The Tharisa plc Annual Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted at any time just by using the Q&A tab that's situated in the right-hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question that's received in the meeting itself; however, the company can review all the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll, and I'd like to hand you over to CEO Phoevos Pouroulis. Good morning to you, sir.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this our full year, financial year, 2024 results presentation. It's a privilege for us to be able to share, our year-end results, which really, when we consider the year under review, has been a challenging year with multiple headwinds, and the theme that we, discussed as a team is that, consistently we've been able to deliver through the cycle, whether it's the commodity cycle, the cyclicality of commodity prices, whether it's geopolitical issues, logistic constraints, energy curtailments. Certainly, I feel the team have done a phenomenal job in being able to deliver through the cycle. I think what's most pleasing and quite humbling, to be honest, is the fact that we've recorded a zero lost time, injury-free year, and this is a remarkable achievement, and it doesn't happen just by chance, and it's really reinforcing our core value of safety in everything we do.
Every action, every thought, every process is entrenched with this core value. So we've been recognized with various awards for these achievements and improvements in our safety record, but certainly it's a journey. It's not a destination, and we continue to reinforce this culture and this value system of Zero Harm and everybody returning home safely from work, so very pleasing to report on that achievement. We also concluded a very important five-year wage agreement with the recognized union at the Tharisa Mine, the NUM.
It was a fairly protracted process, but in line with inflation, we were able to negotiate a cost of living adjustment for a five-year period, which really is a milestone for us and marks the third multi-year agreement we've concluded at site and really talks to the employee relationships that we have, the stability in terms of our workforce, and the fact that to date we have not had disruption due to industrial action. So very pleasing that there's an alignment between management and employees, and certainly focused on delivering on our objectives and our vision. The year also saw us producing a record chrome production, and this is in spite of multiple challenges, which we'll unpack. The team really dug deep and we managed to deliver on this chrome production.
At the same time, we managed to meet our PGM guidance, albeit slightly lower than the prior year, but was anticipated in terms of the quality and the oxidative state of the feed material that we process. I think what's really pleasing is to see that the investment in our downstream beneficiation strategy is starting to pay dividends and starting to show real commercial results. We sold our first commercial chrome alloy to an industrial user in South Africa, and this really is the first step in a journey that sees us diversifying our product mix, allowing us to beneficiate our product in a unique proprietary way and opening up new markets for our chrome business.
I think also very exciting is the fact that we've managed to upscale and test our Redox flow battery system, which is a chrome-iron proprietary technology that's developed from the chrome concentrate that we produce onsite at Tharisa, and ultimately providing a much-needed long-duration, long-life, efficient energy storage solution. I think Michael will unpack the fact that we've had a very strong, operational cash flow year, and this really talks to that co-production business model. And I think, you know, it sounds like lip service, but it truly has shown its resilience and its robustness through the commodity cyclicality or commodity volatility, and really you'll see with the results that we post today, how well it has performed. I think importantly, we've maintained our capital discipline and our focus on investment.
This is key when you consider that conviction may not be there in the PGM market at the moment, but the fact is these are the times when you need to invest, and we see ourselves being steadfast, committed to our vision, and investing through the commodity cycle. We also concluded a successful $5 million share repurchase program, which really was well received by the market and achieved its purpose, and certainly something that the board and the executive are considering going forward. Also pleasing to note is the fact that we've maintained our dividend policy while growing our business, and we'll unpack that payout ratio in the next couple of slides. Importantly, our balance sheet is in good health and is primed for further growth opportunities, which we will share with you shortly.
When we look at the vital numbers, you'll see we have a record revenue of $721.4 million, that's up 11%, and really on the back of our higher chrome concentrate prices, averaging $299 per ton for the year, up 13.7% from the prior year. This resulting in an EBITDA of $177.6 million, up almost 30% from the prior year. Net profit after tax at $82.6 million, slightly down, just shy of 5% from the prior year. I think very pleasing is the net cash from operating activities at some $204.6 million, almost 38% up from the prior year. All of this while we are on a growth trajectory and investing in our business with capital being expended during the year of $196.8 million, of which $84 million was invested in Karo Platinum.
We ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of $223.7 million, resulting in a headline earnings per share of $0.281. As mentioned, a final dividend proposed by the board of $0.03, with a half year of $0.015, equates to a full year dividend of $0.045 above our stated policy of 15% of NPAT at just over 16%. When we look at the share repurchase program, this is equivalent to a further $0.017 value to shareholders. All in all, a very positive and constructive year in spite of a lower PGM basket price, almost 28% down from the prior year. When we look at the impact that we have, it's all good and well to focus on shareholder returns, but we have a far greater stakeholder grouping.
When we look at our employees and contractors, we employ collectively, through this year, just over 4,800 people. Permanent Tharisa employees, just around 2,500 people. Of those, operators at the Tharisa Mine, around 26% are female employees. I think we have a big focus and a keen passion on education and upliftment and empowerment of not only our own employees, but of community members. You can see that through the adult education training, the bursaries that we've awarded, the internships, and the learnerships. That's 73 people enrolled during this financial year, enabling further progress and education, through their journey. In terms of currency inflows into South Africa, direct and indirect, we look at a quantum of some $466.5 million. In terms of global direct, indirect taxes and royalties, we paid some $33 million.
