Good morning and welcome to the Tharisa plc Investor Presentation. Throughout this quarter, presentation investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted at any time by the Q&A tab situated in the right 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 it receives in the meeting itself. However, the company can review 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. I'd now like to hand you over to Ilja Graulich. Good morning, sir.
Good morning, and thank you very much. Just a brief introduction from my side. Our management team is online. As you can see, all the company information is also available on our website, including the results booklet, the short form, SENSE and RNS announcement, as well as this presentation. A copy of this presentation recording will be available on the website as soon as the meeting has concluded. Of the management team in London, I will hand over to my CEO, Phoevos Pouroulis, who will then take you through the initial results and then hand over to the rest of the management team. Thank you.
Good morning and welcome, and thank you for joining this half-year interim results presentation for our financial year 2025. Joining me here in London is Bernie Pryor, MD of Karo Mining Holdings, and Andrew Henwood, our FD for Karo Mining Holdings, and in Cyprus, Michael Jones, our CFO of the group. Moving on to the first slide, we really are passionate about innovating the resources company of the future. You can see that we are involved in a vertically integrated value-accretive pipeline of exploration, mining, processing, smelting, refining, marketing, sales, and logistics, and ultimately producing precious metals, chrome alloys. With our Redox Flow energy storage system, we're focusing on energy storage and the massive demand that is forecast coming forward and the byproduct of base metals.
These are critical and strategic minerals, and we believe we're in the right place, we're in the right jurisdiction to benefit from the increased focus on securing these critical minerals and metals. What are the key highlights for our half-year? Safety is a core value of ours. As I always say, it's not necessarily a priority or a number on a checklist, it is embedded in everything that we do. We're very pleased to report industry-leading safety statistics at the Tharisa Mine in South Africa, 0.02 lost time injury frequency rate per 200,000 man-hours worked, and at Karo Platinum, 0.08. As I mentioned, this is a core value of ours and is entrenched in everything that we do. Just to recap on our half-year production, we produced PGMs at some 62.4 thousand ounces and chrome concentrate production of some 755.4 thousand tons of chrome concentrate.
In the context of severe weather, we had severe thunderstorms, lightning events, which did impact our operations in the first half. As you'll see during the course of the presentation, we are optimistic in terms of our output for the second half of this year. When we look at the progress that we've made in various aspects in terms of the development areas that we focus on, we have completed the Definitive Feasibility Study that is undergoing a technical third-party review for the Tharisa Minerals West portal underground. We will share with you today the value enhancements that we've been evaluating at Karo Platinum. In terms of our Arxo Metals beneficiation strategy, we've cemented our focus on downstream beneficiation of platinum group metals with us commissioning in the second half of this year our first PGM reactor, and we are producing chrome alloys that we currently sell.
The commercialization of our Redox One long-duration energy storage battery is well on track with us moving to megawatt scale in the new calendar year. Just touching on the vital numbers for the six months, in the context of a fairly muted PGM basket price of $1,403 per ounce, slightly up from the prior period or comparable period of 4.4%, and then a metallurgical chrome concentrate price of $253 per tonne, that down 12.2%. In the context of lower output and lower PGM and chrome prices, you'll see that our revenue came in at $280.8 million, down some 24%, EBITDA of $43.8 million, that down 45% year on year, but still generating a net profit after tax in spite of these constraints of $8.2 million for the half-year.
Pleasing to report is that we are still generating cash from our operations, some $36 million, down from the $86 million the prior comparable period. Importantly, we still continue to invest in our business, spending capital of some $52.5 million with $12.8 million going into Karo Platinum for the six months. Ending the half with cash and cash equivalents of $193.6 million, this all resulting in a headline earnings per share of $0.029. I think the big news here is that we considered at length at our board meeting and with the board of directors what our dividend policy is, which you recall is 15% of net profit after tax. We elected to match last year's dividend of $0.015, which results in a much higher ratio of 54.3% of impact.
That really talks to the belief in our underlying business, the buoyant market prices, current spot price of PGMs $1,500, metallurgical chrome grade prices trading between $295-$305. Outlook for the next six months looking very positive. Coupled with that, we are announcing today our second share repurchase program of $5 million. The first program, which we undertook last year, proved to be very successful and highly supportive of our equity and share deep value story. With that, I'll move on now to just unpacking why we are feeling more positive around the PGM outlook. We've just come out of Platinum Week in London, and the general consensus is a positive outlook in terms of supply constraints on the one hand, and then more robust demand coming in from a number of sectors.
You can see the graph on the right-hand side, which I'm not proposing to go through in detail. PGMs play a vital role in many industries, not just autocatalytic applications in the commuter or automobile industry, but vast from industrial, jewelry, electronics, medical applications, and processing power as well. With that outlook, we look at what the deficits are forecast and have been over the last few years, and we see Platinum having reacted quite well to this outlook of increased demand, constrained supply, and with substantial increase in jewelry demand in China, as well as coin, ETF, and bar, as we refer to investment demand for Platinum in particular, has seen current prices elevated in the region of $1,060 off a sort of average price of some $1,000 for the last 12 months.
We really look at the BEV penetration, battery electric vehicle penetration, and the slowdown and the pivot to hybrid drivetrains and range extenders or ERVs, EREVs as is referred to, which utilize small engines, either petrol or diesel, to provide charging capacity or generating capacity for a battery or electric drivetrain. This advent and shift to these new energy drivetrains has meant more demand for PGMs for catalysis of the tailpipe emissions. Short to medium-term outlook looking positive. We look to the multi-decade PGM demand that the hydrogen economy can and potentially will provide. We see that the European Union, looking at independence and security of energy supply, are announcing big support for hydrogen projects and new technologies and applications of these critical metals.
