DRDGOLD Limited (JSE:DRD)

Earnings Call: H2 2021

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Aug 25, 2021

Good morning, everyone. Before we, officially start our results presentation, I would just like to briefly note a couple of health rules for this webinar. Everyone will be in listen only mode, for the remainder of the presentation. Everyone will remain muted. Just to note that there is a handouts tab with all the handouts that you can download and access. And please, in the questions tab, feel free to to type your questions, at any time during the presentation, and, and we'll try and answer, as many of those questions, at the end of the presentation. Yeah. So please settle in. Hopefully, you know where the the coffee is, your own emergency exit, and, obviously, bathroom facilities if if required. But on that note, I'm gonna gonna hand, to Neil and and ask to take us through the presentation. Thanks, Neil. Thanks, Rian. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us. I'm Neil Pretorius. I'll be presenting, with my colleagues, Rian Daufel, our CFO, and with, Jakos Kuman. And, again, we'll also be taking any questions that you may have. Thank you for joining us for the release of our results for 2021 financial year, a remarkable year it's been. Before we start, just want to share with you again our disclaimer because this presentation will be containing a number of forward looking statements, so just read with the necessary caution. And, you might remember that last year, we went with, People, Planet, and Profit. This year, we go with Mine, Enhance, Sustain, which I think slots nicely to the, ESG theme that has become very prominent. Right. So just some of our key features for the year. It's been an exceptional year, mostly as a consequence of particularly the first six months of financial year through to December. At the time, gold price was still really high, I think, north of and, in the region of about a million rand a kilo, which gold mining, the universe is just it's the sort of thing that you never dreamed you would would actually witness. But we were very well positioned to take full advantage of this. Production was really good. And we had our costs under control, managed to keep our staff safe. They made their contribution in terms of keeping themselves safe in terms of COVID protocols, etcetera, etcetera. So order this translated and what we have on this slide for you in terms of the the highlights for the revenue up 26% to north of, R5,200,000,000. Operating profit was up nicely, 39% to about R2,100,000,000. Production, just shy of five and three quarters of a tonne or tons rather, 6% rise in production. And this was from both sides. We saw exceptional volume throughput from both of our circuits and also some really good plant performance indicators as well. Our teams really managed to keep their plants stable and operating well. This translated in an all sustaining cost margin of just under 32%. Gold price was, as I said, very good to us in the financial year. We saw a 19% increase in the average gold price received in the previous year, north of 900,000 and a kilo. Deadline earnings, 127% increase on the back of, of both performance and the high gold price. And, and then, of course, there we go. I'm just going to try and see if I can get there we go. Much better screen. And, this enabled us to, for the fourteenth year in a row, pay a dividend. Final dividend would be 40¢, which takes the dividend for the year to 80¢. And then we'll elaborate more on what percentage that was and what yield it is and how we compare to the rest. But but this has always been for us as a company, a very important indicator of where we are, are we making money, and some of that finding its way to our shareholders. So happy to say that for fourteen years in a row, we've been able to do that. Paid a lot of tax, as you might imagine, with the sort of profits that we managed to generate. So R452,000,000 went into income tax and then also employees tax pay as you earn $2.23. So revenue services and shareholders in terms of funds distributed more or less on an equal footing for the year, north of 600,000,000 in respect of both. Now with Women's Month, we're still so proud to report on some of the numbers that we've managed to achieve in this regard. We have 23% women. And our total staff, which is about double the average in the mining industry, 38% of the members of our board are female. And we're very thankful, firstly, and also very proud of, the woman in in our staff contingent, personnel and staff. And we set ourselves the target of not only supporting their success and, celebrating their success but creating an inclusive environment where all staff members are both physically and psychologically safe or emotionally safe. We really want to make sure that there are nothing inhibiting the performance of women in our environment, in our company, nothing in the way of reaching their full potential, making the contribution that they do. So focus in our company on socioeconomic development has always been key. Sustainable development for many years now has been an important theme in our strategic focus. And this year was no different, 50% increase on socioeconomic spend. And it doesn't come as a surprise. South Africa is in dire straits like many parts of the world as a consequence of COVID and the lockdowns and the impact that that's had on the economy. We operate mostly in areas where a lot of the communities around us are per day communities where they have a per day economy where somebody is a guard or he is a gardener or they do recycling of sorts. And then with these lockdowns, that per day economy suffered very, very significantly. A lot of people didn't have the ability to go out and work. And when they did, the opportunity was simply just lost because the people that they used to do this for just no longer around. They're no longer able to offer that kind of employment. So in those sort of situations, those conditions, it's not surprising that there would be an increase in socioeconomic spend. Of course, our focus does remain sustainable development, sustainable communities, but it was an extraordinary year. So there was a a bigger element, and I'll elaborate on on that when we get to the ESG. And then, of course, our company, our operations, it's a it's a gold producer in the middle of a city. It didn't go to the city. The city came to the mine, but that notwithstanding, fact is that there are lots of people living around our operations, and we don't want them to suffer discomfort or ill health as a consequence of our presence. So we do a lot to suppress dust and we closely monitor what the impact is of dust. When I go through the environmental numbers later on, I'll elaborate on this. But in terms of all of the measurements, and there's several hundred every year that are taken from just under 90 different sites across our entire belt. Might be a little bit more. Yako could elaborate on that if necessary, but the exceedances were limited. I think we've broken the back on dust emission. It's a case of just tying it up towards the natural end of this program. I'll spend a bit of time on our operational trends for the year, and just show what the story is that these trends are what the story is that the trends are telling us, and what we can expect going forward. We've broken it up in the two segments, and then there's also a consolidated one. So firstly, just looking at Ergo, you can see that volume throughput for the financial year has actually been really good. Both half years, we managed to go through 11,000,000 tonnes. So our worst half this year outperformed our best half in the previous year. Of course, the 9,300,000 tonnes in the second half of financial year 'twenty, that's obviously COVID related but covered nicely from that. And you could see that volume throughput was most definitely one of the star performers. The yield starting to go down ever so slightly. Once again, just to interpret this slide, the second half of twenty twenty, that's when we were focusing mostly on the high volume sites. There wasn't much happening in the form of tracking of high grade material, clean up material, and last phase material, so slightly lower yield. And then you could see the difference is now starting to set in, and that gives you a good peek into the future, in terms of where we are, relative to to head grade and recoveries. So we've been, reporting in the, in the past and telling our story that Ergo is going to start going into a high volume, lower grade scenario in the not too distant future. And it's basically made that step change now with the high grade circuit of nights having been phased out in this financial year. So the yields, as you could see, coming out of Ergo, are just under 0.02 lower than what they were in the past. So looking at about 15 to 18 parts per billion lower yields, and that's all attributable to head grade. I'll elaborate a little bit more later on on what we're doing about this. Are we setting ourselves up for even at these levels to be sustainable and profitable and, still offer very, very good returns in in the way that we're just moving around our costs and setting up the business and configuring, our layout, particularly the number of sites, etcetera, etcetera. So I'll talk a little bit more about that towards the end. But this is this is where it's it's sort of settling in in terms of head trading yield going forward. Production, just over two tonnes for the first half and just under two tonnes for the second half. And I must say the first six months of this year has been like no other period that I've ever experienced in our company in the since 02/2003 that I've been involved with DRD. It's just been one of those once in a lifetime periods where not only was the gold price at record highs, but the gold just came out. There was gold everywhere. Our circuits performed so well. And a lot of that, admittedly, relating to sort of late stage cleanup, final stages of, you