Pan African Resources PLC (LON:PAF)
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May 6, 2026, 7:11 PM GMT
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Earnings Call: H2 2020
Sep 16, 2020
Good morning to all of you. A very warm welcome to the twenty twenty Pan African Year End Results Presentation. Hopefully, we will meet again soon in person. In the interim, thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedules to join us virtually today. Pan African's strategy is to position ourselves as a sustainable, safe, high margin and long life gold producer.
The last financial year has again seen us taking significant steps towards delivering into this strategy. We are very proud of our recently launched new corporate identity. Please join us for a couple of minutes as we view a clip that should give you even more of a sense of the DNA of Pan African resources.
Sunset or sunrise, this is the question that is often asked in the mining industry. But at Pan African Resources, we already know the answer. Because Pan African Resources is a thoroughly modern and have future proofed ourselves with innovative technologies, practices and values that are woven into every aspect of our operation, none of which would have been possible without levels of agility, flexibility and responsiveness to a complex and rapidly shifting environment that more traditional players cannot match.
But those are fighting words. So how do we back them up? Well, let's ask some of our people to share the milestones and opportunities they helped us unlock in the last years.
A balanced mix of high grade underground and low cost
give rise to low capital investment accounts.
We are uniquely positioning South Africa as a mid tier gold mine, enabling us to exploit opportunities that are too small for major miners and too large for the smaller, less well capitalized and resourced to us.
Our business imperatives propels us to prioritize the quality of outcomes over quantity, giving rise to sector lending, safety rates, margins, and ultimately superior returns on capital. This differentiates us as an investment proposition in the mid term mining sector.
What does all of this add up to? Pan African is an innovative, safe, long life and high margin gold producer with very attractive short term growth prospects, but we are not your typical mining company. We've proven ourselves comfortable challenging the conventional wisdom time and time again to deliver amazing returns and find opportunities where others see only problems. We mine for a future, and yes, we're incredibly proud of the company we've built.
The sense of pride and fighting spirit is carried through in Pan African Resources' recently launched new corporate identity. Our spirit animal is now the African honey badger, good at finding the honey and set to take on lions and win. It epitomizes our entrepreneurial, tenacious and unrelenting pursuit of operational excellence and growth.
There are more stories being written at Pan African Resources that we can't wait to tell you. Our enviable safety record, our community building projects, sustainability and environmental restoration initiatives, and our effective response to COVID nineteen are just a few. We are proud of what we've achieved in the past thirty months. The story is in our results, but it's not in our nature to be complacent. And we already have a number of projects in the works to continue to grow our value proposition.
As we like to say, We Mine for a Future.
Thank you, and welcome again. Rest assured that we will keep the presentation fairly brief even though we again have a number of positive developments to highlight. There will be an opportunity for questions after our presentation. Please refer to our Sense RNS announcement and to the supplementary information available on the Pan African website, should you require detail not dealt with in today's presentation. As per usual, our disclaimer and detail on forward looking statements can be found on Page two and three.
On Slide four, an overview of the presentation. We will spend time on the impact of and our response to COVID-nineteen and follow-up with some of the highlights and features of the year past, which was a year of delivery for Pan African. I believe it is key that we provide shareholders with a sense of how well positioned we are for the year ahead from an operational perspective. This means spending some time on our key mining assets and also our ESG initiatives. Dion will analyze our financials, including detail on the group degearing and the very large increase in the proposed dividend payout.
We will conclude with an update on Egoli and our outlook for the business for the year ahead. So let's get right into it. Slide number six. Firstly, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who have lost loved ones to COVID-nineteen and those who have suffered with the illness. I am incredibly proud of the manner in which the people of Pan African responded to the massive challenges presented by the pandemic and by the lockdown situation.
We started planning well in advance of any lockdown, putting protocols in place, educating our staff on prevention and identifying and stocking up on critical consumables and spares. Within twenty four hours of receiving word of the hard lockdown in South Africa, we had our detailed plans mapped out and have communicated those plans to all stakeholders. We managed to look after our people and also protect our assets. We operated our tailings operations with just 20% of the normal staff complement, and we ensured that our underground mines were ready to hit the ground running, so to speak, once we received the okay from government. The accelerated rate of ramp up post lockdown is testament to the quality of management and commitment of our people.
