Exxaro Resources Limited (JSE:EXX)
South Africa flag South Africa · Delayed Price · Currency is ZAR · Price in ZAc
21,506
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May 8, 2026, 5:00 PM SAST
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Trading Update

Jun 30, 2025

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and Welcome to the Exxaro IFTTT Pre-Close, first half 2025. All participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions later during the conference. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Sonwabise Mzinyathi. Please go ahead.

Sonwabise Mzinyathi
Head of Investor Relations, Exxaro Resources

Thank you, Operator. A very good afternoon to you all. As the Operator indicated, my name is Sonwabise Mzinyathi, and I'll be facilitating this call today. You are joining us for the IFTTT Pre-Close for the first half of 2025. In the room here at Exxaro, I am joined by our CEO, Ben, and from his office, Rofhiwa. From the Finance team, I'm joined by Riaan, who will be chairing this meeting today. From Finance, we also have Dashni, our Group Financial Manager, and Lindiwe, our Corporate Finance Manager. From Coal, we have Mervin, who looks after our Coal business. We have Sakkie, our General Manager for Marketing and Logistics. We have Mellis, our CFO for Coal, and we have Charmaine, our Business Analyst in the Coal business. From Energy, we are joined by Leon, who's our MD for Energy.

From Strategy and New Business, we have Richard, and from the IR team, I am joined by Anda. I will now hand over to Riaan to give us his statement.

Riaan Koppeschaar
Finance Director, Exxaro Resources

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's good to invite you a few again. As normal, we will start off with safety in the group. As you know, safety remains our number one priority in the group. As of the end of May, we are proud to report that we're sitting on a lost-time injury frequency rate of 0.06, which is in line with our performance last year, albeit that we have incurred four lost-time injuries in the group during the first three months of the year. At our CEO Safety Summit in April this year, we also started to roll out our new refreshed safety strategy. It's called the One Voice Strategy, and that strategy aims to make safety simpler, clearer, and more consistent across the group.

If we look at the prices, you would have seen that the realized API for price or the benchmark price is forecast to average $91 per ton compared to $110 per ton FOB in 2024, the second half of the year. You can see a substantial decline in that. On the iron ore prices, it is very much consistent. We are seeing $100 per dry metric ton compared to $101 per ton in the last half of 2024 CFR China. The Coal team will later on unpack the production and sales figures in more detail, but you can see that the coal product, including bi-years, and the sales volumes are projected to decline by 6% and 7% respective year. That is mainly due to reduced demand from Eskom.

If you look at the Coal capital expenditure, that is expected to decrease by 19% in line with lower sustaining capital at Grootegeluk and also at our Belfast mine. On the synergy side, the generation for up to 30 June is forecast to be 335 GW an hour. As also pointed out previously, remember, normally the generation in the first half of the year is lower than the second half of the year. Also proud to report that we, as of the end of May, the group had net cash of ZAR 19.5 billion in the group. That excludes the ZAR 5.8 billion debt in the energy business. Just on that front, we did pay interim tax at the end of June. That amounted to about ZAR 1.6 billion. With that, I'm going to hand over to the Coal team.

Perhaps Sakkie, you can give a brief overview of the markets, also TFR performance, and then Mellis and Mervin can give us some insight into production and sales.

Sakkie Swanepoel
Group Manager of Marketing and Logistics, Exxaro Resources

Thank you, Koppeschar. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Starting on the international market, I think a period with mixed situations as we experience it. There was a time that demand was actually quite good early on in the period, but supply just being better. We moved into, in the latter half of the first year, a situation where demand generally weakened in the global markets with persistent high supply. Where we sit today is a bit of an oversupply situation with too much coal going around. Even with the prices that have come down, both in Australia and in South Africa, into the $90s and South Africa even into the $80 space, we still have not seen substantial closure of production capacity, which is what you will need for price to recover from these levels.

