Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Glencore Interim Results 2021 Webcast and Conference Call. I must advise you, the conference is being recorded today, the 5th of August 2021. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Martin Fewings, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you joining us today for our first half 2021 results. Presenting today will be Gary Nagle, CEO, and Steven Kalmin, CFO. Without any further ado, I'll hand over to Gary to start today's presentation.
Thanks, Martin. Hi morning, everybody on the call, or good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world. I'm particularly pleased to present a very strong first half financial performance. As you'll see on our first slide, we've printed some record numbers for our company for a half year. An Adjusted EBITDA of $8.7 billion and an equity free cash flow of $5.4 billion. That's testament to our continued focus of our value over volume, which has certainly contributed towards a very strong financial result.
We've seen materially higher commodity prices across our portfolio, resulting in a very strong cash generation within the business. As a result of that cash generation, you'll see that our net debt is now printed towards the lower end of our range. The range that we've always put out is the $10 billion-$16 billion of net debt.
Coming in at the low end of the range of $10.6 billion, which is particularly pleasing in allowing us to provide additional top-up dividends, special dividends to our shareholders above our base of $1.6 billion, an additional $1.2 billion special dividend to our shareholders. That dividend is split between a cash distribution of half a billion dollars and the remainder as a buyback over the course of the remainder of this year. Our marketing business has been particularly strong as well, with $1.8 billion in the first half of the year.
As you would have seen from our half year production update, we're guiding the top end of our range for the remainder of the year. Our guidance is normally $2.2 billion-$3.2 billion of marketing EBIT for the year. We're guiding towards to the top end of that range for the full year 2021. Another pleasing part of our strong marketing performance is we have seen a real broad-based performance across our commodities. Each commodity performing particularly well, no single one really outstripping the others.
It's been very pleasing in that sense, and conditions remain very favorable within the marketing division. Turning to our ESG Scorecard, it's been a very strong first half of the year in terms of ESG. We presented a very strong scorecard here. Safety, unfortunately, we have lost one of our colleagues this year. An unacceptable outcome for us. Despite improved metrics across the board, that still is unacceptable to our business. We continue our unrelenting focus to become a fatality free business.
As part of that, we are rolling out our relaunched SafeWork program. The relaunch has been successful. There's still some way to go, and we are seeing some green shoots in terms of the new program that we're rolling out. On the environmental side, we have a sector leading approach. As everybody knows, in terms of our climate change strategy, it encompasses our Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, which does separate us apart from some of our competitors and peers within the industry.
We've revised our targets recently. We've now put out a short-term target of a 15% reduction in all our Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by 2026. We've increased our target for our medium-term target of 2035 from 40% to a 50% reduction, and that is in accordance with the Paris Accord, the 1.5 degree scenario.
We maintained our net zero ambition by 2050. With respect to on the governance side of our business, we have launched a newly refreshed code of conduct, which has been worked on over the last couple of years, and we continue to work on a very strong compliance program. We believe we have the best in class compliance program that focuses on ethics, compliance, and ensuring we run our business as a responsible operator. We've also had a very successful transition in management.
As you know, I've taken over from Ivan effective 1st of July. Tony Hayward has stepped down and been replaced by Kalidas. The new management team is operating well, successfully, and the business is well set up for the second half of the year. With that, I'll turn over to Steve on the financial results.
Thank you, Gary. Likewise, good morning and good afternoon or evening to those on the call as well. Many of you that have been following Glencore over the years, some of the slides would be very familiar in terms of format and content, allow for historical performance validation as well as giving the building blocks around our expected performance going forward, particularly reflecting the macro world as well as our production and cost operational statistics as we have.
In terms of some highlights, Gary covered it on page seven, but clearly the most important number which we do focus is the Adjusted EBITDA. That was up 79% to $8.7. It was a half year record. I expect it'll be short-lived as a half year record as we move forward over the next 12 months. Everything hangs off that. That ultimately translated into an equity free cash flow of $5.4 billion.
The key driver of being able to deliver and driving net debt down to $10.6 billion as of 30 June 2001, allowing some top-up distributions, which we'll talk about later on, paving the way towards higher payouts as we look beyond the current period as well. If we go on to page eight, that's our industrial makeup today. Increasingly, obviously a larger part of our business. It's the most exposed to the cycles and the upside in prices as well, just where one is set out in portfolio allocation and portfolio mix.
We think we have the right commodities as well set up for some of the future emerging themes in economic development and energy transition as we do have. The industrial business was up 152% to $6.6 billion. This is against first half of 2020. You can see bottom right of that graph, the transition or the trajectory from first half 2020, second half 2020, then there was an improvement post the most COVID affected first half of 2020. We moved from $2.2 billion last year, first half, $5.2 billion, we had a nice progression, $6.6 billion now.
If we look at our spot annualized EBITDA, which we'll look at later on, that's running at $18.8 billion for our industrial part of the business. Half of that for just looking at a 50% piece would be $9.4 billion. As we look forward, this should be, based on current macros, a continued increase. If we were to deliver 50% of that on our spot illustrative, that would be another 42% pickup within our industrial business. Particularly that would come in the energy side. That's where we've been lagging in terms of coal prices, and you'll see that on a slide later on.
Strong performances and strong EBITDA margins within the metals at 44%, the overall industrial at 38%. Looking at the waterfall from last half of 2020 to here, it's been primarily a price story, as you would expect, and you would see that across the sector as well, a $4.4 billion pickup, broadly spread. Most of it was in the metals during this particular period. Energy is lagging, and we're going to see that both on the coal and the oil pickup as we move forward into the second half and into next year.
Of that $4.4 billion, $2.3 billion came in our copper business. We'll see individual slides later on where it'll make more sense. Within our copper business, also have some of the byproducts, particularly cobalt, and we've seen some improved pricing there. Zinc business on pricing added $0.9 billion, nickel $0.4 billion, and coal within that $4.3 billion. It is lagging. We're still up $0.5 billion. Our overall coal business was broadly flat for the year because we had some of the FX headwinds in particularly South Africa and Australia.
The volume was a slight pickup at $0.4 billion. Half of that was Antamina operation during the year, which was quite affected within the extended COVID mandatory shutdowns last year in Peru during the April, May, June period. Strong additional contribution from that particular operation. The rest of it was smaller ups and downs, creating a net 388 pickup. Cost, Gary mentioned some of the delays at Koniambo, which we expect to restart the second line within the next sort of month or two.
