from a on-reef development into off-reef development, and subsequent to that, we've seen an improvement on the grade. So we continue to focus on the quality and making sure that we do minimize the negative impact of the price. An improvement in head grade, as I mentioned, attributed to the on-reef development at Bokoni. The UG2 volumes were reduced due to negotiating of the dikes, restricting flexibility and Merensky ore was used to fill up the UG2 plant at Two Rivers Platinum Mine.
I mean, we've intersected some geological features, the dikes and the faults, and then we basically had to negotiate that, and in the process, had a stockpile of over 700 tons of Merensky ore, and we were able to use that to make sure that the plant was run full. Bokoni's first PGMs were produced in November 2023. For this year, it actually contributed 28,199 6E PGM ounces. During financial year 2024, ARM and Norilsk concluded their purchase sales agreement, which provide for the acquisition of ARM of 50% of participation of Norilsk. The transaction is subject to certain conditions precedent. The main outstanding condition at this point in time is a Section 11.
Pleased to mention that over the past few weeks, we received an unconditional approval of the Competition Tribunal to go ahead with this transaction. ARM will take over Norilsk's proportionate share of obligations and liabilities relating to Nkomati Mine asset, together with those other environmental liabilities. We continue to explore the options, and at the right time, we'll come in to really share what our intentions are, what our strategy is about Nkomati. It's a critical mineral. It's something that we like to have in our stable. We have it, and we make sure that we make it work into the future.
Going into the coal, we also can see on the variance analysis as well, as I mentioned, the impact of the lower or reduced basket prices. However, looking at things that are within our control in that business, you can see the excellent work that has been done on the cost control side. I mean, below inflationary, you know, actually 1% improvement on the PCB side and also 4% improvement on that. So we have also seen increased volumes, sales at the back of trucking that was actually excited because we have seen the price really hovering above $110 a ton. So we took advantage of that, and we really commend management for that response and that positive reaction.
Domestic sales volumes improved by 31% due to increase in coal sales at Eskom. On mine, unit co- cost, production cost per sale improved in F2024, largely due to improved sales production volumes, and also, as I mentioned, the focus on the cost controls and cost initiatives as well. Going into the project, slide, Two Rivers, Merensky project. Just an update, I mean, a decision was made to put it on care and maintenance from July. This was driven by the current downward cycle in the PGM market. The Merensky concentrator was completed. It underwent the C3 commissioning. Basically, it's trigger-ready. You know, should the cycle really turn as we expect into the future, we'll be able to restart that and really ramp up to full production.
So the future restart of the Two Rivers Merensky project will be evaluated when the PGM prices have recovered. With regard to our Bokoni Platinum Mine, the current priority is to conserve cash while ramping up production in a phased and measured manner, considering all the depressed commodity prices and taking all those capital allocation decision into account. Additionally, we are exploring a value accretive opportunity, such as a chrome recovery option plant, and subsequent to the year-end, the construction of the chrome recovery plant was approved. So we're currently doing the detailed design, and at the beginning of next year, we'll really be starting with the construction of that. Taking advantage of where the chrome prices are, we do believe that will enhance our basket price by at least 10% into the future.
Investment in Surge Copper, we have communicated our desire to really have copper back in our stable. The Executive Chairman has already mentioned, you know, the strategic investment in Harmony, especially with those strategic projects, the Eva and the Wafi-Golpu. We did basically vocally say that we would like to really get back into copper. We've really explored an opportunity at Surge Copper, which and where we basically invested 15% in that company, which by 31 May 2024. Surge is a Canadian company that owns a large contiguous mineral claim package with resources such as copper, molybdenum, gold, and silver. The positive thing as well is that it is in a tier one jurisdiction. It's a critical mineral.
It's something that we had before, I mean, the chairman mentioned earlier, and we would really like to follow this story all the way up to the end. We'll continue to follow it, make the necessary review, and in the long term, make the strategic investment decision in that. With regard to Harmony, it is a strategic investment that aligns with ARM's copper objectives. I've spoken to their copper project, Eva, in Australia, and also the Wafi-Golpu project in Papua New Guinea. So Harmony is currently in a very favorable position to pursue their growth ambitions. They've really delivered excellent set of results yesterday.
ARM's current ARM board believes that it is in the best interest to retain the equity interest in, to retain our equity in Harmony, and to really follow and see them really realize and unlock even further value with their projects. In terms of our key focus areas, with all that we are faced with, even as we go through this challenging times, we're still very optimistic about the future. It's a mining industry, it's a long-term game, and we do go through seasons. We do go through cycles, and during the low, we also have to make those wise investment decisions that will really realize higher return on investment at the right place.
We need to continue to ensure that our operations are globally competitive and profitable, taking decisive actions for loss-making operations within our portfolio. I mean, an example of that was to basically put the Merensky Reef project on care and maintenance, subject to review at the right time. Value accretive opportunities that are being explored. I've already mentioned to you the chrome recovery plant go-ahead that has been given for Bokoni Platinum Mine. Focus on revenue optimization and cost control through supply chain management. I mean, we've really just installed a very useful tool in our businesses, the IT tool called Coupa, which basically helps our staff to look at opportunities when they do procurement, and to date, we have really seen some good savings in that.
So we'll continue to look at those value-enhancing opportunities. Optimizing workforce productivity through training and performance incentives, making sure that we create enabling environment for our, our employees, because one thing that we know is that when we enable them, they perform to exceptional levels, and it's our responsibility as executive leadership and management to create those operational conditions. Tailings and waste repurposing, we're looking at all, all those options, making sure that we can really enhance potential revenue out of those that we already have. Investing in automation technologies. For an example, narrow reef equipment. Pleased to mention that our narrow reef equipment in Bokoni went underground last month, and they took the first blast last week.
