Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon to Ed, Lisa, and Felix who are in the room with us, with the Northam team. I just want to ask on the line. We would have expected Martin and David. We could just confirm. Shout out. If not, I'm just gonna keep going. I'll do a very broad introduction. You've obviously sat through the presentation, so it's, you know, I'm not gonna repeat all that. The highlights for us for the period on tough operating environment, you've heard me talk about that. Of course, the major feature on the financial side is that we did a big furnace 1 rebuild. We took the furnace down in May, and we only brought it back in November.
We operated for four months, if not 4.5 months on only one wheel, which, you know, does mean you lock up a cash flow in the smelter. The furnace has been recommissioned in November. It was a bit slower than what we expected, but again, you've got very large amounts of project people, and you all know how difficult it is with the protocols around COVID. You know, if you have one case, everybody's out. You know, it was in and out staff, and that did cause us a delay in the project work. The furnace is back online, and you can expect the cash flow to come through in the second half. Even with that, though, the numbers are pretty strong.
That will help you with any particular question you might have on the financials. We're in good shape. The profitability is strong. Also in the period, there are two very significant corporate activities that we have undertaken. The first one is the wind up of Zambezi. Again, maybe not yourself, Lisa, so much, but certainly I know I've interacted with Felix way back when in 2015. Ed, you know, everybody thought that the Zambezi structure was not going to work or, you know, would cause dilution. I've made it quite pointed to suggest to you that the shares in issue today are pretty much exactly the same as they were 10 years ago. There is no dilution, and Zambezi has been wound up.
On the RBPlat acquisition, again, you've heard me speak on that. This is a very rare, shallow, well-capitalized, large ore body. It is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity. It will not come up again. This is a 450,000-500,000 oz producer that is essentially ourselves and in fact are competing for. I do one statement that is, it's easy perhaps to assume that somehow, it can be easily interpreted that way, that somehow Northam is fighting Impala or Impala is fighting Northam. I think that's a misinterpretation of what you see. It's a very, very valuable asset. We are both fighting over the asset.
You know, Impala are a highly professional outfit, and neither they nor us would want to get into any public spat on this issue. That's certainly our view. It's a natural thing that you're seeing. It's a really valuable asset and both companies would like to own and control it. You know, I think that's the primary interpretation of what you are seeing. Northam has a particularly strong view for PGM. It's perhaps non-consensus. In other words, it's above consensus. We do not hold the view that internal combustion engines will be replaced by battery electric vehicles. Let me say it absolutely bluntly. Internal combustion engines of one form or another will be around across the world for many decades to come.
On that basis, it's like a double-edged sword in a way. We acknowledge that BEVs as a play. However, we do not believe it will completely replace the ICE. What that means is if you do produce an ICE or a hybrid ICE, it must be clean. The public and the social environment across the world will not accept less than optimal exhaust solutions to produce the best possible internal combustion engine or hybrid engine that you can. Now, some of the modern hybrids, the Toyota Cross springs to mind, is a hybrid. It's a bit medium-sized car. It's literally running on thin air. It runs at 5 L per 100 km.
Now it's incredibly efficient, and I think the list price is somewhere around ZAR 400,000, I think it's ZAR 420,000. It's a very cost-effective motor car, both from a capital point of view and a running cost. It's extremely clean. On that basis, we have a stronger view. We do not believe that we're at peak PGM, for instance, people portray, and people talk about peak oil. You can see we're clearly not at peak oil. Neither are we at peak PGM. On that or peak coal for that matter. I agree, Ed. The practicalities of the world, you know, do override even the most ardent of environmental considerations. It's the way of the world.
I'm preaching a little bit now, which I don't intend to do, but you know, we're having a polarized view and the answer always in the middle in reality. You know, perhaps idealism and pragmatism going this way as opposed to coming. A middle answer always lies in the middle. In our analysis, hybrids will do very well on that basis, and on that basis, in turn, PGMs are absolutely essential. The automotive metals, palladium, rhodium, and platinum, we see strong demand into the future. The hydrogen metals, which is platinum, ruthenium, and iridium, the same. You've seen our graphs on depletion.
In these graphs, they look very simplistic when you see them on the screen, but believe me, and you can speak to Damian, that's the body of work behind those graphs is extensive. It's a very, very detailed bottom-up analysis, half level by half level, shaft by shaft, asset by asset. You can only produce what you got. If you do not reinvest in mining, you eat yourself up. The last decade, because of the, you know, since the financial crisis actually, in a way, mining companies, and this is generally mining companies, not just PGM companies, have pulled their horns in. They've pulled their horns in, and in some ways, you've had the pendulum swing the other way, where the, you know, the investments now are not timeless enough.