We also in this period have not had any big supply side shocks as sometimes we get specifically on the Indonesian and Australian side. Within this, of course, the poor rail performance in South Africa is baked in, so it's not an unknown factor anymore, but there are just too much coal to go down. What's making the situation more difficult is that both in India and in China, very good domestic production of coal that played also a role in this demand for seaborne imported coal, and therefore both India and China being a bit lower on imports. If we look at the year, there is still a forecast that we may see again a billion-ton seaborne coal market, although the forecast currently is that it may be 30 million tons below that of last year. Definitely above the 1 billion, the forecast is still there.

That also just illustrates the point that demand has not fallen away. There is just too much supply to service that demand. Internationally, I think price-wise, we have of course seen now the price come down, where even eventually on the Australian side with the API 6 also coming down to as low as $96 per ton in May. That is forecasted for the rest of the year to go up a little bit. If you look today at the forward curves towards December, it shows under $100 per ton type pricing. Let's hope it is correct and we see a little bit of an upside, but just structurally, we do not see anything that is going to change the oversupply of coal unless there is in the northern hemisphere during the December period really again a cold period that they need more energy.

Also very dependent, of course, on what's happening with gas and LNG pricing. We've seen in Europe that at one stage coal price went up quite a bit with the LNG prices going up and the availability was not that good. Looking at the domestic market, our biggest volume, of course, going to Eskom, and there we had a particularly poor period over the past two, three years. Mellis will talk to the figures, but at Medupi, let's say the units except unit four that is still not back into production, the other units are doing fairly good, but of course unit five still is unit four is still out of production. We were hoping that it will have come back by end of June latest. Current indications are that it may potentially be third quarter. Not sure when in the third quarter. Matimba is still struggling a bit.

Matimba has a lot of maintenance going on, specifically also on the controlling instrumentation side, but both power stations very full on coal stocks. Back to my international side that I covered earlier, this is actually a global thing where from Europe into Japan, Southeast Asia, China, India, inventories across the globe is very high. Therefore you will need to see a drawdown of inventories before you will see substantive price action. Back to South Africa, ArcelorMittal South Africa not taking all the coal we were hoping they will take. No final decision on Newcastle yet, but we try to help where we can with ArcelorMittal South Africa because they really also battle with not getting trains to their plants to move the bulk materials. Rest of the domestic market still stagnant. A bit of an oversupply, I would say, with people not getting coal from out of the country.

You do see a bit of price pressure in the domestic market and then on the FCA market, which is very price dependent. If the coal price comes down to lower 90s and into the 80s, there's a lot of pressure on that market to realize economic prices. Where we currently are, we do see some interest in our coal in the FCA market. On Transnet to close off with, 54.5 million tons equivalent rail performance up to end of May. As you may have heard, we've just had a second derailment after the big one we had earlier in the year. We're unsure still how long this is going to take. We think we may get one of the lines back within the next day or two, and the other line may take a bit longer.

Yeah, this will definitely hurt the performance of the first half of the year. Of course, we have the annual shut of the coal line that's coming up middle of July. These two events will put a lot of pressure on exporters running out of coal potentially in RBCT because clearly a derailment was not planned. I think generally it's going okay. We see very slow progress, but progress indeed. On the TFR side, we see still very good cooperation between industry and TFR and Transnet in investing money in the infrastructure to at least on the most critical elements have some restoration. That definitely is helping. We are quite hopeful that for the second half of the year, we may start to see more sustained performance on a weekly basis by TFR of, let's say, 55 million to 60 million tons analyzed equivalent.

I think Koppeschar, I can stop there.

Riaan Koppeschaar
Finance Director, Exxaro Resources

Thanks very much, Sakkie. Mellis, production and sales.

Mellis Walker
CFO of Coal, Exxaro Resources

Thanks, Riaan. Looking at the production and sales volumes and also I'll touch on capital as well. Overall, very small movements against the guidance that we gave in March. We got 1% down on production guidance and we are 2% down on sales guidance. Sakkie's touched on the thermal impact that was largely felt in the GG space. We are about 1 million tons down against the second half 2024 in our first half 2025 forecast. That is only 1% down against what we guided previously. No big movements on the production side. At this rate, we are forecasting to be 3% up on our 2024 actual numbers. Still increasing that going into 2025. We look at sales. There you can see some quite big movements.

