DRD

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.

Welcome, and thank you for joining us. This is our first presentation, live presentation after COVID. So it's really nice to be back in a venue where I can see more than just the upper section of the attendees. I think it's also the sort of results where we would have preferred to have people present and look you in the eye, tell you what we did, what we wanted to do and how we position going forward. Before we start, let me just switch this off before it goes off. There we go. So, Riaan is joining me as well. Riaan Davel is joining me as well. He will be taking care of the financial portion of the presentation, and then Jaco's also joining us. There's other colleagues, too. So at the end of the presentation, we'll be happy to take your questions and provide some additional perspective on the material presenting. So you're familiar with the disclaimer. There are some forward-looking statements, so please familiarize yourself with those. And then as we get going, let's have a look at the performance for financial '24 at a glance. Obviously, something that we are hoping to maintain going forward as our dividend record. This is the 17th consecutive financial year that we're paying a dividend. This year is smaller because we spent quite a bit of capital to preserve for the future going forward. So the final dividend is ZAR0.20. When I look at the number, it reminds me of how long I've been working for DRD. This is my 21st year. So happy that only four of those years were not dividend year and those were the first four. In terms of financial performance, revenue for the year was up 14%, just over ZAR6 billion. Operating profit was also up 14% to just over ZAR2 billion. This is, of course, on the back of a very, very good gold price. If you go through the numbers, you'll see that we only got to 84% of our targeted volume throughput for the year for a variety of reasons. That notwithstanding, we manage 93% of our targeted gold production. So there were some innovation, some hustling taking place to get the requisite tonnes through the circuit. But I think we ended up well considering the circumstances. And then, of course, with the gold price like had we have very position to take advantage of that. So headline earnings are up 4%. The big item investments part of resonation of course, is the capital expenditure. So positioning for the future, we decided invest in solar plant, solar plant 60-megawatt of capacity at [Technical Difficulty] system being introduced into the circuit. And in fact, I think there's activity today or over this time, where there's going to be a [Technical Difficulty] has been linked up with the grid as well. In addition to 60 megawatts solar plant is also 60-odd megawatts of battery storage, which will help us to more enable the product to store power and never really having to make use of electricity. It's a very significant saving in that regard as well. Operating performance for the year. We produced just over 5000 gold, which is a 5% year-on-year. And as I said, it is roughly 7% than what we had targeted on the back of lower volume throughput. Sustaining margin, 24%, so still healthy. On the back of the higher gold price, throughput only 86% of what we had targeted and yield also obviously down year-on-year. Cash operating cost, that's the item that was the hard head by the circumstances that we dealt with this year, the low volume throughput. So that was quite a bit up and also higher than guidance, I think we guided just under ZAR800,000 and that came in at ZAR833,000 per kilogram. ESG or sustainable development, whichever you prefer. Very sadly, we had the fatal incident at Eskom at 5:27 when our colleague operating the loader was killed while as a consequence of a site slip of the dump that he was reclaiming from. The first time in six years that we've had the fatality is the first one of this nature in more than three decades, which is very, very unfortunate. Obviously, a whole host of measures have been implemented also to further reduce the risk of this sort of thing happening going forward. Big item for us is the completion of the solar project, as I meant earlier. Already, we're seeing a 6% decrease in electricity consumption. We believe that, that will go down even further. And there's some detail in the presentation further on and also the letter to shareholders detailing those, but anything between ZAR9 and ZAR15 per tonne is the estimate at this stage and obviously, variable because of bearing power tariffs, different times of year and also different times of the day, you've got peak tariff and so forth and so forth. So it really depends what metric you use for this calculation. But in real terms, anything up to ZAR15 per tonne reduction, real reduction in cost and cash operating costs at Ergo. Water consumption is one of the success stories in terms of sustainable development for the company. This year, again, we saw a 58% decrease. Now admittedly, it was off the back also of lower throughput on the hydraulic mining side, although 95% the water that we use for mining is recycled. But this is really also the consequence of measures that were decided upon many, many years ago to every year try and decrease water usage by at least 10% and systematically, the whole design of our water reticulation system has been adapted to enable us to rely mostly on nonportable water on recycled or gray water. Vegetation. This is now areas on our tailings dams that we vegetate for dust prevention. There's a wonderful ecosystem biodiversity story also emerging in that regard because this vegetation is natural