Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Tharisa Investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions at any time and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. The company review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll, and I'm sure the company will be most grateful for your participation. I'd now like to hand over to CEO, Phoevos Pouroulis. Good morning, sir.
Good morning and welcome everyone to this our full-year annual result presentation for the financial year 2022. We spent some time thinking about how to capture the essence of what happened this past year. I think the tagline that we've put on this front page really captures that essence. It reads, "Growing sustainably from a robust operational base, driving record financial performance." It really touches on the sustainability, the resilience of our business, and for three years in a row, proving financial performance records. Really pleasing, and a pleasure to welcome you all here this morning to share these results. In terms of highlights, safety is a core value of ours.
Up until our year-end, 30 September, we'd achieved seven years fatality-free and 6 million fatality-free shifts. A really commendable performance. Unfortunately, post year-end, we lost the life of one of our colleagues, Raymond. He succumbed to his injuries from a serious accident in the open pit. What this has done is really reinvigorated, reinforced our drive and focus around safety and health and well-being of our employees and a renewed energy going into that and hopefully never to be repeated again. When we look at the sustainability of our mining and our long life tier one assets, we can see that this again was a record production year for us with PGM production up 13.6% at 179.2 thousand oz.
This on a lower PGM basket price of $2,564 per oz. In rand terms, and we'll unpack that a bit later, less of a decline than in dollar terms. Chrome production was up 5.1% at 1.6 million tons, and we achieved a real increase in our metallurgical-grade chrome prices of $209, up almost 35% year-on-year. Then we look at the open pit life of mine, still 19 years remaining at the Tharisa Mine, and giving guidance for this next financial year. These are the midpoint guidance numbers of 180,000 oz and 1.8 million tons. Just improving consistently on where we have come from and targeting those higher productivity numbers.
Obviously, our very exciting Karo Platinum Project with a 17-year open pit life of mine at its steady state production, targeting 190,000 ounces of PGMs. We look at the two corporate actions that we undertook this year. Apologies, let me go back there. Presentation is a little bit slow. We looked at two very transformative transactions in the past year. The first of which was the acquisition of the 26% minority shareholding, our BEE shareholders. This really was a landmark transaction whereby we flipped up the equity and the minority, the Tharisa Minerals holding into Tharisa plc shares.
What this has done is allowed our minority shareholders at the Tharisa Minerals level to participate and benefit from the broader Tharisa Group, and most importantly, to be the beneficiaries of a very strict dividend policy of distributing cash to shareholders. Really value accretive on all fronts. When we look at our four pillars that underpin our business discovery, development, delivery, and diversification, we really believe that acquiring the controlling interest in Karo Mining Holdings to 70% ticks all those boxes. Most importantly, it diversifies our business from a single asset, the Tharisa Mine into two large-scale open pit producing assets in short order. I think what's pleasing to note is that construction is underway, and the funding of the project is well advanced.
Touching on that capital discipline, we continue to invest in our businesses, and particularly this last year, we spent $105 million on CapEx, and we ended the year in a net cash positive position of $80.4 million.
A very healthy position and very pleased to share with our shareholders that we've proposed a final year $0.04 payment in terms of dividend to be voted at the AGM, giving a total year in dividend of $0.07 , some $21 million to be distributed back to shareholders for this financial year. Touching on the production guidance for this next financial year, I touched on the midpoints earlier, but between 175,000-185,000 PGM oz and 1.75 million-1.85 million tons of chrome concentrate.
In a nutshell, you can see that this was a really busy year with lots of milestones being achieved and lots of progress in terms of delivering sustainable growth, record financial performance, but also investing in the future with multi-decade operations in both countries, being South Africa and Zimbabwe. When we look at the impact that our business has, and this is what makes us really proud. You know, we're over a decade old. We've been listed in South Africa since 2014, in London since 2016. We've been a consistent dividend payer for the last seven years, and the biggest impact, however, is the jobs that we create. When we add the permanent contractors to our employees and the part-time contractors, we're just shy of 4,000 employees.
In countries where we have such high unemployment in South Africa and Zimbabwe, this is a material contribution to society and to the broader economy. If we take a conservative multiplier effect of five, we are impacting on a daily basis, almost 20,000 people. This is why we do what we do, because we invest, we create sustainable wellness and employment for multiple people beyond our employees. In Zimbabwe, we've created 100 new jobs, and that will grow as we ramp up the project. A hundred contractors are on site right now as we start with the site clearing and the earthworks program. I think key here is to note that we have just over 22% female employees, and it's something we focus on in terms of diversity and gender equality.
Mining is obviously not the most attractive industry, particularly in the more labor-intensive areas. The skills development, the opportunities are made affordable to a diverse group. In the last year, we've lost no time due to industrial action. We've had no real unrest or disruption to speak of that has impacted us. Importantly, we have very good relationships with our employees and the unions. We're in the middle, or I suppose three quarters through our four-year wage agreement, which ends in June 2024. We really focus on skills development, education and wellness, and we continue with these adult education programs, not only for our employees but also for the communities around surrounding us.