know, floors being lifted, etcetera, etcetera, and nice also in the final throes of its high credit resource, the four zero six day. So an exceptional, half year that set up really well for the future and enabling us to do the stuff that we wanna do to take the business forward. Always gold operating trends, no surprises there. Always gold is consistently hitting the volume mark. These are very straight lines in terms of volume throughput. In terms of yield, you also see the slight dip in the second half of last year. And this actually this scale here is probably more pronounced than what the real difference is, but but this is a circuit that's taking full advantage of the high grade resource, achieving very, very good yields and improving as we go along some of the initiatives that I will talk more about later on. See very, very good second half with just three quarters of a tonne of coal production contributing to the total number for the year. If you combine the two on group operating trends, exceptional value throughput, and yield per tonne debt, as I said earlier, about that 15 parts per billion on average lower than what we saw earlier in the previous quarter and focus as to how to shrink that through better recovery efficiencies going forward. But a good indication of more or less where we landed following the phasing out or the conclusion of some of the high grade sites at Ergo and move towards more of a slime high volume throughput scenario. And then total production for the year, you can see also just under three tonnes, and two and three quarters of a of a ton of coal of a ton of gold production for the the second hole. So with with that said, I'll reflect a little bit more on this towards the end with the the summing up and the looking forward. But I'll hand over first now for the time being to Rian to take you through the the financial review for the year. Thank you. Thank you very much, Neil. Yeah. It's, as always is, my privilege to take you through our results for the year ended thirty June twenty twenty one. And, yeah, of our 126 year old company, as Neil said, definitely one of the of the best periods, that we've seen in a in a very long in a very long while. And it's, it's hugely also personally rewarding, and I think these are really wonderful, wonderful results. As Neil has done, just starting with the with the ergo financial results, and sort of broken up into half years. And the the theme that that Neil mentioned, around the two halves, very much, true also for the financial results. For example, Ergo, half year on half year, down 26% on revenue, obviously impacted by the Rand gold price that was 14% lower in the second six months versus the first, six months of the 2021 financial year. However, overall, as Neil mentioned, the gold price increased 19% year on year to just under R918,000 per kilogram. Still up revenue 29% year on year for ERGA. Obviously, the volumes impacted, for COVID, in the last quarter of the previous financial year. What we're very proud of and continue to manage very carefully is a bit under our control. Obviously, head grade isn't, yield. We obviously like to And we do manage to keep the plant stable, but it really costs a rand per ton. And you can see that cost for ERGO up 17% year on year, but also the volume is up 13%. So really managed to maintain our rand per ton, which will continues continue to be a huge focus, for our business. And then the operating profit, year on year up, a massive 57% increase. And again, Ergo, again, shows its resilience, wonderful volumes, that it has achieved under almost circumstances that we It sometimes amazes us, with load shedding, many, many challenges, also in July, of the year end that we've experienced, supply challenges, so a wonderful, wonderful performance for overall. The Far West financial results, as you all know, much simpler operations. So, the one site, the high grade different day five, that we're mining. Also, period on period there, revenue down by 13%, very much, responding to the 14 revenue decrease between the two periods, but year on year, a very handsome 18% increase, responding to the increase in the gold price. Cash operating costs, year on year increase of 15%, very much because the milling costs came into effect for the first full year this year, but good impact on yield, as Neil alluded to. And looking at operating profit, a very solid increase of 20% year on year. And again, just to note, always for Far West, astonishing when you just look at it as an operation, as a standalone operating for the year ended thirty June twenty twenty one at a cash operating cost of just over R276,000 a kilogram or in dollar terms at $5.58 US dollars per ounce, which is, remarkable. Obviously, we we we know, the reason we we're targeting, in the phase one, for Far West, the, the actual, high grade resource there, and, obviously, we're building back towards the the next phase of of that operation. The group financial trends, operating margin, again, showed a slight decrease in the, in the second six months. Still still a very healthy operating margin, obviously, impacted by the lower rand gold price in that period, but a good increase year on year. The all in sustaining cost margin, obviously, bolts on the operating margin. And what's good to note there, yes, also a decrease, in the second six months of the year, but what we've seen from our point of view is a 16% increase, second six months towards the first six months in sustaining capital spend. And year on year, an increase of 100% in sustaining capital spend. And that for us is very positive because we're continuously investing in our business, making sure it's as efficient, as it can be, to deliver the best possible results, for the ore body, that that we are that we're actually mining. So still very encouraging all in sustaining cost margin overall. Free cash flow, you know, absolutely wonderful numbers to to to look at. Overall for the year, 22% increase year on year, to over 1,100,000,000 generated in in free cash flow. As Nila said, that reminds our key focus to make sure that the business generates cash so that we will be able to continue to pay pay dividends as we've done, for the last fourteen years. And then headline earnings per share, again, that 111¢ for the first six months of the financial year just highlights the absolutely magical period, that Neil referred to as well, high gold price, high gold, production, and was really a wonderful, period for us. But overall, headline earnings at 168.4¢ for the year, and that's up 104% year on year, which is a a wonderful achievement. Then, hopefully, all of that background through the operating trends and financial trends, will put our primary financial statements into context. Revenue up, 26%, year on year as a result of the gold price increasing by 19% to just under 9 9 hundred and 18 thousand rand per kilogram and gold sold increasing year on year by 5% to 5,734 kilograms. That cost of sales line that you see there, up 15% year on year, but it responded to an 11% increase in volumes year on year and then also a 6%, rand per ton increase. As I've emphasized, a really important measure for us, is to keep our cost intact and and the because of the number of tons that we process, a really important measure. But we're very happy to report, that we'll continue to focus, to keep our costs, in check, because that is the one aspect that that we have, control over. Then, just going to administration expenses, just noting the anomaly around anomaly around share based payment expense. We'll we'll look at our share price a bit later on as well. That was the last 50% of a five year, cash settled share based scheme. They obviously responded to the massive increase in our share price to to 30 June last year and and subsequent to that period, but came back just before the the settlement of that lost tranche, and and that's why you see partly that that reversal of the 28,000,000 in the in the current financial year. That, resulted in results of operating activities of just, over R1,800,000,000. Finance income also boosted this year by some dividends, specifically from from rand refinery of 72,000,000 and, finance income. And then the finance expense there, mostly relating to the unwinding of our rehabilitation obligation. So another big cash portion there, which you'll see on the on the cash flow statement. And then the income tax, as Neil alluded to, obviously, year on year increase in the overall income tax charge, which comprises current and deferred tax of 52% year on year. And then that's, 1,439.9, so just over 1,400,000,000 profit for the year. If you do a quick calculation, there's a number of ways to do it, but if you take that number, over equity on our balance sheet, it gives a return on capital of just under 30%, for the year, which is which is quite an impressive number, and I believe relative to the mining industry, a very attractive return on capital invested. Sliding the financial position or balance sheet, yeah, pretty much stability, is the theme here for me. So property plot, the equipment obviously reflects, the capital that we keep on investing, less depreciation, non current investments and other assets, mostly our rehabilitation assets, under various vehicles, but also our ramp refinery and other investments in that line. Cash and cash equivalents will elaborate on the on the cash flow statement, but a positive increase year on year, but I'll elude on that elude to that on the next slide. Other current assets very much stable period on period. And then the equity number that I mentioned to calculate your term on capital, obviously, the profit goes through this less there's any dividends, that we declare. Provision for environmental rehabilitation, again, stayed stable, although there's there's always this unwinding of interest that I referred to. But the difference for us is that we continue to settle that liability, as we continue to vegetate, clean up old sites. So that number has actually come down if you take out