vegetation settling in natural soils because it's normal natural wells that we put on the side of the Brakpan tailings dam. And that is helping to really attract indigenous species, insect bird and so forth species back to those dams as well. That's a wonderful biodiversity story. And then in terms of dust exceedances, this is something that we do have to monitor closely because most of our facilities are in close proximity to where people live and you don't want them to live under a cloud of dust. So very little -- very, very little dust coming off any of our facilities. So we put this slide up here. I'm not very fun of the word ESG. ESG really is a subset of sustainable development. But by calling at ESG, you've really taken the idea or concept of integration out of sustainable development. So I think this sort of restores the picture for what it is of how you pursue integrated value, a variety of capital stocks. And we're -- either you have overlay or you have the one capital stock delivering in the bottom line of the other capital stock. And it facilitates language like natural dividend and social dividend and so forth and so forth. And this is something that we've been very focused on for many, many years. Sustainable development, in fact, has been the golden thread, informing our strategic thinking and also informing the deployment of resources and of capital. And I think it's really become deeply embedded in the narrative of the DRDGOLD story. So looking at these different capital stocks, and I'll go through them very, very briefly. I'm not going to spend too much time on it. Obviously, the value that you want to create is value in terms of all of those. And in as much as you can have integrated or align value, so much the better. And what that basically means is that if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, for example, by building a solar plant, you also want the electricity to be cheaper than electricity that you would have sourced off the grid. And you also want that to derisk the business. And that's really all that integrated value or that it really means. So looking at the block in the top left there, the environmental regeneration, I briefly mentioned what the ecosystem looks like that is in the process of being restored. That's one element of it. Of course, the other element is that every single tonne of material that we mine is from a tailings dam that was built many, many years ago. And by removing it and ultimately cleaning up that site, you either in as much as it may have been an environmentally sensitive area, you're restoring a wet land or the natural flow of water in the river area or in as much as it's suitable for residential purposes or for industrial purposes that can be put to sustainable land use. So that's an important part of that, the ecosystem story I mentioned. In terms of the renewal of the business through innovation, investment in collaboration, because of who we are and because of where we're from, DRD is not a company that was able to invest itself out of its predicament 15 or 20 years ago. We had what we had. And the one thing we didn't have was a robust balance sheet with which to go and acquire a whole host of assets outside of our existing asset base. So we had to look at what was left in our portfolio which was, by and large, a combination or a collection of stuff that other people have thrown away. It was waste. So asset optimization is a term that you'll find us -- that you'll find being used often in our narrative. And what we don't want to do is leave any value behind. So all of the investments, also those that I will be talking about later on, are focused on or intended to deliver into that ambition in delivering to that goal of optimizing our resource base. We have 6 million ounces of reserves, and we want to try and mine as many of those as we possibly can. And we mine them -- we want to mine them at a profit, and we want to make a difference to the environment and society through that process. And that's how all of these things come together. Carbon footprint, I've spoken about, that was my example that I used in describing the overlap of value between the different capital stocks and then caring for our people, employees and for communities. Now this is something also that's becoming increasingly popular in corporate presentations about how much we care. And I think what I want to emphasize here is that caring here is not an emotional parameter. It's not wanting to be liked or wanting to sort of be this accommodating uncle that sort of give people what they want. What it really is about is an objective measure of making a real difference in the socioeconomic circumstances of where people live. So it's about doing business responsibly, about not being indifferent to the surroundings and your area of impact. In other words, if your portfolio of assets consists of a whole lot of mine dumps, then you want to take measures to ensure that the dust off those tailings dams are contained and it was contained and that it doesn't cause inconvenience to your surrounding communities. That's part of a culture of caring. And it also means in terms of the needs of society, investing in the sort of thing that could assist those societies to becoming increasingly sustainable. And once again, it doesn't involve people standing in a queue and somebody handing over parcels of stuff. That means empowering people through knowledge and by assisting them facilitating self-empowerment. So ultimately, those communities could lift themselves out of the desperate situation that they sometimes find themselves in. So very much something that I leave is