Good morning, good afternoon, everybody, and thank you all for joining our inaugural Capital Markets Day presentation. This is a hybrid event, so we have a number of people with us here today in person, and we also have a number online. This morning we put out a fairly comprehensive presentation, an outlook for Gold Fields. This was delivered on our website. We will try and go through this at a fairly rapid pace and obviously pause at the appropriate moments. Obviously, we will be open to taking questions, so during the course of the presentation there will be some questions that we'll take. We also look forward to engaging with the investors and analysts in due time to talk about it. Clearly, when we think about a Capital Markets Day and delivering what we are delivering today, there's certainly degrees of risk in putting this out there.
The one thing that we stand for as Gold Fields, and you've been around long enough to know that what really we value is not just getting caught up in the hype of today, but really setting up our business for the long term and delivering steady, reliable, ongoing performance. We certainly think that in time that will set us apart rather than getting caught up in the hype of today. Having said that, we have got some really good news and some really good story that we're going to talk about Our Portfolio as well as Capital allocation when we get to it. Again, just the important framing here, when we think about our business, we think about multi-generational business rather than just the business of today. With that, I just want to draw your attention to the disclosures on page two and three.
It's the first time I've seen disclosures on two pages, so Kelly must be kind of worried about what we're going to say. Just on an Introduction, I think the first thing that I'll just set the scene on is we absolutely believe that we have got a business that's set to outperform our peer group in the sector. We have a best-in-class production profile relative to our peers with both near and long-term optionality to sustain our business. What is really important for us is that we think about our business in three horizons. We've got a very clear focused five-year plan, which we're going to talk about today, which sets the first horizon.
In this first horizon, we are going to be investing in our business for the second and third horizons, so we are making clear capital allocation decisions, again, which we can unpack and talk to. What we will also demonstrate is that we have very clear opportunities across many of our assets to extend life. When we think about the levers of growth and life extension, clearly investing in our business is the lowest form or the lowest cost options to extend life and improve our business. We have kind of really focused on unearthing those opportunities. Again, our focus in our strategy is not about growing size and production ounces per se. We focused on improving the quality of our business. Quality comes from growing cash flow per share on a relative basis.
Everything that we decide on and we look to is how are we improving the relative margin of our business. Today, again, we will talk about the five-year guidance. We will unpack capital as well. What are we doing? We have got a significant, if you look at our Cash profile over the next five years, we will deliver significant cash, even at consensus, which today is nearly $1,000 below what we are seeing on spot. Alex will unpack later, even with the small additional discretionary investments we are making, it does not detract from the ability to, again, pay very significant returns to shareholders during this period, as well as putting significant amounts of cash back into our balance sheet to create flexibility in line with our ambitions.
What is also important, and we show this up here, is ultimately, whilst we're really focused on predictable, reliable, safe operating performance and safe and reliable delivery of our projects and improving our business, ultimately those outcomes are a function of the inputs that you have in your organization. We are also very focused on building organization capability to deliver a safe, reliable, and predictable organization into the future. We see many opportunities, which I'll unpack later, around optimizing our organization to deliver this performance into the future. Just quickly on the agenda, what we'll do is we've split this session up into three portions. Firstly, we'll talk about our portfolio. I'll cover the guidance. Chris will talk to the levers for growth that we have in the business. We'll then break for a Q&A session.
We then go into the second session, which is around our portfolio quality. Jason Sander, Acting Chief Technology Officer, and Bernadette Dippenaar, Vice President Strategy and Strategic Planning, will cover those sessions. Again, we'll take a bit of a break during that session as well as taking some questions. We'll continue through the rest of our portfolio and then also deal with Windfall Project update at the back end of it. We'll close in the third session where Alex will talk about capital allocation. We'll close again with some questions at that point. For those that you've probably seen this, this is our Gold Fields leadership team. Everybody is here with the exception of Francois Swanepoel, our Chief Operating Officer, who unfortunately was not able to be with us for personal reasons.
We do have a full representation and the team is fully aligned and committed to the plan that we're presenting to you. We also, as I said, in addition to Bernadette, have Thomas Mengel, our VP Investor Relations, and Kirshni Govender, our Head of External Communication. As customary in Gold Fields, we do not start any meeting without a Safety or Value Share. In that context, I'm going to ask Mariëtte Steyn to join me here and provide the Safety Share.
Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon. Our Mining Industry has a terrible record of really poor Safety performance, and every year we report off the number of people that lose their life under our watch. At Gold Fields, we believe that it is possible for us to run operations and projects without serious injuries or fatalities. Now, when you look back at our history, you will see that our results do not necessarily reflect that belief yet. As a result of that, over the last 18 months, we have made significant investment in changing the culture of our organization, building people capability and systems and processes that will help us guarantee a change in our Safety outcomes. The investment that we make has very clear benefits.
Now, we can deliver that aspiration of reduction in serious injuries and our fatalities over multiple years through that investment, but it also has a very clear link to our social license to operate for two very important stakeholder groups. First of all, our own people. Secondly, those people out of our communities that are entrusted into our employment. We also know from our own experience and from our own assets that Safety performance is linked to really good predictable operating outcomes. You might ask and argue today, why are we starting an Investor Day with a discussion about Safety? Mike talks about, you know, it's culturally important for us to build that belief. It is also because we deeply believe that Safety is an outcome of an operation where you have engaged people, where work is well designed and well executed.
That Safety performance is a telltale of the maturity of the discipline of our operating culture. When we talk about our Safety Improvement Plan, it is important because what we are building into our culture and our systems delivers predictable, safe operating outcome. That is how we deliver our strategy. Ultimately, the story we are going to tell you today, this is a foundation of how we believe we build long-term sustainable value creation. Thank you, Mike.
Thank you, Mariëtte. Thanks for that share. I'll now move on. Just to reinforce, that's such an important part of the DNA that we stand for, creating that predictability and reliable delivery because we can put any kind of slides up here about what we're committing to, but if we do not deliver it, then it does not stand for anything. It ultimately comes back to the organization that we're building. I just wanted to show this. This is just a truncated slide of Gold Fields history. Gold Fields has a proud history of over 138 years as a pure-play gold producer. It was one of the pioneers of developing and unlocking the Witwatersrand Gold Fields. In the last 30 years, you have seen that migration to be a globally diversified gold producer.
One of the key transformations in this slide is obviously what happened in 2012 with the unbundling of the Sibanye assets in South Africa. That was a very deliberate strategic pivot to say South Africa, hugely labor-intensive, deep underground, low mechanization, and obviously pure single-country risk. That migration, which you have seen to being a globally diverse company that has now highly mechanized operations, is really where Gold Fields has emerged to. Some of the key highlights, if you look at this slide, are the entry into Ghana in 1993, the initial move into Australia in 2001 with further growth in 2013, 2016, and ultimately the consolidation of Gruyere that we saw this year, the Acquisition of Cerro Corona in 2003, the Discovery of Salares Norte in 2011, and ultimately the two transactions that allowed us to get entry into Canada.
I think the key message around this is just to demonstrate that if you want to be a pure-play gold miner, portfolio optimization and continue to be active in improving the quality of your business over the long term, whether it is investing in your current assets, whether it is finding new opportunities, Gold Fields has got a really good track record of delivering that. To me, that in addition to the investments that we are making along the lines that Mariëtte has spoken about of being able to deliver predictably, the combination of that really sets us in a unique position to be a very good investment going forward. If you just look at this portfolio and how it has evolved, these are three charts which just show our geographic mix prior to 2012, 2018, and where we are today.
What's interesting is that Africa has continued to become a smaller part of it. It's not because we don't believe in the opportunities in Africa, but as we thought about growing our business, the opportunities on a risk-adjusted basis have certainly presented themselves very differently in other parts of the world. If you look at our mix going forward, if you fully consolidate the potential of Windfall and Salares Norte, we'll have around 70% of our production coming from OECD countries in the next five years. If I can talk to the uniqueness about what Gold Fields offers, we are very comfortable in delivering and performing in emerging markets, but we have got a really stable production base in OECD jurisdiction. It's kind of a unique mix that we're able to deliver on. As a result of these deliberate efforts, you can see Our Portfolio today.
We have a highly diverse portfolio of high-quality assets across a number of jurisdictions. We also have a really interesting number of exploration properties, and Chris will talk to that later. We have well in excess of 20 exploration targets through partnerships that we are working on, and those, again, form a very interesting part of our growth story. I just wanted to spend a minute on this. What is important is having a very clear strategy. Our strategy is unchanged from what you would have seen before. It is very simple. Three pillars. One is we operate and deliver in a safe and reliable, cost-effective way. Secondly, we deliver positive social and environmental impact on the communities that are around us. Thirdly, we continue to focus on growing the quality of Our Portfolio. What is new and what you have not seen before is our 2035 strategic aspirations.
What was important when we came together as a leadership team last year is to say, how do we think about where we want to go in our business? We can have a strategy which kind of sets what we're going to do, but how do we really focus on setting clear and measurable objectives about what we're going to do? They cover a number of things. It's about our people. How do we deliver safe outcomes? How do we create an inclusive culture? How do we become a trusted partner for the communities and governments where we operate? How do we continue to improve the quality of Our Portfolio? How do we deliver results that are superior to our peer group? What we have done as a result of this exercise is actually set our own very clear aspirations in quantitative terms.
We measure that. We share that with our Board. We have a very clear goal of what we are trying to create in our business. The five-year plan that we are showing is a key component of taking us towards that journey. Ultimately, as we have shared now twice before, we believe that outcomes are a function of the organization that we have to deliver that. We are also really focused on building a reliable, resilient organization that is simple, efficient, and effective in delivering these outcomes. We have made a lot of changes already. Starting with the culture work following the Elizabeth Broderick report in 2023, we have invested very heavily in leadership development. We have also developed our Safety Improvement Plan.
I must say, whilst we are still seeing significant near misses, so we're not out of the woods, the impact that program is having actually on Safety performance has been actually remarkable. The great thing about that is it just demonstrates to me that within Gold Fields, we've got that capability. If we apply our minds to something, we can deliver change and we can deliver positive outcomes. We've also changed our operating model, which has helped us to really get much tighter and much more connected and aligned in the journey that we're under. We've also continued to invest in leadership capability through all of our layers because acknowledging that culture change and performance comes in having aligned leadership. We've also aligned reward systems.
You think about that as a pretty basic thing, but if you can have everybody aligned to one scorecard for the organization so that everyone is targeting the same outcomes, it makes a huge difference. We are also investing in our AO programs. One of the key levers that Alex is pushing now is we've never really had a global supply organization to look at opportunities to unlock value from working together on major categories. We are also looking at work on simplifying our operating systems. We have multiple duplicative IT systems. We have lots of duplication on OT systems, and it's a function of how we were organized in the past. These are all opportunities to simplify, reduce cost, and drive efficiencies and more predictable outcomes. As we think about our business, we look at our business across three time horizons.
What we are going to unpack today is the next five years, and we are going to provide specific cost, volume, and capital guidance over that five years. Again, to reiterate, the investments that we are making in the next five years are to really set ourselves up for the longer term. What we can see is that our business has got a very clear pathway to the upper part of 3 million ounces by the end of the decade. We will be firmly in the 2.5 million-3 million ounce range in the next horizon. In Our current Portfolio, we deliver over 70% of our current Production profile beyond 2035. I think this is something, again, when I joined 18 months ago, I heard a lot of noise about Gold Fields is a short-life business. It needs to go and do a lot of things.
It needs to go and do a lot of M&A to bolster its profile. It did not help that we did do two transactions, but those two transactions were opportunistic, and they have added quality. As Chris will show, these were perfectly timed opportunities to bring into the portfolio, but we did not need to necessarily do those transactions. The key message is M&A will always be opportunistic, and our preference will always be to invest in our business because we have great opportunities to extend life and unlock value, as Jason and Bernadette will show a little later. This is the money slide, and I am sure this is the one that is going to generate quite a lot of questions here.
It is the first time that we have really, as a company, put out guidance that has been longer than 12 months, with the exception maybe of Salares Norte, where we provided probably two years out and a little bit further. The way that we are thinking about this now is that this is our current outlook. Clearly, we do not sit on our hands and only deliver this, but we will continue to look at ways of further optimizing this, particularly in the area of cost. For me, the most important thing is that, again, in the journey that we have in becoming a great company, we focus on Safety First and Organization Culture. We drive effectiveness and outcomes and ensure that we predictably deliver and safely deliver on the production outcomes. We can then drive efficiency in the organization to deliver that margin expansion.
When we think about this profile over the next few years, you can see that actually we show a really neat growth profile within the portfolio. This comes across a number of assets. It is incremental ounces at St. Ives. It is incremental growth at South Deep. There are some incremental ounces out at Tarkwa. We show improvement at Gruyere. We are showing, obviously, the addition of Windfall at the back end of the decade. What is great about this portfolio is you are going to have ups and downs depending on different investments at different points in time. Overall, Our Portfolio is growing. I can show you a slide later, which, in our view, is certainly a best-in-class growth profile. What you will also see at the top bar, the kind of lightly shaded blue bar, is the all-in-cost profile.