With sustained deficits, we see above-ground stocks being depleted, supporting a balanced environment and what we believe, hopefully, is a continued positive trajectory in terms of the PGM basket price outlook. In terms of chrome, we have remained consistent in our view that chrome plays a vital role in terms of the modernized global economy. You can see the multitude of applications beyond stainless steel in terms of industrial applications, in terms of renewable energy applications, and in our instance, chrome iron Redox Flow batteries as an energy storage solution. There is no substitute for chrome. It is the component that makes stainless steel stainless. In that, South Africa, containing more than 72% of the world's resources, is a critical supplier. The Tharisa Mine supplying around 10% of Chinese imports is a key strategic supplier of this critical metal.
If you look at global stainless steel production growth for 2024, that increased some 7% at 62.6 million tons. We look at this on a sort of more conservative basis, and we say if stainless steel grows at a 3.5% CAGR, we will require an additional 1.8 million tons of chrome concentrate. Put simply, that means you need to build another Tharisa Mine every year just to maintain the chrome unit demand. With that in mind, we see stability and a very balanced market, potentially even going into physical deficit depending on potential supply constraints, logistics challenges, and so forth. When we look at energy storage, we see the demand growing exponentially with a market forecast to be $3 trillion by 2040.
A terawatt hour of storage is required, and we believe that even if we play a small role in providing a solution through our Redox Flow battery, we can benefit from this massive demand. Moving on to the important parts of today's presentation, I'd like to hand over to Michael Jones to run through the financial highlights.
Thank you, Phoevos, and welcome and good morning to our audience who've joined us for a results presentation this morning. Our results for the six-month period ended 31 March 2025 have really been achieved in an operating environment where the group has managed through operational challenges as well as increased uncertainty arising from the American trade policies, which led to global volatility in currency markets as well as impacting the financial markets, particularly currency, but also the outlook for global growth and inflation.
Against this particular backdrop, it's very pleasing that our co-product business model at the Tharisa Mine of producing both platinum group metals and chrome has again proved its mettle with profitable operations and cash flow generations. This has enabled us to maintain our three pillars of investment. One, investing in sustainability of our operations. For the Tharisa Mine, which is a multi-generational asset, it's also funding and working through on the study, as Phoevos mentioned, on the transition to underground mining in parallel with the open-cast mining, which is going to unlock an excess of 60 years of additional life of mine. On the expansion capital, we continue to invest strategically in a tier-one asset, the Karo Platinum project on the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe, as well as in our projects and opportunities such as Redox One, which is a chrome Redox Flow battery long and deep storage.
Of course, the third pillar is our commitment to capital discipline and returning funds to shareholders. As Phoevos mentioned, interim dividend of $0.015 and a share repurchase program of $5 million, which I'll touch in a little more detail going forward. Just to touch on it again, net cash growth from operations, $36 million, and net cash of $87.6 million at the 31st of March. Just having a look further at some of the numbers and detail behind the numbers mentioned earlier, our revenue of $280.8 million, there is a decrease of 23.9% on the comparable period. There are a couple of factors driving this. There was a reduction in our sales of both platinum group metals by 13.5%, chrome by 8.8%, PGM basket price up marginally 4.4% at $1,403 per ounce, and the metallurgical grade price down 12.2% at $253 per tonne.
If we then start looking at segmental contribution of our revenue and we work this out on a FCA basis, in other words, we calculate it at the gate, the Tharisa Mine gate, and we exclude the shipping and freight costs that are associated with the chrome to be a true reflection of that contribution. The chrome contribution to revenue, some 68.7%. If we look at this further, metallurgical grade, which is used in the stainless steel industry, production of some 86% of the total chrome. This is exported primarily to China, Indonesia, and more recently into the Indian market. Our specialty grades, which include foundry and chemical grade, and our premium product, some 13.8% of our overall production.
PGM revenue contributed 26% to our sales, and platinum marginally comprised a major constituent or component at 36.8%, and rhodium, while comprising less than 10% of the full split, contributing 35% to the overall revenue. I'm not going to go through this slide in any detail. It's a unit cost. There's a lot of information on here, but I do want to touch on a number of figures. I think the reef tons mined up 14.3% at 2.4 million tons, impacting favor on the cost per reef ton mined with increased volumes absorbed on the fixed cost element at $38.5 per ton, down 12.7%. Tons milled, relatively constant period on period, and online cash cost per ton milled flat at $56.8 per ton.
We're all well aware that Tharisa Minerals operates in a weakening currency environment, but unfortunately, there's no help from the currency over this period from a cost perspective, with the rand effectively strengthening marginally to 18.2 to the dollar. Another contributing factor to the favorable costs was the reduction in the ore purchases. With improvement in overall production, there was less reliance on ore purchases, which in the prior period was 29% of our total online cash cost, reducing to 7%, and we're seeing the benefit coming through on the cash cost per ton mold. We are a co-product producer, but if we look at an all-in cost for platinum group metal ounce, I'm going to take the whole basket of it. We take the credits from the chrome sales.
You have an all-in cost that is a sustaining cost with the CapEx included, but at the Tharisa Mine, we are excluding Karo Platinum, $306 per ounce. You need to measure that against the price of $1,403. Recently, as of this morning, a spot basket price for Tharisa of $1,525. I like this next graph because I really believe that this graph depicts what happened over the comparable period. It is effectively an EBITDA waterfall graph and reconciling from the prior period to the current period, $43.8 million. I would like to focus on a number of the bars within that chart. You will see the red ones in the middle. That is an impact of the reduction of 8.8% in chrome volumes and a very material impact on our overall EBITDA of chrome prices, which reduced by 12.2%.