objectively measurable and that contributes towards a stable environment within which you want to do business. It's very hard to do business in an ocean of instability. So ultimately, that also contributes towards the actual value composites of the business. So now talking a little bit about, excuse me, strategy and DRDGOLD in transition. So a lot of what I said up until now is high level of how we think and what drives our decision-making and so forth and so forth. But let's talk a little bit about what we actually did, what we're doing and what we want to do going forward. So we'll use this this little NBA term, Vision 28 to describe what it is that we want to achieve over the next few years in repositioning the business for the future and maybe just provide a bit of context. So when Far West gold operations was acquired from Sibanye a few years back, the intention was always to develop it in two phases. The first phase being getting into production with as little capital as possible and finding our way into this new environment and then using that footprint to launch the next phase, Phase 2, which is the capital-intensive phase of Far West gold operations. So starting off with the circuit that was running at roughly 500,000 tonnes per month and depositing onto the Driefontein number 4 dam, a dam, which we knew at limited capacity. For Far West gold operations to run its course, the reason why we bought it initially was to ultimately position it such that it would be in a position to mine, like I said earlier, most of it's resource, not leave any value behind. So Phase 2 for Far West gold operation that was envisaged right from the outset. That was part of the story line that we shared with the market right from the outset. Ergo was not described in equally clear language. So maybe to contextualize Ergo and its story line in a little bit more detail. And it became apparent to ourselves as we went through this journey. But you'll recall that when Ergo was launched right at the outset 2007, 2008, when it was bought, second attempt at buying it when we finally managed to land Ergo, the idea was a 227 million tonne resource that was going to be mined over a period of 12 years. Now long and the short is that every part of that 227 million tonne resource has now been mined. So Ergo, the Ergo story that motivated, justified the initial capital investment back in the early 2000, that story has run its course. Ergo that story of -- that part of the Ergo story has come to an end. The fact is that as we went deeper into the Ergo story, we were able to add resources, and we were able to extend the life of some of the core initial assets. But from about 2021 onwards, most of those, in fact, all of this initial core sites, reclamation sites started reaching their end of life, started reaching maturity and they were becoming depleted. And a decision had to be taken then. Are we now calling it? Are we calling it the day on Ergo? Is this now the final phase? Are we entering closure? Or are we going to try and extend this operation for another few years? And in line with our idea or philosophy of optimizing our resource because we still had plenty of tonnes left, and we'd also accumulated some additional tonnes. And in fact, some of the sites that we used in the past as tailings facilities, tailings storage facilities, were now starting to look increasingly attractive against the backdrop of a different gold price environment and also with the volume capacity that we had created that it was worth rethinking the Ergo story, and hence, this idea of Ergo 2.0, which is essentially a second, third, fourth phase of Ergo depending on -- at what point in time you start counting. Long and the short is that we've decided that we're going to have another go at the Ergo story, extending the Ergo story and seeing to which extent it's possible to add some life to it. And this is really what this is all about. So in the 24 months prior to December 2023, all of the old sites had become depleted. We'd started the licensing process for replacement sites back in 2018. There was COVID. There was all sorts of other things. And the seamless transition that we had hoped to achieve did not materialize. But in the final analysis, over time, it did materialize eventually, six or seven months late. But as I stand here, all of the sites that we needed to license in order to fund and position Ergo, as it develops towards day one of Vision 2028, which is the 1st of July, 2027. And obviously, that is a number in a calendar, but one that we're working towards as one of our markers as we stand here, everything that we need to do in order to start developing and investing to get to that point is now in place. All four of the new sites plus a fifth, so we're back to volume throughput capacity. We're now where we wanted to be around about October of last year in terms of that volume throughput. We're also reaching the end of the Brakpan tailings facility though. So whilst Ergo could quite comfortably produce up to 2 million tonnes per month, or 3 million to 2 million tonnes per month up until about a year, two years ago, we're now intentionally throttling that back. We've put down to 1,600,000 or rather 1,650,000 tonnes per month. And that is the rate that we will sustain going forward until the new site for Ergo is up and running and has been commissioned. So a whole lot of things started happening in 2018. The licensing of the new sites, we submitted in terms of the Brakpan tailings facility, we submitted a dam safety report as we are required to do because the Brakpan tailings dam is a Category 3 dam. We submitted another one, 2021 revised