the impact of inflation or unwinding, which, again, I'll allude to just on the cash flow statement as well. Deferred tax liability, yes. You also mentioned we will see that grow as our forecast around taxable profit becomes bigger as we generate more, more taxable profit for our business. And then the current liabilities, obviously, that included, as I've alluded to last year, a short term settlement of incentives that was settled in the current year. So the current ratio, extremely healthy, five, as it is presented there. Then on the statement of cash flows, again, just to dilute the cash generated by operations over R1,800,000,000, an increase of 41% year on year. And that's always the, the sign of true a truly healthy business is the cash that its operations generate. There you can see the interest and dividends that I've alluded to in cash, interest by a bit, very much smaller, the cash portion of that than on the income statement. And that's the number Neil alluded to as well, the $452,000,000, current tax paid in cash, to the receiver of revenue and which is a massive contribution to the fiscals. We also mentioned pay as you earn that we've paid on behalf of of employees. But, yeah, we'll hopefully continue to make that those contributions and and continue to hope that that man money is well spent in the in the South African, economy. The acquisition of property, plant and equipment, again, big increase to just under 400,000,000 cash spent year on year, and that will continue to, to grow. We've alluded to guidance, and you will elaborate on that later on, around R600,000,000 in the next year that wanna continue to invest in our business. And that for me, again, is a very positive sign, that we continue to operate things and improve things under our control, so that will definitely continue. And then, I alluded to some spend, that 51,000,000 is mostly relating to more than 100 hectares of vegetation, that we've done completed on, on our major tailings facilities, which is which is very encouraging that we do take cash flow that we generate and and vegetate as we operate. So, no, we do not wait until the end of our operation. And then the 641,000,000 dividends, that's obviously last year's final dividend and the interim dividend. And you mentioned that with the 40¢ that the board has declared now, takes us to 80¢ relating to this financial year. And if you do a dividend yield calculation at thirty June, like what our share price is, the dividend yield is higher than 5%, which is, I believe, a wonderful dividend in context of the mining industry and and something that we we're very proud of. And then, yeah, we've all taken into account with all those flows. We're sitting with cash in the bank of just under, R2,200,000,000. And then I'll I'll maybe just say a couple of things, before I hand, back to Neil on the on the share price. I think he wants to elaborate slightly on it as well. But just if you if you look at that two year, picture there, absolutely marvelous total shareholder return, if you just look at sort of, say, May 2019, then over that period, together with with health dividends, that shareholders received, illustrates, yeah, huge returns, so total shareholder return in both capital growth over that period, plus dividends, which is, which is very, very encouraging. Yeah. So maybe I can, at this point, Neil, hand, hand back to you if you wanna maybe continue with some comments on the on the share price, and then the rest of the presentation. Thank you, Ria. Yes. We decided to include the, forms of the share price chart for a slightly longer period. I think the the last two years in particular are relevant to see how the share price before, responded to various dynamics. Obviously, there was the uncertainty last year associated with COVID and some, a lot of investors going back to gold as a safe haven, investment with the rest of the global economy becoming unstable and uncertain. I think we also saw a very significant support of liquidity when one of the large index funds came back into the stock. It was around June to July. That maybe provided some additional impetus. And then with the world sort of, settling into a new rhythm and having taken stock and developing a different perspective on where the global economy is going to go and where investment money should be going. I think it tapered off quite a bit and followed the industry down to current levels. I have to admit that, with a share price north of R20, you were wondering, so how do we sustain this? So maybe just maybe the, the levels to which it's returned to are more relational in terms of production and, and outlook and potential performance. Gold seems to have also find itself slightly in an indecisive period at the moment, period of indecision. What is comforting, though, is the fact that support as so rebased, I think, is the term that you support, seems to have come in at a slightly higher level than what we saw in the past. There was the, the dumping of it was close to $4,000,000,000 worth of gold a few weeks ago, pulled the price down by $100 to a bit more in a single day, and then it bounced off $1,700 So, yep, it's interesting to see where support for gold actually comes in. With that as it may, R850,000 a kilo and north, gold still finds itself in a very interesting position and certainly high enough to justify the the CapEx that we're looking at spending and supportive of our operations going forward. I was saying to somebody earlier today that out of the last ten years, it's still better than maybe seven, potentially even eight of the ten years. So I should maybe be careful not to start looking at last year as as the new standard, as the new benchmark. So looking at some of the other performance indicators and some of the other issues that we we're focusing on I'm sure I'll get this to move anytime soon. Yeah. There we go. So ESG. I'm I'm very pleased that as a company, we decided to to take sustainable development on board as a very important thinking to a guide to to how we thought about investing CapEx and and the sort of value add that we wanted to offer, broadly speaking. So when ESG finally became prominent, as prominent as it ought to be in our view, I think we'd already developed a very good factual base to slot into this newly development narrative of particularly environmental and social value add. We refer to that as social capital and nature capital. So our story is one that I think has been developed over time. We're very much approaching this on the basis of overlapping value add or integrated value add, and I think we are seeing that in the results coming through quite nicely. So moving on to the substance of the presentation. There we go. All right. Now I wanna talk just a little bit to the picture, to the photo in this slide. This is the crown tailings. And maybe to give a better perspective of what we mean when we say that sustainable development has positioned us very favorably for, the emphasis on ESG and how that's impacting not just the investability of companies. So this picture, Crown Tailings, is right next to Suetta. And it's certainly one of the things that I think, as a company, we are very proud of, of how this particular complex has improved from an environmental and social perspective over the last ten odd years. And this is not coincidental. Lots of people live in close proximity to this facility. I think it was in 02/2007 that for the first time, the senior management of Crown at the time presented a budget that specifically provided for vegetation. Was no longer just an operational expense. This was something that we wanted to bring in as far as an ongoing campaign and, and we wanted to have this done over a period of time. I think our target date still remains 2023. But that first sixteen million, two new budget items, so to speak. The one was less for vegetation at the crown tailings, and the other one was a capital vote for the repair of pipes that just kept on bursting. And now this thing has developed a mind of its own. It's jumping onto the next slide. Here we go. So two new items that, that featured on the budget for the first time coming out of the operations. There's vegetation since 02/2007, coming from the free state, from Piraeus, driving through that little bridge or a flyover, it almost frames this dam, this particular site. As I said earlier, it's one of the things that gives me great pleasure to see that every time that I drive up towards the north from the free state of just how this is beautifully framed and how, you know, the dust nuisance and the impact on the quality of life of the people in that area, that has improved as a consequence of this vegetation. And it's a good program. It's a sustainable program. It takes about three years to settle and then it's on its own. It involves mulching, cladding, and a very interesting cocktail of vegetation that takes it to this particular home. And this is happening in semi dry South Africa. So just looking at some of the numbers at the bottom there, 12% increase in externally sourced potable water. This is a year on year number that is perhaps, emphasized somewhat, in a slightly distorted way by the reduction in water consumption last year when we had the lower volume throughput. But there is, nonetheless, one additional dynamic that is added to this, and that is that we're getting less water from our sewage plant. So we built a beautiful sewage plant a few years ago, that were a treatment plant for sewage water, and that then finds its way into our central water circuit. You will remember that we have a centralized water circuit where everything is distributed from one point, water stays in a closed circuit. And this is one of the sources. Unfortunately, the throughput of this particular sewage plant has decreased in the recent past as a consequence of maybe not as much sewage actually reaching the sewage plant. And as a consequence, we're getting less water coming out of that. But it will remain an important focused area for us. These