The point on that one is, mining, the nature of mining projects, as you see with Booysendal, these are 10-year projects. We've made the point that if you were to build Booysendal today alone, would probably come in at a cost of ZAR 10 billion. You know, I made the point again in the presentation, this is, we think, quite an important point. Capital escalation is very insidious. You know, that definition of that word is something that happens gradually, that is, can cause a lot of pain actually. Capital cost escalation is a very insidious thing. Because when you don't do things for 10 years, you forgot what it costs.
Then when you wake up one morning and say, "Okay, now I'm gonna build something," the cost is gonna hit you in the face like nothing else. That's what we're seeing. What it means, it inhibits the decision to do a new build because the you know, when you see the number, you'll be very, very surprised to replace some of these assets. We have a depleting mining asset. We have a lack of capital investment, a lack of build for at least a decade. The cost of that build today is difficult to swallow. In turn, that means the existing asset base has a higher value because inherently it is rare. Certainly, the RBP assets are, in our view, of the rarest. They're of the rarest because they're really big, 68 million ounces.
They're pretty shallow, most of it above 700 m. Well-capitalized. Remember, this was an Anglo Platinum JV, well-capitalized, assets and good people. On that basis, we value it as a standalone basis. On that basis, Northam has took a position. It has been suggested that somehow Northam woke up one morning and reacted to the Impala announcement. I mean, really, you know, do you think a mining company operates within two or three days to make a decision like that? It's not the case. It's a highly considered strategic decision over many months of analysis and interaction, as opposed to some sort of knee-jerk reaction, which is far from true. I just wanna make a few points on that basis, if you don't mind, and then we'll open it up to questions. Let's see who wants to start.
Oh, okay. I'll start.
Thanks, Ed.
Yeah. Cool. Yeah, hi, Ed Stoddard from Business Maverick. I'm sorry. I just wanna check, you had mentioned about the social unrest, community unrest around Booysendal. I was just wondering, how much production did you lose, do you estimate that you lost to that during the period under review?
Yeah. Thanks, Ed. Yeah, we can pick up another question, don't worry, but it's easier if I answer them one by one for me, maybe not for you, but certainly for me. The unrest that we're talking about is right across Limpopo and Mpumalanga. It's not specific to Booysendal. It is regional and provincial and very extensive over this period. I think we all know what the issues are. It is really economic deprivation at the root of it. There's very high unemployment among the youth, the broad youth definition. We have over 50% unemployment in those regions.
Mining companies and mines themselves, the assets are a center of economic activity and opportunity, and they're a natural center, you know, for people to ask for those opportunities. Unfortunately, we can't fix everything and, but that doesn't mean, you know, that we can't do what we should be doing, which is schools, water, power, roads, electricity, to within our means. The companies themselves are working together on it. The companies involved there would be ourselves, ARM, it would be Anglo, and it would be some of the smaller chrome producers. It is Glencore and Sibanye. Those are the big names in the who are operating in that region. Impala also at Marula. You know, it's a regional issue. It's a socioeconomic issue.
The nature of the disruption is such that now people can't get to work early in the morning because the road might be blocked, and it's very difficult then for the employees to get there, as you can imagine. We've intervened at the highest level with the deputy police commissioner. Lieutenant General Masemola is his name, for those of you who may know him. I hosted Lieutenant General Masemola on Booysendal together with the. You know, when the big general goes, the other generals come with. We did host the police to the mining operation to indicate just how important that economic activity is. If the criminal behavior doesn't get stopped.
Now, I'm not talking about genuine community protests. I'm talking about the procurement mafia type behavior, where people are leveraging for contracts and things. That must be stopped. When offsite, in the towns, in and around the communities, the police must act. We've requested that they do so. In order to help with the understanding, we hosted a very, very large police contingent on the mine. We took them on a technical visit, if I can put it that way. We indicated just how many people are employed there, the multiplier effect is, what the dependency ratio is, of these, as I call it, as Kisantu would always say, "This is decent work, well-paid, decent work." Disrupting that activity as well as all the other economic...