design, 2022. These things are being reviewed by the department, but that is the enabler going forward to continue to deposit at this rate until Withok is commissioned. Same time we're also looking dynamically at the entire combination of assets that we have. Some of the resources that we have now are maybe better suited as a tailings deposition facility. And then some of the resources that we haven't in the past factored in as part of the life of mine story or the mine works program are starting to look increasingly attractive. So we're not at this stage changing the narrative of the technical report summary that's filed with the SEC, but what we are looking at -- what we are doing is looking dynamically at the composite an will decide what will ultimately be the best combination and the best use of our portfolio of assets. The objective though is to move from the current format or the current throughput profile rather of 1,650,000 tonnes a month at Ergo plus 500,000 tonnes at Far West gold which is just over 2 million tonnes to move up to 3 million tonnes per month as from the start of financial ‘28, and to lift gold production from 5 tonnes per year to 6 tonnes per year. The capital investment to be made to get to that point is roughly ZAR7 billion. ZAR3 billion was spent in the last year for the solar farm, so we now have ZAR3 billion worth of prepaid electricity. We spend another ZAR7 billion odd, and that will then give us 5 tonnes plus 1. So in today's numbers, how much is a ton of gold, today’s numbers? ZAR1.5 billion. So adding to -- all things being equal, adding ZAR1.5 billion of revenue to our ZAR6 billion worth of revenue as we speak, assuming the gold price stays the same. For Ergo, the opportunity then extends into another 14 years and for Far West Gold into another 25 years. So -- and this is -- these are the things that we have done and that we are doing to work towards that Vision 28. The solar facility, and I've spoken a lot about that. But here, you could see what's already been done in terms of that facility. Just over 13 million kilowatt hours of energy that's been used. The ability to generate was significantly higher, but it was being throttled back until such time as we could tie into grid. But we've used up to just over 13 million kilowatt hours of energy, which is 10% -- roughly 10% of Ergo's consumption. By 2025, that's this financial year, half of Ergo's energy consumption will be of solar, and the electricity costs will then also reduce by between ZAR9 and ZAR15 per tonne. And it's maybe worth making that point, and I do make that point in the letter to shareholders, is that part of this evolution is also a change in the cost profile, just the basic construct of costs on both operations. Far West, not so much because, at this stage, it is still only a two-dam reclamation facility, which is being very, very tightly managed. But Ergo is an example of complexity being reduced to being less complicated. So reducing the number of sites on which there's activity from 15 to 5. Many of those sites are cleanup sites. In fact, all of the cleanup materials that we had that was available to be brought into the circuit, those have been depleted as a consequence of the delays that we experienced last year with the new high-volume sites. But reducing the number of sites from 15 to 5, that will play a big role in reducing the per unit cost, the per tonne cost. And that's, by and large, associated with the earthmoving equipment. So all of your old sites, all the material that's moved from those old sites, that's loaded, lifted and hauled with big trucks. And that's expensive. So once that comes out, and we have five high-volume hydraulically mine sites, you see a very, very significant change in the cost profile. And in fact, in March, earlier this year in March, we did a webinar with the assistance of Standard Bank. It was Standard Chartered with Nic Dinham, and we explained how this evolution was taking place and how that per tonne profile is bound to change over time. But the solar farm is a big role player in that regard, dropping those costs to below -- firstly, initially below ZAR200 a kilo -- rather ZAR200 a tonne and then even further down as the complexities reduce even further. Regional tailings facility, now this is a story, which is very encouraging, considering also some of the other challenges that we'd faced in the last year or two. So when we say we started building this tailings dam, there's so much that had to happen before we could actually start with construction. We'd already had experiences with the Department of Water Affairs and the delays in licenses. And we realize that we've got to change tact. We've got to approach this completely differently. If I want something done in a particular way, then it gets done in that particular way, or else you add six months or a year to the timeline. Here we engaged, firstly, with another department within the Department of Water Affairs with Dam Safety, which we experienced somewhat differently than some of the other experiences that we had. This is a department within a department that is focused on dam safety. So it's very technical. We thought that conversation there was far more conducive towards working towards an outcome, and it didn't disappoint. We got the consent to go ahead with construction well on time. We subsequently also have been issued a water usage license or the amended water usage license. We applied for amendments to the water usage license following a change in the design of the dam, which included now the liner, plus a change in the configuration of the initial starter walls. So all of