Good afternoon, and welcome to the Petra Diamonds Limited Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q&A tab situated in the right corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press Send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Richard Duffy, CEO. Good afternoon to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining us today for our discussion on Petra's first half operating update for financial year 2024, being the period ending 31 December 2023, as well as an update on the outlook for Petra and the diamond market. I'm Richard Duffy, CEO, and with me is Jacques Breytenbach, our CFO, who will cover the key financial metrics a little later on. After taking you through our presentation, we'll open up for any Q&A. As always, we begin with safety, which remains our number one priority.
We are pleased to see that our renewed safety focus on remedial actions and behavior-based intervention programs has supported a reduction in both Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate and lost time injuries to 0.1 5, and 5, respectively, in the first half of this financial year, 2024, as compared to the similar period in financial year 2023. Turning to our operations, total run-of-mine tonnes increased 8% from H1 financial year 2023, and by 57% from H2 FY 2023, mainly driven by the restart and ramp-up of our operations at Williamson, as well as the ongoing stabilization of our operations at Finsch and Cullinan Mine. This saw total diamond production increasing by 2% from H1 financial year 2023, and by 13% from H2 financial year 2023.
With remediation steps continuing to take effect at both our underground mines, diamond production has reverted to planned levels, although ongoing volatility is to be expected at Finsch over the next few quarters as the Upper Block 5 Sub-Level Cave matures. As a result, we are reiterating our guidance of 2.9 million ct-3.2 million ct for this financial year, and as stated earlier in November, we expect this will be towards the lower end of the guidance range. I will now hand over to Jacques, who will run through some of the key financial metrics. Jacques?
Thank you, Richard. Revenue for the first half totaled $187.8 million, a 9% increase on fiscal half one for FY 2023, while significantly up on the $116.8 million realized in our second half of fiscal year 2023. Revenue for this reporting period was supported by increased production, while also benefiting from the deferral of sales from H2 FY 2023. This was, however, more than offset by weaker pricing in this period, with like-for-like prices decreasing by some 13.3% compared to H1 FY 2023 sales, and around 14.5% compared to second half fiscal year 2023, with the balance of price movements attributable to product mix.
Moving to our balance sheet, although gross debt increased to $295.8 million at December, up from $247.5 million at the end of June 2023. Gross debt reduced from the $299.6 million as at 30th September 2023, as reported in our Q1 operating update. The increase from June 2023 largely reflects the ZAR 850 million, or $44.6 million, drawdown on the company's revolving credit facility. At the time of the drawdown, the intention was to repay the facility during our H1. However, given our prudent approach to managing the current period of market uncertainty, we subsequently elected to maintain the drawdown and retain cash within the business.
During December, we also announced the conditional approval from our South African lenders, Absa Bank, to increase the existing RCF facility by ZAR 750 million, or around $40 million, increasing the total facility to ZAR 1.75 billion, or $95 million, to provide additional operational flexibility. Work is ongoing and on schedule to complete the amendments to increase this facility in due course. Consolidated net debt stood at $212.3 million, an increase from $176.8 million at the end of June. This is due to the timing of closing of our sales tenders, the continued lower diamond pricing environment, working capital funding for the resumption of mining at Williamson, as well as the increasing capital spend profile during this period. I'll hand back to Richard to discuss our current resilience.
Thanks, Jacques. Our ongoing focus of our operations remains to ensure zero harm while stabilizing production at our South African mines and continuing the ramp-up at Williamson in Tanzania. In December, we announced the potential sale of Koffiefontein after we entered into a non-binding term sheet. We continue to work closely with the prospective buyer, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, community representatives, and other key stakeholders, and will regularly update investors as this progresses. In terms of building resilience, the company continues to optimize costs while ensuring minimal disruption at our operations. We also announced the deferral of a number of our capital projects until the end of this financial year. We have increased the level of our rand hedging, and as Jacques mentioned earlier, we have increased the headroom of our revolving credit facility by around $40 million.