There was additional cost due to the maintenance and repairs at that particular operation contributing part of the increase in cost and FX, as you would normally expect in higher prices, you get the stronger dollar coming through there, and that affects our cost structures, particularly in South Africa, Australia, a little bit in Canada as well. If we go into the individual slides, copper on page 10, this represented 45% of our EBITDA for the first half. Production was slightly up, as you can see, period on period.
The big increase was both pricing and cost in this business that allowed us to deliver $3.9 billion EBITDA. The big turnaround in proportionate and in absolute terms was the African copper business. Something we highlighted a few years ago in the ability to turn around cash flow in this business around some of the focus assets. There was a $0.9 billion turnaround in African copper. Clearly, most of that's to do with the Katanga operation. We'll be looking at recommissioning Mutanda is underway.
As Gary mentioned, that's something towards the end of the year that we'll look to update at our Investor Day in December on some updated future cost structures, CapEx and volumes to bring that operation back and more importantly, the ramp-up profile of bringing copper and cobalt and mindful of the particular markets that those products would clearly go into, given the discipline around value and volume as well. The cost structure for our copper business is down to $0.85 for the first half. For a full year, we're looking at $0.80.
That's part of the reason for a tick up in full year illustrative guidance as well for copper, and that's the exact cost structure we guided in copper earlier this year at $0.80. A key contributor going forward will be additional cobalt units. As Katanga, that was the later part of its ramp-up journey was some of the cobalt circuit. There'll be a significant pickup H2 of H1, as well as the pricing of cobalt has also improved. In terms of a spot illustrative, off to the right, you can see $8.6 billion annualized for copper.
We'll get into all the details of all the divisions later on pages 21 and 26. That's part of an overall business to $21.8 billion EBITDA generating $11.5 billion of free cash flow at current spot macros, calculated with buildup in the normal fashion that we do as well. Copper business performed well across all its metrics during the first half and going forward. The zinc business, if we look on page 11, that contributed 16% of our EBITDA.
Production was up period on period, given specifically some of the Q2 last year LATAM suspensions and COVID-related production impacts, particularly in Peru and in Bolivia as well, and some of those operations as well. We are looking at roughly a 50/50 H1/ H2 production split with our revised guidance of 1.17. Cost guidance, very similar to what we indicated earlier in the year at -$0.11 for the full year. We are looking to come in at slightly better at -$0.128.
That is very influenced within the zinc business, with significant byproducts across gold, silver, and lead in this particular business. Given both productions, cost structures in this business, it will pretty much double up for the year, $1.4 billion on a spot basis to $2.9 billion. We're looking for zinc growth coming into the future. We'll update our scenarios again in 3- 6 months, particularly as Zhairem ramps up, as we say, to steady state in Q2 2022. If we look at nickel, production-wise, H1 at 47,700 tonnes.
That was impacted in two areas, one of which was Murrin in Australia. This was a scheduled major maintenance. It happens every three or four years down there. We take down the operations for five or six weeks or so. There'll be a big pickup, period on period at Murrin. We're also looking towards the reestablishment of two lines at Koniambo towards the end of this month. We have factored in part of that with assumptions of running for part of H2 2022 on a two-line operation.
That's where you will see a 45%/55% split in nickel production out to 105,000 tonnes for the full year. Cost-wise, we're holding costs pretty similar to where we said at the beginning of the year, slightly less, due to the byproducts as well. Particularly in Canada, we get PGM byproducts and cobalt. Murrin, we also get cobalt. There's both the volume and the pricing benefits from that particular operation. Relatively small share of EBITDA at the moment, at 4% for the first half, and probably similar for a full year illustrative at $1.1 billion.
The key for this business is, of course, growing its production and byproducts and some of the capital we are spending. It's absorbing quite a big share of the CapEx as we have the major two projects in Canada that's extending the life of that particular operation, both at Raglan and at Onaping Depths in the Sudbury region. Coal is probably one worth the main focus as this is the key expansion of both earnings and cash flows into H2 and hopefully beyond.
For the first half, it was 11% of EBITDA, only a slight tick up from the first half of last year when coal was still reasonable through the first half of last year. You've had numerous COVID effects, demand conditions, displacement also from gas. It was a very tough year into H2. The start of this year was similarly impacted. We've seen a huge acceleration in pricing, both in the thermal and the coking coal.
There's always going to be a lag in the coal business, both in terms of some fixed prices that would have historically been as part of the Japanese annual benchmarks. We rolled through first quarter this year in the $60s. Most all of that was repriced into the Japanese contracts. It's not as big a percentage of our overall business, but just that business moved from $60, in the mid-$60s up to $110. We were $912 for the first half. We put a full year or an illustrative spot EBITDA for this particular business of $5.9 billion.
That's on the 104 million tonnes and a cost structure of $56 and a portfolio adjustment of $20. You'll see the details on page 21 or 26 later on. That would indicate a margin of $57 a ton on 104, giving the $5.9 billion or close to $3 billion for a half-year period. Not all of that's going to be extractable in the second half because we do have now some JPU pricing at $110. Spot price is, of course, $150 or so at the moment.
We've assumed in an illustrative pricing of $6 billion, an average Newcastle forward curve at that point of $133. If we continue at spot prices, obviously it's a volatile commodity. It's not as liquid across the various curves. It's performing very well at the moment, and generating very strong cash flow at the moment. We think it's a middle-of-the-fairway projection of where spot illustrative is at the moment. Not exactly spot, being a bit more conservative.
At $3 billion for a half year, we should be able to pick up the at current spot prices, the substantial or vast majority of that into H2 2021. There's going to be a significant pickup in our coal business, both into H2 2021, which is why I said I think our record half year earnings for this particular half is going to be fairly short-lived with a big pickup second half on the coal industrial side. Our volumes were down period on period. We'll see a 47%-53% split is what we're looking at in terms of production.
We'll see some pickup clearly there. What will come to the market in three or four months' time in December is more looking into our 2022 period in particular, where we'll be able to bring in the Cerrejón tonnes as well. You would have seen the acquisition of our partners in that particular business, which although we're looking to close in 2022. We are already economically exposed to those volumes already with the effective date being 1 January 2021. Big tailwind in this particular business.