The green bar, mining commodities, that's the benefit of our improved production and therefore reduction in the requirement to purchase run-of-mine ores. Selling expenses, while it shows as a favorable, the selling expenses were flat overall, and the, I suppose, improvement there was really unfortunate as a consequence of the reduced sales volumes rather than reduction in overall costs. That results in our EBITDA of $43.8 million. Our gross profit is down at $39.9 million for the six months, and the gross profit margin is significantly down at 14.2%. If however we have a look at the year going forward, we have seen an improving trend in our overall production. We have seen an improvement in PGM prices, and the chrome markets have stabilized at the $295-$305 per ton.
This would therefore flow through to the profits expected in the second half, and therefore an improvement recovery in our overall gross profit margin. We are committed to investing in the future of Tharisa, and for the first six months, we spent $52.5 million on CapEx. That included $12.8 million on Karo Platinum and $11.6 million on deferred stripping. In the comparable period, we spent some $114 million, of which Karo Platinum comprised $63 million. We will be presenting later on more detail on the Karo Platinum project, but just to mention what we have done is while we are closing out on the funding for Karo Platinum, we continue to invest and are committed to ensuring various infrastructure projects, whether it is the water supply, electricity, and so forth, continue so that once fully funded, we can expedite the delivery on that tier-one project.
If we look forward for the year as a whole, we had budgeted $104.7 million on capital expenditure, excluding Karo Platinum. Looking where we are at the moment, there might be an under-expenditure on that. We continually review our capital expenditure based on our requirements for either new equipment, used equipment, and so forth, and also in light of where the commodity prices were over the last six months. Included in our capital budget is some $20 million that has been allocated to the underground studies and also the early works to ensure that we have ready access to the portals and that the portals are made safe. Just touching on Karo Platinum, the capital commitments at the moment outstanding are $55.2 million, and that will be funded from the cash that they currently hold on balance sheet and an undrawn commitment against Tharisa Minerals for just over $30 million.
Our balance sheet remains healthy with $193.6 million in cash and cash equivalents, and we generated cash of some $36 million for the six months after taking off our debts of $106 million, net cash of $87.6 million. If we just focus for a moment on the graph on the top right, we reconcile there between the cash that we generated on a free cash flow basis, analyze it out to sustaining CapEx, and then the expansion CapEx. There was a reduction in our net cash flow from operations, and this is to be expected with the reduction in the chrome concentrate prices. Net cash from operations is $36 million.
We effectively invested the same amount in sustaining operations and then in capital growth and particularly R&D, which is Redox One and our beneficiation project being undertaken by Arxo Metals, a further $16.3 million, leaving a negative free cash flow after investment growth and sustaining operations of $16.5 million. Just touching on our total debts, it's $106.1 million. There is a very significant short-term portion of some 73% equating to $77.5 million of short-term. Just touching on that, you'll see on the pie chart on the right that there is a bond there. It's a bond that was issued by Karo Mining Holdings. It's listed on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange, and that bond matures at the beginning of December.
We have commenced discussions with both the existing bondholders and new potential investors, and there is significant appetite, and we believe that this bond will be refinanced at the appropriate time, and that work stream, as I mentioned, has already commenced. We also have various term loans, and what we're doing, as you'll notice because of the significant short-term debt, is we have undertaken negotiations and signed term sheets to extend the term loans and raise additional funds and capital to be used for funding the underground projects when that cash pool is required. Trade finance, it's short-term debt, some 18.9%, and that is the funding for the chrome, and we will keep rolling that as we go forward. I think a very pleasing one is a small facility. We did secure a CNY 300 million facility from the Bank of China.
It is a three-year voluntary payment term loan of INR 150, a revolving credit facility, partially drawn down of INR 100, and then foreign exchange contracts as well. That is also included in the overall debt calculations. As indicated previously, we are committed to providing returns to shareholders. We did declare an interim dividend of $0.015 per share, which matches that of our comparable period interim dividend, and it exceeds our dividend policy of 15% of net profit after tax at a very healthy 54.3%. When we assessed the dividend, we did not look just at the profits of the last six months. We also looked forward at where we expected the results of the group to go. Profits for the last six months, we had operational challenges. Chrome prices were under pressure. They have recovered. PGM prices have recovered, and we have an improving production trend.
On the back of that, it has given us confidence to declare a dividend of $0.015. In total then, we have distributed $114.9 million to our shareholders over the past 10 years. This equates to a cumulative distribution of $41.25 per share. If you look at our share price at the time we prepared the slides, the net cash per share comprised 38% of our overall share price. In the past year, we had a very successful share repurchase program, and again, we've approved a nominal share repurchase of $5 million. Taking into account the demands on our capital going forward for both underground and for Karo Platinum, we believe this would be a reasonable amount to allocate to such a program.
In our current price, which we consider to be seriously undervalued, this is an extremely good investment, and we expect to get the benefit for all our shareholders from that share repurchase, which will be announced in full in the next few days. I have given a very high-level overview of our financial results for the six months. I would like to now hand over to Phoevos, who will talk us through strategy. Thereafter, underground and then the Karo team will present on the Karo Platinum Project. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. Just touching on strategy and the privileged position we find ourselves in with being the custodian of two multi-generational shallow, very large assets, being the Tharisa Mine in South Africa, as illustrated on the southwestern limb of the Bushveld Complex, the largest geological formation for both platinum and chrome in the world, and then geographically located in the middle chamber of the Great Dyke, Zimbabwe, on a very large tier-one resource, being the Karo Platinum resource on the Great Dyke, the second largest geological formation for platinum group metals. The approach that we've taken is different. We think out of the box. We challenge convention, and we apply innovative thinking to unlock value. You can see how we've grown over the years. We have an integrated sales, marketing, and logistics business that's wholly owned.
