[inaudible] and it maintains a production profile currently of between 150,000 and 155,000 ounces. One is called Ergo Mining Proprietary Limited. It has a throughput capacity at the moment of 1.6 million tons per month. The second one is called Far West Gold Recoveries, where we are processing roughly 500,000 tons of material per month. What do the operations look like? Our focus is entirely based on the reprocessing and reclamation of mine tailings or mine waste. No primary mining is done. This enables us to do mostly mechanical reclamation of material. The first picture that you see there, this is basically what a miner looks like or the equivalent of a rock drill operator is somebody operating a high-pressure water jet that washes the material into a slurry. It gets transported by way of a network of pipelines to a reclamation plant.
All of the water that we use is of industrial quality. It is not potable water, and it all stays in a closed circuit. To be able to maintain a throughput rate of north of 2 million tons per month, you require large enough plants, large enough processing facilities, and we have two of those. The picture there is what they look like. A very important part of our infrastructural layout is our tailings storage capacity, and I will be talking a lot more about that later on this presentation. Tailings processing, because of the scale, is by and large determined by the size of your tailings storage capacity. Do you have adequate storage capacity? The upside beyond the financial model is the impact that our operations have on the environment.
The material that gets reclaimed from these deposition sites do not get reintroduced. It does not get backfilled. Those sites, in fact, all get rehabilitated and restored either to their natural state or put to sustainable land use. Just in terms of production, some of the high-level numbers of the last financial year. Production was flat year-on-year at 155,000 ounces, and that was from a throughput of 25 million tons of material. It is a mega volume environment, but extraction is at the nano scale. Because of the low grades, typically the recoveries are relatively low compared to what you would see in primary ore bodies. We recovered just under 0.2 g a ton of gold.
Very, very sensitive to that extraction efficiency, and that is a big part of what we believe our value proposition is, the fact that we are able to mine these very low-grade waste deposits. Cash operating cost is pretty much in line with what you have seen in earlier presentations today, just under $1,800, and all-in sustaining is just under $2,000 per ounce. We sold just on 156,000 ounces of gold in the last financial year. All-in sustaining margin year-on-year on the back of the higher gold price was up 14%. We maintained an all-in sustaining margin of 53% for the 2026 financial year. Notwithstanding the fact that production was flat during this interim phase that our company finds itself in, we did see a 52% increase in revenue up to $660 million. Cash and cash equivalents increased by 128% to $164 million. We do not hoard cash.
There's a reason why we held on to this amount of cash. We did return our largest dividend in history. Our dividend this year in South African terms is ZAR 1.4 billion. It was roughly 65% of headline earnings, and it's our 19th consecutive year that we've paid a dividend. DRDGOLD is a dividend-paying company. That's part of our value proposition. We do have a loan facility that was put in place for our capital expansion program. It remains undrawn because we are cash positive. Cash operating profit this year doubled to $382 million. We did see a fairly significant increase in share price year-on-year, up 60%.
There is a graph right at the end also of this presentation where you'll see how we compare to our peers in the industry, and we do suggest that we do compare favorably with the performance of some of our peers. Free cash flow for the year also doubled to $134 million, and that was after capital expenditure of $209 million, and this was growth CapEx. These financial trends make for very good reading. You could see that we maintained a cash operating margin per ounce. I don't know how many other companies actually present these numbers, but we maintained a cash operating margin per ounce of $2,455. We maintained an all-in sustaining margin per ounce of $2,252 per ounce. That's off the back of this high gold price, but for us, margin is a very important part of our value proposition.
We do track it, and we do emphasize it. The free cash flow numbers you saw on the previous slide, and there you could also see what the headline earnings per share were year-on-year and how they trended over periods of six months at a time. DRDGOLD not only pays a dividend, but it retains full exposure to the gold price. We believe that that is an equally important part of our value proposition to take full exposure to the gold price because of the liquidity in the stock and the quality of the two stock exchanges where we are listed. We believe that we, in this way, provide potential shareholders full exposure to the volatilities associated with movements in the gold price. Simple language, that means that you can make money on either side of the cycle because of the liquidity.
