Good afternoon, everybody. It's three o'clock, so I think we're gonna start. Welcome to our Q1 results call for shareholders. On the call from Caledonia, you've got Steve Curtis, our CEO, Mark Learmonth, our CFO, Dana Roets, our COO, Maurice Mason, our Vice President of Corporate Development, and then myself, Camilla Horsfall. I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations. If you have any questions, please can you either just write them in the Q&A or raise your hand and we will unmute you at the end of the presentation. I'm now gonna pass you over to Steve and Mark, and they're gonna talk to you about it.
Thanks, Camilla. Good afternoon, everybody. We are going to go through a presentation that's been prepared for the Q1 results. Camilla will share the screen. This presentation is obviously available on our website. If we go through it quickly, you've always got an opportunity to go back and have a look later. Thank you once again for joining us. Obviously the disclaimer as usual, and you'll be very familiar with that. We've got a mixture here of sort of the summary results and then financial results. I'm obviously gonna ask Mark to do the financial results. You will have seen these results before because we announced production numbers at a particular time, and we put out the MD&A in the Q1 results. All of this should be familiar to you.
Just to re-emphasize the quality of the quarter. Production ounces 40% up on the comparable quarter, 2021, my apologies. Average gold price, nothing in our control there, but we were the beneficiaries of a higher gold price, which resulted in revenues 37% up. Pleasingly gross profits 63% up, and EBITDA 49% up on the comparable quarter. Also, Blanket is well known for all-in sustaining costs show a reduction of 7%. Management there continue to do a very good job on controlling costs even as we ramp up production. Then profit attributable to shareholders up 30%.
Adjusted earnings per share, and Mark will talk a little bit more about the adjustments to arrive at that number, $0.625 for the quarter. Remembering we pay $0.14 a quarter in terms of dividends and therefore you can see that the business is very cash generative, very profitable, and we are returning some of that to shareholders. Moving on to the next slide. Our safety performance, we have had an excellent track record of safety. As we've reported previously, we unfortunately had a fatality in February. And as ever, we send our condolences to the family and the colleagues of the deceased. This is a very unfortunate accident and all the necessary follow-up procedures have taken place.
The statistics of lost time injury frequency rates nicely down. We continue to be 100% focused on safety, especially as we get more and more people on the mine and the higher level of activity, meaning that there are more blasts, there are more open areas, there's more tramming going on. Safety gets the requisite amount of time and attention. Now that COVID has subsided and we are able to be in closer proximity to each other, the Nyanzvi training program and education program that Dana runs at the mine is back and it's operational. That's very, very important to reinforce safety, the disciplines, the culture.
It's important for you to know that Nyanzvi is back in and running and we are working very hard on our safety performances. This is just a summary of many of the things that you probably are also familiar with. I've already spoken about the ounces, but importantly, the higher production is due to the increased tonnes, and that is critical for us to achieve our 80,000 ounces. An improved grade, which was over and above the average mine grade. We are very happy that we are sticking to the mining plan. You get some pleasant surprises, and you get some unpleasant surprises in our business. We are, at the moment, benefiting from higher grade, and we're very happy with that.
The Central Shaft continues to contribute. Although it's hoisting waste, that just frees up all the capacity of the No. 4 shaft. The reason why it's hoisting waste mainly is because there is a lot of development and connecting work between the various levels to the Central Shaft. It is fast, it's efficient. We can move the waste into that area, and we can then focus on the mining that can be brought where the ore can be brought up the No. 4 shaft. At the moment, to achieve the tonnages that we need to get 80,000 ounces. We have pretty much got the capacity to achieve the 80,000 ounce just using No. 4 shaft.
As you can see, we've built up a significant stockpile because we're actually mining more than we are milling and crushing. That is because we are in a phase of bringing a new what we call BM Ten, which is a new mill into the production process. At the moment, we are not relaxing on the mining side, and we're building up a stockpile. At any point in time, if we have a bad day in some aspects, we've got capacity on surface. We continue to reiterate our guidance for 2022 of 73,000 ounces-80,000 ounces. The run rates that we have reported in the MD&A for April of 96,800 ounces, if you extrapolate that out, that is just about 81,000 ounces.
