DRD

Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us today for this presentation. Before we start, I just want to pause for a moment to remember a very good friend and advisor of ours, John Weber, who was, as long as I had been with the company, he was one of our professional advisors and attorney with the firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, who passed away the week before last after he was very, very sick. We will remember him, and he was a dear friend and a valuable service provider. It is a privilege again to be presenting to you today. This is the 19th time that I have been doing this, the year-end results, or that I was part of the team that presented the year-end results. Some of you were there the very first time. Many new faces.

I am joined today by my colleagues, Henriette, who is our CFO, and Jaco, who is our Chief Operating Officer, and then there are also several members of senior management who are here. Please, afterwards, we have to eat the food. It is expensive food, so we cannot leave before all of it has been eaten. Please, ask them questions if you want any clarification on anything. We will be around for a few minutes after the presentation. Please also just take note, there is the customary disclaimer. There will be forward-looking statements in this presentation, and some of those forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, and some of those assumptions we do not have control over. Just be mindful in the interpretation of those, that they are contingent upon a number of factors that we do not necessarily control. It has been a very good year for DRDGOLD.

It is the 19th consecutive financial year where we will be paying a dividend, and the final cash dividend for the year is ZAR 1.20 per share, which is just over ZAR 1 billion, which was roughly the market cap of the company when I first did the presentation 19 years ago. It was as a consequence of a number of factors working together, and obviously, in order to have the revenues and the cash flows from which you could pay this cash dividend, you need the production. Production was pretty pleasing. We managed to come in just below the 5 tons of production. 5 tons is prominent because you would have seen it in our communications when we talk about Vision 2028. What was pleasing in particular was the fact that it was roughly 5,000 oz higher than the higher end of guidance for the year.

That was because of what I thought was very smart management of the throughput mix of the material going into the mix. You will see that we achieved an average yield of just under 0.2 g per ton, which was a 2% increase, so the plants were working really efficiently. Obviously, the big role player this year was the increase in the gold price, and being a deliberately unhedged producer of gold. We have never hedged, with the exception of a very small period of time when we needed to protect cash flows in order not to test some of the ratios that form part of a financial arrangement that we had at the time. This was in 2018 when we bought Far West Gold. We have never hedged, and deliberately so.

We were in a position to take full advantage of the 40% increase in gold price, and that translated into revenue for the year of just over ZAR 11 billion, a 42% increase in revenue. Cash operating costs for the year was just under ZAR 1 million a kg, which was also better than guidance, and a 7% increase year-on-year, which considering the number of double-digit increases that form part of the cost basket of gold production in South Africa, I think was testimony to some really good cost discipline. Cash operating costs, a slightly higher increase of 10% at ZAR 188 per ton, and that is because there was a larger component of trucking that still formed part of the cost composite this year.

In the current climate, trucking your high-grade material, expending the higher costs in order to truck those cleanup materials and remnant materials is always a good idea because of the higher grade that invariably form part of those tons. At the current gold price, it does offer a very attractive margin. If the gold price decreases, then obviously that margin shrinks and you lose some of that gearing. You do want to take advantage of the higher gold price and truck in some more materials. There will be some of that also in the year going forward. The trucking will be part of the throughput profile for the foreseeable future. That obviously then translates into your operating profit, so ZAR 6.4 billion in operating profit, an 83% increase. That is a very nice number, which informs your headline earnings, ZAR 4.2 billion in headline earnings, an 89% increase.

Free cash flow, which is a very important parameter for us because as a dividend-paying company, generating cash is a very important internal measure of our efficiency. To have generated ZAR 2.2 billion in free cash flow was very pleasing. That was an 85% increase, and that was after capital expenditure of ZAR 3.5 billion for the year. Jaco will take you through some of the capital spent this year, as well as the capital planned for the next two years. Then it is an important number to remember, because we are talking final dividend of just more than ZAR 1 billion against free cash flow of ZAR 2.2 billion and capital expenditure of ZAR 3.5 billion. Remember, a big part of our story, of the Vision 2028 story is that at some point in future, this number is going to become considerably smaller, the ZAR 3.5 billion capital expenditure.

Whilst at the time, hopefully that number, if the gold price holds up, will not have shrunk or will not have diminished significantly. In fact, it could be significantly higher because remember, we are targeting about a ton of additional gold production. These margins, there is the margin, the cash margin, these margins potentially also, if everything stays the same, could potentially also remain very favorable. Then as a dividend-paying company, start factoring in a substantial portion of that into what is available for your dividend. That is the DRDGOLD promise. That is really what we are working towards this stage, and we are hoping that it will find its way into how share price is being interpreted at some stage over the next few years as we get closer and nearer to completion of the Vision 2028 sub-parts. My point number 9, that was the free cash flow.

My point number 10, that is the capital expenditure. My point number 11 is on the sustainability. This did not come at the cost of our people. This did not come at the cost of the health and the wellbeing of our people, because you see that trend is still a good one. From 1.65 to 1.25. 0.8 to 0.7 on those lost injury scales and ratios. That also is not coincidental. Obviously, we are very aware of the fact that sometimes there are near misses where it is only the amount of time that you spend on your knees that saves you from something really bad. We are also very deliberately focused on how we manage safety and improving safety awareness amongst staff. Some of the other sustainability measures that we enjoy sharing, because sustainable development is core to our business, is the usage of potable water.

Many years ago, I forget how many years ago it was. It may have been 15 years, it may have been 18 years. We very deliberately took the decision to reduce potable water usage by 10% every year. That trend, if you follow our reporting on our integrated reports over the years, you will see that trend has been healthy and it has taken us to a point now where very little of our processed water is actually potable water. Once again, you saw 900 million L of potable water saving this year, 23% decrease. Also, a very deliberate part of our sustainable development value pursuit. Carbon emissions is an important one. Only, well, it is still a lot, 233,000 tonnes of carbon that went into the atmosphere because of our activities, but that is down from 303,000 tonnes of last year. That is obviously because of the solar farm.

We have not stopped. We still have other ambitions with regards to renewable power. We have spoken about some of those in the past, but I think we are on a good trend here with the solar farm really working really well. We are seeing that both in the bottom line as well as in the nature dividend that we are in pursuit of. I think that is what I am going to talk to in terms of the first slide. There is obviously quite a lot more detail that my colleagues will talk about as we go forward. You can report these numbers if you produce. At this stage, we are in an interim phase. We are in a phase where we are managing volume throughput because we need to manage our tailings dams very carefully in order to stay within the prescribed safety factors.

Some of those are prescribed, some of them are self-imposed, but it is important that we stick to those, and therefore we are not sweating our TSFs. You saw earlier this week, again, a report of things going wrong on a tailings dam, and that is just the unimaginable from our perspective. Tonnes are deliberately kept at 25 million tonnes between the two operations. The yields have been good, and those yields are good for two reasons. It is both the blend and also plant efficiency. Both of our plants are operating extremely well.

A big thing for us this year as well is that, excuse me, everything that we are producing, that one part of the process where we are at our most vulnerable, where our product is at its most concentrated, namely when it goes into the smelt house, that is now universally treated at our own facilities, which was a big milestone for us. Jaco will talk more about that. They get to talk about all the good stuff, the numbers and all the projects and stuff. I will slip some of it in here and there. Anyway, the yields were good, and we saw that in the production numbers as well. That is now on the Ergo side. Far West Gold, similar. That volume line is a flat line. It is managed very carefully and deliberately.

The yields have been pretty good, and that is as we are getting into a slightly deeper part of dam number three. As you go deeper into the dam, gold migrating to the bottom, obviously your yields do pick up. You could see it is sort of back to where it was when we were at the tail end of dam number five, and some of those materials were still being sort of dribbled into the bigger mix. Production, bang on target, 674 kg for the last half year and just over 1.3 tonnes for the financial year. On a group basis, these are numbers that you will see in more detail when Henriette talks to the numbers. The volumes for the two operations combined, just on 25 million tons. The yields just under 0.2 g a ton, which is a good number for us.

We are hoping to sustain that going forward. Production just under 5 tons for the year. On that note, I will hand over to Henriette to take you through some of the financial numbers.

Okay. Thank you, Niël. Maybe just to start off with, it is my privilege to present these excellent financial results that we have achieved during financial year 2026. Just a huge thank you from our side. We could not have done it if we did not have the exceptional teams that we have in DRDGOLD. From the operational guys straight through finance team putting this all together and our support services. Each of us have our role to play and I believe we have done it exceptionally well this year. Okay. If we move, group operating, sorry. As I, Ergo financial results. So Ergo had an exceptional last six months to the financial year. They increased their gold production with about 150 kg month, the six months versus the next six months.

Really taking advantage of that excellent gold price that we saw, in the last six months of just about ZAR 2,460,000 per kg average. Ergo ended their revenue, at ZAR 8.1 billion for financial year 2026, in comparison to ZAR 5.7 billion last year. This was mostly due to the gold price increase of 40% that Niël already alluded to, but also a 1% increase in gold sold. If we look at the cash operating cost slide, Ergo's overall cash operating costs increased 7% year-on-year, notwithstanding all of the things that Niël already mentioned. We had a massive oil price increase during the last few months. That influences our machine hire, our trucking expenses, reagent costs. We saw some exceptional high increases on carbon, specifically cyanide. We had to use the briquettes, which is more expensive. All in all, though, cash operating costs well-maintained.

If you just look at unit costs on the Ergo side. ZAR 1,120,000 per kg in comparison to ZAR 1,060,000 per kg last year, which is a 6% increase. That excellent operating profit trend that you can see there. Ergo more than doubled their operating profit from ZAR 2 billion last year to ZAR 4.1 billion in the current financial year. On the Far West side, also a very stable operation as you could have seen from the operating trends, performing always on budget, on target, in expectation. Far West increased their revenue from ZAR 2.2 billion last year to ZAR 3.1 billion in the current financial year. That was mostly due to that 40% increase in the gold price. Cash operating costs increased by 10% from ZAR 674 million last year to ZAR 744 million in the current financial year.

