Welcome to everybody joining us on the webcast and Chorus Call. Welcome to Impala Platinum's half year results for financial year 2026. We've published all of our results earlier this morning, so I'm sure you've all had a view of it. We're just going to present a short video reflecting on some of the key highlights, and then I will pass over to Nico, Meroonisha, and Patrick to each just individually reflect on one or two issues and one in our results presentation, when we will then go again to Q&A. We're really looking forward to this engagement. We'll take questions in the room, and then we will make sure that everybody on the webcast and equally on Chorus Call will have an opportunity to engage with the team here today. Thank you very much.
Without further ado, let's start.
I think for me, the key highlight is the safety performance. Very happy that we have had a continued improvement in our lost time injury frequency rate. In our Mining Operations and processing operations, we've had an outstanding safety performance compared to our history.
This is a testament that our eight-point safety plan is actually working. Regrettably, we did have a loss of life involving a bus driver, but that does not take from the hard work that's gone into making sure that our key operations were fatal-free for the half.
From a sustainability perspective, we've had zero limited, significant, or major impact environmental incidents. All our Southern Africa operations have retained their ISO certifications, and for the fifth consecutive year, we have been included in the S&P Sustainability Yearbook, an honor that is reserved for companies with strong sustainability management. We have also retained our responsible sourcing certifications. On top of this, 57% of the water that we consumed was recycled water, and 31% of the electricity that we used was from renewable sources.
From a ounce production point of view, we performed very comparable to a year prior to this with less than 2% change in either direction. I think the biggest change has been the 40% increase in the rand basket price, and we are now blessed with a period where we can evaluate the best options to strengthen the business. I think you will see an increase in life at Impala Canada and at a number of our operations.
We have also seen the work we've been doing on the furnaces coming to fruition. We've also seen record milling in our base metal refineries on the back of the work we've done to upgrade our capacity in refinery. Overall, a very good, solid performance for the period on the production front.
We delivered a strong financial performance supported by elevated PGM pricing as well as good operational delivery. Revenue was up 44% to ZAR 60.8 billion. Our unit costs were up 11%. We generated headline earnings of ZAR 9.3 billion and free cash flow of ZAR 7 billion. We ended the period with gross cash of ZAR 15.2 billion and adjusted net cash of ZAR 12.1 billion.
For the period ahead, our focus will remain on safety, particularly embedding the work on critical control management and also mental health of our employee.
We are going to continue delivering on our social and environmental programs. We're looking to complete construction of our 45 MW solar plant at Zimplats. We're looking at progressing our concurrent rehabilitation efforts for our tailing size slopes at our Southern African operations.
If we continue to deliver to plan and are supported by the elevated PGM pricing, we should deliver solid earnings and robust free cash flows. This will allow us to basically reinvest in the business as well as providing meaningful returns to all our stakeholders.
I think based on a very stable operating results over the last six months, our guidance for the full year has not changed. We are either in the center or at the top end of most of the metrics. I think everything bodes well for the company to perform admirably during the full financial year.
Good morning to everyone. Welcome here to all those present, the investment community, our own Impala people, and for everyone who's dialed in as well, welcome. Always an honor to represent a very talented Impala team. Extraordinary times that we are living in. We had a presentation from one of the consulting firms the other day, and it was very clear that we are going through a shift in global order. It's a new era that is being introduced.
We're seeing changes in international relationships, institutions, NATO. Trade paths are changing. Supply chains are changing. The move from globalization to multipolarity is accelerating. Just recently this week, we've seen a new event unfold in the Middle East. All of this creates a number of consequences, one of which is uncertainty in future supply, particularly in natural resources and in our case, critical minerals and metals. Critical can be defined in many ways, but one is if it's used in critical industries. Like in Europe, the auto industry is a very important employer. It reflects politics, without our metals, there is a risk for the industry.
Also our concentrated supply globally with, you know, 80% of the world's PGMs being produced from Southern Africa, and the uniqueness of our metals, as has been said many times over in the past. Given these pressures and the uncertainty in supply chains, where will this metal come from in the past? You know, there's a major topic of critical minerals and the hoarding of that. We've seen as an example, the $12 billion VOW program announced by the U.S. We certainly are having similar discussions with other jurisdictions or representatives of industry in other jurisdictions where similar concerns are being echoed with these, an engagement to determine the extent to which relationships can be formed to provide security for long-term supply.