We enrolled 48 learners in this last year, and we continue to look to repeat that. We offer learnership programs, and education classes around maths and science and internship programs. We also have an enterprise and development program, skills development programs for portable skills, so that we train people up so that they can access the limited job market, but with pertinent skills that are required. Importantly, and I think we've all come out of COVID, and we realize the impacts that that has had on the well-being and the wellness of people, coupled with this, you know, above-inflationary environment with costs increasing. We take a real pride in our wellness programs and the support we give our employees, not only financial, but from an emotional health perspective as well.
I think as stated before, we're committed to reducing our carbon footprint. We're looking at a 30% reduction by 2030 and the various programs underway to achieve that, achieving carbon net neutrality by 2050. Pleasing to note that our 40 MW solar project, in partnership with Total and Chariot, is waiting for regulatory approval, from which point then construction will begin. We're hoping to see that up and synchronized with our plants within midpoint of 2024, subject to these approvals. Encouragingly, we're also looking at the first phase, 30 MW solar project in Zimbabwe, of a much bigger potential project, a 300 MW project, again, in partnership with TotalEnergies in Zimbabwe.
When we look at the impact we have on the fiscus and the economy, the foreign currency inflows into South Africa, in terms of our direct chrome exports, $285.2 million. Significant. We look at the direct taxes and royalties that we paid, $56.2 million, and then indirect taxes of $20.4 million. Really contributing to the economy and to employment, in a meaningful way. When we look at the vital numbers for the year past, records on all fronts, we mined 5.5 million tons, up 2.3% from the prior year. Our PGMs, as mentioned, up 13.6%, 179.2 thousand oz. Chrome, just shy of that 1.6 million tons at 5.1%.
I think pleasingly, and Michael will unpack the reasons why, we have a record revenue up 15% of $686 million, resulting in operating profit also an improvement of $184.5 million for the year, and a record EBITDA of $237.3 million. Profit before tax up almost 19% to $220.2 million. Net cash from operating activities down from the prior year, 17% down, but still at a pleasing $173.7 million. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year, $143.3 million, resulting in our record earnings per share of $0.538, up $0.441.
Michael will unpack later the headline earnings per share and the impact of the Karo transaction on our EPS number. As mentioned previously, our proposed annual dividend of $0.07. All of this resulting in a very important metric, which is the return on the capital that we invest at a very pleasing 23.5%. Often we report in US dollars and our operations are South African-based, and we thought we'd just translate these numbers into a South African context to give perspective to our South African shareholders and listeners. When you unpack it, these are meaningful numbers in context of the South African economy. Almost ZAR 11 billion revenue, operating profit ZAR 2.9 billion, EBITDA ZAR 3.8 billion. Profit before tax, ZAR 3.5 billion. Tax, profit after tax, ZAR 2.6 billion.
Net cash from operating activities, ZAR 2.8 billion. Cash and cash equivalents of ZAR 2.3 billion. That really captures the rand impact of our financial year-end. Moving on now to strategy. Our DNA and ethos is born out of innovation and challenging convention, doing things differently. We are builders of mines. We take greenfields, discoveries, and we develop them into sustainable mines. The Tharisa Mine is a point in case. It's the first time in the history of the Bushveld Complex that the Middle Group Reef horizons have been mined at the scale that we mine at on a co-product basis for both platinum group metals and chrome concentrate. That business model has really proven its robustness. We have a pit-to-port strategy, and we have a disciplined investment criteria, which really supports the sustainability of our growth.
When we look at the various unique projects that we've ticked the box for, we've increased our specialty chrome production to well above 22%-25% of our chrome production, which is considerably higher than the industry in South Africa. The Voyager Plant is the first of its kind integrated chrome and PGM extraction plant for co-production. The introduction of high-energy flotation units to improve PGM recovery. As you can see from the photo, we've been running the first of its kind commercial DC PGM smelter successfully, whereby we're selling alloy. This is really a pilot commercial scale. We do have the intentions of building a full-scale smelter to accommodate all of Tharisa's PGM production.
Then we look at new and exciting applications for our products, which we don't unpack just yet, but as they become more relevant and commercial, we'll be sharing that with our shareholders. A lot of energy and effort going into research and development. Then the ultra-fine chrome recovery plant, Vulcan, which really has been commissioned and is now moving up those recovery curves. When we look at our portfolio of assets, we have long life, open pittable resources. If you look at the flags at the top of the page there, you'll see there are two resources, the first being Tharisa, the second being Karo. You know, over 1 billion tons of mineral resource between the two open pits and underground opportunities at Tharisa.