Importantly, and this is in the South African context, we need to clarify that we haven't included Karo at this stage, but the amount that we've spent on Black economic empowerment, historically disadvantaged people, women, and B-BBEE compliant procurement is some $323.8 million. Certainly contributing to empowerment and upliftment through our regular and consistent sustainable procurement at the Tharisa Mine. We also spent on local and host community suppliers $3.2 million. Importantly, and this is where the education, the opportunity for employment growth and development really bears fruit, is the fact that between ourselves and our contractors, we employ 43% of our people from the host communities, a real, real significant number. In terms of our SLP and CSR initiatives, we spent $1.8 million.
So when we look at our broader impact, we've spoken about job creation, and the key here in a very volatile environment that is undergoing multiple retrenchments in various sectors in our industry, we provide a safe haven of sustainable employment, and I think this is key and important for alignment, commitment, and dedication to our business. Education is also coupled with wellness. The wellness program is not merely for our own employees, but we roll this out into the community through a program called Thusanang, which is helping each other. You can see the various initiatives and the various drives that we engage in with whether it be with the communities, with farming, with the schooling, and the ability to assist and help in a manner that is meaningful.
In terms of our environmental impact, we have made a commitment to reduce our carbon footprint by 30% by 2030. We've made great strides already by signing a 15-year wheeling agreement with renewable energy, wind, and solar through Etana Energy, which is a project that has been developed in the Northern Cape and will wheel that green energy. In fact, that equates to around 40% of our energy requirements. This, in addition, with our own dedicated Buffelspoort solar project, which is progressing well, and that will see us having a behind-the-meter 30-megawatt solution onsite. Really well on track to achieving those milestones and in fact exceeding them. Then, as mentioned, a very exciting community agricultural project of substance and significance.
So at this point, I'd like to hand over to Michelle Taylor, our COO, to run through the commodities that we mine and just give us some context.
Thanks, Phoevos. Good morning, everybody. Firstly, the co-product nature of our business and the strategy that we embarked on some 15 years ago has served us particularly well. You can see it in the set of results. In fact, there's been a steady track record over a number of years of profitability as a consequence of this co-product model. Touching first on the platinum group metals that we produce, it was a little disappointing to see PGM basket price down year on year. It was expected, so something that we planned for and understood. PGM prices were down some 28% at $1,362 per ounce compared with $1,894 per ounce in the prior year. Looking at this, we need to understand what do the supply demand fundamentals look like today and what do we anticipate seeing going forward into the next years.
From a supply point of view, there clearly is consistent messaging coming through the market in terms of expectation on further primary supply reduction coming primarily out of South Africa, which we expect, excuse the pun, but obviously to be a main catalyst for PGM price increases, so supply expected to come down in terms of primary supply. Recycling was another reduction in terms of supply numbers in this current year, and again, that was as a consequence of the economics of recycling, the longer vehicle ownership cycles, and certainly just simply the macroeconomic situation we find ourselves all living in. From a buying point of view and demand, we saw buying patterns by automakers normalizing, certainly started to normalize in 2023 and definitely into 2024.
Again, from an electric vehicle point of view, which certainly has been the story for the last 24 months, we've seen a transition there as a consequence of infrastructure rollout delays, which have necessitated hybrid solutions. I think also just the improvement in technology and what we see happening in terms of vehicles, the consumer wanting a longer range vehicle, wanting to know that he has reliance on the vehicle that he's driving, has seen plug-in hybrids coming through, has seen hybrid vehicles increasing. As a consequence of that, we've seen some 36% of sales in 2024 being attributed to plug-in hybrids and hybrids themselves. Combustion engine, of course, remains a demand driver going forward. The combustion engines have been relatively stable year on year.
We've seen some decreases in the number, but again, the Tier 4 and Euro 7 emissions standards, which will be rolled out, will impact those demand drivers and continue to see combustion engine coming through, which in turn, as a consequence of those emissions, will pull on the very platinum group metals that we produce. In terms of the deficits in the market, I think it's. There's no surprise there. We all are very familiar with what we've seen being reported by independent analysts. WPIC certainly has come out with their numbers in the last couple of days, which predicts that for the next third consecutive year into 2025, we will see deficits on platinum. Those deficits, I think just to formalize them as 2024 forecast 682,000 ounces, forecast number for 2025 is 539 ounces of platinum only.
Of course, there are still deficits in rhodium, iridium, and ruthenium, with palladium remaining at the current numbers. So PGMs well set to benefit on the demand structure of the economics that we live in going forward. Post the year end, we've seen the PGM basket price increase slightly to some $1,405 per ounce. And again, there's volatility in those numbers. I'm certainly not saying that's the number for the next financial year. It's something that we watch closely, as we see volatility in this pricing. Moving on to the chrome concentrate, which has been the good news story for Tharisa in this financial year, we saw chrome concentrate pricing increase some 13.7% from $263 in the prior year to $299 per ton.