That all-in-cost profile shows an increased trajectory, but that's reflective of the $2 billion of discretionary investment that we're going to be making into the business over the next five years, as well as the Windfall capital that we're going to add into delivering that production growth. Again, as Alex will demonstrate later, all of that will be self-funded, and it'll be able to be delivered in a way that it doesn't detract our ability to deliver upper quartile shareholder returns, as well as improving the flexibility and quality of our balance sheet. If you look at our all-in sustaining cost, largely what we're able to demonstrate is a flat real all-in sustaining cost profile over the next five years. Some of the investments that we're making, particularly into the material handling system at St. Ives and Granny Smith, will deliver cost-out outcomes into the second horizon.
Into the second horizon, to reiterate, we are expecting real reductions in all-in sustaining costs on the base portfolio. Just to call out on our guidance for 2025, as we shared last week, our guidance remains intact. We believe Production uidance will be towards the upper half of the guidance, and our Cost Guidance will be comfortably within our group Cost Guidance. Going to 2026, you'll see there is a slight step up in sustaining costs. This comes from, just to unpack that slightly, there's around $100 an oz as a result of inflation. There's about $25 per oz of business improvement that offsets some of that inflationary improvement. We have $50 negative impact on strengthening producer currencies within that. We have around $30 per oz from Cerro Corona because they migrate to treating stockpiles. Again, that's a negative item.
We do see the offsets of about $100 an oz at a portfolio level from the Salares Norte having fully ramped up. What you can see is there is kind of a mix of things that are playing into it. What we do then see is some of that benefit flowing into 2027 as we kind of see the offsets again coming back through. Turning into the capital in a little bit more detail, we look at capital in three buckets. Firstly, it is the Sustaining capital. Historically, that is in that $350-$400 per oz, and that is sustained over the next five years. That is the dark blue bar. We then have Discretionary capital, which is around $2 billion over the next five years, which I will talk to you in a minute about what that entails.
We have Windfall growth capital of about $1.7 billion-$1.9 billion in the range. I'll talk to that in a little bit more detail because it needs a bit of a conversation. Those discretionary investments that we can make in the next couple of years are about unlocking the future potential of our existing ore body. To reiterate, this is the best type of investment that we can make in the highest yielding and highest returning investments. Moving on to unpacking what these discretionary capital investments are, we've got the detail of what those are on the right-hand side of this chart. Importantly to note is of this investment, nearly 35% of it is stripping activities at Agua Amarga. That is all about providing life extension at Salares Norte. High-quality, really good investment to be making.
We have around 20% of that capital going into material handling system, both at St. Ives and Granny Smith. These give us life extension as well as absolute cost reduction because we're changing our mining costs. As a byproduct of that, for example, Granny Smith gets almost six years life extension by the addition of the material handling system. Again, to be clear, these are all discretionary investments. At any point in time, prior to sanction, we can turn these things off. We've got the best opportunity now with the cash flow profile that Alex will share to actually make these investment decisions to set ourselves up for the future. Probably just to kind of move on to what this actually means.
On our production compound average growth rate over the next three years, you can see we are at the top end of our peer group. On an all-in sustaining cost, those are also very competitive against our peer group. This is against the peer set at the bottom of the page. What is also important, if you project this through to 2028- 2030, and unfortunately, the data gets a bit weaker in terms of the analysis, we still, based on the data that we can see, are highly competitive and at the bottom end of that peer group. I think the real issue here that exercises us, despite this best-in-class production and cost outlook, we continue to trade at a relative discount against the peer average.
That is certainly an opportunity in our view to, if we consistently deliver against this plan, we will be able to see sustained outperformance on a relative basis going forward. Ultimately, this is not a one-year wonder. This is a company that has got 138 years of track record. We are building a business for the next generation, and we have a business that is delivering fantastic results today. We believe that more upside remains available on a relative basis in Gold Fields. I am now going to hand over to Chris to talk about the various growth levers we have in our business. Over to you, Chris.
That's great. Thank you, Mike. Again, I'm Chris Gratias, EVP of Strategy and Corporate Development. Very excited to be a part of, as Mike said, Gold Fields' inaugural Capital Markets Day. Thank you for everyone in the room coming. It's nice to see a number of familiar faces, and I know there's a big group online, so we really appreciate you taking the time to spend a few hours with us today. Mike talked about the strong outlook for Our Portfolio over the next five years. I have the pleasure to really address what are those future levers for growth that will help grow and sustain our business, not just around the current horizon, but horizons two and three. Brownfields exploration is a core strength at Gold Fields and, as Mike said, one of the most cost-effective ways to grow and extend our reserve life.
We are currently spending over $100 million a year within our Brownfields program, and our success has been demonstrated by continued extension of our reserve life at our core assets. For example, we have consistently grown the average reserve life in Australia at less than a cost of $50 per oz. We have reinvigorated our growth on Greenfields exploration, the next lever. As Mike said, it built up a current portfolio of over 20 projects with a lot of recent momentum. Our objective is to find the next one or two projects to sustain our portfolio into HORIZON 3. We are open to multiple structures that could involve wholly-owned projects, earn-in-joint ventures, or strategic equity investments, and we can be quite flexible given the specific opportunity.
Finally, around bolt-on M&A, we've been very fortunate to have been able to complete two transactions in what we all know is a very dynamic market environment. We're very pleased with the staged acquisition of 100% of the Windfall Project and obviously the recent Gold Road Acquisition to consolidate Gruyere. I'll go into more detail on both deals later in the presentation, but each does demonstrate a measured approach to improving the quality and value of Our Portfolio, and we continue to assess new opportunities, but always with these same key principles in mind. Let's go into each of these levels, and I'll try to unpack some of them in a bit more detail. As I mentioned, one of Gold Fields' biggest strengths has always been our ability to reinvest smartly through Brownfields exploration to extend life on a sustainable basis.
As you can see on this slide, across a number of our key mines, Tarkwa, St. Ives, Agnew, Damang, Granny Smith, to highlight a few, we've been able to consistently replace and grow reserves over decades. It really shows the Gold Fields model in action: acquire well, explore effectively, reinvest with discipline, and convert good mines into multi-decade assets. We have seen this continued early success at Gruyere and are very excited about the opportunity ahead of us as a result of the Gold Road acquisition and access to the exploration land around Gruyere to extend and drive life. Next, on to Greenfields exploration, we really have reinvigorated this program with a clear strategy to discover and build the next generation of assets that will sustain our production well beyond 2035.
We focus on high-margin discoveries with the potential for 200,000 oz of production for over 10 years of life with district-scale potential. Gold Fields already operates in world-class jurisdictions, and expanding our footprint within these regions will remain the key priority for Greenfields exploration opportunities. However, given our current balanced portfolio that I might talk to, this does provide us with strategic flexibility to look at new and emerging jurisdictions, but we'll only go there where the risk profile stacks up. With over 20 projects across four continents, we have a strong capability uplift following the Osisko and Gold Road acquisitions where we have brought on exceptionally strong talent to supplement our existing team in this area.
We are targeting around a $50 million U.S. spend a year on maintaining the existing portfolio and looking at new opportunities, but we will step out for deals like the recent Founders Metals investment we announced last week when the quality of the opportunity presents. To talk about some of our recent momentum activity in this space, I'll talk about four separate things here. Mentioning Founders Metals, a great example of what we see as a measured approach to investing in a new and emerging prospective jurisdiction. We announced last week a CAD 50 million investment for a 10.5% equity stake with an investor rights agreement and the formation of a technical committee.
In a short time, Founders has built real momentum with a quality and experienced management team delivering standout drill results that point to the potential for multiple discoveries along a 20 km gold trend, and recent land consolidation has strengthened this district potential. It's a classic orogenic gold belt, which is right in Gold Fields' wheelhouse. It's the same deposit style we've operated and grown successfully across a number of our assets within Our Portfolio. Moving to Chile with the Santa Cecilia JV, which is where advancing under Torque's capable operatorship. Again, early drilling has confirmed large-scale mineralization across multiple phases, and the project's position right beside Newmont and Barrick's Norte Abierto joint venture places it in one of the best addresses for gold copper systems in South America.
With the stage two spend now approved, we will earn into a 51% ownership position by mid-2026 while Torque continues as operator driving the next campaign. We also own a 15% equity stake in the company. Moving on to Canada, which we're obviously very excited about, we're building on a consolidation strategy around Windfall and broadening our reach into new opportunities in other nearby proven mining districts. Through the Osisko Mining acquisition, we inherited a number of Greenfields investments that we have continued to invest in. The Phoenix joint venture with Bonterra continues to advance high-grade satellites near Windfall, and we will earn into a 70% interest, which is on track to be achieved in the first half of 2026. We've also increased our equity stakes in Onyx Gold to about 10%, and they've got promising assets in Timmins and the Yukon.
Vior, we have a north of a 20% equity position. This is backing and providing exposure to high-quality discovery teams that are showing strong early results. Mike and Jason will specifically speak to the exploration potential at Windfall later in the presentation. On to Australia, where we have had a good reset. There has been great recent progress. At Edinburgh Park, for example, in Queensland, we now have our first Greenfields drill rigs turning in over a decade, which is a major milestone. The Gold Road acquisition added nine new projects, driving an approximate 200% increase in our land package across Australia, and brings a major uplift in our technical capability. We are excited about unpacking all of that and building on what Gold Road had created over a number of years.
We're now focused on optimizing that portfolio, integrating the best, though some we will divest, and really concentrating capital where discovery potential is the strongest. Obviously, a great example of Greenfields when it works well. Salares Norte was a Gold Fields discovery. With a consistent focus that dates back to 2004, that led to the discovery of Salares in 2011. The project was found for around $75 an oz to the maiden reserve, which is an exceptional outcome for a Greenfields discovery. You look fast forward to look at Salares today, as we know, delivering as reach commercial production to deliver over 500,000 oz a year at below $600 AISC. Consensus entity on that project today is over $4 billion. Just a great example of when we get it right at Greenfields, it can really create transformational value.
Finally, to unpack a little bit our two recent acquisitions. As Mike said, in M&A, you can never predict timing, but you do need to be ready to act. We had positioned ourselves to be opportunistic to take advantage of these opportunities when they presented. Both of these transactions fit exactly into what we are trying to achieve strategically from this growth lever, which is building and adding to the value and quality of Our Portfolio. Tier one jurisdictions, asset scale, lower operating costs, and extension of average mine life in the portfolio. Hindsight's obviously easy around timing of these transactions, but clearly, we feel very good about the timing that we were able to achieve here.
Cash-funded deals made sense in the circumstances, and given that each deal is meaningfully accretive across all of our key metrics and will drive significant improvement in our cash flow per share metrics, which Mike talked to as one of our core strategic objectives. M&A will generally be a more expensive alternative to growing the business relative to Brownfields or Greenfields, but it is an important lever that we must continue to have in our toolkit. We will unpack both Gold Road and Osisko in a bit more detail, a few points. On Gold Road, it had long been an objective to consolidate this land package around Gruyere and simplify the structure. The deal adds potential for meaningful life extension and brings significant G&A and, in particular, tax synergies, which is in the hundreds of millions.
The net acquisition cost of about $1.5 billion, which is after the sale of the Northern Star block, which we did at no risk to Gold Fields, resulted in an approximately 0.6x net asset value purchase multiple using current consensus, which obviously generates very attractive returns for our business. On Osisko, again, this was a very measured and staged approach to entering into a new, highly attractive jurisdiction. The ability to acquire this size land package in the Abitibi will provide huge future opportunities for our business. Again, our net acquisition cost was around $1.5 billion, driving a purchase multiple of 0.7x net asset value based on current consensus at the time. Even with the CapEx inflation, we are seeing our returns have been meaningfully enhanced from our base investment decision in the current environment.
Windfall will be a cornerstone asset in our portfolio for years to come. With that, I think we'll stop and pause for some Q&A.
Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Because we've got participants both online and in person, I will alternate the questions and take two questions from the room and then the ones online. For the room participants, if there's anyone with a question on this session, I'll happily take those. Okay. Here we go. If you could just introduce yourself and the organization. Thanks.
Welcome. Afternoon, Mike and Team. It's Chris Nicholson from RMB Morgan Stanley. Thanks so much for the time and the presentation today. I know we're going to get into more of the details as the presentation continues. You've lifted your reserve price assumption to $2,000 an oz.
You're presenting this morning quite a material step up in CapEx, the $2 billion in Discretionary CapEx Windfall Project. Do all these make a return at $2,000 an oz, or are you using different prices, different metrics? How do you assess a return against the gold price framework? Thank you.
Hi, Chris. Thanks for the question. I'm going to probably delegate that to Alex to answer because he holds the Capital allocation.
I think, Chris, when we look at it, obviously these do all to meet a lot of these capital investments do meet the threshold of a reserve at $2,000 an oz. That is, make a dollar at that price, so they comfortably meet that. When we do model returns, we model them at both. That is sort of our low price scenario to go, does it still reach our cost of capital, which it does?