Over 50 million PGM oz, contained PGM oz, and 171 million tons of contained chrome. That's 100% chrome. Our integrated business model has really captured value, I suppose, where others have not seen the value. Talking about those long life assets, both pits in excess of 17 years. Thereafter, at least 40-year underground operations. The Karo Project will see us doubling our PGM output, and we'll talk to those exact numbers later. Using technology to unlock opportunities and value that are really marginal in terms of capital cost, but give us that extra margin which gives us the sustainability, as mentioned, profitable throughout the cycle and a consistent dividend payer. Just waiting for the next slide to load up. There are our four pillars of discovery, develop, deliver, and diversify.
This really talks to the phase one of the Karo Project, which is something we did at Tharisa, we're repeating again now in Zimbabwe on the Great Dyke. This is a tier one world-class PGM asset. As discussed on the previous slide, 17 years open-pit life. We're targeting at steady state 190,000 PGM ounces. I think of importance here is the fact that we have very strong base metal credits in the form of copper, nickel, and there is even some cobalt which we're looking to extract. This is fully permitted, fully licensed for the life of mine. We're only accessing the open pittable resource. There is huge potential for second, third, and fourth phases, which would involve either portal or shaft development in the future.
I think we've taken a very measured strategic approach replicating the Tharisa model, going for a low risk, open pit, scalable, low cost, phased approach. The clock has already started ticking. We said we had a 24-month build timeline. We've got 21 months left, very pleased to report that construction has commenced. I think, when we look back, we started exploration in 2018. We were impacted and delayed by COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, we've been four years LTI free. We have our ESIA approved on the mining and processing, that is IFC compliant. I think what's key here, very similar to what we've done at Tharisa, is prioritizing local recruitment and skill development. Pleasing to note that the skills levels in Zimbabwe are very good and very high. It is an established mining jurisdiction.
A number of our peers operate very successful operations, PGM operations on the Great Dyke. Then, as mentioned, TotalEnergies, we've signed a heads of agreement for a wheeling agreement to supply up to 300 MW. Obviously, we don't require as much as that, but our first phase would need 30 MW, but they would wheel into the grid. Touching on the capital cost, and bearing in mind, this includes all the infrastructure supporting the project, power, water, road networks, and all the ancillary services that are required, and that comes to a capital cost to first ore in mill of $391 million. There is, sort of, I suppose, very decent contingency and escalation budgets baked into that number.
We're comfortable in an uncertain environment that we have headroom for potential cost creep. When we look at the funding for this project, there are multiple streams and they advance to different degrees and different levels. When we talk about the partial leveraging of existing assets, that's Tharisa assets to the tune of $130 million, and that will be injected into Karo Mining Holdings as equity. We look at your more conventional project finance syndicated senior loan, and that's in the tune of $260 million. That has an export credit component to it, ECIC funding out of South Africa, and that's slightly longer dated. We expect that to close in the second half of next calendar year.
Sorry, the leveraging of the existing assets we anticipate closing in the first quarter of 2023. That's calendar year, not our reporting quarters. As you may have picked up in the media, we've launched the VFX bond listing, targeting a minimum of $25 million and optimal of $50 million. We've received really positive interest. We're building the book as we speak right now. We've extended the deadline to the 9th of December with potential listing on the 16th of December, and really just giving the opportunity for institutions to participate. We are waiting for a prescribed asset status, which does open up the investor universe of those that can access and invest the bonds.
We're hoping for some positive news on that front, which would then attract more interest. I think what's interesting because we'll unpack the PGM split of Tharisa, but when you look at the Karo PGM split in that left pie chart, you'll see a very different composition of the platinum group metals, obviously with strong base metal credits. We have a fairly significant portion of gold at 8.3%, platinum at 42.1%, palladium just below 40%, rhodium, fortunately, at 4.1%, iridium at 1.9%, and ruthenium at 4.1%.
When we look at it in the context of Tharisa, we'll see that it's a very complementary pro split, where we've got much lower palladium content in South Africa on the MGs at 16.7%, high platinum at 54.4%, negligible gold, higher ruthenium, higher iridium at 4.4%, most importantly, a big economic driver for us is 9.9% rhodium on a 6E basis, 12% on a 4E basis. We're still very, very positive around the fundamentals of PGMs. We see primary supply constraints. If you look at the challenges that we face in South Africa, particularly in deep-level mines, and the average depth of the PGM mine in South Africa is 1.5 km underground. We look at power issues, Eskom issues.
We look at accessibility to ore, challenges around your host communities, which is not unique just to underground mines, but to all mines in South Africa. We see a continued deficit in rhodium and palladium. But I think what really is important to note is that there is consensus that platinum is heading towards a deficit within the next 18 months. We've seen platinum break through that elusive $1,000 an ounce mark. We believe these are the early signs of a physical tightness in the market with China importing well in excess of the forecast demand of their platinum requirements. We believe this is them hedging or taking a position for the very vast investment they're making in the hydrogen economy.
The hydrogen economy is no longer a story, it is reality, we look at the capital and the investment that's going into it, and it's astounding. Really, the beneficiaries of that are iridium and platinum when we look at the electrolyzers and the membranes that are the most effective at this stage. Let's not write off the internal combustion engine just yet. There is a lot of pent-up demand for new vehicles, we're starting to see the chip shortage abate. Manufacturers, in spite of supply constraint issues coming in from Ukraine and Russia, we're starting to see boost in sales of that pent-up demand. Importantly, with increased emission standards, which requires more loadings of platinum, palladium and rhodium.
