Good morning to all of you. A very warm welcome to the Pan African Resources 2021 final results presentation. Thank you very much for taking time out of your schedules to join us today. The last year has again seen good progress with Pan African's strategy of positioning ourselves as a safe and sustainable high margin and long life gold producer. We are excited to share some highlights and also our plans for the year ahead in the next slides. As per usual, we will try and keep the presentation fairly brief. We will then be available to assist with questions afterwards. Joining me in presenting today will be Deon Louw, our Financial Director. You are welcome to refer to our SENS and RNS announcements and to the supplementary information available on the Pan African website should you require detail not dealt with in today's presentation.
Please note the disclaimer and detail on forward-looking statements on slides number two and three. On slide four, an overview of the presentation. The first section provides information on the continued impact of, and our response to COVID-19, as well as information on the group's safety performance. We will follow with some of the highlights and key features of the year past, and also further detail on our unique portfolio of re-mining and underground assets. We will discuss the group's all-in sustaining cost performance and outlook, and also how we continue to reinvest in our mining assets via capital spend to ensure their sustainability into the future. I look forward to spending a couple of minutes discussing progress on our ESG initiatives, where our aim is most certainly to go beyond compliance. Deon will analyze our full year financials, including details on a very robust financial performance.
We will then conclude with an update on our growth and expansion plans, and by demonstrating that Pan African is firmly on track in meeting our financial year 2022 deliverables. Moving along. On slide number six. Firstly, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who have lost loved ones to Covid-19, including four of our own colleagues. We also, again, express condolences to the family of Mr. Mavimbela, a Barberton employee who lost his life in a fatal accident in July 2020, just after this operation achieved 3 million fatality-free shifts. Most of our people do not have the luxury of working remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic. Pan African's operational performance is testament to their commitment to continued delivery. As is evidenced from our infection numbers, we have managed to contain the spread of the virus very well, with encouraging recovery rates when infected.
Currently, we have less than 10 active cases in the group, and a recovery rate of 97%. The South African mining industry now has a critical role to play in ensuring that we vaccinate our people. Pan African aims to have 75% or more of our employees and contractors vaccinated in the next months. I am pleased to confirm that our corporate office has already exceeded this target. From a safety performance perspective, we can always do better. However, our safety rates are encouraging, with a marked improvement, specifically at the Evander Underground. Barberton Mines continues to be an industry leader. The fact that we source such a large proportion of our total production from surface operations is certainly also a positive from a safety perspective. On slides number eight and nine, some highlights from the financial year.
We delivered an excellent production performance, with gold produced increasing by more than 12%. We exceeded both our initial and our revised guidance production numbers for the financial year. The Barberton team deserves special mention. Production from underground at Fairview, Sheba, and Consort was up almost 30% year-on-year. When we reported our interim results, we promised a much better performance from the Evander 8 Shaft pillar project in the second half of the financial year. Our Evander team has now really delivered. We pretty much doubled production in the second half from this asset. From a cost performance perspective, the stronger rand, as well as cost increases in excess of normal inflation impacted our numbers. We are targeting an all-in sustaining cost of sub $1,200 for FY 2022, assuming a ZAR 15 to the dollar exchange rate. On slide number nine.
Deon will speak more about the financial performance. We achieved a record profit for the year. This one does not get to report on too often. We are also recommending a record dividend for approval at our upcoming annual general meeting in November. Even after all of the capital programs and dividends paid in the last year, we managed to almost halve our debt over the last 12 months. It is also worthwhile noting that as announced today, the Pan African board has approved the initiation of a share buyback program. The buyback program will be executed in accordance with the company's general authorities to make on-market purchases, which was approved at our previous AGM. We will make further announcements on this initiative in due course. Financial year 2021 was also an excellent period for Pan African's ESG initiatives.