So these are things that we are doing, you know, looking into the future with new technology and making sure that we embrace it so that it can really improve our performance. Maintaining a robust balance sheet. The current priority is to conserve cash, maintain and run our current portfolio of asset profitably, review the allocation of funds for capital expenditure, be it expansion or stay in business CapEx. Aligning production capacity to logistics and infrastructure constraint. Good communication and engagement with new leadership, focusing on improvement in performance, especially at TRP, because they are very key strategic partners to us. And as I said, there is that ongoing engagement with them. We are progressing on the independent technical assessment to determine the actions required to addressing the deteriorating performance.
I mean, pleasing to mention that an independent assessor was appointed by TRF to do the analysis, and they came back with the findings, and those findings were basically communicated to the industry, with especially on the Rail Users Forum, which is on the iron ore line. So the current plan is to put in action measures to really address those things. We must mention that there are challenges that are time-dependent, but we do believe that through collaboration, we'll be able to address those issues. Structure and resource our operations appropriately, make sure that it's full fit for purpose. We know that we really have a good installed capacity, but we need to really link the rail allocation also to our operational structures as well, so that we can optimize our cost.
Ensure that our operations are aligned to all the external, to all these external constraints, and that we are able to. We are agile, and we are able to adapt through that. Exploring value-enhancing growth opportunities. Explore growth opportunities underpinned by metrics that measure the sustainability of value creation for stakeholders. And I've mentioned that one of the example is the chrome recovery plant and also our investment in Surge Copper. So we'll continue to look at these opportunities and make, decisions, in line with our investment metrics, explore them, and make sure that the right decisions are made and the correct capital allocation decisions are made and, future investment. Thank you very much. I will ask, I'll hand over to Sue.
Thank you very much, Phillip. So in terms of capital allocation. So in these challenging times, I think sound capital allocation is more important than ever. When we look at capital allocation within ARM, what we do is we prioritize investing in our existing business. It's a business we know, where it's a business we're familiar with. I would almost say it's a lower risk in terms of, you know, opportunities where you can deploy capital. And by investing in our existing business, that's what we refer to as our stay-in-business capital. Some people refer to it as our sustaining CapEx. So we look at investing in our existing business, but we also look at growing our business and pursuing opportunities that make commercial sense to ARM.
So those we look at a number of different metrics, including return on capital employed, payback period, risk-adjusted hurdle rates, and those are used to assess those opportunities. And a big one is also affordability, obviously. And then seeing whether it's something that we wish to pursue, and also in light of looking at metals of the future. This graph illustrates how we generated cash and how that cash was allocated during the year ended 30 June 2024. So you will see that the second column, we generated ZAR 1.8 billion from our operations. If you compare this to the prior period, this was a decrease of 78% compared to the prior corresponding period. So last year, that same amount was ZAR 8.1 billion.
And that really speaks to the significant decline that we saw, particularly, in our PGM prices. That ZAR 1.8 billion cash generated also takes into account a ZAR 130 million increase in net working capital. If you look at our dividends received, so you see that ZAR 5.6 billion there, it is made up of the ZAR 5 billion dividend that we received from Assmang, our Assmang JV, which is equal to the dividend that we received in the prior corresponding period. We also received dividends, as chairman mentioned in his section, of ZAR 440 million, as well as ZAR 166 million from our ARMCoal business and our investment in Harmony, respectively.
If we look at how the cash that was generated, so the sources of funds, how they were applied during the year, you'll see that we paid tax of ZAR 600 million. We invested ZAR 6.3 billion in capital expenditure, and that was our largest outflow during the year. This was an increase of about ZAR 1.8 billion year on year. The majority of that spend was expansionary capital in nature, totaling ZAR 4.7 billion, being mostly capital spent at Two Rivers for the Merensky project. In terms of dividends paid, we paid dividends totaling ZAR 3.5 billion to the ARM shareholders during the period, which is 47% lower than the ZAR 6.7 billion that was paid in the prior corresponding period.
If we look at our net cash and debt, so total borrowings increased by ZAR 887 million during the period, to a balance of ZAR 1.1 billion, as at the end of June 2024. The increase was due to a revolving credit facility of ZAR 1 billion that was taken out at Two Rivers for the purposes of funding the completion of the Merensky project. Despite that, revolving credit facility, ARM still has a relatively low interest-bearing debt, I would say relatively, and closed the year at a net cash to equity position of 12.4%. This morning, Assmang declared a dividend of ZAR 5 billion, of which ZAR 2.5 billion is attributable to ARM. That amount is not reflected in this table that you see before you.
If we look at our segmental capital expenditure, so the capital expenditure for the reporting period was covered by Phillip in quite a bit of detail in each of the division sections. But just some things that you can note on this slide, the segmental capital expenditure on an attributable basis of ZAR 8.6 billion for the year under review was ZAR 1.4 billion up when compared to the prior corresponding period. The majority of it, ZAR 6.1 billion, was spent at our ARM Platinum operations, ZAR 2.2 billion at the ARM Ferrous operations, and only ZAR 202 million at our ARMCoal operations. Now, our ARM Ferrous capital expenditure includes capitalized waste stripping costs of about ZAR 1.3 billion. That's on a 100% Assmang basis. In terms of CapEx...