We are very proud of a good first quarter, and we are seeing it continue as we go into the second quarter. Hats off to our production team. They are really delivering and making the asset work that they've spent four or five years actually putting into operation. Okay, we're getting into the financial numbers. This is an appropriate time to hand over to Mark. Mark, over to you. Thank you.
Thank you, Steve. Very briefly, revenue is up 36%. That's driven largely by a 28% increase in gold sales. As Steve's already mentioned, 6% higher gold price. Royalty stays fixed at 5% of revenues. Production costs, I've got a bit more detail on that in the next slide. Although the dollar value went up, there was actually a 17% reduction in all-in cost per ounce. Depreciation goes up substantially because don't forget, now that we commissioned the Central Shaft, unfortunately, we've got to depreciate it. That's gone up a bit. Hence gross profit up by 63% from $10.5 million to just under $17 million. G&A up from $1.6 million to $2.4 million.
That's driven by a considerable increase in the quarterly charge for insurance. I've got some more information on them, on how the G&A is made up in a slide or two, and also higher advisory expenses in the quarter. Net foreign exchange gain was just under $1 million. Net reflects a considerable step up in the rate of devaluation of the RTGS dollar against the U.S. dollar in the quarter. Other $3 million, that includes $1.7 million of mark-to-market costs on the various hedges, half a million dollars of exploration and evaluation asset impairment.
That primarily relates to the decision to walk away from the Connemara North asset, and about $400,000 of LTIP costs. The LTIP cost was increased because our share price was quite strong in the quarter. That's profit before tax up by 47%. The tax expense increased to $4.7 million. I've got lots more information on that in a moment. The income tax and deferred tax on the underlying profits was relatively stable. There was a higher withholding tax incurred as we moved more money around the group.
Adjusted earnings per share increased from $0.516 to $0.625. That excludes things like foreign exchange gains, deferred tax and what have you. A very creditable profit and loss performance. Two down, Camilla. Bit more information on production, which largely comprises wages and salaries, consumables, electricity. Wages and salaries increased quite substantially from $4.4 million to $5.9 million. Don't forget we've had nearly a 24% increase in head count at the mine. The mine employs about 2,000 people now as we've increased personnel levels to cater for the increased rate of production. Also don't forget that the comparable quarter one of 2021, was a very poor quarter, only 13,000 ounces.
There was no production bonus attributable to that quarter. Whereas clearly in the first quarter of 2022, it being a good quarter, there was a 12% production bonus. Hence the increase in wages and salaries. Late last year, very late last year, we took the decision to pay our online workers entirely in U.S. dollars, which has cut through a sort of an inflationary effect, which arises from the fact that although the local currency rate of inflation in Zimbabwe is extremely high, I'm talking about 100%, that's not reflected in the rate of devaluation of the local currency.
What happens is if you're paying your workers in local currency and accepting the local hyperinflation rate, once that higher value has been translated back into U.S. dollars, it shows a very substantial increase in dollar-denominated costs. We cut through that by now paying our workers entirely in U.S. dollars. We're seeing no appreciable inflation arising from that. Consumables up from $4.2 million- $5.1 million, that's a 21% increase. Partly that reflects the increase in tonnage milled, but it is fair to say that during the quarter, we did see price increases in most of the major imports being explosives, drill steel and cyanide. It's fair to say that after the end of the quarter, we've seen further price rises.
I think, yeah, along with a lot of producers, I think we must prepare ourselves for a higher input price environment. Although, as I hope you'll see from this discussion, that even if we are seeing inflation in consumables, that is for a relatively small component of our overall all-in cost base. Wages and salaries, we don't expect to see any significant inflation. Also electricity, we believe we've got the electricity costs well under control. Moving on to electricity then. Notwithstanding the higher production, the electricity increased from $2.1 million to $2.3 million.