numbers look a lot better than what they looked like ten years ago when we started targeting a reduction in potable water, and we do still make use mostly of recycled water. But this year, the trend is in the opposite or the number is in the opposite direction, not so much a trend as an event, comparatively speaking. Spoke about the dust, and in the background there, you could see the reason why there's less dust. Environmental spend is 105,000,000. I'll show you the comparative numbers on the next slide. All of 115 hectares of additional vegetation was established. It's also almost a doubling of last year. I'll give some of that perspective too. And then 87.6 hectares submitted to the NNR and awaiting approval. The significance of this simply is that before land can be put to sustainable use, once it's been cleaned and cleared, these are areas that previously sat under tailing stamps that have since been recycled, before that land can be used, the NNR needs to give it the green light, that it doesn't pose a radon or a radiation risk. And 87.6%, rather 87.6 hectares of land has now been and this is in the context of the city. This is in Johannesburg. It's now been submitted to the NNR and we're waiting their approval. And obviously, we only submit these if we can demonstrate that the site has been cleaned of radiation, that it doesn't pose a risk, can be used sustainably. Tailings management's become a very big part of both the environmental, the social, and the governance, composite in the sense that, because of recent events, it's very prominent in the public eye. And quality of tailings management, by and large, is also a good indicator of quality of management generally. We've been setting ourselves up for, I think, an environment that is going to demand more transparency and more access to information in terms of just where you are in terms of tailings management, and these are the tailings on which we deposit, not the tailings that we're recycling. In order to make sure that we are trending consistently towards, the best standards, we established this tailings review board in 2018 made up, amongst other things, of some independent authorities in the field, and they provide guidance to management and assurance to the board. And these are some very interesting conversations taking place on exactly what the, the tolerance levels ought to be and what the standards ought to be that we aspire to achieve in terms of managing our tailings properly. We've established an interactive management system, tailings performance management system. So this is a web based system that is regularly updated. And here, we track and monitor a whole host of things. Firstly, in terms of status, what's the status of the phreatic surface? What's the status of, what does the freeboard look like? The size of the pond? What are the open items that we are working on to ensure that the condition of the tailings dam every year is an improvement compared to the previous year? What we also started doing a few years ago was to rely less on independent service providers in terms of assurance and to establish line of sight literally deep into our tailings dams, with own personnel and own oversight to make sure that we maintain the standards that are required for the safe operation of these tailings dam. We're bringing technology on board. It's fantastic kind of technology that's available nowadays for this sort of thing. And there's InSAR technology, which is basically satellite imagery but in a slightly more sophisticated application, It shows you if there's been any movement in the tailings dam, is it exactly in terms of shape, the same condition that it was in when the previous image was taken. And then this is important, to detect early detection of any kind of movement in the tailings dam. Now, to remind you that a tailings dam isn't really a dam. Tailings dam is a it's a very interesting and subtle balance between weight, gravity, water, and material, which you need to manage very, very carefully in order for it to stay in balance. It's a live thing. Breeds, it sweats, and it's not supposed to move, but it can move and you need this sort of technology to make sure that you pick up any sort of movement, any sort of early indication that an imbalance is developing. So this is a very comforting part of technology that we're using in this regard. And then, of course, there's the drone surveillance that we also do on a full fee basis, which helps a lot. Any change in texture or color of your vegetation on top of your dam, for example, might be an indication of a change in the water balance or ferric surface or a problem with drainage or anything like that. So these things are looked at long and hard and on an ongoing basis. Right. So moving on to the next slide, this is just the spend, the environmental value add or spend at a glance. Once again, I want to reflect on the picture. This is the top of a tailings dam. So the best way to bind the swell on top of the dam is to put a vegetation into it so the root system binds it. And the best way to also make sure that dust doesn't come off it is to keep the wind away from the surface. And, therefore, you see this combination, this cocktail of plant material that's established on top of the tailings dam. And after about three years, as I said earlier, it becomes so sustainable, then the irrigation is no longer necessary. These are say, a picture of one of the tailings dams, top of the tailings dams to the Southwest Of Johannesburg near Socor City. And as a farmer, I mean, I'm just loving the lissless Lucerne here. That's a healthy plant, and very nicely established. So just looking at the spend itself, R105 million was spent on environmental containment and these sorts of measures. Now, I must just also add that this is not part of the steps that we take, which is part of the day to day running of the business, the operating costs. The very nature of our business is by removing dams and by sort of following the face of the dam as we're removing it, there's rehabilitation taking place. And that's part of operating costs. This is what's categorized, purely categorized and classified in terms of financial reporting terminology as environmental spend. You could see that it's double year on year. And, of course, that's what the performance of the last two years. What it's really enabled us to do is that our focus is a balanced one. It is obviously to deliver into, to have solid economic performance. We need to pay out our dividends. We need to make profit. We need to offer a convincing investment opportunity to the market and acknowledge the interest that the market has in that regard, economic interest. But then again, there's a social and environmental value add that is equally important from a sustainability perspective. And when fortunes change and you're in a position to do it a catch up and to sort of just close the lag between, the remainder of the life of your operation and the work that has to be done in terms of closing those sites and rehabilitation that needs to take place and maybe some of the sites which in the past when our reality was different, was not close to a particular standard, and you can throw this sort of at it. And then we're running we've formed legacy sites at the moment where there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of machinery moving around to make sure that we bring those up to standard and we can close them down fully. We moved, as I said earlier, into a lower grade, high volume, period. And the last thing that you wanna do is towards the end of life, and we're talking ten, fifteen, maybe even longer years from now as this business develops and as it adapts to its situation, You don't wanna be in a situation then when the revenues are maybe lower or margin is, is under pressure to to then have, the obligation to to do this sort of catch up. So so rather catch up now and make sure that these two track each other. It's all about concurrent rehabilitation, which is a term that we use a lot. Hectors of vegetation, also double or almost double compared to last year and the year before at 115 hectares. This is not just environmental in nature, but this is also a social dividend. This is making sure that the people living around those dumps, that they don't live in a dust cloud, that they don't have the nuisance of dust and also the potential health issues associated with dust. I spoke earlier about the radiation standards. Our largest standing zone, this particular one that's on this picture, is no longer classified. It's no longer under the conditions of it's no longer under the conditions of a nuclear license, which means that people who work on that dam no longer needs to wear protective gear from a radiation perspective. So it doesn't pose a risk in that regard to surrounding communities, but the dust needs to stay on the dam, because if it gets blown into these communities, then obviously some of that advantage, some of that benefit, the airborne stuff, you lose that. And that's why this is so terribly important from a social capital perspective and why it's been a very keen focus area for us in the last decade. Looking at the electricity consumption, you probably want to look at the 2019 numbers compared to 2021 because there was the interruption of less electricity use, particularly in terms of milling during the lockdown last year. So you'll see that the megawatt consumption, megawatt hour consumption was higher, this year than last, but not compared to 2019. So it's also a profile that's changing ever so slightly with the change in material that's coming through. And, in that regard, that's really where you also make up some of the value per unit in the sense that the process becomes simpler with the slimes material that doesn't require the degree of milling, etcetera, that, that typically would do with your coarser high grade material that makes up some of the margin loss in terms of high grade material. Potable water consumption, I spoke about, that too. Since