So in terms of the guidance as well, the guidance for FY 2025 shows a decrease of ZAR 925 million to ZAR 4.7 billion, relative to the ZAR 5.6 billion that we had communicated last year, September. This reduction is due to the completion of the Two Rivers Merensky project. CapEx for FY 2025 to FY 2027 includes approximately ZAR 3.5 billion of sustaining capital expenditure per annum on a normalized level, which includes between ZAR 750 million and ZAR 800 million per annum on an attributable basis of capitalized waste stripping for the iron ore operations. Thank you very much.
Okay.
Yeah?
Yeah. Good, good, Sue. All right, we're going to take questions, and, the, the-- Mike-- Sorry, Phillip, and Mike, and André , and Thando, and Sue will be available for any questions that anybody may have. So what we'll do is we'll take a few questions and move on. Let's start with, the young people. Martin Creamer is the youngest. Can we start with you? And so we'll take a few questions here, and then-
Then go online.
Good morning. Thanks very much for that. I'd just like to get some more insight into that chrome re-recovery plant. You know, what motivated you to do that? I mean, the prices are looking good. How much chrome you expect to recover there? And, you know, this will keep going for a long time. Do you think the chrome has legs? And then the other thing, I'd just get some more color as well on that narrow reef boring system that you are going to introduce. What do you think you'll get out of that?
Thank you. Phillip, you'll take the chrome. Mike, you'll take the narrow reef, okay? Next question. I saw a hand here. Yeah.
Yeah, it's me.
If you don't mind, just introduce yourself and-
100%. Nkateko Mathonsi-
And the company that you come from, yeah.
Super. Nkateko Mathonsi, Investec. I'm going to focus on the PGM business, mainly because it had the biggest negative impact on your earnings. You have placed the Merensky project on care and maintenance, and not necessarily Bokoni. So if you can talk to the rationale of actually placing Two Rivers Merensky on care and maintenance and not Bokoni. And specifically speak to your anticipated profitability or cash flows out of Bokoni at the level of production that you have guided, which seems a bit constrained, especially if the PGM basket price does not improve in the next, say, three years. And then in terms of Two Rivers, at what basket price would you consider bringing the Merensky project back online?
That will help us in terms of looking at that project and knowing when would you pull the trigger should the basket price actually improve? If you can also guide on the costs on Two Rivers, now that you've placed it on care and maintenance, what does it actually do to the cost, especially in FY 2025? Thank you.
Yeah, Two Rivers is not on care and maintenance.
Not Two Rivers-
It's-
The Merensky project, sorry.
Excellent. You must tell them you've got a very special surname, Mathonsi. Very special. You, you'll take that, Thando, the wonderful questions on Two Rivers. Yes?
Morning, everyone. My name is Ntombo Hlansekhune from Investec. So I think I have got two questions. One is for André, and then one is for Thando. So André -
André said he doesn't want any questions today.
For your Beeshoek in FY 2024, you issued an impairment of ZAR 422 million, and your guidance for local sales, which affects your Beeshoek mine, is under pressure within the next three years. How should we look at or think of the future of that operation? Thando, in relation to the ARM Coal, what informed your revised guidance, particularly in relation to your local sales volume over the next three years? For example, if you're looking at FY 2025, your revised guidance is actually 30% more than what you previously guided for.
Thank you. André , the frag were Beeshoek, you said the word.
Yeah.
Thando, who's what? Who's the pendulum buzz or yeah-
The coal.
Coal.
Myamani. Coal. Okay.
Like, like me. Myamani.
André will, Thando will answer the coal. Any more questions?
Thank you, Chair. Leroy Mnguni from HSBC. I understand that your Harmony stake gives you diversification and future copper exposure, and it's done really well for you. The challenge seems to be that that benefit doesn't carry through to your earnings or your free cash flow. For that matter, I think Harmony declared about a 1.4% dividend yesterday. So would it not be more beneficial for you to monetize that stake and invest that capital into assets that you can control and can directly benefit in terms of earnings and free cash flow? And then maybe just a follow-on from Martin's question. It does seem like all your peers are looking to increase their chrome ore production, as are you. Are there any concerns that the additional supply could collapse the price?
Excellent questions. Very, very good questions. Starting with the Harmony question. Okay, I'll respond to the Harmony and the, I think on the chrome, you'll deal with those. Any other questions here? Yes. You know, let's give the ladies there. I saw a young lady there raise their hands, and I'll come back to the gentleman here. Give the lady there.
... We also have one.
Yeah.
Hi, I'm Karin Jafta from Hyrisk Trading, with Professor Kruger. I just wanted to find out the elements that contributes to the high increase of cost of sale. If you can, percentage-wise, elaborate on what is the contributors. Thank you.
Do you want to take that?
That will be the operations chief.
Okay. André .
André .
Sorry. André . Yeah, you wanna help there? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay, fine. And let's come here. Yeah.
Yeah, Thobela Phekela from Nedbank CIB. A couple of questions. So maybe just to add on the chrome one, if you could perhaps give us some numbers in terms of CapEx expected, and then also what sort of volume benefit is likely to give you that plant? And then moving on to manganese, Phillip, you spoke about stopping unprofitable ore. Could you just expand on that as to which sections, you know, perhaps these might be? And then still related to manganese, I see that you have upgraded your export sales volume by around about two hundred thousand tons versus previously. Could you just expand as to what is driving that upgrade to your sales volumes, especially given what we've seen with the Transnet? Thank you.
Thank you so much. André , you will take the manganese question. Yeah. Okay? And then, Phillip, you'll deal with all of the chrome issues. Any other question? Okay. Tsu will read the questions that are on the
Online, on webcast.
On the webcast.
Yeah.
Read it-
Can I read them out?