That's because late last year we spent some money to install some more auto tap changers at No. 4 Shaft, which means that in quarter one of this year, we substantially reduced the amount of diesel that we used. Over the course of 2021, the amount of diesel we used increased from about 400,000 L in the first quarter to about 1.1 million L in the fourth quarter. In this quarter, it dropped back to about 83,000 L. Offset by obviously an increase in the price of diesel. Having seen that success, we are now intending to, and also seeing a further deterioration in the quality of the grid power.
We are now intending to invest about $3 million more dollars to further protect ourselves from the grid, to improve the quality of the grid supply we get, and therefore substantially reduce the cost, the amount of diesel that we use, and therefore reduce our overall electricity costs. We feel that going forward, we've got a very good handle on the electricity cost. Work in progress just reflects the movement in gold in work in progress. It also in this quarter reflects the build-up of the ore stockpile.
I don't really think there's much more to explain in terms of production costs, other than to say, right at the bottom of the table, very pleased to see the all-in cost per ounce fall from $836- $698 an ounce. Here we see the G&A. I think we should all recognize that, as the world stumbles out of COVID, we are now gonna see an increase in investor relations costs and travel costs as the activity levels return to normal. So that explains the increase in investor relations and travel. Advisory services that increased quite significantly, and that relates to legal fees and also executive search fees relating to replacement of several senior executives.
Wages and salaries increased from just over $1 million to about $1.1 million. Again, that reflects increased headcount, mainly in Johannesburg. As the mine's got bigger and more complex, we are now having to increase the complement of technical staff in Johannesburg. People like rock engineers to a rock engineer to make sure the roof stays up and people to improve the quality of our mine planning. Should we move on? That just pulls together the other mentioned all-in costs, falls from $836- $698, and the all-in sustaining cost falls from just over $1,000 an ounce- $968 an ounce.
Taxation, the ability for external sort of viewers to see through the tax charge for the group in terms of underlying profitability, it's very difficult, because the main elements of tax, the Zimbabwe income tax and Zimbabwe deferred tax, are calculated on the basis of local currency denominated accounts, whereas we report obviously in U.S. dollar accounts. Safe to say that the main components of tax comprise income tax in Zimbabwe, about $2.9 million, and also deferred tax of just under $1.5 million. If you express that income tax plus deferred tax as a proportion of the overall PBT arising in Zimbabwe, it comes out at about 32% of Zimbabwean tax and in a corresponding quarter it was about 34%.
There is underlying stability in terms of the tax charge in respect of the underlying profitability. Then on top of that, we incur what I'd call tax leakage, being tax arising in South Africa on intercompany profits, but also recording tax arising on the movement of funds from Zimbabwe to South Africa and from Zimbabwe to the U.K. That explains how the overall tax charge arises and what it is. Cash flow is very strong. Cash flow before working capital increased from $9.7 million to $13.5 million. Working capital continued to increase somewhat in the quarter. Clearly not as dramatically as in the first quarter of 2021, which was adversely affected by anomalies in the payment system.
We are working hard to reduce the overall level of working capital, in particular inventory levels, and that's gonna be a continued area of focus for management. Net cash from operating activities was just over $10 million compared to, I'm gonna say admittedly a very anemic $2 million in the first quarter of 2021. Net investing continues to be high. We spent $10 million in the quarter, both at Central Shaft and on the solar project, and we do expect to have a very high rate of net investment in quarter two and into quarter three before it begins to taper off. The cash position remains strong. I think we've got some more information on cash on the next page, don't we? Later on we have some information. The balance sheet, very strong.