I'm particularly pleased with our achievements on renewable energy, water recycling, and our Barberton Agriculture initiative. We will discuss these programs further in the sections ahead. If we then proceed to an overview of our operating environment and operations, starting on slide 11. As we have said before, in terms of a track record of operating successfully in South Africa, Pan African's Barberton has a pedigree second to none. This mining complex has been mining continuously for more than 130 years. Few mining jurisdictions are without challenges. It is therefore key that you have quality assets and a management team experienced and equipped to deal with problems and challenges as they arise, or even more ideally, to preempt and avoid some of these issues altogether. We continuously seek ways of making our business less susceptible to adverse external and internal impacts in South Africa.
Some matters to highlight in terms of our operating environment over the last year include, as previously announced, we are reducing our reliance on Eskom, the South African electricity utility. Our first 10 MW solar plant at Evander will be complete late this year. We have been awarded a generation license for this operation, and we hope to connect to the grid by February 2022. The next weeks, we will also report on progress with the expansion of this initial phase, as well as the results of a feasibility into a similar plant at Barberton. The recent government announcements on increasing self-generation thresholds will certainly also stand us in good stead. We received a 30-year mining right renewal at Barberton in June 2021. This right is now valid until 2051. Evander's mining right is also still valid until 2038 in its current form.
From a security perspective, our efforts to safeguard our people and our operations and minimize the impact of illegal mining are ongoing. We are rolling out a number of new technology-based solutions to increase the effectiveness and reduce security costs into the future. In terms of stakeholder interaction, we continue to invest in our social license to operate. I believe it would be very difficult for any party to say that Pan African's operations do not have a meaningful, positive impact in the areas where we operate. I'm also, again, very pleased to highlight that we recently finalized a multi-year wage agreement with our respective unions at Barberton. This agreement should underpin operational stability at our mines in the year ahead. On slide number 12. Pan African's business represents a unique combination of surface re-mining and underground mining.
The surface mining reduces unit costs, whilst the underground provides long life of mines, solid returns as a result of a large sunk capital base, and also attractive optionality, which we are now bringing to account. On slide number 13, I think this is a very good summary of our current operating assets. You have Elikhulu and you have the BTRP, our surface retreatment operations. These plants are highly automated and have generated fantastic returns for the group. I'm pleased to report that Elikhulu has now repaid its initial capital investment of some ZAR 2 billion in a period of less than three years since starting operations. On the underground, Barberton Mines, as I've said, is one of the oldest mining operations still running in the world with a 20-year life and more.
Evander 8 Shaft is now really delivering with what we believe to be a great future ahead. If we move on to the next section, let's spend a couple of minutes on the operational performance of each of our core assets. Elikhulu on slide 15. I must say, Elikhulu is the one operation that disappointed during the year, with production down 16%. As previously flagged in the first half of the financial year, we were constrained on tonnage throughput as a result of remedial work to our deposition compartments. In the second half, recoveries from this plant did pick up, but not as much as anticipated. A very positive note, we have managed to retain a life of 12 years on this world-class operation, and as is evidenced by slide 16, we expect to increase production to approximately 55,000 ounces in the year ahead.
Elikhulu's costs on a rand per ounce basis should also not increase by more than 5% in the coming year. This also excludes any benefit from the solar plant in the later part of the year. On slide number 17. The current year, again, saw a very good performance from the BTRP, with the asset generating EBITDA of $12.5 million. We can maintain this level of production from the BTRP for approximately three more years. However, the future of the BTRP now is, we believe, processing Royal Sheba ore. We've commenced a 20,000 ton bulk sample. Some pictures of the adit and initial underground workings are on the bottom of the slide. Just to recap on Royal Sheba and our development plans on slide number 18. Royal Sheba is a large ore body with a strike length of more than 800 m and a width of between 5- 20 m.