As I already, I think I mentioned it a few times, Far West is in a different operating cycle to Ergo. It is growing. It is getting ready for this expansion project. More labor hire. It is an older plant. Only two sites operating, of which one is a cleanup site, Driefontein 5. This trend increase in costs is expected to continue next year until we see the upside of that Vision 2028, 1.2 million tons per month kicking in. But again, ending up in a very healthy profit margin. ZAR 1.5 billion-ZAR 2.3 billion in the current financial year. This is a very high-margin operation, so 76% profit margin, which is exceptional operating profit margin.

Even with the increase in the gold price, this is still an operation running at ZAR 561,000 per kg cash operating cost, and then all-in sustaining cost of ZAR 639,000 per kg. If that operation can maintain this will be a very successful operation going forward. Okay, if we move to the operating trends. Very healthy operating margin, all-in sustaining cost margin. Cash flow, Niël already alluded to some of these excellent results that we've seen. But your operating margin last year, 45% in comparison to 58% in the current financial year. All-in sustaining cost margin, 39% for last year in comparison to 53% for this current financial year. In free cash flow, Niël stole a bit of my thunder with regards to the free cash flow, but this is a number that we are always very proud of. It's your operating activities minus your investing activities.

Yes, that increased by 85% from ZAR 1.2 billion last year to ZAR 2.3 billion in this year. Just to stand still, this is one of the reasons that we could declare that ZAR 1.20 per share dividend. If you take that interim dividend into account of ZAR 0.50 per share, we paid out 65% of our free cash flow, or we declared 65% of our free cash flow for the financial year 2026. Just then, headline earnings per share, also a nice upward trend, ZAR 2.61 per share last year to 492% in this year. This then all translated into a very healthy statement of profit and loss. If you look at that revenue line, ZAR 7.9 billion increasing to ZAR 11.2 billion. Again, just taking into account the 40% increase in the gold price, but also standing still on what Niël said.

We really did not expect to have a production year as we had. You would have seen our production guidance was quite lower than the previous year. To achieve that 5,500 oz is quite substantial. If you look at the cost of sales line, that increased 9% year-on-year. I already explained some of the increases in cash operating costs. Other than that, depreciation increased. Last year, we had a big credit of ZAR 98 million relating to our change in estimate in our provisions, which we didn't have in this current financial year. Administrative expenses and other costs, it's increased relating to our single incentives and our long-term incentive. The share price, that's increased. Then going into finance, income increased due to our cash balances. That's much more in this current financial year.

Although we didn't actually get a dividend from Rand Refinery, which was about ZAR 56 million last year. That cash balance increase would've looked even better if we had that ZAR 56 million dividend from Rand Refinery again. Finance expenses mostly relate on our unwinding on our provision for environmental rehabilitation. That takes us then to a very healthy profit before tax of ZAR 5.9 billion in comparison to ZAR 3.1 billion. Income tax, quite a big line, if you look at that. Most of that relates to deferred tax, which I'll just stop on the balance sheet. But we also paid about ZAR 490 million in tax, mostly relating to Ergo, due to the profitability of that operation and the unredeemed CapEx that we actually used during the year. Statement of profit. The balance sheet. Excellent balance sheet. Again, debt-free.

I don't think we thought in 2024 when we actually undertook this debt facility at Nedbank, that we would be in the position that we are in today. But standing still on property, plant, and equipment, nice increase, ZAR 8.5 billion last year to ZAR 11.9 billion, showing that ZAR 3.5 billion reinvestment in capital that we incurred mostly for Vision 2028. Investments in rehabilitation and other funds increased nicely with our interest. Maybe just to highlight, included in there, most of that balance actually is our Guardrisk cell captive that's ring-fenced for rehabilitation. During the current year, we actually celebrated going over the ZAR 1 billion mark for that environmental trust fund, which is an amazing achievement. If you look at other investments, most of that relates to our 11% investment in Rand Refinery, which is measured at fair value.

We had a ZAR 220 million uplift in fair value that went through that account. In cash and cash equivalents, I will just highlight when we go through the cash flow statement. Other current assets, fairly stable year-on-year. Maybe just to highlight that included in that balance, we have got ZAR 117 million receivable from Sibanye, which relates to the Kloof 2 dump transfer. We expect to receive that money regarding the environmental trust funds as soon as all regulatory approvals have been obtained. Moving over to liabilities, provision for environmental rehabilitation. That increase that you see there from ZAR 558 million to ZAR 721 million mostly relate to updated quotes that we got for demolition that was quite more substantial than what we expected. But then also the expansion on the Far West side. DP2 doubling up that plant and the RTSF increased that balance quite substantially.

Our single biggest liability on our balance sheet, that ZAR 2.9 billion deferred tax asset, which grown quite substantially during the year. This balance will continue to grow as we spend capital and as we remain profitable. Included in that balance is actually a rate change. Our weighted average rate for Ergo increased from 25% to 27%, and then on the Far West side from 29% to 30%. That had ZAR 150 million swing in that line. Current liabilities, fairly stable, increasing a little bit just due to our accelerated capital spend. Okay, if we move over to the cash flow statement, and what a beautiful statement this is. Net cash inflow from operating activities, ZAR 3.5 billion last year to ZAR 5.7 billion this year, mainly driven by that cash generated from the operations of ZAR 6 billion. Finance income received.

There you can nicely see the increase in finance expenses, or finance income that we actually received from the banks. No dividends received. Finance expenses paid, very small, and the income tax that I already alluded to. Net cash outflow from investing activities, where you can see that ZAR 3.5 billion that we spent. I believe this is, in the past 20 years anyway, the biggest capital reinvestment program that we have done in one year. Quite substantial amount. Environmental rehabilitation payments, although small, we are very proud of always continuously, concurrently rehabilitating our mining sites. That is money spent on the Brakpan, on cladding on Brakpan and on our Driefontein facilities. Proceeds from assets held for sale. I am sure you are already all aware that we sold NOA in December. That is just the proceeds that we received from that sale.

Dividends paid, that ZAR 780 million relate to our final dividend that we paid last year of ZAR 0.40, and our interim dividend of ZAR 0.50 that we declared earlier this year. Ending up an increase of ZAR 1.5 billion to a closing cash and cash equivalents balance of ZAR 2.8 billion, just under ZAR 2.8 billion. There you are. I will hand over to Jaco to take us through Vision 2028.

Okay. Thanks everybody. I would just like to agree with what Henriette has just said. To the operational staff and even our contractors and our consultants, all the way through to the board. I think everybody, right from the cleaning staff to the top, to the board, everybody had to fire on all cylinders to achieve the results. It feels like you have to celebrate the wins. Hopefully, this feels like the Springboks will win on Saturday 50 and zero. That is the feeling we get here. It is a privilege to present the operational results to you of everybody's hard work. That is just a picture of Daggafontein, which we will speak to just now. Just to remind you of the five projects that makes up Vision 2028. Two of them at Ergo, number one and five, and then two, three and four at Far West.

The first one is Daggafontein. That is a Tailings Storage Facility which we have commissioned. I will talk about that a little bit later on. That is at estimated cost of about ZAR 0.5 billion. That is to reduce the deposition capacity, or deposition rate onto Brakpan by approximately 750,000 tonnes per month. Second one at Ergo, I am going to jump to number five, is Withok. So the Withok tailings dam, that one is still in the authorization phase. The purpose of that one is for us to get off the Brakpan tailings dam in totality, in conjunction with Ergo, and to then maintain the deposition capacity for the Ergo operations, and that is at approximately ZAR 3 billion. Then two, three, and four is actually one project with three different legs to it.

The first one is the DP2 plant expansion, and that is essentially doubling up of the existing capacity of 600,000 tonnes to 1.2 million tonnes. We will talk a little bit about that, and that is at an estimated ZAR 1.9 billion. Then the pipelines for DP2 to RTSF, that is the deposition site, but then also the Libanon reclamation station. In total, approximately 135 km of pipeline, and then that is at a cost of ZAR 1.2 billion. Then the RTSF, which I think you all know about by now. One of the biggest, largest tailings dams constructed on a liner in the world. 800 million tonnes facility. We are approximately 2/3 through the construction of this facility, but again, we will go through that, at a cost of about ZAR 3.5 billion-ZAR 3.4 billion. All right. Just an update quickly.

At Ergo, Daggafontein, as I have mentioned to you, I am very proud to say that in June we started commissioning of the tailings dam. We have achieved the rate that we expect to achieve, which is 25,000 tonnes per day, which gives us the 750,000 tonnes per month. This facility gives us an additional capacity of about 120 million tonne deposition onto this facility.

Together with Withok, it will sustain our mining operation for 21 years at Ergo. Now Withok, as mentioned to you, that is currently in the authorization phase. We have completed our public participation process. Our design engineer and his team has been approved by the Dam Safety Office. Then our environmental authorization waste management license, as well as the water use license, has been submitted to the department, and we are awaiting approval of this. We hope to obtain these approvals by the end of this year.

If we can achieve that, we then aim to complete construction of Withok during 2029. That will make sure that we then, onto Withok. Withok is about 310 million tonnes deposition capacity. So between the two of them, it will then sustain us for the 21-year life of mine of Ergo going forward. Onto Far West. Again, very happy that we've ticked the box on DP2 plant. On 14th of July, we commissioned the smelt house, which is one section of the plant, and also produced our first gold bar from this facility. I'm glad to see Kevin is also here. It was a gold bar, not a copper bar. We do expect to have the balance of this plant commissioned during this quarter.

Just bear in mind that once we've got this plant commissioned, it doesn't mean that we're going to immediately go up to the 1.2 million tonnes. We're going to commission this plant, move over to this plant, operate this plant, and then do some refurbishment and maintenance work on the old plant so that once RTSF is ready to take the full 1.2 million tonnes, we can then fire up both plants. We will maintain that 500,000 tonnes per month throughput capacity until we're ready with RTSF to deposit onto that one. The pipelines. We were waiting specifically for the water use license for the Libanon reclamation pump station, and that we have received during July. So another obstacle is out of the way. We're about 95% complete with the pipelines.