Now, that again is on the backdrop of record chrome production, again serving Tharisa well, and really increasing their profitability for us in a sustainable way. To understand the commodity, one has to understand what are the fundamentals that drive chrome concentrate. Chrome is something that not everybody is familiar with. And I think simplistically, we always, you know, put it out there that chrome is there's no substitute for chrome when it comes to stainless steel production. So when you look at stainless steel production, I encourage you to have a look at the items that you use on a daily basis, look around your car, understand the construction environment, the engineering environment, the infrastructure that we live in that is heavily reliant on stainless steel.
And so to that end, what we did see for the first half of 2024 was an increase of 6.3% in terms of global stainless steel production and some 5.5-5.9% in terms of China's stainless steel production. I think what I want to highlight here for you is where does the stainless steel production come from? We talk about global stainless steel and we talk about Chinese stainless steel. So I just want to flip back to some of my notes here and say to you from a stainless steel point of view, in 2023, 62.8% was produced in China. The USA accounted for some 3.1%. Asia, excluding China, was 12.3%, and the rest of the world was 12%. So just trying to put that into context for you in terms of a heavily dominant market from a production point of view coming out of China.
In terms of supply, we certainly see supply dynamics remaining in balance going into 2025. I think for me personally, and my own personal opinion is that we will probably see a flat growth from a stainless steel point of view going into the next year. I certainly don't think that it will exceed 3%. It won't, I don't think it'll be the numbers that we've seen in the past year. But again, it's still a healthy market with high volumes in terms of production. So a steady market going into the next financial year will serve us well. From a supply point of view, I think that there'll be some reduction of supply coming out of the country of South Africa, particularly on the ferrochrome side. But again, we'll see that deficit being picked up in China.
We already have. We've seen increased production coming through from the ferrochrome producers to feed those stainless steel mills. Touching on the logistics side, which really is an important aspect of our business, being that South Africa is producing some 80% of China's needs, logistics is important. We are well aware of the challenges in South Africa as it relates to logistics infrastructure. We've seen a move and we've been, as Tharisa, successful to move from rail predominantly to road logistics, successfully getting our commodities into port, but firstly in Richards Bay. That was the dominant port. Today, there's a shift and significant tonnages going through Maputo, again successful in that being able to deliver to our customers in China and those outside of China and the rest of the world, India, South America, and so on.
Recently in the news, there has been discussion around volatility in the Mozambique area post their election. I think it is, it is certainly an area of concern, something that we do monitor daily. The government in Mozambique seems to have the situation under control. And as a consequence, we have been able to transport through Mozambique with one or two days in a week being constrained because of safety. And we monitor that carefully. So again, Tharisa being a major supplier into China and Indonesia, we've been able to successfully deliver it to our customers. So well positioned for 2025. Thank you, Phoevos.
Thanks, Michael. So just to refresh the audience on our vision and what drives us. And ultimately, we want to make a difference in enriching lives through innovation and we'd like to become the resources company of the future. And how do we do this? We have these six pillars of growth and expansion being the first, optimization, innovation, diversification, investment, and enrichment. And when we look at what we've done over the last five years, we're very pleased with the progress we've made in each one of these pillars. So when we look at what does it mean to have a multi-generational mineral asset endowment, it means that you can provide a security of raw material supply. In a world marred by uncertainty, volatility, and geopolitical issues, it becomes a very strategic land holding and very strategic when you look at the supply of these critical raw materials.
And I think we're blessed and in fact, we have a responsibility to make sure that we develop sustainably and responsibly these assets. We've done that at the Tharisa Mine, which is situated in the southwestern limb of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa. You can see that on the map, just above the Johannesburg red dot there. Adjacent to that, we have our Arxo Metals Renewable Energy Centre, where a lot of the R&D around energy storage, energy generation has been conducted, as well as our beneficiation site, which is where we look at the downstream beneficiation of chrome and PGM alloy that we produce in Brits, very close to the Tharisa Mine. We utilize the main ports of Durban, Richards Bay, Maputo, as Michael has mentioned, to export our bulk commodity chrome to end users.
The second largest geological formation for PGMs is the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe, and we're situated in the central chamber with Karo Platinum. And this really gives us a long life, multi-generational access to a huge resource of some 25,000 hectares. Currently, our resources declared are some 39.1 million ounces at the Tharisa Mine and 165.6 million tons of pure chrome metal. And then in Zimbabwe, we have declared some 11.3 million ounces, but we know historically, there's some 96-odd million ounces in the tenement that we control. When we look at our team, our dedicated specialist team in Germany, in Dortmund, that are focusing on Redox One, and making great strides with technology advancements, innovation, and IP to make Redox One a go-to solution for long, long-duration energy storage solutions.
Tharisa Minerals remains the linchpin and the cornerstone of our business, and it really has given us the platform to be able to grow a multi-generational business and has given us the flexibility through the co-production model. We've spoken about our lost time injury free year, but in terms of performance, we mined 4.6 million tons of reef, up 11% year on year. We milled 5.6 million tons, which was up 3.4%. The difference between the two is material that we've sourced and brought in, opportunistically and enabled us to fill our mills and continue with our development in the open pit, enabling us to mine the volumes that are required in the future. PGM production, as mentioned, 145,000 ounces, pretty much flat year on year. Chrome production, a record 1.7 million tons, up 7.8%.