In addition to that, we've seen the flow out of the U.S. dollar towards hard assets such as gold. We've seen record gold prices and other precious metals like platinum has now followed suit. That has in part, been the driving force behind the extraordinary rise of the PGM dollar prices. On top of that, if you look at the market fundamentals, we do see continual downward revisions in the EV penetration rates. We have witnessed in recent times a shift in priority in decarbonization in general, particularly in the U.S. We have seen relaxation in terms of expectations of where the world wants to be in terms of, for instance, the percentage of fleet contribution of electric vehicles by certain dates, 2030 and 2035.
That has resulted in an increase in demand for our metals. We have seen an increase in demand from Chinese jewelry and certainly industrial customers as well. On the other side, we do have certain supply risks being acknowledged by the market. We have not seen the historical levels of investment in future supply. I had occasion to sit with the four CEOs, the other four CEOs of PGMs, and even in February, we were unanimous that it's not the right time to consider large-scale greenfields capital projects at this stage. If you look at the global order, the shift in world uncertainty combined with shifts in the fundamental markets, that has given cause to the increase in... Sorry, I'm on the wrong slide. Metal prices.
As a consequence of the nature of the major forces, it is our contention that the price support that we're currently seeing is not a short-term one. This is not as a consequence of Donald Trump. It's the Trump effect. It will outlast the current administration. It's not reliant on who wins the next election. It's uncertainty. You know, once you've asked these questions, those questions remain relevant, and you have to organize your country, your region, very differently for a generation to follow. It is our belief that this current upswing in prices will remain longer than has, than has been the case in the past, where we saw relatively short summers following very long winters. If you look at our results, it's dominated by two major points.
One, the production performance, both at mine operational level as well as in the processing division and what we sold is more or less in line broadly. I mean, as I said in the video, look at all of those numbers. It's like 0% or +1%. It's around about there. That's the one thing. The business has been in good hands. We have navigated through this period in a very stable fashion. The one red flag that we need to be cautious of is the increase in operating costs. Our unit cost increased by 11%. There are reasons for that that will be addressed by Meroonisha and our COO, but it is something that we have to be aware of.
I think cost management is something that we have to take into consideration, and the operating costs specifically. Then of course, the other dominant factor has been this 40% increase in the rand basket price. If you look through all of the financials, the entire industry is looking a lot more attractive than what it did in the previous period. Given the fact that we are where we are in terms of metal prices and an increase in EBITDA and revenue and cash flow, it does provide us with a really important opportunity, and that is to change our strategic focus in the company. During the lean years, we are very defensive. We focus on cost control, capital management.
We even go as far as organizing or reorganizing labor and even do things like portfolio reviews to understand or to have a strategy if there is a further decline in prices. At the bottom, it talks about an inflection point. If I look at where the company is positioned now, the focus is different. We now have the opportunity to focus on how to strengthen the company. Our opportunities is like a funnel, a pipeline of opportunities. Starting off at the most basic level, Patrick and his team, with the support of Meroonisha and the rest of the executive, have already implemented through board support, a number of early action programs to initiate life extension projects. They've occurred at Two Rivers, at Marula, at some of the shafts at Rustenburg.
One of them has already been converted to a fully-fledged capital application that was approved, and that's at 14 Shaft for roughly ZAR 1 billion. That will provide us with life extension project. I am very confident that some of these other early works programs that were initiated will result in approval of additional capital and based on Patrick's information, roughly we will look at a three-year extension to our current steady-state 3.5 million ounces per year production profile. Thereafter, we will require additional initiatives. That's the one part. The second part is that we do believe that there is room for optimizing of the industry through various actions. One, there is the sharing of infrastructure. Now we are constrained at the moment with our processing capacity, and we have excess ounces. In future, when we do see a declining production profile.
That will open up some processing capacity to share in the industry. We do believe it's critically important for Southern Africa to protect local beneficiation of the metals. I think that the opportunity to do so will increase as we go forward. There are the normal cross-boundary opportunities that always exist, and I can think of about a few, but let me just raise one. Please don't interpret this as me announcing any action. I'm just saying, one of the areas that we have battled with in the industry is the Eastern Limb as an example.
If you reimagine what the Eastern Limb could look like if it's operating as a greater unit, I think you can share concentrated capacity with mining capacity, but it'll provide you with better muscle to create a more attractive area to get skill, a better range of skills in the area and to do better at your socioeconomic contribution to increase the license to operate. I think there is an opportunity. If I look at Zim, there are a number of emergent producers, GDI, Karo, and so on. I think that there is an opportunity not only for Implats, but for the industry to reimagine how it operates and to optimize, to increase further efficiencies as an industry. I do think Implats is very well positioned.