Costs are predictable because of the mechanized nature of our operations. Of course, at these gold price levels, every ounce that we produce adds $2,500 to the bottom line. Making all of this money at this point in time, and in that aspect, we're not unique. I saw that everybody has been making good money. How are you dealing with your capital, and are you dealing with in a way that is responsible and that makes sense? For us, sustaining CapEx is non-negotiable. Sustaining CapEx is the lifeblood, the oxygen of your operation. You stop reinvesting in your sustaining CapEx, your business will die over time. It will slowly suffocate. Secondly, we prioritize growth CapEx, and you'll see that a lot of money has gone into growth CapEx during the course of this year, and there'll be some more over the next two years.
We maintain optionality, and that's why we're retaining liquidity, and that's why we're maintaining a small cash margin in order to make sure that we can cover our operating expenses and also the near-term capital expenses that we have. For us, shareholder return in the form of dividends, that's also a very, very important part of our value proposition. We believe that you invest in companies for what we believe are important measures of the success, the commercial success of that operation. The primary reason for us doing this roadshow and also presenting at this conference is to tell you more about Vision 2028. Yes, whilst it's an important and an attractive value proposition to be offering a dividend and full exposure to the gold price, there also needs to be something beyond that.
We're in a position to also talk to you about growth and the cheapest form of growth, namely organic growth. Not having to buy an asset somewhere in the jungle where you don't speak the language, but growing your portfolio and growing your output and throughput of your existing portfolio of assets. That is what Vision 2028 is all about. Refer to the two operating units that we have, Ergo and Far West Gold Recoveries. At Far West Gold Recoveries, we were always going to do something else in addition to the current outlay and the current format of our operations. We were always going to increase volume throughput. We were always going to add some additional infrastructure, and that's what's happening through this program now. Doubling of throughput and also creating adequate deposition space for us to mine through our entire resource.
Ergo, we already have mega volume infrastructure. We already have a very large plant. But Ergo, after 30-odd years, it's an asset that we acquired from AngloGold Ashanti in 2008, but it's been going for many, many years, since the 1980s. Ergo is now at a point where its tailings storage capacity is starting to run thin. In order for us to optimize this asset and to ensure that we mine most of the remaining resource, and by the way, we have a 6-million-ounce reserve base. In order for us to be able to mine the remainder of that, we needed to create additional tailings storage capacity. The five projects that we've embarked upon, which we call Vision 2028, deliver into that.
It's both an extension of life of mine, adding roughly 20 years to each of our operations, but it is also infrastructure designed to add 40% throughput and 25% output, and it's built around these five key projects. The first one, which is Daggafontein, that is part of Ergo, and that is the recommissioning of an existing tailings facility that adds 120 million tons of tailings storage capacity over life of mine. That has already been done. Second one, DP2 expansion. That is the plant at our Far West Gold Recoveries. That's a doubling in the size of that plant to take it from a capacity of 600,000 tons per month to a capacity of 1.2 million tons per month. That has been done. The plant's been built, and it's in the process of being commissioned. Only half of it's been commissioned, though, just the new part.
I will explain why and when the second part of the plant will come online. That work has been done. In order for Far West Gold to double its throughput, obviously, it needs to link up new resources, new sites with existing infrastructure, and that is what we refer to as the pipeline project. That pipeline project is also in its final stages. We estimate that that will be done next year in April. Then all the pipelines necessary to double Far West Gold's throughput capacity will be in place. Our big mega project, the RTSF, Regional Tailings Storage Facility, that is an 800-hectare tailings storage facility, brand-new one built to GISTM standards. In fact, one of the conditions for the license, that it is built to those standards. It is fully lined, and it will have the capacity, ultimately, of receiving 800 million tons of material.
Finally, the Withok TSF. That is the fifth component of this project, and that is to add 310 million tons of storage capacity for Ergo, and that one is tagged, earmarked to come into commissioning by the end of 2029 or early in 2030. Its impact, its contribution in the medium term will be to add 150,000 tons a month of throughput capacity to our total profile. The big volume jump, though, is what you see at Far West Gold, where it is going to go to 1.2 million tons per month. An update on where all of these projects are. Daggafontein, which is part of Ergo, has been commissioned. It is running, and we are depositing at a rate of 25,000 tons a day onto Daggafontein. The other 30,000 tons, that will form part of Ergo's throughput, daily throughput, that still goes onto the existing tailings facility.
This rate will continue, the 1.6 million tons per month, up until Withok's commissioning. When Withok is added, not only do we get the additional 320 million tons of total storage capacity, but it adds that 150,000 tons of monthly deposition capacity. Withok is dependent upon permitting by the end of December and then roughly two years of construction. Far West Gold Recoveries, this one is going like a Boeing. As I said, the DP2 expansion, the plant, that plant is done, and the new part is going to be commissioned now while the existing part of the plant is being serviced. It is getting a main service or an overhaul of all of its key components in order for it to be ready by April of next year. Libanon is ready to go. When Libanon is ready to rock, that is the pipeline section, for it to be built virtually new on both ends.
Pipeline project, roughly 95% complete, and it is the pump station construction that will take up until April of next year. Then Far West Gold Recoveries will have both the processing capacity and the reclamation capacity to deliver into the 1.2 million ton a month target. The RTSF, it is the picture of the RTSF. RTSF is what you see there in the background. That is what an 800-hectare tailings line, tailings facility during construction, what it looks like. Just the starter wall, which is the front part of that, and I think there are some more pictures later on. That wall is 100 m wide, 25 m high. The entire thing is lined in order to make sure that nothing seeps into the underground environment. World-class built to the high. In the early stages of calendar 2027.
It's dependent on one final permission, and that permission is premised on, has the work that you've been doing to this facility been consistent with your design and with the quality control standards that have been imposed? That's a 60-day period starting on the October 15th, and we're confident that we will meet those standards and that we can start with early commissioning of this facility. Another important consideration here or qualifier is if the weather is going to play its part. We cannot start depositing into this facility if we anticipate wet weather because the fines will wash into the filters. All of those filters are in the floor of the facility, and if those fines wash into those filters, they blind the filters.
The last permission, which we're confident we are qualifying for in terms of the technical requirements and the weather, is what will determine whether or not we can start in early 2027 with the commissioning of this facility. We've given ourselves ample headroom because Vision 2028 means exactly that. It's what we want to do from financial 2028 onwards, and that starts in July of 2027. DRDGOLD's aim is to, by financial 2028, be in a position to take full advantage of this infrastructure to add 40% to our throughput capacity, 25% to our output capacity. The one item in this entire project, which we conceptualized in 2024, where there's lag is Withok, and the near-term impact of Withok, as I said earlier, is 150,000 tonnes per month. We're working towards end of 2029 to deliver into that. For the rest, it's going along nicely.
There's another really good picture of what that tailings facility is going to look like, the Far West Gold Regional Tailings Storage Facility. We do seem to be on track to complete those envisaged outcomes. It requires capital, and this graph here shows you what our capital outlays look like. Just to sort of conceptualize it, the one in the middle was this year, this financial year. That is what $206 million look like, and you could basically just work out what it looks on either side of that, and then start doing the calculations with regards to free cash flow as and when the CapEx starts coming off and the output profile starts growing. The opportunity for DRDGOLD during this period of high gold price is to have been able to implement all of these infrastructural changes without having to dip into its facility.
2.1 million tonnes should, by next financial year, be 2.85 million tonnes per month and as and when Withok comes online, grow to 3 million tonnes. Then that output capacity up from 155 to 185, between 185,000 and 195,000 ounces per annum. Beyond 2028, this facility, this TSF, although it's going to be used to receive 1.2 million tonnes per month, it in fact has the ability or will have the ability as and when final commissioning is done to receive north of 2.4 million tonnes of material per month. So it's a catalyst for further growth and for regional consolidation, and it's our intention to fully explore all of those opportunities. In the near term, though, the focus is to get this up and running and make sure that we achieve these near-term objectives that we had set for ourselves.
With regards to share price movement, that shows where the share price has been going for the last year or so. I was sitting here at this conference last year when for the first time, DRDGOLD's market cap went through $3 billion, and it has stayed there for the 12 months. In fact, at one stage, it was north of $3 billion when the gold price peaked at $ 5,000 or north of $5,000. So it is very, very steeply geared to the gold price, and it is tracking our peers. The big reset we anticipate is as and when the market starts interpreting the potential of Vision 2028 and as we deliver on those interim goals, hopefully systematically and over the next seven months or so. Gentlemen, thank you very much for listening. That is exactly on time where I get to the appendix.
You want to delve deeper into our financials, it is available. Please have a look on our website. Thank you very much for listening to our presentation.
Yes. Thank you, Niël, for joining us today, and good luck maintaining that longstanding dividend track record and with Vision 2028. Thank you again.
Thank you very much.