We have our wholly owned beneficiation site looking at unlocking value through the downstream beneficiation of our platinum group metals and chrome concentrates. In Dortmund and Cyprus, we have our Redox Flow battery development team looking to commercialization. What is the core investment thesis? We have a growth-focused strategy. This requires patient capital, patient investor, and long-life strategic thinking. This allows us to unlock the multi-generational benefit of these resources. A measured, calculated approach is prudent when it comes to unlocking the value. We've seen the lack of capital investment in our PGM industry in South Africa, and this leads to supply constraints going forward and ultimately benefits this long-term focused strategy. We are dividend-paying, and we're uniquely positioned, being a producer of these co-product metals, to benefit from the commodity cycles.
We have seen that over the years, almost counter-cyclicality of PGM and chrome basket prices, and we have managed to remain profitable throughout the cycle. We are very excited about the expansion into value-accretive downstream opportunities, be it refining our PGM metals, the chrome alloys that we are using in the grinding media, and raw stainless steel, and then the energy storage sectors. What have we got? Our flagship project is the Tharisa Mine. It has just over 39 million ounces of contained PGMs and some 165.6 million tons of contained chrome. That is 100% chrome content, making it a long-life strategic supplier of both of these critical metals. Moving further north, our first phase of the Karo Platinum Project contains 12 million ounces in reserve, and this is the open physical resource, and thereafter a vast resource of some 96 million ounces of platinum group metals.
When we look at the portfolio, close to 140 million ounces of PGMs, that carries very important strategic long-term value. When we look at beneficiation, we look at it through a strategic lens. We look at creating independence, accessing increased margins and different markets, and ultimately having access to the final metals that we can market and place and utilize in different technologies like the Redox Flow technology. We are investing in small opportunities that could unlock value for the use of these critical metals. With that, I'd like to pivot now to the phase transition to our underground portal development on the west pit of the Tharisa Mine. We operate three open pits at the Tharisa Mine: the east pit, which accounts for around 70% of our production, the west pit around 25%, and the far west around 5% of our monthly and annual production.
The advantages of having a shallow ore body, we have been mining the open pit for the last 16 years, means that we can develop a low-cost access to an underground board and pillar mechanized mine on a decline on-reef development. This allows us, one, to minimize capital into the project, as well as producing an undiluted run-of-mine feedstock for our processing plants. With this, the obvious benefits are there's less waste development and stripping compared to our open pit. It has a multitude of ESG benefits in the fact that we're not moving as much bulk, we're not consuming as much diesel, and the development is on-reef and has some significant cost and infrastructure benefits. We use a smaller fleet. Skills availability is predominantly underground mining in the region. To start with, we will utilize a mining contractor model to minimize the upfront capital.
In the top right-hand side, you can see an aerial view of the west open pit. We will start the development, and we have already started with the site preparation for the MG2 portal and shafts. You can see illustrated in green. This will then link up at a later stage with the MG4 portal development, and we will drive out the MG2 shaft under the MG2 portal. This really is a dual development, and we'll be mining reef packages of approximately 3 meters in height. Significant development and a large board and pillar mechanized mine. Where are we? We've received a positive tick from the DFS. It is undergoing a technical review by a third party and should be released shortly.
On the release of that, we'll come to the market with the definitive numbers, timelines, which we are illustrating on the right-hand side in terms of the west underground development and then the east following from 2030 with early development and reaching peak capacity by 2035 from both the west underground and possibly the east when we make that investment decision. Importantly, all the geotechnical and geohydrological studies have been completed, and we have converted our first 10 years of underground operations into mineral reserves with huge potential to unlock in excess of 60 years of continued underground mining. As mentioned on the previous slide, it's a twin portal development, and this will be on-reef development, which reduces the timeline to ore, and we will be mining development tons which will be fed into the processing plants. The design is mechanized board and pillar.
We are targeting from both portals 255,000 tons per month at steady state, and you'll see we reach that by 2029. Approximately a three-year ramp-up to full capacity. As previously mentioned, we have already started with the early works program and the operational readiness from a manpower, infrastructure, and development perspective. Very exciting transition and expansion for our operations to this underground west pit development. With that, I'd like to hand over to Bernie to give us an update on the Karo project.
Thank you, Phoevos. Good morning, everybody. Pleasure to be here to really provide you with the status of play at this hugely exciting project. It clearly, as Phoevos said earlier, fits into the strategy for Tharisa in providing that long-term growth and supplying the PGMs into the world's global economy.
This is one of the two largest platinum deposits in the world, both on top of South Africa. This is the second largest, and we have a hugely long-life project. It is a significant grade of some 3 grams a ton for 6E. And we built this and designed this to allow for future proofing for expansion and maximizing the assets of the infrastructure. This presentation, I want to focus on the extensive work that we've done to date so that you can see the progress we've made and the opportunities that that work has given us in giving us value enhancement opportunities. So where are we in Zimbabwe? The Great Dyke is this north-to-south geological phenomenon stretching some 500 km north of Harare down to the bottom. There are three large platinum producers in Zimplats being the biggest, Unki and then Mimosa.
We are the most developed project, and the last one is Darwindale, which is not progressing, currently owned 100% by the government. You can see the relative production rates on the right-hand side of that table. We will be the almost equal second. As we do the expansions, which I'll speak to shortly, we will easily become the second largest behind Zimplats. Zimbabwe has a long history of platinum production for some 30-40 years. It is established, and mining is a cornerstone of the economy, some 18% of the country's GDP. We are currently one of only two greenfield PGM projects in state of play. The other one is in South Africa. You can see on the right there are resource and reserve estimates. These are fully drilled out for the open pit into measured and indicated categories.