Yeah, read them.
Okay, thank you. So, Chair, we've got a question from Bheki Mthethwa, from Bateleur Capital . The question is: In relation to the Harmony stake, earlier this year, we saw Glencore consulting with investors about the decision to keep or unbundle their coal business. Would ARM consider doing the same and potentially putting this to a shareholder vote? So one question. The next question, also from Bheki: Please provide an update with regards to Machadodorp Works, monetization of the energy efficient smelting technology, and the trajectory of the current losses from here.
Current losses at Machadodorp.
Machadodorp
Okay. Yeah. Say it again. Okay.
Okay. The next question from Tim, Tim Clark, SBG Securities. Please, so this is a question on unit costs. Please, may we ask for more color on the unit cost outlook for Two Rivers? Can you get the cost pressure to reverse?
Good question. Do you want to-- I mean, you and Mike will... I mean, you'll deal with it, Tsu. I mean, it's part of that question. [crosstalk]
Yeah.
Yeah. And Mike, if later you're gonna add something to that. Thanks, Thando. Next.
Okay. Next, from Lisa Steyn, at News24: Some other manganese producers really benefited from higher prices after April this year. Why did ARM not benefit from these high prices? Please explain further what the market conditions were or are.
Okay.
Second question: Did the 15% manganese rail allocation which Transnet awarded to junior miners impact ARM at all? ARM, yes, ma'am. If not, why not?
Okay. So you will take those, André ?
Yes.
Okay.
Another manganese question.
André , you take all the easy questions. There's a lot of questions.
Another manganese question. Sorry, okay, also from Tim Clark, SBG Securities: Manganese prices have been higher, but it seems like there has been a buyer's strike at the elevated price levels. Were you able to benefit from the higher prices? Are sales at normal levels in line with production?
You're writing down - yes, yes - because we're gonna forget. I'm furiously writing down. You meant the linear script, huh? I've got it. All of them. Okay.
All right. Next question, on coal, also from Lisa Steyn, News24: Please offer a bit more explanation on the increase in coal sales to Eskom. Are these ad hoc sales or new contracts? What is driving fresh Eskom demand for coal?
Okay. It's fresh coal, eh? You've got that, Thando?
Got that.
Great. Next.
Okay. Next is from Shilan Modi, from HSBC: What should we think about the future portfolio, given the capital investments in PGMs and now copper? Given the logistics issues in bulk materials, what gives you confidence in a turnaround and not a further deterioration?
Yeah. Okay.
Given the majors have flagged concerns on the outlook for iron ore, how are you thinking about the space? Is capital spend becoming pro-cyclical, i.e., high when prices are high and low when prices are low? Can you reduce CapEx cyclicality in your business?
I think, André , you'll deal with part of that, André . Yes, in the context of Transnet.
The one on the. Yes, I'll deal with that. Okay.
And Thando, if there's an element that has to do with coal and transport, Transnet, you will deal with that as well, okay?
That's correct. [crosstalk]
Is that all?
And then, Chair, just one more for now. Did the board discuss the future of the Harmony holding with shareholders?
Okay. It's related.
Yeah.
Is that all?
Oh, some more are coming through, Chair.
I mean, for now.
Okay, just three more. What is the current status of Surge Copper's Berg project? When can we expect this project moving from resources stage to reserve stage?
Okay. Mike, you'll deal with that? Mike? Not, not now, not now.
Yeah, I just didn't get the question, so-
Okay, let me just repeat it. What is the current status of the Surge Copper Berg project?
Sure.
When can we expect this project moving from resources to reserves?
Okay.
Okay, and then the next question from Brian Morgan at RMB Morgan Stanley: How much is left to be spent to complete the Merensky project at Two Rivers?
At Two... You heard that, Thando?
Yeah.
Okay.
Another manganese question.
Mm-hmm.
Can you kindly give us some insight on manganese prices going forward, and whether Chinese port stocks may be diminishing? Can we see another spike in the manganese prices? Can you please provide us with your average manganese realized price?
Okay, you've got it. You see, there, there's a lot of the questions are interrelated-
Yes
... and some are a repetition.
Yeah.
Some say you must begin, others say you must start, and others say you must commence, but it's still ... They want you to get going.
Yeah.
Okay, any other quest-
That's it.
Is it all? I see that there's a question here in front, so we just wanna give everybody a-
Hi, this is Cindy Kutenga. I'm also Benazir, because I'm Muslim. I'm from Kutenga Consulting. I've got a very perhaps out-of-the-radar question. In terms of management, are you all in concurrent with your management capability? Are you saying that all the hires that African Rainbow has? Because with every decision, investment, whether you whatever decision, business decision that has been taken, was made by management. I would like to just get an understanding of, are you 100% confident that there is no managerial challenge within the company? Also, if you can paint a picture of a similar scenario where a company went through this type of dip and how you recovered.
Of course, we know the basket prices and all the various variables, but just give us an overview of how you recovered from a managerial perspective, from obviously dealing with the basket prices, the increases, the global challenge, as the president has already alluded. So the two questions, if I were to summarize, is management: Are you happy with your current hires? And second would be, just give a scenario where you overcame this type of challenge and how you did it. Thank you.
Yeah, Tsu will answer that. Okay. Are there any other questions here? All right. Okay, so let's start with our CEO, and then we'll move. Okay?
Thank you very much, Chair. It's a question relating to the chrome investment decision at the Bokoni mine. I mean, at the current installed capacity of 60,000 tons per month, UG2 operational will produce around 40,000 tons per annum of chrome. The rationale behind that is, it's coming at a cost of ZAR 670 a ton, with a sale price of about ZAR 3,600, ZAR 3,600, thus giving you 80% margins. As I said, it's gonna really uplift, you know, in terms of your overall rand an ounce or at about 10% on that. So highly profitable, high margins.