I mean, we are represented in all the major producing PGM producing areas other than Russia. I mean, we are in South Africa, Western Limb, Northern Limb, Eastern Limb, and as well as in the Great Dyke, as well as North America. I do think that we are, we're very well positioned. We do have a good track record in constructive partnerships, toll arrangements, joint ventures. We have been operating in Africa, where we focus on long-term strategic relationships. That's, that's something that we think is quite valuable in considering future options. I mean, we can ask more questions about it, but then there would be the questions about greenfields, Waterberg, and the big other thing, as I said earlier, we remain cautious about introducing major new ounces to the market at this point.
We do not expect to make any announcements about that soon. On that note, I would like to hand over to our esteemed COO, Mr. Patrick Morutlwa.
Thank you, Nico. Yeah, good morning, everyone. It's really a privilege for me to present our group results. I'll start with safety, health and environment, which underpins everything we do in our group. For the past 18 months, we have been implementing our eight-point safety plan, and I'm glad to say it is starting to deliver a step change in safety that we've actually envisaged. This is seen in some of the milestones we've achieved for the period. Our mining and processing division, for the first time for the period, actually went fatal-free. Similarly so, Rustenburg, one of our biggest operations, achieved five million fatality-free shift in the period.
Also, if you look at our key risk, fall of ground, winches and machinery, we saw a 12% reduction in injuries, which is all symbolizing a strengthening of greater controls in those areas. While we are building on this momentum, we are equally humbled and also, you know, grounded because of the two losses of life we've incurred, one in the period and one, you know, post the period. We are reflecting, we are learning, and we will be taking these lessons to make sure that we implement no-repeat solutions, so that we don't repeat this type of incidents. On the environmental side, our ESG programs continue to receive global recognition. As you have seen a video, for the fifth year running, we have been included in S&P Sustainability Yearbook.
During all of the same period, you have seen that we have not recorded any level three to level five environmental incident. We operate sustainably because this is the way we express our values of care, respect, and deliver. Lastly, on the health side, also our health programs continue to deliver positive results. Our HIV and TB prevalence are well below the national averages.
The next thing for us for health really is to focus on mental health and psychological health of our employee because healthy employees are engaged, they are safe, but they are also productive. Moving over to production, we have actually delivered a steady and consistent production, which was really buoyed by second quarter, which was much stronger than the first half. What you also see that this has happened despite three of our operations having some serious strategic shifts. At Marula, we focus on development. At Canada, we continue with the high-grade strategy as previously communicated. Lastly, Rustenburg, three of our shaft are nearing end of the economic life. We had to deal with, you know, labor movement in those shaft.
Going forward, in terms of our processing, we also have seen strong performance, and this is also on the back of the work we have done. We have upgraded our BMR at Springs, and we've also done some design and maintenance work in Rustenburg furnaces. You will see that, for our BMR, we have actually recorded record milling, and also for this period, the Rustenburg smelter performed very well above budget. As a result, we were able to release 20,000 oz of our excess inventory. Usually, our release is, you know, gravitated towards H2. Because of this good work, we are able to release 20,000 oz. Our Furnace 4 have gone down for maintenance way ahead of schedule.
We should be able to restart now in April. As a result, very confident to release 100,000 oz of excess inventory as promised at the start of the year. As Nico spoke about the cost, we were about 5.5% above mine inflation. This was a deliberate decision to strategically invest in our infrastructure, particularly some conveyables in Zimplats, and also improving our mechanised fleet across the group. This will set us well for the future to make sure that we can maintain the current production, but we also deliver into the future expectations. As I stand here, I can safely say we will meet our guidance on production, on cost and capital for the year. Thank you very much, and I'll hand over to Meroon isha.
Thanks, Patrick. Let me just get my notes. Okay. Thank you, Patrick, and I'm checking the time still. Good morning, everyone. Clearly, the steady operational performance that you've seen enabled us to fully benefit from the 40% improvement in pricing. Let me just get there. Okay. You'll see EBITDA up at ZAR 18.1 billion, headline earnings ZAR 9.3 billion. I think what is noteworthy is that we did not have any unusual, you know, non-recurring items in our earnings for the period. As Patrick and Nico told, you know, spoke about, given the improved pricing and profitability, we were allowed to reinvest in the business. You'll see some of that in our unit costs, where we took the opportunity with the improved cash flow to spend more on infrastructure and maintenance.
Of course, some of that contributed to the 11% increase that you've seen. That was particularly at two of our biggest operations, our Rustenburg operations and Zimplats. If you look at free cash flow for the period, there was a significant improvement from ZAR 600 million in the previous year, up to ZAR 7 billion, this was driven largely by the improved profitability, some of this was offset by the buildup in working capital. I think what's important to note is that at the end of the period, there was an additional tax payment that was due of ZAR 1.4 billion, we made this payment in January, it basically was a top-up to our provisional tax.