We have a fully detailed mine plan and a competent person's report standing behind that. The underground, which has the potential for another 50 years to develop some of the 96 million ounces that are in situ, gives us great long-life opportunity. We have all the key documents in place for our license to operate, both from the government and from local authorities. The key point for any greenfield project is not only geology, but what about your infrastructure? We are fortunate that we are building a very large dam, which I'll show you in a subsequent photograph, to cater for all our water needs, both now and our future expansion. Only 30 km away is a very large substation, and we'll bring high-voltage electricity. We have excellent road access.
Of course, with the background of Zimbabwe having very high education literacy rates and a long history of mining, we have great support for personnel with the right skills for both build and develop this project. To date, with all the construction that we've done, it provides that 99% of our personnel in country are building this and being Zimbabwean employees, which is very pleasing. We've focused to date on a lot of the work on de-risking the project, and I'll go into this a bit more in detail, and also shortening the schedule so we can bring the cash flows earlier into account.
As we've gone through this development, and we have, as you're probably aware, last year slowed down a bit of the development given the stubbornly low platinum prices until recently, we looked at value enhancements, and I'll be talking about the base metals co-production and the underground planning that we've commenced on. We focused on de-risking in really five main areas. That is the geology. I indicated earlier that we fully drilled out, and we've got a fully developed, measured, and indicated reserve. We've done a full mining plan, and we've done 100% of the design and engineering of the project. The other two high-risk areas for construction, reinforced works, it's always challenging when you dig a hole in the ground and what you find. We've completed those to 100%. And the civils are some 80% concrete.
You can see in the picture there on the right, the extensive mill foundation structures. Just to advise you, there is more concrete below the surface, which you cannot see, than the concrete you can see. These are significant structures, and there has been a lot of concrete poured throughout the site. Procurement, 78%. We have done all the long lead items and fabrication of steel. As we go into electrical and instrumentation, there is about 37% complete. I talked about power board for electrical power. They are secured, a key requirement for any project. As we have moved forward through 2025, we have commenced to tender for the mining contract. This is a large contract. We have a relatively high stripping ratio, and we need a highly competent mining contract to help us move the extensive amount of material, some 1.4 million-1.5 million BCM per month.
This is an international tender, and we will look to close that in the third quarter of this year and then start mining with that contractor towards the end of this year. Once we close all the final funding, which Andrew Henwood will talk about in our last slide, we expect up to 15 months of final construction until we can put first ore in mill. This gives you a very good Google Maps picture. I indicated to you the water supply right to the right. We're building a large dam at Chirundazi that will hold an immense amount of water that can supply both our first stage and our second stage project. To the bottom left of the picture, you'll see the concentrator and where the mining contractor will be.
We are in close proximity to the first mine pit there, KPSE, Karo Platinum Southeast, and the ore body goes directly north from there. We have a substation, and that red line is the high-voltage power line, some 30 km to the Selous Power Station. We have a tailings dam outlined by that pink outline just built to the north of the concentrator. You can see it is a compact area. It is a big project, but everything that we need is in close proximity. I think this photograph demonstrates the extent of construction that we have done. We have spent over $140 million to date on the project, both in studies, exploration, and on construction. I do want to point out, I mentioned access to the site. On the left there is the main highway.
That is a fully pitched road, which is about 90 minutes from Harare or the international airport. Access is superb. I know all of you may have visited sites where you travel for hours over bumpy roads. This is probably one of the best access sites I've ever worked in. Just to give you an idea of the area of that, that construction area is probably about the size of four to five football fields. You almost need a bicycle to drive around it. I mentioned earlier long lead items. Here are some of the bigger ones. The primary mill in the middle there, the secondary mill with the painted in blue. We have these very large flotation cells, the high-intensity flotation cells. There are 16 of those, only a picture of one of those, immense size. Then we have one very large 175 kVA transformer.
All of these are in storage, ready to be transferred to site when we want to do this. We are well advanced on procurement. This is part of the exciting part for the platinum project. Obviously, our phase one is produce the PGM reef. That diagram in the middle shows you the grade distribution as you go through the ore body from top to bottom. We mine the platinum reef. You can see the grades of platinum, palladium, and some gold in there. About 10% of our revenue is gold and silver. Sitting on top of that platinum reef is a base metal reef, which we have to mine anyway to get to the platinum reef.
With the opportunity of having that almost pre-issue base metal reef, and we've got all the infrastructure of power, water in place, it just makes logical sense to build a base metal concentrator alongside the platinum concentrator to treat that and then this becomes hugely cash flow accretive. We would operate that for 10 years because that's the life of the open pit. After that period of time, that concentrator can convert to, well, actually just transfer. There's not much work needed to a second platinum concentrator, which we can then utilize as we develop the underground mine and hence double our platinum production. We are, over the first 10 years, really a co-product, as we said at the top there, with 30% of our gross revenue coming from this base metal reef. Obviously, a very successful model, as Tharisa has outlined earlier in the slides.
The last part of the value enhancement that we've been working on is the underground development. We've embarked on a drilling program of 27,000 meters. This is to do the shallow drilling just along a stripe of the open pit, long stripe as we go north through the Great Dyke. This is to identify some further 45 million tons or another nearly 10 years at the expanded production rate of 400,000 tons per month. That drilling program will give us that resource that we require to be able to move ahead. That will take us about 10 months from now to come out to the market on the results of that drilling program. The drill holes are quite shallow. We would look to do, similar to Tharisa, declines. We will not be utilizing a shaft in the earlier days.