that's done. And on the 5th of July, we had the groundbreaking exercise. And it wasn't done with the speed. Because it's such a big dam, it was done with this back actor -- or excavator. And we're very pleased to say that it's going really, really well at this stage. The fortunate part of the site is that it's former agricultural land and not for pasturing, it's for a crop farming. So a large portion of this footprint, this 800-hectare footprint had in the past been used for crop farming. So it's relatively flat. And the entire process to prepare it for this liner involves lifting the top section of top soil and redistributing it evenly, compacting it. And then after that, the liner will follow. So we're pleased with what we're seeing happening at the moment. That seem to go really well. It's also -- and this is part of the sustainable development or ESG story line, which also, I believe, a very good example as to how proactive engagement with the surrounding communities with regards to their involvement in providing employment and so forth, how that ought to be done. And there's been very little disruption in terms of the initial stages of this project. Not the sort of thing that we experienced with some of the other sites. So down to the money part, operating performance. And here, you could see that the trends do, in fact, follow the storyline of what I've been sharing with you with regards to some of the delays and the recommissioning and getting it back up and running again. So just looking at the Ergo volume, the Ergo tonnes, you could see that, although from the first half of '23, there was a sharp dip, sharp decline, this is when some of the high-volume sites came offline, and we had to rely more and more on load and haul. By the end of the first half of '24, we had depleted all of those. In fact, if you were to look at the environmental report that we submit to the Board every quarter of tonnes left on some of these cleanup sites, there are about seven of them, and it's just 0000. They are down to [red Transvaal] (ph), and they are now in the final stages of being decommissioned and getting nuclear clearances and so forth before being returned to the rightful owners. Unfortunately, the licenses came through too late in the financial year to really catch up on tonnage. So you'll see that tonnes for the two halves were relatively flat. It's only now that it's picked up. And as I say, we're actually containing throughput now and limiting -- at Ergo limiting it to 1,650,000 tonnes per month. The yield, obviously, with all of this load and hauling taking place of the remnant material, the yields were higher, especially in the second half of '23 and the first half of '24. But once it became depleted and some of the high-volume sites came through, especially the Roshqott site, which is a former deposition site, a tailings storage site. We use it for Knights deposition up until about three years ago. The head grades were quite a bit lower. Unfortunate because we would have trickled in or dribbled in some of the high-grade materials still over the next few years if these licenses had been issued when they were supposed to have been issued, then we would have been introducing some of the cleanup material for at least another year or two. That opportunity is now gone because we had to treat all of those, but -- for which we would have had the little production over this time. But look, it is what it is, and at least the cost profile is changing. But you'll see that in the guidance, the guidance is relatively modest for Ergo, and that's off the back of lower head grades that we foresee for the next few years. Production tells the same story. There was just not enough time after the license has been issued to make up the shortfalls of the first year, and it's only now really that those trends have changed. Far West Gold story is different because the commissioning of its new site, it happened with fewer hiccups. There were one or two delays, but mostly on instrumentation and imported goods and so forth. But in terms of the actual construction, the commissioning, it was a story that just went a whole lot better for us, and you could see that in the numbers, too. So number 3 dam is up and running. It's running at full steam. The metallurgy is slightly different. So you'll see that the cost mix has changed ever so slightly, a little bit more cyanide because of the geological -- I wouldn't say, call it, complexity, but it is slightly different than what we saw on dam number 5, but it's giving us what we're calling and, at this stage, limiting throughput there also to 500,000 tonnes a month. It's a 300,000 tonne a month plant, but we want to make sure that we don't overextend the tailings dam, the number 4 dam, and that we run out of deposition space before commissioning an early occupation or beneficial occupation of the RTSF. So it's coming along quite nicely, and it's giving us very good returns. It costs only about a third of revenue. So still running at a very, very good margin as well. I think this is where -- yeah, so this is where I end and where Riaan takes over. Just a consolidated basis, you could see volumes only at about 11 million tonnes and -- for the half year, and that's more or less where it's going to be staying. It's just that the cost profile looks different, more hydraulic mining, less hauling and lifting or lifting and hauling. Yields, also relatively flat being foreseen for the future. So that's a good indicator. And also the production numbers, 5 tonnes a year going forward until '27, '28, financial '28 when we implement the different volume profile. So, Riaan, over to you.