If you recall, there was quite a steep increase in prices in the month of December, clearly we worked our forecasts that were done in November that didn't fully, you know, take into consideration the rapid improvement in pricing. If you look at the balance sheet, we used the opportunity of the improved free cash flow to repay some debt. We repaid about ZAR 800 million worth of debt, mostly at Zimplats, our gross debt declined from ZAR 1.8 billion down to ZAR 1 billion. Another very important thing we did in the period was our group revolving credit facility was almost, I think it would have expired now in February.
We took the opportunity to refinance it in quarter two, and basically, we upsized it from under ZAR 8 billion - ZAR 14 billion, and we managed to do this on very competitive terms. The new revolving credit facility is valid for, extends for three years, and the reason that I mentioned the RCF is we've made some changes to our disclosure on net cash. In line with the new RCF, we amended the disclosure and definition of net cash to align to the RCF. What this meant is that we now exclude the deferred revenue from the gold stream from the net cash balance, but also we are not now including the cash held at Zimplats in local currency in our cash balance.
That really is because of the fact that that currency is not. You cannot use it outside of Zimbabwe. On this basis, our net cash got adjusted. Well, our net cash increased from ZAR 8.1 billion- ZAR 12.1 billion. With the undrawn revolving credit facility of ZAR 14 billion, we closed the year with liquidity headroom of just under ZAR 29 billion. I think before I go on to the next slide, I just wanna point out a few things. If I look forward, I think the company's really well poised to take advantage of the favorable metal price environment, there's a few factors that I would like to highlight.
Firstly, you've seen sustained operational delivery, and I have no doubt that the team will continue to deliver into H2. We have got a track record of good cost discipline, and it is something that will receive focus, but I think our teams will deliver on keeping the costs tight. Our capital intensity is normalized, but we've got the ability and the capacity to further strengthen the business and invest in progressing our life of mine projects. I think the other point which is very important is that we have expanded processing capacity and the excess inventory. I don't think we must underestimate the flexibility this gives us to manage any operational challenges that we might have along the way, and it does support free cash flow generation.
If I can then move on to capital allocation. After repaying about ZAR 800 million worth of debt and making provision for the ZAR 1.4 billion tax payment, the board declared a dividend of ZAR 4.10 per share or ZAR 3.7 billion. This represents a payout ratio of 60% of free adjusted free cash flow, which is double our minimum policy. If you take into consideration the tax payment that was due, it's about 80% of the available free cash flow. As a result of obviously prior capital allocation decisions, as well as completing a number of our strategic projects, there was limited capital that was allocated to growth and investment.
I think what the capital allocation should demonstrate is that overall, we have maintained our disciplined and consistent approach to capital allocation, and we have prioritized returns to shareholders. Lastly, as Patrick has alluded to, it will obviously end with the market guidance. We're very pleased that we keep our guidance intact, and I believe given where the business is, we are well on track to deliver within this guidance. With that, I'd like to hand over to Johan.
Thank you. All righty, thanks to the team. Happy to take some questions as normal. I think let's start in the room. There will be some roving mics. We'll pass that along. Just for the benefit of people that might not see on the screen or the camera, just in start, just to raise your name, just so that everybody knows who's asking the question. Got a couple of hands up here. Chris, let's start there with you.
Thanks. Good morning still, everybody, Nico and Johan and team. Thank you very much. It's Chris Nicholson from RMB Morgan Stanley. Couple of questions, if I may. You've provided a fairly optimistic outlook on the pricing environment. Maybe a bit of a surprise that you didn't accelerate some of the capital projects to the same extent. I hear you're doing some early work. Could you maybe give us further details specifically on Marula? Is this akin to what was previously known as phase II? And what type of mine life extension you're looking to get there? Similarly, at Impala Rustenburg, 14 Shaft and some of the other extensions, how long are you looking to extend mine life by there?
Kind of linked to that, you know, should we expect ZAR 9 billion of CapEx going forward? Is that a good level into these prices? Just second question, again, optimistic price outlook. I think some might be slightly disappointed with the dividend. You know, you've seen another two months of very strong prices since year-end. Just thought process as to why you need to hold so much cash on balance sheet again. Thank you.
I think, Pat, if you don't mind, the first question is about the life mine extension projects, the specifics and perhaps what they were gonna cost and the expected life extension.