We still think strong demand for auto catalytics, and PGMs in the internal combustion engine. Importantly, the hydrogen economy, as I say, is a reality, and we'll start seeing those demand numbers kicking in to analysts' forecasts going forward. Chrome, in spite of the challenges in China with the zero-COVID policies and the lockdowns, has been resilient and robust. We've seen strong demand. We've been able to move our products successfully. Again, testament to our logistics team that really managed multiple exit points for our products to end up in Indonesia and China. With the easing as predicted or forecast in the new year, we only see upside in terms of stimulus packages going into the Chinese economy and boosting stainless steel production and in turn, growth and demand for chrome units.
It's key that South Africa is the major supplier to, let's call it the global engine of stainless steel production, be it in Indonesia or China, whereby we account for 80% of those endpoints, imports. Tharisa, this single mine accounts for approximately 10% of those imports. A very key strategic supplier, a brand name in the stainless steel and ferrochrome space in China. Importantly, 22% in this last financial year is what we refer to as our premium specialty chrome products, and this is a more globally diversified product, and it allows us to access new markets, different markets. Importantly, we sell it at a premium above that $209 price that we achieved. You'll see current spot prices of metallurgical grade around $220.
PGM spot prices at $2,312 as of Friday last week. I think a key indicator in terms of supply-demand balance in the chrome space is Chinese port stocks. We've seen them being relatively low, supporting physical demand of imported chrome stocks. Currently, we see that number, you know, just hovering above 2.4 million tons, but not at a material level that will give enough buffer to soften pricing. We still see positive outlook in terms of chrome prices and demand more importantly. When we look at PGM pricing, we often talk about, you know, the PGM basket price devalued by 16.6% in dollar terms.
When you look at the blue bar charts compared to the gray bar charts in the bottom right-hand side, you'll see from the third and fourth quarter, the rand prices received for our PGM basket prices were relatively flat. This is a function of the depreciating South African rand. We often lose the context and the perspective when we only look at the U.S. dollar basket price. Still a very healthy PGM basket price in rand terms. I'd like to hand over to Michael today, who's celebrating his 60th birthday. Michael, wishing you all the very best and hopefully we'll get through this with a smile.
Good. Thanks very much, Phoevos, and good morning. It really is a pleasure to be presenting an excellent set of financial results. The financial results for this financial year-ended 30 September 2022 are really on the back of our sustained mining, so our reef mining up marginally, but also maintaining and slightly increasing our stripping ratio to ensure that we can mine sustainably going forward. While the reef tonnes milled were relatively constant, there was an increase in both platinum group metals and chrome concentrate production. Really, if you have a look at it and break it down further, then there's delivery on this very solid operational performance, supported by the multi commodities that we produce, increasing both platinum group metals and chrome concentrates, and we have benefited from overall favorable commodity price markets.
It's really contributed to us recording a record revenue of $668 million. Unfortunately, it wasn't all plain sailing. There were certain inflationary pressures during the course of this financial year, and it's globally, it's not just specific to ourselves. How have we managed to offset these inflationary pressures? We've looked at increased production volumes. Our production volumes have increased, and really a key contributor to that is the low-cost chrome units from our fine chrome processing unit, the Vulcan Plant. We've also benefited from a cost-based perspective of the weakening rand against the dollar, a benefit there of 6.8% on our costs.
We look at our financial results for this past year, a key accounting aspect of it was the value accretive Karo transaction, we'll spend a little bit of time analyzing what that impact has been on both the balance sheet and the income statement. If we look at where we are at the end of this financial year, we really are positioning ourselves for sustainable growth. Our net cash flow from operations, $173.7 million. As previous mentioned, we spent $105 million on CapEx. We continue to invest in the future we also de-leveraged the balance sheet net cash position of $80.4 million, positioning us well for this growth phase going forward.
If we break down the revenue, I'm going to look at this on an FCA basis, in other words, ex-gate basis, our overall Platinum Group Metals contributing just over 62% to our overall revenue. The star performer again being rhodium. Rhodium, while comprising less than 10% of the spill split, contributed over 57% of the PGM basket, followed by platinum just over 20% and palladium just over 14. If we look at the actual ounces sold, 168.3 thousand ounces sold and a basket price of $2,564 per ounce. We continue to produce both metallurgical grade used in stainless steel and then the specialty grade, chemical and foundry grade, which are the premium products, those accounted for some 22% of our production. Just touching on the overall sales numbers.
The metallurgical grade chrome sales, 1.2 million tons at a average metal price of $209 per ton. I'm gonna spend a little bit of time unpacking some of the unit costs and really as we move forward, put into perspective the inflationary pressures that we face. Tharisa Mine was up 8.9%, benefiting from economies of scale, though overall on a unit basis, reducing by 4.5%. Reef Tonnes mined were up marginally, and similarly, the cost per reef tonne mined up marginally 1.5% at $32.4 per tonne.
