Okay. Good morning, everyone. Just before I turn to this morning's proceedings, let me acknowledge, and because it would be rather odd not to, the rather grave news we all woke to this morning which in Ukraine. Really, all I can say is the obvious, which is I hope, and I think most of us, if not all of us hope that the United Nations all members of the United Nations including Russia return to some calmness and some restoration of the world order really because it's not a great direction. That's going to play out one way or another. Meanwhile, I think we press on. Warm welcome to all of those. Particularly nice to see physically and in person many of you.
Thank you, and of course, also a warm welcome to all those joining by phone and joining the webcast. You'll have seen our numbers a couple of hours ago. Very strong financial numbers. Strong for us but also for others of course in our industry. That's good for shareholders obviously, but it's also very good for our stakeholders more broadly. When we do well, our host countries do well, as do the communities surrounding our operations, and so it should be. Strong prices on many of our products, but also a really resilient operational performance, and I'd like to commend Mark, his team, and all of our employees for delivering a record set of financial results. As you know, there's been significant improvement in the last nine years, and if Mark doesn't mention it, I certainly will.
Since he became Chief Executive of Anglo American. He is an outstanding leader, and he hands the reins over to Duncan with the company going well. Of course, we see plenty of opportunity for Duncan for further operational improvement, for the deployment of such technologies, making us safer, more sustainable, more productive going into the future. Of course, delivering importantly also on our organic growth opportunities that we have. No pressure, Duncan. We also had some further board moves. Just in the last 12 months, we welcomed three new Non-Executive Directors to our board: Elisabeth Brinton, Hilary Maxson, and more recently, Ian Tyler. In April, we say farewell to Byron Grote and Anne Stevens, two excellent contributors to our board, both of whom have served nine years.
Finally, be kind to Stephen today, because it's his birthday. I would like to publicly wish you a very happy birthday.
Stephen told me. Did he? I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm sure he'd know he could think of no finer way to celebrate his birthday than to talk to you about our results today. Without anything further, let me now hand over to Mark and Stephen.
Okay. Well, first, thanks very much, Stuart, for the introduction. I'd also like to say thanks to you and the Board. I was asked about leadership in the industry a few months back, and I said the one thing about doing things at Anglo and making some tough calls, I've never once had to look over my shoulder and worry about where the board was. Tank you to yourself and all the Board members. That support has been absolutely key in helping us travel the road we've traveled. While we may not have got all of the decisions right, I think at the end, we've landed in the right places as we've adjusted based on learnings and feedback and trying to listen as much as we could, and the board has been fantastic in that process.
Thank you, and thank you to the board. Again, I should acknowledge all my colleagues. Stephen will introduce his CFO for a day in his introduction, so I won't preempt that. I've decided to take on the tradition. We have Duncan Wanblad here, our CEO for the day. If he does a good job, there's a good chance he'll get the gig. I'm just joking, sir. Duncan, welcome.
Thank you.
I'd like to say thank you for joining us in my first or last set of results. From my point of view, it's been a great time. I'll say a few words at the end, Jason, just to fill things out before I take your first question. Hopefully, we'll be able to cover the issues pretty well. If I could ask if we can go to the next slide, please. Thank you. Our order of play will be consistent with how we've done things in the past. I'll touch on performance, highlight a few key points. Stephen will take you through the numbers and try and explain where the results came from and what to expect.
To close, I'll take you through how we're positioning the business for the future, and I've got the great pleasure in giving you an update on Quellaveco. We've even got a short film. You've read the book, you'll see the movie today. Next slide, please. Starting up with people, and in particular our WeCare approach, I have described our holistic approach to looking after people through the pandemic. The one thing I would say is, it is still with us. Good news is that, in the last three months, touch wood, we've not lost a colleague, but it's been pretty devastating. 2021 was tougher than 2020 for us in terms of COVID. Again, we're seeing improvement. We're better than 95% production, but still a way to go to get to full production.
I expect that to be achieved through the course of the year. I also think that the work that we've done in the communities, and in particular looking after people through our Living with Dignity program, particularly physical health and also mental health, have been two key themes for us and themes where we've worked together with our local communities to try and make sure we looked after people. The feedback we've had from our communities has been really positive. In many ways it's helped create a new relationship in those communities. Particularly as people start to understand what we do in our local communities, and whether it's energy, whether it's water, whether it's making sure food deliveries.
It really has, I think, helped cement a much better relationship and helped us realize how we can better articulate and engage with people around the things that we do that most people take for granted. Again, I'd expect this to continue to improve, but we've got to be careful of variants and certainly we're watching things very carefully. Next slide, please. Consistent with the theme around people, for us, safety, health, and environment will continue to be points of focus for us. We have come a long way, starting with safety. While I'm pleased with the progress and the great work, in particular in the last couple of years on the elimination of fatalities work, sadly, we still lost a colleague, Carlos González Rodriguez, tragically lost his life in a vehicle accident at Quellaveco.
For us, that tells us we've still got work to do. In terms of where we've come from, we're proud of the good work that's being done. From my perspective, I'm sad that I didn't finish with where we wanted to be, which is zero. I'm sure Duncan and the team will get there and continue to improve the business on all fronts. Our injury frequency rates backtracked a little bit during the course of the year, particularly in the first half. As we commissioned coming out of COVID and had to put a whole set of new procedures in place, we saw a bit of a backtrack on the frequency rate. The good news in the second half of the year, we improved 7% against the first half. I think we're on the case.
We're making sure people are focused on the planning issues, but we're keeping a very close eye on those issues, and we've still got work to do. I would hope that we reestablish that downward trend during the course of this year. Certainly we've done much better in January and the last few months. I'm hopeful that we're in the right place, but we still gotta keep our focus on all the issues. Health cases, people being exposed to hazard dust, those sorts of things have all improved significantly as the charts show. On the environment, the one issue that we did have, which is an intermittent leak in the base metal refinery, that's been corrected. Again, we're looking for that zero outcome on the environmental side as well.
We've made good progress, but we can always do better, and we'll continue with that focus across the business. Next slide, please. In terms of the broader ESG performance, we continue to make good progress on our critical targets that underpin the Sustainable Mining Plan. We are targeting an absolute reduction of 30% in both energy and greenhouse gases by 2030. And that's from the 2016 levels. The recovery from COVID has been patchy, and so we need to continue to improve our operating stability to see that flow through the other measures that are measured in terms of energy consumption. As we get the stability back, I think there's a few more percentage points will come from just getting that stability.
Given our carbon neutrality strategy, which will also positively impact energy intensity due to the electrification of our operations, we remain on track to meet our targets. That's the good news. We've also made good progress on decarbonizing our operations. With the commissioning of Quellaveco and with the changes we've made in our South American operations, we'll be fully renewable energy input to the sites by year-end. That's a big milestone for us. That makes up about 70% of our energy consumption in those regions. That's a big shift. As you know, we're working with the South African government on a whole range of strategies to do the same sort of thing in South Africa. That, for us, is an important part of the overall program.
We're also upgrading our social engagement processes, Social Way. Most of the sites are at 90%-95% of all of the social programs that we have in place. We've then upgraded the Social Way, and we call it Social Way 3.0. You'll see that the scores look pretty miserable on that scale, but we've made a significant change to what we're doing on sites. We're really upgrading that performance. I would expect the teams over the next couple of years will make significant progress. I've got no doubt within 2 or 3 years, there will be a Social Way 4.0. It's a journey, and we continue to make good progress. Again, a lot of that work manifests through WeCare. Certainly the feedback from our local community has been very positive. Again, there's always more we can do.
Next slide, please. In terms of the results, on controllables, production volumes were up 5% compared to last year. Again, COVID was probably more significant in terms of its daily impact across the operations. Of course, we had the met coal incident back in 2020, the Grosvenor issue. Moranbah's had a tough run this year in a very difficult longwall block with a different type of geotechnical environment. A sort of a shale inclusion above the longwall, which been pretty tough to negotiate, but they're now in the changeover. The good news is we're moving into the next block, which is we believe to be a much better block. Aquila has now been commissioned on time, on budget, and we're now cutting coal at Grosvenor as well.
I think we're setting up, and hopefully I leave Duncan with a better setup on the coal side. Again, we're gonna have to take things carefully. The Grosvenor mine is a very new set of technologies that have been introduced. We're literally running the longwall from the surface, and it's probably the most modern underground mine in Australia today, if not the world. There's a lot of lessons being learned and a lot of lessons we'll take into our other operations. Again, it's another milestone event for us in the business. EBITDA, primarily driven by very strong prices and the work we've done over the years in terms of the portfolio. $7.22 EPS compared to our previous record.
The biggest difference for us, between the previous record, which I think was 2011, versus today, our costs are 19% lower in nominal terms or better than 40% lower in real terms. That's really the big shift that we've seen between those two record years. Our mining margin at 56% and ROCE at 43%. We obviously target on ROCE through the cycle doing better than 15%, but we keep the discipline and so when you really do get a bit of a kicker on the prices, you get a much better ROCE. We're not trying to land at 43%.