Let me start first with Rustenburg. As Nico said, we have already approved 14 Shaft extension. It is taking the existing decline into the 18 Shaft area. It will give us four additional years, like literally maintaining the current production for another four years. It is about ZAR 877 million. The early capital was approved the last quarter, so work is continuing there. Again, there we have Rustenburg 20 Shaft, where we're now taking 20 Shaft into the third drift ground. That work we're still validating the feasibility studies. It should be coming to the board somewhere in August. I cannot share the numbers now, but it will also extend life approximately five to six years there.
The last one is, BRPM North Shaft, is just taking the existing decline further. That one, it will give us a much more, long life, anything between 10 and 15 years. Again, the early capital approved, so we're executing. The final capital numbers not yet, finalized.
Moving over to Marula. Marula phase II was closed given that at the time we executed that project, the price did plummet. So as part of, you know, cost preservation, we did stop that. But now with the new prices, we have restarted the work, approved ZAR 440 million of early capital. So it's not going to be the same as phase II. We're actually doing small chunks. So this project is now divided in four phases. Phase I is taking the Klepgem shaft two level down, and there will be a big chunk of capital to secure surface and infrastructure, then further chunks of capital to take both Driekop and Klepgem down. So we have designed in such a way that we've got proper off-ramps.
Should the price plummet, we should be able to stop. The first phase that I spoke about should give us additional five to six years on top of existing six-year life left at Marula. That's more or less high level on this project that we have undertaken.
Patrick, the ZAR 9 billion capital is that a fair expectation or?
All right. Thank you for that. I think you remember we gave you, between ZAR 8 billion and ZAR 9 billion. With this bolt-on project, you can add a maximum ZAR 2 billion. I think makes ZAR 10.5 billion because we will start very slow and just ramp up a bit. I don't see it going beyond ZAR 11 billion really.
Sorry, I just want to add. Actually maybe repeat Patrick's words but in a different form because you asked about is it phase II and he said, no. I think it is. The application of how we get there is different. In fact, the first time we did it, we had a ZAR 5.5 billion single project, and we had agreed off-ramp points. Whereas this time we are saying there's no single ZAR 5.5 billion project. They are going to be a sequence of smaller projects. We will have like a consolidated assessment for the entire thing, which will be based on evaluation, but the implementation will have to meet certain performance hurdles as we go along for the next phase to be implemented.
Essentially it's phase II wrapped in different color.
If I might just add one thing. Nico earlier said that with this project, they will push the 3.5 million ounces back out another three years. In addition to that, the old profile within 10 years' time, if we did nothing, we're gonna lose 50% of our production. This project have also helped to slow down the decline. Within the same 10 years, if we do all this, these project, we will only be dropping by 15%. They do actually extend life and the angle of decline.
Sorry, I'm again butting in. I think Tim will kill us if we don't talk about Canada because I really think that there's an opportunity there. I mean, we've already extended the life to April 27. The technical team at Impala Canada is working on a novel technology for us in the group, which is called dry tailings, you know, which makes use of the filtered tailing plants, which enables you to essentially to dry out the tailings and place that on existing tailings dams as opposed to creating a new greenfield tailing dam, which requires new licensing and permits and so forth.
I mean, the capital expenditure is quite intense, but that will provide Canada with not an incremental one year at a time life, but that will enable us to take a longer position subject to the palladium price remaining at, you know, above $1,600 or something like that. Then we haven't quite spoken about Mimosa. I mean, there's a few things to resolve in Zuma specifically, there is still the opportunity to consider some form of North Hill extension to life at Mimosa, which currently we're not speaking to because it's not currently in the works. It's being evaluated, and we've got a partner that we need to consult on the matter and so forth.
Chris, sorry, the question on the cash. I think there were two parts to it. The one was around why the ZAR 10 billion, and the other one was about, you know, the cash that we've made since year-end. Let me address the second part of it first. I mean, our policy, and we've consistently applied it, is when we look at the dividend, it's on the cash that was made in the six-month period. You can, if you look at the trajectory of the price, you'll see December we had the rapid increase, and then January, February, we've enjoyed these very, very high prices. Also, you gotta take into consideration we have contracts that a lot of contractual sales, and we've obviously got the lag in the contractual sales.
That increase in December only really will flow through mostly in the second half of the year. To the extent that that flows through in the second half, that will be part of the free cash flow for the second half and becomes available for distribution per our capital allocation framework in the next six months. Maybe just to add to that point is that if you just look forward at our capital allocation, there's a little bit of work to be done on the balance sheet, not a lot of debt. Even if we want to do it's not gonna take a lot of capital. There's Patrick and Nico have talked about our life of mine extensions, but there's no greenfields projects that we're looking at.