No doubts or questions will come from this later on as well. Page 14, we've got our marketing returns for the year at $1.8 billion. A very strong quarter, as Gary said, very broad-based and healthy contribution and strong participation across the different businesses. 12 months ago, although we tracked down slightly, it was very much an oil story for the first six months of 2020 with exceptional dislocation in returns. In some respects, the $1.8's actually a better print than the $2.1 billion from the previous year.
We're looking at a top end of range guidance now at the $3.2 billion. People would say, "Why don't you just times by two?" This was a very good performance, even $1.4 billion for the second half, which would take us towards the operating, I mean, the top of the range would, on an annualized basis, $1.4 billion would be $2.8 billion, which itself is within that top half of our range. Don't want to get ahead of ourselves too much here.
We think $3.2 billion is a sensible target and guidance aims to range at this particular point. It's nice within that bottom chart on the right just to print hopefully towards the top of the range, certainly for the half year and hopefully the full year as well, around that $3.2 billion, which is where we're looking at the moment. There were many questions back 2015, 2016, 2017, through those periods. What's it going t o take to be that top of the range, which we've held consistently throughout?
We're putting some nice data points around that top of the range where you've got conditions and cycles that are supportive of that range. On page 15, you can see the CapEx numbers. Not much to say on this other than we're tracking quite a bit below the $5 billion, which of itself supports the equity-free cash flow for this particular six months and, to some extent, help get our net debt to where it is, lower than would have been the case had we spent CapEx at the 50% rate of our $5 billion.
At this rate, tracking much lower, too early to think about whether a number may be lower than the $5 billion. The underlying data projects, scheduling of work, and the mapping of our various assets would still suggest that a $5 billion is appropriate. We'll have the opportunity maybe at our Q3 production report, see how we're tracking at that point as to whether that $5 billion needs to be brought in a little bit. We still think $5 billion is a sensible number to look for a full-year CapEx forecast.
We are tracking quite a bit below that at $1.8 billion. You can see the pie chart on the bottom right, most in copper, zinc, nickel, and a bit in coal and oil as well within this particular business. Some of the major projects are obviously continuing at the top right. Kolwezi zinc and the nickel projects are some of the main expansion projects. On the balance sheet on page 16, probably the highlight of the presentation in terms of getting net debt to the lower end of the range, $10.6 billion.
That includes about $1 billion of marketing leases as well. On a net debt Adjusted EBITDA, we're down to 0.69%, and actually on a spot basis, we're closer to 0.5%. Very pleased with these outcomes and the strength and the quality of the business in terms of being able to throw off this quantum of cash flow generation within relative short periods. It is showing its strength when the business comes together in all material specs. We had very healthy levels of liquidity at the end of June at $9.3 billion.
Could have been higher, much higher, in fact, we actually canceled certain portions of our RCF as being surplus to requirements to save some commitment fees that were otherwise not necessary within the scope of the business as well. In terms of net debt evolution, how do we get to $10.6 billion? We started $15.8 billion at the beginning of the year. The equity cash flow was the $5.5 billion, as we spoke earlier on, which was $7.3 billion of the FFO, which is EBITDA less tax and interest. Net CapEx $1.8 billion.
We did generate $0.3 billion of non-RMI and other cash flow. That's a number, as you know, within the business, can be a bit volatile depending on volumes and prices. It was 12 months ago, we were speaking about a big outflow, particularly around the oil business with lower volumes, lower prices. Part of that came back second half. A little bit is now.
That can turn around, not in the sort of extremis of what we saw sort of 12 months ago, but that obviously we need to keep an eye on, and -0.3 could sort of very easily in the business turn into a +0.3 as well. We're obviously mindful of how the working capital takes shape within the business. There was quite extensive increase in leases. This is primarily in oil businesses. It takes on volumes with respect to shipping and various storage within that business as well. $10.6 billion, how might we see towards the end of the year?
On an annualized spot basis, which we'll look at later on, $11.5 billion of free cash flow. That's not easily that you can bank that within H2 2021. That's spot prices, spot volumes, spot costs, and looking at annual taxes, annual interest, and annual CapEx. Half of that $5.75, we said we got some CapEx catch up, which if you take the $5 billion, we will need to spend an extra $0.7 billion in CapEx, if it was to come to the $5 billion.
Broadly, you ca n think about a $5 billion of equity-free cash flow if you look at those numbers during H2. Working capital, we'll see how that develops. Does a -3 turn into a +3? We always need to plan for some variation in the working capital. We have $2 billion of shareholder distributions or payments going out in H2. We've topped it up with $1.2 billion. We have the $800 million second half, second tranche of the earlier distribution of the $0.06 as well. That does show us still generating surplus cash flow.
We can continue to deleverage through the second half of this year. We do need to plan for a business that we've been through cycles in our net debt. We don't want that. Now that we're at $10 billion, we want to stay in, obviously, net level. We don't want to be here in six months saying $10.6 billion has gone up by X because of prices or some other macros. We'd want to be a bit conservative in how we've applied our shareholder returns, which I'll talk about later on.
We do know that when we get into February next year, that mechanically we're generating very healthy levels of cash this year. We will have a base distribution next year of high amounts. If we roll into page 17, here's the basis of the top-up distribution that we've announced today. We've had our base distribution, the $1.6 billion from February, which is the $0.12.
The top-up is $1.2 billion, which is the $0.04 a share, which is, we say circa $500 million, but it's $529 million based on the share count at the moment, and the buyback of $650 million. There's the $1.2 billion, giving a full year $2.8 billion or $0.21 a share. We don't want to be double-dipping or prepaying for what's going to come in February. As I said, mechanically, if we're around the $10 billion, we were $5.4 billion, circa $10 billion, $10 billion or so of free cash flow, equity-free cash flow, current macros for the year.
Mechanically, our base distribution policy, as you know, is going to be $1 billion for next year + 25 industrial fee. Free cash flow, the split of that $10 billion might be $8 billion and $2 billion. You're going to have a $3 billion base cash distribution coming in February. That money, we need to start thinking already is coming out in terms of balance sheet allocation. We want the ability and flexibility to continue with buybacks also through that period.