The metallurgical side, it's been touched on in terms of the weather impacts early on in the year in GG where we had a wash away. That impacted our ability to evacuate coal. That is where we've seen the biggest impact on the metallurgical side. We were 22% down on the previous guidance that we gave at 517,000 versus the 661,000. The other impact is on the Eskom line. You have the one line at the top, which is the GG offtake. You can see there is a 6% reduction in there. It is what we said previously and about 700,000 down on what we did for 2024. On the Matla side, you can see the improvement there with the mine one ramp-up. We have 500,000 up on the second half 2024.

We are going to be about 500,000 up on the total for 2024 versus our forecast for 2025. On the exports, you can see a slight reduction there of 3% against the 7 million guided in March. That is still overall looking at a 3% increase in sales as well between our 2024 number and what we are forecasting currently for 2025. We go to capital. There is a 19% reduction, as you can see, against the 2024 second half number at both GG and the Mpumalanga side, which is mainly at Belfast. If you look at the reduction, we have a slight reduction there, 4% against our previous guidance from ZAR 2.2 billion to ZAR 2.1 billion. It is ZAR 80 million increase against our 2024 number of ZAR 2 billion and ZAR 80 million against the ZAR 2.1 billion that has been our forecasting.

You can see the reduction there at GG, but the numbers are exaggerated on the Belfast side against a small base of 268. There we are showing an increase. That is what we are going to be completing this year in terms of the capital. No big changes, I think, on all three facets. Well within our guidance and really the rhythm is there for going into the second half. Thanks.

Riaan Koppeschaar
Finance Director, Exxaro Resources

Okay. Thanks, Mellis. I'll quickly ask Richard to give us an update on the windplay transaction. As you know, we announced this transaction on the 13th of May. The intention is still for the transaction to close the first quarter of next year. Richard, just the progress on closing of the transaction.

Richard Cox
General Manager, Exxaro Resources

Thank you, Riaan. We continue to make good progress on the key conditions precedent associated to the deal. The short-term CPs have been fulfilled. The more important ones that we're focusing on right now are the various preemptive and tagalong rights at the two joint ventures, both of which the process has recently started. The longer lead time items of competition commission and Section 11 approvals at the two mines are in progress as well with good engagements with the DMPR in the Northern Cape kicking off the Section 11 submissions. Good progress is being made.

In terms of capital allocation, I think we did signal to the market previously that after this transaction, we do not intend to bolt up a war chest again. That is still the intention. Our share repurchase program is ongoing. You will see we do on a monthly basis cancel the shares as required by the JSE. The next tranche of shares will be canceled at the end of today. As we sit here, we are about probably a third completed under the program, about ZAR 400 million of the ZAR 1.2 billion.

Riaan Koppeschaar
Finance Director, Exxaro Resources

Thanks. Ben, I do not know whether you want to make any remarks.

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

Yes, thank you very much, Riaan. Thank you so much. I think it's important that, yeah, it is my first with Exxaro. I look forward to it. I've had some very exciting three months visiting the mines and our operations, looking at the basic of the skills in the organization. That excites me a lot. Just going through all the mines and the closed collieries, we also visited all the closed collieries. I'm very pleased with the work that we're doing there in rehabilitation and other areas. This morning, I possibly think I must just shed some more light on Leeuwpan. I really want to direct your attention to Leeuwpan. Despite all the previous efforts, Leeuwpan continues to be loss-making. We have to take some decisive action on it. We took decisive action to review Leeuwpan.

This morning, we embarked on a formal consultation process at Leeuwpan under Section 189 of the Labor Relations Act. This is a consultation process which normally, if run appropriately, is a formal engagement process that normally takes 60 to 90 days. In that process, we expect to get all the employees and their representatives to share with us their suggestions of the way forward because the nature of loss-making at Leeuwpan is not sustainable. We have started this process this morning. It is too early to say what will come out of it. We will share details as they emerge. I think it is important that everybody appreciates that. The most important thing is our intention is to minimize any potential job losses while ensuring a viable business. That is why we are here. Thank you.

Riaan Koppeschaar
Finance Director, Exxaro Resources

All right. Thanks, Sonwabise. I think at this stage, we can pause there and then perhaps take questions.