We go and model it at consensus prices where we're obviously looking for sort of double-digit returns, and that will do that. We are quite comfortable that these investments make sense. What I think is really important on that slide and that $2 billion of Discretionary investment is a lot of those are still in early conceptual stage of studies. We are going to advance them through the different stage gates. We have not made the final investment decision on any of those, and we will be very disciplined in how we allocate that capital when we get to that final investment decision. We wanted to show the optionality out there.
Even at the conceptual level, we have done the early economics, and the early economics indicate that these are all hugely accretive.
Yep.
They come in on an incremental basis, cash basis, much lower than the reserve price.
Yep. That's right.
Okay. Thank you. I'm just looking if there's—oh, I think I take off.
Good afternoon. I'm Nkateko Mathonsi, Invest ec Bank. If you can talk a little bit more about the Discretionary CapEx, the $2 billion, and the impact if that spend was not actually incurred. I think you actually did say if conditions change, it's CapEx that you could pull off. If that CapEx was not invested, what would be the impact on the business? Thank you.
Yeah, good question. I think we haven't covered all of that in specific detail. I think Jason and Bernadette can touch on where those investments are going into each of the assets.
If you think about the big buckets, the first one would be 35% of that capital is going into Agua Amarga spend, which is the additional ounces out of Salares Norte. That would take four years out of the life of Salares Norte if we did not do that. That is one. I think the other big bucket would be the two investments in material handling at both St. Ives and Granny Smith. Again, we spoke in Granny Smith, that would probably take six years off the extended life that we are presenting in the plan today. Those all come in the 2030s, 2040s, so you can kind of discount it. St. Ives, it does allow us to ramp up production to, on average, 450,000 oz into the early 2030s. That would probably take that away from it.
It would probably add costs into the second horizon that we talked to because we would not be able to mitigate the mining cost inflation of using the current mining method of haul trucks through a deep decline. That is probably another one. There is 15% of that discretionary capital on brownfields investments, so brownfields drilling. Again, if we take that out, we will probably reduce the further extension of our assets into the second and third horizon.
South of Wrench and Renewables is 2034.
Yeah, South of Wrench at South Deep, that gives us a potential 20% lift in oz at South Deep into the second horizon. The Renewables investment is really mitigating the energy supply risk in South Africa, but also helps us to reduce cost and decarbonize at South Deep.
Investment in renewables at South Deep is the single biggest return on investment in energy across any of our assets in the business. That kind of gives you an idea maybe of how it unpacks. As we dive into this, we can maybe just call out a few of those things as well.
Thank you. Thank you. Just a few questions on the online. There are two from Adrian Hammond, which I'll read together. He says, "What is driving the production uplift at group level in 2031? It's some 200,000 oz." That is the first one. His second one says, "Regarding Greenfields prospects, how soon could these projects be brought into reserves and then into production?"
Right. Thank you. I'll ask Chris to answer the question on Greenfields. In a minute, just on the 2031, that is largely driven by the
Windfall.
Windfall ounces coming in, as well as the Agua Amarga ounces coming back in from Salares Norte. Because if you go into the presentation, you'll see in 2029 there's a bit of a drop-off in Salares as we're doing the big strip to get the access to those ounces. Now, again, I must just say that we will push really hard to see if some of those ounces of Salares can come back earlier and we can shift that profile. That's our best view today. It probably just reflects how we think about guidance as well. Whilst we put arranged guidance out there, our internal plan is the top end of guidance. That's how we're driving and planning our business. Again, we want to be smart about how we guide and how we think about the business. Because in mining, not everything goes according to plan.
We do probabilistic determination of the inherent variability in our portfolio, and therefore that's where the range comes from. There is a bit of science behind it. Clearly, what we are wanting to do is to provide a high likelihood of delivering in our guidance consistently quarter by quarter.
And just to , just to add to that, and Adrian, there are also the incremental benefits of the two material handling systems at both St. Ives and Granny Smith, as well as the benefit of the Stripping Campaign through 2027, 2028, and 2029 at Tarkwa, delivering high grades. There was a question on.
Greenfields. When are the Greenfields opportunitie s coming in?
I guess the easy answer is it depends. Look, we have across the portfolio a number of investments that are at different stages, some more advanced, some very early stage.
Look, I think if you look at the history of Greenfields exploration from initial investment to when you can have a project in production, it is 15 years+ . The question around when can you get something into reserves? I think there are things in our portfolio that are quite well advanced that maybe could come on earlier in HORIZON 2. I think realistically, Greenfields is really about solving that bucket around HORIZON 3.
Yep. Thanks, Chris. Maybe just to add to that, again, it is how we think about those growth levers. If you think about the cost of replacement, brownfields has probably been around $50 per oz of a discovered reserve. Greenfields has been at $75-$100. M&A adding reserves is probably multiples of that.
The Greenfields opportunity is really about saying our portfolio, obviously we're going to add brownfields, but the real gap and opportunity is to bring some of these into that third horizon post-2035 because we're kind of fine for the next 10 years within our existing business. Building that portfolio out, if we spend $50 million a year on Greenfields over 10 years and you come out with two really advanced projects that you're taking into development pipeline, that's a really, really good acquisition cost. That's how we think about it. We're not modeling in our business that those ounces will be in in the next 10 years.
Perhaps still talking to the levers of growth, there's a question from David Haughton from Global Mining Research. He says there's been a lot of M&A activity in Australia by domestic players.
Would you consider selling into that activity, for example, Agnew or maybe Grannys' ?
Can I say it to friends again?
Look, Chris can answer this, but I think the way we look at it is that everything has got value, both an internal view of value and a market view of value. If the market view of value is far outside of our perception of value, then everything should have a price on it. I think the question specifically on Agnew and Granny Smith, absolutely. If you look at Our Portfolio, we call those assets that have upside optionality. Granny Smith in particular, we've now got a clear pathway. Through the exploration efforts, we really want to understand what Agnew can offer. These are two assets that have just consistently delivered upside for us over a long period of time.
If we did want to be active in placing them, we'd have to be very clear about what that predictability means for us as well.
Maybe the other way I'd answer it is everything's for sale at a price. If there's the right opportunity, as Mike said, where we see a value that's above where we see value, of course we would consider it. I'd sort of frame it in the context of that as you think about the M&A context and what we're looking for around extending life, quality of the portfolio. We're going to go buy that externally if we can continue to invest in our existing assets. I can compare that cost versus external M&A. I think you would continue to invest in your own assets.
Again, why sell something like an Agnew when, as you think about M&A, that's what we're trying to find as well, is a life extension quality asset in a place like Australia?
Thanks, Chris. We're going to come back into the room. I just want to see if there's any hands up or questions. Okay, just.
It strikes me that you're sort of going from a decentralized model to a c entralized model. You can just sort of map out the pitfalls that that might find, especially in Australia, where it seems to be quite a successful model in the past.
I think it's a good question, and it's something that we have agonized quite a bit about, is to say what has happened in the past. If I look at our business today, yes, we're global, but we are a simple business.
We've got eight to ten assets. We produce a single commodity. We don't have a massive big commercial back end that's trying to market into a market. We explore, we develop, we operate assets. What we've allowed ourselves to do is to actually get quite complex on a simple business because we've had these regional structures that have actually gone down their own pathways. You've got things like Alex pulls his hair out, but we've got five different SAP platforms across a business that's actually really simple. We have different standards across our business. We were probably too short-term focused, is kind of my argument. We were very focused on short-term delivery. What we've been trying to do now over the last two years is really elevate the horizon of the business. This is what we're trying to demonstrate that we've done today.
What that does, though, is it's important as you elevate that horizon is make sure that you've got true competition for capital across your business. If you've got these regional elements, it's much harder to kind of allocate capital. At a practical sense, probably some of the downsides are as you're making this migration to a simpler, more kind of streamlined business and efficient business, is that there is sometimes quite a heavy lift on time zones because you've got Mariëtte and Kelly sitting in Perth and Bernadette now servicing assets in Canada. We are very mindful of making sure that we try and get those wheels oiled very quickly so that we can take some of the lift out of it. We do that by getting our leaders aligned and being very clear about where our focus is, where our effort needs to be applied.
Our rhythms and routines are quite clear so that we can take away the kind of ad hoc effects of the drag that could occur in a global business. I still think on balance, it's absolutely the right view in my mind, and I'm sure each of the team would answer that in the same way. Because in the absence of that, it's really hard to kind of have full control unless you go back to that old model of saying, "Look, it's all free for all, and the only way we control you is how we pay you and whether we hire or fire you." Frankly, then you just liberate the entire asset basis. It's another way of thinking about it. Yeah. Alex, I don't know if you want to add to that.
That's fine.
Can't wait for one SAP system.
I'm not sure here, John.
Not one SAP.
Question?
Just continuing with some more thoughts here.
Just a couple of questions. How much of your HORIZON 2 ambition is dependent on the gold price? Obviously, if gold is at $4,000 for two or three years, you'll have way too much cash to invest. I suppose a lot of that will go into accelerating some of your greenfield or making more of those Discretionary CapEx sort of part of your base case. Just in terms of what will be the scenario if gold remains at $4,000, what would the HORIZON 2 look like? Is it 3.5 million-4 million oz, or is it still 3 million-3.5 million oz or 3, the first on e?
Yeah, maybe I can answer that quickly because it's a good question.
I mean, I think it comes back to the core part of who we want to be as a DNA. To us, it's quality and cash flow growth per share rather than ounces growth. It is really focusing on how are we growing that cash flow per share. If you get continued to hook up into growing ounces, the replacement of those ounces does not come easy. You can then get trapped into trying to maintain your headline number, get trapped into making really poor investment decisions just to maintain the headline. You detract from your main game, which is growing the value of the company and growing cash flow per share.
To answer your question, the investments that we make in the discretionary investments over the next few years is really about locking in at a very low cost that profile, helping us to reduce costs into the second horizon and enabling us to again grow that relative margin per share. If gold prices hold at $4,000, I think Alex has got that cash flow graph. It says in five years, we are going to generate $20 billion of free cash. You add another 10 at least on top of that. You are in kind of an interesting territory because you have probably squeezed a lot of the internal options that we can successfully prosecute in the next five years because there is also a capacity issue of what we can do.
You have a decision to say, "Do you just kind of grow your balance sheet?" You clearly have to return some additional amounts to shareholders. That is a good place to be.
The $50 million that you are going to spend on Greenfield, is that a net number? I.e., that includes disposals of properties that you would not hold, or is it a gross number?
I think the way to think about it is a gross number, but it is an evolving portfolio. Maybe a different way, what is the right number of investments? Again, it is a capacity question as well. I think we are probably in the right range of in the 20s around investments. You just need to consistently cycle those.
Some are going to drop out and you'll divest, but you need to continue to add to the front end of that. It's all about where you are on that quality spectrum and the results you're getting. I think 50 is more of the growth number versus a net number.
I think realistically, the challenges with these juniors is that they tend to be quite illiquid. In the moment, the draw results aren't that promising. You probably see the stock coming off and become less liquid.
Yep.
There are three remaining online, so I'm going to pull those together. The first one says, "Why are we hanging ourselves to a fixed dividend? Could we stay with a linear dividend policy of 30% of basic earnings, zero the debt, and buy back with the spare cash?"
Thank you. I mean, I guess the first principle is that it isn't a fixed dividend. We have a variable-based dividend with a targeted minimum. Basically, it is linked to free cash flow now, free cash flow before Discretionary growth investments. That is before any of the Discretionary capital you saw that Mike took to talk to, before Windfall capital, before exploration spend as well. That is the free cash flow figure it's linked to, and it's 35% of that. We will obviously look at, and I'll unpack it in detail in the Capital allocation section, but we will then obviously look at what is the right amount of delivering of the balance sheet, what are the additional returns we could give to shareholders. When we're looking at additional returns to shareholders, we will look at both special dividends, share buybacks, or a combination of the two.
Perfect. Thank you, Alex. The next one is from Herbert Kariba. He says, "Is it fair to think of Gold Fields as a $1,700 per oz gold producer going forward?"
Herbert, good question. I think if you look at our profile, you can kind of bring that conclusion to the numbers. I do think that we still have more work to do. It is how I spoke about what we are doing with the business is really driving effectiveness, consistent delivery, and our AO program is probably still playing a bit of catch-up. I think some of the investments that we are making now will deliver improved outcomes into the early 2030s. You will also get a bit of portfolio effect again into the 2030s. I think the $1,700 in real terms should be we certainly would not be comfortable with that as a sustainable long-term number.
Herbert, as we unpack this at deep dives, you'll see what kind of the targets for each of the assets are that we're driving. The next one is from René Hochreiter. He says, "You've spent a lot of money on acquiring 100% of Gruyere for quite a low, in my view, extra five years of life. Could you expand on your thinking on this and what could the five years extend to on a best-case scenario?"
Than ks, René. I think what we'll do is unpack Gruyere, and certainly we believe the economics of that transaction worked on the known reserve and the addition of the known reserve, but there's certainly upside, which both Jason and Bernadette will cover a little later. I suggest we leave that. I don't know, Chris, if you want to add anything to that.