We can now start with the construction of the Libanon reclamation station to be able to put us into a position where we can produce the 1.2 million tonnes of material to RTSF. RTSF, as of 30th June, we were about 2/3 through the construction, and that's the picture you can see in the background. Obviously, now hopefully I don't stuff this up. Yeah. So, there you can see the black, that's the liner. This is the starter wall going around. For those of you that missed it, in July, we provided the market with a full market update, and we spent some significant time on explaining the technicalities around the RTSF. If you want to just review that, you're more than welcome. It's on the website.

But this facility we do hope to have available so that we can do the full 1.2 million tonnes in quarter one of the 2028 financial year. We have mentioned during the market update that we obviously are aiming to achieve beneficial occupation a lot sooner. But depending on what the weather does and how it rains, we will then make an informed decision before we start up that facility in all earnest. It's, as I've mentioned to you, one of the biggest in the world. It provides a 35-year life of mine for the operations. It doesn't help us compromising this facility at any given point in time. So hence, being very prudent in starting this facility up. All right. Just want to spend a little bit of time on this slide.

I think what you can see here is that 2026, this year, was our peak capital spending year. This was also a very important year for us as operational teams, and well done again to the projects team. This year, we had to hit a few milestones. If we missed these milestones, we would have made it very difficult for ourselves to achieve the final timelines. They have done so by making sure that DP2 has been started up or completed, commissioned, as well as Daggafontein. What you can see here is that the majority are being spent obviously on DP2 expansion and then RTSF. Going forward, you can see that DP2 is very little, just essentially rollovers. We get the UFRs, which is the upflow reactors, part of DP2. This is specifically technology aimed at improving recoveries, which we are implementing on that specific plant.

You can see we continue with RTSF spending, and that will also run over into 2028. But then we also intend to bring, hopefully, some of Withok expenditure online during the later part of this financial year. Then, very important, that will continue then to 2028 and 2029. Although we are about halfway through our capital expenditure program, a very, very important year for us and as a team, very important milestones to achieve to set us up for achieving the balance of our requirements going forward. Last slide just on reserves and resources. You will see that we depleted our reserves with about call it 23 million tons of material that we have treated. But we have made that up by bringing online Kloof 2, which provides us with about 67 million tons.

Overall increasing the mineral reserves with about four years added to the life of mine of Far West Gold Recoveries. Well, I am going to hand back to Niël. Since he is a farmer, we specifically had the sheep up there for you, Niël.

Yeah. Is that yours? Thanks, Jaco. Yeah, I know. We have got to have some sheep in any presentation worth its salt. So these guys keep the grass short at the solar farm. You cannot go in there with bush cutters because you are going to chip those beautiful panels. So, it is part of our philosophy of full integration. Just talking a little bit about our environmental performance. Henriette made mention of the concept of concurrent rehabilitation, that you rehabilitate as you go along. Yeah, we flick through these slides, and then you see a tailings dam in the distance. I do believe that the DRDGOLD team is achieving a goal that we had set for ourselves also many years ago, maybe 15 years ago, maybe 18 years ago, of being the benchmark in terms of the various activities that we involve ourselves in.

I'm not aware of current tailings storage facilities that are cladded to the extent that DRDGOLD has cladded Crown Facility, the Crown Cluster, the Brakpan facility, and Daggafontein. It's really, if you want to show people what a tailings dam should look like if it's properly managed from an environmental containment perspective, I do believe that those tailings dams are benchmark setting in the standards that are being maintained by the team. This has been throughout. When we talk about hectares vegetated, 43 hectares of vegetation, 44 hectares of vegetation, 40 hectares of vegetation, that pertains to those permanent tailings storage facilities that are going to be permanent features going forward or that are at least going to be around for many years to come.

Where the only means of containing dust emissions from those facilities and runoff water from those facilities is by vegetating them to the point that they have. I did speak about potable water consumption, and here you could see some of the trends as they'd emerged over the last few years. Also, dust emission exceedances. Many of our tailings facilities, the tailings storage facilities, as well as our reclamation sites, are in close proximity of where people live. We have close to 300 air quality monitoring points scattered across the landscape in the Witwatersrand to learn. That's where we check whether or not dust coming off our facilities and off our sites, whether they fall within the statutory thresholds and whether they in any way contribute towards a reduction in quality of life of those people living in the vicinity of those.

It's part of the geospatial reality of Johannesburg, of where certain segments of society, where certain communities were placed and where they lived. The reality is that many of the disenfranchised communities in South Africa are those that live, firstly, downwind of these facilities, and in many instances, also in close proximity. Very few things impact quality of life as much as the standard of containment that's maintained on these facilities. That's a good number. 0.5% of exceedances is a very, very good number. One of the most complex numbers that we deal with, or set of numbers that we deal with internally, is reporting on electricity consumption, on savings on electricity, et cetera. We try to reduce those to a few easily understandable headline numbers.

If you want to go into any deeper detail, then you'll have to go through the financial statements in order to decipher it from there. What we've decided to do was to give you sort of headlines of just the impact of the solar farm now that it's been implemented over time. The solar power produced this year is 146 GW of power units that's been produced. That is now net of grid losses and net of efficiency losses. It's actually a high number of what's actually been produced, but that is what was available for use or that was used within our facilities within the group. Electricity consumption after wheeling and offsetting. That is the electricity that Eskom supplied into our group. That's the 260 GW of electricity that Eskom supplied into the group.

If you add those two numbers together, you can get some sort of a sense of what the total draw of DRDGOLD was for the year, or roundabout. The Eskom units that were necessary to produce 1 ton of material to treat, not produce a ton of product, but to treat a ton of material, that is in the next line, and you can see that is a very healthy trend. In 2024, 13.6 kWh were required to treat 1 ton of material. That is Eskom-generated and supplied kilowatt-hours. This year, on a group basis, that number reduced to 8.6 kWh.

If you do the numbers, and if you limit those numbers to Ergo in particular, you will see that we actually got very close to the range that we guided when the solar farm was in construction phase, of a saving per ton of between ZAR 9 and ZAR 15. It looks as though it is somewhere between ZAR 13.50 and ZAR 14.50 per ton saving at Ergo. That is a number that pertains to Ergo itself. There are a number of movable parts here. An exact number is very hard to say, simply because we are talking about different rates that is being charged by Ergo. If you look at direct savings, you are also looking at different times of the day, and a variety of other moving parts, wheeling and offsetting charges, et cetera. That sort of are the headline numbers.

The solar gave us 146 GW that was used. Eskom gave us 216. That was the net number from Eskom and the trend. Of course, you have got your Scope 2 carbon emissions, and I did mention that earlier as well, how that is reduced over this period. On the whole, I think considering that we are a company that proclaims to have committed to the ideas of sustainable development, of generating value at different levels, or multidimensional value, but integrated, I think this gives a very good idea of how your environmental dividend and your financial dividend or your financial return go close hand in hand if you do this properly, if you plan it properly, and if you execute well on it.

On the social performance side as well, or the social capital side, it is not a story of impact quite yet, but our team is working on the impact of the social capital programs that our company is involved in. Just on the numbers this year, you can see where the socioeconomic development number has landed. These are initiatives directly benefiting communities through small enterprise development and socioeconomic development programs, sustainable livelihoods, and now increasingly also infrastructure. When we kicked off 15, 18, 20 years ago on the social capital road path and setting ourselves goals of what we wanted to do, because of the size of our footprint, we do have the largest footprint, I think, in South Africa. It starts in Springs, maybe even further, and it ends in Carletonville, the most densely populated part of South Africa. You simply cannot be everything to everyone.

You've got to be mindful of not only what you want to do, but also what your capacity is, what you can deliver, and still impact as many lives as possible. For a very large part of that whole program, our social initiatives were aimed primarily at poverty alleviation and youth education. Then in terms of poverty alleviation, providing knowledge and a nudge, small capital nudge here and there, to assist people to sort of trade themselves out of abject poverty and improve their own quality of life. So, these were programs that provided knowledge, material to self-empower. Now we're getting to a point where we're actually, and I used to say in those days, Anglo American builds infrastructure. We do knowledge and a nudge. Now we're getting to a stage where DRDGOLD is also starting to build infrastructure. And next year, there's a clinic that's being planned.

There's a refurbishment of a school that's being planned. And these are big numbers that are being committed, and they're worth spending, because every life that's changed provides just that tiny bit more of social stability in the areas where we operate. And you need a socially stable environment within which to operate a business successfully. We believe that, and I'll continue to believe that for as long as I'm around. Then in terms of share price movement, I think what has been encouraging in terms of share price movement, in the more recent past, the last 24 to 18 months, it does seem as though the lag that we'd experienced in 2024 when we were talking about all of these big programs and the production numbers were simply not there, it does look as though that lag has been reduced, and maybe it's not there at all.

We are tracking the other members in our industry. We're tracking our peers. And our peers are tracking the gold price like most of us do. So, it's definitely showing signs of having stabilized, and hopefully that has something to do with maybe slightly more confidence in the performance of the business and also restoring a measure of credibility in terms of delivering and delivering on these big projects. And I did show you the numbers earlier on. I did, and it's been part of our narrative now for the last few years of how we believe setting up all of this infrastructure, spending all of this capital, will set us up in terms of net cash flow. And our company hasn't changed its value proposition or what it seeks to deliver in terms of its value proposition. Dividend flow is still a very big part of that.

And we do hope that if things remain more or less the same, if we can contain costs, if we can drive those throughput numbers and production numbers, and if the gold price doesn't weaken significantly, that once this capital phase is over, the net cash flow profile of this company could look considerably more attractive. And hopefully that will also then reward those shareholders who got their timing right and that remain supportive of the stock. If you sold shares in March, you would have been paid ZAR 60 a share if you got your timing right, and I think some of you may have. And maybe those were shares that you bought for ZAR 8 or ZAR 15 or ZAR 25. So it is a stock that does reward very significantly if you understand the dynamics that drive the performance of the stock.

Hopefully in terms of a production delivery and future investment perspective, we could give you some material to work with. Then you need to go and do your numbers with regards to gold price performance and so forth. The one undertaking that I do give is that for as long as we can, we will remain unhedged and we will provide you full exposure to movements in the gold price so that you can trade the stock on either side of the cycle. Right. In terms of looking ahead, I cannot get enough of this picture. It is just such an impressive piece of engineering, and it is enormous. The scale is not fully appreciated by just looking at the picture. Just in terms of 2027 guidance, we did try to be realistic in terms of our guidance.