And I wish to again thank each and every Pan African employee for your dedication and very hard work during this difficult time. In terms of the numbers, it is encouraging to see our number of cases going down. As of yesterday, we only had one employee still hospitalized with a recovery rate of more than ninety percent for our group. On Slide number seven, not only did we manage to operate successfully during the height of the pandemic, we also managed to assist others, and we will continue to do so. We assisted employees and also vulnerable community members distributing thousands of food and essential hampers to the most needy.
Our policies and procedures were audited by external parties and generally the results were favorable and we adjusted policies and practices where required. In terms of COVID-nineteen, we do not know what the future holds, but we are as prepared as we can be. If we then turn the page in terms of financial year 2020. Despite corona, the year was a year of delivery for Pan African. That is demonstrated in our safety, financial and also our operational achievements.
Let's have a closer look at a summary of our performance on Slide 9. In terms of safety, we managed to maintain our industry leading lost time and reportable injury frequency rate performance. For the first time in the operations history, Barbaton Mines achieved 3,000,000 fatality free shifts and Fairview operation, 2,000,000. Ilekulu went for eleven months without recording one single lost time injury, which is exceptional. Against the backdrop of this achievement, we are saddened to report a fatal injury related to a fall of ground accident at our Fairview mine in July 2020 post year end.
We again express our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Mr. Mavimbela and also Mr. Williamson, who was injured in the accident. In terms of safety, we will continue our unrelenting push to do better. Also on Slide nine, Dion will spend more time on our financial performance, but a couple of comments from my side.
We changed our reporting currency to U. S. Dollars in 2019. If we were still reporting in South African rands, it would have been a record profit year 2020. We estimate that COVID cost us more than 10,000 ounces and lost production.
Despite the setback, we managed to halve senior debt and significantly reduce our net debt to EBITDA ratio during the year. We are also proposing a record rand dividend to shareholders for approval at the upcoming AGM. This recommended dividend demonstrates our confidence and in the positioning of the business in the next year. At current gold prices, assuming we meet production guidance, we should be pretty much day three at the end of FY 'twenty one. Slide 10, if we move on to operational performance.
We will discuss detail per operation in the next slides. However, the following is worth noting. We managed to increase production in the year passed by some 4% despite COVID. Even more encouraging is that we are increasing our production guidance for the year ahead to approximately 190,000 ounces, an increase of some 6%, broadly comprised as follows: 100,000 ounces from the Barbetton Complex 60,000 ounces from Ilekuru and 30,000 ounces from our H Shaft Pillar operation, which is now steady state. This increase in production guidance again demonstrates how quickly we managed to ramp up post the hard lockdown.
We also now source 50% of our gold from surface operations and production. Certainly, all in sustaining costs for the year that's passed was badly impacted by hedge losses and also by the impact of COVID related production losses. But I think on an absolute cost basis, our costs are very well controlled. Valberton's total cost base increases with less than 10% per annum. As we mine more gold in the next year, the unit costs for all of our operations should also decrease.
On Slide number 11, it includes a simplified but easy to understand schematic of our flagship tailings retreatment operation, Elekulu, and also its twelve years life of mine plan. During the financial year 2020, Ilekulu treated 13,000,000 tons of tailings at a head grade of 0.3 grams per ton to recover almost 60,000 ounces of gold. We produced these ounces at an all in sustaining cost of just over $600 per ounce, which I believe is exceptional. Compartment 1 of the Kenros tailings facility is now undergoing floor cleanup to establish the area for the construction of the enlarged Kinross tailings facility during the next year. So we are finishing up on Kinross in the next two years, and then we are moving to Lesley Bracken with a final four to five years of Elekudu's life on the Ivankal Octaneing facility.
The operation ticks all the boxes in terms of low cost, safe, long life with the added benefit that we are reducing our environmental footprint as we go along. The 10 MVA solar plant that we will construct on-site in the next year at a cost of approximately million will take care of most of Ilekulu's daytime power requirements and also further add to operations sustainability into the future. In the year past, we spent very limited capital on Ilekulu. In the next two years, we are enlarging the tailings footprint and also preparing to move to the Lesibrachen tailings facility. The capital required for these initiatives is approximately million split over the two years.
Once this move is complete, the capital will again drop to a very limited number for Ilekulu. Also worth noting as a final point on Ilekulu that the operation generated almost ZAR1 billion of EBITDA in the last year at a much lower gold price than the prevailing spot. On Slide 12, in terms of our BTRP at Barbaton or our other tailings business, we produced just over 20,000 ounces for the financial year, in line with guidance and expectations. The BTRP's costs were higher in the current year as a result of lower recoveries from the areas where we are currently mining, being Harpur North, again in line with what we expected, and also the cost of buying material. Now BTRP's life is currently six years, and we should be able to maintain the cost at these levels in the next years.