In the last quarter, we adjusted our tender cycle to coincide with both the start and end of the Indian import moratorium to maximize demand and pricing. Going forward, we will continue to be opportunistic in our approach to diamond sales. In terms of the diamond market, our recent sales results provide indications of price improvement on the back of actions from major producers and midstream participants. Tender 3, held in December, saw like-for-like prices improving by 19.3% compared to Tender 2, which was held in October, just before the moratorium. In the third tender, prices increased by over 20% for goods below 2 carats, and those between 2-10.8 ct increased in the mid-teens. Our next tender, which is due to close early February, will provide further indications as to the status of the rough diamond market.
We also note the ongoing efforts by the Natural Diamond Council and De Beers to stimulate demand. Petra, along with the industry, is looking to improve traceability through the entire value chain, from mine to consumer, to provide greater assurance around natural diamonds. In the medium to longer term, as we've stated previously, we continue to see support for the natural diamond market as a result of the structural supply deficit. We are assessing the value engineering opportunities in replanning our deferred capital projects with a view to improving efficiencies and lowering overall costs, to minimize the impact of these deferrals on the company and its growth profile. Once this work is complete, we will provide revised production guidance for the medium and longer term. That concludes our presentation, and we'll hand back to Patrick for the Q&A session.
Thank you, Richard. The first question comes from Luke. There was quite an increase in production in tons treated at Finsch in the second quarter. I understand that some operational volatility is to be expected, given the maturity, but was wondering what we can expect there in the shorter term?
Thanks. It's Richard. I think, you know, given that we have reiterated guidance, we are expecting Finsch to deliver against that. We did have a better second quarter than first. There were a few challenges in the first quarter, but we are confident that Finsch will meet its guidance. And as I'd mentioned earlier, in terms of the guidance range, what we're saying is probably towards the lower end, but within the guidance range.
Thank you, Richard. I have a balance sheet question again from Luke, which I'll direct to Jacques. I noticed in your comment in the release about the net debt move regarding the Williamson working capital funding. It would be good to hear any updates on that, please.
Certainly, Luke, Jacques here. So, together with our interim results, we'll provide a bit more granularity on this. For now, I can confirm that given Williamson has started effectively from a zero base and with no diamonds in the pipeline, we had to fund the restart, and there's some lead time or lag between production and sales. So that's really the working capital increase or requirement that was funded during this six-month period. We would expect that to normalize over a period of time, but as I said, more we'll be able to put numbers to that as part of our interim results release.
Thank you, Jacques. I now have a question from Steve on diamond markets. Can you offer any comment on the reports yesterday from De Beers regarding their 2-4 ct pricing? Even after cutting prices for that category heavily last year, De Beers have lowered them again by another 25% this month.
Yeah, it's Richard again. I think, you know, the way De Beers comes to market, as we know, is they sell to their sightholders, and they sell it at prices that they set. We did see some pricing adjustment by De Beers last year, as mentioned, and again now in the first sale of this calendar year. Our own view is that what that does is it really just brings their prices in line with the market. And we don't expect that to have any significant impact on our pricing. So it really is aligning with the market more than anything else. And we've seen, you know, market prices based on recent sales.
So I wouldn't expect, you know, there to be any further, you know, cuts on their part, given where the market is. And obviously, with our upcoming tender early February, we'll get an indication of what that all looks like. But from our perspective, again, really just aligning with the market.
Thanks, Richard. A similar question from Paul. In respect of the Indian sales moratorium, which has obviously now ended, is there any sort of color or intel we can provide on, say, the midstream market and inventories in the pipeline?
Look, I think it's still fairly soon after the end of that moratorium. Certainly, the factories are up and running. We don't have indications of, you know, inventory accumulating, but, you know, we'll really need to see how things pan out over the coming months. But, you know, I think there has been some restocking on the back of the festive period. And, you know, the moratorium certainly assisted with that, and we attribute much of the price improvement to their actions together with those of the majors, as I mentioned. So probably need a little more time to see, but for the moment, you know, there's those actions around the moratorium certainly seem to have helped in destocking and reducing inventory levels in the pipeline.
Thank you, Richard. There are no further questions on the webinar Q&A, so I'll hand back to you to close the call. Thank you.
Thanks, Patrick, and thank you to all of you for attending our presentation, and we will speak again when we release our interim. So thank you for your attendance, and goodbye.
Richard, Jacques, thank you for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but some shall be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Petra Diamonds Limited, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.