Yeah, look, I think when we looked at it, on bringing in what Gold Road had, Gilmore, and the exploration potential as we modeled that and the upside, we saw significant life extensions. Obviously, a lot of work to do to unpack that. I would say even in a base case, if you use that five-year life extension, it's still extremely attractive from a return standpoint relative to what we paid. Again, we see a lot more upside than what is just a 15-year life or body.
Okay, Chris, Mike and Alex will take you off the hot seat, and we'll put Jason and Bernadette up there for the asset deep dives into session two. I appreciate that it might be a bit warm in here, and I do apologize.
We are trying to get the aircon resolved, and we'll also just maybe try and open the windows for those that are in the room. Good. We'll dive into the next session, and then halfway through it, we'll take a bit of a comfort break and a leg stretch, if that's okay with everyone. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, everyone. We really appreciate, Bernadette and I, the opportunity to showcase the portfolio quality that we have at Gold Fields. From the Brownfields Exploration Track Record slide that Chris presented earlier, I would like to reiterate one of Gold Fields' biggest strengths and part of our DNA is its ability to acquire quality assets and then reinvest through Brownfields exploration and growth projects. During 2025, we have been able to increase our reserve base through dedicated exploration, asset optimization, and initiatives, changes in the gold price.
We anticipate this year of exceeding our 2021 reserve position. From last week's Q3 2025 operational results release, where we announced a reserve growth at Tarkwa of 3.2 million oz that now has Tarkwa's reserve at 7.4 with an inclusive mineral resource of 11.2 million oz. This has extended life at Tarkwa, with the reserve case now being 17 years and the resource life now being over 21 years. We are also expecting reserve growth at all our Australian assets over the next 12 months. If we deep dive into the Australian assets in terms of their reserve position, this slide demonstrates how targeted exploration from committed and dedicated teams have unlocked value at our highly prospective Australian assets. At St. Ives, the reserves are growing beyond depletion through the development of the Invincible underground and Santa Ana open-pit complexes. St. Ives has a wealth of early-stage exploration opportunities that we hope to develop in coming years. Now I'll hand over to Bernadette.
Thank you. Good afternoon. The asset guidance details that we're going to provide in the coming slides is based on showing you a managed basis. With guidance showing our planned numbers as the upper limit and the lower limit as a risk-adjusted number. Our plans are deterministic and consider risk events and resourcing in them. We've decided to start talking to you today about St. Ives. St. Ives is our longest life asset in Australia. It has been in our hands since 2001 and has produced 9 million oz across its life. The story for St. Ives, we think, is not as well understood as it should be.
We're going to unpack that a little bit for you in terms of the Invincible underground and the Santa Ana pit and what's coming in the future. St. Ives, for us, is a long-life asset with a great reserve growth story. Since 2021, we've increased reserve by 40%. In its medium-term future, it's an asset producing at 450,000 oz per annum, supported by the Invincible underground and the Santa Ana pit, peaking at above 500,000 oz from 2030 and beyond. The cost profile is somewhat variable in the next few years, and that's based on a few things. First, us completing the Invincible underground and investing in the material handling solution to support it, which we'll complete in 2029. This will give us a 90,000-oz bump up, which is a critical bump so that we can hit the 400,000-oz mark a year.
It's also going to help us reduce our cost profile for the years that follow. We will be completing our dewatering and development of the Santa Ana pit in 2026. Jason will be talking to you more about what Santa Ana looks like in the coming slides. The other thing is that we will be completing the investment in our renewables project, which we will complete in 2027, giving us a microgrid that helps us reduce our cost base from 2027 and beyond. Finally, in 2028, we are planning a mill replacement. Now, that mill replacement is still a few years out, so we are working on optimizing what that timeframe will be and the extent of the replacement. These investments in the medium term are based on us believing in the historical replacement we have seen. We believe that St. Ives has a long life ahead of it and well beyond 2045. In 2029 and 2030, we expect all-in sustaining costs to settle at around the $1,500 an oz mark. Over to you, Jason.
Thanks, Bernadette. Here we show the Invincible complex, and you can see that there are three distinct zones there: Invincible North, Invincible, and Invincible South. We believe Invincible is a world-class deposit. From the first discovery hole all the way back in 1994, then with the follow-up program in 2012, Invincible has come a long way and now has a strike length in excess of 3 km, and it is still growing. Invincible has progressed to potentially having the three areas, but importantly with the three areas is that they can be mined independently. Essentially, you have three mines within a mine.
On top of that, the deep drilling has confirmed the continuation of the mineralization along the plunge of the main zones. Additionally, confirming drilling is underway to further scope out the extent of the system to support the materials handling solution that we are wanting to take to investment. What's interesting about Invincible is that Invincible is now the deepest underground mine in the St. Ives entire complex. St. Ives has been an operating asset since 1980, and it's still open in depth, which is quite exciting for us. The intent of the materials handling solution is that we want all the ore and waste to be taken up the twin decline system as well. This will unlock further production capacity within the Invincible complex. Go to the next slide.
Here, we look at what is the potential alternate sources to supplement a world-class Invincible ore body. Excitingly, we are returning to an extended period of open-pit mining at St. Ives, and we are commencing with the Santa Ana operation here in the dark green. Santa Ana is only 2 km away from Invincible. This has the potential of having at least 16 years of continuous open-pit mining to supplement Invincible. Further work is needed to increase the mill capacity again. This work is underway. A balanced exploration, Brownfields exploration, is a critical component to deliver reserve growth and to support our production ambitions and capital decisions. Go to the next slide. Thanks. Here we have the whole lease that we have at St. Ives, all the tenements as well too.
From this slide, you can see that we have tens of kilometers of prospective exploration corridors. They are marked in yellow, around the yellow lines there. St. Ives, since the acquisition, has discovered more than 10 million oz, with the rate of discovery still increasing. We have 10 years of reserve in front of us right now. However, we have got line of sight to 20 years. With the allocation of around about $90 million over the next three years in terms of exploration to unlock that potential, predominantly at Invincible. However, there are other prospective, particularly in the open-pit sense as well. All this has provided confidence in our value-accretive investments that we believe will secure our long-term future. Thank you, Bernadette.
Thanks. Our second largest mine in Australia is Gruyere, the open-pit mine. We acquired the first 50% of Gruyere exactly nine years ago for $350 million.
What a bargain. A month ago, we acquired the other 50%. Underpinning this investment is our belief that Gruyere is a multi-decade asset. Current mining is exclusively from the Gruyere open-pit, and in the next few years, we will transition to adding the Golden Highway extension as well as the Gilmore area, which came with the Gold Road acquisition in 2023. 2025 has seen a minor production downgrade between 300,000 oz and 320,000 oz. This is based on volume and plant issues we had earlier on in the year. Gruyere has been in a ramp-up phase for the past two to three years. The Gold Road acquisition consolidates our position and provides us with the full benefits of the ramp-up and additional ounces in the exploration package, which Jason will talk to in the coming slides.
In the last two years, the total volume movement at Gruyere has doubled, building to the critical 70 million-ton mark, which will stand us in good stead to get to the 75 million-ton mark in 2026. On this slide here, you'll see that in 2026 and 2027, we've had a technical assumption change, which has seen the ounces come down slightly, our mining model. From 2028 and 2030, you see the increase again when we add the Golden Highway and the Gilmore profiles. Areas like Gilmore give us flexibility in terms of potentially delaying more expensive CapEx, but also we are able to bring in a grade uplift at the same time. It's early days since our acquisition. There's still a lot of work for us to do, but the options are significant, and we're pretty excited about it.
The increased production to 400,000 oz post-2030 and beyond will enable us to leverage the infrastructure already in place at Gruyere from a camp perspective, a mill perspective, and other areas, which will then help us exploit the minor land package, which we've just acquired. As with St. Ives, our aim is to focus on providing operational flexibility that can be used to ensure safe, predictable ounces. Jason will talk to you about the opportunities at Gruyere in the next slide.
Thanks, Bernadette. With this slide here, you can see the current Gruyere pit, and you can see the potential of the last stage, which is stage seven at this here. You can see the potential of the underground as well too. The underground model is still open at depth.
We conducted a scoping study that was completed earlier this year, which highlighted that we do have a positive MPV with a bulk underground. What you see here is a scoping study design, which is based on a concept model. We are actively engaged in assessing the underground as well as the potential of taking another cutback at the Gruyere main pit. The underground drilling is underway, and it's progressing well, and we are ahead of plan. We are option-rich at Gruyere, one being the underground, but also we have multiple options in the Yamana Belt now, as follows in the next slide. With the Yamana Belt, we believe there's high potential as we believe it is underexplored. Like the Gruyere main pit, the multi-million-ounce Tropicana deposit is also along the Yamana Belt towards the south.
The expanded Yamana Belt land holding that we now have has at least five additional mining options that we are looking at: Gilmore, Smoke Bush, Warbler, and Renegade. This is on top of the potential we see in growing the Golden Highway deposits as well too. Of particular interest to Gold Fields is the potential of Gilmore, which Chris and Bernadette had mentioned earlier. When Gold Road declared a main reserve back in January 2024, we at Gold Fields are now undertaking further studies in 2026 to see if we can grow that further and have a viable mine life extension at Gruyere on top of what we know already. Thank you, Bernadette.
Thank you. Granny Smith was acquired in 2013, and it'll shortly hit 10 million oz produced. It's also, interestingly enough, one of the first mines in the world to have four GLTE underground.
All production currently comes from the Wallaby underground mine, which is known for its world-class ore body and long-term production potential. For 2025, production guidance is approximately 255,000 oz, and we are on track to deliver this. Granny Smith is a consistent deliverer of ounces for us with future potential in the zone 135, 150, 160, and beyond. Once executed, the investment in the material handling solution will reduce the cost of the future zones. Jason will talk you through what those zones look like and where we believe they go to. For context, we are currently mining in zone 120 and preparing for zone 135 and 150. We are currently mining at a depth just below 1,200 m and taking out around 1.6 million tons per annum. We're looking at utilizing technology to allow us to safely mine below 2,000 m at Granny Smith.
The initial increase in all-in sustaining cost is driven by three main things: the investment in ventilation and power upgrades, the development of zone 150 and 160, and the drilling to shore up our understanding of zone 150 and 160. The benefit from these structural investments is that in the long term, we expect all-in cost to settle to around $1,300 an oz. The future of Granny Smith is to continue production from Wallaby and take advantage of the latent capacity level. Jason will take a look at some of the options for us.
Thank you, Bernadette. Here on this slide, you can see the Wallaby ore body as we know it as well too. As you can see, there are multiple what we call stacked lenses as well too from the open pit.
The open pit was mined by a previous mining company, and that finished back in 2007, and we went underground in 2005. So we've been underground at Wallaby so far for 20 years. What is really interesting is that as we're going deeper, every zone is getting bigger and the grade is improving, which is really quite exciting for us. This graphic clearly does not give justice to the size of what Z150, which we are in well-advanced feasibility in, and Z160 loads. It is important to note they are significantly larger compared to what the other zones are. We believe that they have potential of greater than a million ounces per load. In terms of overall size, we're thinking they're around about 1,000 m by 1,000 m, so roughly 1 sq km.
To put that in context, that's roughly the same distance as the mile here, just outside Buckingham Palace. It's quite substantial. We are doing drilling underway at Z160 right now. As Bernadette did mention, we are actively looking at technology that will help us safely and importantly go deeper and extract more of the ore body. For instance, we tried autonomous trucking underground as one example. Further to this, we are looking at a material handling solution, which Bernadette mentioned earlier, and that can readily be extended as we go deeper underground at Wallaby. The proposed material handling solution will initially be established at the zone 120, where we're mining now, with works planned to be undertaken in 2026. This approach will reduce the costs to mine the future zones.
As we reduce congestion in the mine, which will allow us to also de-risk delivery by mining multiple zones at the same time. Like St. Ives, we see a 20-year+ horizon here at Wallaby through the investment in the material handling and also through further exploration. If we look at the greater land package here at Granny Smith, and in terms of its overall prospectivity, the thing that strikes us now, which has got the most potential, is the Granny Smith open pit, which was mined all the way back in the early 1990s. We like this because it is obviously very close to the existing 3.3 million-ton processing facility. Further study work is underway to potentially bring this into resource as we recently received approval to dewater the pit when required.
We will continue to look for opportunities to complement the world-class, we believe, world-class Wallaby ore body, as even small discoveries can have a material impact, as we have seen at St. Ives. Thank you, Bernadette.
Agnew has a long history in Gold Fields and in Western Australia, with the first gold being found by Patrick Lawlers in 1894. Shortly thereafter, the Waroonga mine was opened in 1904. We are still mining the Waroonga extensions today. Proved and probable reserves sit just below a million ounces at around 972,000. Our internal strategic plans see it going well beyond that. The site tenement package covers 714 sq km, which Jason will talk to in the coming slides. Our immediate focus is to capitalize on the existing infrastructure in Waroonga, Redeemer, and New Holland, with the expectation that production will remain fairly consistent over the five years and beyond at around 230,000 oz.