The Tharisa Mine has an open pit remaining life of some 11 years, but we have a vast underground resource, as you've seen from the previous slide, with the resources and reserves. What we have undertaken in this last year is to progress our feasibility studies on the underground development, which is an on-reef, decline development, which sees us commencing on the west parts of our mine. We have three open pits, the east, west, and far west. So we're focusing on commencing our underground development on the west part of the mine. So we've continuing and we've completed multiple drill campaigns to look at the geotech, hydro work, as well as the resource and reserve expansion. We've committed capital in this financial year for early work infrastructure development that sees us being ready to approve the DFS in the second quarter of this financial year.
Ultimately, we see our mine transitioning in the next 11 years, firstly with the single west portal, but then with the east portal into a twin seam focused on the MG2 and MG4 mechanized bord and pillar mining operation with two production units producing up to 255,000 tons per month at each portal. So as we transition underground, we'll have flexibility, we'll have clean mining, and particularly important is the quality of the head grade and the feed grades that are going into the processing plant. So investing into the future, at this stage, we have 60 years underground that we're scheduling and planning for, but that's only limited by the drill work that we've done, as this ore body continues at depth. Moving on to the Karo Platinum project. Again, we take a strategic view and we invest through the cycle.
A lot of people have asked us, why are you continuing with this project? And it's the conviction and the belief that we have in the low cost nature of the Great Dyke. We hope we can take comfort from our peers that are all producing in the lowest cost quartile in terms of the all-in sustaining cost of the PGM ounce. And this has been borne out by the various studies that we've undertaken. So during the year under review, we continue to unlock value through value engineering. We have, as you can tell from the photograph on the right-hand side, completed the majority of the bulk earthworks and the civils for the concentrator complex are halfway completed. Importantly, the major long lead items, the mechanical items have been ordered.
We have procured around 70% of the materials we need, and that includes the mills, the mill motors, the transformers, the overhead power lines, the pylons, and a lot of the pumps that are required for the concentrator plant, so capital being well deployed, well spent. As you are aware, we have slowed the project down, but have not stopped the development, and we've matched the progress and the capital projects with the capital that we have on hand. Now, considering the PGM basket price, the jurisdiction, included in that, we have a constrained project debt capacity, and so what we've been working on and the team through Michael and the Karo team have been focusing on looking at alternate funding solutions, so this includes the senior debt facility through export credit finance, mezzanine facilities over and above that, as well as some streaming options.
And all of these are very well progressed. So in the next six months, we are hoping to conclude a fully funded package, which will then allow us to accelerate the final stretch of development, which we anticipate from that point in time will be around 15 months. I think important, we have backed ourselves here, and as Tharisa has invested some $131 million to date in the project, and that's from June 2022 when we pulled the trigger. And prior to that, in terms of pre-development, exploration, resource and reserve declaration, we have spent some $17.6 million. And the majority of that capital has actually gone into the project itself, the concentrator, exploration, infrastructure, project indirect. We did a trial mining phase, as well as all the studies, environmental approvals, insurances, and legal compliance.
So I believe a prudent approach, measured and strategic in terms of timing and our commitment to this project. At this point, I'd like to switch tech and look at our capital that has not been significant, but the returns have been material in terms of our focus on innovation. So if you look at the Tharisa business model, the co-product of producing both chrome and PGMs from the Middle Group reef horizon, this has really been born into our culture of innovation. And our dedicated wholly owned subsidiary, Arxo Metals, has successfully demonstrated and commercialized many of these technologies, the first of which is our PGM smelting. We continue to produce PGM alloy and sell that alloy.
We are busy now with the downstream refining of that alloy, with the first commercial reactor unit being built as we speak now and having an end-to-end solution where we can produce four-nine PGM metal, which we'll be able to sell, albeit on a smaller scale, but the first demonstration scale end-to-end complete PGM circuit. Coupled with that, we've also successfully produced our chrome alloys, as mentioned previously, which we've sold into industrial users in South Africa. Redox One is our energy storage solution using chrome and iron as the electrolyte. It was launched earlier in March of this year at the Africa Energy Indaba. We've demonstrated our first energy storage units at the 40 kilowatt level. We're busy upscaling and testing now the 200 kilowatt units and utilizing our own electrolyte produced from the chrome concentrate that we mine at the Tharisa Mine.
So very, very important circular economy story that we're telling and a solution that ultimately the world requires at scale. Important to this is the rebalancing technology that the team have developed, which allows sustainable and continual operation in a live remote operating environment. Ultimately, we've put together a dedicated team that are experts in this field and will deliver on our mine to megawatt strategy. And this really talks to the circular economy of utilizing the metals that we mine to provide energy storage solutions that are green, sustainable, and cost-effective, that the world desperately needs at this point in time. And ultimately benefiting multiple stakeholders through the investment in the primary resources, as well as the technology that provides the ultimate solution. I think I've spoken enough now and really it is our financial year end.
So I'd like to hand over to Michael now, our CFO, to run through the financial highlights for us.
Thank you, Phoevos, and good morning. If we reflect on this past year and talk about it from a financial perspective, I think there are two key themes that have run through the results. The first is our co-product business model and the resilience of that, supported by being a low-cost competitive producer from shallower resources, has really again proven itself throughout this year. The other one is this operational performance has enabled us to continue investing in the sustainability of our operations and the growth to address longevity through the commodity cycle. Net cash flows from operations generated $204.6 million, and at 30 September, we had net cash of $117.5 million on our balance sheet.