It's been drilled to almost 800 m below surface. The ore body is still open down dip and on strike at depth. Royal Sheba contains more than 1 million ounces in mineral resource, grading approximately 2 g/ t. The ore body also contains free-milling gold, which represents an upside to the head grade during mining. Historical mining by Anglovaal has proven the amenability of this ore in our metallurgical facilities and plants. The ore body's dimensions make it suitable for low cost, long-hole open stoping mining methods. For Royal Sheba, we have two attacking points, the Royal Sheba uppers and then the lowers, as we call it. On Royal Sheba uppers, we are accessing this ore from surface using the existing adit, as I've said.
After our initial development encountered unexpected old workings, the mining layout had to be changed, and we now expect to intersect reef in the second half of the FY 2022 financial year. Initially, 20,000 tons of reef will be mined via a bulk sample. After the bulk sample, development will continue on reef, and spiral inclines will be developed to access the reef on the lower levels. Initial reef from the reef development will be used to fill the Sheba and Consort plants and facilities. On Royal Sheba lowers, we will access this ore body from 23 level at Sheba ZK Shaft. Royal Sheba lowers is being developed concurrently with the upper levels. Development on 23 level is now only 150 m away from the reef horizon. It'll take approximately two years to establish all of the footwall infrastructure, return airways, and the secondary escape ways.
Once all infrastructure is established, a spiral incline will be developed up and down, providing multiple attacking points on reef, where the ore body will be developed out to the boundary and the long-hole open stoping will begin. Conversion of the BTRP plant will be timed to coincide with the required tonnage profile. Slide number 19- 21 provides more information on the Barberton underground operations. Again, credit to our geology and mining teams for an excellent performance during the last year. I think the flexibility afforded by the four operational platforms at Fairview's 11 blocks certainly assisted with the underground's almost 30% increase in gold output. On slide number 20, in addition to having more platforms available, we have also increased the mining footprints of these platforms, basically doubling the size of our mining area at excellent grades. Lastly, on the Barberton underground, slide 21.
We are pleased to report that the declining trend of underground production from Barberton has been reversed, clearly benefiting from priority development and our other initiatives. Project Dibanisa is also progressing well and should be complete in the next 18 months. If we conclude on our current operations on slide 22, the Evander 8 Shaft pillar. Again, the Evander team really redeemed themselves in the second half of the financial year, producing some 24,000 ounces during the half at an all-in sustaining cost of sub $1,000, and an excellent safety performance to boot. With the addition of 24 level, this operation now has a life of mine of five years. We plan to at least double this life of mine with the initiatives detailed later under our growth section. Slide 24, all-in sustaining costs.
Now more than 75% of our portfolio produced at an all-in sustaining cost of just over $1,150 per ounce. In the next year, we will add the Evander underground to our lower cost operations. We are guiding an all-in sustaining cost of below $1,200 per ounce, assuming a ZAR 15 to the dollar exchange rate. A final word on costs on slide 25. I think we can demonstrate that our cost performance on core operations is very much in line with the average for the global sector. On slide number 27, group capital expenditure. We continue to invest in our assets. In a lower gold price environment, we can cut CapEx to maintain cash flow margins. For the time being, we are able to balance a fairly large reinvestment into our assets with debt reduction and increased dividends.
In the last year, we invested again, a significant amount into the Barberton underground fleet, and also in expanding the Barberton Tailings Storage Facility. This will continue in the year ahead. We are also developing the Royal Sheba orebody, as we've detailed. For FY 2022, we have quite a sizable capital spend planned. We will be moving to a new remining site for Elikhulu and extending its Tailings Storage Facility. We are also pretty much doing all of the 24-level development at Evander 8 Shaft. In 2023, as you will see. The group capital expenditure is expected to drop significantly once the Elikhulu move to Leslie/Bracken is complete and the underground 24-level development and cooling plant is commissioned. Slide 29, environmental, social, and governance or ESG.