As mentioned, reef tonnes milled fairly constant for the prior period. We start seeing the inflationary pressures coming through, increasing 14.1% on the on-mine cash cost per tonne milled at $46.7 per tonne. We account for our revenue on a co-product basis. In other words, we have the PGMs plus we have the chrome. If we were to say, let's do it on a by-product basis and look at it from a platinum per ounce sold basis and take the credits from the other platinum group elements as well as the chrome revenue stream, we actually get an all negative all-in sustaining cost of $436.7 per oz. Just touching on the table on the right or the graph on the right, you'll see there the breakdown of our on-mine cash costs.
As is normal, our mining together with the diesel for the fleet comprising the bulk of those costs. We touch on royalties. We benefit from favorable commodity market prices, so the revenue authorities take their portion at some 11.3% and then labor, 19.7%. What is particularly pleasing is that notwithstanding the inflationary pressures we faced over this past year, is we achieved a record gross profit, $245.7 million. A gross profit margin also record at 35.8%. If we then have a look, and I'm going to just use this to illustrate the inflationary pressures that the industry has been facing, is explosives, and this is really on the back of ammonia and also uses diesel in that composition as well, on a per unit basis, up 49.1%.
Diesel, key to our mining fleets and input production, up 37.3% per liter. Electricity, interestingly enough, was only up 2.7%. That's also benefiting from the weakening of the exchange rate. Landside logistics, there's several components to this. We've transitioned the bulk of our transport of chrome from mine to port to road as opposed to historically rail due to infrastructure constraints, therefore, the increased cost of the fuel. We've also got a longer distance. We've also started transporting successfully via the Maputo Port. That's up 21.9% in inland logistics. We're also all very well aware of the global supply constraint challenges that face the sea freight, up 38.6%. Again, that is why it's a particularly pleasing performance to record a gross profit margin of 35.8%.
I'd like to just spend a little time looking at the Karo Mining Holdings transaction. It's a value-creative transaction. It's part of executing on our strategy of diversification. If you look at the balance sheet part of the equation first, we have to value or attribute value to the component parts. For the first time, we have a mining right coming through on the balance sheet, $201.8 million. The Zimbabwean government also has an option to increase its shareholding at the Karo Platinum level. It currently owns 15% on a free funded carry basis. It has the right to increase that to 11%. It's a limited period which they have the right to exercise, and it's in terms of an agreed basis on the agreements between the parties.
The liability for us coming through on the balance sheet at $16.8 million. We move to the income statement side, I'm gonna reconcile really between our earnings per share of $0.538 down to a headline earnings per share of $0.411, focusing on two lines within the reconciliation put on the right. The first one is we had an existing shareholding of some 28.38% in Karo Mining Holdings. This needed to be revalued based on the metrics and the valuation from the purchase price, that results in a favorable fair value adjustment, which has to be booked through the income statement of $33.5 million. Really a non-recurring item as we've transitioned from equity accounting to consolidation. In addition, we acquired a further 37.9%.
If you recall, we had a farm-in arrangement. Tharisa funded some of the early exploration works, and as a consequence, was entitled to invest in the farm-in option at a discount. This resulted in a fair value gain of $14.9 million, again, flowing through the income statement. Those are items that won't be repeated in the year going forward. Right. We have remained a consistent dividend payer. As Phoevos mentioned, the total dividend for this financial year is going to be $0.07 per share. Our policy is to distribute at least 15% of consolidated net profit after tax. What we did in this particular year is we excluded the fair value adjustments from the Karo Mining Holdings transaction. They're non-repetitive, they're non-cash flowing.
If we then look at it on an adjusted net profits basis, after excluding that transaction, a payout ratio of 17.7%. The total dividend for this year amounts to some $21 million in cash payout. What is very pleasing is we are committed to financial discipline and capital discipline. Just to illustrate there, over the last seven years, our total distribution to our shareholders has totaled $82.9 million. Moving on to the balance sheet. Our cash and cash equivalents sit at $143.3 million. As mentioned previously, our net cash flow from operations, $173.7 million, and net cash on the balance sheet of $80.4 million. If you look at our total debt at year-end, $62.9 million.
The bulk of that, $38 point, $39.8 million, is short-term, most of it associated with the chrome trading book. What's not evident on the balance sheet and also a very pleasing outcome for this particular year, is we previously had a limited recourse PGM discount facility assessed under offtake contracts, so effective off balance sheet. Notice was given on that contract over this past financial year, so we're busy unwinding that facility, so effectively bringing some $33 million on balance sheet. You'll pick that up when you look at the accounts receivable number. Just looking at the graph on the right, asset-backed finance facilities. This is mostly associated with the yellow fleet for mining. The majority of our spend, again, 56%. Sorry, in terms of our debt. Our bank facilities, including the short-term facilities of trading, $37.9 million.