It's really about the threshold through which you invest, and we're on track there, and we're enjoying a very good number on the basis of the prices and where we are in the cycle. Again, one thing we continue to look at is where do we think we are in the cycle with the way things look going forward. Certainly with supply being very tight, it certainly looks encouraging, putting aside the current issues in Europe. Next slide, please. In terms of operations and results, De Beers demand has been very strong. U.S. has recovered well. Sight sales in 2021 were strong, averaging nearly $500 a sight. A solid growth in our markets, particularly in the U.S. China's been pretty solid as well. First sight this year at about $660 million. It's a good start to the year.
We've seen a price increase of around 30% over the last 14 months. If you remember back in November 2020, we were saying, "Look, we need, we think, to see around 30% increase for production to even hold." We've seen that, and we said we'd expect that over two years. We've seen it in 14 months, and we think the fundamentals are still strong. Our marketing strategy's been going well. We're spending almost $200 million on marketing. That seems to be yielding results. We're also retooling the business. Our new ship has actually in its commissioning run as we speak, three months early, on budget. Again, another good project outcome.
The De Beers team have done a great job, and certainly I think De Beers is well-positioned in the market as they go forward. In base metals, copper business have continued to deliver consistent operating and cost performance. It's been a tough year, both from a COVID perspective and with water challenges, so the team have done really well, particularly at Los Bronces. The longer term work will be around securing water, so we make sure that we've got enough to deliver and operate the site at capacity. Collahuasi, we saw a record production performance for the year, and in particular, a pleasing cost performance at $0.61 a pound. Nickel performance was stable. Production decreased slightly on the year, really, through a little bit of a grade drop.
We weren't mining in all of the areas we would've liked to have been mining on. We're working through some licensing issues, but they seem to have been solved. It'll be a matter of, in the next few months, just squaring the mine back up and making sure we're delivering at the target grade. PGMs, good mine performance for the year, reflecting strong recovery from COVID. The ACP unit continues to perform really well, probably 15% above the previous unit, much more stable. You'll see the rates come off a little bit because we've worked down our in-process inventories, but again, very good performance. We've got the second unit ready as a standby spare, and we've incorporated the new technologies in that unit as well. I think we're in a good place, and Natascha and the team have really done well.
In bulks, good iron ore performance. Quality, a real focal point in the market. Working on the quality side of both Kumba and Minas-Rio has really helped. When you look at our break-even cost positions, we're in a great place and partly benefiting from the higher quality and the net back on the break-even price really helps us in our position. When I show you the cost curves, there'll be no prizes guessing where Vale is at the moment, given the quality of their product. Even though their production's down, that quality is very similar where we are in terms of Minas-Rio. We're both seeing that benefit compared obviously to the Pilbara. Met coal, again, I said a tough year.
I think we've set met coal up to start improving during the course of this year. They've had a tough two years. We expect the next year or two to be certainly much better. Again, we'll take it carefully, make sure we keep people safe. Next slide. Thank you. Consistent with growing cashflow and returns, the improvement journey continues. Stuart's absolutely right. We've established a foundation for taking the business forward, both through our organization model and our operating model, which is a subset of the way we run the businesses. It really takes an industrial approach to the way we set the business up and run the businesses. It is a foundation piece. It's something that really, from our point of view, helps drive continuous improvement.
Whilst the road on continuous improvement is never that smooth, the basics are in place, the people are in place, they understand what we're looking for, and I think the journey this year will be very important in terms of getting our stability and making sure that we create that platform for continuing improvement, which is part of the growth story as well. In terms of margins, again, from 13% to 21%, it's both a story of improving cost position and prices. Our 45%-50% margin is based on long-term prices. I think it's still a little too early to call what cycle we're in in terms of commodity prices, but I think for transition metals in particular, we're in a good place.
If prices are going to be a bit better than we're anticipating on the long term, then our margins are very good. Those margins are consistent with delivering that 15% or better ROCE return and those cashflow targets that we look for to feed the dividend and continue to invest in the future of the company. Those numbers are really important in terms of our driving our growth. As Stephen says, he'll talk about balance in his part of the presentation. I think he'll bring that point through very strongly. Finally, before I hand across to Steve, I've got one last overhead. Since 2013, and just to explain the chart, some of you have seen this before.
The light blue columns represent the average cost position we held on our aggregated commodity base. We were operating at the 49th percentile back in 2013. That's against our competitors. We are now operating based on our latest numbers, which is substantially off the results that we've seen in, I think it was mid-2021. We're now operating at the 29th percentile. Now, we do have a credit from the quality of the product, so it's a break-even price comparison, which for us is important 'cause that drives your margins. Again, you can probably guess who peer 1 is, high quality iron ore producer. I'll let you figure out who peers two, three, and four are. Over that period, we're proud of what's been achieved on the cost side.
This is not about prices. This is about the things that we've done in the business. For us, it's probably the best place to stop and let Stephen unpack the numbers in more detail. Steve, over to you.
Thanks, Mark. Thanks. As Mark mentioned, I introduced this concept of CFO for the day when I started back in 2017, and the concept there is that we pluck one of the up-and-coming sort of finance professionals from across the globe, and they get to participate in the weeks leading up to results announcements, working with the comms team, investor relations team. Obviously they see the smooth rehearsals and the coming together of the messages that we deliver. Stephen Pearce, who's in the audience today, he's the CFO for the day for this period. But Stephen, don't get too comfortable in the chair, like Duncan. I'm gonna be here for a little while yet. Listen, hopefully one of the traits you like to see from a CFO is consistency.
The three messages I want you to take away from today are the same that I've talked about since I started. First one is consistency of operations and cash flows. I think we're in a pretty good space here, but we know we've still got a little bit more to do, from some of the issues that we've had in 2021. I think we're in a pretty good space, and as I say, we know what we need to deliver on. The second one's returns to shareholders. Our 40% base dividend is maintained, but we've also taken that opportunity to return excess cash where that's arisen back to shareholders. We've got a strong balance sheet. Investing for the future, again, you know CFO's job's done when the CEO starts talking about balance as well.
Pleased that it's taking hold. That balance really does set us up for a strong and sustainable future as we go forward. Turning to the 2021 numbers. EBITDA, a strong recovery from the prior year, $20.6 billion, as we know, a record year, underpinned by strong prices, that we are seeing some operational recovery, and hopefully that should set us up for a good 2022. EPS significantly up at 722 compared to 253 in last year's result. That not only drives that base dividend, but gives us that ability to make those additional returns. Net debt, end of the year at $3.8 billion, so probably a little bit lower than what the market was expecting.
That benefited not only from the strong operational cash flows, but also that reduction in working capital of $1.1 billion. Free cash flow for the year at $9.6 billion, and that was after paying the higher dividends and returns that we announced in the first half, higher dividends to non-controlling interests, and higher taxes, across all of the countries that we operate in, and I'll come to that a little bit later. Next slide, please. Looking across the different business units, diamonds, as Mark mentioned, a good recovery, particularly from the COVID impacts that we saw in that prior year. Demand for polished product is strong. We have tighter supply. That's resulted in that magic 30% number that Mark often speaks to in terms of the prices recovering from the low point that we had in 2020.
Through 2021, we saw a 10% increase in the year, nearly 25% up from the low point by the end of last year. Then we've seen further increases early in 2022. Unit costs were held broadly flat. Great effort from the team. Base metals, robust operating performance despite the water challenges that we had across the copper operations. Unit costs saw some increase in the year, but Collahuasi in particular, we saw some unit cost decrease despite that challenge. Margin in nickel, a healthy 45% and overall, really solid work from the team. PGMs, as you know, a strong refining performance in the year with the ACP up and running very strongly through the year. Prices remained quite healthy in the first half, came off a little bit in the second half. Obviously, we've seen that rebound in recent weeks.
That's despite higher US dollar unit costs in the business. Bulks in iron ore, 62% margin. Strong pricing, as Mark mentioned, that higher quality product and premium really sought after by the market. Just a quick note from the CFO, very pleasing to see $2.7 billion cash from Minas-Rio in the year. If you could note that one down, that would be much appreciated. It was a challenging year for met coal, as we all know, but the team did a great job. 33% margins, even with the issues that they had to work through. Again, hopefully sets up for a strong 2022. Next slide, please. Looking quickly just at those drivers of EBITDA, again, you can see the impact that prices had.
Really pleasing to see that recovery in terms of COVID volumes coming through the result. That's particularly evident in diamonds as well as the operational recovery evident in PGMs, and that increased cost and volume combined at $1.2 billion. We know there's more work to do. As we have previously said, COVID has impacted our ability to crystallize all of those initiatives that we'd love to get implemented through the operations, but really confident we can drive those through to that target that we have through 2023. Next slide, please. 2021 unit costs up 10% on an FX neutral basis. Obviously, foreign exchange was probably the bigger impact at 6% across the producer currencies, so 16% up in total across the year.