For us at Pan African, the increased focus on ESG in recent years has required the group to explore opportunities of improving our operations and ensuring we future-proof our business. This year marks the first time we are releasing a dedicated ESG report, reporting in terms of the Global Reporting Initiative or GRI. Some of the highlights in this report include details on our future plans on renewable energy, the fact that our board has now approved the construction of a reverse osmosis water treatment plant at Evander, which should almost completely eliminate the use of potable water at this operation. The capital cost of this plant, some ZAR 30 million, is expected to be paid back in less than five years. We continue to progress a number of community infrastructure projects. In July of this year, we handed over the Cathyville Clinic to the South African Department of Health.
This clinic has the capacity to treat 120 patients daily. Now, I'm particularly proud of our partnership with conservation at Barberton and also of our large-scale blueberry farm, now fully commissioned, also at Barberton. Only the first phase of this modern agriculture initiative will create some 400 seasonal jobs in an area where this is desperately needed, with room for significant expansion in the future. Please refer to our ESG report, also released today, for further information on this and other initiatives. I will now hand over to Deon who will provide an overview of the full year financial results and outlook for the year ahead.
Thank you, Cobus. Slide 31 summarizes the group's results for the 2021 financial year. Evident is the increase in turnover by 35%, resulting from a combination of a 12% increase in gold produced and a substantial increase in the dollar gold price of 16% and 14% in rand terms, following a 2% year-on-year depreciation in the average rand -dollar exchange rate. Earnings increased year-on-year by 69%, earnings per share and headline earnings per share increased commensurately by 68% and 69% respectively, as no new shares were issued in the financial year. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 67%, contributing to a 46% decline in net senior debt to $34 million. Post year-end, we paid down the ZAR 1 billion, or $70 million RCF to $3 million, resulting in only the Elikhulu term facility and the RedInk solar facility remaining.
Although profit before tax increased by 101% relative to the 2020 financial year, a punitive tax charge of ZAR 50 million, comprising a paid component of $15.4 million and a deferred tax component of $14.6 million adversely impacted earnings. The deferred tax provision, which is based on expected future gold prices, production, operating costs, and capital expenditure over the life of the operations, has increased the projected future tax rate to 26%, as opposed to the approximately 19% of the prior financial years. Given the long life of the underground operations and the likely extension to these ore bodies, this provision is probably on the conservative side.
Slide 32 shows a decline in the rand gold price during the financial year, commencing at ZAR 970,000 per kg, peaking at ZAR 1,152,000 per kg on 10 August 2021, and then declining by 16% to ZAR 812,000 per kg at the financial year-end. Although our reporting currency is the U.S. dollar, our cost base and debt is rand denominated, and the rand gold price directly influences our profitability and cash flows. This decline in the rand gold price unfortunately undermined our ability to completely repay the existing senior debt in the manner that we contemplated last year this time.
Notwithstanding the decline in the rand gold price during the second half of the financial year, net cash generated by operations increased during this period by 92% to $82 million, relative to the $28 million generated in the first half of the financial year, as the group benefited from the full momentum of the pillar projects production, good grades and production from Barberton, and a reducing all-in sustaining cost. Slide 33 alludes to our senior debt facilities. As mentioned in the announcement this morning, we are finalizing a new ZAR 1 billion RCF facility for the group, which will consolidate the existing three senior debt facilities into a senior debt facility. The golden line in the slide demonstrates the rate at which the existing three senior debt facilities are expected to be repaid, and the blue line graph shows available capacity on the new RCF.
At the prevailing gold price of ZAR 815,000 per kg, the group should be de-geared of its existing senior debt by the final quarter of the 2022 calendar year. The new RCF is required as existing RCF expires in June 2022, and the group believes that a more cost-effective and flexible RCF can be secured. The new RCF is priced at 24% lower than the existing senior debt and also provides for additional third-party debt of up to ZAR 1 billion. This facility should be in place by the end of next month. To diversify the group's sources of debt funding, a domestic medium-term debt program with a nominal value of ZAR 5 billion or approximately $323 million has also been registered with the JSE as a mechanism to raise capital from the domestic debt capital markets should it be required in the future.