It is obviously quite a bit more than what it was last year, and not all of that is to do with the increase in volume throughput. There are some of these guidance numbers that also pertain to the materials that Ergo is going to be mining for the year going forward. We are guiding between 160,000 oz and 170,000 oz for the financial year. Again, the assumption premised on volume throughput and on head grade and on a particular standard of recovery efficiency. Cash costs, just over ZAR 1 million a kg. All-in sustaining costs, ZAR 1.2 million. Planned capital, excuse me, of just over ZAR 3 billion for the year. Important milestones for us, Jaco spoke about some of those, but important milestones for us obviously is the completion of the DP2 plant expansion, and that is just about ready to happen.

We have a board meeting in October, and the intention is to take the board members to that plant and to show them a plant that is completed. At that stage, that particular section, the new section, to be close to operational if not operational, so that the service of the existing circuit, that that can take place. That we can have two virtually new sections up and running and ready to accommodate the 1.3 million tonne a month throughput that is envisaged for Far West Gold from next year onwards. It is important that we complete RTSF or beneficial occupation. If you want to have a better understanding of what beneficial occupation means, please just run through the presentation that we did in July. It will give you some sort of an indication as to where it needs to be.

It does not have to be the dam, does not have to be finished. The facility does not have to be finished in order to do that. It has got to be sort of 2/3 finished and more or less where Jaco is now, but there are some odds and ends that we still need to take care of. There are a few regulatory hoops that we need to jump through. Beneficial occupation is a technical term that basically means that we are now ready to start impounding material onto that facility. A big part of that initially will be the successful commissioning. It is a complex process, one that we need to get right. As Jaco said, you are not going to be taking shortcuts now on a facility that is supposed to last for 35 years.

Commissioning of the Libanon Reclamation Station. I was so relieved when we got the water usage license for the Libanon Reclamation Station. There were a number of not just our own colleagues, but also individuals working at the Department of Water and Sanitation that I know pulled out the stops to facilitate this. They knew that it was on the critical path. They were sensitive to the fact that there was a lot at stake, and they came in and they made sure that we got this, hopefully in time to deliver into the expectation that we've created with regards to 1.2 million tons a month in financial 2028. Obtaining the relevant approvals to commence construction at Withok.

We spoke about the complexity associated with that site, the fact that there's some underground geological features that we need to look into that need to be insulated from the facility over and above the liner that's going to go in. Some of the design complexities as well, especially where the two dams abut, where Withok abuts the Brakpan tailings facility. It's not a simple process and therefore we've built in some additional time to do that. It's not going to meet the 2028 timeline that we had aspired towards when we first set out with this. The initial gap, the initial hole in the volume throughput, though, we explained through until 2029 when Withok comes online, is 150,000 tons per month. So it's a relatively modest impact in the near term.

It's essential, though, that this dam's built by 2029 because that 320 million tons or rather 310 million tons of capacity that it provides is very important for the remainder of Ergo's life of mine. Then, of course, we also want to continue to explore opportunities for growth beyond South Africa. This is something that we have been talking about, and there are companies that we've had conversations with to see whether our model is appropriate for what they have left on their site. With the margins that our model has been generating and other companies have been managing to also achieve, I think a lot of the focus on tailings retreatment has sort of moved away from the impact that it has from a sustainability perspective or from a mine closure and an environmental restoration perspective to commercial aspects.

I think there's a lot of expectation and maybe even some political maneuvering with regards to legislation and so forth, that's starting to overemphasize the commercial aspect. However, things have changed in the world in the last 30, 40 odd years. The standards that we insist upon in terms of environmental closure, in terms of restoration of mining footprints, in terms of biodiversity and the restoration of ecosystems, those standards have changed. Corporates are giving undertakings. They're making promises in that regard. Promises that are going to have to be fulfilled with money that did not form part of the initial modeling. That's really where tailings retreatment hits the sweet spot.

Tailings retreatment is that part of your business, that latent value that's remained ignored for many, many years or unrecognized, that can now kick in and that can deliver into that without eroding shareholder return or the expectation of shareholder return. That is the essence of tailings retreatment. Yes, it's nice to have these super profits. Yes, it's nice to have all of these programs, but essentially what's happening here is a profitable, sustainable restoration of a poor legacy. That's something that needs to take place globally on a global scale. It's worth doing it because it has become a compelling financial proposition as well. Seven years ago, Sibanye-Stillwater had a project that they spoke about in the Far West Rand.

If, however, you looked for financial reporting on that project, the only evidence that you would've found would've been a ZAR 250 million provision in their balance sheet, an environmental provision. In other words, a cost, a liability. Today, seven years later, Sibanye, after having merged that project into DRDGOLD, owns a ZAR 15 billion asset. That's the value of their shares in DRDGOLD. So they've gone from ZAR 250 million negative, or ZAR 300 million negative, to ZAR 15 billion positive in terms of the value of the equity of their company. They have earned, or they will have earned after this dividend that's declared today, in the last two years, ZAR 955 million in dividends from their 50.1% interest in DRDGOLD. That's the value proposition that DRDGOLD can bring to your business, to your waste. You want to do it yourself, carry on.

You want to achieve success in this sort of venture or endeavor, let us through the front door. Maybe we could do something with your tails. That's our story. All right, we'll be taking-- Sorry, that was maybe a little bit of a cheek in there to end it on, but anyway, we'll take questions now. Do you guys want to join in?

Questions in the room. Please raise your hand and then state your name, and a gentleman will bring a mic to you. Once the questions in the room are done, we'll go to the online questions.

Just for the benefit of people dialing in, just state your name before.

Please, if you do not mind. Thanks.

My name is [inaudible]. I am from Element Investment [inaudible], and indulge with not really a question, but a statement. First of all, congratulations. It is a superb set of results and I do believe that DRDGOLD is a world leader in terms of what it is doing. I just wanted to just state that the one aspect that you said that you are tracking the SA gold companies, and that to me is what is have no geological risk like they do. So yes, gold price is a proxy and it is going to follow gold, but to be trading at a discount to your peers that have so many more risks from a geological point of view is just something I do not understand.

For me, it is really well done, guys, and it is so good to see that there is life in the South African gold industry through people like yourself.

Thank you very much. We appreciate that. Look, I am not going to try and explain the performance of a stock. Des Meyer is an expert. He has been doing it for 60 years. He would be able to maybe explain those trends. The fact is, there does seem to be a correlation, and we do not want to lag. I think that is the main thing, and we were lagging for a period of time, and we seem to have overcome that. It is tracking the industry a little bit more closely. But thank you very much for your kind words. Hopefully, we can continue to deliver into those expectations. It is a long way down. Mr. Davel, welcome.

Mr. Pretorius. Thank you. Riaan Davel, previous CFO and shareholder. From my personal point of view, just considering the significant capital expenditure, substantial contribution to the fiscus, and a very healthy, ZAR 0.50 interim dividend, I just want to comment relative to the final dividend of ZAR 0.40 last year, the ZAR 1.20 is definitely not a stingy dividend. So thank you very much for that. Just a comment now, and well done with the results. That is brilliant.

Thank you, Riaan. Look, a lot of thinking went into that dividend because what you obviously do not want to do is be silly about the dividend that you pay, because next year you are hopefully declaring another dividend, and do you really then want to have a sort of a 40% drop on your dividend? Do you have to go to, I mean, thank you very much, Nedbank, for this facility, but if you do not need to draw against it, you should not want to draw against it.

So, we did put a lot of thinking into that in order for it to be a responsible dividend in the circumstances. By the way, just on the point of tax, and you have given me the opportunity to do that. It is one of my favorite topics as a proud taxpayer. So it is not only the ZAR 490 million in income tax. Was it ZAR 490 million in income tax? There is also the ZAR 312 million in pay you earn. So it was close on ZAR 800 million paid in taxes. That does not take into account rates and taxes and VAT that was paid this year. So I think there was probably a contribution towards fiscus in excess of ZAR 1 billion this year out of our operations.

Martin Creamer from Mining Weekly. You've said you've got a greater ambition when it comes to renewable energy. What is that ambition? What do you see as the final part of it? Secondly, there's platinum group metal tailings around the place. There is an opportunity in platinum, is there not? Have you really studied that to the full? How far are you from doing something with regard to platinum?

Yeah, certainly. No, thank you, Martin. In terms of additional renewables, Jaco worked on a program. You saw the ZAR 145 million asset for sale. So he worked on a project, and in fact, the team took it to licensing to the point where they can start constructing. Then we sold it, but we locked in a number of units. 30 MW?

30 MW.

Yeah. So we've got a 30-MW facility coming our way through the grid in a few years from now. So hopefully, with the additional power that's going to be used at Far West, it will have the impact or the effect that our carbon footprint doesn't grow in size because of more power from Eskom. Look, the power station, I'm trying to encourage, I'm the main cheerleader when it comes to maybe more investment into solar. I think my team is still recovering from the previous process, but I think there's opportunity too. We've got this fantastic expertise in the group. I think we should take advantage of it. I don't know if we should only own only one solar farm. Maybe we should own more than one. But, yeah, I'm not getting a fully supported from the team on that one just yet.

Sorry, what was, on the platinum. Obviously, the obvious partner for platinum would be Sibanye-Stillwater, and it would be entirely up to them to invite us into the room. There was planning done a long time ago on that, and we do know that there's plenty of opportunity, multi-billion rand of NPV opportunities in that regard. I don't think we'll buy anything, but there's no reason why we can't participate technically and maybe get paid a fee as a member of the group. The opportunity is there, and it'll be a case of Sibanye inviting us into the room. There's a lot of work happening in Sibanye in terms of tightening up on the asset portfolio, and I know that there's a program, and they'll talk about that. I'm sure that they do talk about that, spoke about that at their capital markets day as well.

It's a big company with a lot of moving parts. Everything has its turn, and everything has a priority, and I'll be very surprised if we're not involved in that conversation.