Obviously, part of the thinking was to make sure we stay at $10 billion and can progress towards the 100% payout once we're at that level, and then generate through the $10 billion and then pay it out. I don't want to be at $10 billion, go to $10.3 billion and then pay out. I want to be going through $10 billion and then we can look towards our payout ratios as we go forward.
We're in the position where, as we said earlier on, we didn't know the pace of the deleveraging towards $10 billion. It's happened much quicker than one might have thought six months ago, which is great, and we have the ability through this year and into next year to move the shareholder distributions towards the 100% where we're at. Just in terms of, just to close it out, some of the building blocks and details around that second half as well as the annualized free cash flow.
Page 19 was just some of the half-on-half production guidance for this year. We'll come out towards the end of the year with where we see the next 3-5 years. There's going to be growth. copper, we've got Mutanda to look forward to. zinc, we've got Zhairem into the future. cobalt is also Mutanda. nickel, obviously, Koniambo. We can update on that as well. Coal is some of the recovery, both in South Africa or Australia, as well as bringing Cerrejón as we go forward from those particular businesses.
Something to look forward to across all those businesses. I think the cost structures are broadly covered on page 20 and given the reasons as to how that's tracked as a function of volumes as well as byproducts. Finishing up on page 21, you can see the buildup at the illustrative spot cash flow is $21 billion EBITDA with $11.5 billion of free cash flow. The industrial is $18.8. There's more details on page 26 at $3 billion of marketing. That's not where we'll hit marketing this year based on guidance.
That's a spot annualized, which is middle of the range, $2.7 billion EBIT plus depreciation of $300. C opper, obviously, the largest there is zinc, as we spoke about nickel. That's coal moving to $5.9 billion marketing. We've got $5.2 billion of interest and taxes and $5.1 billion of CapEx holding at that line. Very strong position through the first half and going forward in the business. I'll hand over back to Gary to wrap it up.
Thanks, Steve. As you've heard, we've had a terrific first half, a lot of hard work still to do in the second half of the year. The business is rightly positioned. We have a terrific industrial business with a portfolio of large-scale, long-life, high-margin assets. That business has the right commodities. It's in the commodities that are set up for the green revolution. We're on the bottom end of the cost curve across the business, which certainly sets us up for higher cash generation, higher margins as we go forward.
Complementing that, we have a very unique and world-class marketing business that has not only countercyclical, but has delivered year in, year out within the range that we've guided to the market and continues to perform exceptionally well in today's market. We have a recycling business which is growing in our business and really provides an input into this green revolution that we're part of and an area that we continue to focus on. Our climate change strategy, as we said, is sector-leading.
It's something that has also been very well received by investor community, and we believe we are doing the right thing for the company and certainly the right thing for the world. As we go forward into the second half of the year, we'll continue our unrelenting focus on safety to ensure we keep our people safe every day. Peter and his team focusing on our operational excellence, and at the same time, we maintain a very strong capital allocation framework in terms of how we grow this business.
As Steven talked about our balance sheet, delevered a lot faster than we thought. As a result of that, very pleased to be able to provide additional returns to our shareholders by way of the top-up dividend. With that, we'll turn it over to you guys for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the hash or pound key. Your first question comes from the line of Alain Gabriel of Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Good morning, gentlemen. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, Gary, this is your first results presentation as the CEO of Glencore. Your messaging has been consistent so far. If I interpret it correctly, that you do not intend to make any radical changes to your predecessor's philosophy in how Glencore is run.
There must be things that you are thinking about or doing differently, especially in the context of a new board of directors or changes of the board of directors. What will you do differently? As an extension to this question, what is at the top of your priority action list by order of urgency, of course, outside of health and safety? Thank you.
Alain, thanks very much. Ivan's left us a terrific base of assets, a terrific marketing business, we certainly are not going to fix anything that's not broken. The business is set up, as you've seen, generated terrific cash in the first half of the year and will continue to do that. In terms of doing things differently, I don't think you can expect radical changes because we're not going to fix what's not broken. I did mention safety. Of course, that's going to be unrelenting for us.
We need to watch that very carefully. We've got a couple projects on the go that we want to make sure we see through. We want to ensure that the ramp-up of Zhairem and the recommissioning of line two of Koniambo were done successfully and on time. Those will be key focus areas for us. We want to ensure that the climate commitment that we've made, that we keep to that. We ensure that we put that commitment out to the market, we will keep to that and prove that that is something that we're serious about.
Going forward, we'll make sure that we maintain the strong capital discipline and pay dividends to our shareholders. I don't think, Alain, you can expect any major changes from a very disciplined way of running this business.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Jack O'Brien of Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.
Good morning, Gary. Good morning, Steven. Just slightly following up on Alain's first question there. Sounds like it'll be, as you say, not to expect radical changes going forward. Perhaps you just touch somewhat more on the coal portfolio. Clearly, the business looking extremely strong as we head into second half.
Would love just to hear any thoughts you have on sort of how that market is looking, given the current coal ban in China, where the majority of your coal is currently being shipped, how we can think about sort of portfolio mix adjustments. Just if you could clarify on the proportion that is sold to Japan, so when we think about those contracts that are fixed.
Jack, thanks very much. Look, the coal business is set up very well. As you know, last year, we capped production in response to the market. We didn't want to produce tonnes that were not adding value that the market didn't need. We believe that the recent kick-up in the market not only related to that, but that contributed to the tightness in the market because we didn't oversupply the market with tonnes it didn't need.
As Steven mentioned, we've got some real tailwinds going into the second half of the year, and you've seen some terrific prices out of Newcastle, out of Richards Bay. The market's looking very strong and remains very strong. With respect to China is still not accepting Australian cargoes. The trade routes have adjusted quite quickly.
We, through our portfolio, both through the marketing business and through our industrial asset business, have been able to supply coal into China out of places like South Africa, which historically hasn't taken South African coal for probably seven or eight years now, is now taking South African coal. Through our marketing traded book, we've been able to supply coal into China from our Indonesian and Russian book. As a result, the trade routes have adjusted quite significantly and quite quickly.
Our Australian coal we're placing into alternate markets or markets where gaps have opened because the South African, Indonesian, and Russian have moved into Australia, leaving gaps for our into China, leaving gaps for our Australian coal. We've adapted very quickly. The market has adapted very quickly.