Circumspect capital allocation is key to the success of our business. Slide 34 illustrates the deployment of the group's capital in the 2021 financial year. Our primary objective is the sustainability of our operations. We invested $44 million in the 2021 financial year in pursuit of this objective. We have again generated a return on capital deployed in excess of 30%, demonstrating the efficacy of our capital allocation decisions. We paid back an almost identical amount of principal debt in the 2021 financial year, retained $35 million to ensure the robustness of the group's liquidity, distributed $18 million to shareholders in the form of net dividends. Slide 35 gives an indication of the extent to which we've de-geared the balance sheet of senior debt since 2018, with the debt to EBITDA ratio now below 0.5x.
It is not our intent to have no debt on the balance sheet, but given the cyclical nature of the gold mining sector, we prefer to have all senior debt linked to specific cash flow ring-fence projects such as the Elikhulu project. Slide 36 illustrates the historical dividend yield and yields on the proposed record rand dividend for the 2021 financial year. The proposed dividend of $28.3 million for the 2021 financial year is a 36% increase on the $20.6 million paid in the prior financial year, amounting to a 5.3% yield based on the share price at 30 June 2021 of ZAR 3.41, and a yield of 5.9% on the prevailing share price of ZAR 3.06.
The board proposed dividend of ZAR 402 million or approximately $28.3 million, is equal to ZAR 0.18 per share or approximately $0.013 per share or GBP 0.0092 per share, and is well in excess of the group's dividend policy guidelines, but takes into account the robust cash generation in the 2020 financial year, the de-gearing already achieved, and the favorable prospects for the 2022 financial year. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Deon. In addition to our current operating assets, Pan African also has exciting near-term growth projects. We move to slide 38 and 39, which sets out our plans for the Evander Underground. As mentioned earlier in this presentation, with 24 Level included, we have now secured the future of this operation for at least the next five years. A new phased approach to Egoli means that at prevailing gold prices, this development can be self-funding. On slide 39, we are also not ruling out the option of extending 24 Level to 25 and 26 as an add-on or substitute to Egoli. The study work on this project will be complete in the next months, whereafter we will update the market. Our final growth prospect, Mintails.
Now we are pleased to report on slide 41 that we've completed the pre-feasibility into the Mintails tailings facilities, specifically the Mogale cluster. At a gold price of just below $1,700 and an exchange rate of 15 ZAR to the dollar, the payback on the initial capital investment of some ZAR 2 billion is estimated at less than three years from when we start producing gold. We are now progressing the definitive study, which should be complete early next year. You will recall that a decision on whether or not to proceed with the Mintails transaction is solely at Pan African's discretion. A legal development in the last months, which may complicate the closure of the transaction, is that the major Mintails creditor and shareholder has applied to the High Court of South Africa to have Mintails SA put back in business rescue from the current provisional liquidation arrangement.
We understand that this matter will be before the courts in the next months, after which we should have clarity on the way forward. On slide 42, a high-level schematic of how the Mintails operation can potentially look after construction, quite similar to Elikhulu. We could be treating 800,000 tons per month from seven tailings facilities over the 11 years' life of mine. There's a mineral resource of more than 1 million ounces, recovering approximately 50,000 ounces per year and producing at a cash cost of less than $1,000 per ounce. There's also large scale upside in the addition of the Soweto cluster, a further 120 million tons grading 0.3 g/t , totaling 1.2 million ounces in resource. This will assess the potential of in Phase 2 of the project.
If we proceed with this transaction, it will potentially not only be a positive for Pan African, but also for the current stakeholders in Mintails. Our pre-feasibility study has calculated that if we process all of the Mogale Tailings facilities, the environmental liability can be reduced to a final number of approximately ZAR 100 million, a significant improvement to the current situation. Let us now wrap up on slide 44. Pan African is firmly on track to meet our full year deliverables for the next financial year. Key focus areas for us in the year ahead include the following. We'll continue to manage the impact of COVID-19 and our journey to zero harm. We will deliver into our minimum production guidance of 195,000 ounces for the financial year. We will successfully execute into capital projects that will sustain and increase annual gold production in the future.