And if you look at the trends, you would have seen that China has really been basically buying a lot of chrome ore, vis-à-vis, you know, a produced finalized product, you know, so they're basically taking ore. So it's at the back of that that we want to explore this, and also aligning it to what we have done as well at Modikwa and Two Rivers, because that is an additional, you know, revenue. It comes in on top of what you already have in terms of your fixed cost, therefore being able to dilute your overall operating cost. Thank you, Chair.
They asked you so many questions, and you just give. You don't have anything else to say?
I was answering that one on the chrome side.
I mean, all the others.
And then-
Deal with all of the ones that related to you.
That has to do with Bokoni. Okay. The another question on the Bokoni was the 60-kiloton per month production obviously is not sustainable. We did share that our original intent when we made an investment was to deliver or produce 180,000 tons per month at Bokoni. So where we started, we started recommissioning and refurbishing the 60-kiloton UG2 plant, which went into operation by November last year. And with that volume, we know that is below par. I mean, ideally those mines, with all those fixed costs, should really be running at about 240,000 tons capacity. That is the ideal installed capacity. So we're currently busy with the studies, looking at the analysis to say: How do we really improve this situation?
Because at the 60,000 tons per month, with those volumes, it's loss-making, it's not sustainable. So we are really going through, doing some studies, and having some internal debate and review of Bokoni. And at the right time, when we have really landed on and concluded, we'll come back and report accordingly. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Let's go to you, Thando.... all of the questions, including the coal and the PGM questions.
Okay, thank you so much, Chair. First, let me address the question raised by Nkateko, and I think Tim had the same question related to Two Rivers unit cost. In the presentation, Phillip highlighted the challenge that we've had with the UG2 operation, where we had to negotiate a dike. We did anticipate the dike. However, based on the modeling, when we got to it, it was more complex than what we anticipated, and it took us longer to develop through. That meant that UG2 couldn't deliver the volumes that they were supposed to deliver because we didn't have a face length and areas to mine at all the time. I am very pleased that we have negotiated that through that dike now, and we're beyond it.
So as a result thereof, and I think in line with our strategy being entrepreneurial, management saw an opportunity to rather ensure that we deliver the ounces, is to mill the stockpile coming out of Merensky development. This is a development, it's a new mine, and the grade were lower compared to UG2. And as you would, some of you would know, Merensky is harder to mill than the UG2, so we also had to bring in an additional rented crusher plant to increase the volume. So as a result, the additional costs coming out of Merensky and the volume that we've had contributed around 8% on our unit cost. So we see those as ones, of course, gonna be coming off. And to answer Tim's question then directly, yes, going forward, we're going back to normality.
I think we'll arrest these cost increases, and we're gonna be maximizing production out of the UG2. I can't overemphasize what also Phillip raised, that UG2 itself also give us the benefit of the coal as additional revenue. Overall, going forward, I think we've seen the cost being normalizing and going back to the normal UG2 cost. The second question related to Merensky, the incentive price that we're currently looking at, and pace is in the region of around ZAR 850,000 per kilogram of 6E PGM. That will be a right incentive price to ramp up to bring Merensky back.
What I'd like to highlight is that this really incentive price and the major impact on putting Merensky on care maintenance was our ramp-up cost. Because the project is almost complete, but to ramp it up to full production, it would require a cash, and we went into a cash conservation strategy, hence we put it on care maintenance. Had we had Merensky at full capacity at this price, our projection is that it would have been at the least just breaking even. So that's what we are looking at and working through that process.
The capital left, and to complete Merensky, we've put a lot of unnecessary things that we believe that could be brought back quicker, when we or the joint venture decide to bring Merensky back to production. It's in a region of about ZAR 800 million that's still remaining to be spent. To date, we spent just over ZAR 6.2 billion. My question going back to a strategy of putting Merensky on care and maintenance and keep Bokoni running. Going back to what I've highlighted, the Merensky, in terms of the contained ounces at Merensky, is lesser because of the grade compared to Bokoni, where we're gonna be mining UG2.
Our investment on Bokoni is on UG2. I think also when Mike talks around the technical and the mechanization process that we are planning and implementing at Bokoni, Phillip did touch on it, that the NRE, our narrow reef equipment, has gone underground, started working. We see a huge potential coming out of that in terms of the quality of mining as well as the unit cost position, that it will be favorable. It will go through a challenge in terms of cash. I think there was a question related to that. In terms of the cash required, it's still gonna be funded to get the operation running at these prices.
It's in a region of about ZAR 400 million per 60,000 tons. But I'm quite also pleased to highlight that, I mean, the team that we've got at Two Rivers. Sorry, at Bokoni, both on the project and operational side, it's a very sharp team. I think we've got one of the best teams in the industry. Hence, they're looking at opportunities to maximize and take advantage of the existing old infrastructure. We're bringing this chrome plant, as highlighted, is to also cushion that a cash requirement going forward, while we're looking at also other approaches to ramp it up into higher volumes. Chair, I'm gonna then move to coal. I think I've covered all the platinum-related question.
On the coal side, first, in terms of the sales, the sales volume, yes, the domestic sales have gone up. However, I think it's an era where through our partners we always look at balancing the volumes that we produce. Eskom on its own, first, it's gone up by about 20% on the Eskom. It's coming from a low, a very low base. We all know the challenges that Eskom has had, and the improvement that they are showing now is hence they're consuming a little bit more. There is one additional, it's a very short-term contract that we also entered to that increased the volume. The remaining increase on the domestic sales is to other customers.