I think very pleasing is the strength of our overall balance sheet. Current ratio, 2.2. Net debt to EBITDA, a - 0.3. Net debt to equity, a - 13. As indicated previously, positioning us well as we go into this growth phase. We have invested in the sustainability of operations, we spent $105 million on CapEx over this past financial year. If you look at the year ahead, some $80 million budgeted, and that excludes deferred stripping. Deferred stripping will add about $8 million to that overall number. As is usual, looking forward, asset-backed facilities. Sorry. Our mining, $38.3 million of the total, and the processing $24.3 million. This CapEx excludes Karo Mining Holdings and Karo Platinum. Karo Platinum, total budgeted spend is $391 million.
We are fast-tracking that program. As Phoevos said, another 21 months to project completion and the spend over the next balance of this financial year, budgeted at $260 million. That's a very high-level overview of the financial aspects of the financial year, a very pleasing result, and I'd like to hand over to Phoevos. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. Just in closing, our last slide really talks to the value proposition of the Tharisa plc share. I think we've gone one too far. Let's go back. There it is. One of our vision 2025 objectives is to become the investment of choice. Often the first question that we get from existing shareholders and new shareholders is: Why do you trade at such a discount to fair value? Let's just unpack the comparatives here. On a price-to-earnings basis, we're trading at 2.8x . This is based on consensus. You can look at our peers in the PGM space, you know, right from close to 13 to the lowest at 5.5. Certainly a gap in terms of pricing there compared to earnings.
I think what's most pleasing is our net asset value growth on a compounded annual growth rate of 14.8%. We're obviously doing something right since listing in London. You look at us on an EV/EBITDA basis, way down there at 1.8x. Again, looking at the comparative universe, bearing in mind that RB Plats is the subject of a takeover bid and will be absorbed by either Impala or Northam as that transaction plays out. The pool is becoming smaller in terms of comparatives. You look at price to NAV, you know, at 0.5x and that gap narrowing, and where the industry on average is trading just over 1x.
There is real deep value here, and there is an upside investment case. Really it's our job to convince more people to see the resilience, the robustness, the repeatability of our financial performance and operational performance. Coupled with that, our growth strategy of doubling output and getting us to, you know, or circa 400,000 oz of PGMs and getting to that 2 million tons of chrome, a real sustainable position within short order of getting to that point. I think the pictures and the graphs speak for themselves. With that, I'd like to thank you all for your attention and time. This is a photo. It's not of our runway in Zimbabwe, as someone commented. This is the clearing of the site for our processing facilities in Zimbabwe.
As mentioned, we have commenced with earthworks, early earthworks, and to be followed by civils, and obviously the infrastructure work is ongoing at the same time. Over to you, Ilya.
Thanks.
To moderate the questions. Thank you very much.
That's great. Phoevos, Michael, thank you very much indeed for updating investors this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of the screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, will be accessed via your Investor Meet Company dashboard. Ilja, if I may hand back to you. As you can see, you've had a number of questions from investors today. Thank you firstly to everybody for your engagement this morning. If I may, Ilja, just hand back and ask you to read out the questions and give a response, obviously from the guys, as appropriate to do so. Thank you.
Certainly. Thank you very much, and good morning. Phoevos, with the picture of Karo and mentioning of the CapEx number for the year, the first question here is, how confident are you that you can get the debt package agreed for Karo? If this does not occur, what levers can you pull to keep the project progressing?
Yeah, I suppose Michael is closest to this in terms of negotiations, but I can give a, sort of, overarching response and then hand over to Michael. I think we're confident that we're close to closing out on a number of those multipronged financing opportunities that we have. You know, Zimbabwe is binary. There are backers and investors that will finance Zimbabwe and those that won't. We're obviously in the camp of those that are either have existing banking facilities in the country or exposed or support the mining industry there. When it comes to the macro environment, I think, you know, our financiers are comfortable with that. Yeah, I think we're confident that we can achieve that.
In the event that there is a shortfall or a timing gap, we are generating strong cash. The natural option is for us to fund that gap from Tharisa cash flow, pending the conclusion of those funding pipelines. Michael, any comments from your side?
I really think that does summarize it well. I mean, the two components, the two key components are effectively the leveraging of our assets. That is extremely well advanced, in terms of approvals, the legals and so forth. Draw down anticipate in the first quarter. Very confident on that. Very confident on the ECRC package, in terms of local content and the other partners we've got there on the $260 million. The challenge there is really the timing of it to ensure that you don't impact on our delivery line. We are dealing with government bodies as we go through that process. I think that's a challenge to bring it in on time, but confident it will then effectively close out. As Phoevos mentioned, very strong cash flows as well, should that be necessary.
I think that answers that question then, Ilja.
Yes. Thank you. Phoevos, something sort of high level here as somebody asking a question around, having read reports of mines being approached by protection rackets in South Africa, has Tharisa ever been approached by organized crime? Have we been threatened? The question relates to not just the mine operation itself but the transport network and the port operations.