I mean, kids couldn't even get to school, for instance. Disrupting the provinces in that nature is wholly detrimental and counterproductive to what is trying to be achieved. Yes, it is a common problem. On the number of days, I mean, the one incident alone, we were totally without power for over four days. Zero power from Eskom. Because remotely from the mine, an Eskom substation, we call it a switching station, was effectively hijacked. And you know, the switching people were too frightened to go there to restore the power. That's an example of just one incident. Now, when a mine is-
Power station hijacked?
Effectively hijacked, yeah. Held to ransom almost, you know, in such
Is it really hijacked?
Yeah. Well, you know, taken control of, so it's probably a better word. You know, I use a word that it effectively hijacked, you know. You can imagine now, you've got a high degree fixed cost, you don't produce in four days. You've got a one-way street on the income statement. You know, you're incurring the cost but not the revenue. You know, the employees cannot earn their variable. We don't stop paying the employees, but you know, they can't earn their variable portion, for instance. They're also extremely unhappy. That money then doesn't flow into the communities. I'll stress once again, these are high dependency jobs, you know.
You know, you can pick a number, but it's at least high single digit dependency against one of these jobs for the broader family. The economic multiplier effect is also really important. Mining is massively important for South Africa. We're right at the bottom of the economic triangle. We are a primary industry. There's only three: fish farming and mining. They are primary industries right there. The secondary industry comes, which is things like manufacturing and tertiary, which would be shops and banks. Then, of course, some people refer now to the IT as the fourth level. We are the base. If you really need no better indication of how important that is than to look at the budget statement in terms of the fiscal balance that about last year.
Again, not to blow our trumpet necessarily, but mining together with government made a decision after the first three-week lockdown that we need to go back to work. We all went back to work. That's why I make a little bit of a joke for the Investec lady. She's only just going back to work now, two years later. The mine fraternity, half a million people have literally been mostly back at work for the last two years. It's a risk-adjusted decision that the mining companies and the government made. You can have your view on that, of course, as an individual, because COVID is a highly emotive subject.
Can you imagine if it didn't happen, what the consequence for the country would have been in terms of that, you know, again, the income statement of the country would have been very, very disastrous. You know, mining is really important, and it needs to be, I won't use the word protected, that's probably over. Nurtured. Mining needs to be nurtured through policy, through, you know, the dependencies that we have to government like environmental permitting, water and power supply, law and order. I do believe, by the way, that the government of the day has come to a very, very strong realization on this point. Did you have a second question, Ed?
No, no. Thanks a lot, Paul.
Felix.
Do I need to go on mute now?
I think so, because of the audience, yeah.
Okay. Felix from Bloomberg News. Paul, just a couple of issues. You know, the incident you described about the power issue, did they know that it's, you know, it supplies power to your operations?
Yeah.
When was that exactly?
November. It was in November into early December. That, Felix, supplies all the mines in the area. Yeah, that switching station. They did know. I mean, it's obvious. It's the main switching station.
It was basically meant to send a message to mining companies or something like that?
Yes, I agree.
Okay. You have described in very colorful terms, you know, your justification for buying into, you know, Royal Bafokeng and, a phrase you used was, you know, the current holding you have 35% is like a silver medal. But it doesn't really, you know, give much in terms of where this is going. There's been talk of, you know, a potential JV being in place. You know, if you maybe, you know, give us any indication of, does Northam still intend to gain majority control in Royal Bafokeng? Where is this going? You have options to go up to 38%. Would you be content, you know, just being there and maintaining that position?
Felix, I'm gonna try and answer as best I can, before I answer, I'm gonna stress once again, we are in a highly regulated environment, which is governed by the TRP. I'm limited in what I can how I can answer that question. I'm sure you will understand that. The other reason why we may not want to talk just yet is because we would want to not promote market speculation. It doesn't help in a situation like this. I know that's directly contrary to what you might want, but it is the Northam. We've been very quiet, and we've been very quiet, very deliberately. We hold our counsel on this issue. The position that we have, we are comfortable with at the moment.
You may assume that you know we you know ideally we would want to move to a controlling position. That is indeterminate at the moment. You know, I'm not really gonna comment too much more than that for now. There will be a time in the future, but it's not for now. Is it? Damian is asking me. Oh, sorry. Power was aimed at sending a message to Eskom actually not yeah, I remember now.
Oh, okay. Thanks for that. When you say ideally, should we take that as hypothetically or you know, how do you want us to kind of?
You can't really say anything pretty much, Felix. I must be honest with you. I'm trying to tell you that even I can't say too much. You know, I mean, let me find a way that just helps the conversation. We desire to control the asset. Let me put it that way. Yeah. Whether we are able to or not is not definite. I think you must say, in other words, yes, of course, we would desire control. However, it is not yet determined. There are a number of potential outcomes. Is a nice way of saying as well, there are actually a number of potential outcomes, rather than the obvious. Is that a nice way of saying it as well? There's not just one or two outcomes. There are a number of potential outcomes.
Let's find out. Yeah.
There are various potential outcomes or alternative outcomes which remain to be determined at this point in time.
On that basis, I'm not really gonna add fuel to the fire. You should know there are more than one potential outcomes. Is that fair enough? Lisa, are you happy with that? 'Cause it applies to everybody. You happy with the statement that I'm making? There are more than one potential outcomes. Yeah.
Thank you.
Lisa from Fin24. Yes, that wording more than one potential outcome and critical juncture. Are you then only talking about the RBPlat opportunity or are there potentially other surprises that might be coming in terms of this critical juncture?
Those comments were directly aimed at the current situation or the current construct.
Okay. I have lots of questions, so you guys are gonna have to stop me. Okay. The RBH are now your BEE partner. Is that correct?
They are an empowered shareholder.
That satisfies your empowerment requirements.
Not all of them, no. It is an 8.7% empowered shareholder.
They could sell out at any time.
Yes, they can. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is in fact an often overlooked point. If you have a BEE, but this is a general comment for industry, not that, not a specific. You have an empowerment partner who is inhibited in his shareholder rights. That means it's not a full shareholding right. There are no inhibitions, obviously.
Maybe I can just add to that. When we talk about our extended empowerment transactions, part of that transaction, we have this public FCD, and that need no longer exists because of shareholding held by RBH. However, we will still continue with the empowerment portion with our employees and host communities. That will remain. It will be a 23% shareholding in the original Northam Platinum Limited. That will remain in place.
Could you give us some insight into your negotiations with RBH leading up to the deal? I mean, was it tough? Did they push you to the premium that you paid, or did you sort of just go in looking to pay?
I have no comments on that, okay.
You said it was months of negotiations. It wasn't just that you woke up.
No, I said months of consideration.
Consideration. Okay.
Evaluation of the asset.
Okay.
The asset. Yeah.
All right. It did seem to take RBPlat by surprise from their comments publicly. Did you feel that you were doing something underhanded? I mean, did you feel that you needed to smooth things over with these parties once the announcement came out?
Yeah. I wanna make one comment. Our interaction with RBP is well documented.
All right, the debts have gone up considerably. Does that I take your point that it's under your target ratio, but does it make you nervous? Does it hinder your moves going forward?
It's very conservative. One time, we did that very conservative. It's a conservative approach to gearing.
You mentioned that obviously.
Maybe I'll let you comment. I shouldn't be handling that question.
Yeah, yeah. No, very comfortable with where we are. As we mentioned in the presentation. At year-end, we forecasted to be still at 1.1, but one-to-one, sorry. But if you actually look at the debt, it is a lot of it is longer term. It's a big chunk of it, ZAR 9.5 billion is DMTN program. That is essentially our own shareholders. So we see it as a permanent debt layer in the business. That's not something that we are looking to repay. We'll continue to roll these notes as we've done in the past, and that will be a continuous sort of funding layer within our business. As Paul has mentioned in the presentation, that has enabled the growth of this company. We haven't issued shares. We have done it through using our balance sheet to grow this business.
We've grown that sort of ounce basis three times, which is remarkable sort of where we are. Very comfortable to you with the business.
I just wanna extend because I don't think I made the point often. Underestimated what we have done. We've used the bond market, not the equity market. Now, there are very few companies on the bond market except the banks. The banks are on the bond market and then you'll have Discovery on the bond market. The bond market of South Africa, the industrial side of the bond market of SA, you know, bond market of South Africa is very underdeveloped. Northam has a very large presence on the bond market embodied in the Domestic Medium-Term Note program. Very, very important what I'm saying here. I know you're confused because you're used to it.
Not confused, as you're always confused, but if you know not used to what I'm saying because the companies, the industrial companies, very few of them do it. The banks do it all the time. We are active in the bond market of South Africa. We funded the growth mostly through access to the bond market of SA. Now, if you look on the bond market, you see there are tradable instruments in Northam. They're called Domestic Medium-Term Notes, DMTNs. Again, I know you're not familiar with this, so forgive us. I'm trying to make the point, you know, that the reason you might not see it is because you've not seen it before. The Domestic Medium-Term Notes is a very, very appreciated part of the capital structure of Northam. That's how we've done it.