There should be a fair, you know, all of that profitability should be available for distribution at the year-end. The second question was really around the ZAR 10 billion and why the ZAR 10 billion. I mean, it's like running your bank account. Nobody wants to run on an overdraft. Here what we do is we look at what is the liquidity that we need for the group? Just remember, we've got entities in different jurisdictions, so different currencies. The view that we have is that all of our operations should be able to pay, settle its working capital and be able to operate for one month without resorting to borrowing of money. That's how we get to the ZAR 10 billion.
You can imagine that there's timing differences between sales, et cetera. With IRS, there are big payments that need to be made. We need to be able to hold enough money in the required currencies, in the required jurisdictions, to be able to manage all of the timing. That really is how we. There's no other science to how we get to the ZAR 10 billion.
Thanks. Gerhard Engelbrecht, Absa. Chris has asked the questions, so I'm not gonna flog a dead horse any longer. Can you maybe give us an idea of any near future furnace maintenance projects, shutdowns, that you have on the cards?
Adele is here and she wants to speak to that.
That's a good idea. Where's Adele? Can you-
Yeah.
If she's at the back, you can perhaps just pass her the mic.
Adele, come stand quickly here in front of me.
Sorry. Good afternoon. It's now afternoon. Thank you for that question. Yes, we have furnace maintenance, furnace scheduling going on as per our normal maintenance philosophies and structures. Obviously to make sure that our infrastructure is sustainable going forward. As Patrick already mentioned, we have number four furnace that is currently in rebuild that we hope to get power on that furnace very soon. Also on schedule as what was planned. We also will be having at our Zimplats operation in the coming year, not in the next six months, in our new year, we will be doing our end walls also as per our internal maintenance strategic plan.
Going forward, as everyone should be knowing by, s hould know by now, we are planning the rebuild of our future furnace. we will commence with our rebuild, our new design in Rustenburg come July 2027, and that will be on the furnace Number five. Hopefully that is answering the questions. Thank you.
Adele, just to put a final point on it's fair to say that we're back to normal furnace maintenance. The interventions are all behind us now.
Sorry, Johan, if I can just add, as I do, just one more point to that. Historically, if we went into furnace rebuilds, we would have accumulated additional stock. The historical work that has been done on expanding the smelter capacity as well as the 10% expansion of our Base Metal Refinery results in current capacity that prevents the buildup of stock. That's why, I mean, we've only released 20,000 ounces of the committed, I think it was.
110,000 z.
110,000 oz.
Yes. 110,000 oz.
110,000 oz is what we committed to the market. I see that's changed to 100,000 oz only. I think we are on track, notwithstanding the maintenance on the smelter to release 110,000 oz for the year. I think that is quite newsworthy. Also, I mean, Adele, you didn't mention on the... Sorry, I'm expanding. In the Base Metal Refinery, [Sufian], we have achieved record milling rates again, which prevents us from having to build up stock in front of the BMR. The investments that we've made over the past three or four years has really paid off. Sorry, Johan.
No, all good. One more question. Arnold. After Arnold, I will give an opportunity on Chorus Call. If you're on Chorus Call, you can queue yourselves along, we'll move to Chorus Call after Arnold's question.
Yes. Thank you very much. It's Arnold van Graan from Nedbank. Just wanna go back to your capital projects which you're doing in phases. Look, I welcome that because the last thing we want is everyone jumping in and just bringing on excess capacity. My question is, how efficient is it doing these projects piecemeal as opposed to the big projects? What I'm thinking about is further down the line where you then ultimately will have to in any way do the whole thing. My concern is that interim, it creates inefficiencies in the system. We're already looking at your cost number. You alluded to that it's, you know, it's under pressure. Yeah, how do you manage that? What is different?
Why did you previously wanna do all of it in one go, and now you're doing it in phases other than the balance sheet impact?
Firstly, you can also contribute. You are a 100% correct. I mean, I was just saying if you have got a five-year mining contract, you can do that once. If you do it, break it up into different parts, you've got site establishment costs and all of that. I mean, I think that there are ways to mitigate that to ensure that the different phases are dovetailed. There are performance conditions to the continuation, and that's where I... I mean, we need to see an improved Marula.
I mean, Marula, even at current prices, if I look at the cash contribution of Marula, it is, you know, if I had to be honest, is below expectation. We want to incentivize ourselves and the operation and the project by making sure that the financial valuation on which these things are premised is in fact met. I am 100% convinced with all of the additional face length that is being created and the improvements in the infrastructure, we are going to get to a stronger position of confidence with Marula.