Yeah. We don't have direct experience of it, but we're fully aware of what's going on within the broader mining community with these procurement rackets and rings that are going on. I think we most probably got wind of it early on enough to sort of put preventative measures in place. There's no doubt that there's a heightened activity, there's heightened unrest and invariably expectations that are created by, let's call it, unsavory groupings within communities, and that does create uncertainty and a unsettled environment. We're very proactive in our engagement, and we actually have set up a SMME, a small business forum and platform to support legitimate local enterprises who provide services to the mine.
We have a community company owned by the community called Rockaside that provides various services already, through the community trust with you and our shareholders of PLC. There are various initiatives underway. We're fully aware of what's going on. In terms of transport, I personally am not aware of any threats at this stage, but we are alive to the situation. Theft and crime is on the rise, to I would say alarming levels. You know, we do the best we can to mitigate the risks, within our ambit and control.
Thank you. A number of questions coming through on Vulcan and on production guidance for the following year. Let me read one out, and I'm sure it'll answer a lot of the other questions. Can you give us any guide as to how our 2023 production guidance is split half and half, how recoveries are performing at Vulcan, where our recovery is currently and what is the plan, and when do you expect to achieve full targeted run rate?
Yeah, I mean, it's a very important question and a relevant one. If we look at where we've come from, 2021 chrome recovery is at 63.3%. This financial year-end, we closed at 68.3%, so 5% improvement. That can be attributed to the Vulcan Fine Chrome Recovery Plant. Where we are now is we are at that current run rate as we ended the financial year. I mentioned on an analyst call that we expect to see some marginal improvements in the next quarter, the more material improvements coming into the second half. That's really a function of certain equipment that's being installed and reconfigured, which takes a bit longer.
If we look at the Vulcan as a standalone, which really we should look at the end-to-end recovery, which we're targeting across all three plants of 80%, which we believe that we'll get close to that by year-end, financial year-end, 2023, and then start getting that run rate going into 2024. We are giving ourselves a bit of a buffer and headroom here. We are currently at 50% of the required or not required, targeted recovery of Vulcan as we stand today. We'll see that improving next quarter and then hopefully getting up to our state of recovery. The reason why I say you shouldn't look at it on a standalone basis is because the target is to do an end-to-end or to achieve an end-to-end recovery of 80%.
If the front end performs exceptionally well, there's less opportunity for Vulcan to capture the remaining chrome units. It's a holistic approach that we really look at. While we're tweaking Vulcan, we're also looking at the chrome circuits in Voyager, Challenger and Genesis at the same time, to optimize the overall recovery. I hope that answers the question.
Thank you. Michael, over to you. I know you addressed some of the cost questions in the slide earlier, but there are some questions around here, one relating to what was the cost inflation in ZAR, and how do you view that with regards to the numbers. More importantly, and I know this was discussed on our call with the analysts yesterday also is, can you give some color on the cost pressures going into FY 2023? What's inflation and ZAR expectation built in your budget and then obviously again, the Karo CapEx for 2023, but I think we answered the $260 million for this year, financial year coming up. What do you expect on the cost pressures coming through for the coming year?
Okay. Thank you. There's a lot of questions in that one. Let's see if I answer them. If I do omit some, just remind me about those.
Sure.
I'm just gonna remind Phoevos there's one part of the question that they weren't answered that we need to address, is the split between the expectation and production. I'll hand that back to you after I've answered the finance ones. If we look at the costs, I know the one question that came through was on the deferred stripping, on the capitalization of that. If we have a look this last year, capitalized deferred stripping was some $15.1 million in total. Look at the CapEx and the plans going forward and the mine plan, that amount will be some $8 million for FY 2023. On the inflationary front, this has been quite a challenge in terms of the budget as to what inflation you do and what exchange rates you use, going forward.
We typically use a consensus in terms of exchange rates of our main analysts who cover us, and we take a mix of those, and that's used in our commodity pricing and in fact in our exchange rates as well. If we have a look at the inflationary pressures, we really seem to have peaked in terms of the, let's call it, the pricing shocks that came through on the back of the increase in oil prices, translated to steel, ammonia and so forth, and sea freight. Those seem to have normalized in some cases, for example, the freight side are in fact trending downwards, steel trending downwards as well.
If I have a look at our budgeting costs on a per unit basis, we're probably looking providing for an inflationary figure of some 7%-8%, probably very much in line with expectations on global inflationary type numbers. Am I expected to be below that? I really hope we do achieve below that as we go forward, but that's what we've actually budgeted for at the moment on a per unit cost basis. Sorry. Will you please remind me some of the other ones that I've missed?
Well, the CapEx number with regards to the question was what was the CapEx for Karo. Just while you're on CapEx, does the CapEx guidance for Tharisa in particular include waste stripping? If not, what is the guided waste strip CapEx for 2023? I know you addressed it earlier, but maybe repeat.