We will endeavor to reduce all-in sustaining costs at all operations through optimization and increased unit production. We will progress the 8 shaft organic growth opportunities, the Egoli project, and also the evaluation of the Mintails assets. We will also continue to investigate potential exploration and gold mining opportunities outside of South Africa. Pan African will continue our ESG focus through partnerships to ensure sustainable host communities, the increased use of renewable energy and recycling initiatives. Finally, we will endeavor to increase dividends and further reduce net debt. Thank you very much for your time this morning. We look forward to continuing to mine for future in the year ahead. The team will now be available to answer questions. I think let's go to questions from the conference call first, if there are any.
Sir, we have no questions in the queue at the moment. Just a reminder to the parties on the call, if you wish to ask a question, press star and then one. We do have a question now from Arnold Van Graan of Nedbank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, Cobus and team. Well done on the results. Just a quick question. Cobus, you talk about security cost and technology and things like that. Do you have a sense of whether your security cost at Barberton is on par with other operations? I am not sure how you measure that, but let's say on a percentage of total cost or on a per ounce basis. If you can just sort of give us a sense of whether you are facing a bigger challenge there than some of your peers in other areas.
Sure. It's interesting. To the extent possible, it's difficult to benchmark, but we have the benefit of liaising with all the other South African gold miners on a regular basis, and there's actually sort of a security forum that meets. We've done benchmarking to the extent that we can, and we're quite comfortable that certainly our costs are not excessive. We do have certain peculiarities that I think some other miners might not have. An example would be the incredibly high grade that we have on some of the areas at Barberton that necessitate specific security and gates, et cetera. Those are costs that potentially other miners would not have. Certainly in the year ahead, we will, as we said, look to engage, sort of have more technology-focused and based solutions so we can reduce that cost over time.
Barberton has been an issue with illegal mining for, as you know, many years. We're comfortable the issue is not escalating. Our security team is doing fantastic work. Yeah, we'll sort of keep certainly doing what we need to, and I think you can expect, in real terms, the cost to come down in the years ahead.
All right. Thank you, Cobus. Cheers.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question is from Tim Huff of Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking questions. Just two, really. On your costs, your guidance for next year is for sub $ 1,200. It's a little bit higher than I expected, and I was just wondering if you could give us any guidance as to maybe the flexibility on that. Obviously, you guys have been doing pretty well on the production front. I was wondering, on the cost front, are there going to be any significant or specific cost savings programs in the next year or even two years that start to drop costs from FY 2023? The second question was really just on Evander. Just looking at the company's production profile over the coming couple of years, I see it lifting up towards 210,000 ounces. I was just wondering, is a chunk of that expected to come from Evander? Because the production profile doesn't necessarily say so.
Between, I guess, the flexibility, the different operations, and your run rate at Evander towards fiscal year-end this year, it looks like you've got some leeway there to hit production targets, which gives you some flexibility.
Thanks, Tim. Let's start with the second bit first, if you don't mind. The big plus for us in 2023, 2024, as we see it, is the forecast from Elikhulu. Currently, the test work we've done on Leslie/Bracken, which is a new area that we'd be moving to, that'll allow us to produce more from Elikhulu. That's clearly a great benefit because Elikhulu is an incredibly high margin asset, and it's going to reduce the unit costs on Elikhulu. We do have some flexibility, we believe, to expand production on the Evander underground. That's why you're seeing that sort of profile. I think we trying to be fairly conservative even for FY 2022 with 195,000 ounces minimum, particularly given how we've started the year. We're quite comfortable with those targets.