Our balance sheet is really primed for the growth opportunities to ensure our sustainable longevity of the operations. And it's not only on the existing operations, for example, on the underground, which is going to expand the life of mine further, but also growth assets such as Karo Platinum, which Phoevos has just touched on. And while we do have our plans in terms of the investment, we do and are focused on capital discipline. We prioritize our capital allocation and really align it to the strategic initiatives and availability of capital that we have. I'm very pleased though, as we continue to ensure returns to shareholders. We had a successful inaugural share repurchase program of $5 million.
The dividend for the year, just proposed a dividend for approval by the shareholders of $0.03 per share as a final dividend, together with the other $0.015 at interim stage, $0.045 per share, as a dividend, maintaining our dividend policy of distributing at least 15% of consolidated net profit after tax. I think very pleasing on the revenue side, we have a record revenue of $721.4 million. I think it's a very pleasing revenue increase of 11%, particularly when you look at the commodity pricing cycle that we operated in. PGMs contributed 27%, and that's an ex-works basis of our overall revenue. PGM prices were down some 28.1%, over the course of this last financial year.
In terms of the pool split and the contributions, platinum just under 40% and rhodium, while just under 10% of our pool split, contributing very meaningfully still at 32% of our PGM revenue. The stock performance really dropped. Chrome prices up 13.7% to $299 per ton, and also increased production volumes resulted in chrome contributing 63% of our overall revenue and metallurgical grade, which is a bulk product, 90% of that production. I really like this waterfall because it depicts over the last financial year our financial operating performance, and I think it's very clear to understand what really happened in the business. So you'll see that there was a small reduction in PGM volumes, but more than offset in a significant increase in our chrome volumes, record production.
PGM prices, as mentioned earlier, coming down some 28.1%, but more than offset by the increase in the chrome prices and the chrome volumes. Again, I think this just demonstrates again the resilience of being a co-product producer. Some savings on mining costs, and then I think just touch on the selling expenses. The selling expenses, and that is relating to chrome, moving the product from mine to port, increasing marginally, but really being impacted by the increase in the overall volumes. And that leading to an improvement in our EBITDA to $177.6 million. Just focusing a bit on the unit costs, a little more granular detail on this, and I'm not going to go through every aspect of the slide, but look at the cost per cube mined, up marginally 4.8% at $11 dollars per cube.
It's very pleasing, and we've got increased volumes of that, and therefore the fixed costs being absorbed. Again, there was a drive during the course of this last year on costs, and that is reflecting in those numbers. Cost per reef ton mined, again, very pleasing performance, up 2.3% at $40 per ton. Then jumping through, just look at the consolidated cash cost per ton milled. In fact, a decrease overall to just under $60 per ton. We are a co-product producer of both platinum group metals and chrome concentrates. But if we were to look at the all-in sustaining cost for PGM ounces on a 3E basis, and we take into account the credits from the chrome sales, you have an all-in sustaining cost of $205 per 3E ounce.
We need to look at that and say, what was the basket price, which was $1,262 per ounce, payable percentage, some 80% of that. So very clearly strong margins. The only caveat to that is we have excluded the Karo Platinum CapEx in looking at the all-in sustaining ounce calculation, which that is a growth asset going forward. We had a very resilient gross profit, and I think I'm very pleased with the overall gross profit margin, 25.6%, gross profit at $184.6 million. And I think this is really a testament to the team on their focus on production improvements and production, focus on costs and driving down the costs as we go through, and as I said, contributing to a healthy gross profit margin of 25.6%. When I started presenting, I mentioned the key theme from a financial point of view of investing through the commodity cycle.
We invested $196.8 million in capital, and that is in our sustained operations as well as our growth operations. I think two key points to highlight there is the investment in Karo Platinum. During the course of this financial year, $84.1 million invested there, and then $65.8 million on deferred stripping. We appointed a contractor during the course of last year to really focus on ensuring we had access to our reefs going forward, and that was an expenditure incurred. We get the benefit of that going forward. Just looking to year ahead in terms of our capital spend, and this is excluding Karo Platinum deferred stripping account, it's put in the deferred stripping. It's $104.7 million planned for the upcoming year.
Importantly, there is the $20 million that we have approved to spend on underground study work and really preliminary work to accelerate the progression to underground to ensure the longevity and sustainability of operations. Just for the current year, and Phoevos did touch on it, we have slowed down on the Karo Platinum project, but on closing of the financing, we've then accelerated that program. At the moment, we have $186.2 million that is budgeted for the current financial year, but that will be matched to funding, and that spend will be impacted by the closing of the funding overall. We have a very strong and healthy balance sheet, as mentioned earlier, cash and cash equivalents of $223.7 million. Our total debt, $106.2 million, short term, just over half of that. We are looking at extending the profile of our overall debt going forward.
90% of that is dollar denominated. I think again, just to touch on some of the ratios, and I know it's a bit of granular detail. As you are in a positive cash position, we have a current ratio of 1.8, net debt to EBITDA of negative 0.7, net debt to equity of 15.1%. We still have undrawn facilities of $84.6 million, excluding our trade finance facilities associated with the chrome. I think it's very important to understand the strength of this balance sheet when looking at the growth opportunities that we're currently pursuing, both underground and in terms of a funding solution for Karo Platinum. I think probably the top graph on the right really depicts the cash flow and the ability to fund the sustainability of operations going forward in the growth projects. We started with a net cash flow from operations, $204.6 million.