Well, I've just repeated that at the start of this, so that's fine. That's the $8 million odd dollars. That's not including that $80 million that we provided for. The total CapEx spend or budget CapEx spend on Karo is $391 million. we have got an accelerated program and a build program. The budget CapEx spend for this financial year is sitting at $260 million.
Thank you. Phoevos, maybe over to you. Can you give some indication of how seaborne freight costs are trending at the moment, given your exports of chrome to China?
Yeah, sure. I think what's pleasing is that the rates have come down considerably from peak pricing, where I think the highest we saw was $50 a ton, depending on the modality and the port, whether it was geared or un-geared vessels. On average, around $35 per ton. We're seeing that normalize to pre sort of shock levels or pre-COVID shock levels and supply constraint levels. Sort of mid-20s and below, depending on opportunistic bookings. Yeah, very positive events there playing out, and we see that, you know, for the near future, being at those levels.
Thank you. Michael, back to you with regards to the financing. What interest rates are you looking for the financing facility that you addressed earlier and the $50 million bond issue?
The $50 million bond issue is priced at 9.5%. We're still doing that final pricing on those two other facilities. I would expect those definitely to be below the 9.5%. Probably looking at margin on the South African debt of about 300 basis points as a maximum. On the Zimbabwean one and the project financing there, much more interesting dynamic there because on the one hand, we've got ECIC funding. That comes with South African guarantee, the banks price it on the South African government bond rates and the cost of the South African government. Of course, you've got a third-party bank which will look for their normal returns. Again, I would not expect any of those to top up at the 9.5%.
I'd probably use that as a very good maximum. It also depends on interest rate environments going forward. All the central banks seem to be hell-bent on pushing up the interest rates to stop inflation. That would, of course, impact the overall costs. If I can achieve an average of some 7%, I believe that in this current market would be a very good outcome.
Thank you. Time is running away. There's a lot of questions which we will answer via the system as soon as possible today. One last question here for you, Phoevos, is the impact of electricity on South Africa, where does the operation stand? I know we addressed it briefly, can you maybe summarize and then give us some concluding remarks before we need to log off?
Yeah. I think there are two components to it. There's the security and stability of supply. I think, you know, we made a decision three odd years ago to invest in 10 MW of backup generation, diesel-powered generation, and that has allowed us to withstand what is referred to as level four, level five load shedding. It's different for industrial users. It's more of a negotiated curtailment, and we've synchronized those generators with the grid. Where Eskom needs relief, we can then fire up those generators. Bearing in mind that utilities, water and electricity are less than 7% of our on-mine cash costs. One of the bigger concerns is the cost of electricity going forward.
I think being a mechanized, yellow fleet energy, diesel energy powered mine, we're less exposed to those increased costs that are forecast into the future. What we have done though, is we've kicked off the 40 MW solar project, which is awaiting approval, as mentioned, and that will give us lower costs, lower than the current Eskom Megaflex rates, daylight units where we can offset those above-inflationary costs that are forecast coming out of Eskom and NERSA in the near future. In terms of resilience to power cuts and things, that backup generation has served us well.
I think where we do have challenges, if there are peaks and troughs or spikes in the grid, it can affect our ops and operations, albeit temporary, but it does create some instability. If there are blackouts, obviously, where the grid falls over, then we're impacted. You can tell by our production, the fact that we're able to mill 5.6 million tons, we were not affected in any material way by Eskom. We see that into the future with the backup generation as well as the solar coming in in 2024 onwards.
That's great. Phoevos, Michael, Ilja, thank you very much. As Ilja said, we'll make all the questions that you've submitted available to the company for their review after today's call. Phoevos, I know you've got meetings galore scheduled for today, so, and I also know that investor feedback is important to you, so I'll shortly redirect investors to give you their thoughts and expectations. Before doing so, Phoevos, if I may just ask you for a few closing comments, and then I'll redirect investors for their feedback.
Great. Thank you very much. I think when we do these year-end results presentation, it gives us the opportunity to reflect and look backwards. We look at what, you know, all of us as, I suppose, humans on this planet have had to withstand, whether it be COVID lockdowns, you know, losses on all fronts, the challenges of global uncertainty with geopolitics playing out. It really makes me extremely proud of the Tharisa team and the resilience that they've shown through all of these challenges and obstacles and this can-do attitude that we have and looking for alternative solutions to problems that potentially could, you know, hinder our operations and hinder our business really makes me exceptionally proud to be part of this Tharisa team and to deliver value to our shareholders.
Really, I think I just wanna say thank you to the Tharisa team, to our supporters out there. Keep supporting us. I think there's a great value proposition, and we will realize that value. Thank you, everyone. I wish you all a very safe year-end and festive season. For those that celebrate Christmas, a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year. All the very best. Thank you.
That's great. Phoevos, Michael, Ilja, thank you once again for updating investors. Can I please ask investors now to close this session, as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that management can really better understand your views and expectations. This may take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Tharisa, I'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. May I wish you all a very pleasant morning.