As I highlighted, or rather, it has been highlighted that the issue around TFR, based on the performance of TFR, impacts how much coal we've got on to be able to market it domestically. So that sales is a domestic sale. Looking forward, I think it's gonna be we always prioritize an export market, but where there are opportunities then with the domestic, we'll do so. So I think we'll sort of look at the same general numbers going forward over the next three years. With that, Chair, I think I've covered any other question or all the questions, rather, unless-
Excellent.
Thank you.
Excellent. Can we go to you, André ? André Joubert?
Yeah, thank you for all those interesting manganese questions. I think I want to start with the. I'm just gonna go through the questions as I've noted them down here. In terms of the question about the cost of sales, I assume that question was related to the total ARM ferrous or the total Assmang cost of sales. Those costs in our total cost of sales is ZAR 26 billion a year. So the cost increase was ZAR 1 billion, which is just over a 4% increase in the total cost of sales. And those costs were split between the working cost component of that, which operate the mines, increased by ZAR 275 million year on year.
Then the big one was the ZAR 400 million ZAR, that was the increase in distribution cost, which is logistics and freight. Transnet also allocated additional cost to us where we had to do our on-mine shunting at our manganese mine. That's the answer on the cost of sales. There was also a question about why the increase, the 200,000-ton increase that we had foreseen for this year. There was a rollover of tonnages from the previous year with one shipment that moved into the new year. Transnet is performing pretty well on the manganese side, with the two ports going to Saldanha and going to Port Elizabeth.
In that way, we actually worked very well with Transnet, and in the end, we believe that we will get those additional tonnages coming through. There was a question: Why did we not benefit from the higher prices that we saw? We take a view on our prices, and most of our sales are contract-based. So when we enter into the contract, we enter today into a contract for a ship that's gonna sail roughly three months from now. So we fix the price today for something that's gonna happen in three months' time. So there's a lag on the prices, and that is the reason why we could not benefit immediately from those prices. As we speak now, as I'm sitting here, we're still benefiting from the price, from this peak, because it lags by three months.
We will benefit during and we are benefiting right now from those higher prices. There was, I think it was Tim that asked the question: Is there, was there a buyer strike because of these high prices? No, I don't think there was a buyer strike. What happened is that the whole world jumped up and down and very happy about these high prices and just started trucking material to the various ports and exporting this manganese ore. So the net impact of this, that Australia's with Groote Eylandt, where they had the challenge there, output in the nine months was 1.5 million tons less than the previous year. But then we, as South Africans, came, the people in Ghana and Gabon. So collectively, South Africa did 1.3 million tons more.
We even exported manganese ore out of Lüderitz. We, for the first time, we exported manganese ore out of Durban, and that was all road trucked. And so the net impact of this is that South Africa was 1.3 million tons in this nine months, more than the previous year. Ghana was 300,000 tons more, and Gabon was 1.3 . So it offset the negative from the Australians, the - 1.5 million, and the net of that was a plus 1.4 million tons. And that immediately had an oversupply impact, and it was all low-grade material, and that had the impact that is why the price we did not see the benefit.
That's also why you see the current drop in the manganese ore prices. There was a question about the stocks in China. The stocks in China increased very marginally from about 4.4 million tons to 4.6 million tons. It is pretty stable at about a 1.9 month consumption rate. There's not a real buildup of stock in China. You can't say there's a real buildup of stock in China. The pricing, the CIF pricing, I'm very careful because this is opinion. I mean, this is not a prediction or a forecast or a promise, but what we see is that the high-grade manganese ore is gonna maintain a CIF price in the order of around about $5.25-$5.30 per manganese unit.
The lower grade, the 36, what we call the ferruginous manganese ore, will be about $3.80 in that order of... And that's what we think it is. But again, the disclaimer, this is absolutely a forecast. There was a question on the iron ore and the iron ore pricing and the forecast of that. We definitely don't see a repeat of the good prices that we had in this past year. And again, you know, what we see and what the market tells us, that the prices will hover between $100 and maybe $90 in that area, and we've seen that actually happening right now. It's pretty volatile, and it's sort of hovering in that, at that range, and that's also what we're forecasting.
Hence, some of our actions that we've taken, that Phillip mentioned, in terms of looking at further value-enhancing enhancing projects, et cetera, et cetera, then the question was asked about Beeshoek Mine and the life of Beeshoek and the contract that we have. Beeshoek is a, if I can say, Beeshoek does not have export capacity, and we've got one customer, and what we're doing at this point in time is we're negotiating very hard with this customer. It's very critical for us to get at least a three-year contract with that, with this customer of ours, and that we can and in that contract, we want to fix a price that will make sense for both Beeshoek Mine and for the customer. We're very well advanced with that process.
Then the question was asked about if there's anything I just wanna make double sure. I think I... Oh, the question about the 15% that was taken away from us by Transnet. That was over three years ago. So our capacity, our rail capacity is 3.7 million tons. And it's also true that some of the small or the emerging miners could not take up that capacity. So we used a portion of that was reallocated to us, and that's why although the actual performance against the contract was a bit lower than what it should have been, but because we got that additional capacity, we achieved our total contractual volumes.
And I also see that we're gonna maintain that for the remaining part of this year. The question about Machadodorp Works and the research and development work that we've done there on this energy-efficient smelting technology, I'm very pleased to say that we have experience from our plant that we operated there, which is a fully commissioned, fully instrumented operational demonstration plant, but just at scale. And the results that we had there is very positive, not promising. It is positive. And to that end, we've concluded a definitive feasibility study.