Obviously non-current assets increased, driven by the rates of capital investments. Current assets, $35 million. Cash and cash equivalents of $15.3 million. The non-controlling interest of $21 million, that reflects the 36% minority interest in Blanket Mine. The non-current liabilities of $11.6 million, that's mainly deferred tax and closure provisions. Current liabilities, that's mainly trade and tax payables, which includes $4 million of derivative liabilities. This shows where the cash is. Here we show for the last sort of few quarters or so, the cash split between Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the U.K. You can see that at the end of the quarter, at the end of March 2022, we apparently have $5.8 million in Zimbabwe, being a combination of U.S. dollars and RTGS.
Actually, of that $5.8 million, about $2.3 million was RTGS currency, which is ring-fenced against a 90-day letter of credit. What happens is that, of that $5.8 million, $2.3 million in RTGS will be taken out of our bank account in Zimbabwe and a corresponding value in South African rand will appear in Caledonia Mining South Africa in June. That's a new mechanism that we've put in place in the course of the year to enhance our ability to move RTGS into a hard currency, being rands, which we then use to procure assets, stuff for the mine.
In Zimbabwe, actually we were modestly overdrawn at the end of the quarter in RTGS. We are not building up a pile of local currency which is either unusable or unremittable, and we work very hard to maintain that position. Move on. Steve, do you wanna talk about the solar project? Or Dana, do you wanna talk about the solar project? You're on mute.
Okay, change the video.
Yeah. Steve is on mute.
Sorry. Let's get Dana to talk about the solar farm.
The solar farm is progressing quite well. We should see during July that we start commissioning and connecting to the mine. We hope to be up and running fully by the end of July, beginning of August. You will see as the video shows in progress that the areas that we're going to. There you can see the preparation for the solar panels in the beginning. Then currently we're almost complete installation with all the solar panels being installed. You can see it's quite a vast area that was cleared.
That video is a few weeks old, but correct, isn't it, Dana? It's moved on quite a bit since then.
You can see the photograph there in the right-hand top corner. Almost completed the installation of the solar panels. Yeah, in the next couple of months we will start using solar panel which will help us quite a lot. I just want to remind everybody that these panels will be following the sun.
They tilt so that they follow the sun to improve their efficiency. Just a word on the dividend. We pay a dividend of $0.14 a quarter. We've held it. We've increased the dividend quite substantially over the last few years, but now we've decided to hold it at $0.14 a share, given the high level of CapEx this year. Also as we begin to position the company to invest in new projects, of which Maligreen is probably the front runner. The company is transitioning a little bit away from being a sort of one-trick pony focused on Blanket, to actually now beginning to look at investing in new projects.
Hence, it's appropriate to, over time, to begin to accumulate some more cash to, so we can bring those projects forwards. Steve, we're finished.
Short and sweet. Very nice to talk to a great set of results. Thank you, Mark. There are a couple of questions that have been typed into the Q&A session. I'll ask the team just to have a look at those. If anybody else wants to ask a question, please raise your hand, and then Camilla will drive the system accordingly.
Shall I deal with the first one?
Mark? Yeah.
Increase dividends or pursue exploration. It's fair to say that over the last seven years or so, we've probably not done Blanket the justice it deserves in terms of exploration expenditure. Exploration activities have historically been focused just going deeper. In the last few years, we've just not had the flexibility underground to do that. We do intend to resume that deep level exploration with a view to improving the confidence level of those existing inferred resources at depth, but also finding more material. This year, from memory, I think it's in the back end of the year, we've been proposing to do 15,000 m of drilling. Next year, 25,000 m of drilling.
In addition to that, we also believe there's potential for drilling in the shallower areas of Blanket, which have been historically people have just gone deeper and we think there are some areas there that merit further attention. In addition, we feel that there's potential for exploration immediately outside the existing mining areas, so that's to the north and to the south. Also, we'd like to begin to look at something called the Banded Ironstone Formation, which is about 800 m to 1 km to the east of the current mining area. There is actually quite a lot of exploration potential at Blanket itself, which I thought would cost probably $2 million-$3 million a year. In addition to that, we are looking at Maligreen.