Okay. We're going to take some questions.

Camilla, sorry, there's another question. Sorry.

My name is John [inaudible]. What about uranium? Is there an opportunity there?

I think uranium will be the next CEO's sort of focus area. I will tell you exactly why. When uranium became a thing many years ago, when, who was it? The outfit out at Mine Waste, Gordon Miller and then-

Rand Uranium.

That was not Rand Uranium, it was Mine Waste Solutions. Remember that Mine Waste Solutions was going to be primarily uranium, and they raised a lot of money, CAD 125 million, sold their gold forward, sold their gold CAD 400 an oz in order to fund a uranium circuit. I went to go and see a gentleman who worked at Areva called Daniel Wouters, and he will forgive me for reminding him of this conversation, but I think he was right.

Said to him, "Listen, everyone is doing all this uranium stuff with tailings, and I am feeling, am I the only idiot in the room not wanting to pursue that because we have the largest tailings portfolio?" He said, "Whatever you do, don't do tailings and uranium. Don't do a dual product stream in terms of tailings. Focus, because you will favor the one at the cost of the other.

You are going to be producing lots of uranium but not much gold at the cost of your gold efficiency. Or you are going to be producing a lot of gold, but at the cost of your uranium efficiency. They are not happy partners in the same circuit. That is in terms of secondary mining. Primary mining is obviously the opposite. I have a bias when it comes to uranium from tailings, and there is going to have to be a very compelling argument made by my colleagues here to justify or motivate large capital amounts to build a tailings uranium circuit as part of our current throughput profile. Not a fan.

Niël, if I can expand on that.

Yes, please do, Jaco.

The two processes are on the opposite side of the pH scale. Uranium recovery happens in the acidic side of things, where you are leaching it with sulfuric acid. Gold obviously happens in the alkaline stage, right up at a pH of 10.5. It is exactly what Niël is saying. You are going to sacrifice one for the other to do that recovery. Ergo did that I think about before 2000s, Ergo treated uranium and gold. Stopped it for that reason. Mine Waste Solutions did the exact same. Also treated uranium and gold, and at a point in time stopped doing that because you sacrifice one for the other.

So to-

Technology. Sorry.

Is there no new technology?

No, unfortunately not at this point in time, no.

If you look at our average yield, the third slide. Our very first, third slide. It is important that we, because we quote these numbers and it has become so much part of our language that we do not really appreciate exactly what they mean. Look at that number there. Where is the recovery? Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Look at there, 0.193. There is a reason why we say 0.193 g a ton. Very good reason. If that was 0.183, you multiply that by 3 million, that is 30 kg. That is ZAR 60 million of revenue that you lose because you got that second digit wrong. So your uranium has got to give you an additional ZAR 60 million in net profit in order to justify sacrificing 0.01 g of gold production. That resource does not exist, not in South Africa. Not at these throughput rates. Right, Camilla, I think we have, is there anyone else in the room?

Is there one more?

Oh, Martin.

I just want to harp on what the Minerals Council South Africa and a whole group of individuals has been saying. South Africa is falling behind the rest of the world when modernization of technology is involved. I cannot see that quite happening with you guys on the operational side, because there are so few people that do what you do. There was a clear picture that they painted that some of the main jurisdictions in the world are ahead of us, and that we are quite badly behind on the modernization front. Have you people looked at that, or are there any ways you can do things better? Of course, this AI crops up all the time, but how you use that is important.

Most of the time when they explain the use of it in this context, when they discuss the modernization, was that it was creating jobs rather than actually diminishing jobs, particularly in the operational front. I do not know whether there is any modernization mechanism that you can bring in that would help matters. Would you think you have reached the stage of modernization that is needed?

In terms of digitization and using AI and so forth, I think AI is a very helpful tool to better understand data. AI shouldn't be a decision-making tool. It should be an analytical tool. Something that you use to understand more data better in order to inform your decision-making. So I would be very reluctant for people to sort of just mechanically follow numbers on a screen and then say, "All right, well, AI is saying I must do this, that, and the following." It's important that people understand what it is that they are dealing with, because if things go wrong, AI is not going to fix it for you. You need to understand your process, and you need to be able to do it yourself.

I think in terms of big data, we've been doing big data in any event now for the last 15 years to track and understand and maintaining stable state, the throughput rates that we're doing. When we're separating out 200 parts per billion, you do need big data and that's being reported on an ongoing basis. With regards to new technologies, the UFR, the upflow reactor could be part of that cracking the code and making that small incremental change. There's never not some kind of research happening. It's just being able to scale it. That process will never end. It will continue. We're still putting back 0.17 g, 0.18 g, 0.15 g of gold per ton. We're still putting back onto our tailings, in some instances a little bit more. At some point or another, there might be a different kind of process.

Can actually probably extract what's remaining there as well. It's a never-ending endeavor. But we're excited about the upflow reactor. It is showing good promise.

Why are you excited about it?

It reduces your residue grade. It's one more pass. Once it's gone through CIL, it goes into the upflow reactor, and then there's some more absorption taking place.

Considering that to prove itself, you weren't convinced the last time.

Well, we did pilot scale. I think what we don't want to do is create expectations and say, "We believe it's going to give us this, that, and the following." But even on a conservative interpretation, we're committing a lot of money and we're doing it because we think the technology works. Just before you start modeling it, we want to give you proper numbers before you start bringing it into a model.

Okay.

Thanks, Camilla.

We're going to go to the online questions. Arnold van Graan asked, "Niël, is it fair to say you're keen to see Vision 2028 through to delivery? How do you think about leadership continuity beyond that point?

Sure. I'd love to. Everyone in this room who works for DRDGOLD who is younger than 40, can you put up your hand, please? All right. There you see it. A lot of young people working for the company, and there are a lot of smart people already being positioned for the next generation of management. I'm confident that we've got the depth within the company to deal with both a crisis scenario and also with a managed and structured scenario.

Okay. Nick Holland, he says, "Niël, are you pointing to a change in operating plans at Ergo with more reliance on trucked high-grade ore for the foreseeable future? Where is this coming from and for how long will this go on?

What we're pointing towards is not a change, the opposite of change. There will still be trucking going on for the foreseeable future, but not an increase in trucking. No.

Nick Holland asked another question. "The deadline for approval of the TOC approaches. If no approval by December, can you give us a sense of how you'll play the uncertainty into your revised plans?

We will just have to camp out and bang on the door and say, "Listen, can we please have it?" like we did with some of the other licenses. Jaco, you want to comment on that?

Yes, it is important that we do get to that timeline. If we do not, the backup plans would be, that is why we have implemented Daggafontein. Daggafontein takes the 750,000 off the Brakpan tailings dam. We have got a bit of leeway in that process, but it is important that we do hit that end-of-year timeline. But it is not a humpty dumpty, fall-off-the-wall exercise. We do have some additional capacity.

Yes. If Withok does not come online in 2030, then it means until it does, Ergo would have to be running at somewhere between 750 and 1 million tons a month.

Right.

You will shave another 650 off its volume profile. Not ideal, but as Jaco is saying, it is not existential, just annoying, an inconvenience, and it is going to cost money.

Mark Du Toit asked, "Well done on the great results. Could you expand on your capital allocation policy? What dividend payout can we expect going forward? What is the expected benefits from the upflow reactors costing ZAR 880 million in CapEx?

As the capital reduces and provided everything stays the same, the dividend will grow. Simple as that.

Okay.

That is why we include the capital profile.

[inaudible] asks, says, "Well done, guys. Please guide on AISC and AIC for financial year 2028 and financial year 2029, unit cash costs as well. Can you also guide on running CapEx number post Vision 2028?

No, I don't think-

Sure. That is so-

I don't think we give guidance on those numbers that far into the future. There are just too many assumptions that we don't control. You could extrapolate them more or less and form a view on the assumptions, the veracity of assumptions that we use for our guidance. But I don't think we can do 2028 and 2029 all-in sustaining cost guidance. CapEx guidance is there. That's pretty much as far as I think we're prepared to go.

Jandre Pieterse. "What are your expectations of cash tax versus accounting tax going forward?

Oh, gosh. Somebody needs to explain to me what that is. Why don't you take that one, Henriette?

On the income tax side, deferred tax will keep on growing. From a cash flow point of view, our income tax balance will continue growing as well, in the foreseeable future. We still have a big capital balance for Far West, for instance, for the year ahead, but if the gold price performs in line with what it's performed with in the past, even Far West can go into a tax-paying position during the next financial year. Ergo will definitely still be, even with the planned capital spend on the Withok side, they will continue to be in a tax-paying position next year.

I think I'm correct in saying, Henriette, that with the solar less than two years ago, and recognizing 125% of the tax-

125%

It's gone. It's been expended. It disappears very quickly in this sort of margin gold price margin environment. Look, I think it's important that that number is out there because sometimes the contribution of the industry, of South Africa and the mining industry, is understood in terms of social and labor plans, only in terms of social and labor plans or some sort of equity participation thing and so forth. Somehow we ignore or we don't really spend enough time reflecting on the physical contribution, the contribution in taxes that this industry is making, and something that I think I'm surprised that there's not more awareness amongst communities that are affected by mining industry. That you see, and I just mentioned like ZAR 1 billion in tax.

The sad reality is that we see very little evidence of any of that billion rand finding its way back into our surrounding communities. If you look at the kind of services that is being provided there, at the kind of help assistance that our company needs to provide in order just for basic things to be delivered into those communities. I really think that as much as we look at the social contribution of mining companies in the context of regulation and so forth, maybe from time to time, we also need to reflect just how efficiently tax revenues are being reinvested into constituencies. As a percentage of our contribution into the fiscus, we are seeing very little of that being plowed back into our communities, into the areas where we operate. Very little.

Thank you.

Which is wrong.

Dineo Faku asks, "Good morning. Can you say where outside South Africa you are looking to expand?

Yes, we are looking at Africa and South America.

Herbert Kharivhe says, "Is diesel a meaningful input in your production process?

Cool. Indeed.

Yes.

Very much so.

