in the front row. Thanks very much for joining us. Welcome to those of you on the phone lines and the webcast and a special welcome to all of you in the room. It's very difficult and unusual circumstances, I know, and we really appreciate the fact that you took the trouble to turn out.
Presentation, as always, is reasonably concise. It's getting a bit longer these days, but the booklet contains detailed disclosure of the company's operational ESG and financial performance. We've also released our interim financial results today, and these are available on our website. And thanks to Alette and her team for that. This picture by the way is Damian's favorite picture.
This is a picture of the Boisendal SARS UD2. It's 160 centimeters wide and carries approximately 1 ounce per square meter of PGM. It's actually what it's all about. Here is the usual disclaimer regarding forward looking statements that we may make today, and it's important that you read it when you have some time. Today, I'll review some of the key features for the period.
Then I'd like to take you through some of the ways in which mining and, in particular, Northern contributes to the broader economy. I will then refresh you on the progress we've made with respect to the execution of our strategy, including detail on our operations and the capital projects. Alette will then deal with the financials. And finally, I'll provide guidance for the remainder of the year together with a medium term production forecast. Key features of the period under review have been our ability to post solid operational results, delivering significant progress in respect of our project pipeline and of course, returning substantial value to our shareholders.
The solid operational performance has been underpinned by a 15% period on period improvement in production from own operations. This is on the back of all mines returning to planned capacity post the very difficult lockdown that we all experienced. Our growth projects are bearing fruit, and we're beginning to see considerable scale and optionality benefits in the group. All of the growth projects that we temporarily pulled back on for cash preservation reasons following the onset of COVID have been reinitiated, and we are forging ahead. Our refining in Germany, the logistics associated with moving the metal were negatively affected by border closures and of course, the lockdown period across the world.
And please bear in mind that that happening April, May June effectively affects metal flow July, August, September because of the longer pipelines and in particular for rhodium. So you will see we do have a backlog of rhodium over this period, which will be released in the normal course of business in the second half. We've continued to make material progress in returning value to shareholders through the acquisition of the Zambezi preference shares. We've reached the significant threshold of 80% ownership during the period and recently lifted our investment to 87.5%. We have also signaled our intent to accelerate the maturity of the Zambezi structure, and we believe that this will unlock further significant value for all of our shareholders.
We will make an announcement in this regard in due course. As we all know in the room, mining is important, and the financial impacts of our business greatly benefits the economy on many levels. To demonstrate this, I'd like to take you through some of the metrics and the contributions that Nordham itself makes. This is a picture, by the way, of the refinery of Zolanda. Creating jobs is very important for the future stability of South Africa, and Northern has played its part.
Since the inception of our growth strategy, we have created more than 6,000 meaningful, sustainable, direct jobs in some of the least economically developed areas of our country. This is against the backdrop of the shrinking mining sector and a struggling economy. We believe we are paying a fair and competitive wage, and to this end, our salary bill for the period totaled ZAR2.3 billion. In addition, all of our employees and their dependents benefit from comprehensive health care as well as meaningful assistance with homeownership. As a result of our increased profitability, our tax contribution has grown significantly for this period.
We've made the single largest tax payment in the history of the company. This includes income and employee tax and of course, the mining royalty charge. 8% of Northern is owned by our employees and our communities. And in addition to this, the Toro Employee Empowerment Trust has benefited from our increase in profitability. We employ over 16,000 people at our operations, and we've added 855 new jobs in the last 12 months and nearly 300 during this period on which we are reporting.
We continue to grow our employee base as we grow our production base to 1,000,000 ounces. This growth will predominantly come from Boisendal and Eland, where we expect to add another 2,500 permanent jobs. We've all been impacted by COVID-nineteen, and we had lost 5 of our own employees and 1 contractor employee to the virus up until the end of December. This figure has now grown to 10 as a result of the 2nd wave. Thankfully, this does seem to be receding.
Any early and unexpected death is a personal and family tragedy, and the board's condolences go out to those employees and of course their families is of course what I meant to say there. We will continue to maintain our focus on the broader health and wellness of our employees as well as that of our host communities, and we will participate fully in the rollout of the vaccination program under the leadership of government. The mining industry as a whole has maintained strong health care programs over many years. Our collective achievements in managing HIV and TB together with occupational health matters attest to this, and we've all drawn on this experience in our response to the current pandemic. Our integrated HIV and TB management programs are showing positive results as you can see on this slide.
The U. N. Aids 2020 targets for HIV response, which have been adopted by both the WHO and the South African Department of Health, are that 90% of HIV positive individuals know their status, 90% of those are then on an ARV program, anti retroviral program, and 90% of those in turn show improved CD4 counts. In Northern's case, 95.4% of our employees know their status, 99% of those are on HIV antiretroviral managed programs, and 92% of those in turn are indicating improved CD4 counts. Similarly for tuberculosis, we have seen significant improvements in the number of employees affected, and our current incident rate is significantly below the national general population.
Northern places a high premium on living conditions. And to this end, we provide meaningful assistance to acquiring accommodation. This is offered in a variety of ways, including interest free loans, northern built homeownership programs, credit literacy assistance and living out allowance. The new units at Boysenhall have proved extremely popular for our mining families, and I'm sure there's a future engineer in the young man on the slide there. Northern produces green metals that benefit the global environment, and we are acutely aware of the direct impact our operations have on the local environment.
We mitigate this through careful planning and energy efficient design, ongoing improvement in operational efficiencies, environmental rehabilitation and where necessary, the establishment of conservation of biodiversity offsets. Our processes use large quantities of water. However, 82% of this is recycled. We have incurred no reportable environmental incidents during the period as a result of strict compliance to our integrated environmental management programs. Northern has always considered energy efficiency in its design and operations, and a good example of that is, of course, the application of hydropower technology and backfill at Zona Enda.
As a growing producer, we are primarily focusing on energy intensity per tonne and have been able to improve this by 18% over the last 12 months. This translates into reduced greenhouse gas emissions intensity. However, in order to see a decrease in total emissions, we have made a commitment to renewable energy. We are designing and building a 10 megawatt solar plant for the Zonda and the smelter and expect this plant to be operational from January 2023. We are also busy with an initial solar installation at Boisendal.
It's a little bit more tricky there because of topography. And in order to limit potential permitting delays, the initial installation will be restricted to 1 megawatt for now. These are the first of a number of renewable energy initiatives to come. The Buttons Hope Conservative Trust was established to manage Boyzendahl's conservation efforts. We have set aside 8,500 hectares, which is 30 times greater than the area disturbed by mining.