At the moment, we're reevaluating all drill core with a view to improving the confidence level of the existing resource base, which is about 940,000 ounces at 1.9 g a ton. We do intend to spend more money on exploration. It's gonna be a balancing act between how much money we choose to retain in the business to fund those projects and how much we choose to divert back to shareholders. When I say divert, that kind of implies it's not a useful use of the money. Clearly, it is a useful use of the money. It's a balancing act. At this stage, we're sort of pausing to let the fact pattern catch up with where we are.
I think that's about the only answer I can give to that question, Alan.
Thank you, Mark. Yeah, the increase in the D&O costs, that's not just particular to us. It seems to be reflective from the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Looking across at American-listed companies, the whole market has gone nuts, and it is a huge cost. We used to pay $80,000 a year in premium. We're now paying just over $1 million. That is very expensive. Joseph, the workforce, as Mark mentioned, is now being paid 100% in U.S. dollars. They are in the best situation to fund themselves against rising costs and the rising inflation in Zimbabwe. There's nothing more we can do to make their lives easier.
They're already paid above the unionized market rate, and we pay 100% in U.S. dollars. They are in a good space from a Zimbabwe perspective. All of us are being affected by these rising food and fuel costs, and we'll just have to watch the space.
It is fair to say that the complexity of the exchange rate environment in Zimbabwe mustn't be underestimated. As dollar earners, our workers presumably benefit from the informal exchange rate, which runs at a massive premium, whichever way you want to look at it, to the official exchange rate. Their buying power in local currency is increasing very quickly indeed, which is probably, I would thought, more than outweighing the effect of genuine food price inflation.
Mark, if I can just add that, currently there's no complaints from the mine site. The fact that we are paying 100% compared to previously only paying 60%, the workforce is really in a good position. They're not complaining, they're happy. Even with the some increases we see, they're in a much better position than last year.
Yeah. I think Dana Roets should talk about economy, about Maligreen.
Yep, please.
Maligreen, what we found is that there is a inferred resource, and we've got enough information that by re-logging and having a look at a core that we have that's all available, that we can upgrade that into an improved resource. What's the word I'm looking for?
Improving the confidence, that's M and I.
Yeah. Indicated resource.
Yeah.
We're busy with that work. It's about 80% complete. Then we will compile a new resource and report back to the market. We are confident that we can actually upgrade the resource from inferred to indicated.
I guess the idea then would be that, with increased confidence level, we would then proceed as quickly as we could to a feasibility study with a view to making some money out of the mine. The only thing I can add to that is it may be that that asset could be overtaken by another asset which may be more attractive and therefore pushes Maligreen down the pecking order. We do continue to look at other assets in Zimbabwe.
Thanks, Mark. I think we've answered the next question in terms of the status of new mining projects. Our new projects are brownfields. They are not mining projects at the moment. I think Dana has answered that one already. Alan, you ask if exploration reveals increased resource, can plant increase capacity relatively easily? You're obviously talking about Blanket. Blanket does have some spare capacity both in hoisting and in the CIL. We will manage that situation because in the ramp-up process, we've got to get tons up to about 2,300 tons a day. We've got milling capacity at that rate once the new mill that is being installed is in operation.
We will have to then look at the cost of any incremental plant capacity. That is not the big money. I'm sure if additional resources are found that are economic to get out of the ground, then the right engineering decisions can be made.
But when-
Otherwise, the other projects are not contiguous to Blanket. They'll be standalone.
I forget, how much is BM Ten? It's about, I thought it was like $800,000, wasn't it?
$1.5 million.
Okay. It's not big. It's not a large amount of money, and it's relatively quick in the northern environment to get these things.
I just wanna add that if we need to add another mill, it, you know, will not be as much as the ball mill is concerned. We've got regrind mills, and then we've got our rod mills. The regrind mill that we added now, it actually added quite a lot of capacity. We will in future, if we look at expanding, we will add our primary mills, which is the rod mills. Mark, there you are correct. The last one we added was about $750,000. It won't be as much as the regrind mill. It's modular. If you want to add another mill, yes, you're talking about $800,000 if we wanna do that.