General CPI across the countries that we operate around 5%, and that's translated into about half a billion-dollar impact on our EBITDA this year. If you recall, at the half year, we weren't really seeing inflation impacts, so most of that flowed through in the second half. This has been largely demand-led input inflation. A lot of our input costs are coming from the same products that we actually produce. You know, we do expect some of that to continue into 2022, but we do note that that's really quite widely happening across the industry. We did include our estimates of how that would play out in the cost guidance that we gave you in December. Just a reminder, that's unit cost that we're discussing.
Obviously, productivity, efficiency, and technology can all play their part in driving absolute and relative unit cost performance, and so can volume growth. A reminder that we have around 18% volume growth by 2023, around 35% volume growth by 2030. If we do see a sustained period of demand-driven higher prices, I think we're well set up to be extremely competitive on a unit cost basis with obvious benefits flowing through into our revenue line. Next slide, please. Turning to the balance sheet on CapEx, we came in broadly as forecasted for the year, higher than 2020, as we saw our ability to recover from some of the COVID impacts in that prior year. We weren't able to catch up quite as much as we would have liked, so we've got a little bit of carryover into the next year or two.
Pleasingly, that wasn't really in sustaining CapEx. It was largely in growth CapEx, and so that should roll out over the next year or two. Next slide, please. Again, on the balance sheet, we started the year in a really good position from a net debt perspective. We were in great shape at the half year, and that enabled us to make those additional shareholder returns, and that has continued for the year as a whole. We also saw that reduction in working capital of $1.1 billion, and that reflected in our sell down of the PGM, a buildup that we had in the prior year, if you recall, and also diamonds, where they were able to reduce working capital into a very strong market.
Across the year, net debt down by $1.7 billion, and obviously balance sheet in great shape to support our spends as we go forward. Next slide, please. We do remain committed to our 40% dividend, and we really do believe that is appropriate for a company like ours with that balance of growth and returns to shareholders. With the impact of continued strong pricing, we were pleased to announce additional $2 billion of return at the half year and a further $6 billion with these results, bringing total returns in respect of the year to $6.2 billion, and that represents a total payout of 69% for the year.
In addition, just a reminder, we did distribute the Thungela shares to shareholders in addition, and obviously the price of that share has traveled very well, across the year. I hope some of you still own some. I certainly do. But that reaffirms our commitment to that capital discipline and that balance that we often speak about. Next slide, please. As Mark said, this has been a record year for our shareholders, but also for all of our stakeholders, that we interact with. I showed you for the first time at the half year this slide and told you how proud I was of the contribution that we make in the countries in which we operate.
We've continued to make significant payments in the countries through the second half, and as a result, our activities have resulted in $7.1 billion of royalties and taxes collected and paid to the host governments in the year. That's up 89% from the prior year. Now, not on this map, clearly at the moment is Peru and Quellaveco, but as that ramps up, the contribution that we make to that economy will sort of transition from capital spend and the activity that that drives into revenue-related activities and the taxes that that will in turn drive. But importantly, we pay our taxes where the profits arise. That is in our host communities and countries. When prices rise, so do our tax payments and royalty contributions. It's a win-win. It's a large number.
It's often a little underestimated by host governments because they, like you, tend to revert to historic price forecasts fairly quickly in their outlooks. But it does prove the tax systems work as they should. As prices increase, so do taxes paid. Now, I know this is a really sensitive topic in a lot of the jurisdictions that we work, but we do have and continue to have very constructive engagement with those countries and with the very stakeholders. I do believe that the contribution we make is widely recognized, but it is a difficult topic for the countries to get the right balance. Next slide, please. As you know, I like to recap our performance across the year against our capital allocation model. Cash generation for the year, $9.6 billion after funding that sustaining capital.
This continues to drive our 40% payout ratio base dividend, and that base dividend for the year was $3.6 billion. As ever, it's about balance we offer as we invest both for the near term while returning excess cash to shareholders. We allocated $1.8 billion to growth capital in the year, an additional $2 billion in the first half, and the $6 billion with these results. Again, capital discipline. We also, by the year-end, had bought back $800 million of the $1 billion buyback that we announced at the half year, and that was completed about two weeks ago. Next slide, please. At the half, and I mentioned earlier, we have seen some delays in terms of driving those cost and volume benefits through to the bottom line.
At the half year, given the impacts COVID had had, we moved that target period back one year to 2023. In December, given that we're having a more extended period with Quellaveco and other initiatives flowing through, we increased that target by $0.5 billion to then be $3.5 billion- $4.5 billion. We've made some good progress in the year. You can see on this slide, but we have always said this would be largely back-ended to some of those target periods, and obviously, some of the technology and innovation will continue far beyond that 2023 period. For 2022, what do I expect to see? Well, Quellaveco and the new vessel in Namibia will start to contribute volumes. You'll see those flow into this bucket.
I think bulk ore sorting will progressively start to contribute to the bottom line across a number of our operations as we continue to roll that out. Obviously, operational stability still provides, I think, a huge prize for us. Next slide, please. To recap from me, a familiar message, it's all about balance. We've returned over $12 billion to shareholders since 2017, and that's compared to the $18 billion that we've spent on capital in that same period. We offer near-term, attractive, high-margin growth on future enabling products. Balance sheet's in good shape. We've also added the chart, excuse me, on the bottom right-hand side just to represent where our capital employed by geography. Again, you can see the balance. South America now representing 45%, Africa 33%, and Australia, Canada, and the U.K., the majority of the remaining 23%.
It's that balance that ensures that we deliver in a sustainable manner and preserves the integrity of our assets that contributes the essential products that support that global transition. Thanks, Mark. Back to you.
Thanks, Steve. Cheers, mate. As people know, Stephen has championed the conversation around balance, and I've had a few of my English colleagues point out that being Aussies, we are usually quite balanced. We've got a chip on both shoulders. That's not quite the balance we were thinking about, but certainly from our point of view, that message seems to be landing pretty well. One other interesting point before I kick in. Steve and I were just talking this morning. South Africa has announced a bit of a change to its corporate tax rate. I am looking forward to the conversation around the premium that we should get having our assets in South Africa.
I hope I get a couple of questions on that at the end of the day as well, given the debates that we're seeing around the world in relation to corporate tax and COVID issues. Well done to the South African government. That's really good message for investment in the jurisdiction. Okay. In terms of a sustainable future and the things that we can do in terms of the portfolio, we have very much a future-oriented portfolio. We talk about met coal as a transition-enabling product. We have high-quality met coal that's very important to at least minimizing carbon gas make before the transition to green steel and hydrogen. From our point of view, that's a very important part of the portfolio, and it's a contributor to improvement.
Again, we'd expect that transition to occur during the 2030s. From our point of view, it's still a very important part of the portfolio and one that makes a real contribution, particularly in today's world, where high quality met coal is very important in terms of where we are. We've also continued to build and shape the portfolio. With the sale of Cerrejón, we've completed our repositioning out of thermal coal. Again, I think those changes have been well received in the market. Next slide, please. In terms of climate change and the global energy transition, you've seen both of these pictures before on separate slide, and really, it's the key message from our point of view is we do have a pathway to operations carbon neutrality.
We are working on introducing new technologies, new energy sources, and we've got a strategy to get there. In terms of Scope 3, we would see an increase in Scope 3 emissions in the short term reflecting our growth in production, but all the while we're improving our efficiencies. As we continue on the portfolio side, we would end up, we think, at about 50%. If the steel industry is able to accelerate and deliver on the 1.5% climate change objectives, that would mean our Scope 3 contribution through our customers would be down to, or we would reduce by something like 80%. I think we're in the right place. I think we're in the right conversations, and we're trying to understand how we can best influence those outcomes.
Again, if I go back to iron ore, the high quality iron ore we produce provides at least a 30% improvement in relative contribution to carbon gases for our customers. Again, I think having the right products in that mix is very important as well. That will be important post met coal into hydrogen. The energy consumed in converting to steel will be still a very important part of the conversation. Next slide. Thank you. We have. We will start with a video on Quellaveco. I'm calling for the video. Lights, camera, action.
Quellaveco is a world-class copper mine located 3,500m above sea level in the south of Peru, near the town of Moquegua. Developed in a 60/40 partnership with Mitsubishi, Quellaveco is being delivered safely and responsibly. With 1.7 billion tons of reserves over an initial 36-year life, Quellaveco is set to produce 300,000 tons of copper equivalent per year on average for its first 10 years of production. The mine will operate in the first quartile of the cost curve. Quellaveco will take our total copper production close to 1 million tons per year. This will increase Anglo American's total output by approximately 10% in copper equivalent tons.
We are building a strong legacy in Peru, investing more than $5 billion, creating more than 29,000 direct jobs during construction, and over 2,500 direct jobs with Quellaveco in operation. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Quellaveco is on track to deliver first production by mid-2022. Located in the high mountain region, our Vizcachas Dam will provide a small portion of water to the operation, with the vast majority going to local communities. Most of the water used for Quellaveco's operation will come from the Titire River, whose water is by its nature unfit for human or agricultural use due to its volcanic origins. The mine is open pit, and pre-stripping began in April 2021. Using a combination of autonomous and automation-ready drilling and hauling units, a first for Peru.
We extracted first ore in October 2021 and are stockpiling for when we start up the plant. At the processing plant, the first of two grinding lines is around 90% complete, with pre-commissioning activities underway on the first operating line. The port facility will have a storage capacity of 80,000 tons and is reaching 90% completion. Quellaveco is Anglo American's first 100% digital mine, using a variety of sustainable mining practices, and we have signed an agreement for a 100% renewable energy grid supply. Throughout construction, Quellaveco benefited from a high level of support from our local communities, as well as local, regional, and national government.
For many years, we have supported social programs and other initiatives in the area, including Moquegua Crece, our approach to catalyzing sustainable economic development in the region. Our Moquegua Emprende enterprise program helping more than 400 local entrepreneurs set up their own businesses. The CapEx estimate is $5.4 billion-$5.5 billion despite significant disruption from COVID-19, but remains subject to the current COVID variants. During ramp-up this year, Quellaveco is expected to produce between 100,000 and 150,000 tons of copper at a competitive cost. We expect annual production for both 2023 and 2024 to be between 300,000 and 370,000 tons. This is higher than our feasibility study estimates as we brought production forward to enhance value.
This accelerated production means our unit cost in the first five years of operation will be just $0.95 per pound on average. By supplying the world with a critical energy transition metal using our FutureSmart Mining technologies for safe and sustainable copper, Quellaveco embodies our purpose to reimagine mining to improve people's lives.
Thanks, guys. For us, Quellaveco was more than just a mining project. It was, in our view, a pathway to credibility in terms of building major projects. While we've hit all of our key target milestones and major capital projects over the last few years, it was a very important message to the market about building and running a business. It has been a team effort. It's been everybody in the organization involved giving their best. I should mention Tom McCulley and the team. They've done such a fantastic job. Through COVID, with all of the issues they had to deal with, we'd literally stopped the key activities or many of the key activities for more than six months.
While we would have liked to have been commissioning in six months earlier, I'd have to say, the effort that the guys put in and the work has been tremendous. We had the Omicron variant hit us in the last three months. It probably took another month off us. Again, everybody's back there working and doing extremely well. Certainly from our point of view, a great effort under what has been difficult circumstances. I must also say that in Peru, we've had great support from the government, from the locals.
That point about the river, and the fact that with what we've done, we're providing water to the agricultural sector in the community all year round, versus previously only get it for six months, means that we're really important to the broader agricultural and community infrastructure and commercial base. We think that's the basis of a really positive relationship in that community, and it's quite different in terms of our relationship with those local communities. While that never guarantees things are going to go as you would like them to go, it gives us a pretty good start. I think we've done a lot of good work, through communities and working with communities. I think we're in a good place, and certainly, it has been a real team effort, whether it's the technical team, the corporate relations, sustainability, finance.
Everybody's been involved and certainly from our point of view, so far so good and another few months and I think Duncan will have a good story to tell at the half year. Next slide. Thanks. In terms of the business itself, again, looking forward, the production numbers have been upgraded. The costs are in good shape. From our point of view, very short payback period. The economics have proved over time, and we've got our timing right, fortuitously. No one's ever quite sure if you're gonna be there, but we look like we've timed it well in that context.
From our point of view, we're in a good place and, certainly, copper looks like it's a good place to be on a more general basis. It also helps us with our overall copper business and the dynamics within the copper business. A bit of pressure, a bit of work to be done at Los Bronces. But again, we knew that the grades would track back over time, so our timing has worked pretty well in that regard as well. From a business planning perspective, I think the guys have done a good job in base metals. We still see opportunities to improve Los Bronces in that context as well. Okay. Next slide, thanks. Okay.
In terms of the broader portfolio and the options we've got across the portfolio, again, just reinforcing Aquila delivered on time, on budget. Met coal, the new diamond ship, in fact, was delivered three months early, and again, on budget. It's currently out in commissioning trials as we speak. We do expect to move forward with projects at Murrin Murrin and Grosvenor. We've got scale-up options for a phase 2 at Collahuasi, which we're studying. At Mogalakwena, the pathway to further develop the asset has evolved. I think a really important point to make, and what came out of conversations yesterday is I'm not sure people understand that the underground option that we've developed for Mogalakwena are large scale, high production. They are not traditional South African development or underground development assets. 50% higher grade, very low unit operating cost.
Net cost is actually lower than the open pit. For us, the combination of the open pit and the underground is a nice mix, and also provides you a better utilization of your processing capacity because of the higher grades. That blend of options was a really smart way of getting the best returns and continue our strong cash flow and delivery of dividends through the same period. Natasha and the team have done good work. They'll be finished with the final options at the end of the year, and based on current estimates, we'd expect to be commissioning a plant probably around 2026. I don't think that message on the underground and the different type of underground operation that we're talking about was fully appreciated yesterday.
We've had the hindsight of 24 hours, which has helped just reinforce that point. As I said, Natasha and the team have done a great job. Sakatti certainly an important one for us in following Woodsmith. Then Woodsmith itself, again, the team is working on the detail. Tom has been on site for, I think, four and a half weeks, Duncan. And doing really good work, pulling the team together and look at how we manage costs in the short term and make sure we get the engineering right, the detail right, so that when we take the next step in terms of execution, we've got a project that reflects what we think the potential is and that we execute against those timelines based on a schedule that we've got full confidence in. Next slide.
Our growth story remains broadly consistent with what we've been saying over a number of periods. Obviously, COVID's made certain things a little bit more difficult, and we've had to flex around that. More than 90% of our growth capital is allocated to future-enabling products. While we're seeing some slight delays to some, again per COVID, overall, the general thrust is consistent and from our point of view, very excited in terms of what we have. In the near term, Quellaveco should deliver that 10% uplift that Stephen talked about. We also know the other projects will start making contributions in the next two to three years.
From our perspective, with the understanding we have of resources around Quellaveco, I'm sure in the next couple of years we'll be talking about increments to that project as well, given the position we have and the capital base that we've established. Next slide, thanks. We believe the delivery of sustainable returns to shareholders is an imperative that will define the long-term success of our business. For us, we are positioned to develop or to deliver, as we've differentiated with a combination of technical, marketing, and sustainability capabilities that have been developed, in our view, as competitive advantages in our rapidly changing external environment. Coupling these capabilities with our world-class assets, strong balance sheet, and ongoing improvement journey, we think puts us in a very strong position as we focus on positioning ourselves in the future.
For us, when we talk about our 10% free cash flow. Based on the analysis we've done and the work Duncan and his team's done about being competitive and understanding what it takes to be competitive through cycles, 10% free cash flow puts us in top quartile position. If you're at 15%, you're right at the top. Through the cycle, I'm talking. That is what we measure ourselves against in terms of delivering outcomes through the cycle. In terms of efficiency, we measure the efficiency of our capital deployment through the return on capital employed metric. It's not the only capital metric that you can use, but it's one that we can connect to actions on the ground with our teams. Certainly, that's an important point. Pushing that point's been really important.
The 43% this year is a reflection of the price environment. From our point of view, we haven't really adjusted our long-term pricing assumptions, but that's something that will remain. We'll remain very focused on to make sure we get right. Then the pillars of value, safety, environment, social performance, making sure we've got the people in the organization, and I think our succession planning has proven to be pretty successful with Duncan ready to take over from myself and the teams that we've built and the talent that we've got in the organization. We're pretty proud of where we are and what we've done, and there's always more work to be done. Then finally, Paul has allowed me three minutes to do a reflection after nine years.
I'm not sure how many seconds that is per year, Paul. If I could say that, this is my 18th set of results for Anglo American. It is my last set of results. For those of you with good memories, at my first outing, I made some high-level observations around people and what a well-run mining company should deliver in terms of bottom line and broader business outcomes. On people, I said that people are not our most important assets, that people are far more than assets. That is, people are the business. In the end, when you're talking to people, they'll react to what you say, and in terms of motivation and trying to encourage people to give you the best they've got, that's about leadership and how we connect to people.
In the end, the head frame, the gold in the ground, all the other stuff that we may have, we do have some gold, don't react to the way we behave as leaders. Once we get that point right, then it's all about people. You can do anything. I've always tried to live up and lead consistent with that principle. If we've been able to deliver anything that our shareholders and stakeholders value, it is down to and through our people. I also said that great mining companies don't hurt people while delivering better than 15% TSR through price cycles, 10 years being the minimum period over which to judge whether a mining company's done a good job. I haven't made it to the 10 years. It's time for me to go.
If you ask family, they said it was time for me to go about five years ago. While we've reduced our fatal events by 93%, we're not yet at zero. For me, that's a tragedy. It's a tragedy because the impacts that has on the lives of our people. At the same time, I am extremely proud of where we've come from and what we've done. Back in 2007, when I first joined AngloGold, the Anglo group had 70 fatal incidents. We've had 1. We lost Carlos at Quellaveco. The milestones that we've achieved in that journey have been remarkable, and for me, he'll do it, and the team will get there. I think we've made great progress, but we're not quite there. As I said, that's the 1 disappointment I have.
On business and financial results, as measured as a return to shareholders, I can confirm Anglo American has delivered higher than an 18% average annual TSR since that comment back in 2013. I'd have to look at the price today, so I'm not sure if it's still 18.5, if I include Thungela, Paul.
That's what he tells me. I think we're still okay on the 18% number. After nine years, we're ahead of that ten-year milestone I measure us against while delivering the best returns for the mining majors over that same period. I measure it from 2013. I am tempted to measure it from 2016, but that would be cheating. Of course, you know what we're like. We're ethical in all of the conversations we have. I also believe we're set up to potentially deliver on that same objective through 2030 with the growth. Yes, there's still a lot of work to go through 2040, but we've got the foundations, and we've got the people. For me, with the assets, there's no stopping the organization.
We deliberately set out to talk a different language to most, and we have also walked a different road. In targeting the portfolio changes in the operations, our results engine room, we dealt with relatively low-value assets at the time, and we worked on our major potential value contributors to deliver towards the latent potential we had identified at the time. In fact, the assets that we've held onto, each one of them on average is doing 30% better than it was nine years ago. And if I look at the average production per asset in the portfolio, we've actually almost doubled the production per asset. The ability to focus on those big value drivers has been significant and certainly, I think, been key in our doubling of productivity and our 40% real cost reduction.
We developed an industrial approach to planning and running the assets, and we're still learning and still on that journey. Duncan's background, I think, really favors driving that support further and beyond where we've been able to get to. I'm excited to watch how he takes the business forward. On the revenue side of the margin equation, we retooled our marketing and trading capabilities. If you can remember the first presentation where we said we're leaking $400 million. In that result this year, the marketing team, we estimate, has made a positive $1.2 billion contribution. That's a $1.6 billion contribution on the revenue side that Peter and the guys have delivered. We think that's remarkable and probably something people don't appreciate.
We see that in the margins that we're delivering across iron ore, met coal, and through other parts of the business. Terms like operating model, P101, have now become part of the industry lexicon, while FutureSmart Mining really captured the broader industry's imagination. To trot Tony out, as grumpy as he may be, in my world, he's got the driest sense of humor of the characters we have in the team. He's done a wonderful job. Again, he's also had great colleagues to work with. With Duncan and the strategy, Stephen's balance in the finance are all part of a team and a process. Sustainability is an overused word that means different things to different people. In our case, FutureSmart includes how we're reducing our environmental footprint and enhancing our social footprint while improving our competitive cost positions.
Nick and the team have been able to help us articulate a story that people can connect with. While we've still got a way to go, certainly in terms of how we articulate the story is something that's really important, particularly for our social stakeholders and in the broader community. For me, it's a mindset that must be embedded in your culture and in all decision-making and not something you worry about afterwards. I think in terms of authenticity, people know whether you mean what you say when it comes to sustainability, when it comes to safety, when it comes to environment, when it comes to the social issues. While Stephen uses the word balance, there is no doubt we're doing much better in recognizing and thinking from a shareholder perspective on our capital allocation decisions.
While employees are the business, shareholders own the business. The reality is shareholders are not big institutions. There are hundreds of thousands of individuals holding us through their savings and pension funds, and they rely on us to deliver and secure their financial security. We take that obligation seriously. Our local communities and our broader stakeholder community must feel the positive differences we make, lest they challenge our right to exist now more than ever. Ultimately, we're here to serve society in its broadest sense, both through the metals and minerals we produce that are so critical to modern life and the urgent need to decarbonize and improve the world in many other ways. The last two years, in particular, have reminded us of how much a positive difference we can make, particularly for those closest to our operations.
As we look forward, our commitments to create or support five jobs off-site for every job on-site and for schools in our host communities does reflect an understanding of the future of work conversations. More importantly, it understands the importance of local communities in making sure that we've got the relationships where they will support our existence, and they will support us doing better so that we serve society, and we deliver returns to our shareholders. I think it's all summed up in our purpose to reimagine mining to improve people's lives. It took us 18 months to agree on seven words. It's not so much the words that matter, it's the process and the sense of camaraderie and commitment to doing something different that I think binds us as an organization.
In an ever more complex and connected world, the foundation for Anglo American's next chapter are well set, and I can't think of any person better than Duncan Wanblad to pick up the baton and pursue the many opportunities that we see in front of us. Looking back, I've had no greater privilege than leading Anglo American and our incredible people. Together, we've transformed Anglo American's competitive position, and we're working towards a very different future for mining. It's a safer, smarter and more sustainable future that delivers enduring value for all of our stakeholders. I'd like to thank the Board. You said that I'd get a bit teary.
Look, I'd like to thank the Board for their unwavering support, the Executive team for their tenacity and friendship, and every one of our work colleagues, for their sheer resilience, and all our stakeholders for their spirit of engagement and commitment to partnerships. I would also like to thank our shareholders for their trust. In 2013, we were trading at a 40% discount to our major peers. While that gap has now been substantially closed based on public numbers, I still think we're the best value mining company in this space. When you look at the foundations that we've created for continued delivery and growth, I think we're in a great place. Finally, to the analyst and reporting community, thanks for the attention and the eternally wise and thoughtful observations and questions.
While we may not have always agreed, it has been a wonderful ride, and your thoughts and commentary have always been considered with due respect and appropriate regard. Guys, it really has been a great pleasure. It has been fun. While we've had a few tough moments, I have appreciated the honesty of your input, the camaraderie and that recognition that as an industry we really do make an important contribution. The more that we can work together to make that obvious to society at large, then the better I think the world will be. Thanks for playing your part. Thanks for being so supportive, and thanks for the wonderful ride. Cheers. I think we're open for questions, Stephen, aren't we?
I think we are.
You may have to take the first one. Jason.
Are we microphoning or are we just shouting it out?
It's through the roof questions.
It's through the roof.
You're so far away.
Through the roof.
That's along with our results.
Look, a question on growth, but before I do, and at the risk of being presumptive, thanks to you for engaging with the analyst community. It's been a pleasure, I think, for me and certainly for most of us here. You've been a breath of fresh air, honestly. It's been great.
That's nice of you to say.
Look, on growth. I mean, you've brought the operational stability. Anglo's now styled as the growth-oriented big miner. At some point, growth starts to work against itself. It gets harder the bigger you get, right? I guess, you know, as you look forward, do you need to change the business to be bigger, to allow yourself to sort of continue to deliver the growth? There's no jellybean chart, there's no bubble chart in your presentation, but those seem to have made a reappearance at other mining companies. You know, do we need a jellybean chart?
No, I don't think we need a jellybean chart. I know Duncan in his role in strategy has done really good work. We started off describing ourselves a mining company back in 2013, and the first image is, you know, digging holes in the ground. BMW were asking us about provenance and guaranteeing that the products we provide for them, the raw materials, come from the right places, ethical, human rights, all of those issues, code of conduct. We started to talk about being a metals and minerals company because they use 18 metals and minerals in the cars. We started to define ourselves in the terms of how customers think about us. In the last three years, probably Duncan, we've started to talk about being a minerals or a materials solutions company.
The adjacencies that we've been building in marketing, trading and other work is about building off the capital base that we have established and what we've learned in our markets and doing better in our markets, and hence the focus on marketing in Dubai. We think there's much more we can do to work off the positions we have to create better returns. We'll continue to look at other opportunities in a broader sense. I think you've got to keep working every angle. You've got to look at all the opportunities. I still think we're very early in that journey, Jason. I don't know how far we can go, but I'm sure that Duncan and the team are gonna take us towards somewhere different, try and answer those questions in more than one dimension.
I think that's the key. Exploration, get your assets, work those assets well, and then work all the adjacencies that you have available to you, because when things get a bit rocky or a bit tough, those additional revenue streams that you have, which will probably be more reliable through the cycle, will make a big difference in terms of the value proposition for shareholders. That's capturing the thinking that we've been discussing as a board and as an executive team. Again, I think, those conversations will continue on. In fact, the board conversation we had the other day was probably the best one I've been involved in in my time in the nine years.
I think that's a reflection of this sort of never-ending quest to look at how we can improve returns, keep growing in an appropriate way, and it's in the interest of the Executive and the Board, and we're working together as a team. I think that's really important.
Is it still just one big project at a time?
It is for the moment. I think it's appropriate because I think big projects like Quellaveco absorb a lot more than simply just the project skills that you put into the project. You've got Tony and his team making sure the mining things are done correctly. You've got everybody involved. You've got Anik and the team on the social management and development perspective. Woodsmith requires the right detail and all of the dimensions to be right. We'll take a little bit longer to get it right. When they press the button, they'll get it right. I'm pretty confident. In fact, in looking at what we have, we're very excited with what we have. It needs more work to get it to where we want it to be.
Yes, and how you tail those and flip into the next one, I think we're learning how to do that. You know, the move from Tom to Woodsmith was very thoughtfully done. We'd already recruited for the commissioning process. I think that's been done pretty well. We'll have a lot of smaller projects on the way through that are very important to us and our technology work as well. I think we've got both sides covered. What we're now looking for is some exploration hits. I think that will help fill out the portfolio pretty well.
Thank you. Thank you, Mark, and I echo Jason's comments. With your reflections in mind for the last nine years, and given what you know about the company today, what do you think is the one most important challenge that Duncan faces in the first 12 months of his tenure? Is it more thinking about the group structure? Is it portfolio mix? Is it Woodsmith? Or is it more on the regulatory front in Chile and Peru on the taxation side?
The debate or the discussion we're having. I think this is where, you know, there are many. Duncan brings so many different qualities to the role. He can handle all of the things you've just said. I think the external environment is becoming more complex by the day. How we understand, engage, make a difference, and be seen to be part of a solution, whatever that solution may be in different jurisdictions, is really important. What we've done in South Africa, the deregulation of the financial controls, I don't think people still understand fully how important that has been for us to be able to move the cash and invest. The fact that South Africa is now reducing its corporate tax rate tells you South Africa is open for business.
Those sorts of engagement I think are really important and are front and center. I think the other one on the other side, because all of the others matter, is in the last couple of years, we've really driven hard on breakthrough improvement, but we lost a bit of our stability. Myself, Tony, Duncan, Stephen, and the team are talking about, how do we get that stability back in control to build for the next push up the curve? I think they are two ends of the scale and all of that stuff in between. I think they're the two key parts. Because that will also help our safety and getting to zero is that stability and control. Does that?
Yeah.
Yep.
Makes sense. Thank you. I have a second question for Stephen on the numbers. What are the different moving parts that we need to consider for your first half free cash flows in terms of the catch-up cash tax payments, any working capital movements? In that context, how should we think about the capital returns as we head into the first half of the year?
Yeah, good questions. We don't have any major catch up on the tax front. For those countries where we have December year ends, we make large installments based on the estimated result in December, literally just before year end. For those countries with June year ends, like Australia, we make you know, contributions just before June. The rules of the game these days are you gotta get it as accurate as possible within the year, and you've gotta be up to date as you cross the year end. We don't really have too much cash tax catch up in this first half. We paid some big, seriously big checks in December.
We even had, not speaking out of turn, some reactions from some tax officers as to, "Are you sure you've got this right?" because they were really quite substantial checks. Nothing major there. Working capital, if you cast your mind back probably 12 months ago, we were actually talking about the working capital increases that we had and the need to get that consistency of the ACP back up and running. Some build-ups, say, in diamonds, just because of market interruption. Those things have worked themselves out through this year. We're probably sitting at or around, I'd say, normal levels. We've got a couple of smelter rebuilds coming in platinum over the next sort of 12 or 24 months.
We go from open pit to underground at Venetia, so there'll be a couple of little moving parts, but in and around where we should sit. I've forgotten your last point. I'll answer.
Capital returns.
Capital returns.
40% baseline return. You should put that in your spreadsheet.
Thank you.
Ed. Yep.
Thanks. Maybe just the first one, Mark. You mentioned a comment about the super cycle, and I guess we have correlation with high prices, inflation, and now we're seeing taxation starting to pick up particularly in Chile. Maybe just your thoughts on that and maybe specifically on the Los Bronces underground. I see it's not really mentioned in the presentation. Maybe just for that and how that sort of fits in with the growth pipeline and spending, pecking order on projects. Then the second question, just for Stephen. Now we are very close to Quellaveco ramping up, and I guess that should bring your sort of baseline EBITDA and cash flow generation up. How do you think about capital allocation?
I mean, does that lift the ceiling for CapEx, and I guess just the ability to spend more on growth?
I'll do super cycle and give Steve a chance.
You can take the easy one then.
Yeah. Look, we're very careful not to put a stake in the ground and say we're in a super cycle. I'm always a bit worried. I'm still not convinced all boats are rising at the moment. I think energy transition and metals where material sciences are developing very quickly and the use of metals in developing new energy sources and other new technologies will be very important. But it'll be somewhat boutique in nature and substitution will probably increase across metal suites as well. For example, cobalt and batteries, and you're already seeing a whole new suite of things being in reaction to high prices. So that's something we think about very carefully and Duncan's team have been working on option A, B, C in terms of understanding where to put our money.
We think copper's in a great place, so we like being in copper and we'll continue to build our exposure. Consistent with that, Los Bronces is still going through the environmental approvals. We won't make any decisions there until we understand what the tax regime will be. Certainly from our point of view, I wouldn't suggest that we wouldn't invest. We will be clear on what the rules will be in making those investments. That's something we're watching very carefully. Taxation, yes. We've seen this movie play out a few times before. Chile has been. I think it's more complex in Chile with the constitutional issues. Their current full tax load is about 44%. If you look globally, it's somewhere between 39%-49%.
The way we read the conversations in Chile is we'd expect them to try and land inside that envelope, which means you might see a bit, but I don't think too much. At the same time, I think we've got to see those conversations play out. We've been a very active participant in those conversations, and in particular, explaining how investments in hydrogen make a difference both in Chile and on a global basis. For us to continue to make investments, you have to be continuing to make money. By the way, you can mine copper in other jurisdictions. Things like, a reduction in taxation by the South Africans, in my view, is a statement of intent. They're trying to attract investment.
With these returns, I think countries should be trying to attract investment because when companies have got the ability to invest and they see a stable economic environment, that's where they'll invest. That's what history tells us. Getting that message through in a constructive and appropriate way is always the challenge. I think that's what we've got to do as an industry, and we've got to do it a lot better than we have done in the past. I do think in Peru and Chile, the conversations will land in reasonable places, but we're gonna have to engage and make sure we don't leave that conversation to chance. I think they were the main points on the taxation and the super cycle. Steve?
Capital. Yeah, you're right. Obviously, you know, we do get a step-up in that base earnings as Quellaveco comes on. You know, the number we use is at 10% copper equivalent growth at the group level, in terms of that step-up, which is quite significant and meaningful for us. I suppose we have known it's coming for a while, and you know, that does feed into, you know, the 1 to 1.5 times sort of, net debt to EBITDA target that we have. But it also does feed into that 40% payout ratio that we have as we've looked ahead, tried to anticipate what's coming and then provide that consistency. The way I'd express it without giving away too much about Duncan, sweet's taste. He probably likes Kit Kats more than jelly beans.
It's that straight line growth that sort of sets out before us. I think we've also been pretty consistent with what's coming. We own them already, and they're nicely sort of sequenced in terms of timing, in terms of that capital allocation. I think we've got a pretty good path ahead of us as we think that through. I don't see us changing our plans. You never say never. Obviously, different opportunities will come at different times. Discovery hopefully comes through, as Mark says. Yes, you do scan the external world, but we've got a pretty good path ahead of us, and I see us staying fairly committed to that.
As Mark mentioned, that combination of greenfield/brownfield, again, I think just sets us up really nicely in the way we think about that capital allocation and journey.
There's also another point that I should have picked up. Steve, sorry . Just make sure. Just thinking about what Stephen said. One thing I said earlier to a question this morning, it used to take seven years to find and get a mine into development. Now it takes 15 years on average, and in many cases, 20 years. My concern and our concern as a group is the ability to get projects out there. When you're in a commodity cycle or where we are today, and it could be a lot longer, then the reticence to allow development or not get a fair slice of the pie actually constrains new developments. I think we're in that territory of it will be difficult to get many projects away, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's what we're watching very carefully, and we're trying to work out where we are. In our case, the organic profile we have is really important and it's a differentiator. We don't need to go out and buy something that's high risk or high cost relative to where we think the value can be created. We've got the ability to be prudent and take a bit of time. We think that's an advantage we have in today's market with our growth. At the same time, I think we've got to remain open to what the possibilities will be. That's as far as I should say, because the new CEO will define a position in the future.
I think where we are is in a good place. We're in a good place to be prudent and appropriate in terms of where we place our bets. As Stephen said, I think we've shown that we can be balanced, and that one project at a time is a good discipline to hold as well. I'll finish, and then I'll come right across.
Thanks. Congratulations, Mark. My question is just on PGMs. Just wanna further in terms of the underground mining model at Quellaveco. Is that just easier to do because of the wider reach? Secondly, just on PGMs in general, how far can you push them all at Quellaveco before you have to start doing smelting, refining side? Are there any technologies you're looking at, or how are you sort of looking at potential growth for PGMs?
Yeah. Tony and the team with Natasha are working on bulk ore sorting, coarse particle flotation, and those technologies to be on the processing side. That's about improving cost structures. Our strip ratio was about 4.8 to 1. The strip ratio to about 2035 is about 6.3. She's got a lot of time to get that right in the configuration we have. She can deal with the communities over that time. The reason we like the underground option is you can take that to up to 5 million tons, highly mechanized. It's a big reef, so exactly right. You can mechanize and do that productively and actually produce at a lower cost per ton of ore delivered to the mill, and you've got 50% more grade.
Your revenue per ton processed goes up as well at the concentrator level, and you're getting your balance right downstream. Now, the other thing that we've got going for us in the Anglo Plat business is we do have different types of concentrates. Some can be sold as concentrates with very little value loss. We've got quite a bit of flexibility in our mix to manage our capital over time downstream based on what we can do with various concentrates. Now, the Mogalakwena concentrate is a little more complex. Amandelbult's a really clean, nice concentrate that could almost go to most smelters across the globe. We've got the flexibility to make the right calls, and we're patient. We'll work these options through as Natascha has done.
She'll come with a proposal at the end of the year, would be my view, and that 26, I think, is pretty solid. I read someone say, "Oh, have we seen the best of it?" I don't think we've seen the best of our PGMs business. That's my view. Because I think the highly mechanized underground operation is another string to the bow that really does give us some breadth and options in our business. Okay? Yeah.
It's Dominic, JP Morgan. At the risk of being repetitive, the question on jurisdictional risk. Is it a risk that the industry needs to just absorb and suck it up? Or at senior level, can we still implement risk mitigation measures? Tax stability agreements, are they redundant or are they still fit for purpose?
Yeah. I think we've got to do more as leaders. I think a demonstration of what you can do over time. We've got to be patient, we've got to be consistent, and we've got to show we're delivering value not simply to shareholders, but to all of our stakeholders. Governments then take notice. The support we've had at Quellaveco has been remarkable. We've got a 15-year stability agreement. That's very important to us. But at the end of the day, you're always listening to governments. You must always listen to their issues and work out how you can support them in what they're trying to do. Chile's going through a constitutional review. Of course, we're gonna be constructive and try and do our bit and try and be part of the solution.
At the same time, we would hope that governments respect the agreements that we have in place, and that ultimately defines whether countries are successful in mining is the stability of their policy and their settings, and try and help them understand that. We also have to understand their issues and be part of the solution. As leaders, we've got to do more. I think we've tried to follow that approach. It's served us very well in the jurisdictions we've been in. When we're in Peru today, they talk about the Quellaveco model. We'll be at the President's Investment Conference in South Africa, and we'll be looking to be part of the solution. Our proposals on energy configuration that works for Anglo American, but it also works for South Africa.
Looking for those win-wins, that's the nature of our work, and that's our accountability. We'll be right in the middle of those conversations because we believe it's the right thing to do.
At the senior level, do you bake in a higher cost of capital now because of these risks, or is the 15%
Stephens is the minister in charge of risk and return balance. We also sort of trim it to a. The answer is yes, and we also look at jurisdictions in what we call business risk periods. Let me be as simple as I can. If we see high political risk in a jurisdiction, then forget the return if we want the bulk of our cash back in three or four years' time. Because it changes the risk profile. I think Mick Davis once said it quite well. If he can get the bulk or half of his capital back in two or three years, then he looks at the risk quite differently on a go-forward basis. I think he nailed that assessment of risk by jurisdiction the right way. It's very practical how quickly.
The term of the government's 3-5 years, then your risk period in a highly political environment has to be connected to that. We have the traditional financial and business development aside. We come at it from a number of ways, and the board's very good in challenging us in terms of thinking about how much you're prepared to put into that country. Maybe you go smaller, and you accept there'll be some inefficiencies, and then what you do is you use the funds you create to build the size of business and the efficiencies you want over time. They're the sorts of things and discussions we have at Anglo American.
I understand, but it's also one of those ten commandments, in my view of mining finance, is even when money's cheap and things are going well, you don't forget about political risk. There is that danger sometimes through the cycle, and so you've got to have that discipline of strategy over time, because things change in your investment horizons. Yeah, we'll adjust our discount rates as things feed through and that, but we've never forgotten the learnings of past cycles in that assessment. I think you have to when you're allocating long-term capital. Syndication. Now, I'm not wanting to pick on any particular country, but we syndicated partly for those reasons because we felt it was the right thing to do given the scale of investment for our balance sheet for a greenfield project for a new country.
Again, I think we've got a little bit of a track record of keeping those things absolutely at the top of mind.
Is that okay, though? Yeah.
Two questions, Mark. One on Woodsmith and then one on diamonds. On Woodsmith, because of the delays, the market's obviously fretting that there could be an overrun here. In December, you said we shouldn't interpret that as a major CapEx overrun, and you also said it should be a fairly linear level of CapEx. I guess, are you still comfortable with those comments?
I'm not. The one thing I would say is the project we're building is not the Sirius project. It's a different project scale. We've changed the mining methods. We think that the full continuous mining suite will be a longer term, more efficient configuration that requires a bit more ventilation. The scope and scale will be different, and it'll be built as an Anglo project with a long-term view, and that will be matched to market development, which we think is really positive, and I think the prices are up 70%.
Yeah.
From when we bought. There'll be ins and outs, but the team has to get the detail right, and we did that with Quellaveco, and that's really put us in a good position. We'll do the same with the project. It's gonna look different. How different? That's what the detail will show us. It will be a different conversation. In all likelihood, it will take a bit longer, and it will cost more, but it'll be a long-term value-creating project for Anglo American that is really an Anglo project, and I think that'll be the difference. I don't want to say too much too soon until the guys have finished the detail, but that's what they're working on. The resource is great, the markets look strong. The overall logic was good. Tunnels, shafts, all that fits.
It's how do you execute the right way and time it to go with the market development to get the best return for the shareholders. That's what we're looking at.
One more on, it might be a tough one, on diamonds.
Yeah.
Just given the importance of Russia to that market, even before potential sanctions, had you already or are you already picking up on any kind of shift away from Russian material towards your material?
No. We've heard nothing as yet. We'll have to have a good look at sanctions and what that may mean. At this stage, we've not heard anything other than people wondering, One, what will happen, and two, what sanctions might look like, and three, what might that mean. We don't know. We are looking at that and watching that very closely over the next 3 or 4 days to see if there's anything else we can see, other than a product that is very rare and is becoming more rare by the day before we got to today. Whether that means supply is impacted in some way, shape, or form, we don't know, and we'd be guessing at this stage. We're watching and looking at that very carefully.
We haven't seen anything as yet to tell us which way it'll go. There's nothing new or nothing special that we've got in that conversation. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Obviously one of the first targets from the tenner was the 15% return on capital employed target, and that's been clearly well surpassed. Given the improvements that you've seen in productivity, in the cost position, marketing, do you think you would be above that 15% at bottom of the cycle prices? That's the first question.
Our original target was to be at 15% through the cycle, and what that reflected, a view on long-term prices and delivering projects in the mining industry as shareholders are investing in us to build mines and make a good return. That for me was the break-even number, was our 15%. If prices are higher, we'll do a little bit better. Then we have to think about the new investments and how do we make sure that, 'cause we can grow, we've got more assets, we can do more. We'll continue to use that 15% as sort of our, we've got to do better than that through the cycle. It just means that our assumptions and what we do is built on those new price assumptions looking forward.
15% remains the hurdle, and it's better presented as a hurdle rate. The 15%-20% reflects that we're just doing better than we thought we would. But that 15% is the hurdle for our capital decisions. Steve, do you wanna say, add-
You answered that beautifully, Mark, so nothing to add.
Is that?
Yeah, sure. Thank you.
Stuart asked me the same question, Danielle, so
Yeah, we've had practice at answering this with the board a few times.
The second one was just actually on South Africa, electricity production. Can you remind us how much electricity do you consume in South Africa? Obviously we know about the potential for renewable investment from Hakwena. Given you're targeting to get to mostly renewables by 2030, how much more investment, direct or otherwise, do you need to invest into renewables in South Africa?
We represent somewhere between 2%-3% of South Africa's energy consumption in our operations. Our proposal, which is concept going into pre-feas, which is wind farms, West Coast, East Coast, solar arrays, Northern Cape, and then we've got our own inside-the-fence options, is the proposal we've put to the government in terms of us wanting to get to our zero footprint, but having all of those things outside our fence line run through the Eskom system. How those projects are developed will then determine what financing we may or may not have to find. Now, from our point of view, there is probably some optionality on whether we invest and what return we get on the price of power that we'll consider. At the same time, what the government has said is, "Gee, that's great.
That works for us. It helps build our footprint, deliver on our outcomes. We've got lots of players who want to invest in that capacity. Infrastructure funds are saying, "You know what? We can't find projects to invest in. We can't fulfill our mandates. These are the sorts of things we'd like to do." At the moment, we can go from zero capital to get there to full. We won't do the full. It's a matter of what's the best return for Anglo American shareholders in that context. The other thing is the new technology where we've got the underground water, where we use the water as a battery. Effectively, if you've got a solar plant, which is what we'd have at Mogalakwena, you'd fully run that plant during the day.
You'd pump water on the excess using the excess energy and then let the water run back underground at night. It's effectively a battery. The efficiency of that is almost equivalent to a lithium battery, believe it or not. It's a fantastic bit of technology work, and it's something that's not new in South Africa in terms of the concept. Those pieces is how we, I think, make a difference to countries in thinking about our role in the country, what works for us, what works for the country. That's when I think countries start to appreciate the contribution we make. Sorry, I've come to you now.
I know you don't have more detail on the financials and things, right? We're working hard on them.
Yeah.
It's moving fast, and it's really coming together quite well. You're just gonna need to be a little bit patient, I think, just a little bit longer, and then hopefully we can scope out the detail for you.
Yeah.
With a bit more clarity.
Yeah. You connect the renewables to hydrogen production, and then we use the hydrogen to replace the diesel in our trucks. The diesel in our trucks across the globe is about 20% of our carbon gas mix. It is a fully formed logic.
It's a conceptual follow-up rather than but. Obviously, what we're seeing is, I think within mining and cement producing 700 MW of their own renewable production inside the fence. Not wanting to cast aspersions onto Eskom, right? How do you think about that balance of risk in terms of wanting to work with Eskom who doesn't have the best track record versus having that security.
We know Andre. I was involved in one of the energy task force back 10, 12 years ago. The system is running at about 65% availability. It should be up near 75+. What we've talked to the team about is can we help in any way, shape, or form? Would our industrial operating model, those sorts of things be of use? He's very open. At the end of the day, he's already working down that track. What we think we can do is maybe help connect some points and as industry, maybe help with industry connecting with Eskom to be part of the solution. Certainly our proposal in terms of energy generation, they're very, very enthusiastic on. We're just looking to see how we can help.
There's always this thing. You don't presume that you know the answers. What we've put to Andre is, "How can we help?" There are a range of things we have. Help us understand how to help you. I think that's where we're starting. In fact, Duncan and I were in South Africa last week having those types of conversations. The fact they're open to that input, I think is a really good sign.
Sorry, Marcus, before. Please go next, and then we'll take one call from Grant on the telephone. Sylvain and Richard Hatch, we'll take your questions in the round table if we may. We're running out of time. Two more questions. Thank you.
Okay. I've just got a few follow-ups. Just on Woodsmith, you're saying the scale could be larger. It was already supersized by Sirius. Is it gonna be super sized or is it
Some of the subtleties are a bit different, but it was originally 7 million granulated and 3 not granulated. We'd be looking at a fully granulated product mix. I wouldn't call it. I don't want it to be called supersized. I don't want that to be the headline. You know, that would really be leaving Duncan a legacy. No, it's sized for what we think the market will be. We've got to match it. We've got to match the development to the market development. There's no point spending capital too early if the market still needs time. That's what the guys are working on now. We've got Alex out in the marketplace, Peter and Alex and the team.
We've got Tom on the project, but Tom's watching both. I think the guys will pull all that stuff together in the next 12 months. We're very excited in terms of the potential. There's still a lot more work to be done. Remember, we went round the key economic optimization a couple of times. We're probably in the second cycle of that at the moment with Woodsmith. It really does look quite exciting. When you look at low carbon footprint and the fact that the product can be used on crops and they're still classed as organic, really differentiated in the world of fertilizers that people are only just starting to wake up to why we went there.
This is second follow-up. This is on decarbonization spend. Should we still assume that you can deliver the 50% reduction, keeping your CapEx to decarbonization within your sustaining CapEx? Or, 'cause a lot of your competitors now are differentiating decarbonization spend and sustaining CapEx. How should we think for yourselves, 'cause you've got the most ambitious targets in the market?
Yeah. We have got that $300 million-$500 million per annum on sort of technology, so some of that will get picked up in there. As I've said on technology, some of the decarbonization spend just becomes part of your normal spend, sort of actually replacing trucks in normal cycles and those things. It'll be harder and harder, I think, to split out apart from a couple of specific projects. We are still working on some of that detail and I think we will have some choices as to how that flexes. Again, you're probably gonna have to bear with us a little bit. You know, some of these are big, long-dated projects, but I think a lot of them won't necessarily be on our balance sheet directly.
The vast majority will be in sustaining technology still?
Still to be worked through, but yeah. I think so.
I think the other point is we're also pushing hard, Steve, on each investment having its own return.
Mm-hmm.
It's not simply about decarbonizing. We think renewables with the technologies we're developing will improve our cost position over time as well. 'Cause if you look in South Africa, stabilizing the grid, getting consistent production, helping the team on the other side with the renewable mix actually improves the reliability from our perspective and the unit cost, plus with our internal grid, i.e. the Mogalakwena solar array improves our cost structure. For us, they're investments in improving our returns, and that's how we think about it, and that's the challenge we've put to everybody in our business.
Alex, sorry. I'm gonna wait for you in the roundtable, if I may. Operator, can we go to Grant on the line please?
Thank you. Your phone question now comes from Grant Sporre from Bloomberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking my questions. Just two brief ones. The first one is, Mark, you talked in your presentation that you hadn't really changed your long-term price assumptions. Given the sort of inflation which may or may not be quite sticky, and perhaps the inclusion of a carbon price, can you just maybe describe the conversations you're having around that in terms of your perhaps changing them in future? And my second question is, you talked about, you know, you're hoping for some exploration success. Can you know, sort of narrow it down as to where you're hoping for that success to come through? And if not a specific region, is it greenfield or is it more in and around mines or brownfield exploration?
I'll start with the exploration question. I told Duncan that I was gonna say I expect a discovery in the next two years, and if we don't deliver one, then that's Duncan's fault. But I'll take full credit for the next two years. More seriously, I think the team's done a great job. We've got good positions in Brazil, in Peru, and in other parts of South America. Clearly, Chile's still an important jurisdiction for us. We're doing work in Australia around the Mount Isa region. Again, a really interesting ground. We're in Namibia on rare earths, and we're also working through a number of countries in Africa, Zambia included, looking at going back into Angola for a few different things. I think the guys have done a fantastic job positioning the portfolio, but in exploration, nothing's guaranteed.
I think they've got great ground positions. For me, as a shareholder, as a very interested shareholder in the next two years, I've got my fingers crossed. I think they've done some fantastic work. To be fair to Duncan and the team, you can't really preempt these things until you're pretty sure you've got something. We're still following up on the Brazil stuff. It's still very exciting. I think they've done a great job in positioning. Now in the next two or three years, we hope to see something. I'm certainly not gonna leave Duncan with a legacy in this conversation. Second point.
Our long-term price assumptions and carbon pricing. Mark , do you want me to take that one?
Yeah.
I'll have first crack. Now, listen, we do refine our long-term price assumptions, but it's a refine rather than dramatic change. What may change more is your glide path to those long-term assumptions, depending on where markets sit. I'll have a crack, Duncan. A purist economic theory would say that a lot of carbon price on the inputs for us should be passed through to the outputs, being revenue lines. Now, my challenge back to the economics team internally is, well, are you sure about that? How's that gonna feed through? It's, again, it's something we're watching carefully. Obviously, how carbon prices play out in different economies, both in developed world and developing worlds. I think everyone's still watching because there is quite a differential, I think still at the moment, but probably with one general direction.
It's something we're watching, listening, trying to incorporate into our assumptions and base cases, and certainly into our capital allocation decisions on how those things may play out now.
Yeah. There's an argument on metals intensity as middle class develops and grows, which we think is pretty strong. You then balance that against how long it takes to develop a new project. One would say and suggest that there's upward pressure and Stephen's, I think, very articulately covered the carbon side. There are a range of issues that will put pressure on the prices. We run scenarios both ways just to make sure we understand if it is continuing to go up, we know how to react with the resources we have. That's really important, is understanding the potential of your resources and where you can go to respond and get the best returns for shareholders, depending on prices. Both negative, 'cause there's always a chance things can go the other way.
We know which way to go when prices go in particular directions. That's really important. Steve?
Yeah.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being so engaged and listening to our story. We very much appreciate it. I have been terribly lucky to present these sets of results. Poor Duncan has got to follow a record performance, but I'm sure he and the team will do a fantastic job, supported by the board. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I hope you all have a great day. Cheers.