The cost increase in 2026, 2027, and 2028 is based on underground infrastructure and exploration and maintaining life for the lower-cost ounces to come. Given our continued commitment to exploration at Agnew, we are actively working with our asset optimization team to address the increase in the cost profile over the five years. Jason.
Thank you, Bernadette. This slide here shows you the outline of the Waroonga ore body as well. What's interesting near where that pit is, there's a small underground working there. That's actually part of New Holland. One of the reasons why Gold Fields was interested in the Yilgarn South acquisition back in 2013, which was Lawlers, which was part of that New Holland mine, Granny Smith, and also Darlot at the time. New Holland and Waroonga are only 600 m apart.
We're calling New Holland and Waroonga pretty much the same complex now. It is the second oldest underground operation that we have in our Gold Fields portfolio, only second behind only South Deep. Waroonga continues to be the high-grade backbone for Agnew. Waroonga has multiple exploration targets, as shown in this long section, but this is also the case elsewhere at Agnew as well. In the Waroonga long section, the sub-areas in yellow, these are potential future targets that we are looking at in terms of the depth extensions, but also those lateral extensions as well too, that, for instance, the Saint area and also that Fitzroy area towards the south as well too. We go to the next slide. Thanks, Bernadette. With this picture, you can see the Agnew tenements. It's quite long. It's all up. It's 80 km north to south. It's quite substantial.
One thing I would like to remind the audience with Agnew, even despite the fact it's got a very low reserve number, its reserve multiplier is the highest out of all Gold Fields assets. The current exploration focus is discovering valuable creative ounces that will extend the life of mine at Agnew, which has been three years for the last 30 years, and no doubt it can be more than three years in 30 years' time. The mine central corridor, which is from Waroonga all the way down to Song Vang, which is Vietnamese for River of Gold, this is where 80% of all the ounces ever mined in the Agnew Lawlers area since the 1890s has come from. The thing about it, it is still highly prospective. Thanks, Bernadette.
Can we now? Thanks, Bernadette.
Jason, just to break this up, we'll take a couple more questions, and then we'll have a leg stretch and a bit of a refresher break. Just one second. First question from Raj.
T hank you very much for the presentation. This is Raj Ray from BM Capital Markets. First up on your St. Ives. You talk about Santa Ana pit. If you look at your open pit throughput, it's around 2 million tons per annum, just over. With Santa Ana coming on, expect that open pit throughput to remain around those levels?
Great.
Thank you. Raj, that's a great question. So we have the ability to bring the mill back up to the 4.8 million ton capacity that it had when it was originally commissioned back in 2005.
That is one of the studies that we are looking at as well too, is how do we actually bring the mill back up to the 4.8 million ton. There is capacity within the existing plant.
Okay. Your underground is going to over 3 million tons by 2029?
Yep.
The remaining will be coming from the open pit.
That's right. Yep. Yep. That's right.
If you look at your CapEx profile for St. Ives, you've spoken about the all-in sustaining cost. On top of that, what's the non-sustaining element over that period in terms of bringing that material handling system in place?
That's okay. Go ahead, Alex. The master of finance.
Yeah, sorry, Raj. I'm going to get in front of the lectern. I'm on TV, sorry.
I think from the capital perspective, the material handling system is about AUD 300 million-AUD 400 million, and that is in the growth element. There is very limited, because from a growth capital perspective, we only classify pre-strip, and at Santa Ana, because it has previously been mined, it is about AUD 40 million of pre-strip. All the other strip or capitalized strip will go into sustaining capital. Those are your two investments there.
Okay. I was going to ask one more question from me. When you look at Granny Smith, I mean, your ore body is moving away from the infrastructure. You talked about the material handling system. Can you give some more details on what you are thinking about? Is it a new shaft and the amount of capital that is built into your estimate at this point at Granny?
In terms of the materials handling solution, one of the key options that we're really looking at is a rail veil as well too. The beauty about Wallaby is that it's a twin decline arrangement. What we're looking at is converting one of the declines to a rail veil decline. All the haulage will go through that, which is the reason why once we extend further down to Z135 and then Z150, we can actually bring it down with us as well too.
Okay. If you look at, I mean, compared to South Africa, the stress levels in Australia at 2 km are much higher than what you see at South Deep, for example, right?
You talked about how the ore body is getting wider at depth in terms of your ability to pull the same amount of throughput as you're starting to go deep and while controlling the geotechnical stresses. Can you comment on that?
One thing about Wallaby is that we've got a very well-established team. Within the Gold Fields team, we've got very strong geotechnology as well too. It is very much a mine sequence-constrained operation that requires backfill, and we have backfill readily available at Wallaby. That is how we actually control things as well too. We believe that we can still mine down at Z150 and below as well too.
Thank you. Thanks, Jason. Just one second. Chris.
Hi. It's Chris Nicholson from Morgan Stanley again. If I look at these slides, look, I understand it's a capital markets day, so you're trying to put the best foot forward.
If you look at the next two years in both these slides, across most of these operations in Australia, actually production resets slightly lower before it rebounds. Maybe could you just make some comment as to maybe why that is? Has there been a bit of a catch-up of CapEx required, a bit of an underinvestment in the last few years? Are you a bit late on this? Just to expand on Raj's question, you're showing the all-in sustaining cost profile. How much CapEx in addition to that is going to be needed? I know you've given the $2 billion discretionary CapEx. Is that all growth, or is that in sustaining cost, and specifically in relation to the Australian reg ion? Thanks.
I can take both of those, Chris, if you want. Jason can add in.
I think probably if you look at the Australian assets, I think one of the fundamental issues was the raised boring fatality we had at St. Ives a few years ago, which put a moratorium on the raised boring activity. We are catching up from an infrastructure perspective, from a ventilation perspective, to get the power and the ventilation in the underground mine so we can increase our extraction rates back up. I think that is part of what is driving the production and the higher capital in the next years. That is why materials handling is also such a big opportunity at both St. Ives and Granny Smith because it will increase our extraction rates as we go to depth at the underground mines. That is probably one of the major things we are solving for.
When you look at all of that Discretionary capital, it is included in the not in the all-in sustaining cost, it all goes into growth all-in cost, and it is per those charts on the earlier pages. I can help you unpack that in more detail, Chris, as you go, but it is not included in the all-in sustaining cost numbers that you saw.
For the group then, okay, that is on top. For the group then, I know you are kind of guiding to $400-$500 an oz of sustaining capital for the group. In Australia, particularly, is it higher than that?
It is higher, yes.
It is higher, and then you get the discretionary CapEx on top?
Yes. Yeah. That is right. Due to the nature of the ore bodies, they are more capital-intensive than the other assets in the group.
Thanks, Chris.
Can you talk a little bit more about your grade profile for the whole portfolio? I think you spoke about Gruyere and Granny Smith that you're potentially going to see a grade uplift. In the mining industry as a whole, we've seen pressure on grade. I just want to know, compared to now, what is that grade profile for HORIZON 1 and also going into HORIZON 2? Thank you.
The grade profile will stay relatively static. However, we are cognizant that one of the reasons why we're wanting to turn, say, Invincible into three mines into one is because the grade is lower than what we have mined historically. We have to become more efficient. We have to be able to get the ore out and up to surface more efficiently.
With Wallaby, yes, we have higher grade there, but the key is how do we get it from Z150, which is 1.8 km below surface. How do we get it more efficient? That is also that cost versus grade argument. We are starting to talk more about value creative ounces more so than just grade. It is not just grade for the sake of grade.
I think just one other to really call out and what really attracts us about the acquisition is Windfall. That is going to significantly change the grade profile of the group as we bring on the high-grade deposit at Windfall. I think probably worth calling out at the likes of Tarkwa, which is our low-grade mines. That is really consistent grade. We are going to see a similar grade profile over life. Gruyere, we see options with those satellite pits to increase the grade of the Gruyere pit.
Those are probably the key ones worth calling out.
Good. There are two online, and then we'll get to the comfort break. The first is, for Gruyere, what scale of underground development can you see in terms of mine tonnage and grade and timing of a possible start? That's also from David Houghton from, I think it's GMR Research.
We're currently doing the underground drilling, and we're progressing it to a pre-feasibility study. Pre-feasibility study will be ready in 2027. We'll really ascertain the actual size of the prize that we have at the main Gruyere operation. The key thing now that we've got the full control over Gruyere is to really understand what other potential that we have there as well too. Gilmore is a high-grade operation compared to what the potential underground is at Gruyere.
That's what our focus is moving forward, is continuing on with the PFS study for Gruyere underground, but also looking at Gilmore open pit and underground.
I just want to add to that. I think it's important to note that from the slide that we showed that you have two options that you can trigger there. You've got stage eight or the underground. You could do both. You could do either. You can sequence them. Probably the underground for us is a second horizon, so we're post-2030 at the moment. We're concluding the study so we can do the trade-off, but we have so many options in the shorter term that that will not come in until the second horizon.
Yeah, because there are no answers from either of those options, including in the profiles we showed.
Yeah, it's an over and above.
Thank you. Last one before we break. What is the landscape like for labor in Australia? Is competition increasing, and how is this affecting your cost profile?
Thanks, Jongisa. Australia labor market and in the current sort of growth, specifically in the areas in which we are operating at the current gold price, is a very competitive labor market. I think one of the benefits that we have, although our sites are significantly fly-in, fly-out, they are actually relatively easy fly-in, fly-out sites compared to others. We can get someone back to Perth on any given day of the week, which is quite unique for a FIFO operation. That gives us the ability to attract more diverse talent. We have certainly seen that increase in our Labor portfolio and our Labor profile over the last couple of years.
We are a largely outsourced organization, so we still see that from our own employees, it's relatively stable, where we probably see a higher turnover in our contractor employment.
Just Mariëtte, while we have you up there, there was one earlier. What are you doing to improve your Health and Safety track record and also to improve productivity? If you could speak to the Health and Safety piece.
Yeah, thanks, Jongisa. I think there's a question from Tanya. Thanks for that question. We touched on it briefly in the Safety share, but there are really four key areas that we're focusing on. As Mike talked to earlier about just what we found with having had such a federated model is that we do not have a consistency in our Health and Safety System across the organization.
We're building real foundational just Health and Safety basic, Health and Safety systems. Our first effort was into putting into Safety leadership. We're really getting top-down people in the field, Safety leadership, whilst we're building our system of risk management. Since Mike talked to the timeline of Gold Fields, since 2013 in Gold Fields, as we know it today in the spin-out of Sibanye, we've had 22 fatalities. Being able to have a consistent S afety standard that captures the learnings out of all of those are really important components of what we're doing from building the Safety System of work in Gold Fields. The third component of that is bringing our frontline and the voice of our frontline in and bringing the psychosocial aspect of Safety management so that people are not afraid to speak up when it's not safe to do work.
Fourthly, the most unique probably to other organizations, at Gold Fields, 70% of our workforce are not actually employed by us. How we integrate our business partners and contractors into our business is a really important part of our Safety journey and the work that we are doing so that the experience on site is one, your one Gold Fields experience and not different, and that the standards that we set in Gold Fields are equal and integrated with the experience of our contractors.
Fantastic. Okay. We are just over halfway through, so we will have a 10-minute comfort break for everyone. For those that are in the room, there are some waters and coffees outside, and I am sure you are desperate for some fresh air. For those that are online, we will recommence at 2:50 P.M. or 4:50 P.M. South African time. Yep. Thank you.
It's been in the portfolio for nearly 20 years and has the world's largest gold ore body with 31 million oz as at the end of 2024. We're on track to deliver our 2025 guidance. Our focus at South Deep is to keep things stable and predictable. We've seen really good performance in 2025 and look forward to continuing that into 2026 and beyond with small incremental changes each year. In particular, we're looking to stabilize the North of Wrench area, which Jason will talk to the two areas in the next slide, and then open up our South of Wrench area to give us more flexibility and ounces in the horizon too. We're targeting 380, sorry, 1,000 oz by 2030, and as I said, those are small incremental steps we would like to take upwards.
As per our strategy with our Australian assets, flexibility is key for us, and using South of Wrench to bring that flexibility is our plan. The short-term increasing costs in 2026 and 2027 relate to underground development, renewables expansion, and shaft maintenance that we'll be undertaking. The inclusion of South of Wrench ounces post-FY28 will help bring our all-in sustaining costs down to the $1,500 an oz mark for the medium term and beyond. Jason's going to talk you through the areas underground.
Thanks, Benedict. I guess to try and describe what we're seeing here on this picture, the top half of the picture is what we would call current mine and North of Wrench. In the bottom half, where that red line is, below that is South of Wrench.
We're currently mining in that, where that light green color is, that's the current mine slash North of Wrench area as well. There are four distinct corridors or fingers that we're currently mining as well too. That shaded area sort of towards the top of the page, that is where the actual twin shafts are, where we're actually hauling the material out of the mine and also bringing people in and out of the mine as well too. With the South of Wrench , which has got, in its own right, a 20 million + oz reserve, which extends our mine life out to 80 years, that has actually been mine designed all the way out at this stage as well too. However, as Benedict mentioned earlier, it is an 80-year mine life. How do we actually future-proof this operation?