We are also finalizing studies and plans for alternative feedstocks, including from our Royal Sheba project, in order to keep BTRP going for many more years. On Slide 13, which is a schematic of our Fairview and also our Sheba underground operations at Barberton, we always refer to the Barberton underground as a universe of opportunities, and it continues to prove true. Fairview has a life of mine of twenty years only on current reserves, but I suspect the operation will outlive us all. In the last years, the mining and development layout at our high grade MRC ore body has been optimized to enhance mining flexibility and decrease the waste development required. Currently, we have three active high grade platforms in production cycle, with a fourth platform being accessed in FY 'twenty one.
Having four high grade platforms to cycle at Fairview Mine has not been the case for many years. We should be in a position to commence with the raised boring of the Fairview subvertical shaft in the next twelve twenty four months, and the Fairview mine is very well positioned for the year ahead. If we then move on to Slide 14, an achievement that we are particularly proud of is the much publicized discovery at Consort's PCShaft 42 level. We promised shareholders that we would turn Consort around, and now we have. The group successfully executed into the turnaround strategy for the new Consort operation by developing and establishing the extremely high grade mining panel on 42 level PC shaft.
This specific target block is only the first of seven identified target areas that are currently being evaluated. You will note from the production profile from Consort that production has increased materially in the last months, with unit costs of production decreasing. We still aim to reduce Consort's all in sustaining costs to approximately $1,200 per ounce by year end. And I wish to specifically give credit to our mining and MRM teams for this 42 level initiatives. Suffice to say, that has given Consort a new lease on life.
On Slide 15, the Evander 8 Shaft pillar. So steady state production in the pillar was achieved during May 2020 with nine crews now actively mining panels within the pillar. This pillar mining is much less complex than the historic mining at Evander 8 Shaft because we have much shorter tramming distances, we have improved ventilation and environmental conditions, There are minimal geological disturbances in the pillar area. We have pre developed mining blocks resulting in high confidence in grade and ore body continuity. And the H Shaft Pillar is also relatively shallow when compared to other South African pillar operations.
So to conclude on H Shaft, we have the capital we have invested in its development should pay itself back in the first year of steady state production. On Slide 16, in summary, in our assets, we have a unique value proposition of surface remining and underground operations. Our assets are long life, highly cash generative and have further optimization and growth potential. On Slide number 17, the costs of our low cost operations are pretty compelling and these comprise the largest part of our portfolio by far. I also think that the initiatives highlighted in the previous slides should give comfort on how we plan on reducing the cost of production at our higher cost operations.
So what does all of this translate to in terms of Slide 18, a targeted all in sustaining cost of $1,000 per ounce for FY 'twenty one at an assumed dollar rand exchange rate of 16.5. This excludes hedging profits or losses. This cost profile is very much in line with the global average. On Slide 19, very briefly, the CapEx profile for our group. We are reinvesting quite a bit into our assets.
However, you can expect the overall CapEx for the current operations to reduce in the years ahead. If we then move on to Slide 21, ESG or Environmental, Social and Governance, this is really part of our DNA and it's part of what we do. In the past, we have maybe not articulated this focus and our achievements sufficiently. This has to change and we have to do even more. Some of the initiatives I have to mention are the following.
Our Board has approved a major agriculture project in Barberton, utilizing very fertile but currently fallow mine land. This initiative has the potential of creating more than 400 permanent jobs. I have mentioned the solar project and plant at Evander, which is only Phase one. We will look to expand this plant to a possible 25 MVA for Igoli, and we are also conducting a feasibility into a similar plant at Barberton. Our closure costs are fully funded, and during the year, we increased our ongoing rehabilitation initiatives, including the final closure of Evander 5 And 9 shafts.
We were subject to a number of independent audits and reviews, including on our tailings facilities and our carbon emissions. And I have to say I'm particularly proud of the work that we are doing with regards to schools and clinics in the Barberton area. Let me pause here and hand over to Dion to take us through the financial results and emphasize some key matters.