Sonwabise Mzinyathi
Head of Investor Relations, Exxaro Resources

Thank you, everybody. Operator, please assist us with questions online.

Operator

Thank you. If anyone would like to ask a question, you're welcome to press star and then one on your touchscreen phone or on the keypad on your screen. You will hear a confirmation tone that you have joined the queue. If you decide, however, to withdraw the question, please press star and then two to remove yourself from the question queue. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star and then one. The first question we have is from Brian Morgan of RMB Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Brian Morgan
Equity Analyst, RMB Morgan Stanley

Thanks very much and thanks for the time. Just a couple of questions on my side. The first one is, can you give us a bit of an update on the timelines for the preemptives and the tag-alongs? When can we expect to hear what the counterparties have decided to do there? Will you be putting out a sense when those are finalized? The first one is to get you guys updated on the stock that is at GG in the past session. Also to that, just this idea of what's the plan for GG, which we've had a discussion with the past day. It is very common to not know the sum.

Richard Cox
General Manager, Exxaro Resources

On the timelines, the whole process of once we submit, once the seller submits the offer to the various third-party parties, we looked at the creative process. Parties have declined today and want to pull the creative process to run. Hence, we had to draft formal offers for each party. The HSM is slightly more complicated because they have the option to elect different types of evaluation, which they have 30 days to do. They have 30 days to run the creative. Glencore preemptive, we should know towards the end of July, early August is the timeline for that one. We are hoping by the end of August, we will have both responses.

Brian Morgan
Equity Analyst, RMB Morgan Stanley

Thanks, Richard. Will you be putting out a sale announcement?

Richard Cox
General Manager, Exxaro Resources

I don't think we're planned to, Brian, but I'll take that up with our investors.

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

Yeah, we'll update as we go along. The alternative results announcement will.

Mellis Walker
CFO of Coal, Exxaro Resources

Just on the two questions on GG, one was around the stocks and the other one was around the mine plan. I mean, we have the ability to do the 25, but we place the mine plan according to the offtake. Over the last two years, we've seen it around 22 million tons. I mean, that's what we run the operation at in terms of mine planning. From a stocks point of view, the stocks are nicely balanced. I think we're getting to the upper end of the stocks on the power station side. We constantly engage. Sakkie mentioned Unit 4. When that comes in, we can have a higher offtake, as you can see from our guidance as well in the second half.

We also want to make sure that we are, as we get into the sort of wet period, that we are nicely balanced and available from a stock offtake and supply point of view.

Brian Morgan
Equity Analyst, RMB Morgan Stanley

You can't give us an idea of how much stock sitting at the power station?

Mellis Walker
CFO of Coal, Exxaro Resources

We don't normally give guidance. We'll try and look across the fence and give guidance on behalf of Eskom.

Brian Morgan
Equity Analyst, RMB Morgan Stanley

Okay. Cool. Thanks, Mellis.

Operator

The next question we have is from Mpumelelo Mthembu of Absa Capital. Please go ahead.

Mpumelelo Mthembu
Analyst, Absa Capital

Thank you, Operator. Afternoon, everyone. I've got a couple of questions. My first question is, with regards to the cash costs, we saw that it increased last year by 30%. Can you give some color or guidance on that, given the lower production volumes or sales volumes reported for this half? The second question is from the domestic markets. Seeing that you are redirecting export volumes to the local markets, what are your expectations in terms of pricing? Thirdly, you did mention that there were challenges in the first quarter. What are your expectations going into the second quarter? Do you expect these derailments to carry on? What mitigation actions have you guys taken should that happen? Thank you.

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

Okay. Firstly, perhaps on the cost, I think we will give an update on the cost when we report in August. Remember, last time we indicated we are looking to implement cost-cutting initiatives across the group. That is ongoing. Obviously, also stuff like the unit cost is now dependent on your Eskom offtake. We will give more guidance on that for the full year when we report in August. The other one.

Export prices.

Export prices.