In that study, we currently, as management, are reviewing the outcome of that study, and management will make an investment decision or some funding decisions on that going forward. The question was also asked: What about the care and maintenance costs at Machadodorp? We will continue with care and maintenance at Machadodorp until such time that an investment decision is made on this new technology. But in the meanwhile, we're looking at various ways to reduce the costs. For instance, we've put a tender out to see if we cannot utilize the rail infrastructure at that facility, which is very well placed for the chrome producers in the area to export and take their product on rail and not on road to either Mozambique or to Richards Bay.
And then I'm also very happy to announce that the water treatment plant that we've commissioned there to prevent any further pollution has, in fact, been commissioned. So, I think I've answered all the questions, Patrice, so,
I think everybody thinks so as well.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It was a long answer, but many questions.
Some of them needed long answers, eh?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Overall, I'm very confident with the way forward, and we've got an excellent management team, a really strong team, and everybody knows what they need to do, and they are delivering.
Yeah.
Uh-
That management team is under your leadership.
That's correct, yes.
All right.
Thank you. Thank you, André . Mike?
Martin, I wasn't entirely sure when you said NRE, which is Narrow Reef Equipment, or are we speaking about BMC, which is cutting technology? But I wanna touch on both because they're absolutely uniquely have all the properties. I wanna go back very briefly. I grew up in the industry, in gold and platinum, and we know that the platinum and gold seams in South Africa, narrow tabular, are in general 60 centimeters and less. The containment within there varies between six and 12 grams per ton. As a conventional industry, we've been mining at 120-150 centimeters, which is 100-120% dilution, and the industry yields between three and four grams per ton.
The industry's been saying for decades now, more than twenty, thirty years, research industry, COMRO, and you recall all of that, is how do we get people out of the face, improve grade, productivity, efficiencies, and do that cost-effectively and make more money? We've had many attempts in the past, over the last twenty years, and not really successful from a commercial point of view. That just underpins the intent. Then we started twenty years ago, and we introduced what we called LP, which is low profile. Forgive a couple of my acronyms here, but they're important 'cause you raised them. Then we moved over to XLP, which is extra low profile. The limitation was always being your drift, which we had to take out and get into tracks.
Now you appropriately talk about NRE, which is, to the rest of the audience, narrow reef equipment, and that has more flexibility in these confines. What XLP and NRE do for you, they reduce your. They achieve all of those. If we can get productivity, safety, people out of the face, increase grade. We use two acronyms, which I grew up with, and one, we were hammered about this as youngsters, and one was called GIK, and I'm gonna explain it, and the other one was called WAR. Now, GIK is grade is king, and you can just do the numbers. If you right mining at two grams a ton... Someone asked about the Merensky project.
Doesn't matter what you do at two grams a ton. If you can do half of that at four grams a ton or a quarter of that at six grams a ton, the benefits are immense, and part of the reason we, with the current price, we had to curtail the Merensky project until better prices. So let me go back. So the intent with NRE is to achieve all of that, Martin, and come and mine under a meter, which immediately gives you all those benefits. So I think the real question is, why the confidence now, and what makes it different? Well, the proof of the pudding is gonna be in the eating. So we have got 20 years of knowledge, experience, and frustrations collectively through the industry, and we've applied what we call best practice with working with the industry.
It's not ARM alone, albeit our preferred technology. We've learned from industry and failures, and one of the areas is that you can't try and put machines into a conventional layout. Doesn't work. You have to change your mining layout to suit your equipment. At Bokoni, we've done that. We've also taken the NRE equipment from the preferred suppliers and all the learning, and manufactured the first set of equipment, and that is, as we talk, going underground on trials to see where it goes. So we're taking a conservative approach, and to see if we can yield the results we want. So GIK is grade is king. WAR, the acronym, is waste as reef is war. And in war, in this environment, companies die, not people, because you can't get it out. So it's vitally important for us to get our industry.
What has also changed is technology has changed, automation process has changed, the learnings, and certainly technology and IT, technology and software, where we can do predictive maintenance and all these. So all these benefits with software, combined with the layout, combined with new mining technology, gives us what we're looking for, but we're doing it in a conservative manner, and we are implementing it as we stand today. Hopefully, in six months, we can give you an update on that. I just wanna move forward straight on to what I call two other acronyms, because I think it's appropriate for your question and the audience here. RCM is reef cutting machinery or RBM, reef boring machinery. What that does, it moves you from conventional one five below one with its NRE, and this technology has two major advantages.
It allows you to extract only the seam. 60 centimeters is the height of these cutting and boring technologies, and boring has been with us for more than 100 years. You see it across the world. Micro boring is another challenge, and with all appropriate technology, we seem to have overcome. We've been doing two years of research, development, and trials, and that is slowly coming to the fore. It's not as advanced as where we are with NRE, but it's pretty close, pretty reliable, pretty efficient. And what that will do, it'll double the grade again and completely automate and take people out of the stope. But the most important thing, everyone around this table know what the impact of explosives is on hanging wall and exposure in terms of carbon. This technology allows you to be explosiveless mining.
So these are the assets if the mining guys make money and can help us, we can do that research, and the industry, the next generation, yeah, will benefit from this. We have to do it, and we intend to go there. Thanks, Martin.
Thank you. Thank you. Sure. Thanks, Martin. You ask all the difficult questions.