In fact, some of these disruptions and dislocations in the market have been quite beneficial for us because our trading business has been able to take advantage of these arbitrages that have opened up and have printed a good first half trading result. We're very pleased with that. Going forward, coal outlook remains very strong. We've seen that on the supply side, very few new mines coming on, largely through licensing issues and regulatory issues. Demand remains incredibly strong.
High electricity generation, particularly through the Asian region. LNG prices, which competes with coal on an energy basis and a usage basis in power plants across Southeast Asia. LNG price is much higher, which has given further impetus to current coal prices. As we go forward, the coal portfolio is uniquely and well set up.
We will continue to run down our production as per our commitment, which contributes even to a tighter market given the increased demand. We look forward to healthy returns in that business.
Got it. Thank you, Gary.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Liam Fitzpatrick of Deutsche Bank. Please ask your question.
Thank you. Good morning, Gary and Steve. Two questions from my side. Firstly, on the ag business. If we look at ag returns, generally, they've improved materially over the last 6- 12 months. It seems to me that because of the ownership structure, the market gives you very little value for that business.
What is the medium-term strategy there, and should we be thinking about a further sell-down or exit further down the line? Second question on Koniambo. How much longer can you persist with this asset, given what we've seen over the last few years? Thank you.
I'll answer the second one first. Maybe Steve can talk on the ags. Koniambo, we have the second line being rebuilt right now. Commissioning will take place towards the end of this month or early next month. We're in a critical phase of that project. We will assess how that ramp-up goes, how production goes, how cost-effective it is.
In the next 6-12 months, we will be undertaking a thorough review of that asset, basis its performance and basis the latest work being done. We'll be able to come back to the market or back to you guys within 6-9 months to let you know what our views are.
Thanks, Liam. I'm pleased you actually brought up the ag business because I probably should have mentioned it on the call in terms of the actual performance through the marketing side because it does get a little bit sort of lost in the overall part of the Glencore business. We did report close to $200 million just for the first half was our equity pickup. That's after-interest tax net income within that business.
It is both annualizing and expected to be over $1 billion EBITDA within that business for the full year, which is at very strong levels. By the way, the whole sector, as you said, is performing well. It's clearly in our interest, both in the management of that business, but also in engagement with you guys in the investor community to sort of demonstrate and see how we can unlock and validate some of the equity value and get it properly reflected. It's not cash flow in the business yet.
It's not something you can multiply or do something. They have largely, since we closed that transaction at the end of 2016, which was on an equity value of sort of $6.25 billion there, so 50% was $3.15 billion or so at the time. They've reinvested. Their balance sheet is very strong. The earnings are very strong. That business should certainly have a value, at least what it's had at the time of that close in 2016.
Given the strengthening in their own balance sheet and also the ability then to participate, hopefully, in some industry consolidation. There's always chat is never too far from people's minds in that particular sector. We'd be sort of keen, as a shareholder, in sort of participating in some industry consolidation and probably that ultimately will be the validation of value within that particular business.
At the moment, we can probably stand on our hands and there's nothing more we can do other than say that business is sort of performing well and you can reflect that somewhere as a pocket of value that will be unlocked and validated at some particular point in time. It's a very pleasing performance and the full year is looking very good for that business.
Steve, could I just briefly follow up on that? I think since that initial sell-down, I think it was four or five years ago. It feels like we've been waiting for a period of time. Is there a degree of urgency there? Should we expect things over the next 12 months, or is it still very much a long-term play there?
Certainly not urgency for the sake of urgency, there is discussions on various fronts, absolutely, in that business. You never know when some things come quickly, some things can take years to obviously present themselves. Even our Canadian partners, the whole structure for them, I think they're very long-term partners, but at some point in time, they could even call for an IPO in that business.
That would equally sort of validate some of the economics and value in that business through our 50% as well. Very hard to say, Liam, other than something in some way, shape, or form in that business will happen at some point.
Okay. Thanks, Steve. Good luck, Gary.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jason Fairclough, Bank of America. Please ask your question.
Yep. Morning, folks. Thanks for the presentation. Just a fairly simple question on coal production volumes. You've talked about why we have lower production volumes again this year for a variety of reasons. Bottom line, if I look at 2021 production, it's going to be off about a quarter versus the 2019 peak. You're now making changes to the portfolio, you're buying in the rest of Cerrejón.
We've also got these new targets on reduced Scope 1, 2 , and 3 emissions. I guess simple question, how should we think about the evolution of coal production volumes, not just over the next six months, but rather over the next few years? Is this 120 million-tonne-a-year business, or do we get back up to that 140 million tonnes level?
Morning, Jason. Look, the big move from 2019- 2021 is obviously removing Prodeco out of our consolidated volumes, and that won't come back. I think the best way to look at it long term, short term, we'll always adjust our production up and down in accordance with what the market needs and chase the right margins. We're not going to produce tonnes for the sake of producing tonnes. In the medium to longer term, the best way to model that is to just model it in accordance with our climate change commitments.
Where we are, our 2019 base, where we'll be by 2026 is 15% down, give or take. That's where we'll be. Obviously by 2035, we'll have halved our production of the 2019 base. That's probably your best way to model it in the short to medium term. To understand where production will go.
So if I-
I mean, also hopefully, Jason, as it moves down there, you're obviously making more on less tonnes also because you also should be managing a portfolio as well where there might be some brownfield extensions or a few leases or some other CapEx that goes in. It's in the higher quality, higher margin business. You might see some domestic business decline, some other sort of lower quality. These are things that are more likely to sort of decline at a steeper rate as well.
As I'm thinking out to 2022/ 2023, that would be 15% down on the 140 million tonnes?
No, I mean, not specifically that. I mean, on the 140 million tonnes, you know where we are this year. It's not a linear reduction between now and 2026 off the 2019 numbers. As you know, with these operations, some of them come off, some of them sort of peak in certain years, depending on what strip ratio is, depends on long-haul moves, depends on qualities and the likes.
Going forward, I don't know how much guidance we can give on that, but sort of similar numbers to where we are at the moment. You'll see off the 2019 base, you'll see us down approximately 15% by 2026.
I mean, Jason, you will see obviously, in December, we will go out sort of obviously 2021. You've got a good sense of that. We'll go out sort of 2022 for sort of four years or so. You'll see that sort of four-year period in this early sort of 15% overall business target, and we'll also be in a position to pro forma for sort of Cerrejón. You can see that trajectory as well at that point.