Thank you, Kurviz. Slide 23 summarizes the Group's results for the 2020 financial year. Evident is the increase in turnover by 26%, resulting from a combination of a 1% increase in gold sold and a substantial increase in the dollar gold price by 2437% in rand terms, following a 23% year on year depreciation in the rand dollar exchange rate. Although earnings increased year on year by 17%, the 2019 comparative financial results included an impairment reversal of $18,000,000 which, if eliminated, shows that earnings actually increased by 93%, as is reflected in headline earnings, which under these circumstances is a more appropriate indicator of the relative performance. These impairment reversals relate to the commencement of Evander's H Shaft pillar project following the impairment of the H Shaft complex in the 2018 financial year.
Adjusted EBITDA, which also excludes impairment reversals, increased by 52% to 87,000,000 enabling the reduction in net senior debt by 52% to $62,000,000 relative to the $150,000,000 owing at the end of the prior financial year. Both in dollar and rand terms, all in sustaining cost was adversely impacted by the COVID related production losses and the inclusion of realized hedge losses, which I'll touch on later in a subsequent slide. Slide 24 illustrates in the top half the Group's existing senior debt obligations, which for the 2021 financial year comprises R75 million on the RCF facility and R200 million on the Ilekuli facility, a total of R275 million or approximately $16,000,000 but relative to the R340 million dollars or $20,000,000 of principal debt that matured in the 2020 financial year. Subsequent to year end, we further reduced senior debt by two sixty million dollars or approximately $15,000,000 The bottom half of the slide shows anticipated rate at which the Group de levers its existing senior debt at the prevailing Rand gold prices and guided production. In anticipation of possible losses and associated negative cash flows resulting from the COVID related operational disruptions, we deferred the repayment of the last 5,000 ounces of the gold loan to the first quarter of the twenty twenty one financial year.
Fortunately, COVID related disruptions were well managed, with limited negative cash flow consequences, and we ended the financial year with R34 million dollars in cash relative to the R5 million dollars at the end of the prior financial year. The new Egoli facility's first drawdown is anticipated in November 2020 and entails million in the first eighteen months of the project development, followed by ZAR800 million in Phase two, which will be drawn down in the last eighteen months of the project's three year development period. The Egoli facility's retention profile of twenty four months is cultured to the cash flows generated from the project and should not curtail the group's ability to continue paying dividends from the cash flows generated by the existing suite of operating mines. Slide 25 illustrates the improvement in the Group's net debt to EBITDA ratio, following the repositioning of the business model in the 2018 financial year. At a ratio of below one:one, the Group's financial strength has materially improved, and despite the new Egoli debt, it should continue to be robust given the operational mix and sustainability of the mines going forward.
Slide 26 plots the rand gold price in kilograms over the last five years, during which the gold price increased by 117% from R456,000 a kilogram in June 2015 to R 991,000 a kilogram in June 2020. This has, however, not been without volatility as we see the rand gold price increasing to R650,000 a kilogram on more than one occasion, only to revert again to levels well below R500,000 a kilogram, eliminating most of our cash flow margin. And, after the post Brexit peak of 2016, we see it took more than three years for the Rand gold price to attain the level of ZAR650000 a kilogram again in August 2019. The 2020 financial year was no exception to Rand gold price volatility, Where in the first half we saw a modest 7% increase in the Rand gold price to R683,000 a kilogram, the second half saw a stellar 45% increase to R991,000 a kilogram. The Group's debt is Random nominated and, with evident volatility in the Rand gold price and onerous debt redemptions of the 2020 financial year, our risk was a reversion in the Rand gold price to below ZAR650000 a kilogram for a protracted period of time, leading to covenant breaches and possibly an inability to redeem the senior debt obligations during this period.
As the gold price progressively increased during the first nine months of the financial year, we increased our hedge levels to approximately 50% of the guided production to ensure that an adequate cash flow margin is locked in for both debt redemption and an increased dividend, while at the same time being cognizant that some upside would be sacrificed in the event of there being a substantial spike in the gold price in the short term. We keep our hedges short dated and base these decisions on risk management principles rather than a specific view of the gold prices' prospects, least of all the probability of a global pandemic and its likely impact on the Rand gold price. With a substantial spike in the Rand gold prices in the second half of the financial year, realized hedge losses of $12,000,000 were incurred and unrealized hedge losses of $10,000,000 on the remaining 50,000 ounces hedged for the second half of the 2021 financial year. Unfortunately, the profit and loss impact of these losses was exacerbated by a COVID related production loss of approximately 10,000 ounces with a value of approximately million, which would have materially offset the P and L impact of the hedge losses.