If you want to add, you know, to the CIL tanks, that's roughly. We just, you know, with the mill currently, we're adding an extra tank, and that's about $200,000. If we need to increase, you're looking at extra 10 maybe and extra primary rod mill.
Yeah. Put all of that into context, the fact that mine's making approximately $1 million a week of operating cash flow.
Yeah. Will asks a question about concerns about increasing consumable costs and possible supply chain issues. Yeah, Will, we have to be cognizant of that. At the moment, we are not experiencing any supply chain issues, but we are experiencing certain consumable costs increases, explosives affected by the international change in pricing. We are managing our working capital to the best of our ability. We're buying as intelligently as we can. I think this is a fact of life and it is something that our procurement people have to watch very closely. We have the ability to check whether anybody is trying to take an opportunistic approach to these rising prices and trying to profit here. We'll keep a very close eye on that.
Yes, diesel, we're seeing diesel prices going up already quite significantly. As Mark's already spoken, we do use quite a lot of diesel with our gen sets. This solar farm is very, very important to us.
No, Steve, I just wanna add that what we also see is that steel, the steel price, has started to affect our capital projects. Because of what was happening, we see some delays. Not big delays, but you know, some delays of about a month or so that the long lead items that we ordered are delayed because of the effect of the war. But we haven't seen severe increases yet, but mainly diesel and steel and then some explosives.
On the question about supply chain, I don't know if Will intended this, but we were somewhat concerned about the extent to which our supply chain relied on bringing goods up from South Africa through Beitbridge. We were pleasantly surprised, virtually everything for the solar project came through from the east, from the eastern border post through Mozambique. That actually worked very well. Also we're beginning to explore whether we can bring in projects from the west through Walvis Bay.
We're trying to create more flexibility to protect ourselves in the event that the South African border suffers from the same sorts of disruption that happened last year when there was the insurrection in South Africa. It's fair to say most of our stuff does still come through Beitbridge.
Yeah. Mark, maybe you want to just look at Joseph Parrish's question on cash flows and new-
That's right.
mining assets.
Mm-hmm.
Just below Will's.
With all those recently approved operating cash flows. At the moment, we believe if we didn't do anything, if we just ran Blanket for cash, we'd be able to distribute. Maurice, what's the number today? Is it about $275? $275 a share?
That would be leaving nothing in the till.
Yes. Just run it. If we just ran this business for cash, we could distribute $2.75. When we evaluate new projects such as Maligreen, we need to be comfortable that taking everything into account, both the shares we'd need to issue to fund the capital program. We need to be confident that the amount of cash we could distribute per share, fully diluted, must be appreciably more than, say, $2.75. Otherwise, it's not worthwhile. It's just not worthwhile. We do take that into account.
Mark, if I can take that question on earlier, because one of these new projects could go into production. I would say that, within the next two years, hopefully we will start building a new mine. Then, you know, if it's two years start to build a mine, then it will take about one and a half years, you will start breaking even and start making money. I would say within the next three and a half, four years, we will start seeing, a new mine, looking after itself. Adding to production, I would say within the next three years, we can see a contribution from a new project adding to the others.
Well, okay. Building on what Dana's just said, and just following on from what I said, that doesn't mean we would need to raise all the money for a new project by issuance of equity. Clearly, we'd expect to be able to raise some debt. Let's not forget any new project for the Zimbabwean owner. Any new project will be that we can export the gold ourselves, and therefore that means that project will be capable of debt funding. Then also we do expect to make some contribution to the cost through our own retained cash. It's not as though we'd have to go to the equity markets for all of the required funding.
Let's face it, if for whatever reason, the equity markets are closed, for whatever reason, we just do the project more slowly, just defer it and do it as we did for Central Shaft. Just do it by phasing it, so we reinvest the cash that we're generating ourselves.
Thank you. Thank you to the team.