We do, at this stage, have got lots of yellow machine hire. If you look at the massive projects that we are undertaking on the RTSF, Kevin, how many yellow machines are on RTSF at this stage? 167. 167 to 100 big pieces of equipment currently running at RTSF. On the operational side, from a cleanup operation, all of the cleanup sites, we use lots of machine hire, and then the trucking expenses. Biggest portion of that is a diesel component. Yes, diesel is impacting us quite substantially, especially on the Ergo side, less of an exit seen at this stage on the Far West Gold Recoveries side. I think that leads Matthew Whitelaw to his question, "What price have you assumed for diesel in your financial year 2027 cost guidance?" Look, you've seen that the diesel price has gone up and it has gone down.

We have built in the latest information that we could, and we built in some risk factors. You are going to always have things that is directly impacted, from a diesel point of view, our diesel usage versus your deliveries was more expensive, et cetera. We have brought in some risk factors into our budgeting process, but it was an interesting year to budget.

What's that range, about between 11% and 17% risk factor on some of the-

Yes

components. Yeah.

Okay.

It's part of a composite, really.

Perfect. I think some of the other questions are a little bit more detailed, which we'll take time to respond after the session.

Okay. Thank you very much everyone for joining us, and we really appreciate your attendance. Please join us for some snacks.

Thank you for again joining us for this DRDGOLD's Interim Results for Financial Year 2026. Before we start this presentation, I want to take a moment to remember Jan Nelson, who passed away earlier this week. Jan was a friend, and I'm ashamed to say that in recent times, I wasn't much of a friend to him, but his legacy lives on. He laid the foundation for what has become a very successful company in Pan African Resources, and we will always re-remember him, not just as an astute leader and, and a businessman, but also as a good person, and he, he lived a life worth living. Joining me today as usual, are Henriette and Jaco, our CFO and COO, respectively. They will be doing most of the talking today. Henriette has now fully assumed the position of Chief Financial Officer.

That is effective from the first of February. Portfolio is now hers, and I again want to say congratulations and good luck, Henriette. The transition is also now over in this portfolio, as is the restructuring of the finance portfolio, which, together with certain operational changes, also saw the promotion of Mpho Mashatola to head up corporate finance, and adding to her role in treasury, tax, financial, and integrated reporting, amongst other things, the role of investor relations, and she will also join Jaco now on the business development team. The format for today's presentation will once again be myself presenting the highlights. I will then hand over to Jaco, who will take you through operational performance. Jaco will hand over to Henriette, who will take you through the financial results.

She will hand you back to Jaco to update you on Vision 2028 and projects, and then I will cover what is left afterwards. Can we move to the next slide, please? This presentation will again contain certain forward-looking statements, and I therefore request that you familiarize yourself with the disclaimer. Next slide, please. To kick things off, performance at a glance. You will have noticed that our board has approved an interim cash dividend of ZAR 0.50 per share. This is our nineteenth consecutive financial year of declaring a dividend, and this one is special. We thought, when we embarked on Vision 2028, that by now we would be carrying some debt, substantial debt, in fact, on the balance sheet. That by paying a dividend, that was going to be a stretch.

Of course, with a surge in gold price, things could not be any different, and we are very pleased that we were able to distribute a portion of our free cash. Speaking of free cash, it increased by 149% over the comparative period to ZAR 791 million, and that has pushed our cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period to ZAR 1.7 billion. Revenue, just over ZAR 5 billion, showed a 33% increase. Operating profit of ZAR 2.7 billion was up by 72%. We saw a 99% increase in headline earnings, and we reinvested ZAR 1.6 billion in capital reinvestment, mostly towards Vision 2028.

In terms of sustainable development, you'll see that, so, Ergo solar plant is very apparent in the set of results. Our carbon footprint shrunk by 93.4%, and electricity consumption off the grid is down 28%. In terms of operational performance, I think we've mentioned this, and we'll just mention it again, that Ergo's current design is one of reduced throughput rate with a larger proportion of throughput from high volume, low-grade sites. In this regard, you'll recall that in the latter part of 2024, we were almost entirely reliant on clean up at mature sites when our water usage licenses were being delayed for the replacement sites. So the current mix that we are mining is quite different, with a low proportion of that high-grade material that was always a welcome part of the blend.

On the whole, though, the group still trended towards the higher range of guidance, with 2.3 tons of gold produced. The throughput was 12.5 million tons for the period, which on a flat extrapolation, takes us to roughly 25 million tons for the year. I think this provides some perspective on what we are targeting in terms of Vision 2028, which is designed towards a throughput rate of 3 million tons per month, which will take it to 36 million tons per year and 6 tons of gold output per year. So certainly, a project worth investing in. A pleasant outcome for which we have the gold price to thank, is an all-in sustaining margin of 48%, or rather of 48%. For the rest, in terms of operational, the numbers pretty much follow guidance.

I now hand you over to Jaco for some added color on the production numbers.

Thanks, Niël. Appreciate the intro. So if we start with the Ergo operational trends, the volumes, as you can see from first graph for H1 2026, is down in comparison to both periods, H1 and H2 of 2025. This is mainly due to three reasons: firstly, rain and weather interruptions, obviously during the summer period. We've had four power interruptions during this period as well, despite our PV and BESS system operating at 96% efficiency. And then lastly, it's a deliberate strategy to limit our deposition tonnage, while we're developing infrastructure like Withok and Daggafontein, that will extend our Life of Mine as part of Vision 2028. So, those are the main reasons for the volume reduction.

You'll also see that on yield, there's a slightly down, about 0.01 gram per ton from H1 2025, but up at the same level for the second period of 2025. And then the reduction in gold is therefore almost, I would say, 50% in terms of tons and 50% in terms of yield. We look at the Far West operational trends, volume throughput, very constant. A lot simpler circuit at this point in time, with two mining sites in comparison to Ergo, where we've got 15 mining sites at any given point in time.

However, the yield, we did have 0.023 gram per tonne lower yield in comparison to H1 2025, and this is again mainly due to an overall lower head grade received during this period. And that is due to the reduction of Driefontein 5 coming to an end. Looking at a consolidated group operating basis then for the group, you can see the impact of the volumes, of Ergo's volumes coming through in the first graph. The second graph, there's a slight yield improvement in comparison to H2 of 2025. But then it's lower in comparison to H1 2025. Therefore, the lower tonnes and yield culminated in a 9% reduction in kilograms for the six months, and then 3% higher than H2 2025. I'm gonna hand over to Henriette for financials.

Thanks, Jaco. Good morning, everybody. It's my privilege to present the financial performance of DRDGOLD to you. Maybe just to start off, and not to break tradition from our previous CFO, I would really just like to thank every single person that has been involved in achieving these excellent results. Yes, we know that we had an excellent performance from a gold price point of view, but we had also had stable performance, cost containment, which was in line with our expectation from the previous year. So thank you to the operations, to all of our contractors, as part of this journey, to our shared services and our financial teams that are involved in this, in achieving these results.

Like I already mentioned, star performer absolutely was the gold price over the last six months, over the last year. It increased by 43% from the, from the comparable six-month period, from about ZAR 1.5 million per kilogram to just over two point one million rand per kilogram. This is actually not it couldn't have come at a better time, with our massive capital spend. So we have really taken advantage of that gold price performance. Okay, so if we go into the financial results from an Ergo point of view, you can see a very nice trend upwards from half year FY 2025 to all the way to 3.6 billion rand for half year FY 2026. This is despite a 7% decrease in our gold sold.

One trend that we're exceptionally proud of is that cash operating cost line on the Ergo side. If you look at Ergo, for the six month ended December 2025, the increase for that to the ZAR 1.9 billion was only 2%. Despite increases that was above inflation in your reagents, and some of the consumables, we actually saw a 23% decrease in electricity costs on the Ergo side. And that is despite the 13% rate increase from Eskom. Jaco will take you through some of the performance later from a solar point of view. That then moves straight into that operating profit line, which almost doubled if you compare the six month ending December 2024 to December 2025, at just under ZAR 1.7 billion per kilogram.

If we go to Far West Gold Recoveries, similar trend to that of Ergo. So also a 7% decrease in gold sold, but that 43% increase in revenue, in gold price, taking us to just above ZAR 1.4 billion in revenue for Far West Gold Recoveries. On the cash operating side, as I mentioned in the previous, presentation, Far West is in a different life cycle than Ergo. So this little operation is actually gearing up to growth, to double up its capacity, so additional people are appointed. The plant is a little bit older than when we started up 6 years ago, so consumables are higher, and that is why you're seeing this increase in costs.

The cash operating costs in ZAR million terms increased about 14% from the comparative six months. Still, if you look at that operating profit trend, it is magnificent. From about ZAR 750 million to almost ZAR 1.1 billion in operating profit for Far West. Just something to mention, this is a 73% operating margin, which is quite substantial. Then just from a group operating trends point of view, operating margin, we already sort of touched on. You can see that nice increase, upwards curve, ending up at 54% operating margin for the six months. All-in sustaining cost, also a very nice upward trend, ending at just over 48%. Just to mention, our all-in sustaining cost is about ZAR 1.1 million per kilogram.

If we can sustain that all-in sustaining cost in the future, everything, all of the increases in the gold price is always upside. So very nice margin, if you look at a gold price of ZAR 2.5 million, where we are currently. Then free cash flow, this is a very important measure for us. We believe that this is actually the one to, to manage quite substantially. I think Niël already mentioned that we expected to be in a totally different situation with all of the capital that we're spending. We ended up the year at, the six months at just under ZAR 800 million, after spending CapEx of ZAR 1.8 billion.

This, this actually, this is the one that gave us the opportunity to declare that ZAR 0.50 interim dividend, which I believe is the biggest interim dividend that we have declared from a DRDGOLD point of view. Headline earnings per share almost doubled from the comparable six-month period, from ZAR 1.12 per share to ZAR 2.23 per share. Okay. If we just stand still on the statement of profit and loss, revenue, like we already mentioned, 7% decrease in gold sold, but 43% increase in rand per kilogram gold price, going straight into that bottom, ach, into that top line. Cost of sales, very proud of that figure. Yes, it's a 4% increase, which sort of trends inflation or is similar to inflation at this point of view.