The remaining hedges for the 2021 financial year comprises 26% of guided ounces, with a floor price of ZAR708000 a kilogram and a ceiling price of R926,000 a kilogram, approximately 12% below the prevailing spot price of R1,000,000 a kilogram. Post December 2020, the Group is unhedged and, with the 52% reduction in net senior debt in the past financial year, anticipated rate of deleveraging in the current financial year, future hedge levels will be more in line with policy guidelines. Slide 25 illustrates the historical dividend yields and yield of the proposed twenty twenty financial year dividend based on the share price at June 30 of R3.70 dollars or approximately US0.21 dollars per share. The dividend proposed by the Board of R313 million dollars approximately $19,000,000 is in excess of the Group's dividend policy guideline, but takes into account the robust cash generation in the twenty twenty financial year and the favorable prospects for the 2021 financial year.
Thank you very much, Dion. I think it is now worthwhile spending a bit of time on Egoli as our Board has now approved the development of this project, and we have finalized the project finance on a non dilutive basis with our banking consortium. So if I can ask that we move to Slide 29. We don't build projects for the sake of ounces. We only undertake a project where we are convinced that it will generate the requisite economic returns for our shareholders over its life at fairly conservative gold price assumptions.
Now we had a number of offers of funding for Egoli, including offers for streaming, royalties and minority equity positions. These offers demonstrated the confidence that third parties has in our project and also in the feasibility work that we undertook. So on Slide number 30, are we crazy to start a new mining project in South Africa? I guess the point is that Igoli is not new. It is utilizing existing infrastructure to access a virgin ore body.
The fact that there have been 10 vertical shafts sunk on Evander's ore bodies says something about the quality of the Kemblee Reef in the Evander Basin. We don't have to sink or equip a new vertical shaft for Egoli. We have a functioning twin vertical shaft system to 1,600 meters. We don't have to construct a new processing plant. The Kenros plant is currently operational and has the capacity to treat more than 50,000 tons of hard rock per month.
And we don't have to develop an underground haulage. The current haulage extends all of the 1.6 kilometers to the start of three decline. You will have to look far and wide to find a brownfields project able to produce almost 80,000 ounces for an initial life of mine of nine years with definite potential to also extend this life at an all in sustaining cost well south of $1,000 for a peak funding requirement of $70,000,000 In terms of the next steps, we are currently busy with detailed scheduling for Egoli. Preliminary refurbishment is about to start. We will start placing orders for long lead items before the end of the calendar year and for dewatering and equipping will start before the end of the 2021 financial year.
We have done the work on planning and checking for fatal flaws. Going forward, we'll again be about project execution, and I think that is where Pan African really excels. We really look forward to updating the market on Egoli on a regular basis. If we then move on to Slide 33 and our track record, I do think that our track record of delivery in terms of projects speaks for itself. There's no reason why Egoli will be different.
In terms of looking ahead on Slide number 36, so what are the key focus areas in the year ahead? We will continue to produce safely and sustainably into the production guidance of 190,000 ounces. We will certainly continue our ESG initiatives and efforts. We will reduce the group all in sustaining costs to sub $1,000 per ounce through focused asset optimization, and then we'll continue to degear the balance sheet and increase dividends to shareholders. Let me conclude and thank all of my colleagues at Pan African Resources for your dedication and hard work in the last year.
I would also like to thank all of our other stakeholders for your contributions to our business. We look forward to mining for a future in the year ahead. Thank you very much. Dion and I will now be available to take questions. Great.
Thank you. I think we'll start with questions from the conference call, if we have any.
We
have a question from Tim Huff of Peel Hunt.
Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for taking the questions. Just two really. I guess the first on, I know you said you're going it's on a goalie. You said you're going into the detailed scheduling as we're looking forward.
But you're starting with the prelim refurb, it sounds like this quarter, I guess, dewatering gets underway in a couple of quarters. Do you I mean do you have a preliminary sort of feel as to how long the whole dewatering gets before you get to the whole footwall development and further associated decline work?
Thanks, Tom. Yes, we're in the process of finalizing that schedule. We'll obviously, as we mentioned, we have bank approval for the facility. So hopefully, we'll get those legal signed, and then the development can start in earnest. Because of the mining we're doing at A Shaft, I mean, we're obviously constantly busy with No.
7, and we spent a bit of money, and we'll continue to spend money as and when needed. So the first goal at this point is planned twenty months from when we start the major development. And again, that's a schedule that we will optimize. But as we said, I mean, we'll sort of continue to update the market, and hopefully, we can expedite the refurbishment and development also.