Okay. The Cerrejón volumes are included ultimately in these target volumes and target reductions? You're actually moving the, if you like, the base up on the back of that?
You move the base up, but it declines then with those targets. You sort of go back to 2029, you pro forma for as if you'd own 100%, and then you reflect the 15%, 50% ultimately to net zero.
Okay. All right. Clear.
We'll give all that as part of the December update, as well as through the sort of bigger climate report, which we do on an annual basis that will also sort of adjust for the Cerrejón pro forma and the adjusted targets and put some of the sort of graphs accordingly that can answer some of the questions, exactly what you're asking.
Okay. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Gary.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Sergey Donskoy of SG CIB. Please ask your question.
Yeah. Yes. Thank you very much. I have two questions. One about Mutanda restart. If you could provide some color on your medium-term targets in terms of production volumes and also what sort of a mine life should we expect from oxides only? Where will you be in a position to decide on expansion into sulfides? That's first extended question. Second question is on RMI increase. There was an uptick, I think, of about $1.5 billion from end last year. Should we expect RMI is normalizing towards end of the year?
Hi, Sergey. Morning. On the Mutanda restart, at our December Investor Day, we'll provide significant more detail on where we are. At the moment, we are starting the ramp-up, starting to come back into production. There's a little bit of volume there in the second half of the year that's coming from existing stockpiles that's being processed right now. The team's working on the ramp-up schedule, the ramp-up plan.
We'll be able to provide details on capital and costs and certainly the mine plan as we go along, as we mine the oxides and then transition into the sulfides. What we will be doing, though, is doing it pretty responsibly. We certainly don't want to bring volume into the market that isn't needed. We will take our time with the ramp-up to ensure we can match the supply that comes from Mutanda with the demand growth that we see in the market.
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
In terms of RMI, I mean, given the price environment that we experienced in the first half of the year, we've actually contained RMI increase to just 8%, I think is what the amount went off. You've seen price increases of aluminum was 27%, zinc 9%, copper 21%. The oil spectrum was 45%. Underlying actually RMI, we've got significantly less volumes actually than we were carrying at the end of June already. It's sort of counter-cyclical. Last year was a great year for contango storage plays.
It works well. That's what contributed part of the returns both in the metals and the energy side we were carrying through last year and also at the end of last year, more than usual levels of oil and metal as well within the books. The actual volumes of that have come down significantly. It's purely the price impact that then took that overall level up the 8%, which taking into account the price movements during the year, you can deduce from that volumes are actually significantly down.
As we look towards the end of the year, if prices stay where they are, I would think broadly flat. If prices go up another 10%, obviously I'd have to rerun our spot illustrative cash flow numbers, which would be materially higher. The consequence of that, which is a luxury problem, the way I like to think of it, is that RMI could even tick up a bit or if prices go down a bit, then it may come down a bit. That's going to be the major driver now because there's still some volumes tied up that would be beyond the core, if you like, commercial terms.
Some of those could be less attractive, and we may still deliver in and reduce our inventory somewhat between now and the end of the year. That, in a stable pricing environment, could maybe get back down to close to 20%. I think you just got to watch pricing now in terms of the major factor there.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Danielle Chigumira of Bernstein. Please ask your question.
Great. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. A couple from me. Firstly, on ESG, it's great to see some more ambitious reductions targets. You show in the appendix that the H1 emissions are going in the wrong direction. How are you tackling this short term? Secondly, just on marketing a bit, I know you made some comments earlier. Clearly you would need to fall about 20% sequentially to get to guidance. Could you give some color on the headwinds that you're seeing currently, if any, in the second half?
Danielle, I'll answer the first question on the ESG. Yes, ESG is critical. Maybe on the second question, if you can just clarify after I'm done on the first question. ESG is critical and front and center for us, and we're very committed to our climate change commitment, and we will keep to that regardless. Obviously, there's a little bit of noise in the numbers if you compare first half to last year, given the current situation. The first half of last year was severely impacted by COVID-19.
We had major production disruptions and restrictions within the business. Obviously things picked up in the second half of last year, first half of this year. On a half-on-half comparison, you would see some variances which perhaps are not consistent with our longer-term ambitions.
That's just a reestablishing the business of a very volatile period as a result of COVID. Going forward, as I think we pointed out to Jason, we've got our commitment of a 15% reduction in Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by 2026, and we'll keep to that. Obviously the improved 50% reduction by 2035 of our 19 year base, and that will be delivered without a doubt. On the second question, perhaps you can clarify. I think we missed some of the words.
Sure. It's just on the marketing guidance, mechanically, you'd have to fall over 20% half-on-half to get to your top end of the guidance.
Okay.
What headwinds are you seeing to get you there?
There's no headwinds. Again, sort of mechanically, we were at $1.8 billion. If we hit $3.2 billion, it would be $1.4 billion, which yes, mathematically it's a reduction on H1. Also, if you annualize $1.4 billion, it's a $2.8 billion annual result, which is still a good result by historical standards and within the top half of our range. It wouldn't be fair to just extrapolate or double $1.8 billion, $3.6 billion. It's not impossible. Just where we are at the moment, of course, you're not going to reach that far in saying we're going to double up H1.
It was a very good year across the business. Coal, Gary mentioned earlier on, was a strong performance there. The oil business continued well across all the metals businesses. We said it was a broad-based, healthy contribution from all departments. Statistically, that doesn't always happen over periods of six months.
If all things sort of step into line again, then yes, you can obviously do higher than the $3.2 billion, but we think it's a sensible guidance and a reconfirmation thereof, and would still require a delivery in H2 in the upper half of our full-year ranges for that period.
Great. That's useful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Myles Allsop of UBS. Please ask your question.
Great. Thank you. Just a couple of questions. First of all, on M&A more broadly and Cerrejón in particular. With Cerrejón, what are the potential issues? How the hurdles to get through, or do you think that deal is pretty much in the bag? How are you thinking about M&A going forward? Will you still look opportunistically across the different commodities, or do you see this more as a period of consolidation and cleaning out the portfolio? The second question is around cash returns.
Obviously you've gone for a balanced approach with the first half, with a buyback and an extra dividend. What was the rationale behind that, and how should we think about returns going forward when you're generating so much more cash flow? Thank you.