We have a sustaining capital of $45.1 million. Because of materiality and the fact that it's not a long-term spend, deferred stripping shown separately as a meaningful $65.8 million, giving us free cash flow from our sustaining operations after sustaining expenditure of $93.7 million. Investments not only in Karo Platinum, but in projects such as Redox, R&D, and so forth for capital growth, $87.8 million, still left us with a free cash flow after sustaining and from growth of $5.8 million. And typically, you wouldn't expect your operations to generate sufficient cash to sustain and build a project the size of Karo Platinum. I think perhaps just to touch on the bottom graph a bit in terms of our funding, term loan, that was a accelerating repayment profile down to just under 30% of our total funding.
The next largest one, the bond listed on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange, was the first of its kind to part fund the initial development of Karo Platinum, 26%, and then very key from the operational sustaining of our business, our asset-backed finance, which funds the yellow fleet at the mine, just under 25% of our total debt. I think really being focused on capital discipline, we've also had a key part of that is ensuring we have returns to shareholders, and we have mentioned earlier the $0.03 per share final dividend. I'm very pleased that the annual dividend $0.45 and notwithstanding the volatilities in commodity cycles that we have faced, being able to maintain our dividend policy of distributing a minimum of 15% of net profit after tax.
If we look over the history of the company over the more than last 10 years, we have been a dividend-paying company. We have consistently applied our policy, and in total have returned $111.9 million as cumulative distributions to shareholders over the past 10 years. And if you add in the $5 million, increasing that to $116.9 million. So really reflecting our continued commitment to capital discipline and returns to shareholders. And that's a very brief overview of the financial performance. I'd like to hand back to Phoevos. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. So when we look at the year ahead, we are guiding our PGM production to be between 140,000 and 160,000 ounces, and then chrome concentrate production of 1.65-1.8 million tons. I thought it would be useful to look at the last 10-odd years' performance, in the bottom left-hand bar chart.
And this is a cumulative performance in US dollars. So when we look at the cumulative performance on an earnings, or EBITDA basis, this business has generated $1.26 billion. We've invested just shy of $780 million. And as Michael has recently mentioned on the previous slide, we've returned $112 million to shareholders in the form of dividends. And that obviously excludes the $5 million share repurchase, which in effect is a return to shareholders as well. So great performance, consistent delivery, which is really the theme, that we like to reinforce when we look at our investment case. So why, Tharisa, why is this a long-term value play? When you look at the commodities that we mine, these are critical commodities. PGMs have played a vital role and will continue to play a vital role in decarbonizing the planet.
They've done a phenomenal job in cleaning tailpipe emissions and will continue to do that and play a vast role in terms of medical, electronics, as well as other critical uses, notwithstanding the fact that there's a future demand for the hydrogen economy. Chrome concentrates and chrome are irreplaceable and importantly, 100% recyclable in terms of their stainless steel application, and this sets us into a very critical commodity framework, coupled with the fact that in Karo we have very strong base metal credits of copper, nickel, and cobalt, which is often overlooked as a byproduct. When we look at the future, we look to double our output of platinum group metals once Karo Platinum is up and operational, which really puts us into the next tier of PGM producers.
Having multi-sites, multi-commodities gives us operational flexibility, diversification, and allows us to access other industries, downstream, industries that typically miners do not have access to. This is something that we're focusing on beyond mining, looking at the opportunities that the metals we mine present to us and investing in those technologies. We often forget that we have a fully integrated marketing sales and logistics competency, and this allows us to be front-facing, allows us to deliver and market our products to end users. To reiterate, Michael, capital discipline is one of the cornerstones of our business, growing, investing in our business, and returning value to shareholders. When we look at Tharisa, we've been operational for 16 years. We've been cash generative for 11 years, profitable for 10 years. We've returned significant value to shareholders, and we've invested significant capital in our business.
And ultimately, this sets us up to be the company, resources company of the future, using innovation as the key differentiator. With that, I'd like to hand over to Ilja for the Q&A. Thank you for your time this morning. Thank you very much, and good morning again. I'm going to run through some of the questions because some questions have sort of been answered in the text, so let me focus on the ones that are vital right now. There's a question here around the mining, and it relates back to also some of the broader strategy for you. You showed very strong momentum in H2. Why would you not increase your production outlook for F25? Do you not expect the current mining to perform? And then in line with that, the question around, where do we see output with regards to the operations?
Do we still see the 200,000, 2 million ton target as an opportunity? Certainly, thank you. Yeah, so it's a valid question. Our guidance on the low end is fairly conservative, but if you look at the upper end at 1.8 million tons, we've given ourselves the target to exceed the 1.7 million tons of this year, and really start driving towards that 2 million ton target. So it's a function of the quality of the ore that we mentioned, the head grades, the oxidative state, particularly impacting the PGM production. So yes, we're more conservative on the PGM front, on the low end, consistent with this year, on the upper side, 160,000 ounces, still lower than our previous performances.