Okay. That's great. And the second question was just at Eliukulu. You guys went over fairly well the CapEx needed over the next couple of years as you transition Elukulu to the next stage. Just wondering on an operating cost basis, I know there are disruptions across the board this year, but or last fiscal year, sorry.
And there were less disruption at the surface operations, particularly at the Kulu. But I was just wondering in terms of cost progress, do you think you'll be able to get that back down below $600 an ounce in the coming fiscal year? Or does it look like it's going to be holding around here?
Yes. We're obviously sort of massively focused on reducing costs where we can. Most of the costs at El Coulou are variable. I think it was a very good cost performance. Clearly, to the extent we can reduce costs, we'll do so.
But there's not an awful lot of scope to squeeze down costs much further at Elukulu.
Okay. That's what I thought. So is it a pretty similar outlook to BTRP, where you're just looking for more steady state costs than anything else at both of those ops?
Yes, exactly.
We have no further questions from the conference calls.
Okay, great. So I think we'll then take online questions. The first question related to hedging. And given the gold price and prevailing spot, are we going to continue to hedge? And I think maybe that's appropriate the deal announces.
Thank you, Kubis. As I said in my section of the presentation, we hedged at a specific level given the circumstances that were specific to that point in time.
With the
deleverage on all the group in the manner that we anticipate over the next twelve months, there should be no reason to hedge to the same extent, if at all.
All right. And I think then we had a question on Yes.
We've got a question from Prince Mopay of All Weather Capital. Congratulations
on
your good results. First question is why is your ADR in The States not trading yet? And the second question is following the Q3 GDXJ rebalance recently, why is it that PAN is not is still not part of the GDXJ given that you meet the criteria?
Thanks. Yes. So on the first point, yes, we managed to put the ADR program in place. We couldn't push trading because we were in a closed period until today. And it's a new market for us, and it's a market where we're unknown at this point.
So there will be quite a bit of focus from our side in terms of creating liquidity and creating awareness on Pan African in The U. S. Market. So that certainly is a focus area for us in the next six months or so. And then in terms of the index and our inclusion or not, clearly, it's not our decision.
We had hoped that we'd be included in the GDXJ. It doesn't appear to be the case this time around. But I do note that we will we're set to be included in a number of other indices in the next week or so. So I mean, certainly, that's an ongoing initiative from our side also.
And there's one more question from Peter Kromberg, Merger Market. Could you provide further details regarding the expected terms of the funding package for Egoli and the effect on the company's balance sheet?
Peter, we will, in due course, release the terms. The funding rate is very similar to what we have currently on our existing facilities, Jawbar linked with a margin of around about 3.5% to 3.75%. Security package will be very much what we already have in place. We have provided for a three year drawdown period in the two phases that I referred to, and then a twenty four month repayment period once we're in full production. That's a fully amortizing dedicated facility to the project.
So the whole idea is with the facility is that it's self redeeming from the proceeds of the Egoni project and in so doing, won't impinge upon the existing cash flows from the current operations.
We've got one more from Mark Detoy, Oyster Catcher Investments. Two questions. You recently launched an ADR program. What was the reason for this? And secondly, what are the current wage agreements that you have in place?
Yes, great. So let's start with the wage agreements. The wage agreement that we have is still effective until 06/30/2021, whereafter we'll again negotiate. So we have the next twelve months still under the existing three year agreement. In terms of the ADR, yes, I mean, all of our South African peers have programs in place.
And The U. S. Market is a market with incredibly deep liquidity and a lot of demand for gold at this point. So we thought it appropriate to also be included in that market, and that's why we went ahead with the ADR.
Okay. Thank you, Chris. Looks like there are no more questions. Do have any concluding remarks?
Well, I think let's just finally check whether we have any more questions from the conference call. And if questions, then we'll wrap it up.
We have a follow-up question from Tim.
Yes. Just one follow-up question on the Egoli financing package. If it is repayable from Egoli earnings when it's up and running. Does that mean that the debt is held at the project level or at the company level? I'm just trying to figure out whether it will be included in the overall consolidated net debt figure.
It will be. Mark, all of our debt is funded through our treasury company and on then to the subsidiaries. So yes, ultimately, the group stands behind the project, although, as we said, the repayment profile is sculpted to the cash flows from the project specifically.
That's what I thought. That's perfect. Thanks, Dion.
Thanks, Tim. So if there are no further questions, then thank you very much to all of you for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking soon. All the best. Thank you.