At the moment, we think in spite of the potential cost inefficiencies, it is better for us to have a cautious approach to investing large sums of capital in a project that really requires some improved operating performance and project execution performance.
I think the only thing I can add, Nico, is that, I mean, as you said that we do the evaluation of this project, the whole project, but then we divide into critical milestone to open all reserves, but also that milestone number one should be able to pay for milestone number two. Again, like I said earlier, these are off-ramps, so should the price plummet, you have not committed cash and have a lot of unfinished bits and pieces because that's exactly what caught us the last time. We wanna make sure that when the price plummets, we've actually delivered phase then that can take the mine further. It's literally just make sure that we don't commit cash all over, and when the price plummets, we have got a lot of unfinished bits and pieces.
As high as you can.
Yes.
One small last consideration, Marula has the option, you know, if we can navigate through farm boundaries of extending laterally. We have just not been successful in achieving those agreements to the extent that we can. That'll be a far more efficient capital investment per ounce generated. We are hoping that between now and final execution at some point that we have an opportunity to settle on some of that potential and that will then typically replace some of the deepening as an interim and then shift phase II later components further down the path.
Okay. I'm gonna queue to quarter call. I can see there's one question on quarter call. I'm gonna hand over to the coordinator.
Thank you. The question comes from Nkateko Mathonsi of Investec Bank.
Good afternoon, thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. You've spoken about life of mine extension, and I'm referring to Impala Rustenburg. I also just wanna get a bit of a confirmation as to how we should think about life of mine for some of the shafts that have a shorter life, and that's Shaft 1 , Shaft 6 , and E/ F. I think the last time I asked this question, you said 1.5 years, but prices have increased. You probably are able to keep these shafts going for a bit longer. If you can give us a little bit of guidance around that would be helpful. My second question is very much on costs. We've seen you spend close to ZAR 1 billion on technology around winders.
Are there other areas that you're looking to do something similar in order to improve your asset reliability? What does it actually what are the implications for cost beyond FY 2026, FY 2026? I also have a question for Nico, and this is regarding Zimplats. If Alex is there, he can also answer. I just wanna your experience of operating in Zimbabwe during your tenure. From headline news, it would what I'm seeing is the risk is not necessarily declining there. The latest news was the ban on unprocessed raw material does not seem to affect you guys, but somehow it looks like the risk continues to actually escalate. There's also the financial issues.
If you can just comment in terms of how you are experiencing Zimplats at this point in time, how we should think about it going forward. Those are my three questions.
Thank you, Nkateko. Moses, can we pass a microphone to you specifically on 1 Shaft, E/ F, 6 Shaft, and your view of prices now? Can we just get a microphone to Moses, please?
Thank you very much, Nkateko. This time I've got your surname correctly. Regarding 1 Shaft, when we remember in this current business plan, we've got one year for 1 Shaft, we've got one year for 6 Shaft, we've got two years for E/ F. We are currently evaluating that. As it stands, it appear that 1 Shaft will have additional year, and then 6 Shaft will remain on one year, and E/F will also remain on two years. There's not much of a change with the current blocks or reserves that we've got. It looks like 6 Shaft will be out, E / F maybe two years, and 1 Shaft, two years. That's for the shorter life shafts.
Perhaps Johan can also just jump on the capital that we are spending on our infrastructure. Nico spoke about spending a little bit more capital on the infrastructure. Yes, it's correct. When we look at the longer shafts or the growth shafts, we are looking at spending upgrading all those winders to make sure that in the long term, they do sustain us even if the prices goes down. There's about a capital of just over ZAR 800 million.
That, we want to spend it on our winder infrastructure. We see that as an opportunity, especially during this price commodity that we find ourselves at. Thanks.
Thanks, [audio distortion]. Take one of the [audio distortion].
Let's just talk about Zim and the perceived risk with the jurisdiction. In my opening, I did talk about our presence in Africa in difficult jurisdictions. We believe that long-term partnerships are absolutely critical. That has proven very successful for Implats throughout its 25-year presence in Zim right now. Funny enough, we've actually had worse times. I can remember there were times, Johan, prior to any of us joining, I mean, we had to pay employees in not in.
In groceries.
In money, in groceries and so forth. Difficulty in Zimbabwe is not new to us. What I will say is that we've got an extremely cooperative relationship between Implats, Zimplats, as well as government and the communities. I mean, just as an example, now for the second time that I'm aware of, during the difficult times, employees agreed to a salary reduction to accommodate the fall in price. That, I mean, that's the kind of relationship that we have. Having said that, the big issue at Zim is the uncertainty of policy and the shifts that happen from time to time, and that scares foreign direct investors quite a lot. If it's difficult, that's one thing. If you're never certain what the rules are gonna be in the next year, that is a different kettle of fish.