Carl, I'll answer on the M&A and Cerrejón. Cerrejón, obviously, the transaction was only signed at the end of June when we announced it. There's a number of regulatory approvals required. We don't expect or anticipate any material issues out of that process. As you know, it does take some time. There are a number of jurisdictions where we need to file applications. We expect closing sometime during the first half of 2022. Certainly no expectation of any issues around that.
That's looking fine. M&A going forward, obviously our focus in the business has been to de-lever the balance sheet, which we've done successfully. As we've mentioned in our presentation, we've got a terrific commodity suite of assets or assets within the commodities that we want to be in, those that are powering the electrification of mobility and the green wave.
That's the area that we want to remain in. Right now, markets are good. We're not looking at anything specifically on M&A. We're focusing on ensuring we run our operations responsibly, effectively, and kicking our cash back to shareholders as we stand today.
Myles, just in terms of, obviously, cash returns. In some sense, it's obviously a judgment call. We have different shareholders across our base. You've got to try and thread a reasonable needle across all that sort of stuff in terms of, there are some people that would be massively, clearly in favor and supportive of buybacks.
There'd be others that say, "Pay me all cash, and I'll decide what I want to do with it," in terms of whether it's reinvesting, which for them would achieve the sort of same effect in terms of equity value, and they can get whatever accretion and that sort of comes from that. There's a lot of engagement, and you, to some extent, broadly a 50/50 here just sort of feels a nice goldilocks approach, and maybe that's a good approach also going forward in that the fact we're doing a buyback, I think itself should be a signal that we're comfortable doing that.
We see value, not so much even cyclically, because we'd rather the market have that call, but just a general how sustainability, pricing of cash flows, the sort of delivery of operational performance, the tonnes coming through the African copper business as well, the sort of coal margins, all those things in terms of other valuation factors and discount rates and comfort with different countries. These are things we're more comfortable clearly taking a call and happy to take a call on in terms of what copper, zinc, coal prices are.
That's something we have a view on, but we're quite happy for the market to make their own call. The fact we're doing a buyback, and we won't always be doing buybacks, but when we do buybacks, that should be a signal that we see some strong accretion, some good value, and happy to be, like an M&A transaction, meeting hurdle rates within that particular transaction.
I think a mix and match is the way of the future, and there'll always be an element of buybacks where we see that value, and we're happy to be backed into that sort of decision. There'll be times where we go 100% cash if that changes in terms of the thought process around, but just a call on cycles.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ian Rossouw of Barclays. Please ask your question.
Morning. I've got two questions. The first one relates to the operational performance. I wanted to get a sense from you, Gary, if you're happy with the sort of volume ramp-up in operations. It seems like some of the I guess you're still downgrading volume guidance. In coal, that's market-related. I guess specifically in the zinc business, seems like the Zhairem ramp-up is taking slightly longer. Maybe if you can talk to that as well. Secondly, on the marketing business, wanted to get your sense of regulatory risk.
We've obviously seen the news flow about one of your ex-employees pleading guilty to corruption charges. Wanted to get a sense from you around the risks in that business, how, going forward, you can ensure that that doesn't happen within the business.
Sure. Hi. Morning, Ian. Thanks. On the operational performance, yes, slightly disappointing in some of our commodities. As you raised, in particular, zinc around Zhairem. Zhairem, obviously, the project ramp-up has been a little bit challenging. We had an incident where we had a fire at the DMS, which effectively destroyed the entire structure. In terms of rebuilding that coincided with the COVID sort of shutdowns and like so.
It hasn't gone according to plan. We've been in a bit of a strange time in the world, the fact that it's really that's the main area that we've suffered in terms of project ramp-up as a result of COVID is not that bad, though we are disappointed with it. Peter and his team are sending in a couple sort of fixes and ensuring that we can turbocharge that ramp-up and get it back to where it should be on the schedule. We're not particularly concerned with it, but certainly disappointed that we didn't meet the target on Zhairem.
On the marketing business, yes, regulatory risk remains an issue for us. Where I get a lot of comfort on the marketing business going forward is having spent a lot of time working with our compliance team on our compliance program, on our ethics program, on the way we do business. We've really rolled that out extensively across the business to all levels of the business. We have a very strong assurance program, a very strong monitoring program, a raising concerns line, a KYC system that's best in class, sanction screening that is real time.
We've eliminated, in many parts of the business, intermediaries and agents, and we continue to do that. We are really strengthening the systems, controls, processes around our marketing business, and it's giving me a lot of comfort that the regulatory risk is strongly managed, strongly mitigated going forward, and still able to provide significant returns to our business.
Okay. Just on that, I guess the focus has always been on agency oil trading. Is that still something you will do going forward or without, I guess, agents and intermediaries, as you say?
We don't have any intermediaries in our oil business. Our oil business doesn't rely on agents. It doesn't rely on intermediaries. It's an evolving business. It's a different business model to what perhaps was used even five or 10 years ago. It's a business model that's proving to be very successful. We've made significant value gains over the last couple of years without the use of intermediaries and agents, and we don't plan to use them again in our oil business.
Okay. Thanks, Gary. That's comforting.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Sylvain Brunet of Exane BNP Paribas. Please ask your question.
Good morning, Gary and Steve . First one to Gary, as the new CEO, what equity market narratives or narrative would you like to see change on Glencore? And then Steve , perhaps if you could give us a bit more color around the higher corporate cost in H1. Was there any one-off we should restate for the full year? Thank you.
Look, our equity market narrative is going to be one of consistency and of performance. We will no doubt have, and we do have, a very strong capital allocation framework within this business, and we will allocate capital very much in line with that, and we'll be strict in terms of our guidelines.
We will maintain a strong balance sheet. Steve talked about that in detail, but we will keep to the lower end of our net debt range, and we've achieved that already at $10.6 billion. In line with those two issues, to the extent that we have additional cash, the idea is to kick that back to shareholders, whether it be by way of cash distributions or buybacks, as Steve's talked to at length. Going forward, obviously, we'll focus on operational excellence at our business, safety and our very strong marketing business complemented by our recycling business.
Given that we have the premier suite of commodity assets across our business where we touch on all the key commodities for the decarbonization of the world, I think our equity narrative remains incredibly strong and gets stronger as we go forward, as we run down our coal business.