But all of us know that mining inflation tends to be higher. So this is something that we are very closely monitoring and managing. So very proud of that 4% that it increased period-on-period. Gross profit from operations, very healthy at ZAR 2.5 billion. Then if we go to the administration and other expenses, that increase is 23%, which is quite substantial. The biggest drivers of that increase was our ever, our LTI, our long-term incentive, share-based payment expense. That goes through that line, and our share price increased a lot from the previous period. Okay. Maybe to stand still on that loss on the sale of asset. So that ZAR 5 million relates to our sale of Stellar in December to NOA.

So as we announced in December, we received about proceeds of about ZAR 147 million from NOA, recouping most of our costs. So that ZAR 5 million is the little bit that's left after all of the consolidation entries. But more importantly enough, paving the way for a, for future agreements, which Jaco will also take you through later. Then on the finance income side, again, our cash interest all more than what we would have expected if we look back at it. But we did see a decrease for this from the previous six months, and that's due to Rand Refinery not actually paying us a dividend in this six months period.

Yeah, finance expenses, that mostly relates to the unwinding of our rehabilitation provision, but very much in line with previous periods, ending profit before tax at ZAR 2.4 billion. On the income tax line, and I'll touch on this line in the balance sheet or in the statement of financial position again. That whole ZAR 490 million actually relates to deferred tax. Okay. Very healthy profit of ZAR 1.9 billion for the six months. Okay. If we go to the statement of financial position, so you'll see in the three periods how that line, property, plant, and equipment, just keeps on growing. And that is our investment that we are doing into this Vision 2028 project.

That balance, we expect to still keep on going, growing for the next 2-3 years. So very excited to see that, that balance, increase. Then just to stand still on non-current investments and other assets, that balance relates mostly to our investment in Guardrisk, our rehabilitation trust funds, which is over ZAR 1 billion. I believe that's quite a good position to be in, and we can be proud of that. The other movement, big movement in that balance from the previous, from the financial year, 30 June, was Rand Refinery. So Rand Refinery, we measure at fair value, and we saw a ZAR 150 million increase in the fair value relating to Rand Refinery. Cash and cash equivalents, ZAR 1.7 billion. I'll allude to that in the cash flow statement. Okay.

Then on other current assets, maybe just to stand still on that as well. We, although you didn't see an income tax on the income statement, we actually had to pay a provisional tax on the Ergo side of about ZAR 230 million. This is because our forecasted profitability shows that we will pay tax for the full year end. So there's about ZAR 230 million tax receivable included in there. The other balance, and one of our more exciting stories that we've got, is the inclusion of Kloof 2 dump from Sibanye. So we've added about 67 million tons to our mineral resources.

This transaction, all of the decommissioned dumps from Sibanye, was already envisaged in the 2008 agreements that we entered into with Sibanye. Due to the timing of the transaction and some regulatory approvals that still need to require, we couldn't—we didn't receive the trust funds relating to this asset now before 31 December. That will only happen now in the next few months. There is ZAR 117 million included in that other current assets line. Okay. Equity, ZAR 10.7-ZAR 10.8 billion, that will keep on growing with the profitability from our operations. Provision for environmental rehabilitation increased with the unwinding for the six months, and then that inclusion of the Kloof 2 rehabilitation liability.

Deferred tax asset, that is now our single biggest deferred tax liability, sorry, apologies. That is now our single biggest liability on the balance sheet, and that balance has grown substantially, as you can see, over the three periods. We expect that balance to keep on growing. We are spending more capital, but we are actually using that capital allowances on our site. So our asset base and our tax base keeps on growing bigger apart. Also maybe to note is that once a year, we determine our weighted average forecasted tax rate based on our Life of Mine plans. If the gold price continues as it is at this current levels, there will definitely be an increase in our deferred tax rate, which will make that balance even bigger.

On current liabilities, that remained very stable from 30 June now to 31 December, although it increased from the previous comparative period, and that was just due to accelerated capital spend. Then we're sitting with a exceptional good current ratio of three, due to our high cash balance and the increase in the current assets with a stable current liabilities. Okay. Statement of cash flows, probably one of our favorites always. If you just look at that cash generated from operations, which more than doubled from the comparative six months period at ZAR 2.5 billion, that is exceptional. Finance income increased, due to our higher cash balances. Dividends received, I already alluded to, we didn't receive anything from Rand Refinery in this period.

And that income tax, that provisional tax payment that I explained, sitting the income tax paid of about ZAR 230 million-ZAR 240 million. If we move to investing activities, there you can see that ZAR 1.7 billion that we reinvested in our capital for Vision 2028. That balance will also as we still have a bit to go for this financial year, so that will keep on increasing. Then environmental rehabilitation payments, this is specifically our continuous cladding of the Brakpan tailings facility. So we keep on rehabilitating as we grow that dump. Proceeds from assets held for sale, I already explained Stellar to you, so that is what we received for the sale of our investment.

Then moving on to dividends, the 345 relate to the ZAR 0.40 final dividend that we paid for our financial year, 2025. And yeah, if you then just see net increase in cash, in cash equivalents, about ZAR 430 million. Taking our cash and cash equivalents balance to a very healthy ZAR 1.7 billion, as at 31 December. Yeah, if I can now hand over to Jaco to take you through some of the exciting projects that we have delivered.

Thanks, everybody. So yeah, just starting off with our... Sorry, let me just go back to that slide. Then starting off with the solar and BESS project. We've seen a reduction of approximately 28% for the group. And for Ergo, it is down by 38%, taking into consideration that this asset has been operating since November of last year. So this is comparing six months of last year, H1 to H2 of 2025. There's a 23% reduction in electricity cost, and that is despite the 12.7% increase in cost. So in total, in excess of 35% reduction in the cost. We also had a just shy of ZAR 50 million worth of wheeling and offsetting revenues.

That's essentially offset against other Eskom accounts within the group itself. This project makes sure that we've got all of the daily consumption for a majority of the big sites, being Rooikraal, Brakpan, and then the Ergo plant, running off the PV and BESS circuit. I think important for us to distinguish between the Ergo PV and BESS system and the transaction that we did referring to Stellar and NOA. The Stellar/NOA transaction was specifically focused at reducing our carbon footprint in anticipation for Vision 2028 and what we're busy with in Vision 2028. As we bring Vision 2028 online, we bring DP2 online, we're bringing the RTSF online, and Daggafontein online. The power consumption will increase. Because of the power consumption increase, your carbon footprint will increase.

So this project was aimed at anticipating what the load would be for Ergo and Far West, and in anticipation of that increase in load, to be proactive in how we can secure additional power for the operations. So just in a nutshell, the Stellar project is located in Polokwane and is designed for 150 MW solar. It's only solar plant design. We, as mentioned by Henriette, have sold our 100% interest in the project. We took a 100% interest in this project to develop it to a point where we knew that the project will be viable going forward.

In this process, we have secured now 30 megawatts, or approximately 20% of the power, to be generated by Stellar, at a very, very competitive price. So not only is this project designed to reduce our carbon footprint, it also reduces our operating cost going forward. And with electricity being in the top four or top five of our major cost components, this has got a significant impact on the business going forward. And as mentioned, this is aligned with the Vision 2028 and increased production that we anticipate. Just having a quick look at the big five capital projects, two of them at Ergo and three of them at Far West Gold Operations. The two at Ergo, just to recap, that's the Daggafontein operation, bringing that back online.

That's a TSF, where we intend to deposit onto Daggafontein and reduce the deposition onto the Brakpan facility. The second one is then the recommissioning of the Withok TSF. That one is in authorizations phase, and I'll take you through some of the details of these projects a little bit later on. This slide is just to recap what the five projects are all about. At Far West Gold Recoveries, we've got the three, which are all linked to almost one project. It's the expansion of the DP2 plant from 600,000 tons to 1.2 million tons. Construction of the Regional Tailings Storage Facility, or RTSF, as you will hear us refer to this going forward, and then the piping infrastructure connecting the plant and the RTSF to one another.

Just looking at some additional data on the Ergo project. So Daggafontein going very, very well. We virtually complete on the installation of the pipelines. One or two tie-ins to be completed, and the project is on schedule and on budget, and anticipating to start with this project in Q1 of 2027. This facility provides 120 million tons of deposition capacity, and a 20-year life of mine. The second one is Withok, which is the bigger project. Withok, as mentioned, is in the authorization stage. We have successfully appointed the IPP as part of the Department of Water and Sanitation's process with Dam Safety Office.

And all environmental approvals are still pending, but all of them, we've met the conditions up to this point. Now, again, the commissioning of this project is only anticipated within the next three years, and it forms part of a longer process towards the end of 2028. And it will create 310 million tons of deposition capacity at a significant rate of 1.3 million tons per month for at least a 20-year life of mine. Looking at Far West Gold operations, and there's a few slides that will follow on to this, going to give you a better indication of each one of the three legs of this project.

Firstly, the DP2 plant, you'll see on the photograph, the left top corner, there's a big concrete building. That's the smelt house. Something that we are very keen on getting to commission because currently, we do not have our own smelt house facilities. So one of the things that we're obviously focusing on is to get that commissioned in Q1 of 2028. We're approximately 80% complete with the plant, and as mentioned, expecting to start that all of this in Q1, 2027. The pipelines are 135 km. This includes the connection between the plant, DP2, and RTSF, as well as the new site, the new, new Libanon site, connecting that on onto the infrastructure.

We're about 77% complete, and we've completed 104 km out of the total. On the RTSF itself, I'll show you some pictures just now. Lining is sitting at about 1.2 million sq m. We require about 3.4 million sq m of liner for beneficial occupation. Beneficial occupation is aligned with when we anticipate to start this project, which is Q1 2027. The RTSF is designed for 800 million tons deposition capacity at a rate of 2.4 million tons per month, and that will give us a 30-year life of mine. Now, just to put that into perspective, we're currently processing at Far West Gold Recoveries only 600,000 tons per month, up to 600.