We'll be putting in portals and be mining it at a parent pick across the ore body to simplify the mining method. What does this mean in terms of PGM 6E equivalent annual contribution from both the base metals and then the future underground? The first one, number one, shows you, over the first 10 years, the platinum production from our platinum concentrator. Number two is the production from the BMR in PGM equivalents. You get to about 350,000 ounces. After 10 years, when those open pits phase out, you will then transfer into the underground with both concentrators then producing PGMs. You'll ultimately be a circa 450,000-460,000 ounce producer in years 12 onwards, 13 years onwards from first ore in mill. Exciting today and exciting tomorrow and great growth opportunity.
Now I'd like to hand over to Andrew for our last slide on the funding structure for Karo.
Thank you very much, Bernie. I think just illustrative to start the discussion was to indicate sort of the Karo basket price over the last almost six years. We've been lower for longer, as you can see on the right-hand side. Pleasingly, we've started to see an uptick in price. The Karo basket price this morning now coming in over $1,400 an ounce, having gone down to sort of levels of $1,150 previously. I think in line with the fundamentals that we outlined earlier, the project is profitable. It enjoys solid margins, certainly at the current basket price, and it did at the lower prices that I indicated. Pricing really is fundamental to the project, as it would be at any stage in the project.
The PGM market fundamentals, as we're currently seeing, as we outlined earlier, are supportive. That said, just looking at the various pricing levers that we are looking at, the top three are highly advanced. Tharisa has committed $160 million to the project. The VFEX bond that we issued circa two and a half years ago, that closed raising $37 million. As Michael indicated, we're looking to extend that and increase that. That has been a strategically very important and successful raise. We've done that in country, in dollars, and very well supported by the institutions in country. As far as the debt portion is concerned, we are in advanced discussions with lend syndicates, South African and African banks. We're targeting $165 million of that funding. The technical due diligence and the various lender due diligences are well advanced in those.
The final two that we would be looking to support the project are a gold stream. I think, as you're aware, Karo has a very high 8% or 9% gold contribution to its pro splits, higher than the Tharisa mine. And there we're looking at a gold stream in the region of $50 million-$100 million. Terms have been received on that. PGMs are obviously core to us. The gold certainly is beneficial to the basket, but a stream does make sense in a project such as this. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle is a strategic investment. That is well progressed. Again, dependent on the stream, we would be looking at a strategic investment from about $100 million. That's progressed.
As far as the timing is concerned, I think, as we've mentioned, once we've got this squared away, we would be looking at first ore in mill starting 15 months after we close the financial fundraising. Thank you, Andrew. In closing, we are passionate about what we do, and we do make a difference in people's lives. It talks to our statement of enriching lives through innovating the resources company of the future. We've been operating for 16 years. We've been cash generative for 11 years, profitable for 10. As Michael mentioned, we've returned some $115 million to shareholders. As you can see, we've invested a significant amount of capital in sustaining and developing these vast resources that we hold and have a responsibility to develop responsibly of some $832 million to date.
This talks to our commitment to the underlying fundamentals of the extractive industry and the benefit and the role it plays in terms of the global economy. With that, I'd like to close and hand over to Ilja to run through the Q&A for us. Thank you, Ilja.
Thank you. Let me start pulling up some questions. There are also some questions relating to the Tharisa underground, and I'll pull up the relevant presentation slides, and you can elaborate on that for us. Let me start with the chrome business. First one is about the chrome production guidance for the next half, bearing in mind that we, as a company, have a total annual guidance of about 140,000 to 160,000 PGMs and 1.65 million to 1.8 million tons.
I think the question relates to where we see ramping up from here, given the slightly better production outlook after the first six months.
As I think you can tell, we have not revised our guidance. We are cautiously optimistic that we will meet our guidance at the lower end of the ranges that you mentioned. An improved second half, certainly drier season. We are going into winter in South Africa at the moment and benefiting from some vast stripping that we have done, waste stripping to access the reef horizons. In the month of April, we exceeded our target for run of mine. On a good trajectory in terms of providing ore to the plants. We will review our guidance post the third quarter production update and see the trajectory from that point on.
At this stage, we maintain that guidance as you articulated, Ilja. Thank you.
Thank you. Staying on the chrome business, two questions. One is relating to our logistics and the talk currently with regards to potential industrial action around Transnet. I think the question relates to how we will deal with any industrial action. Obviously, we do have more than one port that we service with regards to exports.
Yeah. We are acutely aware of the challenges around Transnet and the ports in South Africa. We utilize three ports successfully: Richards Bay, a dry bulk terminal, Durban, as well as Maputo in Mozambique. We have the flexibility to direct and redirect cargoes. As you will recall, there were a number of disruptions at the border and within Maputo post-elections last year. We still managed to reroute and direct our cargoes successfully and not have disruption.
I think having a multi-port exit strategy has proven a good mitigant and provides us flexibility. At this stage, we do not see any disruption to our Tharisa supply. Having said that, there very well may be disruption for cargoes exiting the eastern ports of South Africa.
Thank you. Staying in the chrome business, and I know this is relatively new news out of South Africa with regards to chrome being classified as critical minerals under the new announcements that came out on Tuesday. What are our expectations with regards to this critical mineral strategy and how it affects our chrome business?
We have always believed that chrome is a critical mineral. When you look at the concentration of resources and the massive endowment South Africa has, it certainly plays a key pivotal role in terms of criticality. Our strategy embraces beneficiation, diversification of the products that we produce.
We welcome the classification. I think we are well positioned to benefit from support from the government, which is what we believe will be the byproduct of this, to look at local value enhancement and potentially accelerate our plans for the projects that we mentioned previously, which involve the Redox Flow electrolyte production in South Africa. That is the chrome ion chemical utilized in the storage solution. The grinding media, which we produce currently, is an iron chrome alloy that is utilized in the grinding media for the industry. In fact, it provides a beautiful circular economy. The very balls that we utilize to crush our ore utilize the chrome that we produce at the Tharisa mine. Lastly, we have been focusing on raw stainless steels and very specialist chrome alloys, which provide a diversified market and potential value creative opportunities.