But really, when we look at the ore blend coming in, primarily, the fresh versus oxidized material, where we look at that as a key factor in terms of chrome recovery. The second part of the question is, can we achieve the 2 million tons, 200,000 ounces? We have the ingredients, we have the capacity, and we have the ability to achieve that, milestone metric that we've set for ourselves. And it's not like, Elon Musk's fully autonomous driving that every year will happen in six months. We've set ourselves a two-year trajectory to achieve that, target. And it's a function of three things. One, mining the full 5.6 million tons. Secondly, getting that head grade, correct. In other words, the feed, the metal content going into the plant.
And we know our processing capacity and capabilities are there to recover above 80% PGMs on a fresh ore basis. And then secondly, our chrome abilities are improving consistently and getting us up to that 80% level as well. So yes, we certainly are committed within the next 24 months to at least strive for those 200,000 ounces and 2 million tons of chrome production.
Thank you. Moving on to Karo, there's a question here. Lots of investors talk about investing through the commodity cycle, but lose their nerve towards the bottom of the cycle, which clearly we haven't yet. Can you talk about the cash flow generation potential or even at current prices so investors can understand in more detail the potential upside of Karo?
When we have a look at the Karo Platinum project itself, it's going to be using some 200,000 ounces per annum of platinum group metals. And at the current commodity price, with initial plan to mine on an open pit basis, it is cash generative at these current prices. It is the capital structuring that is impacting your ability to secure the debt. We do believe in the PGM commodity basket price and the future of the PGMs. I think it was properly cleared or elaborated on by Michael. And so we are going through what I believe to be the bottom of the cycle. We believe the cycle is going to turn. So even at today's values, it generates value. It is an economic proposition, and it has a very, very long life. As Phoevos mentioned, some 96 million ounces.
It's going to be going way beyond our lifespans, and we'll be able to operate profitably. The longer-term plans, and we're looking very carefully at the optimization options and planning for the future, is also having a look at going underground, when the 10-year open pit life of mine has expired. The strip ratio is a bit higher than we would have liked at this point, because of the slope of the reef horizons, and it would be economically beneficial to effectively accelerate the underground. Yes, profitable, 200,000 ounces that matches or doubles Tharisa's PGM production. Today's commodity price is still cash flow generative.
I think just to add to Michael's point, at an operating level, we're estimating all-in costs for PGM basket price of circa $800 an ounce. That gives you an indication of the margins.
Thank you.
Turning to our other commodity, chrome, I know Michael spoke at length about the chrome market, but, there, people are aware of the chrome price having dropped, about 15%, over the last couple of weeks. It's a question around how do we view this impacting our chrome business, and is there an opportunity here to prioritize chrome over PGMs and vice versa, given where commodity prices are. So two prompt questions on the opportunities of our commodity prices.
Yeah, thanks for the question, Ilja. I think it's a very relevant question, and yes, we have seen chrome pricing reduce post the year-end, and, quite corrected, it has come down some 15% or so. It's not unusual that at this time of year, we would see lower chrome prices, and that's as a consequence of the lead-up to the Christmas break.
Typically, you'd see a recovery coming in post the Chinese New Year, which is earlier, it could be, end of January, but I think fundamentally, we need to look and turn to what do the inventories look like, what is happening from a production point of view in terms of stainless steel and ferrochrome. From a port inventory, we currently see that China has 40 days of inventory, which means it's sitting at around 2.2 million tons, so less than what one would expect for a six-week inventory. Previously, China would have around eight weeks. It has lowered over the last 18 months, so 40 days is not a huge amount of inventory, firstly. Secondly, the volumes that we've seen go on from seaborne point of view in September and October are lower than usual.
Again, not a surprise in any form there, but it does put pressure on the inventory holding in China. I think where we stand now is that we're poised in a very difficult position where we see lower prices. However, reliant on the supply-demand fundamentals and looking at what we forecast into the next calendar year, we expect to see a recovery coming through in terms of that price. So, yes, some concern, but cautiously optimistic as well that we will see a rebound in that price and we will see it start to improve. I think the other important thing to mention from a Tharisa point of view is that we have some buffer in chrome. And the reason I'm saying that to you is that the $299 for the average price for this financial year is around metallurgical chrome concentrate.
We also produce a specialty-grade concentrate, and that typically has a $30-$50 premium on the metallurgical price. So, as you see metallurgical come down, you will see specialty come down, but at the same time, Tharisa has a buffer in that it can produce up to 25% of its production in the form of specialty ore. So we will flex grade and have a look at the opportunities there to maximize the price that we do receive.
So the second part of the question is, can we prioritize more chrome over PGMs? We do have limited flexibility, and in this last year, I think we demonstrated the focus on chrome production, albeit at the expense of PGM recovery because we processed more oxidized material.
Ultimately, we'd like to produce or process 100% fresh ore material, which then gets the metallurgical complex in balance of recovery of chrome and PGMs or maximum recovery. So there is some flexibility there, and that talks to our procurement ability and access to additional ores, which does give us some flexibility, but limited.
Thank you. Question for you, Michael. I guess two questions with regard to your balance sheet. One is, how much debt are you planning to refinance, in the coming year? And then secondly, isn't a royalty funding an option for Karo?