As far as the costs are concerned, if you recall last year, a big issue for us is the strength of the South African rand. Against certainly our expectations, the rand strengthened quite a lot. Last year when we put out our US dollar cost numbers, we were using ZAR 16.50. Now we're sort of forecasting at ZAR 15. That's why you'd have seen the dollar costs go up. It's mostly a product of the exchange rate. I think, in rand terms, we'd like to think we control costs quite well. The upsides, that we believe is quite tangible, upside is certainly on expanding our solar footprint. That first plant at Evander will be up in the second half of this year. That'll reduce the power costs or electricity costs at Elikhulu by about 5% or to 35% saving on your total electricity costs.
We very much engaged with the feasibility at Barberton to construct a similar plant and then obviously also expand the initial 10 MW at Evander to also cater for the Evander underground. That, in our mind, should be a tangible cost benefit that comes through quite clearly in the next couple of years. It's sort of producing more ounces and reducing your unit costs, and clearly, we sort of will target whatever other efficiencies and cost savings that we can.
That's great. Thanks.
Thank you, sir. We have no further questions in the queue at the moment.
Perfect. Thank you. We go to the webcast.
Yes, we have a few questions from webcast participants. The first one's from Martin Creamer, Mining Weekly. By what percentage will your renewable energy generation lower your dependence on Eskom electricity, and by what percentage will it cut your electricity cost? What other decarbonization initiatives are being contemplated and/or implemented? Thanks.
Yeah. The models we run, and again, on the initial 10 MW at Evander, we're not including any storage initially because most of those solutions appear to be quite expensive. You can sort of work on about 30% reduction in your power consumption and reliance on Eskom, and clearly, if we expand that, our intent would be to effectively have pretty much all of our group in South Africa run on solar during the daytime over the next two years or so. You can assume then it will sort of reduce our power consumption and costs by about 30%. On other decarbonization, the focus for now will be solar and making sure that solar works. Again, 10 MW will be the first plant, and by early next year, it would have proven itself.
The feasibility basically calculated that the payback on the capital is less than five years. At the Eskom current rates of escalation, it will probably be closer to four years. That's the big focus for us now, is just getting our group to run off the grid, so to speak, during the daytime hours in the next 24 months or so.
Okay. Thank you, Cobus. We've got a couple of questions from Mark Bentley from ShareSoc. The first one is, when do you expect Royal Sheba to come into production, and what production profile do you anticipate once brought into production?
Yeah, as we sort of indicated in the presentation, we're the first ore from Royal Sheba during this financial year. We have about two to three years to then sort of ramp up Royal Sheba. Effectively, the idea is to replace the feed, as we said, over the BTRP and maintain the margins and the very attractive profits that we're currently generating at the BTRP. I think to some extent, we are very much spoiled with what we have at Barberton. I mean, high grade generally on the underground is 10 g/t . This for us is a very low-grade ore body. The mining method that we will employ will ensure that it's low cost, highly mechanized. On the Royal Sheba uppers, there'll only be about 40- 50 direct employees.
That'll ensure that we can sort of extract the ore at a decent margin and effectively maintain what we see currently from the BTRP from a profits perspective.
Thanks, Cobus. The second question is also from Mark Bentley. More finance related this time, I think for Deon. It says, referring to page 31 of your summarized audited results announcement, what do the solar project liabilities represent, and why do they exceed assets/CapEx?
Thank you, Mark. The way the solar plant was funded was with a loan, a dedicated loan from RedInk Rentals, of circa ZAR 140 million, approximately $19 million. This was drawn down as a single tranche to make it easier from an administrative perspective. It's a relatively small facility. As we disperse to the contractor, we capitalize the costs. At this stage, you'll see the loan exceeding the capitalized costs. The difference is represented in cash flow on the balance sheet. Once the project's completed on budget and on time, then the liability will equal the asset.
Thank you, Deon. We've got a question now from Mark du Toit of Oyster Catcher. Could you expand more on the difference between the previously presented Egoli plan versus the more phased approach?