In collaboration with the Mpamalanga Tourism and Parks Agency, the NTPA, we identified the headwaters of the Duas River, the Duas Refea, as a critical biodiversity area. You can see it clearly in the picture. The structure of this trust is being considered by the authorities as a model for future offset arrangements. We have a clear and transparent governance structure within the company. This organogram gives an overview, and you may wish to refer to our interim financial report bucket for more detail.
However, the composition of the various board committees will be reviewed during the coming period under the leadership of our independent director our lead independent director. I'd now like to turn and remind you of the Northern strategic plan, and this picture is a part of the execution of that plan actually. It's the partly built North Robcon, which is the 2nd Robcon, of course, together with the feed silo from the Merensky mine on the ridge. This is another key piece to the Boisendal longer term plan, and current progress with construction is satisfactory despite travel restrictions imposed upon the Austrian construction team. As you can see, it's going up there.
And you've seen this slide, the next slide, which is our strategic framework. You've seen this a number of times. The strategy remains unchanged, and we continue to deliver. We do what we say in a nutshell. These qualities differentiate Northern, providing a unique growth and investment proposition for shareholders.
We've embarked recently on the final leg by returning significant value to shareholders through the purchase of the Zambezi preference shares. Shareholders can expect us to be both aggressive and proactive on this point. Moving on to the operational and projects review. At this point, I'd like to state we have significantly derisked our current project pipeline. We initiated our growth strategy during the commodities down cycle and are well set to benefit from recent price appreciation.
We believe in the metals that we produce, and we invested accordingly. We adopted a classic countercyclical approach to capital allocation, and as such, we are able to grow output immediately and significantly into the current rising market. Moving on to safety of the operations. The safety and health of our employees is at the forefront of everything our managers do, everything the whole workforce does actually on a daily, hourly basis. We have shown continued improvement at all of the operations, and the reporting period was fatality free.
Unfortunately, we have had a fatality 2 weeks ago, and I will elaborate at this on this at year end once the investigation has been completed. Shortly before this incident, Zonda Endo had recorded 2,000,000 fatality free shifts. At Boisendal, we've passed another significant milestone, achieving 6,000,000 fatality free shifts, and we continue to operate this mine without a fatality over nearly 11 years since the mine began. Elon is in start up with a new and growing workforce and still bedding down work practices and procedures. All accidents have the potential for serious consequences in mining, and the Northern Board and the management team take our duty of care extremely seriously.
Looking at some of the operational highlights at group level, we have seen appreciable increases in production volumes as we start to see the benefits of the growth strategy. Boisendal South ramp up is accelerating. Zonderendal provides solid production and Ieland is beginning to contribute. I'd like you to note that also the production of chrome, we did promise, will reach 1,000,000 tonnes per year by 2023. We've just hit 500,000 tonnes for the first half of this year, so it's a little bit early.
The base metals will always lead the PGMs because of the associated pipelines. The double digit increase in cash cost per equivalent refined platinum ounce was mainly the result of the cost of surface ounces treated at Iland being linked to the prevailing market price. Looking in some detail at each of the operations, and of course, of all of the operations on then, there was clearly and certainly the hardest hit by the COVID-nineteen disruption. To the extent, in fact, that we've only just returned the final stoping crews to the face. In light of this, the production performance during the period has been impressive.
The commitment of mine management and all of our employees is commendable. It's been quite a huge cooperative approach to recovering the operations post the lockdown period. Combined mill tonnages increased period on period despite the recovery from lockdown. This came preferentially from the Mariinsky Reef, as you can see on the slide, with a significant contribution from the Western Extension, and this has resulted in a corresponding improvement in the combined mill feed head grade. The last time we saw Merensky production at these levels at Zon Lena was in 2006, and this attests to the value of the Western extension.
It also enabled us to limit the increase in unit cost to 10% despite the impact of COVID. This number includes the cost of our accelerated development into the Westin extension, which we expense. A 54% increase in the basket price further enabled growth in operating profit of 45%. We forecast second half production to be in line and expect to deliver 320,000 ounces of 4E from this operation for the financial year, which is a significant improvement on previous guidance. We believe that Zolanda will remain in a competitive cost position relative to its peers.
Capital expenditure for the period at Zolanda was Zol525 1,000,000, of which Zol414 1,000,000 were spent on project work including the deepening section and the number 3 shaft. The forecast capital expenditure for the year at Zonda Ender is ZAR1,300,000,000 which includes provision for the reaming of number 3 shaft and the scheduled rebuild of the old Number 1 furnace in June. And looking at some detail on the progress into the Western Extension, here is a picture of the Raesebour rig drilling Number 3 shaft. I showed you a picture of this site in August last year with a lot more rods on surface. As you can see, those rods are now down the hole.
The shaft will provide additional surface access into the Western Extension for man, material and services. And following our decision to develop the shaft in mid-twenty 19, we've moved quite fast. The pilot drilling to a depth of 13.82 meters was completed at the start of the period, and this is a world record for both length and depth and accuracy of drilling. Reaming of the hole to its planned diameter of 4.8 meters has commenced and is going quite well. We currently stand on 2.90 meters, leaving us less than 1100 meters to go.
Master Drilling is doing a very good job here. We expect completion of reaming in early 'twenty two, equipping will follow, and we expect the shaft to be operational in 2024. The completion of this shaft will cement Zondrena's future well beyond 2,050. And to contextualize that block of ground, and to take a few moments to remind you why we paid ZAR1 1,000,000,000 for the ground in January 'eighteen. This shows the plan of Zondeenda with the Western extension shown in the light yellow.
It does indicate its extent and some key features. Contains over 21,000,000 ounces of high quality Merensky and Yuzhichu Reefs. It's directly adjacent to our western boundary as was, enabling swift access to the block on over on 10 minuteing levels. The strike extent is almost 4 kilometers, and this is equal to the western portion of the original mine. That's a very, very large block of ground.
I'm hoping I'm making that clear. The block in the main is unaffected by structures such as dykes and faults, and over the history of Zondrenda, we have demonstrated good productivity in good quality ground. Both the Murrensky and the UG2 yield close to 1 ounce for every square meter mined. The acquisition has added significant optionality to the Zondendeh mine, and it's allowed us to rebalance mining actually, switching UD2 to the east side where we have large untapped reserves. Zonde Ende effectively has a new lease of life, and we can see this benefit in the mindset of the employees.
It's very refreshing. Underground development within the Western Extension. I know the mining guys will understand what this plan means. It continues to progress very well on all of those 10 minuteing levels. You may wish to refer back to previous plans that we've shown in previous presentations, and you'll be able to see the progression of development across the boundary.
Since transfer of the ground, we've developed over 17 kilometers of access tunnels. For the mining people, once again, I think you will all agree that this is a sterling performance and reflects the quality of both the people and the quality of the ground that we have purchased. Please remember that we expense our development. It's sitting in the unit cost. Stripe development is well beyond the 3rd mining raise line, and over 200,000 tonnes of Mariinsky Reef were extracted in the last 6 months.
We've already recouped the purchase price. Mining crew productivity is benefiting from the combination of a very stable reef, good rock conditions and focused logistics. Moving on to Boisendal. Boisendal once again recorded excellent production. Boisendal North mine, the original mine is well established and is moving from strength to strength.
The heavy lifting at Boiseendal South is done and the investment has been made and mining ramp up continues apace. We're beginning to generate meaningful tonnages. The total mill feed of Boisendal was 28% higher at 2,200,000 tonnes on the back of essentially the South mine growth. Grade from the North Merensky Mine was lower on the back of increased decline development, and this is in preparation for the Phase 2 ramp up once the North Robecon is commissioned towards the end of this year. Yudu 2 grade increased at North Mine, thanks to an improved mining cut as well as the South Mine, where stoping ramp up is beginning to accelerate.
Both North and South concentrators are operating well, and we've tested the South concentrators capacity and found its nameplate of 250,000 tonnes per month to be somewhat conservative. Despite the ongoing challenges of COVID-nineteen, together with the covering cost of the Saas mine, which is not yet operating at full capacity, of course, the increase in unit cash cost was limited to 8.4 percent, and I believe this is a commendable performance under the circumstances. On mine capital expenditure was just shy of ZAR600 1,000,000, of which ZAR 270 1,000,000 was spent on sustaining capital. Capital expenditure for the full year at Boisendal is expected to be ZAR1.2 billion. Having a look in more detail at Boisendal South, you can see from the picture, this is actually a view of the UG2 complex looking north.
It's a very compact footprint covering less than 9 hectares. All surface infrastructure is complete, including the south rope conveyor transporting ore to the south concentrator. The mine is beginning to deliver safe, profitable production. It's on time and it's on budget. Here's the underground plan, and you can see once again stoping beginning to ramp up on the north and south declines.
7 stoping sections were operational at the end of December already, and this will grow to 11 by June and 14 at steady state in 2023. Production of ore averaged 110,000 tonnes per month during the period. This will grow to 180,000 tonnes by year end and 220,000 tonnes by steady state. Head grade continues to exceed expectations, very pleasing actually, and this bodes well for the future. In the next slide, we indicating the new this is now the 2nd, Morensky module that is being developed on the mine.
On the left is a recent picture of the central Morensky box cut showing the 3 access portals. On the right, you can see the mine plan indicating the actual and planned development and stoping. Obviously, it's early days. The Central Merensky box cut and portals have been completed and declined development has commenced. The coming 18 months will focus on development and the appreciable stoping buildup will occur from 2023 with a very quick move to steady state in 2024.
It's the nature of the mining method from surface board and pillar. I'm very pleased actually that we're beyond the portal establishment phase. The rock conditions in the declines are pretty good and development should go well. For this work, we are using the same season crews that established the Central Yudy 2 modules and the 1st Merensky module before that. Commissioning of the North Robcon, as I mentioned, will occur towards the end of this calendar year, probably, hopefully, by December.
And this will enable all the mining or the 2 Merensky mining modules to deliver their full potential. This next plan is the plan for Boisendal BS IV. This is we access this model by module from the valley box cut, which we acquired from Aquarius, and we're beginning to develop the main declines here. We're on track to commence stoping early in the coming financial year with a rapid buildup to steady state in 2023, again reflecting the board and pillar mining method. BS IV, by the way, this module is up depth and adjacent to the next BS III module.
Continuing the declines, as you can see from the diagram, will bring early access to BS III and other Phase III project areas. And on that point, if we look at the overall development of Boisendal since the beginning, The property, what we must remember, is vast, covering some 14.5 kilometers on strike, both Muransky and UD2 outcropping, dipping at 9 degrees with a resource base over 100,000,000 40 ounces. This is a satellite view of Boisendal looking north with some of the key components for our existing and future mining plan for the UG2 Reef. I'm going to move over to Marienski just now. So this is looking at the Udi-two.
We've considered the development of Boisendal in a series of phases, as everybody would know. Phase 1 comprised the development of the North mine, together with supporting infrastructure, of course, a concentrator and a tailings dam. Following this is our current Phase 2 plan. This required the acquisition of Everest mine, which included also a concentrator and a tailings dam as well as the construction of the road and the first drop comp and allowing the development of what we know now as BS I and BS II. As I mentioned, the heavy lifting of Phase II is done, and we are beginning to conceptualize a Phase 3 for Boisendal.
And to this end, as you can see once again from the diagram, we've already identified and are planning UG2 modules in the southern portion of the property. If we look at the same piece of ground but now referring to the Merensky outcrop and resource, we built the 1st North Merensky mine as part of Phase 1. Phase 2, which we're in now, is the second Merensky module plus a second rope cone, and we're now looking at conceptually at least the 3rd module, which will form part of Phase 3 for Boisendal. Now turning to Iland. Processing of surface PGM and chromite material continued during the period, and we produced 20,040 ounces and 26,000 tonnes of chrome in concentrate.
The cost of surface material is linked to commodity prices, as I mentioned earlier, but we were, of course, able to post again an operating profit. More importantly, I think revenue from this operation greatly assists in offsetting the capital relating to the ramp up of the mine. It is our intention that the mine pays for itself. Here's a picture of the first stope on 1 West section, and you can see the audio using a hydropower drill. This technology we've imported from Zondre Andres is very efficient and very quiet relative to the traditional air powered machines.
The UG2 seam is clearly visible on the face, various support elements and the blasting barricade to assist in face cleaning is also visible. So why Elant? We purchased Elant, as everybody knows, for ZAR175,000,000 in December 2017, and the key reason that we did this is because it hosts a world class UG2 ore body. The grade heat map shown on the slide indicates over 19,000,000 ounces of 4E and over 22,000,000 ounces if you include iridium and ruthenium. The 2,000,000 ounces of rhodium alone represent a king's ransom.
The width and depth of the UD2 seam are ideal for stoping. Every square meter mined yields over 6 tons and 26 grams of 4E. This yield combined with our rhodium rich basket will yield will lead to a healthy operating margin and the shallow operation means that a quick ramp up with relatively low capital is achievable. It's a plant showing the surface area. Again, this is a 250,000 ton nameplate concentrator.
It's actually a sister plant to the Boisendell sales concentrator, and all surface infrastructure is of a world class build quality. We delayed the stoping buildup at Zealand as part of our capital trimming, but we didn't stop development, and you can see we've continued to open up reserves through the development of the declines and strike drives. The full capital program was reinstated in September, and our estimated total capital for this mine includes for a steepened ramp up and an expanded steady state profile. Ilan will be bigger and quicker. To date, we've advanced the decline of the 4.50 meters, and this has opened up 6 strike drives.
Full production requires 11 strike drives, so there's still some way to go. The 2 Western strikes that you can see on the picture will connect to the neighboring Marula Belt, of which we expect to take ownership before the financial year end. We'll keep you updated on this as we conclude. Over the past year, we've refined the profile for Yland. These revisions have both steepened the ramp up and increased the steady state.
As you can see from the graph, we're scheduled to breach 100,000 ounces by 2024 and grow production to 180 by 2028. You may wish to compare this profile with the slide and the profile that Damian presented at the Capital Markets Day in 2019, which is still available on the website. Over the next 5 years alone, Ilan will produce over 500,000 ounces. This, together with its superior metal basket, will enable the mine clearly to pay for itself. It will be a very capital efficient and profitable addition to the Northern Group in years to come.
As an example of the business equation at Iland, this is illustrative, of course. The current Iland basket comes in somewhere north of $100,000 per platinum ounce, allowing for treatment fees. We expect our steady state unit cost to come in midway between Zondendal and Boisendal. And as you can see, this model has an indicative operating margin of over 70%. I'll now hand over to Ouellette to take you through the financials.
Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everybody. This is a picture of a slag tapping at our Wabamtu furnace at our metallurgical complex. We recently changed from a wet to a dry slag handling process. This is a lot safer and it provides for efficient throughput.
We will make the same change to furnace number 1 during its upcoming rebuild. Looking at the key financial features for the period under review. NORDAM has had a solid 6 months. This is the result of us being able to increase production in an appreciating price environment. Our growth strategy is bearing fruit.
We achieved revenue of just shy of R12 1,000,000,000. This translated to an operating profit of R5.2 billion dollars and an EBITDA of R5.4 billion dollars Our free cash flow was R1.9 billion dollars after capital expenditure of R1.3 billion dollars This enabled us to continue to return value. Through our ongoing purchase program, we now hold more than 87.5 percent of all Zambezi preference shares. We have done this whilst maintaining a net debt to EBITDA ratio of just over 1 to 1. I will unpack these highlights, but firstly, let's look at earnings.
The graphs on this slide show the period under review together with 3 previous comparable periods. I've done this to illustrate our earnings growth. Our earnings and headline earnings were almost ZAR6 a share, whilst normalized headline earnings per share, our main measure of performance, was ZAR6.41 Moving on to revenue. Our revenue for the period was R11.9 billion. This is a R4.1 billion dollars or a 51.9 percent increase on the previous corresponding period.
The main contributors to this growth were a 49.7% increase in the average U. S. Basket price, together with a 9% weakening of the rand, offset by a 4.4% reduction in sale volumes. Whilst our production of metal increased by 15%, logistical handling issues associated with COVID-nineteen made it difficult to move our metal to a point of sale. This difference is reflected in our increased metal on hand, which will normalize over the remainder of this financial year.
Looking now at cost of sales. Moving straight to the bottom line. Our operating profit increased by more than 75% to R5.2 billion. This equates to an operating profit margin of 44%. Our cost of sales was R6.7 billion.
This grew mainly on the back of volume increases together with normal mining inflation. Some of the larger non operational cost drivers included, firstly, royalty charges of ZAR223,000,000. This increased by 50%, in line with revenue growth. Secondly, share based payment expenses increased with share price appreciation. Thirdly, our contribution to the Toro Employee Empowerment Trust is linked to our profitability.
And lastly, the cost of concentrates purchased increased with the increase in metal prices. Full details of all the movements making up cost of sales are included in our results commentary. Let's look at the income statement. Our bottom line for the current period was an IFRS profit of ZAR 2,100,000,000. Key items impacting this included preference share dividends of ZAR 274,000,000 as well as the loss on derecognition of the preference share liability, both relating to our Zambezi structure.
Our decision to purchase Zambezi preference shares reduced the dividend charge in the income statement by R356 1,000,000. The loss on derecognition of preference share liability of R888,500,000 relates to the difference between the face value of the Zambezi preference shares and the price we paid together with all transaction costs. After taking into account the Zambezi charges, the group generated a profit before tax of ZAR3.5 billion. Tax is calculated on a statutory basis. This resulted in a tax charge of ZAR1.4 billion.
More than half of this was deferred tax, which is non cash. With the increased profitability, the tax liability has increased, and the group's single largest tax payment has been made during the period under review. Tax is an annual event. And to this end, the 1st provisional tax payment relating to Boyce and Doll was made. Whilst Boyce and Doll had R814 million dollars worth of unredeemed capital left at the end of the reporting period, we forecast that this will be utilized in full before the end of the financial year.
However, this will depend on achieving the forecasted metal prices as well as exchange rates. For a reconciliation of the effective tax rate, please refer to Note 9 of the results booklet. I have alluded to the increase in inventory associated with COVID-nineteen logistical hurdles. Metal volumes increased by 25.5 percent to just over 276,004 ounces, with a corresponding increase in the cost of inventory of 6.4%. This rolled up to a metal inventory balance at the reporting period of R5.6 billion dollars A flow through from this will be the sale of at least another 30 1,000 ounces of rhodium before the end of the financial year, which will normalize our basket.
The bulk of purchased material, together with some of the inventory at Yalan will only be processed in coming years and is therefore classified as non current. Over the coming 2 years, our inventory levels will stabilize at around 260,004 ounces, taking into account the growth profile of the group. Moving on to the group's cash flow. Now before you tell me accountants can't add up, we generated close to ZAR3.15 billion from operations during the period. Nearly ZAR1.3 billion was invested in capital expenditure, and this resulted in free cash flow of almost ZAR1.9 billion.
We have continually stated that we will return all free cash to shareholders, and we have once again delivered. Through the purchase of Zambezi Preference Shares, ZAR6,900,000,000 was returned to shareholders during the 6 months and a further ZAR1,100,000,000 after December. Moving on to the debt position. This was our debt position at the end of December. However, as I stand before you today, our revolving credit facility has been settled in full.
The only remaining debt relates to our domestic medium term note program. Given our current ability to generate cash by year end, our forecast net debt to EBITDA will be well below current levels. Let's look at the various funding facilities. The group has a revolving credit facility of ZAR3.5 billion and a general banking facility of ZAR500 1,000,000. Both these are currently undrawn.
The group also has a domestic medium term note program, which was increased to R15 billion dollars Notes of the value of R7.1 billion dollars had been placed by the end of December, with a further ZAR100 1,000,000 subsequently issued. Our COVID-nineteen liquidity preservation plan included the negotiation of relaxed covenant parameters over a period of 18 months. In addition, Northern's credit rating was also upgraded with our outlook classified as stable. Another element of our cash preservation plan was the restructuring of our domestic medium term note maturity profile. This slide illustrates the current position with our repayment profile up to 2025.
This should be considered in parallel with the group's future capacity to generate cash. Ultimately, the most critical consideration for any company is the appropriate allocation of capital. Our capital allocation decisions have been guided by our strategy, and we have been consistent in our approach of growing our production base and ultimately returning value to our shareholders. In this regard, since 2015, we have invested ZAR12.2 billion on growing production. And in addition, to date, we have returned ZAR12.1 billion of value to shareholders.
Our strategy is unchanged. We are currently trading under a cautionary, and we'll make an announcement in due course about our intention to return further significant value to our shareholders. I will now hand you back to Paul to take you through the operational guidance.
Thank you, Ouellette. Yes. Given the growing production base and rising price environment, I do think it's important, and of course, the unusual circumstances that we've been facing as a country and the world to provide some very specific guidance on to where our production CapEx unit costs are expected to be for the remainder of the financial year. By the way, these photographs, the top one is nickel sulfate. That's a nice blue green color.
That's the product of nickel that we make, and the bottom is new copper being extracted from the electro winning circuit. Both of those areas are at Tourna. So here's the guidance of Production PGM production from own operations will be within the range of 680,000 to 690,000 4E. We've increased our forecast relative to the June guidance. Our cost base is predominantly fixed, and as a result, we expect unit cash costs to be on the lower end of the guided range, dollars 28,000 to $29,000 per platinum ounce.
Remember these numbers are at group level and include for Eland. We should be able to hold this cost position for the next 2 years. Sales will follow production towards the higher end of 660 to 670,000 ounces for E. And once again, this forecast allows for the number 1 furnace rebuild schedule, which will take place from June this year. The capital forecast is ZAR3 1,000,000,000 allowing for Iland in its fullest glory and the 3 shaft project at Zondere Ende.
Should the run basket price remain at around or anywhere near, in fact, current levels, the company's ability to generate cash will not disappoint. And here's an illustration of the business equation, the basic business equation for the group. In this example, I've used the mid range of our cost forecast for the coming 2 years, and I've also used the basket of ZAR80,000 per platinum ounce. Your own forecast may well be higher than this, and you can see that the indicative operating margin for the group is in excess of 60% for FY 'twenty one. Between 2015 2020, Notherm doubled its production and we will double it again by the middle of the decade.
We are realizing demonstrable growth and improved optionality from the various projects. The capital efficient investment will deliver our medium term production target of 1,000,000 ounces. This graph is the underground production, does not include for 3rd party or recycled material. The combination of a strong margin with sector leading volume growth will deliver superior returns for shareholders, I have no doubt. Reading the market under these conditions is not so easy, but there are some very positive signs of global economic recovery, in particular very strong in China, reasonably strong in North America.
Europe is still struggling a bit. Light duty vehicle sales, however, should or are likely to come in around 87,000,000 units during this calendar year, and that's actually not too far down on the pre COVID forecast of 90,000,000 units. Given this outlook, it's our considered opinion that for the major metals, and firstly for palladium, palladium remains in deficit. It remains the metal of choice for gasoline vehicles for the foreseeable future. Although there is some traction for around 15% platinum substitution over the medium term.
We expect a number of about 150,000 ounces substitution for the current calendar year platinum for palladium. On that basis, the palladium price will have to rise to clear the market. Platinum, while still in surplus, is viewed as an investment case, offering some good relative value relative to its sister metals, and we may expect pricing of these 2 main metals to reach parity over time as platinum benefits from the emerging hydrogen economy. Rhodium remains in significant deficit and will continue to be the only viable solution for the control of nitrous oxides. I wouldn't expect rhodium to soften to any great extent from here.
And it's probably fair to say that the market has acclimatized to these higher price levels. Our basket contains what we have historically considered to be minor metals or minor PGMs together with base metal byproducts. Global economic recovery, together with the growing shift towards renewable energy sources, is adding prominence to these metals, and this is positively impacting prices. Current demand for iridium, for example, is about 250,000 ounces. Accelerating developments in green hydrogen production has resulted in recent price moves to $6,000 per ounce from $1500 per ounce only a year ago.
Iridium will do well. The ruthenium price languished around $250,000 per ounce for a long time. Its recent appreciation to $360,000 $390 even per ounce this morning is reflects increased interest in what is our 3rd metal by volume. Our group Rand basket price is expected to remain strong throughout 2021. In summary, our growth strategy remains intact, and we've significantly de risked the project pipeline.
We are also beginning to consider the next phase of the company's growth. We've been consistent in our approach, as Oled pointed towards, and we can look forward to further value creation from the group. Repeating what Oled has already said, we will shortly make an announcement regarding our intent to accelerate the maturity of the Zambezi structure, and we believe this will add further significant value to shareholders. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the presentation. We'll take some questions.
If we can go perhaps to the room first, I'm going to take my glasses off, And then we'll take some questions from the phone lines on the webcast. So if I can ask Rene, he's got his hand up, if we can have a microphone. Then Chris. So Rene, Chris, then Arnold. I will take those 3 first, if we yes, okay.
Let's go to Rene first, yes.
Thanks, Paul. Well done once again on Superb Setra results. You are getting close, I think, to maybe a dividend payment in June. I'm just preempting, but have you thought about any sort of dividend policy going forward?
Thanks, Rene. With respect to capital allocation decisions, I think I'm going to say nothing further except to point that we will make an announcement in due course with respect to the Zambezis transaction, potential transaction.
Good. You've got like ZAR2.5 billion of liability in your balance sheet for the pref shares, but you own 87.5 percent of them. Sorry, you've got a ZAR2.5 billion liability in your balance sheet for the Zambia for the press, but you earn 87.5 percent for them. Can you not reduce that liability?
So the at the close, Rene, we had that number that you're referring to, but of course, post close, we bought another ZAR1 1,000,000,000 of preference shares. So that liability is reduced by 1 third already from where we were in December. And again, I'm struggling to answer your question fully because we're under cautionary, and I would just encourage that we just wait and allow the company to make an announcement separately with respect to the Zambezi structure.
Just one last question. What is your rhodium pipeline in weeks?
It's that's competitive information. Unfortunately, I'm not going to give it to you. You're asking very difficult questions. And then we add Chris, yes.
Good morning, Paul. Good morning, team. Thanks so much. Two questions for me. The first one is on inventories as well.
So 2 together. Just you gave some nice detail on your trading update with what was dispatched to Jerez and sold. Can you maybe just give me some info on where the actual risk and reward of ownership pass with Jerez? And then linked to that, just if I have a look at rhodium, specifically, you've talked about selling 50,000 ounces. That would imply about 30,000 in the second half, which roughly is what you produce.
So I understand you're destocking some of the other metals. Is it fair to say maybe not rhodium though, just selling what you produce?
Yes. We don't like to guide on the downside to so we are quite conservative and we must be careful. So it will be at least 50,000 ounces, Chris, if I can say it that way. The passing of risk, remember, we never lose ownership of the metal actually. It's always our metal.
We sell the metal direct to the market ourselves. Sometimes we do sell to Jereas. In fact, they're contracted to take a certain portion of our metal. And only at the point of sale, once it's in the vault available for sale, does that risk pass? So that's in essence, we're very similar to any other company who has a mine to market model on that basis.
Understood. And then second question, are you in a position yet to talk to what the capital budget for 3 shaft will be now that you've got a plan to equip and get it up to production by 2024?
Not yet, Chris. So we, of course, have not completed the hole. So there is reasonably significant technical risk in this reaming activity. It is, as I said, a world record hole, and we are loathed to show plans and project capital for the 3 shaft in its fully sense until we've got high confidence that, that hole can be achieved. I must just say, though, having said all that, this morning, we're about 2.93 meters up already.
So the hard yards have been done in many respects, and we're almost in the realms of normal. I wouldn't say normal, but raised bores that have been achieved in the past at about a kilometer. So we're getting there. The reaming is going well. We're hitting for the last 3 days 7 meters a day on average, which is a remarkable achievement if you think about it for a 4.8 meter hole.
So it really is looking good. Our partners, Master Drilling, together with the mine management out there, we're very positive, but give us a chance. The reaming at that rate should, of course, be complete towards the end or the beginning of next calendar year, and we'll be in a better position then to talk about what we're going to do. And of course, there won't be just one hole. There may be a series of holes there.
That's a very long it's 4 kilometers of strike, a huge block of ground. So you can expect a complex, a shaft complex, which will allow for production out of that block in many, many years to come. So just give us a chance.
Thanks. Understood. Okay.
Arnold?
Yes. Paul, thank you very much, and good morning. Arnold van Gogham from Nedbank. Paul, yes, you've done very well. Basically, on a 5 year time line, you've hit almost all your targets.
And I guess this is a case study in countercyclical growth. Now I guess my question or comments around this also goes to capital allocation, but I guess mine is broader and longer term. So maybe you can answer some of that. So in the next phase, how do you approach that? Because you have been countercyclical.
And do you continue to push growth to a next level and maybe we see another step change? Or do you return more money to shareholders over the next, let's say, 5 year period? So I know it does go to capital allocation, but I'm trying to read your view on the market. Are we in early stage and continuous growth from here would still be countercyclical? Or you feel that it may be we turn more to shareholders less to grow?
So that's the first one. And then just a very quick question on airlines. Have you seen any surprises there, anything that surprised you on the underground from a geological or technical perspective that's either on the upside or that you are worried about? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Anil. The second question is a quick one. Not yet. We're doing quite a bit of scoping now and a lot of development, as you can see.
That ground is well drilled and well mapped by, some would say, the best in the business, which is Big Brother, beginning with an A. It's pretty well understood and so far so good, I would say, on that one. In terms of the first question, as you heard my response to Rene, difficult for me to give you an absolute answer, but I'll be illustrative by doing a matchbox calculation, if I may, to give you an idea of magnitude of the cash generation of the company relative to the capital that we may spend. So let's take an example that we have on the slide. Let's go back to in fact, let's go back to the basic business equation.
Am I going the wrong way? Yes. There we go. Yes, there we go. There we go.
So Damian's turned me off. But yes, okay, I'm going to talk anyway. We don't really need the slide, but at spots, and you can't do a calculation at spot. But this morning spot on this group basket is sitting at about R112,000, R113,000 per platinum ounce. That's a spot number.
So I always give you a very, very strong health warning on that number. And you can see what we've given here is a potential position at the end of 'twenty one, which is the current financial year as to where the group may be. So I'm going to use, for ease of calculation and so everybody can follow what I'm doing here, around 100. Let's assume that the basket remains for the group at around 100. Now as you know, the cost per platinum ounce, we've just guided around ZAR28,000,000, but let's round that up to ZAR30 for argument's sake.
And let's use these numbers in real terms. So let's assume the basket stays real at ZAR100 and cost stays real at ZAR30. Can you see we have about a ZAR70,000 platinum ounce cash margin that the operations generate? Now I'm going to round the production profile for, let's say, the next 3 years. Let's say we average 500,000 platinum ounces over the next 3 years, obviously a bit lower in the 1st year, maybe 450,000,000 and then growing, let's say, to over 500,000,000, but let me average it at 500,000,000.
Again, I'm making the calculation easy. Can you see that 500 times 70 is 35,000,000,000 of cash generated from the group per annum. And as we've mentioned, our capital guidance is for this year about ZAR 4,000,000,000. And to be honest, it's very difficult to spend ZAR 4,000,000,000 with our management bandwidth and with the asset base that we have, but let's round that up to ZAR5 1,000,000,000. You can see that the relative cost of the capital program against the cash generation or the cash generating ability of the group is very modest.
Now the second point I would like to make is the suite of assets that we have do have optionality that has been embedded already in the first and second phase of the development of the group. Boisendal is a classic example. We put all the road in and the rope can't it's all done. And yet you still have additional ground available. The same would apply to, of course, Zona Enda and Ilan.
So there is optionality, and that's the point we're making that has been developed inside Northern. And if the market pans out as we suspect, it may. You might expect us to do further a further growth program beyond the 1,000,000 ounces, and that would not be an unreasonable expectation, and it would not be it is a very affordable capital efficient capital program, as you can see from that example I've just used. I hope everybody followed that. It wasn't there's a bit of maths in there, which I think Arnold is pretty good at, so you'll write a note.
Brandon Ryan, please.
It's Brandon Ryan, Mining MX. Paul, having listened to your presentation, I now have the song bouncing around in my head, which goes, Come on, baby, let the good times roll.
But you and I know that this industry Try not to smile.
I'm going to exactly go what I'm going to do. So this industry, as you know, has had some vicious upswings and some equally vicious downswings. So my question is, looking at the industry, how long will the good times last this time around, in your opinion?
In one answer, I think we will see the best decade the industry has ever seen.
The best decade? Yes. Okay. I'll hold you to
that.
Fine. Okay. I think we've cleared the room for questions. If we can go to the lines of the webcast, and Damian's got a list of questions. You have to use the mic, Damian.
Let's turn the glasses on there.
Stop to that age.
But first question from Miles Ferree. No organization stated. Medium term goal is to get to 1,000,000 ounces per annum. Do I understand correctly that this will happen in the next 3 to 5 years? And therefore, production should increase by 9% to 15% per annum of 2021 forecast of 670 kilo ounces.
Congrats on your interim results.
So Myles, just to answer that question, that slide is clear guidance on the medium term targets within the group. Myles also asked about the potential for dividend payments, but I
think you've already answered that.
Yes, I've answered that one.
Steve Sheppard. Looking through the booklet, it seems that you have 13 kilo ounces of refined rhodium more than you sold during the period under review. Is that correct? Can you clarify when this metal will reach market? It is noteworthy that the current rhodium price is $29,000 an ounce and more than double the $13,000 an ounce that you realized in H1.
Yes. So in big round numbers, let's say we sold 20,000 ounces of rhodium in H1. Let us point it out, we'll sell at least another 30,000 ounces in H2, and that represents plusminus the difference that Steve is looking for.
He's also looking for dividends as well, Paul. So just so you know that. Investec Bank and Kateco, what is the high level potential of Boyce and Dale Phase 3 in terms of production? Yes,
too early in Ateko to answer that question. But as you can see, we've only exploited half the strike in Phase 1 and Phase 2 in the Boisendal property. So when we talk about the southern portion, that is in fact the southern 7 kilometers of additional strike as yet unexploited. So it's not small.
And Kateco is also asking if there's a possibility or probability of ramping up Eland in less than the guided 8 years?
No. I would say no on that one. It's a pretty conventional layout as opposed to mechanize board and pillar. And those type of ramp ups take that type of time. And maybe as a comparison, good recent comparison publicly, the K4 ramp up would be very similar.
Also just asks if you've got some guidance on the base metal refinery expansion CapEx.
I'd love to take that one offline. There is some CapEx required in the base metal refinery in most of the elements from milling to the autoclave to the electro winning and some of the intermediate bits and bobs, but it's not a massive capital at this stage. It wouldn't it's not going to break the bank, and we'll only spend that money when we need to in a phased approach as each element approaches its capacity.
Also, your view on recycling supply growth, particularly palladium and rhodium. And what is Northern's expected throughput from recycling volumes over the next 3 years?
Yes. I think the recycling question is actually a very important aspect. The recycling segment of the market is absolutely essential for the health of these markets. And recycling is under pressure, I must say. You can imagine these are very large working capital requirements.
And the price of rhodium, for instance, has essentially trebled in a very short space of time. So the working requirements have also the working capital requirements has also trebled. And this puts lots of pressure on treasuries of the big companies. And you can imagine value at risk calculations are very, very significant in the recycle loop. So the recycle loop is also under pressure, I must say, for supply because of these reasons.
What has happened is the pricing of risk for recycled metal has increased, so returns to collectors has decreased, and that is absolutely necessary. It's very, very important that we price financial risk and processing and refining risk into that recycle loop. That is beginning to happen through necessity. So the consequence of it is it's not so easy basically in a nutshell. I hope I'll give a bit of a flavor for that.
Wade Napier from Avior was asking, can you remind us whether the group and I think it comes back to base metal refinery or Can you remind us whether the group has any processing constraints to meet 1,000,000 ounces per annum?
Yes, we do, particularly in the base metal, but I've referred to that already in the previous answer. It's small CapEx though, and it's sequential CapEx as you hit the various capacity limits.
He also asks beyond volume growth, what levers does the business have to combat mining inflation of plusminus 8% year on year?
Very, very difficult to get away from a 7% to 8% inflationary increase in mining terms because of the elements of the cost input. If you think about administered power, for instance, electricity, cost increases year on year are in double digits and wage inflation is also above CPI. So it's very difficult to do it on the cost base per se, so you need structural change. You need to improve the way you do things. And as everybody knows, Nordham is growing its production platform down the cost curve.
How are we doing that? A lot of the growth comes from shallow mechanizable ounces, and they are inherently lower cost ounces.
There's still quite a lot of questions, Paul. There's a couple of questions from Nonther Ungerbele from Mtambo Wealth. Can you provide an update on the status of operations of the refinery in Germany?
Yes. Operating normally at this stage. However, they did have corresponding lockdowns in Europe and, of course, Germany. And this is the reason why our rhodium is delayed primarily, but at the moment, operating normally.
Also, can we assume that mine crews at Sundarando is now 100% operational? I think that's a fair
Full complement is 109 crews, and we've just reached 109 crews at work.
Raje Ambekar from Excelsior Capital asks what gives you the confidence that the rhodium price will not fall to 4x to 6x palladium. Please elaborate on your comment of acceptance of these rhodium prices.
Raje, I didn't say the market accepts the rhodium prices. I said I used the word the market is acclimatized to the higher prices. Rhodium is extremely inelastic and very, very in very, very tight supply. So any disturbance in the market, you can see immediately you've got price reaction. And we've had quite a bit of that actually recently, which is you've seen the almost immediate rhodium reaction to those news events.
So rhodium is extremely inelastic. It's not substitutable at this stage, and nobody is going to make a motor car that's not clean. And on that basis, the legislative nature of demand, it's not an option. We must use rhodium on the motor vehicle to control nitrous oxide. So it's a very, very inelastic, very tight market.
I think that answers Adrian Hammond's question about are you concerned about demand disruption in the rhodium market and long term implications. He also asks, your unit cost performance does not yet tie up with volume growth. Is this yet to come? Can you provide some long term cost guidance?
I think the unit costs that we've just put forward do include the impacts of COVID and the consequence of the lockdown to a great extent. But also remember, we expense development, and we're doing an awful lot of development that goes against the working cost numbers. Not everybody, of course, does that quantum of development.
Warren Riley from Bataloure. I'm sure it will be asked, but could you touch on the impact of the Narwhals mine flooding in 7 50 kilo ounces of mainly palladium coming out of the market? Do you foresee an impact on rhodium production as well?
Yes. I think when one considers pipelines for palladium and platinum, it will the physical market will be impacted in about 5 to 6 months against that number and the rhodium market in about 7 to 8 months against that number that has been published by NEROLS.
From Tubela, Big Sur for Mergence. How do you square your PGM demand outlook with OEM ambitions for automobile electrification? Why do you believe your view is the correct one?
Yes. Again, a very, very good question. I think what we can say is that let me start 7, 8 years ago, the world did believe that we no longer needed PGMs. There was enough on surface because it was believed that there will be wholesale replacement of the internal combustion engine by pure battery electric vehicles, which, of course, do not use PGMs. I think it was a bit ambitious, those forecasts.
We have a penetration for BEVs out to 2,030 of about 15%. The interesting calculation to do is that automobile sales essentially follows world GDP to a very large extent. And by 2,030, the world should be producing somewhere around, I would say, between 110,000,000 and 120,000,000 units, light duty vehicles. And if we've got 15% penetration of BVs, you can net off 15,000,000, let's say, you've still got significant growth in the internal combustion engine in the face of, in fact, that change. So there's still a long way to go for internal combustion engines.
Of course, what is important is and this is like a double edged sword, in fact, for the OEMs. When I talk about OEMs, I'm talking about the motor car companies. You're not going to make a car that's not clean one way or the other, And you can make a clean internal combustion engine. Just do it properly, put the right amount of PGMs in the exhaust system, and it will be much, much cleaner than where we were, I'd say, 10 years ago or during the diesel gate scandal.
Catherine Cunningham from JPMorgan asks, you comment in the release that your mining metals will become a significant revenue contributor going forward. Could you unpack that a bit more? Over what time period are you expecting to see this? And where do you see the iridium and ruthenium supply demand balances moving in the near to medium term?
Iridium is very similar to iridium. It's extremely tight, and it's a must have in the applications in which it's used. We could have iridium revenue of around about ZAR2 1,000,000,000 in the not too distant future, ZAR2 1,000,000,000, yes. Ruthenium, on the other hand, has quite a bit of it about at the moment, but it has a bright future in fuel cell applications. So I'm not going to give a number on that one, but I do want to point out that we do produce more ruthenium than rhodium.
Once again, it's the 3rd metal by volume. So it can become important. Let's see how things develop in the hydrogen economy.
Catherine also just queried the refining costs, including sampling and handling, up 25% year on year. Of what time horizon are you expecting this to normalize?
Yes. So refining costs for us will probably not easily come down. It's a euro based cost, and I'm not so sure we'll do much better than what we've just presented.
Also one thing that impacted the refining cost is the cost of refining ruthenium and those volumes have increased quite dramatically with the increased UG2 volumes.
And then we've got Martin Krima from Mining Weekly. He's got a series of questions pertaining to, renewable energy. Do you calculate a benefit to energy cost by generating 10 megawatts of solar power at Zondervender?
Yes. Yes. Good quick answer to that one. The development of photovoltaic units now is to such an extent that we're buying kilowatt hours from Eskom at just over RAN per kilowatt hour, and we can probably, if we do a self build, produce at about $0.30 per kilowatt hour. So it's quite substantial.
Of course, there's much more to it than that. We are an energy intensive user. We are very, very reliant on Eskom, and that's unlikely to change. But what we can do is supplement Eskom with PV at quite an attractive cost with giving about a 4 if you would then put the capital in there, it's about a 4 year payback by our calculations for a 10 megawatt unit.
I think you've answered the can you elaborate on de carbonization underway at Zonderende and Boisendahl success in lowering emissions so far? And the vision, are you considering the generation of green hydrogen to buy your fleet in an emission free manner?
So emission free, no. But we can reduce our carbon emissions by at least 20% over the course of the next decade, and we're still formulating our longer term statements surrounding that.
Site dealing with unreliable energy supply has been a major factor possibly affecting the future financial position. What's being moved to mitigate unreliable energy supply, especially on the Eastern Limb, solar wind or both?
Actually, we're looking at PV on-site. We're looking at some offsetting of wind in the Eastern Cape. And we will at this stage, we will experiment with batteries. I think that's probably fair to say. How many more questions, Damian?
Everybody's getting 2 more.
Sorry, everybody. It's obviously popular. Sifelo Mmudi from Excelsior Capital. Great set of results. What could be the sign that the market has peaked?
What would derail the best decade ahead for the industry? What worries you about industry players' actions?
Nothing in particular about industry players' actions. I think supply is generally very constrained across the board. So it's not easy to see supply response into this price, to be honest. It's we've seen some recent announcements, but if you do if you sun them up, they will not, in our opinion, disturb the market. That's important.
What was the other bit of the question, Damian? Let me assume those questions are answered. And what we will do for all the questions that we didn't answer to the people on the line on the webcast, we'll make a little note and we'll put it out to you because I'm conscious of very conscious of time. So thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us, in particular in situ. I know it's not easy, but we have took the necessary risk mitigation procedures outside with the nurses.
I hope you all remain healthy, and we'll see you soon. Thanks very much, everybody.