Sorry, there's one more thing. I mean, I did see some comments somewhere to the effect that management should have put out some sort of guidance about a recent announcement from the Zimbabwe government relating to trying to clamp down on foreign exchange controls. There was I think Bloomberg reported a speech given by Mnangagwa. It's fair to say that Mnangagwa makes these speeches and announces big picture policy changes, but the detail invariably doesn't become clear for days, if not weeks after that, when that speech has been then converted into practical guidance notes issued by the RBZ and/or the relevant statutory instruments. In respect of that particular change in policy, all we believe it means is that our existing overdraft facilities at the mine have probably been canceled.
$3 million of existing overdraft facilities have probably been canceled, although we're not currently in overdraft right now. We're confident that that's just a timing issue, and we'll get those overdrafts reinstated. Not that we actually need them, particularly. Just understand that it's very difficult for us to respond quickly to those Bloomberg reports because the underlying facts take quite some time to establish.
Yeah, Mark. To support that, you know, even now we are hearing that the gold sector will be exempt from those new announcements made by the president. Until we see it in the Statutory Instrument, which is the legal standing, we just have to keep talking to the relevant authorities. As Mark says, it only becomes fact once the Statutory Instrument is published, and then we adjust accordingly. We've got our finger on the pulse. Mark says, you know, we're in a position where we can paddle our own boat, which is very comfortable.
Having said that, it genuinely is fair to say that the various mechanisms that we use for moving money around the place have stabilized. The system, although it's complex, works better than it has done for many a year. You know, we're finding it, well, not easy, but we're certainly finding it very manageable to work in this environment. I think that reflects the fact that there just seems to be much more foreign exchange available in Zimbabwe.
The last question coming from Anthony Mitchell.
I don't know what TOC means.
Total operating costs, I think.
Okay.
Dana, if you have seen that or can-
Yeah. You know, generally, open pit operations are much cheaper than underground because, first of all, your workforce is a lot smaller. You're talking about 300 people compared to where we are employing over 2,000 now.
That's why you can operate and open gold mines can make money at 1 g a ton to 1.5 g a ton. I don't know if that answers your question, but normally, traditionally, open gold mines can operate at about half the cost of a deep level goldmine.
Yeah. We've got quite a lot of it. We use quite a lot of information from a technical consultant regarding a sort of ballpark capital costs and ballpark operating costs for open cast and underground operations of a particular type. Clearly, before we make any investment decision, even if we are gonna fund the thing through internal cash flow, therefore equity, internal equity, we would do a feasibility study to get better sort of clarity on that.
I think the biggest advantage of a surface operation is that you can get it up and running very quickly. Normally, you can get it up and running and paying for itself within two years. Where with underground mines, I don't know, 10 years if you're lucky, and then you start production.
The only problem.
It's lot less riskier.
The only problem with open pit operations, everyone can see your mistakes, where underground, they're hidden.
Yeah. Yeah.
Are we finished?
Yep. That has answered all the questions. I see no more coming in. Thank you to all the participants. Thank you to the team for answering, and we look forward to talking to you again. We're very pleased to have been able to present the results of a very good quarter and giving you an indication that the Central Shaft investment is beginning to pay off. Therefore, we're confident to reiterate our guidance between 73,000 ounces and 80,000 ounces. As you see, April is already indicating that the mine is performing extremely well. Thank you, thank you for participating, and we look forward to talking to you all again.
It's gotta be said that this is Steve's final quarter reporting quarter as Chief Executive. He'll be stepping down at the end of June. On behalf of his colleagues, we'd like to thank him for all the work he's done since the late 2014. We've rehabilitated the company. We've made some great progress, and I'm very pleased that you're handing it over in a reasonable shape, Steve. Thank you very much and well done.
Thank you, Mark. I know the team is going to be successful going forward, and it's very, very pleasing that the succession work we have done is paying off. The faces are gonna be familiar to all of you, so you're in good hands. I wish the team all the very, very best. Thank you all. Thank you, Mark.
Thank you.