Thanks. Yes, Mark. I think what we've done is we've bought ourselves quite a lot of time now with the inclusion of the 24 Level into our life of mine for 8 Shaft. That means we have five years where we can maintain a run rate of 35,000- 40,000 ounces+ from the underground. Initially, or previously, we had envisaged a big CapEx number on Egoli that would be funded principally with a new facility. We felt in this market it was probably more prudent to go a little bit slower with Egoli. Now the cash flows, if you generate out of the pillar 24 Level at the current gold price, will pretty much pay for the development of Egoli and potentially 2025, 2026. It's a phased approach, slower ramp-up.
Clearly, CapEx and the required indebtedness will be a lot lower than what we previously thought or guided.
Thanks, Cobus. Mark also asked, you mentioned opportunities outside South Africa. Are there any geographies that you prefer or any geographies that you will not look at?
I think whatever we do will be in the gold space, as shareholders know, we do continue to look at opportunities. It's just difficult to find opportunities or operations where we obviously have high hurdles of return. It's difficult. We often find it expensive to acquire these assets and then develop them and still generate the requisite return on equity. We're quite selective. Clearly, it must be an opportunity that can add value to shareholders, it's not too dilutive, and that we can bring to account quite quickly.
Okay. Thanks, Cobus. We've got another question from Shoaib Vayej of Afena Capital. Shoaib says, hi, well done on the FY 2021 performance. Can you discuss the environmental liabilities that will come with Mintails? What amount of liability will Pan take on, and are you certain that these liabilities have been accurately assessed? Thanks.
That's the purpose of us doing a detailed definitive study. As we alluded to in the presentation, the current liability, we believe, is lower than what has been in the public domain. The good thing with treating these facilities is that as you process, you reduce the liability effectively, sort of depositing the tailings into their final state. Our indication is that currently the liability is about ZAR 250 million, only for Mogale it's ZAR 250 million. If we were to process all the tailings, that liability would reduce to circa ZAR 100 million final liability. We are quantifying and checking the numbers at the moment as part of the work. Again, it's solely at our election and discretion whether we ultimately choose to proceed with a transaction.
Thanks, Cobus. We've got a question from Gavin King regarding buybacks. What level of spending will your buybacks program be, and why choose a buyback instead of a higher dividend? Deon?
I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think it's a question of making a call on whether buyback makes sense given where the share price is. I guess as most management teams, we feel our share price is massively undervalued. I think given where the levels of projected cash flow generation is for the FY 2022 financial year, there's no reason why we cannot do both, continue with our dividend, consistent with the policy, and at the same point in time embark upon a buyback where we do see the share price just for sometimes inexplicable reasons, just losing a lot of value.
Thanks, Deon. We've got the last question now, from Raj Ray of BMO Capital Markets. At Evander, what should we expect in terms of development sequence for 25, 26 Levels on Egoli? Also at Egoli, can you also talk to what's driving the increase in CapEx versus the scoping study?
Yeah. I guess we are finalizing the numbers for 2025, 2026, which is why we can't give you more definitive guidance at this point as to what Egoli versus 2025, 2026 will look like. Suffice to say, as we previously announced, we have now five years generating very good cash flows out of the pillar and then 24 Level. That gives us a bit of scope and time to finalize those plans. In terms of the increase in CapEx, obviously, there's been quite a big inflation. The initial numbers were put out about two years ago. You've seen big jumps in steel prices and other commodities that are required. There were some also design changes in terms of ventilation and cooling that increased the costs.
We have good flexibility now, an asset that we fully impaired in 2018, so that's now generating very good cash flows and has a great future, we believe. That's a good starting point. Also, I think what's going to add to the competitiveness of that underground going forward is increasing the solar energy usage, which is going to cut 10 % off the unit costs. I think that's quite compelling.
Okay. Thank you, Cobus and Deon. That's the end of the questions that we have lined up on the webcast. Thanks.
Thank you very much again, and if there's anything else, then you know where to find us. Thank you and have a good day.
Thank you.