Sylvain, in terms of corporate cost, that's often there's a layer of sort of bonus pool and sort of compensation across the group that gets brought through that line itself rather than the underlying business sort of performance. It's obviously a cost within the business and it's a cash flow driver within the business. There might be some lags from time to time, depending on when those are finalized and sort of determined post-delivery of results.
We tend to finalize some of the pools and compensations around the May, June, July period, which is around here. In terms of the finalization, it can be a bit of a catch up sometimes in respect of some previous years. We know the marketing was very strong in 2020. A lot of it's the wrap up of some of those and the different provisions and the ultimate settlement of those. You also will see it historically can be a little bit more weighted H1 over H2.
We'll see a tick up in that level with the business performing better in both the industrial and marketing. That's all built into our illustrative annualized cash flow. Based off the sort of $21.8 billion number and coming down to $11.5 billion, it's in that sort of other category. We have sort of reset that to where we expect corporate sort of to be.
Okay, good. If I could just do the one follow-up question on ESG and ferroalloys in South Africa, which as we know, is a pretty large share of Glencore Scope 1 and 2. Is there any technology you're looking at leveraging there that would help you accelerate on the energy efficiency and scope reduction?
Yeah, look, obviously it's quite challenging in terms of carbon content, our alloys business, largely on the Scope 2, given Eskom's the supplier of all the power in the country, and it's largely coal-fired. Fortunately, Eskom is on a program now to convert some of its coal power stations into less carbon-intensive power and is looking at different forms of power, green energy, which will feed into our business, and that should have some medium to longer term mitigation on our Scope 2 emissions.
We're also looking at a number of initiatives within the business. Japie and his team have got some great ideas with the head of our smelting, Amanda, who's looking at off gas usage, reheating. They're also looking at some virtual power arrangements of green power, working with Eskom and independent operators to look at what ideas we have around that. It's certainly front and center for us and the guys down in South Africa are focusing on implementing those medium to longer term strategies.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tyler Broda of RBCCM. Please ask your question.
Thanks very much, Gary. Just a question I have, I guess, is just Glencore's evolved in a different way than its peers. Now obviously the mining business is a core part of the business. Exploration spending is a lot lower than your peers.
You do have some organic growth coming through, but I guess, how do you think about that more from a holistic perspective? I guess on the second question, just in terms of the asset tail, how harsh do you think you need to be to get the business into the right shape from a sort of asset structure perspective? Thank you.
Hi. Morning, Tyler. On the exploration spending, look, I don't think you're going to see too much exploration spending for us because exploration spending generally leads to greenfield operations, and I come from the same school as Ivan with respect to greenfield operations. We don't like them and we won't be pursuing them. There's obviously exploration spending that gets spent around existing operations where we can do smart brownfield expansions, and we'll continue to do that.
Exploration spending is certainly not an indicator for us in terms of growth of the business because we won't be building greenfield operations by simply spending money drilling around and seeing what we can find.
Tyler, we don't specifically also separate it out, but we'd have 10s of millions of near mine exploration regional around our different operations. It would certainly be where one's targeting obviously different businesses, but it wouldn't be in the single digits.
It would certainly be in excess of $100 million at least annually that we're spending obviously around all of our operations, resource conversion opportunities around in Kazakhstan, in South America, around Mount Isa. There's a lot of work that gets done in these regions as well. It's just not the virgin exploration spend, if you like.
I think just to answer your question, Tyler, on the tail assets per se, we've had a number of processes on the go already, and we're reviewing all our portfolio to ensure we have the right portfolio rightly structured, some sort of simplification. It's not going to be a wholesale cut into our business. Our business is a strong business and many of these assets provide significant value to us with respect to our trading operations or complementary to existing industrial assets.
Our idea is we're not going to give running commentary on individual tail asset or whatever you want to call it, disposals. We will run through a process of the existing assets that we've identified and continue to identify that perhaps are not that core to our business anymore. We will then, sort of as they exit the portfolio, and we'll report back as we go forward.
Well, thanks very much. On the exploration, Steve, I totally take on board all of that was more to what Gary answered, very much a par for the course in terms of the outlook for greenfield. Thank you.
Thanks, Tyler.
Thank you. Your final question comes from the line of Chris LaFemina, Jefferies. Please ask your question.
Hey, good morning. Thanks, guys, for taking my question. Your illustrative EBITDA and free cash flow numbers are obviously very impressive and our commodity prices stay near current levels. That's obviously a very good outlook for you, but we are now unfortunately seeing another wave of COVID globally and notably in China.
Wondering first if you're seeing any evidence of demand weakness, especially in China, and then also wondering about any impact at your mine sites from this current wave of COVID? Are things getting worse or are any operations being affected that weren't affected a couple of months ago? Thank you.
Morning, Chris. We are not seeing any particular demand weakness or demand destruction as a result of COVID at the moment. The Delta variant is a concern for all of us and we are seeing various sort of peaks or infection rates rise in different parts of the world. From a demand perspective, we have not seen any demand destruction as a result of it. We've seen obviously some correction in certain commodities around more policy. We've seen Chinese policy around steel and its impact on iron ore.
You've seen the iron ore price drop from about $220-$180 today as a result of their forecast steel cuts. Those steel cuts are related to economic measures and fiscal measures rather than COVID. We haven't seen anything yet, but we watch it very closely, because obviously that's a key part of our business. In a sense, these kind of disruptions do create opportunities for us in our marketing business. That's something that we remain very much abreast of. On our mine sites, the impact has been minimal.
We have some impact in South Africa, with respect to absenteeism largely, due to some of the restrictions in South Africa and some of the contact tracing where if we have somebody who tests positive and the contact tracing means a number of people can't come to work. We do have a little bit of an impact in South Africa.
Generally across the board, even today in Australia, you would have seen that the New South Wales premier has called for a shutdown in the Hunter Valley. However, the coal mines are exempt from that and our coal mines continue to operate at full production there. We haven't seen anything material across the business as we stand today.
Great. Thanks, Gary. Good luck. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll now hand the call back to Gary to close.
I'd like to thank everybody for joining us today. I know it's maybe early or late for some in different parts of the world, but a very pleasing result that we've put out today. We're very glad that we could provide additional returns to our shareholders by way of a cash distribution and a buyback. Markets remain strong and we look forward to a strong second half of the year and to report back to you at our Investor Day in December. Thanks very much, everyone.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.