Now, the environment needs to be supportive. Infrastructure, particularly around power, security, and the cost of electricity become vital for any downstream beneficiation strategy. I think we are well positioned.
Thank you on that . Phoevos, I'll stay with you. This is why I pulled up this slide with regards to the underground. There's a question here around at what point we expect the Tharisa surface mine volumes to start declining as you replace this output with the underground mine volumes. I think that's quite an important factor with regards to the longevity of the east pit and the ramp-up on the west side.
The beauty of that question is that we have flexibility. We will get to a steady state of 255,000 tons by 2029. That allows us to continue the open pit mining, as you can see, for a period up until 2034.
Having said that, we can mine deeper and longer in the open pit. We will start depleting our requirements, or the requirements from the open pit will be minimized as we ramp up the west mine, which provides us accessibility and flexibility from that operation. You will see that the east portal has been capped at our milling nameplate capacity, but it is actually designed at 255,000 tons as well. There is a sort of false ceiling that has been put there matching our nameplate capacity, but we could see ourselves producing over 6 million tons of ROM on a fully fledged east and west underground portal from 2035 onwards. Coming back to the open pit, we will be slowing down the output from the east pit as we develop the west line.
Thank you. Staying with the operations, Phoevos, there are some questions here around what changes we've made operationally or strategic to implement and to mitigate the weather-related disruptions in Q2. I think we can talk here about the pumps that we have in here, but also the challenge that we've had with lightning strikes rather than pure rainfall in Q1 and Q2.
I think what's encouraging is that a number of years ago, when we had severe rainfall, we brought in hydrogeological experts that undertook a massive study around the open pit, the inflow and ingress of water. We embarked on a capital expenditure program to engineer the water management for the open pit. I mentioned yesterday to the analysts that had we not put the strategy in place, we would still be contending with vast volumes of water.
What that entailed was dewatering boreholes around the perimeter of the open pit, an upgrade of our pumping capacity, pumping millions of cubes of water out of the open pit and depositing them into raw water dams has actually borne fruit and allowed us to navigate this challenge. The second point you mentioned around the lightning events, because we're an open pit mine, we run a storm scope very similar to a golf course. We have a siren go off. The radius for the storm scope or the alarm is set at 50 km radius. In many instances, we're evacuating the open pit, which sort of disrupts the operations two to three hours at a time for storms that potentially pass and do not actually cross over our open pit.
We are looking at reducing that radius through a legal application process with the regulators to 30 kilometers for future understanding and management of the evacuation of the open pit. It is a vast pit with many employees, so it does take time to remove people from the open pit. Between the two strategies, the dewatering and the lightning, I think we navigated it relatively well and will improve on it going into the future.
Thank you. Michael, let me move over to you. I know you addressed the dividend and the buyback, but maybe re-emphasize the thinking around it and also focus on the second half again. What is the thinking behind maintaining the dividend and initiating a buyback whilst you're also funding key growth projects like Karo and the Tharisa underground transition? I think it's all about capital allocation.
Sure. Thank you for that question. I think if we have a look at our philosophy and strategy, this goes way back to when we effectively listed first on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. There's always a perception that from a mining point of view, you keep investing in projects and you do not return funding to shareholders or funds to shareholders. We made a commitment at that point in time to exercise capital discipline. We put in place a very conservative dividend policy. We have, and it is a conservative dividend policy of at least 15% of consolidated profit after tax. We're pleased that we were able to implement this and maintain it. I think it goes back to that original commitment, and we will continue with that commitment to return capital to shareholders.
There's often been pressure over the last few years to increase that dividend policy, but we do have the ability and flexibility as it specifies a minimum. When we set that in place, it also takes into account the growth projects that we are looking at and how we are going to fund them. At the moment, we have a very healthy balance sheet, net cash position, and therefore enables us to fund the projects and also to return capital to shareholders. I suppose in a way, we are simply honoring that obligation that we made. The share repurchases are probably a little more opportunistic when we have a look at them, and they're valuated from time to time. From an executive perspective, we really believe that our share price is significantly undervalued.
As indicated earlier, some 40% of our share price is effectively net cash on the balance sheet. It makes sense then to deploy some of this cash and invest in our own belief in our ability to deliver on the projects that we are undertaking and giving that return and the benefits to shareholders going forward. Effectively, I think that should answer that question as to why are we doing it. In terms of dividend, we do recognize that there are capital commitments that they are taking forward, but also have to reward the shareholders who have over time subscribed for shares, funded the business, and continue to fund the business with a return on their investment as well. I trust that answers that question.
Yes. Thank you, Michael. I'm going to stay with you, Michael, because it relates to structuring around Karo and Tharisa. Let me read the question out. The arrangements you have made with minority shareholders in Karo are complicated. Could you please explain, particularly in relation to how much Tharisa shareholders' share is?
Sure. If we go through and have a look at the structure for Karo Platinum itself. Karo Platinum has a 15% shareholder in the government of Zimbabwe. That is a free-funded carry. At the point in time that these were all negotiated, you may remember that there was an indigenization requirement of some 50% of mining. This relaxed over the periods of time and we were very successful in negotiating with the government for that 15% free carry. Effectively, I suppose that is the payment in kind for the mining rights that we effectively have.
Going up from that, you then have a position where Tharisa PLC has a controlling interest, and there's a whole lot of intermediate companies going through it for various reasons, and we'll be simplifying that structure going forward, where our current shareholding is some 75% into Karo Mining Holdings and then into the 85%. That would give you an effective interest of some 60-odd % as an effective interest. In the initial days, a company called Medway, which is also our Tharisa PLC significant majority share, doesn't own a majority, but is a very significant shareholder, they had developed this asset, and we had proceeded to invest in that asset.