Thank you for that question. And if we look at the debt funding that we've been planning to refinance, we're talking about $100 million of refinancing. The stretching, we've got very short dates of funding profile.
It doesn't make sense, in the cycle and where we're going through the growth. So probably looking to extend that to about five years of debt repayments. So that's on the funding side and what we're planning to refund. We have recently disclosed a very small additional facility at ZAR 300 million with the Bank of China as well. That is a three-year funding facility with the bullet repayment on the term loan portion. It's a term loan and revolving credit facility as well. It's just a first. We trade with them, particularly on the trade finance side, and it's an expansion of their business and our relationship with them, which doesn't make good sense. So the second part of your question. Second part of your question,
isn't royalty for Karo an option?
Royalty could be a possible option.
There would be some negative tax consequences of it and the way the withholding taxes work within Zimbabwe. It is something that we have explored in the past. It's not off the table. And if we get the appropriate ones and we can structure it correctly and get the necessary incentives from government, it would be something that we would consider, but not our preferred option at the moment because it comes down to the top line and impacts your senior debt facilities going forward.
Thank you. Phoevos, question for you on Karo, not so much with regards to the project CapEx, but where do we stand on the timeline with regards to Karo and are there any more requirements with regards to approvals on the government side that is required to meet those certain timelines?
Thanks, Ilja.
We are fully permitted and fully licensed. Our environmental approvals are all in place for mining and the concentrator. We are upgrading a dam facility and there's an outstanding approval on that, but it's imminent. From a regulatory point of view, from a security of tenure, all our permits and licenses are intact. No issue on that front. In terms of timelines, upon a fully funded solution, let's say it's as we discussed, multi-component solution, it would take us approximately 15 months to feed the first ore into mill if we were to pull the trigger at that point in time. Now, that timeline will become shorter and shorter as we progress with some of these other packages that we're talking about.
So, as we sit today, on a fully funded basis, it would take us 15 months to get into production.
Thank you. Question relating back to PGMs and our view on PGMs versus what's actually going on the market. One question here relates to whether could there not be manipulation going on in the market with regards to the low prices. But I think the other one that extends into that theme of where the PGMs are going is what evidence are we seeing that mines will close at these low levels or is just simply a question of a disguised social operation sustaining jobs at some of the higher cost operations. So I think a broad question of why we have confidence in the PGM market.
Yeah, so thanks, Ilja.
We certainly have confidence in terms of the PGM market and it really is a function of the fact that there are significant demand drivers for the critical metals that we supply in the form of PGMs. I think in terms of supply, there certainly has been various public discussions from big PGM producers that are looking at their business plans going into the next calendar year. And I think the expectation is that there would be some reduction in terms of production forecasts going forward. The reality of job cuts has been very real for people in South Africa. We've seen significant job cuts across the PGM producers.
From a Tharisa point of view, we've been particularly proud of the fact that we work really hard not to get into that cycle of job cuts because it is a debilitating process from a morale point of view and from a production point of view. So Tharisa has not had any job cuts and not expecting anything at this point in time. Our peers unfortunately have had that. Their results, I think most big PGM producers have results coming out towards the end of March, and I think they'll certainly be giving the market guidance on what will happen in terms of their production metrics. So I can't speak for them. I think the view is that there will be some cuts.
We've seen some cuts which have already been announced out of Sibanye-Stillwater earlier this year, and that certainly did have an impact on the view of PGMs going forward.
Perfect. I'm just going to jump in there and thank you for answering those questions from investors. Of course, the company can refuse the questions submitted today. We will publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. But just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Phoevos, can I just ask you for a few closing comments?
Yeah, thank you very much, and I'd like to thank everyone for the attendance this morning, and allowing us the opportunity to share the year-end review and our results.
I think I would like to thank our Tharisa team for digging deep during this last year. There've been many challenges and headwinds in the mining context in South Africa, and it really, really is a resilient team that is able to continuously deliver through these various challenges and operational headwinds, and so I believe we're really poised to enter the next chapter of growth of our business, and while we've been talking and planning the development of these projects, they are materializing, albeit slower than we would like because we are impatient and we want to deliver sooner, but when we look at it in a global context and the time it takes to take a greenfields project into production, you know, we always used to refer to an average of 16 years.
We just saw the EY statistic that it takes 30 years in certain jurisdictions to deliver greenfield projects into production. So when we look at the fact that capital needs to be patient, you need to have that conviction. You need to be able to look through the volatility and the uncertainty, in a world that is really unstable at the moment. And ultimately, we've seen that bear fruit at the Tharisa Mine, where we had the similar challenges and similar headwinds, and yet we stood our ground. And today, we have a very solid and stable performing business unit, and we're looking to replicate that at the Karo Mine, but also looking at diversification with our downstream initiatives.
When we look at the redox flow battery, when you contextualize the chrome that we produce, we could generate gigawatts of storage from the chrome that we produce on an annual basis. These are, you know, game-changing initiatives. We're very excited about the future. We're excited about what we're doing, and we certainly have conviction and belief in our growth story going forward, underpinned by a very stable business. With that, I'd like to thank all of you and wish you a good day further and a safe festive season ahead.
Thank you all for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations?
This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it will be greatly valued by the company.