You can't grow a company from nothing the way we've grown Northam, as Alet pointed out, you know, over three times growth. Where do you fund it from? As you know, the shares in issue, as I've just said, they are exactly the same as they were 10 years ago. Where did the funding come from for the Northam growth? It came from accessing the bond market of South Africa through the DMTN program. I know I'm lecturing here. I can feel myself lecturing, but the reason I'm trying to do it is to just show a little bit of something here that perhaps it's understandable why you might not understand what I'm talking about, because very few companies do it outside the banking system.
Why do few companies do it?
Because they use, they've used, you know, what has happened is you'll see the equity has been used. So you need to go back and see who did what with share issuance. You know, each company is different. But in our case, we have not on a net-net basis over the last 10 years, issued shares. They're exactly the same. So there's no dilution. You know, everybody thought there would be dilution at Northam if you remember Sibanye transaction. There is zero dilution. Nada. Nothing. The shares in issue today are the same. So we've grown the company, we've grown the share of the participation on a per ounce basis by three times. You saw that graph in the presentation there. How did we do it?
We did it by accessing the debt markets, the bond market of South Africa, the Domestic Medium-Term Note structure inside our overall capital structure. We have a debt layer, and we have an equity layer. That's what we're trying to get across. It's a very powerful way of doing it because you use the debt to grow the business on behalf of your shareholders. You repay the debt and the shareholders have got a greater business participation. You know, it's like, you know, it's not different to normal business. You know, it's just not, you wouldn't necessarily expect it in South Africa. It's very common across the world, by the way. Very common. In SA, the bond market, I'll say it one more time, the bond market of South Africa is very well developed.
The industrial side of the bond market in South Africa is very underdeveloped. There are few participants. The bankers are all there, all the bankers. You'll find, as I say, you'll find Discovery in there and a couple of others. Felix.
Two questions for me, maybe the final ones. Two issues for me, Paul, because we're having this conversation, and this is the only access we have. I must say, it's not been easy to try and get communication from you at this period. Not only just yourself, but your whole team, and you can understand that it must be frustrating. Your desires to gain majority control in, you know, Royal Bafokeng still be met if you do not get access to do due diligence. The fact that Northam bought, rather not you, a key stake without doing due diligence, why then do you need to do due diligence at this point in time?
Actually, in the read.
Yeah. I think.
We have due diligence.
Um-
We haven't been given a due diligence yet. That's the very first answer to that question.
So, so-
In terms of communication, Felix, we have deliberately, to your frustration, I understand what you're saying.
Yeah.
Hold our own counsel. There are very, very good reasons why this is the case. It's a highly regulated environment, what you are seeing. It is wise to hold your counsel and only speak when you have something proper and authorized to say. It's really, really important. On top of that, all we're doing is by speaking too loudly in public, if I can say it that way, is unwarranted and unwanted speculation.
Sounds good. My question then would still be, do you still expect to be granted your request for due diligence? Do you expect that to be granted? If I can just finish them all. The CEO for Royal Bafokeng pointedly said, you know, to use roughly his words, "You know, whoever wants to put up a bid must either put up or shut up." If you can maybe respond to that.
Let me do the-
I would also want you to talk, you know, the way Impala has been purchasing, you know, Royal Bafokeng shares. Do you see them being able to cross over to the 50% threshold before the June, when their offer, you know, comes, or when their offer ends? Those are the only ones.
Thanks, Felix. Let me go quickly on the due diligence one. We've requested due diligence. We have not been granted due diligence yet. I've no further comments on that one. Steve's comment, you know, he's a colleague of mine, first of all, and we bear Steve no ill, but I will not respond to that type of pressure. Then the third one is, so not just I, the company, shall I say, but I can say I. It's okay. He knows me well. What was the third one again? Let me make a few comments there. Again, it's not for us to speak on behalf of Implats.
It's not for us to speak, you know what I mean when I say the end of Implats, it's not for us to speak on the end of Implats, so we can only speak on what we see. At the moment, the offer has not gone unconditional, which means all holders of RBH, including ourselves, have a proverbial free option. Why nobody has to act now. Must I explain off the record that? The offer, which is a mandatory offer, in other words, must. You know, that word mandatory is very, very important word. This is a regulated transaction. This is a must. The offer must. The offer, which must, has not yet gone unconditional. There is time associated with that offer period. You pointed out a potential time. It's a potential time.