People ask, "Why would you do that?" Effectively, going back on related party transactions is when we did the original listing and worked for the original listing, there was an expectation and arrangement put in place that any projects that Medway developed, we would have the first option on those projects. We evaluated it. We believe it is a tier-one asset and therefore invested in it. They do still maintain a small shareholding in Karo Mining Holdings. They have the right to fund as we go through. Typically, what we have done is we have diluted them. Our intention, I think, is to continue diluting them to the point where we have absolute control over those assets or significant or majority. We have a significant shareholding and increased shareholding in that business.
We believe in the economics of it, and we'll continue to pursue that strategy going forward.
Thank you, Michael. Looking at here, there's just one more question, but I think it goes into the company's philosophy and strategy. I will also pull up a slide on it, but it goes to both Bernie and Phoevos, you. Let me read it out. Karo is very exciting and clearly a positive catalyst for the company. Can you please provide some comments around Karo cash cost, payback period expected, and more importantly, how this project compares to Ivanplats' Platreef mine currently being developed and market valuations of the project? I think it's with regards to some of the points that Bernie made, but Phoevos, maybe from your side, underground versus open pit and maybe the prospect that is very different from the two projects.
Yeah. I'll start and we'll dovetail with Bernie's comments. I think when we look at the operating cash costs that are estimated based on the extensive studies that we've done, the lifecycle test work, which has been repeated numerous times to confirm the expected recoveries of the PGMs plus the base metal credits, we're coming in at sub-$800 per PGM ounce in the context of a $1,400 basket price less the payables for a concentrate, because this is a concentrate that we'll be producing. There is a very healthy operating cash margin. Now, as we improve efficiencies and effectiveness, like we've done with Tharisa, we should see that cost improving over time. In terms of how do you value this project, right? The open pit has a valuation.
If we add the BMR plus the underground potential and the terminal value, this is in excess of a billion-dollar valuation business. It really depends on how you look at this. If you're fully valuing the resources or you're just looking at it on a project basis, it will vary. Depending on the commodity outlook or the consensus price when you look, that also has an impact on it. There's no doubt that this is a hugely valuable resource. We will be sharing more of these value enhancement metrics with the market once the studies, particularly of the BMR, are completed and bolted on, as well as the underground expansion. In terms of comparison to Ivanplats, different ore body. Obviously, that's a plat reef ore body, but not dissimilar in terms of its pearl split.
We have, as Bernie mentioned, some very nice copper, nickel, and even some cobalt byproduct credits. With the base metal refocus, that will be enhanced. We know the focus on those base metals from a critical mineral security point of view is vital. When we look at the palladium-platinum split, around 38% palladium, 40% platinum, and then, as mentioned, a very nice 8%-9% gold and the balance of the minor metals in the pearl split. Bernie, I do not know if you would like to comment on the question.
I think there is one extra comparative that is probably more relevant rather than Ivanplats would be the other PGM producers in Zimbabwe. Similar ore body, similar location, similar logistics. If you compare it to, say, Zimplats, Zimplats' operating costs are circa $850 an ounce all in.
Obviously, quite difficult to work out what goes in there in terms of overheads and what isn't. But it gives you the benchmark, and that's very much in line with the numbers that Phoevos has just mentioned. So we are aligned with the other producers in Zimbabwe, which I think is a better metric to look at.
Thank you. Last question coming in just recently now, Michael, and I think you did address it with regards to how we deal with minorities in Karo, but maybe you can expand on that. The question is here, if we have 60% of the Karo, how much is any minority shareholders contributing to the investment? I think we've got more of Karo, but maybe re-elaborate how we've increased our shareholding in Karo.
Yeah. No, we definitely have more shareholding there.
It's approximately 75%-85% at the bottom level in terms of that shareholding. How we participate in that shareholding going forward and the minorities in the relationship is when there is a funding call, there are approaches made to both shareholders to evaluate that on their own merits. It is priced, and to the extent one party chooses to follow or not follow, there may be a dilution going forward. From our perspective, and that is Tharisa, we do believe this is, as I mentioned, a tier-one project, and ultimately, we would like to obtain full control of all the cash flows on the underlying projects.
Going forward, then there are going to be further funding calls, and on that basis, we do undervaluations and continue to increase our investment in the project and ultimately may very well buy out the minorities to ensure that we can have full control over the cash flows. If you look at our other businesses that we have, whether it's Tharisa Minerals, Arxo Metals, Arxo Logistics, Arxo Resources, they all are wholly owned businesses. What that enables us to do is access those cash flows as and when necessary for the benefit of the business and the group as a whole without any impediments and minority shareholders. I think that answers that question, Ilja.
Yeah. That's great. I think that's actually all the questions. Thank you very much for answering those questions from investors.
Of course, the company can review all the questions submitted today, and we will publish the responses out on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to you all at the company, Phoevos, could I just ask you for a few closing comments?
Yeah. Thank you very much. It's a real privilege working with the team that we have. We employ with contractors over 4,000 people, and we make a difference in people's lives. I think when we look at impact investing, you can see the benefits that employment creates, upliftment of communities, as well as sustainability of job creation is a key benefit for our strategy, and it's very rewarding.
With that, I'd just like to commend my team for their dedication, commitment, and steadfast belief in our vision, in our strategy, and in delivering value to all stakeholders on a measured, sustained, and calculated basis. With that, I'd like to thank you all for your time today and wish you well further.
That's great. Thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order for the management team to better understand your views and expectations? On behalf of the management team of Tharisa, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation.