Good morning, everyone. My name is Kalidas Madhavpeddi, and I'm Chair of the Board of Directors. When you came into the room today, you received a package of information. Please read it carefully. It has important instructions for safety in case of an emergency, and it also has guidance about the proceedings of the meeting. My pleasure to introduce our colleagues in management of the board today. First, Gary Nagle, CEO and Director. Gill Marcus, our Senior Independent Director. Martin Gilbert, the Chair of our Administration Committee. Cynthia Carroll, Chair of Ethics, Culture, and Compliance. Liz Hewitt, Chair of the Audit Committee. John Wallington, Chair of Health and Safety. Given our investments in Colombia and in South America, we're delighted to welcome Paca to the board.
Her full name is María Margarita Zuleta, and she was a former deputy minister of justice in Colombia, and she knows a lot about our assets, Cerrejón and Prodeco. Finally, John Burton, our company secretary. I see a lot of familiar faces here today, so that's nice. Let me just highlight our accomplishments for 2024. First, we distributed $2.2 billion to shareholders in terms of a $0.10 per share cash distribution and a $1 billion share buyback, which has already been implemented. In February of last year, we published our 2024 to 2026 climate action transition plan that received over 90% support from shareholders. It clearly details our managed decline of our steam coal business, with clear targets for 2026, intermediate target for 2030, and 50% reduction by 2035, and includes our ambition to be net zero by 2050.
In July of last year, we completed the acquisition of Elk Valley Resources, a world-class coking coal asset in Canada. Immediately after that, we had a series of consultations with our shareholders, and the board announced our decision to retain the coal business in our portfolio while continuing to manage the decline in the steam coal business. In our copper business, which, as you know, is critical for industrial growth, decarbonization, we have some exciting organic growth projects which, on a preliminary basis, will ultimately add up to one million tons of annual production per year. From a safety perspective, 2024 was the best year in a decade in terms of our lost time and injury frequency rates. Most of our assets worldwide were fatality-free. I'm saddened to report that despite that good record, we still had four fatalities.
Management and the board are committed to continuous improvement to reach our ambition of zero workplace-related fatalities. I'll now play a short video about the company.
If you put your mind to it, anything is possible.
We're learning every day.
I am honored to be part of it.
The sole focus of my job is ensuring that we're mining responsibly. I like the fast pace. I like the challenges.
You can calculate something, and if you test it and it actually works, then that's just really awesome.
I could be in the core shed, logging core. I can be at the office doing geological models. When you make discoveries, it's like winning the lottery.
I love doing recycling. Even as a young man, I knew that it was important. There is no second earth. This is it. So we got to take care of it.
The world has to shift the energy sources to more renewable energy.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
I am helping my fellow Iwi on my land take as much opportunities as they can.
What I've learned is precision, do things right, do it safely, communicate effectively.
My role is to make things clear. That is operating responsibly.
We have a team that works really well together. I think we're just all excited about what we've done and where we're going.
I feel the trajectory I'm on right now is aligned with what I want in my life.
[Foreign language]
To me, it feels really meaningful to do something that I love in order to make the world a slightly better place.
Last year, I talked to the board about the role, sorry, last year, I talked to you about the role of the board in governance. And governance is not just about sitting around a boardroom table and looking at slides and data. It's important that the board gets out and sees our facilities and our offices everywhere in the world. Last year, we visited the Australian coal assets, Cerrejón in Colombia, the copper smelter and refinery at Horne and CCR in Canada, and we visited the DRC cobalt copper operations in Katanga and Mutanda. When we go to these facilities, we meet and talk to local management, and we meet employees without management. Many of our employees are represented by unions. And in fact, as we go across, we hear the views of local people throughout the community.
We visit hospitals, clinics, schools, and get a sense from a 360-degree point of view of what is happening in the community. In fact, one of the most important tasks of the board is assessing how our social programs are going. I will give you three examples of what we've done in our last visit, but it applies to all the schools that the company has built in all its operations, the roads it's built, the clinics, and facilities, and the services it provides. And it speaks very well to how Glencore, as well as its community people and its operations, view community work. The first is we visited a hospital that sees thousands of patients. They take patients in for normal medical care, surgery, heart disease, and the treatment they get is absolutely state of the art. We visited a school that was refurbished by Glencore.
The teachers were so excited that they had all the tools they needed to run the schools, provide the best education. But when you looked into the eyes of the students, you could see how pleased they were. They had great ambitions. They presented science projects. They talked about what they want to do in their lives. And some wanted to be engineers. Some wanted to be scientists. Some doctors. Some teachers. And some even politicians. But when you look into their eyes, you could see their future. And I think that's the most important thing we do as a company. We also visited a water treatment facility, for example. This is a reverse osmosis, state-of-the-art process that produces clean water, which, in this case, was provided to a number of communities in the area. So these are examples of what the company does everywhere.
On behalf of the board, I want to thank all those community folks that help make their dream come true. With that brief introduction, let me turn it over to Gary for his comments.
Good morning or good afternoon. Good afternoon to everybody. Welcome. Welcome. Great to see everybody. Some new faces, some familiar faces, but it's always great to get together once a year. I hope the spread afterwards is better than last year. But we always try and improve our standards in everything that we do, so I'm expecting something good afterwards. Thank you, Kalidas. Thank you for that. Kalidas has outlined a lot of our achievements that we've had during 2024. I'm just going to take you through quickly a little bit on our strategy and how we deliver our strategy and what our priorities are in this business longer term.
It's critical for us to deliver year in, year out for our shareholders by focusing on these strategies and highlighting the priorities that drive us in every day that we run this business. The key and most important thing, the number one priority in this business every day for every single person is the health and the safety of our people. It is number one. Nothing is more important than the safety of our people. We strive for continued improvement. We strive for zero harm. That is the ultimate goal in this business. We've been on a long journey and a long road. Kalidas outlined some of the fatalities that we had last year, and each one of those, each one of those is one too many. It is unacceptable for us to have fatalities in our business, and it's something that we continue to work at.
If you look back in time, in fact, we've had huge improvements in our safety. Not good enough. Not good enough. But from many, many years ago, and those who've been here for many years will remember years where we had more than 10 fatalities in a year. We are striving for zero harm in this business, and it's the number one priority that we have. The other, moving across if you have a look at the presentation, which is behind me, is how we approach the markets that we operate in. Now, we're in a very difficult market where supply and demand ultimately set the price for our products. It's not around walking to a store down in the Migros or wherever it may be, and the price is marked on the shelf. These prices move every day.
And the prices are moved around the supply and demand dynamics that happen in the market, how much of the product is produced and how much of the product is demanded for end use. And as a major producer and a major market of commodities across the world, where we can participate and add value to you as our shareholders is to ensure we remain disciplined in how we supply these materials. Now, of course, first and foremost, our production is done responsibly and ethically. It's a key part of our business. But we get to times in our markets where markets are oversupplied. And what does that mean? That means prices go down. And when prices go down, we start to lose money. And when we start to lose money, we cannot sustain the operations.
It is not good for the long-term viability of our business or that particular operation, so in many cases, in many cases, because of these market conditions, we take a leadership role, which is key to be a leader in this industry, and we have supply discipline, and during the course of last year and the beginning of this year, you would have read about and we would have announced shutdowns of some operations in our business. We've shut down, unfortunately, some ferrochrome smelters in South Africa. We've reduced production at our Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia. We've unfortunately put some of our copper and zinc smelters onto care and maintenance around the world. These are necessary actions that we have to take as a business to protect the entire business.
And that's what we do because as a business that can continue decades after decades, we have to make some of these tough decisions. And what do these tough decisions often lead to? They often do lead to an improvement in markets, to an improvement in prices. And when those prices do improve and markets do improve, we are able to bring these operations back, re-employ our very good people, continue to pay the taxes and royalties, and invest in the social programs that we commit to do. So it's a part of the way we have to run this business. It's a part of the commodity industry. Moving one step across on our priorities, and we highlight marketing. Marketing is something that sets us apart from many of our peers.
When we look across the industry, we have all our mining peers, and all they do is mine and deliver. That's what they do. We have a huge marketing division, something that none of our peers have and something that delivers huge value to our shareholders and huge value to our customers. Our customers demand very specific products at very specific times at very specific places in the world. And it's very difficult at times for them to get exactly what they want. And through our network of offices and mines and relationships and customers around the world, we are able to provide that service to our customers, something that particularly in times of crisis, and we saw that in 2022. We see it again this year with some of the tariff wars.
We are able to supply that service to our customers, something that we get rewarded for through the fees that we get paid. And as shareholders, you get rewarded for through the profitability of the company. It's a distinct advantage that we have. It's a competitive advantage, and none of our peers have something similar. So it's something that we should all be very proud of. And then moving to the right-hand side in the last column, which is absolutely critical and absolutely important, why are you shareholders in this company? Because you want returns. You want responsible returns. You want ethical returns. But you are investors in this company because you want us to provide returns to shareholders. And as a business, we have very good years. We have years that aren't as good. But each year, we have been a very profitable business.
And each year, we continue to pay out dividends to our shareholders through operating responsibly, through our very strong marketing department, from doing our business correctly. And for that, we want to and we do reward our shareholders. I just want to touch on one area around the reward for shareholders, which perhaps there may be some frustration, mainly me, is our share price because that is a lot that we are judged a lot by our share price. Our share price is generally dictated by the commodity markets. As you know, we're a big producer of coal, both thermal and steelmaking coal. And of late, coal prices have been down quite materially. And that talks to what I spoke around marketing and supply discipline. There's been an oversupply in those markets, and prices have come down.
We still remain very profitable, very cash-generative in those businesses, but not as cash-generative as we'd like to be. We've taken some action. We've led the markets. We've shown supply discipline, and we've taken some tons out of the market. And we're already seeing some recovery of prices. Already in the last few weeks, we've seen some recovery. So we expect as coal prices recover, we do expect our share price to recover as well and hopefully continue to pay excellent returns to everybody, our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it back to Kalidas.
Thanks, Gary. Okay. Now I can proceed to the formal part of today's meeting. Before taking a vote from shareholders on the resolutions, I invite questions. When asking a question, please raise your hand and hold your yellow poll card.
We may only take questions if the poll card can be seen so that we know you're a shareholder. Okay. Anyone in the back there have a question? Gentleman in the pink shirt there, please.
[Foreign language]
I'm going to use German. Please wait. Okay. [Foreign language] . Okay. I think most of you know me. I'm Stephan Suhner from the Group Swiss Colombia. This year and for the last time, we're going to represent our association because we're going to be dissolved this June. We have met Gary Nagle for the first time in 2008 in Colombia in the Calenturitas mine. And we have been in continuous dialogue since. We have met several times. We have tried to do lobbying work in order to achieve a better result for the communities.
After those 17 years and since I've known Gary Nagle, I am in the unfortunate position to state today that the situation is worse than it was in the past. Hence my following remarks and questions. Since Glencore has decided to give Prodeco back, the communities have been requiring transparent information and the right to express themselves when it comes to the decision-making process, even though things are not always clear, particularly since the Colombian government wasn't always very clear on what was going to happen. But the communities had to go to the highest court in order to receive the right to those claims. In January, this decision was taken. This judgment was rendered. Prodeco has organized three information sessions in March and has announced in October to hand a plan to the Colombian government and, in the meantime, organized 30 different meetings in the communities.
We do wonder why the communities who are supposed to be involved and consulted do not know through which method the participation of the people on site can be guaranteed. Stephan, why this silence? That's the question that was asked. After 2022, one of the main recommendations concerned the improvement of communication. What has Prodeco done in order to improve that communication when the communities are still facing as much insecurity as they did before? And my final remark, we do think that the third impact statement, Trust Consultores, which was led in 2023, is insufficient. The main impacts have not been mentioned, and the measures are deemed insufficient.
Is Prodeco ready with the communities in question to do its due diligence and, based on that due diligence, elaborate on a plan including measures in order to protect the society, the environment, and all the challenges related to it through the last 25 years? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Suhner. I appreciate your bringing up the history and the background. As I understand it, there has been a series of meetings with Prodeco, with the communities. The input from the communities has been very helpful in terms of designing the plans. I understand that now Prodeco will be meeting with ANLA, which is the Colombian government agency. And out of those discussions will come the final settlement around this issue. And it'll take into account all the input the communities have provided. So thank you for your question. Gary, did you want to add anything?
Yeah, maybe I can add just a few points, and it's very nice to see you again, Stephan. Welcome. We missed you last year. 2008 was an interesting time. I remember meeting you. We walked around the Cesar Province, and in fact, I think Paca Zuleta was with us as well on that visit. We went to see the schools that Prodeco had built for the kids. We went to see the community halls. We went to see all the good social work that we did, and Prodeco has been a long story. The company invested $3 billion into the country, and during that time, we operated a very successful mine. We paid royalties and taxes to the state, of which the royalties, as you know, go to the department, and the department then goes to the communities where we operate.
I think the total contribution back was in excess of $3 billion as well, so huge value add for the communities through the foreign direct investment from Glencore. We hired many, many people who worked for us for many, many years, very, very good people. We trained them up, and many of them, as the operations went down, have found jobs elsewhere with the skills and training that we've given them. It's always a very sad time that a mine has to shut. We know that, but they're finite resources, and in this world, unfortunately, that's how it works. You mine out the deposit, or they become uneconomical, and one has to shut it, and our commitment is to continue operating both during the operating time and the shutdown time in a responsible and ethical way.
and we continue to engage with our stakeholders, which includes, obviously, the communities who are key stakeholders in this. We are undertaking a human rights assessment at the moment, as you may know. and I think maybe Anna Krutikov has explained to you. The outcome of all these studies is communicated openly and will be communicated to you, to the communities, to the government. and we continue to work actively, collaboratively, and constructively with all stakeholders in all things around Prodeco.
Thank you. Next question, please. Gentleman in the middle.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. My name is Nick Mazan from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility. I have four questions. The first two relate to the company's emissions reporting, and the second two relate to the management of methane emissions. I'll ask the first two and pause to let the board respond before asking the second two.
Firstly, I note that Glencore's group climate reporting already includes a diverse range of commodities from transition metals like copper and cobalt to fossil fuels including oil and Australian metallurgical coal. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol requires acquisitions to be incorporated into the group reporting. Therefore, on what basis is Glencore delaying or deferring integration of EVR assets into group climate disclosures? Secondly, Mr. Chairman, I must ask you about Prodeco and your emissions reductions targets. Your 2021 climate transition action plan noted that Glencore's emissions data will be restated to exclude Prodeco from the base year following the transfer of licenses to Colombian authorities. With Prodeco's relinquishment process still ongoing as required by the courts, will the board confirm that once complete, Glencore will restate its 2019 emissions baseline to exclude Prodeco in full compliance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol?
Thank you for your question.
I think the first question on EVR, when we published the climate action transition plan in February of last year, we mentioned in there that once the EVR acquisition is complete, we'll be taking a full look at what EVR represents, and that's what we're in the process of doing. We published the report for the rest of the business, as you know, and that's good till 2026. In 2027, we'll be publishing an updated three-year plan that will incorporate EVR into it also, and then your second question was about rebasing whether Prodeco was included or not. I think that's best if you can get together with Anna, and she can walk you through those numbers. Lady in the back.
My name is Sayuri Andrade. I'm coming from the Peru Support Group on behalf of Anna Reyes, and I will have two questions for the board.
The first one, Glencore's ESG report omits critical environmental and health issues linked to its mining operations in Peru. The Antapaccay mine in Espinar Province is the source of heavy metal and arsenic contamination, severely affecting local communities. This has been proved by the government's Environmental Oversight Agency, OEFA, and this is the proof that it's going into ongoing lawsuits against the company filed by local communities and the association of people affected by heavy metal contamination. In Huarmey-Ancash, the Ancash region, near the Antamina Port facilities, severe arsenic contamination above permissible limits also has been found, particularly affecting children, according to the Ministry of Health in Peru. Despite this, Glencore has denied responsibility and failed to assist in identifying the source of contamination. Why is Glencore ignoring the findings of these investigations?
The second one is regarding specifically to the expansion project in Coroccohuayco in Espinar as well in Peru. Would you commit to applying the IFC performance standard number seven to the resettlement of the two indigenous communities of Huini, Coroccohuayco, and Pacopata? These communities, they are indigenous communities, will lose almost all their territory and actually risk disappearing completely with this measurement. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question and also for coming all the way from Peru to raise the issue. First of all, just for the benefit of everyone here, Espinar and where Antapaccay is, the whole area is heavily mineralized, not just at the mine, but there's low-grade mineralization everywhere. And if you go back to about 2013, the Peruvian government actually did an analysis of that and concluded that there's no relationship between the contamination everywhere and the mine.
The OEFA study that you cited, I think it had two items in there. One, OEFA suggested that PM10, which is slightly heavier, larger-sized particles, can get trapped in people's noses. This was mostly detected around the pit itself, and they made suggestions about reducing that kind of an impact. They took a bunch of samples, but they could not reach a conclusion. Antapaccay actually hired an international environmental consultant as well as two local Peruvian universities that are experts in chemical analysis, and they reviewed the entire OEFA report, and they concluded exactly the same thing that the previous Peruvian government study had concluded, that the contamination had nothing to do with Antapaccay. With regard to your question about Antamina, it's a joint venture between BHP, Teck and Glencore. It's independently managed and run.
I am not that familiar with your question, so I'm going to ask Gary to comment on it.
Was the question about Antamina?
Levels of contamination above permissible limits, also by the Ministry of Health in Peru. There is no pronouncement from Glencore about that case specifically. Also, if you already had the results of the monitoring, they are not public. I know that in Quebec, for example, they do monitor in real time, but in Peru, we don't have that information also known to the communities that are affected by this problem.
Yeah, thanks very much for your question. As you know, Antamina is an independently managed joint venture owned with BHP and with Teck. They have world-class standards and procedures and processes in place around environmental protection and monitoring.
But as I say, it is an independently managed operation, and we encourage you to meet with Antamina management who do not work for Glencore to ensure follow-up on your questions and your queries, where I'm sure they will satisfy you on the work that they're doing to ensure world-class environmental management.
Thank you. Gentleman right in the middle.
[Foreign language]
There had been an armed conflict in my region, and Glencore used to be in the region until 2016. There were representatives of farmers.
And we've always insisted that it's important to have a direct dialogue with the company and talk about the negative impact of mining in general. And what consequences that had on human rights in our community. In 2018, the company and our organization held a long and very difficult path ahead of us, but it was based upon trust. It was a major challenge for us as representatives of the farmers' community. But the dialogue as such has not really started yet. We feel insecure because of the lack of dialogue, which is why we believe that we cannot wait any longer. So what has happened in all these years makes for the fact that so far the process has not really started. So is there a lack of willingness, which is why we would like to ask you as the representatives of Glencore the following question.
Can you promise us here and now that this dialogue will start now so that in the end we get answers regarding the influence that this has on our lives so that we can have a worthwhile life and lead a worthy life?
Thank you for your question. Sorry, I was a little late on that translation. But fundamentally, there has been engagement on a continuous basis and discussions with Cesar Province. And in fact, at this stage, the process is moving towards getting the input from the Colombian government and ANLA, which is the environmental agency, so that we can proceed and move forward. We're happy to have additional discussions if you're not satisfied with the level of discussions, but I think you can be confident that this process will move forward.
The meeting with ANLA is scheduled for October of this year, so we should be hearing feedback from them. Thank you for your question. Gentleman in front.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Donald Makofane from South Africa. Here on behalf of the National Union of Mineworkers and many other employees who are anxious at home about their future in our company. Gary, in your remarks, you mentioned part of the strategy that we have as a business is that whenever the material conditions dictate, you'll have to shut down for the business sustainability. I wanted to check with you that have you considered selling some of these assets to other businesses so that we can be able to avoid job losses?
The second question, despite hoping that the volatile markets get improved, what other plans do we have in place to make sure that we save the company from this crisis that we are facing? Currently, as we speak here, there's no furnaces that are running in South Africa. All the smelthouses are put on care and maintenance. What is our responsibilities as a company to make sure that we avoid the bloodbath of job losses that we are anticipating? Thank you very much. All right, go ahead.
Welcome, Donald. Thank you. Long way from South Africa, so welcome to Zug. I think first time here. Yeah, nice to see you. Welcome. The NUM is a very important partner for Glencore. As you know, we have a number of unions and operations around South Africa, of which NUM is a very important one.
To address your first question around selling assets, as I explained, the reason why we shut assets or put them on care and maintenance is that they're loss-making. It's a nature of the market, and in many cases, it's either the commodity price is not high enough to sustain their business, or in other cases, and in particular South Africa, and as you know very well, the input costs become very expensive, in particular the cost of power. As you know, with the issues around Eskom in South Africa, the cost of power is up enormously over the last 10 or 15 years, and ferrochrome smelters are very heavy power users, and we pay very high costs, and therefore the smelters in South Africa become uncompetitive versus competitors around the world, in particular China.
So we've taken a very difficult and tough decision to shut these furnaces and to put them on care and maintenance. To answer your question directly, did we try and sell? Yes, we did. We tried to sell the Rustenburg smelter. We canvassed the market, and unsurprisingly, Donald, nobody wanted to buy it. Who wants to buy an operation that loses money? Who wants to buy an operation that's paying power prices two, three times higher than competitors' power prices in China and other parts of the world? So we did try because we share your concern around the job losses. We wanted to keep that operation running. We couldn't do it. We felt, let's see if someone would buy this and maybe have a better way of operating. But it should be no surprise that nobody bought that, not one offer.
We went to more than 10 parties, not one offer. We even worked with your competing union, NUMSA, with Irvin Jim to try and see if he could assist in putting a consortium together because, as you know, NUMSA organizes very strongly in the metals works, in the metal works. No, unfortunately, we did try, but no one was interested in buying the furnaces. With regards to your second question, and you said hoping the volatile markets improve, and I think I tried to explain that a little bit in my presentation. For us, hope is not a strategy. We don't hope the markets will improve. We need to take active action to help improve markets and improve our operations.
One way, of course, is to ensure we are the most cost-effective and run these businesses very well at the lowest cost, but all the time remaining safe and responsible how we operate. But the other way to do it is by balancing the market and taking production out that does not make any money, the fact that it loses money. Because once you take that losing tons out of those tons that lose money out of the market, it helps balance the market and improves the margins. As a result, sometimes the rest of the business, our business, is able to survive. Which brings me on to your third question, is that we don't have zero furnaces running. We still have the Lion Complex running in Steelpoort Valley.
It is going on a six-month extended shutdown for maintenance, but we'll be coming back in November of this year. That is the normal maintenance shutdown that we do in winter, and there's a lot of rebuilds of furnaces and other work that needs to be done. One of the reasons why Lion is able to come back in November of this year is because from balancing the market and taking some of the other smelters out, like Rustenburg as an example, the world has less ferrochrome, and therefore the price is able to rebase itself and get better, and then Lion is able to continue operating, and we'll be able to preserve that operation and its jobs and the communities that surround it. Yeah, sorry, and Jules just pointed out a very important point to me as well.
This is, as you know, the government sets the price of power through Eskom. We've been engaged very extensively with the South African government. We've met with the four key ministers that cover this industry to work and try to find solutions around keeping our smelters open, and I can assure you, Minister Mantashe, and his fellow ministers, and in fact, the president, I've raised it myself with the president, they are all committed to trying to find solutions to keep these smelters open. We don't take these things lightly, and we do not want to shut them, but we have to shut them because of economic conditions, so we engage extensively and continue to engage with the government, all the ministers, the president, and various departments to find solutions which may be around power and various other regulatory ways that we can keep these smelters running.
So we're not just sitting on our hands and hoping. We're doing as much as we can to try and keep those jobs.
Thank you. Sitting right next to you, do you have a question?
Thank you very much, Chairperson, and for the opportunity. My name is Glen Mpufane. I'm the mining director for IndustriALL Global Union. I have brought here my colleagues. One of them is Donald here, who'll speak on other issues. And based on the other issues that have been raised already, don't you think that they point to some material risk for the company in so far as these risks are managed? That's one point. The other point is around the recent reports by the United Nations Environment Programme around the Hail Creek's methane gas emission, which it alleges are three to eight times more than the allowed threshold.
Now, my question to you is, with this material risk that has been brought to your attention, would you consider perhaps Glencore joining IRMA, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, which has proven to be your go-to standard in terms of ensuring a socially and environmentally responsible mining happens?
Thank you. So, I think your first question, Glencore is already a member of a number of organizations, including we have a Copper Mark, as you know, and the DRC. We're working on a more collaborative way in CSM, which is an organization for creating a broader oversight in these matters. And so besides being LME registered, etc., there are so many different ways to deal with this issue. So we're collaborating on CSM, which is a collective organization that hopefully addresses some of the issues that you're talking about.
Regarding the Australian UNEP report, we don't put much faith in it. The data from that is very questionable. I'll give you a few examples. First, the UNEP report took a 1% slice of two years and then extrapolated over a year. So they didn't take into account the fact that where is the satellite looking at that time? So it's not looking upstream. It's not seeing any changes in the mine plans or what's happening at the operating level. So the data itself is not very accurate. The Australian government and its authority, the Climate Change Authority, which is a state-owned agency, they both believe that satellite readings are not accurate for that reason. And we follow the Australian government rules on monitoring with regard to Hail Creek.
As you know, Hail Creek has gone to the latest Method 2, which is the new way of measuring emissions in Australia. Thank you for your question.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, fellow shareholders, good afternoon. My name is Matt Crossman. I'm the Stewardship Director for Rathbones Group PLC. We are holders of shares in the company for many thousands of private individuals and charities in the U.K. I'm here today representing not just Rathbones, but also the Ethos Foundations. For context, Rathbones is a wealth manager with over GBP 100 billion in AUM, and the Ethos Foundations, the Ethos Engagement Pool International, and Ethos Engagement Services clients total assets of over CHF 300 billion. As a combined group today, we are responsible investors, and we recognize the critical importance of addressing climate change risks and opportunities to ensure the long-term resilience of our investments.
Climate change poses significant risks to the global economy, to financial markets, and the long-term performance of our clients' portfolios. We commend the efforts of Glencore in acknowledging these risks in the TCFD section of the annual report, which we're discussing, and we continue to urge enhanced action to manage them effectively. We've been very grateful for the time and energy committed to dialogue by senior members of your investor relations team and sustainability team this year, and we also appreciate the recommitments given at this AGM about the decision to responsibly run down the thermal coal portfolio. But it's in the context of the decision around the retention of the EVR assets. I would just like to make two questions, if that's okay. We are stakeholders in the company with a vested interest in its long-term success.
Last year, the shareholder base, 90% of us, approved the Climate Action Transition Plan effective from 2026. But as you've mentioned, and as was stated in the annual report, that plan does not cover the announced acquisition of the 77% interest in EVR and the implications on Glencore's decarbonization targets and ambitions. This gap is recognized in our company's latest annual report, and we welcome the additional disclosures provided as context. However, Mr. Chairman and Mr. CEO, as investors, we encourage companies to provide sufficient transparency to allow us to make sound investment decisions for our clients, savers, and pensions. It's in that context I just give my two brief questions. Firstly, and specifically in relation to coal, can the company clarify in its CapEx expenditure disclosures the split between allocations to new sites versus the amount invested in maintaining existing assets?
And secondly, more on a governance point than a climate risk point, really. Though the board is committed to integrating the EVR assets into our company's future climate planning, investors have been talking to the company about the future of the EVR assets within this planning for quite a long time, in fact, as soon as the deal was first announced in late 2023. So will the board commit to bringing that revised plan back to this AGM as soon as possible and ideally in 2026? Thank you.
Thank you, and pleasure of meeting you for the first time. So regarding the split and what we talk about in the report, if you look at the Climate Action Transition Plan, we clearly spelled out in there that the EVR acquisition, once it happens, will then figure out how to review emissions from there. We're working on that now.
And as part of our plan, we will integrate that into the 2027 plan. When we talked to shareholders, by the way, last year and explained to them how we were going to go about EVR and what happens after we since we already published the report, everybody agreed that it was better to leave the report as is so that it is not contaminated by EVR and then somebody saying, "Wait a minute, are you rebasing stuff?" So that's the reason we're doing it this way. And most of our shareholders are appreciative of keeping that separate till then. Your governance question, whether it's 2026 that it would come up, that would be an odd thing to do to bring it up in a cycle since we already announced it's a three-year plan.
All our shareholders that we talked to at the time of the transaction were pretty clear that they could wait till 2027. We need to do a lot of work. We're doing Scope One, Two, and Three work on EVR. We're integrating it into our business cycle right now. So it's not something that we can snap our fingers. We are not taking the Teck data as it is because we specifically want to do a ground-up analysis ourselves. So I think you'll understand why we're taking the approach we can. If you have any questions afterwards, please feel free to reach out. Next question, a lady in the red sweater there.
Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Diana Salazar, and I work for London Mining Network. I have questions on two countries. The first one is on Colombia.
I'm going to wait for your answer, and then I'll raise the second question. The Constitutional Court of Colombia issued the ruling SU-698 in 2017. The ruling declared the violation of the rights to health, water, and food security of Wayuu indigenous communities due to the diversion of the Arroyo Bruno by Carbones de Cerrejón owned by Glencore to expand coal extraction in the pit mine, in the La Puente Pit. Glencore has said that it's respectful of Colombian law and the ruling of its courts. If this is the case, why is Glencore suing the Colombian state in the ISDS system, a system that has been acknowledged as negative to countries and benefiting only companies by UN and other members? Based on the Constitutional Court's decision in its ruling SU-698 of 2017, which limits the expansion of the Cerrejón coal mine.
The question is, why have you put that suit on the ISDS system to Colombia? And the follow-up question is, is Glencore willing to withdraw this one of the four multimillion lawsuits against the Colombian state in the ISDS system as a sign of respect for Colombian law? I'm going to do another question.
Thank you very much for coming from London Mining to speak to us. First of all, I think you're talking about Bruno Creek. The acquisition of Bruno Creek was done under Colombian law. We had our meetings with the community and was done with the free and open discussions with the community. The creek has been rebuilt, as you know. Gary and I actually walked Bruno Creek. It's a beautiful location. And obviously, it doesn't rain all the time in La Guajira. And when it rains, the creek runs just like normal.
People upstream and downstream of it are doing exactly the same thing they were when the creek was in its original place. We've also seen lots of flora and fauna coming back. The jaguars are returning to the area. It's about as pristine, if not better, from my view, than it originally was. The court has ruled that we can't do any mining around Bruno Creek, and that's exactly what we're doing. We do not have permission to mine around Bruno Creek. In fact, upstream of Bruno Creek, there is a community that's doing some rehabilitation work, and that's creating employment for them in that location. Thank you for your question. I think that's a legal question, and I'm not going to answer that.
Okay. My next question is, is this only Argentina MARA project? This is on behalf of the people of Andalgala.
Glencore has submitted two technical reports to the state and province of Catamarca, Argentina. The first one in April 2020, prepared by Mountain Pass Consulting, and the second report, submitted in February 2025, authored by Open Work Nature SAS for MARA. Both reports establish that there is a risk of damage to glaciers and periglacial in the MARA project. According to the conclusions of both reports, why does Glencore continue to insist on the viability of the Agua Rica Mining Project, today known as the MARA Project? If the company itself recognizes the existence of glaciers and periglacial environment in the areas of the mine, why does Glencore not respect the Argentinian law that protects the glaciers and periglacial environment? This is the law number 26639, and it's Article 6, Section C, which prohibits the exploitation of mining glaciers and periglacial environments. Thank you.
Thank you for your question.
The permit that we have at the moment for Agua Rica is allowing us to do some exploratory work, and that's exactly what we're doing. And at the end of that, we'll decide what the report shows and go on the basis of that. So at this stage, there is no involvement of anything outside of the permit. So thank you for your question.
Yeah, please. If I can just add something to that, we are unaware, and as far as our studies tell us, there are no glaciers interfering with the Agua Rica mine. I'd just like to come back also to your first question quickly and just cover. And the chairman is right, it's a legal issue, and perhaps it's worth talking to our counsel afterwards.
But maybe just to give you a brief overview in that, in advance of moving the Bruno Creek or diverting the Bruno Creek, all relevant approvals, legal and otherwise, were obtained from the government of Colombia. This was done with the legal approval, the administrative approval from Colombia. The creek was then moved, and subsequent to that, the court has taken a ruling that has asked us not to mine the area, which is contrary to the approvals of the Colombian government. We always prefer to approach these issues bilaterally, to speak openly with the governments where we operate, to try and resolve disputes in a fair and equitable manner. Given the court's involvement as well, we've attempted this for many, many years, and unfortunately, we are unable to reach an amicable solution.
And therefore, we've been left with no choice but to take this to an international court to finally arbitrate and give a ruling on what makes the most sense. Now, of course, if the Court of International Arbitration rules that we cannot mine in the area where Bruno Creek is, we will continue to follow that. We will absolutely follow that ruling. But the current ruling from the local Colombian court is in contradiction to what we've been advised from the Colombian government as to the laws and the rules. Sorry, I can't hear what you're saying. But as I say, I think maybe this is something that's fine. It's fine. I think I understand what you're saying. And that's why, as the chairman says, this is something that's probably best to take up with our legal counsel.
But certainly, we are hopeful for an amicable solution on this, and we continue to engage with the Colombian government and the Constitutional Court to hopefully agree this amicably before the arbitration takes place.
And meanwhile, we're not mining in that area. I think that's the other key factor. Gentlemen.
Hi. My name is Kevin Gagnon. I'm the president of CSN Manufacturing Industry Federation, which is representing the workers from Horne Smelter in Rouyn-Noranda. We have two questions for you. So if you don't mind, I would ask you the first one, and I'll let my partner, Shawn Smith . Sure. Okay. Perfect.
Regarding what you were saying before about consulting the workers in the community, and according to your just transition plan, we would like to know why Glencore refused to include in the collective bargaining of the Horne Smelter a clause about just transition, transparency, and engaging both the company and the workers' representative in a real social dialogue.
First of all, I think we'll have to get somebody together with you to answer the question about the contractual obligation. But just in terms of the Horne Smelter, our preference is to keep the Horne Smelter running. As you know, we've spent an enormous amount of money bringing the arsenic levels down. The standard is 45 ng per cubic meter. The measurements today in the last 12 months are around 39 mg per cubic meter or nanograms, sorry.
And in fact, 90% of the area is about 7 ng. So there isn't really an issue. The issue is economic, and we're working on that. So hopefully, we'll have some solutions that will help the project, the smelter and the refinery there. In broad terms, though, smelting and refining is not a good business in today's environment. In the last five years, treatment charges, which is the principal way that smelters and refineries get paid, have been below zero and zero. So it's very hard to make the economics work. Glencore has been able to do a lot of recycling at the Horne, and that's how we're keeping it going. Gary, anything you want to add?
Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Kalidas.
I mean, certainly, consultation with our workforce is a key part of our business, and we encourage all our operations to consult and work closely with the unions and organized labor. The actual negotiation of organized labor agreements and collective bargaining agreements are for management of the company, of the operation, and we encourage you to continue to engage with management to ensure that we reach a collective bargaining agreement that satisfies both parties, and your partner had a question.
Hi. My name is Shawn Smith. I'm the president of the Union of Horne Smelter Workers. Sorry, my English is kind of bad. The question is, whereas, according to our information and several media sources, Glencore intends not to complete the entire AERIS Project.
Whereas, the importance of the AERIS project for air purification, sorry, and environmental protection in Rouyn-Noranda is essential to ensure a healthy environment for the community and the workers. Whereas, the license, the operating certificate signed with the government of Quebec is expiring. Whereas, the price of the copper concentrate processing has been plummeting for the past years due to the competition in the global market, particularly from the Chinese smelter. Given that, according to Bloomberg, Glencore is evaluating the long-term profitability, sorry, of all its assets. The Rouyn-Noranda Mine Workers Union would like to know what is the future of the Horne Smelter and its worker within the Glencore group.
Thank you for your question. I was at Horne, as I mentioned, and we talked to a number of your colleagues in the unions, and a similar question came up.
As I said earlier to your colleague, the Horne Smelter is something that we'd like to keep going. We're just finishing up the evaluation of the AERIS project. And once that's complete, we'll have a sense of where we go in terms of that project. So your comment that the AERIS project has somehow been abandoned is not correct. Gary, you want to add anything?
Yeah, yeah. We appreciate your question, and thank you for coming all the way from Canada. Certainly, we believe the Horne has a long-term future, and we're working very closely with your union. We're working very closely with the local government and, in fact, also with the federal government to ensure a future for the Horne. Kalidas has outlined how important it is. The AERIS project, which you raised, was a project, and you rightly point out, focused on emission reduction.
That is our key focus: ensuring emission reduction, but also ensuring that that operation remains sustainably viable economically and commercially. You've heard about some of the issues we've had in South Africa that Donald raised, and we don't want to go down the same route in Rouyn-Noranda. It's a very important operation. We believe there's a good future for it. The AERIS Project, we have recently completed a feasibility study, and the driver is not so much the name of the project or what the project is. The driver is to ensure that we remain within emission standards within Canada. Kalidas has pointed out the fact that we are below the emission standards, which is very good, and we continue to reduce emissions.
The project that we will come once we finish reviewing the feasibility study and consult back with the workforce, yourself and your fellow workers, the community, and the government will outline the steps that we would like to take that keeps the operation both environmentally compliant with the laws and commercially viable in today's markets.
And we really enjoyed visiting with the unions when we were at the Horne, so thank you. Gentlemen, there have been raising your hand a few times,
So my name is Louis Kellogg, representing Richard Solly. I'm here as a Swiss citizen, and I'm really deeply concerned by what happened on many different operating sites from Glencore, by the impact on communities and on climate.
I speak today on behalf of the communities of the river in Brazil for my first question, and then I will have two other questions about Australia, representing the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility. Yeah, so about Brazil, one of the communities of the river, displaced traditional communities in the FLONA Saracá-Taquera, where Glencore is the major investor in the Mineração Rio do Norte bauxite extraction, have been constantly excluded from consultation, even if it's their rights. They have been refused inclusion in sustainability audits and have received no compensation for the dramatic impact on their livelihood. Why is this the case, and what action will Glencore take to address this harm? Thank you. I will ask you the question afterward.
Thank you. So I think your first question was about MRN. And as you may know, we're only a shareholder in MRN.
We don't have operating or management rights. We have, through our committees, both the technical committee, etc., talked to them about our policies and having them take a look at how to incorporate our views on some of the social elements there. But I think that's a question that you should really bring up with MRN because they're operating and managing the facility. Did you have a question on ACCR also? If not, we'll go to someone else.
Question about Australia.
Sorry?
Question about Australia.
He's got a question. Yeah. Thank you.
So Glencore is committed to reduce emission with more than 90% of shareholders last year, as you said before, voting in support of its Climate Action Transition Plan to responsibly decline thermal coal operation over time.
Yet in Australia, Glencore continues to expand thermal coal mines in Queensland, Australia, purposely extending the Rolleston Open Cut coal mine to increase thermal coal volume by 21.6%, aligned with your shareholders' approved plan to decline thermal coal operation. And also, earlier this month, the International Energy Agency confirmed that it is critical for coal corporations like Glencore to improve their methane measurements and emission policies. This follows new data from the UN Environment Programme's International Methane Emission Observatory, which found methane pollution at Glencore's Hail Creek coal mine could be as much as eight times greater than currently reported. What is your response to these two international calls for greater methane reporting and abatement at your Hail Creek mine?
And how can you reassure shareholders we are on track to reduce emission by 15% by next year as per the Climate Action Transition Plan if the 2019 baseline used in that plan is likely severely underestimated? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. So the first question with regard to methane emissions, the Climate Action Transition Plan clearly lays out the exact path. In fact, we're on track for our 2026 target of 15% reduction. And last year, we also introduced an intermediate target of 30% because a number of climate experts asked us to insert a 2030 target. So we're pretty much on track for that. With regard to Hail Creek and the UNEP report, I already responded to the gentleman who asked the same question here. So hopefully, you heard my answer there. Thank you. Lady in the back.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language] Dominik Rothen. I will speak in German. I am from the Working Group Swiss Colombia. Colombia ordered the relocation of El Hatillo, a community there. The village community was in favor of a collective relocation. In 2018, a corresponding plan had been issued. Still, this plan, due to different circumstances, has not been implemented. We cannot see that Glencore actively fights for making sure that they support the wish of a collective relocation. After 15 years of that relocation process, many families agreed to an individual relocation, which is really favorable for Glencore from an economic point of view. No infrastructure, medical infrastructure had to be invested in rather than that. Small businesses like haircutting salons were really offered to these small families. There was not a market analysis.
So what we are left with is the loss of cultural identity and very often the loss of the economic livelihood. So we have two questions, basically. What about the idea of Glencore to compensate people? The individual relocation in their villages, the cultures, the social network, the economic livelihood has been lost for many people. And second, the human rights impact assessment draft says that with Drummond, they could really talk about Glencore and the risks of that relocation. So what has Glencore done to reduce the impact suffered? Thank you.
Thank you very much. So first of all, with regard to Colombian operations, there were roughly 450 communities around Cerrejón. And Cerrejón reached an agreement with 401 communities. And out of those 401 communities, 350 communities, we've already met the obligations as verified by the community and by the government.
So we've made very important strides with regard to that. There are some communities like El Hatillo where 200 families asked to be relocated and compensated for that, and the company has done that. So I'm not sure where exactly you're seeing a gap, but we continue to engage. For example, the town of Hatonuevo, the court has suggested to Hatonuevo that they relocate. The municipality is trying to decide where to put the town. And our facilities have offered to help with road sanitation once that decision is made. So as you can see from our broad sample, we're doing everything we can. We continue to have open and honest dialogues with the communities, and we'll continue to do that in the future. Thank you for your question. Anyone else? Gentleman next to Mr. Suhner.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Joris van de Sandt.
I'm the program lead for the Latin America program of PAX in the Netherlands, a Dutch peace organization.
I could just tell by your height.
Okay. Yeah. We have been working on raising awareness of the human rights impacts of the mining operations of Glencore in Colombia. Thank you for the opportunity to raise an important issue, which is the following. Regarding social investment projects around the Prodeco mines in Cesar, Colombia, it has been reported that the rights of communities displaced by violence in the context of the armed conflict and its aftermath are not being adequately considered. Because these communities do not live in the immediate vicinity of the mines, they are effectively excluded from the projects and programs implemented by the company. Can the company commit to recognizing and addressing the rights and interests of these affected communities from the mining corridor?
We look forward to your response.
Thank you for your question. So first of all, there is a process of characterizing some of these communities, including the Afro community, for example, that's being done from a census point of view and demographic point of view. They're trying to assess what the area is, who are the people. Glencore refutes all allegations that we had anything to do with any violence against any communities in that process. So as part of our normal process that we're now doing at Prodeco, Prodeco will continue to engage with the communities. Like I said earlier, Prodeco has a meeting with ANLA in October. And from that, we'll get a very detailed plan of what we're going to do in terms of closure, etc. Thank you for your question, and we'll keep that in mind.
I know the lady has been very patient in the front, so please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Elizabeth Umlas, and I'm here from IndustriALL Global Union, and I will ask the question in English on behalf of my colleague, Juan Carlos Solano Guillén, who is Transition Secretary, Mining, Energy, and Environment with Sintracarbón, a union representing mine workers in Colombia. Briefly, the context is that in northern Colombia, Glencore's subsidiary Prodeco closed its mines suddenly and without notice in 2020, with the loss of 12,000 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs affecting 20,000 families. In March of this year, Glencore's Cerrejón subsidiary announced a significant reduction of production. The announcement that Cerrejón will close in 2034 and the reduction of production in Cerrejón, La Guajira obliged my union, Sintracarbón, and our affiliate union, Sintramienergética, to ask the following three questions.
One, will Glencore enter into a sectoral negotiation process for the workers' representatives for a fair mining energy transition to ensure labor rights? Two, in light of the announcement by Glencore of the closure of the Cerrejón-La Guajira mine, which could seriously affect workers and communities, will Glencore share its official mine closure document so that the national government, the workers, and the communities can plan the labor transition? And just to clarify, despite this request for the document, we are not asking for closure of the mine before 2034. And finally, job retraining and alternatives. Will Glencore agree to implement job transition measures by supporting, as a business partner, pilot production projects for former employees of the La Jagua sub-management unit of Prodeco, which include recycling and clean energy? Thank you.
So first, let me go to your question about some kind of central planning idea.
Each of our assets are very different. The issues around it are complicated, and we prefer that all negotiations are between that business and the community's unions in the area. They live in the area, they breathe the same air, and it's much more effective to deal with issues at a local level than some central level. With regard to Cerrejón mine closure, as you described it, there isn't a mine closure. The mine's operating normally. We have decided to take five to 10 million tons out of the picture. All the unions were informed of that, and I think there have been a series of meetings in that regard. So as far as a long-term closure in 2034, that's an ongoing program, and you mentioned, I think, just transition in the sentence, but that's not something that the company can do by itself.
That's got to include the community, the unions, it's got to include the government, and that's part of the long-term discussion that's going to happen. Let me ask Gary to comment on any other thoughts he has.
Yeah. Thank you. Thanks very much for coming. Thank you for your questions. I mean, I understand the concern around Cerrejón. Fortunately, we're in 2025, and the mine comes to an end, or the lease for the mine comes to an end. In fact, the mine itself will still have reserves available beyond the end of the lease life. And that's still nine years away. So when you're asking to share with you the official closure plan, we don't have an official closure plan at this stage. We're hoping to be very successful, employ lots of people, mine lots of coal, and export it to the world. It's a very high-quality coal.
As we move towards the end of the mine closure, we will be consulting with all stakeholders, and that is consistent with. And as I say, it's still nine years to closure. As we move towards closure in many years' time, we will work on a closure plan, and that incorporates just transition planning. And as you know, just transition planning involves all stakeholders involved, in particular the government of Colombia, the unions, the affected communities, and we will work with all the stakeholders as we go towards closure. But fortunately, we're still nine years away from that. In the meantime, we focus on running a safe and responsible operation in Cerrejón. When I spoke to or when I answered Mr. Suhner's question earlier, as part of employing our workforce, we provide a significant amount of training.
We're very fortunate that some of the training that we provide, a lot of the training we provide, allows people to go out and obtain jobs in other industries because of the training that we provided: artisans, engineers, fitters, turners, and the likes. So it's something that we do inherently in our business. We've also helped assist many of our former employees in startup operations and startup companies for themselves. And that would be part of a just transition planning process to work out if there's any further work that Glencore needs to do around assisting employees and former employees as we transition out of the operations.
Thank you. I'll take one more question before we close. Gentlemen in the end, go ahead.
Mr. President, Board of Directors, my name is Alois Camenzind. I'm Swiss from Zug. In the past one year, the shares of Glencore have lost 50%.
To me, it seems that the Board of Directors is just sitting here doing nothing. Now, Mr. Nagle, what are you going to do to bring up the shares again?
Thank you for your question. And obviously, that's one of the questions that the board and management discuss a lot. Principally, if you look at what our share price decline and match it up to the drop in coal price, they line up pretty precisely. Coal has been under a lot of pressure. China is not importing as much coal at the moment. However, we are seeing some improvements. But rather than me, as a non-expert in coal, talk about coal, I'll ask Gary, who lived in coal for many years, to comment on it.
Thank you for your question. And your question is the exact and the correct question. It's the right question to be asking in this forum.
And so thank you very much for asking it. Like you, I'm a shareholder in Glencore. And like you, I also live here in Zug. And finally, like you, I'm very concerned to see the drop in the share price. I did mention in our beginning, in the presentation I gave in the beginning, that we are, as a company, very much at the whim of the markets, in particular the commodity markets. As you know, we produce a number of commodities. We are very strong players in the metals market, copper, zinc. But ultimately, our biggest commodity that we produce is both steelmaking and energy coal. The steelmaking and energy coal market at the moment is quite weak. We've seen an oversupply in those markets, and prices have come down.
When we sat here a year ago, the price for steelmaking coal, oh, sorry, for energy coal was close to $150 a ton. Today, it's below $100. So on the back of that, you can understand, and if one understands that with the price having come down so much, it has a big impact on our cash flow, and as a result, an impact on our share price. And your question again is right. What are we doing to improve that? That is the right question. And those are the questions that should be asked in this forum. One of the actions that we've taken is to cut some production from our own operations to try and balance the markets, to ensure that the market no longer is oversupplied and that prices go up.
If prices go up, the rest of our business or the rest of the mines that continue to operate benefit from that higher price. Unfortunately, it does come with some social consequences, but we have to do that. We've cut 5-10 million tons in Colombia, as the chairman has mentioned. Even that itself has had the impact of improving coal prices. Just in the last week, we've seen coal prices improve $5-$10. Your management team are not sitting on their hands, and they're not as concerned as you are. In fact, we're equally as concerned as you are, both as management and as shareholders of this company, and are working to reduce our costs and ensure we have a balanced market that maximizes the margins of profits for our company to ensure that we can pay you good dividends.
Thank you all very much. I now would like to proceed to vote on the proposed resolutions. I ask you to exercise your vote on this meeting's resolution by completing the poll card. When you've completed your poll card, please place it in the poll box, which the registrars will hold. They will stand by the exit doors. We will then announce the results following completion of the count. Thank you all again for attending today's meeting. Refreshments are served outside, and I look forward to seeing you all. This concludes the business of the AGM, and I declare the meeting closed. Thank you.