I had one more. Sorry. Lady asked me about where we are in Surge. So, so the Surge is in a good destination. I'm not gonna repeat, I think it was slide 30 of, uh, Phillip, around the, the rationale and strategy around Surge. The question was really, where are we? So we've completed a PEA in post, which is a pre-assessment, a pre-economic assessment's been done. And premised on the drilling and that work, we saw fit to invest into Surge Copper at a level, I think we're now at 15%. This, to get it to pre-fees and ultimate feasibility, it's at least another 18 months. And we are on the technical and advisory, and we intend to get onto their board so that we can play a meaningful role. We don't wanna be passive investors, albeit we've got a small investment.
We wanna get in there. And it is part of ARM's strategy of diversification into copper, but again, we're taking it one step at a time. There are at least six identified, and two of them extensively drilled porphyries there with high grade, reasonable grade, but good byproducts. And the combination of those byproducts puts us in on the PEA, well-positioned on the cost curve, and we can ramp that up to a reasonable level. I wanna qualify, the copper industry today is 26 million tons, and within five years, based on the projects, is going to close to 50 million tons. But if you look at the supply, long-term supply-demand of the world and EVs and ESGs, it's looking at 70 million, and they're saying there's another 20, 30 major mine shortages to supply long-term fundamental needs.
So part of our strategy is to diversify into copper, but do it in a conservative, staged approach. We go with them, and we execute, optionality at least eighteen months, I would imagine on the program, to get to full production by 2030, if it's successful. Thank you.
Excellent. Excellent, Mike. Good, very important questions, and, the indication that, you know, the copper is a medium-term project. Will you answer her question? All right, I will try. I'll try. So to your question, Cindy. And she also know why did you not employ her yet? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we are running out of time. Absolutely. Let her respond to your que-
I want to say something.
Sorry?
I want to say something.
That's all right. It's all right. Okay, give her the mic quickly. We're running out of time. Because she's already ready to answer that question.
No, I just actually want to say, I apologize for pitching in here. I just want to comment on the input, particularly from the operations and the research. I think I'm absolutely thrilled, and I think your investors will be as well, understanding the roadmap on copper. So my biggest worry was... I mean, I've posed a very controversial question, 'cause I'm talking to management, but just to set it out, I think I'm purely confident that the team will sure drive this vehicle in the right direction. Thank you.
It's not. It's an excellent question. It's not a controversial question. You don't want her to answer it, then? She... It's okay. Oh, she answered her own question. She did. Yeah, she did. Okay. All right. Thank you. Just quickly, the gentleman from... They were reminding me that, they have to go to live interviews, studios, but there will still be people here. I think Mike and the whole team will hang around for any questions that anybody has, and, the whole management team, and I think Imran is here as well, and, Kajal and Marike, and the rest of the team. Welcome, David, David Noko, who's our lead independent. Just two quick questions. The gentleman from HSBC asked a very, very important question.
We've been looking at this question for the last, I don't know, 15 years, with a simple objective: what's in the best interest of our shareholders? Do we sell it? Do we hold on to it? Our role in Harmony is significantly more than just a passive role, in the sense that, Harmony was a merger between our company, ARM Gold, which laid the foundation for African Rainbow Minerals and Harmony. And. So we are a very long term, and I think there's all sorts of issues about being an anchor shareholder. But, our view of Harmony is the same like any other investment. We have to do what's in the best interest of our shareholders. If what's in the best interest of our shareholders is to sell Harmony, we'll do that.
We got some of our shareholders earlier during the year who said the price is so high, and the point you raised is absolutely correct. If you look at the dividends that we receive, and we operate even our interest in coal, where our shareholding is limited, we are an active participant in the ExCo, in the board. Not just board meetings, but also make fundamental inputs on the operations and how they are run. So the bottom line for us in Harmony is, we are enormously excited about Harmony's huge investments in copper. Harmony got into copper because of us. I'm chairman of Harmony, and I became chairman at the time of the merger, and so we have a very clear expectation that we want to maximize the equity we have in Harmony.
One of the things that the management was looking at, and good work has been done, is, does part of the strategy in the short term entail using some of the Harmony equity, which are, you know, which is very high right now, to enable us to get loans from the bank and use that, in essence, as security or to pledge? We are looking at all of those options. We are not... The beauty is we are not desperate. We've made mistakes in the past, where at a given time, we were told, and in fact, not that we were told, it was the right thing at the time to sell.
I don't want to mention some of the assets that we sold, which we should never have sold, but at the time, it was absolutely the right thing to do. We're all smarter with hindsight, and a few years down the line, my shareholders came and said, "You know, we put pressure on you at the time to sell, and indeed, it was the right thing, but now, if we had held on, we would have made four, five, seven, 10 times the amount that we received at the time of the sale," so you don't fall in love with any investment. You fall in love with the profitability. You fall in love with its value creation capacity for shareholders.
You fall in love with your absolute duty and commitment to create maximum value for our shareholders. There's another point that was raised, but I think we'll rather discuss this in private. Let me close the meeting by expressing our deep gratitude from the management and also on behalf of the board to everybody who's here. And let me emphasize that, of course, we understand that we've got a fundamental obligation to our shareholders. We also recognize that we've got a huge obligation to the employees, to the communities, to all stakeholders, but also to the country.
We said thirty, forty years ago, we want to employ the smartest and the brightest in this country, and we want this country to, we want this company to fulfill the aspirations and the dreams of all our people, black South Africans, white, green, yellow. I must say, I'm very proud of what we've achieved. These are challenging times, but we are confident about the future. We've seen worse times in the past, and we've been successful, and we are confident that we will continue to create value and we'll do well. Thank you so much, and thanks for coming. Bye-bye.