the rather look at 2019 and 2021 as a direct comparison. And and we want to reverse that, obviously. We need to sewage needs to reach the sewage farms. All the other stormwater needs to reach the stormwater areas, etcetera. And there we could draw down, make use of, more gray area. We're still taking full advantage of the acid mine drainage that's being treated out of the central shop by the, tunnel authority with whom we have an arrangement. So not only do we get water from them, but there's also the transportation of the byproduct, the Arizings, which ends up on our sailing stem and which, by virtue of the fact that it ends up there, also makes a contribution towards our water balance. But we don't really want to be competing with society in terms of potable water and the recycled water is cheaper than the potable water. So that's where you have that lovely overlay of value add where your environmental value and your financial bottom line, where these two actually meet up, where good environmental practice also costs less and contributes to margin. And then on total carbon emissions, take a good and a hard look at this line. Obviously, 2020 again, lower power consumption because of lockdown, but compared to 'nineteen and 'twenty one, it's trending in the right direction. And that is the one number that'll change a lot over the next twenty four months, because a lot of the CapEx that's going to go into this business is directed at green energy. And some of those will come through in the next twelve months already and come through more prominently in twenty four months. Those are good programs that are on the cards. Alright. I'm pretty sure that it'll land on the next slide soon. There we go. This is our social spend for the year on socioeconomic development. This is the s part of our ESG. I did mention where we are in terms of women in mining. HTSA accounts 72%, and in terms of socioeconomic development, it's up quite a bit. It's close to 50,000,000 for the year. And, it's set to remain at these levels and maybe even increase going forward. And what's really nice about where we are now is with the broad based livelihood program, that's an extensive program over seven districts or seven areas, it really facilitated the, the programs that we launched in terms of COVID relief and it's going to facilitate hopefully also the work that is being done at the moment in terms of the research that we're doing to leverage our broad based livelihood program and expand it into something a little bit more ambitious. All part of the initiative to mobilise the informal economy, to put to use the vast amount of social grant capital coming into these communities on a monthly basis and using that as a platform as the building blocks for, let's call it, microeconomic development and increased independence. It's important that these communities start looking more towards themselves to deliver into essentials and redeveloping the material that can assist in that regard, which we are quite keen to start rolling out once, once it's done. And we're partnering with University of Pretoria. That regard, lovely program. In terms of governance, I did speak about the governance surrounding tailing safety and the systems that we've got in there, but these are the, let's call it the aspirational standards that we look towards and that we are cognizant of and we're trying to get closer and closer to those. On integrated reporting, we've got some very good feedback this year on the quality of our integrated report. I think it was rated excellent. And then in terms of the rest, the global reporting standards, the sustainable development goals of the United Nations, these are very closely aligned with what we've been trying to achieve in terms of our sustainable development focus over the REIT book since forever, basically, that this team's been involved. And then with Spania Stillwater, as a member of World Gold Council, these are standards that we are familiarizing ourselves with and that we're trending close towards to make sure that we are not an embarrassment to our primary shareholder and that we do conform with these standards and with these expectations. And these are some of the sustainability goals coming out of the United Nations development goals at the bottom there that resonate with us and that are aligned with the initiatives that we're looking at. And I'm just looking at the last one, the partnership for these goals. And, you know, we really want to be economic enabler within this broader social partnership of improving quality of life and establishing sustainable communities. And some of the commentary that came out now, especially after the protests of just making sure that whilst increasingly South Africa might be moving towards more of an enclave type society, it's very important that we're inclusive. This is Alida Cox's opinion that I'm referring to here. We've got to be inclusive in in the solutions that we find. New partnerships, new arrangements, to to not leave anybody out in finding a broader social solution. Also understanding, though, that we're not government. Our role will never be that of government. We're not the primary supplier of these primary services, but we can be an enabler. We can provide support, in the form of both economic capacity, financial capacity, and also the knowledge that we can gather and that we can make available through programs. We can be an important partner in enabling communities to lift themselves out of this hopelessness and build a better future for all South Africans. And I suppose if you're not concerned by the numbers that came out again this week in terms of unemployment, then I don't know what is going to concern you because those are devastatingly morbid numbers in the sense of just, you know, what is the burden that it's going to to place in society as a whole? And it's time to roll up our sleeves and get involved and assist in building an alternative economic structure, new ways of doing things. People are not going to find work in the formal economy. We won't be able to accommodate everybody in the informal economy. But the informal economy is dynamic, it's vibrant, it's very sophisticated, and it has enormous potential. And we could leverage that provided we look from the inside out and see what we could do, without assuming the role of we know what's best for you, but rather, you know, we want to be part of what's best for you through an enabling contribution. The response to COVID is on the website for all to see. Other than to say that I was genuinely impressed with the standard and also just the attitude of, of staff as a whole. And and attitude is an important word in our organization. Your attitude towards everything, is is is a vital part of your of what you bring to the workplace. And we saw the right attitude towards, COVID protocols, making sure that I keep myself safe. Also, I don't pose a risk to my colleague by following these rules, by following these protocols. And then our numbers were low. We unfortunately lost three colleagues to COVID. But, I think that we created a safe workplace with the protocols that we had and that coming to work did not present a COVID infection risk for our employees. And for that, we have all of our employees to thank, in just how they bought into this and how they just took the right attitude to what was made available and which they then used to overcome this virus. And we're seeing a similar attitude when it comes to vaccination. We are fully supportive of vaccination. We do believe that through vaccination, ultimately, COVID will become a bad flu, in terms of symptoms and danger. And this is where we need to be as a society and DoD Gold is playing its role in that regard. All right. I did speak a little bit about how our, broad based program, the trench program, enabled us to play a role in this regard, and you see this pretty sure in most corporate presentations, but just over 6,000 families and who couldn't participate in their per day economy, at least had some relief as a consequence of of what, the audience staff and its partner, Masisi, had managed to roll out, from Springs all the way through to to Coltonbourne. But moving on to the next thing. So so this is something that that is going to become increasingly important in our business. In fact, it's always been important, but I think we'll we'll attach more prominence to it because of just, the role that it plays in optimizing the per unit value contribution. So although we're treating more than 2,000,000 tonnes of material per month, we dissect every single one of those to make sure that we don't overspend on a single tonne and that we don't leave behind any value in any single tonne. So it's a big business that's being managed on a per tonne basis. You'll see that we actually report those numbers. What is the cost per ton? What's the revenue per ton margin recovery, etcetera, etcetera. This is a beautiful facility that was built at our Far West Gold operation. Because of the high copper content in this resource, the purity of our dore bars delivered to the Grand Refinery attracted a penalty. We didn't get full recognition of all the gold. And this plant has now just taken it to beyond a purity of 60, which is giving us, a much better gold recognition. So we're getting more than 99% recognition at this stage, and probably closer to 99.5%. And I just love looking at this because, remember, the, you know, our company is a company that's, made up really of infrastructure that is sort of like and then, you know, reflecting on my own growing up years, we're a hand me down company. We took other sort of discard equipment and plant and infrastructure and so forth, and then we bought the right stuff and set it up in such a way that it gave us these fantastic results. And in terms of efficiency and throughput and just being able to monitor and see what's going on in the business, This is all brand new and and I'm I'm loving it. It's like getting my first pair of own church shoes and