Those hurdles to make the offer unconditional have not yet been crossed, which means all current holders of RBH have a proverbial, I'm using my language very, very carefully here, free option. Absolutely anything today. Very frustrating for you, I know. I'm hoping to explain the mechanics of these transactions in the way I'm doing it. Because this is not peculiar to this transaction. This is the structure of transactions that you see in the regulated structure of transactions. It's not particularly peculiar to this transaction.
Okay. That requires, do you see, you know, do you expect some of them to hold out until that period, you know, comes to an end?
Felix, each shareholder must make their own decisions. They have their own absolute rights to buy, sell, or hold. Oh, good afternoon. Felix is asking too many questions on the phone. No, let's go to the line, Neil, if you can ask David or Martin Creamer a few questions. It's David McKay and Martin Creamer, I think.
Who? Who? Who's on the line? Who's on the line? Other one. Danae.
It's Irene.
Danae. Oh, okay. I'm wondering if we're picking up the lines there, Neil.
Yeah, Irene, please go ahead.
Apologies. We have a question from Martin Creamer. Please go ahead, sir.
Martin Creamer, Mining Weekly. I'd just like to press on your renewable energy plans you had. You outlined some of them last year. Is there any progress on what you've done on the renewable energy front, especially seeing that you described Eskom as being a risk?
Yeah, thanks, Martin. Good afternoon. We have a 10 MW PV installation under construction at Zondereinde. The road network, the site has been prepared to accept the glass. We haven't got the glass on there yet. You may know that during this period, China restricted glass exports and the price consequently has spiked. So we're just waiting for that to calm down. But we're happy to take you out there one day, you can have a look. We're also looking at a potential wind project, which Damian and I tell you this, it's early stages yet. You may know there's. I don't know whether I should say this or not. We're looking.
Yeah, Martin, we're looking at a potential wind project, which is an offsite wind project. In other words, it has to be wheeled. There are two-
Right.
Smaller PV projects at both Booysendal and Eland in construction. So again, you know, if you need to visit there, we'll take you one day by arrangement.
Fantastic. Thanks very much. Just quickly, I just wanted to ask, I saw that in Norway, you know, that Ford has actually, they've filed intellectual property on having hydrogen, you know, driving an internal combustion engine. In other words, you won't have a fuel cell. You'll have hydrogen driving the traditional internal combustion engine. Have you got sight of that and what it could potentially mean to development of or demand for platinum group metals?
Yeah, Martin, there are a couple of companies busy with that technology that you're speaking about. You've obviously picked it up. We are aware of those potential developments. It is commercialized, so that's an important point. Of course, they are internal combustion engines and still will require emission control systems on the exhaust.
Oh, okay.
Which, of course, will then in turn require PGMs.
Okay. No, thanks very much for that. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Martin.
Thank you. At this stage, we have no further questions.
That's good. Let's come back to the room. Lisa, are you covered?
I'm good.
Okay. We'll go for Lisa and then Felix. Can I just pass the mic, please? Yeah.
Your unit costs have obviously increased and the inflationary pressures are going to persist. Presumably you need production to see some online. When do you expect the unit costs to start moving the other way?
Well, they certainly won't go down, so just to be clear about that.
Okay.
Because there's two effects here, the inflationary pressure, which is the cost of power. As much as power increases about 14%-
That's right.
on a per unit basis. There are very, very substantial cost increases coming through on steel, chemicals.
Explosives.
E xplosives.
Lubricants.
You know, all the oil-based or gas-based commodities are under extraordinary, I'll use that word, extraordinary inflationary pressure. It is not easy for me to say to you that in one year's time it's all gonna normalize because the world is in a difficult place at the moment. It's very hard for me to say to you that, you know, inflation will normalize in six months' time. The world doesn't know actually. The only counter we have is achieving our production performance. That's, of course, what we've focused on. Felix, are you covered? Yep.
Just one last one again. Seeing that this is the only time we'll probably be doing this quarter.
I can guarantee you of that. No, not really. I'm joking.
Yeah, that's fine. Given where things are at Royal Bafokeng, would Northam be comfortable with a JV arrangement? What pathway would you see if it ends up in a JV? Would you prefer that Royal Bafokeng operates as a standalone? It delays or, you know, something like that.
Again, Felix, I'm not, you know, you're touching on things I simply cannot answer, you know, given the regulatory framework in which we operate in. I'll get myself in trouble. Yeah. Thank you. Ed?
I'm good.
Okay. Thanks very much, everybody. Thanks to Martin on the line, and Danae and David.