This is the work that we're currently doing. We have a study underway where we really want to understand how we can actually future-proof it with, embedding, you know, that transformational optimization as well too. How do we, I hate to say the word again, future-proof it as well too? What kind of technology will be around in, say, 20 years, 50 years' time as well too? This is the work that we're doing because we've got over 20 million oz there, probably even more. How do we future-proof it? This is the work that is underway currently.
Tarkwa has been in the Gold Fields stable for over 20 years. We have a strong connection with the local community, given our continued investment in the region and its supporting infrastructure. In its life, it has produced over 15 million oz for us.
Tarkwa is a consistent delivery of ounces to our portfolio at around 500,000 oz a year, with an opportunity to increase to 600,000 oz in the medium term and beyond. We have just last week announced a significant life extension. Both Mike and Jason have spoken about that earlier, taking Tarkwa to a multi-decade asset, on the back of which we'll be submitting a lease extension application shortly. We've done extensive work to improve our cost base and believe we see a clear path to a $300 an oz decrease in sustaining cost. The all-in sustaining cost increase in 2026 and 2027 that you see here is based on strip ratio increase, discretionary investment in infrastructure relocation, and development to facilitate the increase in ounces in 2029 and 2030. Jason.
Thank you, Bernadette. This picture here outlines what the reserve and resource is for the Tarkwa leases as well too. What we got here is on the left-hand side is Kottraverchy. In the middle there is Akontansi. Where that green is, that dark green, just north of that is where the processing plant is at Tarkwa. As we go around to the top there, you've got Pepe, Mantraim, and Teberebie. Tarkwa is a paleoplacer ore body, which is essentially a very old, ancient riverbed, essentially, and how it's formed.
What is really interesting for us is that we, yes, we have seen growth, but the growth has come mostly from the gold price, but also 20% of it is from some asset optimization work in terms of the bench heights, increasing the bench heights, as well as also those design optimizations that we have done as well too. We have 17 years of reserve and 21 years of resource, with every likelihood that we will be able to extend that even further into the future. It is very much exciting times for us at Tarkwa, and we have confidence to continue to invest in Tarkwa. Thank you.
Thank you. As you heard earlier, Salares Norte was a Gold Fields discovery in 2011 based on diligent exploration efforts, and now is our high-altitude mine set to be our largest producer in 2026.
Salares is a 3.4 million oz resource and, sorry, reserve, with 2025 guidance being well on its way to being achieved. The Salares plant recently achieved commercial production. Salares has been an exceptional investment and will be fully paid back by 2026. The ramp-up ounces you see in 25 and 26 here relates to processing of in-situ high-grade stockpiles mined from Breccia Principal. The Agua Amarga extension, which Mike spoke about earlier, is a development that will commence stripping in 2027 through to 2030. The profile on the screen is based on four years of stripping for Agua Amarga, and then considering, which is slightly more delayed, slightly delayed from what you've seen before, it's based, and it's based on what we understand from our Chinchilla relocation and capture program. We are hoping to expedite this, but the work is still underway.
As you note, we have provided 2031 production here, which is slightly different from the other assets we showed you previously. That is to show the extent of the ramp-up given the investment in Agua Amarga. Jason is going to talk to our exploration efforts in Salares .
Thanks, Bernadette. We do remain committed to growth around Salares Norte. We do have a large tenement holding that we are still really active in. In terms of the Brownfields exploration potential, we are looking at growth opportunities through cutbacks in both the existing Breccia Principal, where we are currently mining, and also potentially in the Agua Amarga open pit, which is right next door to Breccia Principal, pending on Chinchilla rockery clearances. We are also continuing to explore the Horizonte deposit, which is closer to the village than the processing plant, but still very close.
and also looking at underground opportunities, potentially at Agua Amarga, once the open pit is finished. So there's still a pipeline of growth at Salares Norte that we're definitely interested in exploring further.
Thank you. Okay, we're handing over to Mike for Windfall Project.
Thank you, Bernadette.
Thanks.
Thanks, Bernadette. Just moving on to Windfall, and, I think firstly I'd just like to say that this is, we are super excited about the addition of Windfall into Our Portfolio. I think the investment in 2023 was a very, a smart investment, which allowed us access at a very low entry cost. and I think when when Osisko decided to put themselves up for sale last year, we were absolutely convinced this was the right deal for us.
It might have come at that time, it felt like a little bit early in the piece for us on the development, but in hindsight that was absolutely perfect timing. The fact we now have 100% control on the asset at a very low entry price, you know, I always say, I think if this asset at 100% terms was available in the market today, we probably would not be able to be competitive, I think, to put it fairly bluntly. We feel very privileged to have stewardship of this remarkable footprint. I think this slide again, which just puts it in context, you know, this is a multi-decade district opportunity here. If you look at the top right, the gray, the dark gray blocks is really our land package. It is around 2,400 sq km across the Urban-Barry and Quévillon camps.
If you put that in context, Val d'Or is around 1,400 sq km and has produced 100 million oz over the past number of years. It has a current resource inventory of around 47 million oz. You can just see the potential of this just on a pure visible perspective. What's also interesting is this is highly underexplored. 80% of the drilling on this property has only taken place since 2016, and only 10% of this land package has really been effectively explored. What is really, really great about the acquisition is we've largely kept our exploration team in place. The team that we've got on the ground deeply understands this.
I think the working relationship between our current Gold Fields Greenfields team, who are bringing some of that technology overlay into really understanding this land package, has been truly, truly great. Again, I think this is a long journey for us. Whilst we talk about the Windfall deposit and the development of that in a few minutes, we have to just put this in context. Let's just talk to Windfall and the main project, which really forms the foundation for the development of this future land package. Again, we have an initial phase project, which is 300,000 oz over an initial 10-year period. We're already looking at what the next phase of that is, you know, doing further optimizations, both on plant yields, potential shaft infrastructures, etc., for the later stage of development.
This is the first phase, and that underpins the current environmental permitting. We have secured hydro energy for this plant through a very innovative agreement with the First Nations. Again, that puts us in a very unique position where the ounces that we'll produce will be very low carbon intensity and reduce our overall intensity across our portfolio. Relationships with the First Nation are incredibly good. They're very supportive of the development, and ultimately the economic interest through the hydropower line means that they are fully aligned economically to see this project being developed. Again, spoken about the upside of it. On the project capital, and, you know, I see Josh in the room, and I know Josh has kind of guided probably a slightly lower capital number at the top in the range.
We were very thoughtful about, you know, what we wanted to come out and provide guidance on in terms of numbers. I mean, first and foremost, we want to make sure that we deliver within the guidance range. That is what we are guiding for. To put this in context, we also have not taken it to the board fully for an FID. Once we get there, obviously, we will unpack then how the full numbers have ramped up. Importantly, what we have also done is on schedule, you know, we have spoken in the past about first gold in H2 of 2028. This plan assumes a delay case, so it assumes first gold only in 2029. We are still working very hard on delivering a potential upside case of H2 2028, but it really depends on permitting.
You know, we've done a huge amount of work. We've now got a really good team in Canada that are helping us with the engagements with the First Nations and the provincial government to get these permits over the line. Our target is if we can get permitting in place by Q1 of next year, get through FID, we're ready for taking this to our Board for an investment decision, then we should be able to claw back some of that time. If we can claw back some of that time, that obviously has a capital benefit for us because we have the project on foot for a shorter period of time.
There is a little bit of upside, but we're kind of being appropriately conservative in the plan and saying, look, based on what we expect is potentially a bit of delay on permitting, this probably sets the best schedule on it. Again, just to put for those that do not understand, we do have a mine. We've got a well-developed mine under the old bulk pump exploration permitting process. We have an underground workshop developed, so we have an effective operating mine. Most of the capital really is going to around 45% is the plant and surface infrastructure. Then it is labor, and flights and accommodation, et cetera, and contingency, obviously, which is included in this number. In terms of operating costs, we are currently assuming, you know, all-in sustaining costs of circa $1,000 an oz. Again, this probably needs a little bit more scrubbing.
The current base case is that, and it's included in the capital, is that it'll be an owner mining operation rather than a current contractor operation that we have at the moment. You know, that kind of obviously adds to some of the initial capital estimates. Just on schedule, very quickly, again, starting at the bottom, assuming first gold in H1 2029, for us to do that, we do need most of the permitting in place by at least Q3 of next year. We want to do camp clearing, camp construction, allows us then into 2027 to start doing all of these civils and clearing, with plant construction in 2027 through 2028, commissioning maybe at the back end of 2028. That's kind of the rough timeline that we're working to at the moment. I've spoken to the opportunities of potential upside.
and just on that upside, whilst you might think it's just kind of, you know, a flight of fancy, we're working really hard with the First Nations as well as the provincial government, working through the Secretary General, who will essentially act as a Sherpa on both the primary and secondary permitting. So we're working really hard to try and keep the original schedule intact. but I think for the purposes of today's guidance, you know, we feel appropriately conservative on that. Okay, I'm now going to hand over to Jason to talk just about the geological potential of the current Links deposit.
Thank you so much, Mike, for that. So basically we have the Links, which is that's where the current development is as well too. So we're down 700 m at Windfall already.
You have got the main load, which is the next one that we want to target, and then there is Underdog. What we see with the Triple H and even the extensions of the Links is that with the previously Osisko drilled holes, we do see that there are life extensions with what we know currently. That is super exciting for us as well. We have started to do more drilling ourselves in that lower Links area and Triple H to determine. You can see on that infographic there that the grades are quite impressive. It is very exciting times for us at just the Windfall deposit alone. We believe it is going to be very much a multi-decade deposit.
and also it will allow us to, look at, you know, further capital investments for the long term, including, its own materials handling solution as well. Thanks, Mike. Sorry. What we see here in terms of the Windfall district, I mean, it's very much like what we see in St. Ives as well. It's multi-decade, multi-million ounce potential as well. Our goal is clear. We do want to find the next Windfall. We believe that there is a Windfall somewhere in there. We just got to find it. Right now our idea is to extend the life of Windfall so that we have the time to find the next Windfall. On that note, I'm done. Thank you, Mike.
Thank you, Jason. We can now go to Q&A again.
Okay, thanks, Mike and Jason.
We'll take some questions related to this section, but if there's any from earlier, I see there's some that have filtered into the online one as well related to the Australian assets, so we'll take those as well. Okay, first one is from Josh.
Thank you very much, Josh Wolfson, RBC Capital Markets. For Windfall, when will you have more clarity on what the timelines are? I guess what's the sort of date you need to receive the permits by? And then in the event that you can't accelerate the timelines, what would be the opportunity on CapEx?
Yeah, I think that's a very good question, Josh. I think from a timeline, what we're working really hard to do is to say can we get all the permitting in place by the end of Q1 of next year?
Because what's crucial for us is to do tree clearing during the course of April next year. If we miss the tree clearing period, we go into kind of May, and then we probably run out of time to get the camp constructed and completed before you get into the winter season. That's kind of the first window for us to be on track for the upside case, which is H1, H2 2028. If we lose that, the next critical date is for us to get primary and secondary permits in place by September of 2026, which then allows us to do clearing in the back end of H2 and also have the pond collection dams in place during Q4 of 2026, which sets us up for civils works in early 2027.
Kind of roughly, 2026 is an important period, either by achieving Q1, which is the upside case, or probably Q3 for the secondary case. Let me answer the second part of your question, which was around the upside on capital opportunity. What we are talking about is, you know, what then cash conservation can take place if you do delay case? And, you know, what demobilization could you have without losing access to the skills that you need for the longer term project? There is ongoing work that we're doing around optimization of our holding costs. Secondly, does that buy us more time to kind of optimize and scrub the capital if there's a slight delay case?
One more question, sort of tangential to permitting for the delay for the Agua Amarga stripping.
That was, I think, previously planned in late 2026. Now it is bumped to 2027. The prior plan was for the Chinchilla movement to be done for the rockeries, I think, by May at least. Is there a change in that timeline or what basically is causing the Agua Amarga strip delay? Thanks.
Do you want to talk to the Chinchilla program, Mariëtte?
Thanks, Mike. I think the original plan ran the Chinchillas out to be finished in the next summer, but we currently are seeing with the way we look at the rockery removal now that there is probably an additional summer of rockery removal before we can get there.
It is slower than what was initially in the plan, but gives us that guarantee of being able to do that successfully with the experience we've had in the last two years.
Josh, the one thing that we haven't factored in, which we will continue to explore, is there a way of advancing and accelerating the stripping activity? Because the stripping activity on Agua Amarga assumes 40 million tons a year. I think there's an opportunity potentially to resequence that, but that's not our current base plan, and that would be upside if we can do that.
Thanks, Josh. Thanks, Mike.
Thanks, Mariëtte.
T hank you, it's Raj here. A couple of questions. First of all, in South Deep, can you talk to, so previously the plan was to potentially get to somewhere around 350 to 400 with North of Wrench itself.