Yeah. The goal that we—Mpumelelo, thank you—the goal that we wish to export, that we are now selling on an FCI basis to other people that's mostly exporting it, the price there is higher than what you will get in the domestic market at that quality point. It is definitely not the same price we get through RBCT due to the materially higher logistics cost, whether we take it to other ports or whether other people take it to other ports. Not nearly your RBCT export price.

Mpumelelo Mthembu
Analyst, Absa Capital

Sorry, if I can just jump in there, if you can give a number of those sales, if possible.

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

If I can give a number of those sales that you redirect to the domestic markets or local markets?

This year, it may be as high as 2 million tons.

Mpumelelo Mthembu
Analyst, Absa Capital

Thank you.

Sonwabise Mzinyathi
Head of Investor Relations, Exxaro Resources

Last question was around whether or not the challenges that we saw in Q1, do we think they're going to persist into Q2?

Speaker 10

Logistics.

Speaker 11

Logistics.

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

Apologies.

Mpumelelo, we obviously hope to get a lot of extra mileage and capacity from the shutdown that will happen on the infrastructure side. I think where we are today in South Africa, we are probably more constrained on the infrastructure side than actually on the rolling stock side with TFR. We will need to see quite an improvement in the infrastructure side before we see any better performance. To a fair testament to that as well is these derailments that we experienced. Yes, we really hope that we can start to see the end of the derailments. Of course, it is very, very costly, both for the exporters and for Transnet. The question is, how long will that take? We are not sure of that.

We do hope we will see a better second half of the year in terms of TFR performance than the first half.

Mpumelelo Mthembu
Analyst, Absa Capital

What was the percentage of the 3.4 that was through alternative channels for the first half?

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

We just did there. Of the—we have the number in Mellon?

2.2.

2.2 to RBCT.

The figure to RBCT is 3.4.

3.4. And then to alternative ports?

I don't have the answer.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

I think that's what it is. On an annual basis, we still expect the guidance that we gave—800 so far. About 800,000 to alternative ports. Thanks. Finance guys are helping me out here.

Operator

Mpumelelo, does that answer your questions?

Mpumelelo Mthembu
Analyst, Absa Capital

Yes. Just waiting for other questions. I'll go for the next round. Thank you.

Sonwabise Mzinyathi
Head of Investor Relations, Exxaro Resources

Operator, do we have any other questions?

Operator

The next question we have is from Yamin Ghosein of RM Capital. Please go ahead.

Yamin Ghosein
Analyst, RM Capital

Good day, team. I just want to get an idea of what the cash burn is at Leeuwpan. Yeah. Thank you.

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

Look, I don't think we're going to go into the detail. We can just confirm it is incurring losses at the moment.

Yamin Ghosein
Analyst, RM Capital

Okay. Thanks.

Speaker 8

The next question we have is from Thobela Bixa of Nedbank. Please go ahead.

Thobela Bixa
Senior Mining Research Analyst, Nedbank

Thank you, Operator. Afternoon, everyone. I've got a couple of questions. The first one is on your assumed run rate for the second half. That seemed quite significant when I just looked at what you're assuming by your full year guidance. Could you just give us some color as to why you see such a market improvement relative to the first half? That's the first question. Just around the net cash position, I mean, you mentioned that it's about ZAR 20 billion in the half until the 31st of May. What outflows are you expecting between then and the end of June? If you could just give us some color on that. On the marketing side, Sakkie, what do you think would drive supply cuts? That's the first question. The second one is, we have seen some price movement on the upside.

Price is moving higher in the month of June. What do you believe has driven that? Thank you.

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

Okay. Perhaps, Sakkie, you can think about the increase in sales the second half of the year and production. I think there's two parts to the question. It's Eskom and also the weather disruptions that we had in the first half of the year that we don't anticipate in the second half. Just outflow between May and June. As I mentioned, there was a ZAR 1.6 billion provisional tax payment that we did to SARS. Perhaps the production for the second half of the year.