own suit when I was in stand at five. I'm loving this. It's it's such a beautiful picture and it works really, really well. So very proud of what we've managed to achieve here. And we spoke about it a little bit in terms of the, we have these hot button features. Now, when we decided to put this in here is to listen to me rambling on every six months about doing this and doing that and so forth while while everybody else is also reporting. I think we'll be missing an opportunity to just share with the market some of the exciting stuff that our business is on about and the stuff that we do. And the copper illusion circuit was was one of those. And there's a nice little write up. We call it the hot button feature. Now hot button was supposed to sort of be a button on the website, but it's now it's how we suppose the brands develop for for this particular feature. And we will be wanting to tell you more and more about this. So watch out for the or look out rather for the hot button features as they, progressively, are released and everything that's prominent on our capital, investment schedule for the next, few years or for the foreseeable future or the it's gonna feature in one of these hot button features. And we try to have a nice combination of everything, of both operational stuff, engineering stuff. There'll be some of the, we'll provide updates on the research that we're doing on the informal economy model that we're wanting to help co create. So all of that will find its way onto our website, the hot button features. Here's another one, four zero two five, which is one of the oldest sites where, it was halfway mined. It was very acidic. It needed lots of lime. It needed lots of cyanide. And it stood for for many, many years. And that stood as a bit of a reminder and maybe also an eyesore reminder of a different time when our reality was different. Also an eyesore in the sense that this is not how we want to leave a site behind. And this one is now actually finding its way into the production profile, and it's gonna be gone in a few months, well, just more than a year, but it will make a a handsome contribution. And and the contribution will not just be in terms of gold and in terms of margin and the per unit contribution towards costs fixed and variable, but it will also be part of Johannesburg that had been sterilized for decades because waste was used for the storage of waste and it will now be freed up and could be put to sustainable land use. So this is delivering into our purpose and doing it in a way that that makes better money for the company and for its shareholders. So I think we're close to the end. Now looking ahead, picture here, on guidance and especially, I think, on the capital aspect of guidance. So most of what you're seeing here in terms of cost and capital is the product of a number of things. But one of the things, obviously, is also the fact that we are in a position to spend a bit more now on environmental cleanup. And we're also wanting to spend there's a lot of money that's not being distributed, that we've been carrying over from reporting period to reporting period. Recovering around ZAR2 billion. It's not going to shareholders because it needs to go into capital projects. And, budget for this year, or the plan is about ZAR600 million of that, Excuse me. And that is squarely aimed at optimizing our resource, increasing our, what we call, our embedded resilience. In other words, being able to weather the the the down cycle because there will be another down cycle and we need to see it through so that we can take full advantage of the next up cycle. It just seems as though these cycles are getting shorter and the amplitude is just getting far steeper, but be that as it may, we need to start spending this money now. We need to start investing it into the future. And obviously, there's a very particular very specific process that we follow in deciding what gets spent and where. And what you will find, there'll be more and more information going into the market this year. We want to give you more details and a clearer picture of where we're going over the next three years in terms of life of mine, for example, where there's going to be a resource update. We want to tell you more about some of the stuff that we're doing on the green energy side, the solar power generation and power storage. We'll have a day for that before the end of this calendar year. We'll give a lot of detail in that regard. And we also do want to tell you more about how we go how we're doing in terms of Far West phase two and the infrastructure. But I think what I wanna share, at least at this point in time, is just how we're approaching this because we are living in interesting times. A year ago, we were very nervous about expropriation without compensation. I'm just thinking that that's sort of undermining. That is part of the ideology of how we think about the economy and how we think about preservation of capital, then it's going to become harder and harder to not just get capital but also justify spending capital. It's one thing to go and buy a farm in the Karoo with your own money. It's another thing to go and take your shareholders' funds and build huge infrastructure in an environment where you cannot guarantee that the integrity of ownership is taken seriously and that it enjoys, the sort of protection that it requires in a constitutional democracy and an emerging economy where capital investment is really the one thing that we need more than others, anything others anything else to just lift ourselves up. So the way that we're looking at these capital projects is as follows. We plan them as ambitiously or as extensively as we can. So in other words, Sue, to give an example, when we talk about what we call phase two, the plan and that which we're subjecting to bankable studies, that plan extends beyond our two fifty million tonnes resource and the rate at which we want to treat it and we're going to deposit it. It extends beyond the size wise, it extends beyond our own needs. And the reason why we do that is that, we wanna make sure that, you know, while we plan big, considering our immediate circumstances, we are going to have to be just a little bit more circumspect in terms of execution. So plan big, but execute carefully and execute incrementally. That's necessarily important part of agility, of being able to do what you need to do in order to make sure that you can maintain your production rate, that you do not lose any sort of optionality in terms of your resource, and also that you do not close the door on the potential to expand, the potential to become a regional consolidator, the potential to not just treat your own resource but to become that economically viable, in fact, economically robust environmental solution to that entire area. So that's how we're looking at these projects, and we'll give some more detail on that going forward. But if I can leave this one concept with you today is of planning big but implementing carefully, implementing with care, and in such a way that we do not close any doors on ourselves in terms of optimization of our position, our footprint, our resource, and also the potential of the business. So big theme items this year in terms of the 600,000,000 capital, obviously, at Ergo is going to be green energy, the solar plant, both generation and, and also storage. And unfortunately, the speed at which the regulator moves, notwithstanding the fact that, there's been huge improvements in that regard with the 100 megawatts threshold that's been introduced, regulator doesn't quite move at the same speed. And where municipalities get involved, I mean, it's, so, yeah, it doesn't move at the same speed. So we need to make sure that we can start executing, notwithstanding the fact that the regulator is sort of deciding whether it wants to keep pace. But there's going to be some interesting stuff happening in the PV space, and we'll share that, as I said, before the end of the this financial year. But big chunk of the 600,000,000, I think about, what is 110,000,000 for this year alone dedicated towards that in preparation and setting ourselves up in that regard. In terms of phase, in terms of deposition capacity, phase two, in particular, at the Far West, about 150,000,000 to secure land and to do some of the initial work. And then I think we want to definitely share with the market at some stage in the before the end of the calendar year when construction will start about tailing stem and what it will look like, whether it will be in a big one or whether it will be slightly smaller, how it'll fit in, and how do we make sure that we're not painting ourselves into a corner, that not understanding how and where we start, that it will be part of the biggest story. And as much as we are given the opportunity, circumstance, environment, financial reality to actually deliver into the big story. So that's starting this year, 150,000,000. And in terms of volume throughput at Pergo, about 90,000,000 for the development of another site, and that'll be on a hot button feature. We'll update you on that. And then, enhancement at, further enhancement at Far West Gold. We did the copper elution. There's a closed circuit milling circuit that also is a big priority. It's going well. There's another hot button feature that will that will feature this year, but those are the the big theme items in terms of our CapEx for the new year. And we're quite keen to to advance those. Let me just make sure. Yeah. So last year, as I said, political, the, expropriation debate was a concern that seems to be sort of lost some of its momentum, expropriation with our compensation. But there's a new reality, and that is, how well are we positioned in terms of social unrest and anarchy and where is the state in that regard? How prepared is it? And how does that impact design? And also, how does that impact investment decision? So these are important conversation points that take place on a much broader base. And we're