What's been the challenge in terms of ramping production in North of Wrench? As you start to develop into the South of Wrench, what sort of infrastructure challenges or additional infrastructure will you need, because you're working in a high stress environment? That's the first one. On Tarkwa, if you can talk to the big increase in reserves, positive to see, also positive to see that the grades actually stayed or increased slightly. If you can talk to what's driving that grade increase at Tarkwa, despite you moving your reserve gold price from $1,500 to $2,000, and some details around the infrastructure that you need to move.
Maybe we start with the South Deep questions.
Yes, in terms of North of Wrench, the reason why we have capped it, I guess, for a better word, is to make sure that we have a sustainable mine as well too. The last thing we want to do is mine too hard, and then all of a sudden we have a rehabilitation cycle as well too. We are trying to manage what we have open so that we can actually maintain that safe, predictable mining. That is really important. We have seen that in the past at South Deep, and we want to try and make sure that we enable that into the future. The learnings that we have from North of Wrench, we are definitely going to try and move across to South of Wrench.
What we know of South of Wrench, we believe it's very much an anagram of what we see in North of Wrench as well too. The key thing for us at the moment is to put those drives in to start to get to the South of Wrench, then go and start to open up the ore body to ascertain, you know, are those assumptions still valid? From what we know so far, we believe that it is.
As you're starting to develop into South of Wrench, you're using the same infrastructure that you have for North of Wrench, or you can access it through a different.
If you want, what we can do is we can go back to that picture.
The light gray, as well, too, and I will point and I apologize for people online as well, too.
Okay.
Here is twins. It says to access north of wrench is these levels here across, and then you go down in terms of these fingers here. This here is the South of Wrench infrastructure. It is independent of the North of Wrench.
Part of the study is also an options analysis, right? There is the basic study of how do you access what you want to do now, but then also this is an 80 year mine life, right? South of Wrench is like 30 of that. To look at what are the options that you can do, because with, you know, 30 years, there is a lot that you can do.
We're testing ourselves on that.
I think the other point on North of Wrench, just on North of Wrench, is the, I think the plan currently is based on, as Jason has said, kind of a consistent improvement and steady as she goes, rather than trying to put the foot on the accelerator hard, because we've known that that hasn't worked always. What we have seen, you know, pleasingly in the last 12 months is really an improvement in stope turnover. That's really the key constraint. As we improve the performance of stope turnover, we could start seeing more performance. You know, we're not going to commit to that today. Maybe I want to talk to Tarkwa grade and infrastructure.
The first one about if we go back to that picture, sorry, Bernadette, in terms of the reserve and resource.
Which one do you want to go back to?
The actual Tarkwa R&R picture.
Sorry, I'm going to make you all seasick now.
Okay. Once again, I apologize to the people online as well too. I'll start to point to the picture.
That's the one you were looking for?
No.
Oh, sorry, it's not changing. It'll sink in a second, Jason.
Just go ahead.
Oh, no, no, the actual plan.
Oh, sorry. Apologies, which included the reserve view.
As much as Tarkwa is a paleoplacer ore body, there's a degree of consistency. There are elements of it which are better grade than others.
Where we're seeing the potential is in this Akontansi area as well. This is where we've seen the biggest growth at Tarkwa as well. Where we got here, this is where the actual plant is. This is where the heavy vehicle workshop is. This is where the Genser power station is as well too. We've got plans underway now to move the Genser outside of the future envelope that we have of Tarkwa. That includes moving the heavy vehicle workshop as well too. We've always known about this potential for a long time at Tarkwa. Now that we've done the work and we realize, hey, it's there. That's where the grade is as well too. That's what's driving the big increase.
All right, Nkateko Mathonsi , Investt ec Bank again. Can you please talk to the key learning points out of Salares Norte that you are applying on Windfall to potentially reduce the execution risk, especially on potential CapEx overruns?
Yeah, excellent question. Jason should talk to some of the technical aspects. I'll talk to some of the organizational factors that we went through. We did do a detailed review post Salares to just understand what could we have done better. I think we put it in a couple of categories. I think firstly, do not approve a project in the middle of a global pandemic. You know, frankly, that, and we did not know, I mean, just to kind of put it out there, I think nobody would have known in the beginning of 2020 what that could have meant to the world.
Quite clearly, that in combination with probably hiring a contractor who was kind of priced at the low end of the spectrum and was always going to try and maximize margin through additions through the contract period, the moment that you had this global pandemic playing out really impacted productivity, which meant that the contractor was under a lot of financial stress. There was a lot of contestation right from the beginning with the contractor. That really created a lot of stress and tension between the project team and the contractor through that period. That resulted in delays, costs, et cetera. I think the second part organizationally is that there was a kind of a huge fixation, and I know we talk about first gold, but huge fixation on first gold as the kind of primary metric of what you're solving for.
What you're solving for is an effective and safe ramp up in line with your project schedule. I think because we were so fixated on this concept of first gold is that we kept on kind of pushing a first gold date, which meant that we were not really thinking about a safe ramp up. Probably where it kind of broke down, and you know, look at myself in the mirror, we said in December of 2023, you know, I attended a meeting where everyone says, okay, it is not going to be December of 2023 first gold, it is now going to be April. Once you got to April, you were right at the front end of winter.
We now know, and this is a lesson for Windfall, and we get told by all of the Canadians, do not ever start trying to do a ramp up of a project in the head of winter. That was a miss, I think, from our point of view. I think the third thing from an organizational factor is that we in our old operating model essentially make a capital investment decision and delegate it to the local team to deliver a billion dollar project. In the way that we are working today with our new model, the project director actually reports into Jason. We separate the operating team and the project execution team. You have the right level of separation of accountability and governance and oversight. We now have clear organization standards, clear assurance right throughout the execution process and separation of accountability.
I think those kind of factors we have absolutely taken on board. I do not know if there are any other technical lessons that you want to.
Yeah, thanks, Mike. One of the key things is that we have learned from Salares , and we also learned from Gruyere as well too. We are trying to compartmentalize in terms of individual work packages. We do have an oversight with Hatch being involved in the process as well. We are trying to have those individual packages. One of the big differences about Windfall compared to, say, Salares Norte is that we actually have a mine there already as well too. The focus has been on the actual plant as well too in terms of how we get the plant. We have people who are actively involved in trying to engineer that.
If we can compare to what the Osisko plan was as well too, we've done a lot more engineering work as well too compared to what was originally proposed as well too. This is ultimately about trying to de-risk once we can get the project to FID, which is what we're currently doing.
Thanks, Jason.
Good, thank you. I'm going to take a few offline. There's quite a bit that's come in, and I'm going to pick up pace a little bit, Mike. I'm going to take three from Tanya. The first one says, the Windfall CapEx range, which is $1.7 billion-$1.9 billion, is that including 2025 spend, or does it start when you break ground, hopefully in 2026 after the permits are approved?
Excellent. Take that.
Happy to take that. That does not include 2025, that is from 2026 onward with the FID from.
Perhaps a follow-on with that, how are negotiations with the First Nation going? Can you share what some of the times of interests are and what is taking time to conclude? Also with the permitting, what else is taking so long?
Yeah, look, the key pathway is that it is a very sequential process. We need through, there are two key agreements that we need with the First Nations. The first is the impact and benefit agreement, which is progressing now. That has been a journey over the last 12- 18 months. We are making good progress on that.
Probably the biggest impact on delay has been the recommendation from Comex, which is the independent body that includes the First Nations as well as the government of Quebec to make a recommendation to the Environmental Ministry to approve the EIA. We know that we have support from the government and there's support from the First Nations. There's just a kind of pretty pedestrian way in which they approach this. The key work to hit our upside case of Q1 of next year would mean that we close out the IBA negotiations within the next two months. We also get to public participation in January of next year, which would then lead us to potentially a recommendation and approval by February or so and secondary permits shortly thereafter. That is our high road case that we're working to. We're trying to get full alignment around that at the moment.
Thanks, Mike. Just going to, the last one from Tanya is, what's required to get production from 500,000 oz- 600,000 oz at Tar kwa? Stripping.
Yes.
Increase stripping, yeah.
Increase stripping.
That stripping ramps up to 140 million tons per annum at a current rate of 85.
The key thing around that is that we also have an asset optimization opportunity around bringing in a larger fleet. Ideally, you'd want to bring in the larger fleet before we do the big heavy load on the strip because that's inefficient otherwise. Yeah.
Perfect. Thank you. There are a few from Adrian. First one is South Deep represents some 60% of the group reserves, but only 12% of the production, which sets the company apart from most of its global peers. Does this contrast concern you?
What does the market perceive your jurisdictional risk is per your reserve metrics?
Good question. It is probably not something that we have thought that the reserve profile really translates into jurisdictional risk because, you know, I think most people would manage us on or value us on fundamental financial metrics rather than reserve necessarily. I do think South Deep and the reason that we still like it and call it a cornerstone asset is it has got a huge reserve potential. I think that reserve potential can translate into higher ounces over time. We have got in our next two horizons a kind of fairly big step up in production, at least on its own. There is a huge amount of other opportunities which could be further dated.
You have to believe in the work that we are doing at South Deep through technology will unlock that ore body into the future. You know, I absolutely believe that whilst the market does not fully value South Deep today, we can see a pathway for greater value creation. I think we are setting it up to have the potential for, at least not our generation, but the next generation to take full advanta ge of it.
Thank you, Mike. I am just going to test if there are any questions in the room. Just wait a second. My mic is set down.
Hi, my name is Frederic Bolton from BMO. Just circulating back to Windfall.
With the, just to follow on the point that you made, the IBA for the mine, when you get the approved IBA and an overall approval, will that apply to the wider Windfall exploration ground, or would you have to restart that process again if you were to find another Windfall? The second part of that question is, how do you prioritize exploration in that land package given the scale of it?
Yeah. I can ask Jason to talk about how we're looking at exploration. I think in terms of the IBA and the negotiation, it really is around the current, the Windfall Project. If we developed a new project, we'd probably go back and re-engage on that. That would require a new permit as well. That's not inconsistent with how it works elsewhere.
All of our peers, you know, every time there's a new project that we negotiate.
There's one thing that Mike mentioned in his intro about Windfall, that we've been lucky. We've kept the majority of the Osisko exploration team who know that ground. We're leveraging off their knowledge for us to try and find that next Windfall.
Just testing if there's one more in the room before. Sorry. At Windfall, what do you see as, sorry, this is from David Haughton. At Windfall, what do you see as the life of mine sustaining capital? Did the capital and operating costs look well up from previous estimates? It looks like inflation and possible scope changes. Are these the main drivers for the higher co st?
Perfect. Yep. I can take that one, Jongisa. On a sustaining capital level basis, it is mainly the underground development as we develop the ore body. That is in the area of about CAD 80 million per annum. On the OpEx side, I think there are a couple of fundamental differences between how we have costed it and how it was costed in the feasibility study. The first is we have gone for owner operations, owner mining operations, and we have included all the maintenance costs for the fleet, which they did not have in there. That is probably one large element. The other one is also all the costs around clearing of roads of snow, running the camps, flights. They did not have any of the indirect costs in their evaluation. That was all just left out. We have included all of that. The third one I would probably like to call out is the general administration costs.
They did not have anything in for that for running a Montreal office. We allocate all our management fees of the overhead of the group to all our assets. Those do not sit outside of any underlying asset costs. Including all of that in as well. Those are probably the key ones. Obviously inflation.
Good. Just mindful of time, we are going to wrap up this Q&A and just hand over to Alex to do the good stuff on the money.
Keep going back. Oh gosh.
Nearly wrapped up.
Okay.
This is out of sync. I am going wrong here, so that is going to confuse me. Apologies, I will thank you everyone and thanks and welcome and thank you for having us today. I suppose I did not expect to have said so many words already today.
I was getting ready to say hi, I'm Alex Dall, the CFO, who many of you do know, but I suppose I've answered a few number questions today. Jongisa obviously wants to keep us under a bit of time pressure, so luckily I prefer numbers over words. I think I'm going to unpack the Capital allocation section. I mean, I suppose you've seen the great growth opportunity we see in the group, and it's how do we wisely spend this money and get the levers right. That's what we're trying to balance. Up here, I've put a slide that we have previously presented, but it has been refined. It's a refinement of the previously communicated framework.
I think the core thing is from our cash flow from operating activities, we want to ensure that we do three main things firstly, which is invest in our assets to ensure there is safe, reliable, and cost-effective operations. That is what we would call sustaining capital expenditure, as well as maintain our investment grade credit rating and to pay a sector-leading base dividend. After this, in this gold price environment, we will then deliver significant additional cash flow. It is really about getting that competitive tension about what do we do with that cash. It is either allocating it in investing in our future, building balance sheet flexibility, and additional shareholder returns. We are confident that we will be able to do all three. I would like to call out the change in the base dividend policy, and I will unpack this further in the later slides.