Should I kick off, Sakkie, and then you can maybe add in? Yeah. I mean, we've mentioned Unit 4. The big increases will be both at Matla and at GG, and it's both related to the Eskom offtake. The ramp-up of mine one is expected to deliver about 300,000 tons additional in the second half. Then about 1.5 million on GG in terms of the offtake. Sakkie's mentioned the timing of Unit 4 at Medupi. Some of the Matimba issues and units are actually coming back on track as well. The gap that we see in the first half, we don't see in the second half against the offtake expectation. We see a much better offtake in the second half compared to the first half from an Eskom point of view.

That factor is more positive in the second half.

Anything else to add, Sakkie?

Sakkie Swanepoel
Group Manager of Marketing and Logistics, Exxaro Resources

No, I think that's covered. Maybe if I then go to the question on what will drive supply cuts. Now, there's the old adage in the coal market that the only cure for low prices are lower prices, and the only cure for high prices are higher prices. Because what you need to do if prices go low due to an oversupply, you actually need to wash out some of the marginal suppliers to get rid of that supply so that you can restore the equilibrium. As much as we don't like the low prices, we're also aware that you need some funding in the industry globally for that oversupply to wash out. We're seeing about we're yielding about 30 million tons of Indonesian coal currently. That's quite in trouble in terms of economics at the $90 type level.

Maybe there's something can happen, but we have not seen material cuts. I think people probably still hope it's going to go better. It may be that where we're going now into the summer of the northern hemisphere, if we don't see a kick-up in demand, people might then actually take other decisions. What is driving the price currently? Very difficult to say. Even if I guess you're going to call me a liar, the only thing that has changed that we're aware of is the fact that the northern hemisphere is moving into summer, and we hope there's a bit of demand coming from that. The oversupply is there, we're not aware of supply-side shocks, and demand out of India and China is still fairly pedestrian. Not something fundamental that we're aware of.

Thobela Bixa
Senior Mining Research Analyst, Nedbank

No, thanks for that. Maybe just a comment with regards to the production for the second half. It does seem as though quite a huge chunk of it is dependent on Eskom performing better in the second half, which does imply some risk. I will leave it at that. Thank you.

Mellis Walker
CFO of Coal, Exxaro Resources

Maybe it might be worth to mention though, on that Eskom risk, that the expectation was that Unit 4 of Medupi would have come online by now. The numbers you see in the forecast do assume Unit 4 coming a bit later in the year, but still coming within this year. That is why you'll see that number. They are still dependent on the expectation of Unit 4 coming on board in time before the end of the year.

Thobela Bixa
Senior Mining Research Analyst, Nedbank

Okay. Thanks for the clarification.

Yeah. In our discussions with Eskom, there's no reason to not believe that they may just bring it before the end of the year. That's why we see that number. It's really dependent on Eskom, you're right.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, just a final reminder. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star and then one. The next question we have is from Shashi Shekhar of Citi. Please go ahead.

Shashi Shekhar
VP, Citi

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you very much for this opportunity. On Leeuwpan, sorry I missed the response. Could you please guide us on the operating cost and CapEx and cash burn at the Leeuwpan mine currently?

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

Yeah. Look, what we see is at this stage, Leeuwpan is not picking. We're giving more information at this stage. On the cash cost, we will give more guidance when we announce the results in August. There are quite a number of initiatives going on in the group where we are looking at the cost base of the group, but more guidance in August when we announce the results. CapEx, we did indicate that.

Operator

Do you have any other questions, Shashi?

Shashi Shekhar
VP, Citi

No. No.

Operator

Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Mpumelelo Mthembu of Absa Capital. Please go ahead.

Mpumelelo Mthembu
Analyst, Absa Capital

Thanks, Operator. Just last few questions for me. Just in terms of the CSA agreements, I know it expired this year in March. That's for Matla. Can you provide any guidance on that? Also in terms of the mining rights that last in March again this year. Finally, on the solar projects, I did note in the pre-closes published this morning that there were some delays. If you can give us some color on that. Lastly, clarification of what Ben said. You said there's a section 189 at Leeuwpan. I just want to make sure that I got that correctly. Thank you.