very thankful that we get to listen to some of the intelligence analysis, not just from our own board, but also because we are being made part of, Sibanye Stillwater's discussion in this regard. And, and a big part of our plans, and you'll see that also in the letter to shareholders, is to increasingly align with Sibanye Stillwater, who are increasingly becoming involved in the green energy space, battery metals space. There is a part for us to play also in that regard in terms of tailings and metals that were thrown away many, many years ago that can now be recovered through recycling and that can also play in that regard. And just to look at just how this whole thing comes together, if I may conclude with that, really, in terms of our sustainable development story. So we mine we produce gold out of tailings using recycled water, and increasingly now we'll also be using green energy. Imagine if we also produce the metals used in the generation of that green energy. I mean, there's a nice closed loop if ever there was one wonderful combination of financial financially robust ESG. That's really where we wanna be. I think I've covered everything. Yep. There we go. So those are the contact details. Thank you very much. I sort of went on and on a bit, but, hopefully, this was helpful to just get a peek into our thinking and where we're going and allocation of resources, people, etcetera, etcetera. But but thank you also to the market for its support in the last two years, really. And, and hopefully, we will we will not disappoint, and we will keep you up to date in terms of decisions that we take with regards investments of your money and and why we think it's a good idea. And we'll also be listening very keenly for your views on if you think they're on the right track. And then hopefully, we are. So thank you for dialing in. There's an opportunity for there's an opportunity for questions. I see there's one from Peter Cromberg. And while we wait for the rest, I'll just jump in. And, Leon, Jacque, you if you can switch on your cameras and take part in answering these. So to what extent can we look at acquiring new businesses and consolidation opportunities? So, I think there are two aspects to this. On the one hand, we're a small part of a very large enterprise and we want to become increasingly, valuable within that larger enterprise. And we think that by being that, by making that, playing that role within Sipania's saltwater, there's also value to be unlocked. The Faraway's goal operation, if that is a if that's an example of how value can be unlocked at tailings, which is non core within Sabania Stillwater by bringing it under another brand and turning it into something that can be modeled, no longer just a rehabilitation liability. The mere fact that you have a program and that you have a project doesn't turn it into something that you could value. In order for it to be valued, it needs to be prominent enough within your portfolio of assets for the market to attach value to that. And I think the market has shown us how dynamic that could be, a process that could be with the Far West gold dumps. I think there are other opportunities like that which we would want to develop. And obviously, then it's nice to have capital because you want to pay your own way in that regard. And then, of course, also in terms of just being a service provider, I think that the, our teams become good at mopping up. Our teams become good at sort of late phase, mature, bringing things together and, let's call it, bringing about optimized closure of certain sites. And we think that there's a role to be played in that regard as well. But that won't be as prominent as assets coming across. But it's nice to be of use, and I think we want to be more of use. In terms of external growth, we're not going to come in at the top of the market just for the sake of of being part of, you know, whatever the market thinks is sexy at this stage. So, they too if opportunities does present itself, if there are, projects or opportunities that are undervalued or that's not getting the the sort of market attention that it deserves and by combining it with our brand, you might unlock some of that, then then, of course, we will do that. But, yeah, we we we're not gonna be chasing, something that we we're not convinced would add sort of to the value composite that we offer our shareholders. And, but, yes, there is a process, and we might be looking at that. A lot of attention, though, will go into just not just optimizing existing operations but also building it up for all the reasons that I mentioned during the presentation. Yes. So, Pierre, we're going to have a presentation later this year where we'll be giving full details of exactly what the solar plant looks like. And the, and if, I mentioned to you the speed at which the regulator moves. So, obviously, if if you get all the support that you require, including, consent that you could feed back into the grid, then you start big. If you don't, then you start a little bit smaller. So we're gonna start, and depending on where the regulator is at that exact point in time, it will either be big or it will be a little bit smaller, but it's gonna be significant. I mean, we're looking at total power requirements for the Ergo plant at the very least. Japko, I don't know if you want to elaborate on that. I've said it. I agree with you that we will update so we'll update the market in a full presentation on size and cost of the project later on during the year? We're pretty much ready to go, as I said earlier. It's just that the the regulator doesn't quite move at the same pace, especially the municipalities involved. But, we know where we wanna go. It's not the case of just implementation and making sure that we implement in a in a clever way, but we we're not gonna wait. So, Arnold, on on the the the CO2 emissions here, I mean, in the final analysis, what's the equivalent of 20 megawatt actual consumption that is now coming from the sun and no longer from a coal power plant. That's the you know, when I was talking about aiming big and planning big and then implementing sensibly, but in the long run, that's at least what we want to be aiming for. Or else why bother? The dividend seems low given the level of cash flow generated. Is this to create a buffer? I think what we said let me read the question. Maybe not everybody's seeing it. Arnold is asking the question. The dividend is low given the level of cash flow generated. Is this to create a buffer as you move into lower yields or fund for what is called phase two or both. Yeah, it's the best application of our funds, I believe. We obviously don't want to not pay a dividend in a situation where we can, But this is the first year in a many in a long period of time where the dividends and earnings aren't almost the same. And that wasn't intentional, but that's sort of how it's happened. But I think you will recall, Arnold, that what we said in the past is that the investment that Sabania Stillwater made in our company of just over a billion rand, that that money is project money. So that's gonna go into Far West, please. And then in terms of resource optimization, when you're mining a combination of tailings dams and remember, everyone is almost like a it's like a new little mine. Everyone's different in terms of content. Different people produce the lush waste dumps, and they don't give the they don't all give you the same sort of yield. So what you wanna do in order to make sure that you mine the whole thing is, is manage your mix, the mix of your feed. You don't wanna mine out the eyes now and then leave the next generation with rubbish. You almost want to have a almost like a constant head grade. Now, what's happened at Far West in particular is that because five dump is much higher grade than some of the remaining dumps, we haven't been able to manage that mix. So the only way that you can achieve the same sort of outcome is to retain some of the financial upside, some of the the cash coming out of that dump. And then the way that we've done it really is to and this is more sort of a guideline than a rule. But the way that we've done it this week, we had a look at what the project gold price assumptions were, which I think at the time was R639,000 a kilo. And we said, all right, well, up until that number, that really we should pay in terms of dividends. But beyond that, a chunk of that, let's call it the windfall, as a consequence of the high gold price, that's the proportionate contribution over the next eighteen years, and that's got to co fund some of the CapEx. But we are also spending, money on rehabilitation. We're spending money on cleanup. We're in a position to, as I said, bring that little bit closer, that the lag of rehabilitation and sort of where we are in terms of life of mine that that lag is shrunk. So that when the money stops, the rehabilitation is done. And then, of course, there's also the stuff happening at PIRGO. So, yep, your summary, your short sentence is right. It's both. Testing or not. I'm just going back to the bottom again, Peter. So the soda plant, you'll have a you'll have a proper presentation, and then the other one's fine. Those seems to be all the those that seem to be all the questions. Unless I'm missing anything. Is that all? Yeah. That's pretty much all for for for the questions. Rian, anything else from you while we're concluding remarks? Neil, no. Just I I think you've you've summarized it well, maybe, answering this last question also from Arnold. I think we, responsibly setting aside around mixes, around sustainability, around building the best possible business for the future to mine as long as we can, look at regional consolidation. And we're taking that step by step. So I think that that is the message, and we're fortunate to have cash on the balance sheet to go and do that, because we don't hedge, we are exposed if the gold price comes down, or our profits are impacted as as everyone saw in in the second half of the year. It is, it's, it's it's a volatile market. So I think we we we set up very positively to, to take the next steps, and we are and we are doing that. So, very exciting, next steps that that we're tackling. But that's it from our side. Thank you. There is a hand raised. Sorry. There is a hand from Nick, Nick Bingham. I'm not sure if you will give me permission to unmute you or not. Sure. Yeah. Go ahead, Sifu. Alright. Nick, you've been unmuted. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. We can. Yes. So, question sorry. I was trying to I had my hand raised there, so, I think that the better way of asking questions was on that, on that, key list. Okay. Only two things. Talking about costs, on Ergo's side, your your if you you talk about your unit costs on, on a per ton basis, so working roughly, they turned out they went up 4%, but at the same time, 13% in tons, which in a in a fairly simple sort of way indicates that your cost pressures were rising in the order of 17%. So I add the one to the other, and I get that sort of number. Now, I know you're talking about electricity at 15%, but that only kicked in for half the year, and your, your, electricity costs only account for 20% of the total. So those cost pressures to me look quite high. Can maybe just unpack that, and then I'll have a further question. Yeah. Are you talking about total cost or the the cost per ton? Total cost per ton at Ergo on a on a on a as per tonne molds basis. Yeah. The total cost went up because we increased volume throughput by quite a bit. But the cost per tonne, I think that that line is a lot more complementary. So your cost per kilo will be higher because your yield per ton is lower. More tons produce doesn't produce the same Rand, but the cost per ton, is actually, quite quite well managed. So it's not it's not up by 17%. So no. So let me just rephrase that question. It went up by 4%, but it went up by 4% despite the tonnages increasing by 11%. So one would have expected some benefit of that expansion, of tonnages on your rands per ton cost. That's the point of this question. I see what you're saying. So what you're saying is that because, because there was an increase in in tonnes, you ought to have had a a a more of a dilution on your per unit cost. Correct. Yeah. So I wish we could give you a breakdown of every one and exactly what sort of contribution it makes, but I suppose what makes that sort of breakdown, pardon, and Jako will give some more color on this, is that not every site is a site where we do reclamation by way of hydraulic high pressure border guns. So some of the sites, we actually use trucks. And those towns are quite a bit higher on a per ton basis than the acrylic sites. And that changes the whole time. We've got between, at any given point, where there are between fifteen and eighteen sites where there's actual activity taking place. And on one of those sites for the better part of the last year, there's only been stockpiling that hasn't come in through the circuit and it'll start coming through now in the new year. So if it was only one site, you know, and on that site, we had an 11% increase in throughput but only a 4% increase in cost, you know, one would have expected that dilution to be better. But it's not just one site. It's a heck of a more complex than that. Yes, Neal. Your answer is 100% correct. I hope you can hear me. I see screen is imitating some of the regulated responses. Yes. We can hear you. So but your answer was 100% correct, reminding a number of sites. And, some of these sites, specifically the smaller ones, you gain into final cleanup and rehabilitation, as also indicated in some of the environmental slides in this presentation on the cost associated with environmental cleanup. And that comes at a higher cost because you're tracking this material in. So, as we're cleaning up these sites and getting them into final rehabilitation, handing it back, we're obviously moving towards bigger slum sites and hence your production cost overall will also start decreasing. Thank you. Thanks for that answer. Can I have another one? You have a question? Yes. Yes. Catharine. Catharine. So, you know, I'm aware that you have a number of projects on the conveyor belt, and and and as you say, the regulators aren't quite as quick as you. But if they were to catch up with you, you would have quite a few things on your plate. So when I look at when I look at DRD, I don't see necessarily that you have the execution ability to do all those things in a relatively short space of time. Do you think this is a challenge? You're gonna have to grow the company to match the project profile if they come through reasonably quickly. Yeah. Now we share your concern, and we've scheduled a, and the board raised the same issue. So we've got to sort of maintain a balance between senior colleagues starting to feel sorry for themselves because they work so damn hard and, and making sure that we have adequate adequate resources. And and the first time saying tongue in cheek. But no. No. We we are having a, a workshop series of workshops now over the next few months where we'll be just looking at role clarity. You know, our team has been a very stable team now for a long period of time, six, seven years, and certain members on that team came in to put certain things in place and they've been in place now for a while. So maybe it's time to sort of move on to the next level and be more strategic and less sort of focus on day to day stuff. And we have you know, within our senior team, I can think of, at the very least, not counting, Jocco and and Rian, you know, who've been core to that team from the outset. I can count at least three or four additional senior members of management, of ops management, that can increasingly start becoming more involved strategically and have some of their colleagues stepping into some of their day to day chores. Ultimately, what we wanna do is not just it's not limited to only the quality of the work that we want done. And I think the performance of our most recent addition, the plant, this little copper illusion plant and the effect that it's having, that bears testimony, I think, to the quality standard that our team takes to these projects. But it's not just that. There's a very specific approach that we take to every site. There's a set of values that accompanies everything that we do. And those values, you don't implement. And for us, they're non negotiable, and they're not offensive. I mean, the people that we enjoy working with take to those values intuitively. But there, there's direct implementation and rolling out of those values. So clearly, some of the more senior people who have technical skills and the right sort of experience, they will become a little bit more stretched. But your observation is not inaccurate. It's a good observation, and that's something that's getting our attention. Okay. Awesome. I think we can deal with some questions, more questions in the other time and place. Thanks very much, hey. Yep. Thank you. Thanks for your questions. Appreciate it. Thanks, Nick. Thanks. Thank you. Rachika, anything else or we'll be done? Yeah. There is one more question. There's a long question. If you can just go around from this. Neil, we've got I see that. I see it, there's there. Thank you, Thijs. So Thijs is saying that in 2018, we concluded what was a game changer. In 2021, Ergo provided 79% production, Far West 20 1. This Ergo this year, Ergo is 57, and Far West 40 3 production. Do you ever envisage the possibility of Ergo producing roughly 67% of production and Far West 30 3 Percent of production? In terms of guidance for this year, what is the likely split between Ergo and Far West? Jakub, you can venture a guess here. I don't want to. I mean, it is something it's an answer that I would want to give. It's a question that I do want to answer. But, I'm looking at the numbers sort of broadly in my mind. I'm not quite sure what that exact number is. I'm sure by looking at the budget, you can sort of have the number. While you consider that, let me move on to If I Are you good to go? Are you happy to give an answer? Yeah, Neil, so I can quickly answer that. So just in the next twelve months, very similar split to what we've had the previous year. Do not foresee a massive change happening. Going forward, as soon as phase two of Far West kicks in, obviously, that picture will change substantially. More favorably towards Far West then. Yeah. Correct. We can have to wrap this up because I have another meeting that I need to attend or interview, but let me deal with the mesh oil in Iran. What capacity utilization rates are you running currently? Always go to phase two. How much can capacity increase? I think the capacity is really determined by one thing and that is deposition rate. So we're mining as quickly as we can deposit. And we're not, I think, overburdening any of our physical infrastructure at this stage in that regard. Yeah. But tell me if that's roughly accurate. That is correct, Neil. So, so for the next three to four years, we do not anticipate any issues with deposition capacity, and some of the project would go towards expanding that, obviously, after that period of time. And then, in terms of the capacity of the plants, we do have some additional spare capacity, But at this point in time, obviously, it's dependent on the schedule scheduling of that. We're not sweating engineering infrastructure. We're sort of keeping pace with how quickly we can put tailings residue on our tailings stand. I'm gonna have to call an end to this. I'm late for an interview with, with a television station. So I wanna once again thank everybody for dialing in and for participating. Really appreciate it. I see we still have 51 of our attendees online, so that that's really awesome. Thank you for giving us so much of your time. And as I said earlier, hopefully, we we we won't disappoint this year. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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