I do find that at the moment, for us, there is elevated risk. We are navigating through a process with the government to address that because our perception of risk has materially shifted upwards over the last year or two. In part, it's the change in policies, but it's also got to do with the retention of local currency that is owed to Zimplats in exchange for the foreign currency retention in terms of the foreign, you know, the policy of Zim. In fact, Leanne and I just had this morning an extensive meeting with Alex.
We are scheduled to meet with S.A. government as well as with the Zim government. I have to believe that a successful outcome will be achieved. It has always been achieved in the past. I'm very confident that we will get to a similar position right now. Our posture will not necessarily change with immediate effect.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I don't see further questions on the Chorus Call, so I'm gonna go to the webcast. I'm also conscious of time. I'll try and group the ones that can be grouped all together. There's a question here from Adrian. I think we've dealt with the two first parts of his question. The second one hasn't come up, which is, "Can you give us some color on some of your customer order trends in the auto space and some of the other minor metals?" I guess with all the volatility in prices, how does your customers engage and buy your metals? Sifiso, you're probably best positioned to talk to that. Any news hot off the press from our customer base?
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. From our customer side, we've seen increased requirements in terms of all the metals. The higher list rates are actually making our customers require metal earlier than they would normally do. We've seen this during our H1 FY 2026, and the trend is still continuing. Thank you.
Sorry, Kirt, I'm not sure if you would like. Sifiso spoke to you about the existing customers. The conversations that you have been engaged in during Indaba and recently, and perhaps how the focus of potential consumers of the metal. You know, I spoke earlier about some of the relationship requirements or expectations or hopes.
Thanks, Nico. Good afternoon. Yes, I think what we are seeing more broadly than I think the normal customer ongoing relationships is an increased focus from the OEMs and the end users to secure supply as well as price certainty for the future.
It's very much the story that was playing out in the BEV space a few years ago, where there is a requirement to create longer term relationships than just the normal short-term fixed price contracts and potentially for the OEMs to move upstream and create these longer term partnerships with the actual suppliers and the miners of the metal on more attractive pricing, but largely to secure supply, particularly linked into this ongoing issue, as Nico mentioned, of a more multipolarized world and creating security for each of the regions in which these OEMs are operating in. Thank you.
Thanks, Kirt. Interestingly enough, there's two people asking exactly the same question. Rene Hochreiter, and David Fraser, specifically to Nico, now that you're reimagining what an Eastern Limb could look like, any thoughts on the Waterberg project and, you know, whether it's a different way of imagining it fitting into the world, specifically given its palladium dominance?
No.
All right. We've dealt with that one.
Yeah, so I mean, the Waterberg project is in the northern limb. We are acutely aware that it has got a strong palladium bias, and that's probably the metal that we have got the least confidence in long term. I mean, Well, palladium and rhodium. I mean, I do believe that there will be a place for the Waterberg project. We do not see that as imminent right now.
Perfect. I can probably conclude there and to all of the questions, and to the extent that we don't get to them, we will make sure we come back. I think there's two or three that again specifically asks about the dividend and given the metal prices, the good operating performance, was there any consideration of higher payouts or other ways of returning value to shareholders? That question is repeated by a couple of people online. Maybe, we have answered it, I think, but maybe in conclusion.
Just. I think, I mean, clearly if you look, if you look forward, are we gonna generate substantial cash? I have spoken about allocations to balance sheet and growth, and investment are not gonna be significant. With that, there are gonna be increasing returns to shareholders. At the time when we look at the returns, we do have options. The one is to do what we've done in the past, which is to provide a sort of a special dividend by increasing the payout ratio. There is also the option to look at a combination of these special dividends and potentially share buybacks.
I mean, we haven't undertaken one in the past, but I think at any point when we look at these surplus funds to return back to shareholders, we will have to look at what the most effective way to return value to shareholders at that point in time.
With those great prospects, probably a good time to end. We're really looking forward to spending some time with you on the road. For the people in the room, please join us afterwards. There is some snacks available. The whole management team is here, so a good opportunity to ask those other questions that perhaps we didn't get to. Then for people on the webcast and Chorus Call, thank you for joining us. We should see most of you on the road over the next week or two. To the extent that you have any questions, please reach out to the team and we'll endeavor to answer it as quickly as possible. Thank you very much.