Ben Magara
CEO, Exxaro Resources

Okay. Sakkie, perhaps the Matla CSA last year. Yeah. Thank you for the question. We have an extension to the CSA running to later in this year to give the teams time to wrap up negotiations towards a new CSA. That process is still ongoing. As we did in previous instances, if we do see the time is catching us, there might even be a further extension of the CSA. We're still hopeful that we can get within time, but there are quite a few big items still outstanding. Negotiations are taking place in good spirit, and we have every reason to believe that we will conclude that successfully.

Sakkie Swanepoel
Group Manager of Marketing and Logistics, Exxaro Resources

On the mining rights, the mining rights renewal application has been lodged within the time frames. We're waiting for the new org to give us feedback on the mining rights.

We do not foresee any issues because it is not a new rights application. It is a renewal of an existing right.

Mellis Walker
CFO of Coal, Exxaro Resources

Maybe to add that, however, the ZAR 5.6 billion capital being spent at Matla continues, and we operate under this interim coal supply agreement. The mining right by default is granted if you apply for it before the expiry of your previous one, which we did.

Richard Cox
General Manager, Exxaro Resources

Good afternoon, Mpumelelo. Yes, it is true that the LSP project is delayed. Construction is progressing, albeit not at the rate that we would want it in terms of the contract. We are doing a formal review of both the contracted performance and the reasons for that, which is the main reason for what we have. We had some weather delays as well and some material delays where that material was defective, all of which has been remedied. We will announce the results of this investigation after the board meeting in August, so in the results presentation and roadshows in August then. Thank you.

Mellis Walker
CFO of Coal, Exxaro Resources

You also wanted Mpumelelo, you also wanted something on section 189 at Leeuwpan. If I got it right.

Mpumelelo Mthembu
Analyst, Absa Capital

Just wanted clarity. Have we issued the section 189?

Mellis Walker
CFO of Coal, Exxaro Resources

We have issued the section 189 this morning. It's a formal engagement process in line with the Labour Relations Act. Generally, people tend to worry that the dreaded 189 generally seems to mean detriment. In our case here, looking at all the expansion opportunities at Matla that we've already spoken about and at GG, we can see opportunities of redeployment of a lot of our employees. The majority of that mine is already run by contractors. The mine's current life of mine, which is in excess of seven years, we will continue. This section 189 is not meant to close the mine. It's meant to turn around the mine and all the efforts we need to do so. That's what we have embarked on now. Critically, we want to minimize job losses by potential deployment.

We also want to make sure that the mine is viable because I think that's critical. In that redeployment, there may be some who choose not to go where they need to be going, where we think is appropriate for them, or the skills that we will have to re-skill some of them. All this is an engagement process that by law is required to be a consultative process. We cannot conclude today what the outcome of that is going to be. Hopefully, we get to that conclusion within the 60 to 90 days that the section 189 purports in the Labour Relations Act of South Africa. Leeuwpan, as I said, continues to be a mine that's running.

All the social and labor plans, all the social impact projects, all the supplier and enterprise development initiatives around Leeuwpan and the Delmas operation, all those will continue because Leeuwpan still operates as a going concern. The effort we are putting in is to make sure we turn around Leeuwpan. That is critical to make sure that it is a viable business. We still have fantastic infrastructure there. We've got some very good processing plants in place. We also have a very sophisticated loading and load-out system. Leeuwpan is connected not only to the normal Richards Bay coal line. It is also connected to Majuba Power Station. It is also connected through the Johannesburg side to go to Durban for any dry terminals. There are real opportunities as a pantry in that setup that this business should come back.

I think the bottom line is we initiated the 189 process this morning, and it's a consultation to come up with answers to make Leeuwpan even more viable. Thank you.

Mpumelelo Mthembu
Analyst, Absa Capital

Thank you, Operator. No further questions from me.

Operator

Thank you.

We have no further questions on the lines either. I would like to hand back over to management for any closing remarks.

Riaan Koppeschaar
Finance Director, Exxaro Resources

Thanks very much. I think we can conclude the call at this stage. Thanks for the interest. We see you at the interim results announcement on the 21st of August. Thanks very much.

Sonwabise Mzinyathi
Head of Investor Relations, Exxaro Resources

Thank you, everybody.

Enjoy your day.

Mellis Walker
CFO of Coal, Exxaro Resources

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.

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