We intend to increase that to 1.2 million tons per month as part of this DP2 expansion phase. We can double up on that as well, in future. All right, just comparison-wise, the left-hand picture, you can see June 2025, where we were still barely starting with the earthworks, and we had some of that wall constructed already. On the right-hand side, what you can see is the liner already being installed. You can see the liner over the wall, which means that the wall had to be at. So, the wall's got to be 16 meters high, 100 meters in diameter, the starter wall. The wall had to be 14 meters high in order for us to do the lining over the wall.

You put another 4 meters or 3 meters on top of that. That is currently what you're seeing on the southern side. The liner, where it stops currently, the black surface that you're seeing, that is virtually on the point that we need for beneficial occupation. Obviously, we need to complete the balance of that section towards the left and the right of the black liner to get beneficial occupation. DP2 plant, that's going extremely well. As mentioned, what you can see here is just these top left-hand corner is just the elution facilities. The MCCs and some of the internal electrical infrastructure are on the left, left bottom side. The top right, you can see the thickener, the new thickener coming in.

And then bottom right is some of the CIL tanks and some of the screens being constructed. As mentioned, this will take us up to 1.2 million tons, and this project is on time and on budget, ready for commissioning in Q1 2027. So just referring to what Henriette has mentioned with the Kloof 2 dump, that's been added to our mineral resource classification, about 67 million tons, adding 480,000 ounces.

After the depletion of our mineral resources through the work that we've done through the last six months, we end up with an increase of 55 million tons to 741 million tons of resource, and an increase of 350,000 ounces to 6.2 million ounces, after adding the Kloof 2 dump and removing the depleted mineral resources.

I think that is the last slide on mine. And, Niël, I'm gonna hand back over to you.

Thanks, Jaco. Yes, and, and I think we're probably underplaying the last slide a little bit. It's, it's really encouraging to see an increase in, in resources, where, typically, unless there's some form of an acquisition, most companies are having to adjust their resource and reserve statements downwards off the same footprint. Talking to sustainable development performance, and this is a very important part of our business, as you would well know. It's become a, a very important part of our, our brand identity, both on the environmental and social side. So moving to the next slide on environmental performance. The one that clearly stands out here is electricity consumption. You just look at that trend, and that is not that we're using less power, it's just that we're using less power off the grid.

Marginally less power, perhaps, because of the load turns, but certainly less power off the grid. That's really the reason for that big swing. And then, as we said earlier, that 34% decrease in carbon footprint. And the encouraging thing is, and I think this is where this is such a good example of what sustainable development is all about, it's not only is there a very significant financial and risk benefit for our business, but there's a very significant nature, nature dividend as well. If this is not what your sustainable development program, then this is not the kind of results that it yields, then it's not really sustainable development. Then it's something that maybe resembles sustainable development. But in order to be sustainable, it needs to be sustainable. Simple as that. Just on the next slide, then, on social performance.

Here again, we work off the premise that, and this is a very important part of our strategic thinking, that a business is not going to be successful if it's an island of stability in an ocean of social instability. So there is a very real benefit from a sustainability perspective, and just being around and being able to optimize your asset portfolio in making some sort of a difference, and delivering on a very deliberate and strategic campaign to enhance socioeconomic stability in the areas where you operate, and to assist communities to become increasingly self-sustainable. The ZAR 25.6 million was spent on socioeconomic development, and that I can tell you, it's not a one-off spend in terms of stuff that's been handed over. That is a spend in terms of establishing a platform and a footprint of which participants can leverage and go forward.

So to use the cliché of a fish and a fishing rod, that was ZAR 25 million spent on fishing rods, not on fish. Moving on to the next slide, on the share price movement. I must say, it's very pleasing to see that our share price is now following the same trend of that of our peers. Obviously, towards 2023, 2024, when we had a lot of explaining to do, when we were falling behind on a whole host of things, and we simply were just getting there in this transitional phase, establishing the platform of which we could launch Vision 28. You could see that there was some sort of a disconnect and that the discount, our stock was steeper compared to that of our peers. We think that that's now been erased.

It's certainly trending similar, if not somewhat steeper than some of our peers. So we are very pleased to see that the movements in share-- in gold price has also found its way into our share price performance. And you look at the market capitalization, and you see ZAR 48 billion, ZAR 50 billion, remembering not too long ago when this market cap was ZAR 400 million, and it's just remarkable. It's, it's a real privilege to be part of, of something like this, and an even greater privilege to see how what Jaco and the rest of the team are doing in terms of Vision 2028 is positioning us to continue to take advantage.

It will be interesting to see, because I do believe that some of the recovery in the trend performance of our stock may have been attributable to the fact that we've delivered into some of the projects that that we embarked upon, and they were very ambitious projects. So the fact that the Ergo solar plant has turned out to be a huge success. It was an in-house project, obviously with skills brought in from the outside, but hopefully, that played some role in that. The fact that there's improved stability in terms of of output, particularly in line with with guidance, hopefully, that's also brought about a measure of confidence in the stock, of credibility in in stock.

What will be interesting is to see if and when some of the interim goals in Vision 2028, some of those goals are achieved. That which we are aiming for in terms of Vision 2028, of 3 million tons a month, 6 tons of gold, when that becomes, there's an increase in the probability of us actually delivering into that. It'll be interesting to see how the market starts anticipating that in, in the investment patterns that we hope to see. Moving on to the next slide, on the looking ahead slide. Obviously, we can go to the thank you. We're keen to deliver into our guidance, both in terms of production and in terms of cost. But our single biggest obsession at this stage, other than the safety of our staff-...

is to delivering to Vision 2028 and to continue to hit those goals. I've explained to you what it needs to look like in order for us to start taking early occupation. We also explained to you the interface and interactions that we're having with the regulator, which I dare say, I believe is much improved since some of our previous experiences, and that's because maybe we changed our game to an extent. We lifted our game a bit, but also, the more you talk to people, hopefully, the better your relationship becomes. And also understanding what the challenges are that some of the regulators face, and witnessing how they're putting in the effort to facilitate.

They're never going to lower or adjust their standards to accommodate anyone, but they are sometimes flex stretching to also accommodate and to assist us in achieving some of these outcomes. So I think the significance of what we're doing here and the bigger picture of South Africa Incorporated, that is not lost on anyone, and that's certainly encouraging to see as well. But there are some very clear goals we have to deliver into that. And then, of course, with the focus of DRD in the last few year and about decade and a half of being a cashflow-focused entity, maybe that sort of reserve resource equation has become less of our marketing pitch.

But I do not think we should underestimate just the significance of adding 60 million tons of high-quality material that's been mined out of the richest ore body in South Africa, the Kloof Driefontein license areas. That entire cluster of reef, one should not underestimate that. And that, of course, will further support the capital that we're spending to achieve sort of output capacity or rather throughput capacity that Jaco has been describing. So clearly, what we're aiming for at the moment in the medium term, is to sequentially or systematically rather transition up to 1.2 million tons as the infrastructure is completed. But ultimately, this facility will have a 2.4 million tons a month throughput capacity, the tailings dam in particular. And that's the catalyst. That is the main catalyst.

If you have a large enough exhaust, you could put a big engine in front of that exhaust, and this is what they're building there. So for the longer term, it certainly, from a strategic perspective, could potentially be a big catalyst in some of the other ambitions that the business team are harboring at this stage. We are talking to a whole host of other companies as well. We do believe that it's become increasingly hard to simply just bring about a clear separation of mature assets globally. Increasingly, governments are insisting that before you go, you put all sorts of guarantees in place to make sure that the final closure of your footprint is done responsibly.

More and more companies are starting to say, "But, you know, why should we sell something and continue to, to carry this risk, this long-term risk of environmental closure, not being done properly? But maybe this is a risk that we should own." We do believe that our model of activating the latent income-generating capacity of mine waste, and to doing that by way of repurposing existing infrastructure, in other words, doing it in a, in a very financially scrupulous way. We do believe that that that is something that could resonate well with other companies, and those conversations are picking up as well.

We haven't had the opportunity yet of doors swinging open completely, but we do believe that they are being opened at a open skrefie, and we intend to go through that skrefie and having these conversations, if they'll have us. And our business development team is certainly very keen about that. We've also spoken in the past about cracking the code, and we have now, in fact, entered into an agreement with an enterprise that has come up with a device that we believe is getting us closer to that goal as well. So we'll have more of that in the market as we go along, but we, we're quite keen to see. An add on to existing infrastructure could in fact have an impact also on extraction efficiency, and that's happening as we speak.

So those are all exciting things for the future, and we hope to be able to have some more news on that for you going forward. So that is the outlook. There's a final slide, which is really summarizing, we can go to that, what it is that we are aiming to do in terms of delivering on purpose. And as you can see, this is deliberate. None of this is random, none of this is impulsive. We think that our commitment to sustainable development and broader, integrated, overlapping value has found its way into the way that it's being summarized on this slide of reclaiming, restoring, and returning value. And with the reinvestments that are taking place now, we really do hope that we'll be able to continue doing that for many years more.

So that's it. Thank you very much, for those of you who dialed in. Jaco and Henriette, also for doing this presentation and doing the bulk of the talking. We're happy to also take your questions now. I see we do have a little bit of time left on the clock. If you want to follow up on any of the topics that we discussed here or anything else for that matter, we now do have an executive office at drdgold.com email address, and that's [email protected]. Please send your questions, your queries to that, and we'd be quite happy to respond to those. All right. So I don't see any questions. Jaco, Henriette, any final words from your side? Nothing from my side, Niël. Okay. That's it then.

Nothing from my side.

Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Thanks, Henriette. Thank you very much, everyone. Thanks for dialing in. Thanks for listening to us. Oh, I see there are two raised hands. Sorry. Let's just deal with those. Let's just deal with those. That one was a comment. Thank you very much for your kind comment. We appreciate that.

Just to remind everybody, you are on listen-only mode, so instead of raising a hand, we encourage you to type in your questions.

Let's give it a little bit more time to see if anything comes through. I think we drilled down in quite a lot of detail, Henriette. I think you really gave a very detailed summary there, and same to you, Jaco. So hopefully, we covered most of the questions. All right. That seems to be it. Thank you very much, everyone, for dialing in, and yeah, just again, the email address, [email protected]. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

Bye.