This next slide is our capital profile over the historically as well as looking forward in the next five years. We have consistently spent the capital to sustain our operations and to fund growth, the major one in the past being Salares Norte, which has now reached commercial levels of production. Sustaining capital over the next five years is expected to average between $350 and $400 an oz. As highlighted by Bernadette and Jason, as we invest in the future of our assets to deliver both HORIZON 2 and HORIZON 3, this will be slightly higher over the next two years. This includes underground development and capital strip at Gruyere, St. Ives, Granny Smith, and Tarkwa, as well as a number of key infrastructure spend items at the Australian operations, including power and ventilation at Granny Smith for Zone 135 and Zone 150.
In addition, we continue to maintain our investment grade credit ratings, which we are very proud of as being the only South African company who can say that, with a stable outlook at both S&P and Moody's and very strong financial metrics. Key to delivering on our growth and per share metrics is ensuring that we effectively use our balance sheet. We do not want to issue equity that dilutes shareholders, and we believe that the balance sheet is a strong lever we have to fund our growth ambitions. A great example of this is how we use the balance sheet to fund the acquisitions of both Gold Road and Osisko to grow the quality of Our Portfolio. I'll call out that in September 2024, our net debt position was $1.1 billion.
After spending approximately $3 billion on the Osisko and Gold Road transactions, paying shareholders over $700 million, and spending the capital necessary to deliver Salares Norte to commercial levels of production, we are forecasting to end 2025 in the same net debt position of $1.1 billion. At current consensus gold prices, we are forecasting to hit net cash towards the back end of 2026. I'd also like to call out our very strong debt maturity profile. In the 2025 year, we do have the Gold Road bridge, the bridge that was taken off to fund the Gold Road acquisition. We are currently in the process of refinancing that, looking at a term loan in Australia. After this, our first material debt repayment will be the $500 million notes in 2029. We will continue to ensure that we delever and build flexibility into the balance sheet for future opportunities.
Here's the money slide for everyone. Our aspiration is to pay sector-leading shareholder returns. We believe we have historically always done that, and we believe we can continue to do so. We have updated our base dividend policy to link this to underlying cash flows before discretionary investments. This includes all those items we saw on the earlier slides, being the $2 billion of discretionary expenditure or $400 million a year over the next five years, the $1.7 billion-$1.9 billion of Windfall expenditure, or roughly $600 million per 12 months over the 36-month construction period. It might flow over four years, but that is roughly how it looks, and between $100 million-$150 million of exploration expenditure.
What we're trying to ensure here is we see that we have significant investment opportunities in our business, but we do not want us investing in those opportunities to impact the base dividend given back to shareholders. We believe that a change from earnings to cash flow is more aligned to our capital allocation framework, which is a cash flow model. We will target a payout ratio of 35%, and we will pay a minimum of $0.50 per share per annum, paid semi-annually at $0.25 per share. If the minimum is less than the 35% of free cash flow before growth investments, we will pay a top-up to ensure that we give the higher gold price back to shareholders.
In addition, we're pleased to announce that based on our current forecast, we should be in a position to deliver our proposed additional shareholder returns of up to $500 million over two years. This will be either through share buybacks, special dividends, or a combination of both. The mechanics and quantum of this will be declared as part of the final 2025 dividend in February 2026. On this slide, we show that we have continued to grow our dividend through the higher gold price environment, and we have been able to deliver top quarter yields. We are confident that through our new base dividend policy and the use of additional returns, we'll be able to continue doing this based on sector-leading year-on-year cash flow growth.
In FY 2025, the forecast 35% of free cash flow before growth investments will deliver about 45% of normalized earnings, which is towards the top end of the range of our old policy and of total free cash flow. When modeling additional shareholder returns, this amount increases even more to about 50% of normalized earnings and slightly more than 50% of free cash flow, and a yield of about 5% based on the current share price. As our growth expenditure increases in the future, as outlined in the earlier slides by Mike, Bernadette, Jason, and Chris, this payout ratio of total free cash flow will be well in excess of 50%. I put this slide together, which sort of unpacks how we see the cash generation of the next five years.
Based on consensus gold price and our forecast ranges that were shown earlier on in the presentation, we'll generate circa $20 billion of cash flow from operations. In addition, we have significant leverage at spot prices. This will increase by approximately another $10 billion. This enables us to deliver on our capital allocation priorities in a very disciplined manner, ensuring we get the tension right between the three core pillars. Firstly, reinvesting in the business with over $5 billion of sustaining capital, discretionary investments of $2 billion, and the windfall capital of between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion, delivering strong shareholder returns through distributing about $6 billion as a base dividend, which is more than our sustaining capital, I would like to call out, and additional returns of up to $500 million over two years.
This will be reassessed on a continuous basis as we look at both our interim and final dividends, and we see strong potential to continue building on these returns over time. While doing both of these, we will be in a position to delever and build balance sheet flexibility. I do want to call out that in this spot prices, when we talk about that extra $10 billion, I think that really has the potential to enhance total shareholder returns. As to Mike's earlier view, we have sort of mapped out all the growth potential opportunities within the portfolio. In closing, we will generate strong cash flows over the next five years, and we are confident that we will be able to deliver on all our capital allocation priorities, including investing in our future, delivering sector-leading returns, and building balance sheet flexibility.
We will remain disciplined in how we allocate this capital to ensure we maximize value. Thank you. I will hand back to Mike to wrap up.
Thank you, Alex. If that did not excite anybody, then I am not sure what will. I do not know, when you think about it, those kind of capital, those cash flow returns, it is kind of quite eye-watering when you think about what the market value of the company is. It is generating a massive amount of cash at the moment. I think when we kind of decided on this dividend policy, it was quite interesting because even the gold price was slightly different when we spoke about this four months ago. I just want to kind of just close out on the messaging for today. I do not know where we are going. It is out of sync. Sorry, guys and ladies.
Not sure what's happened with that. Okay. Good. I am now completely out of sequence here. I think just a couple of things. I mean, one message I'd like you to take away is that Gold Fields has got a really strong history of just kind of improving the quality of its portfolio over time. We have been very active in portfolio management. I think all of these have been really disciplined in investments and have really set the platform for the company we have today. I think what's also important as we have thought about the growth and the point that Alex has made, we have been really disciplined about using equity to fund this growth.
We much prefer funding it through our own internal cash generation because it really ties back to what we're trying to solve for, is growing the value of the company by growing those relative per share metrics. Ultimately, that's what we stand for. We've got a very clear plan, which we've now set out over the next five years. We're not going to, as I said right up front, we're not going to sit on our hands and say, "This is the best that it can be." We're working really hard every day to see what we can do to further optimize and improve our business.
A lot of that improvement is really going to come back through the investment in the core capabilities of our organization that gives people the confidence to continue to drive predictable outcomes and drive improvements because ultimately, improvement comes off a very stable base. I've got every confidence that our plan over the next five years really sets our business up to be sector-leading in terms of the cash generation in the business, allows us to deliver sector-leading shareholder returns, and set our business up for the next generation to be a continued high-quality company in the sector. Again, with the cash generation that we're delivering, it allows us to do all of those things, both invest in our business, continue to optimize Our Portfolio, and provide sector-leading returns to shareholders. I just want to thank everybody again for being here.
I know we've got a few minutes left for questions, and I'll hand over to Jongisa.
Thank you very much. I do see one in the room from Ravi. Just one second.
T hank you. On the cash flow waterfall generation, you still at the end have got about $4.4 billion-$7 billion balance sheet flexibility left on consensus gold prices, which are arguably $1,000-$1,500 below where we are today. That's three Windfalls' worth of CapEx, to sort of put it in that perspective. What would you say is the order of priority of using that additional balance sheet flexibility? Is it one more Windfall? Is it additional returns? Or is it sort of more other projects?
No, and thanks a lot for that question, Ravi.
I think one of the key things I want to call out is we've only modeled in that quarter four the $500 million of additional returns. Mike and I are confident that if these prices maintain, we'll continuously top up that program. We just couldn't put a number in today as obviously we've got to have all the sort of approvals in place to put those top-ups in. I do definitely believe a significant chunk of that remaining balance will go towards additional returns. We are also today sitting in a sort of net debt position of just over $2 billion after funding the Gold Road transaction. I do think there's room to use some of that to delever the balance sheet as well, to put us in a sort of similar position that our peers sit in at the moment.
Thank you. I'm going to take one second. Please go ahead, Chris.
This is Chris DiSalvatore from Redwheel. I have a question on just given the horizons and the focus in the long term, how have incentives changed, particularly given the structure of centralizing? Have you changed any of the long-term incentives? Anything you can update?
Yeah. Mariëtte can provide the color, but that was an important cultural lever for us. Our incentive programs, whilst we had a common program, they were very much driven by regional targets and regional goals. What we've done this year for the first time is we have one group scorecard, which is a kind of a balanced set of commitments that we commit to delivering to the Board.
That forms the basis for determining the short-term incentive bonus pool, and that then defines what we have available, and we cascade it down to individual assets' functions, depending on their relative performance and contribution to that. Ultimately, everybody is tied and aligned to the Gold Fields group performance. As it relates to our long-term incentives, we kind of certainly haven't made as many changes to that, but the one fundamental difference that we've done is that for the first time, we're actually going to buy shares on market to fund any of our executive incentive programs, whereas in the past, we issued shares. We're kind of saying, "Look, given where we believe shares are undervalued, that's probably the worst thing for us to do." Those are two of the big changes we made. Mariëtte, anything you want to add to that?
I think Mike, just talking to the sort of long-term incentives as a result of now buying shares, is that we actually, where in the past, we had a very small percentage of our executives really participated in owning shares, and that would be benefiting today because of our share price uplift. Everybody else sort of got that in cash because we had constraints about the number of shares we could issue. We now have over 600 people in the organization actually who will be shareholders through this plan. Ensuring driving through our senior leadership that long-term alignment to what we want to get right is a lot more linked to our award process.
Yeah. Probably there was one other element I should have mentioned is that our STR program, we changed as well so that only half is delivered in cash and the other half is converted to shares and delayed for two years. There is kind of a further delay on the delivery of the short-term incentive, whereas I think historically there was big upfront payments rather than through.
I think it is worth just on the LTI calling out 50% of the vesting percentages related to shareholder returns, 25% to some financial metric, and 25% to ESG metrics.
Okay. Great. One more from online from Herbert Kiriva from APSA. If all the projects are executed, growth included, is the new CapEx run rate of $1.7 billion-$1.9 billion per annum over the next five years ending 2030? What does it look like beyond?
I think it peaks in the first sort of three years with Windfall. I think that number then drops off in 2029 and 2030. We probably come down sort of more to the $1.4 billion-$1.5 billion sort of area, and we see a similar profile through the remaining horizons. That is obviously I'd love for Bernadette and Jason to find something nice and exciting that's going to add value that we could i nvest in.
The next one is from Arnold Van Graan from Nedbank. He says it's an old question that always comes up, but have you looked at the redom question again? Is the cost still prohibitive?
I mean, it's an interesting question. Every time it comes up, I kind of go down a rabbit hole of trying to understand it.
I think there are actually three parts of you have got to ask yourself, what are you solving for? Are you solving for a listing? Are you solving for a jurisdictional redomicile ? Are you solving for changing your tax base? I think we have got to continue to evaluate that. If it is simply a lift and shift of the corporate entity because you want to redomicile the entire organization, that comes with a cost. I think where we stand today, and we will continue to do the work and evaluate it, is I am not sure that the cost of doing that actually warrants the capital to be allocated to that execution because I am not sure the shareholders would see the return out of that exercise.
But we continue to evaluate it and to see whether that would translate into a value uplift and a relative rewriting of the stock. At this point, it's inconclusive is kind of our take.
Thanks, Mike. Two more from Tanya, and then we've got two minutes to go. First is, with all your projects or expansion in place, do you have the key necessary people, labor, in place to deliver on this? Or do we need to add to the organization? The second one is, what is the minimum cash balance you want to keep to run your business?
Should I take that second one first, and then we can hand over to Mariëtte? From a, I mean, I assume we're talking not a net debt position, just the cash balance around the business that's sort of in the area of $600 million-$700 million.
Okay. That was nice.
Thank you.
I think that's a great question, Tanya. Thank you. When we think about just the mere size of projects that goes with the capital spend, as part of our organizational model redesign, we've built significant project capability in the center. I think Mike was referring earlier to just sort of having approved Salares and left it to the regional team to deliver. We now have a group team that oversees that work, both from the planning and execution component of that, as well as from doing the first, second-line assurance over ensuring that we are designing efforts at projects to Alex's point to the hurdle rates, as well as the technical components of what's required to deliver that. Does it mean that as we go into this project execution, that we need to ramp up significant project skills every time? Absolutely.
We have seen that that is sometimes perhaps something that we do not model as accurately in our project timelines. Certainly in our Windfall experience, finding French-speaking specific project skills in Quebec has not been as simple as perhaps it looks on paper. Similarly, we are seeing quite a significant capital expansion in Australia where we have a more dedicated team of people that we can access and have relationships with.
Thanks, Mariëtte. That brings us to the top of the hour. Thank you very much to Mike and Gold Fields' team. That is it. Thank you to those who joined us online. That brings our sessions to a close. Thank you.
Thank you.