Thank you very much, Niel. Good morning, everyone. It's really good to be back in person. It's been a long while that, as Niel said, we stayed at a screen. And this is much better. I prefer would also great to have the online participation continuing, and it's wonderful to be able to talk to the results. If you would allow me, as I always try to do, I call it the story behind the numbers. And for me, that is people. So Niel referred to, for every tonne that we mine that you can imagine, for our makeup volume business, for every tonne that we mine or reprocess, there's an engineer, there's a security person tracking our vast footprint. There's an admin person. There is someone making sure the boardroom is clean. There's a financial person. There's a metallurgist. And as people here are operating, as we know, 24 hours a day, so we run a 24-hour a day business. And for this, the Olympic year for 366 days a year. So I just want to put it in that context. Obviously, the numbers that I'm privileged to talk to is not possible without the relentless efforts of people on the ground every day. And I just want to specifically recognize every single person working for DRDGOLD, also our contractors and making this purpose of ours a reality. As you know, for every tonne that we mine and reprocess, we are able to reverse the environmental legacy of mining and improve the quality of life for people. And we're passionate about that. And we're also passionate about our history, 1895, and we're still a round and hopefully, as Niel described, for a long time still to come. So in that context, it is my privilege to take you through the financial performance and also with the background that Niel sketched. So from Ergo point of view, the financial performance year-on-year, I'm going to focus year-on-year. As you would know, the results in the booklet focuses on that, so June 2024 in comparison to the year ended June 2023. So for Ergo overall, revenue up 10%, driven by a substantial gold price increase of 20% year-on-year, the rand gold price, the average at about just over ZAR1.2 million. And as we speak, that trend is now continuing. It is continuing, and we love that. That is not staying at only ZAR1.2 million. So we see it also the US dollar price at well above $2,500 per ounce. So within that context, a good revenue performance with gold sold down 8% year-on-year. Then on the cash operating cost side, as Niel described, difficult times that we had to produce, which means costly tonnes. So if you look -- so contract reclamation costs, machine hire costs, mechanical lifting and ordering of material at these legacy and cleanup sites cost a lot. So the cost per tonne will be much higher for us. So year-on-year, cost increases for Ergo at 12% at a cash operating cost level. And then operating profit, with those two factors taken into account, revenue and cash operating costs, with some energy adjustments, around ZAR38 million. Operating profit for Ergo up 7% period-on-period. And again, just look at the overall number, just under ZAR1 billion. And may we refer to as an old lady, maybe not. I still believe very impressive for the Ergo performance. Far West, as Niel described, also now two sites that they're managing. Overall, revenue, very solid, up 24% year-on-year. Gold sold, also up 2%. So a great result for Far West. On the cash operating cost year-on-year, cost up 23%, again, which may seem intimidating. But as Niel provided that context, last year, we only had -- previously only had one site. Now they operate two. They operate both Driefontein 3, the new site, and also Driefontein 5 as a cleanup site. And obviously, if you have cleanup site as a natural consequence, that's a more costly site. And then Niel alluded to the material. So increase in reagent consumption, driven by an increase in acidity coarser material for Driefontein 3. Obviously, the pumping distance from 3 to the Far West plant is also longer. So all of that added up to the cash operating cost increase. Putting those two together, operating profit up 22% period-on-period off a small energy adjustments. And again, overall, look at that result, just under ZAR1.1 billion operating profit for Far West. So again, well done the Far West team. Great result. We put this together for the group. From an operating margin point of view, very stable period-on-period, so 33.4% in total for the year, 33.1% last year. So very consistent, but very healthy at the same time. All-in sustaining cost margin increased from last year. It's about 24% this year from 20% last year. Sustaining CapEx down, specifically at Far West, but also at Ergo, which impacts that number. But overall, very, very healthy all-in sustaining cost margin of 24%. Looking at the free cash flow. It may look that it's on a downward trend, but let's just -- as Niel alluded to it, the context of that is a wonderful growth story looking forward. So it has to do with our growth CapEx of ZAR2.7 billion, overall cash CapEx of ZAR3 billion, which is a massive highlight. And I'll mention it a couple of times through the presentation. It's obviously included in that number. So if you look at the free cash flow, we see negative for the year of just under ZAR1.2 billion. That includes that CapEx spend that we funded off our own balance sheet. So, a wonderful -- wonderfully positive cash flow utilization story, which I will allude on further when we get to the cash flow statement. And then just ending up with headline earnings per share, as Niel mentioned, up 4% period-on-period, fairly consistent. And we'll talk to dividend. Niel mentioned that we're very proud of the dividend. But in that context, someone may say, it's light, the ZAR0.20 final dividend. But remember now, we have to put money aside for the extensive capital program that we're embarking on in the next three to five years. So in that context, as we alluded, the market were not buying out the majority or a big portion of that headline earnings per share number. Then a statement of profit or loss or the income statement, as some of you would know that, just summarizing what we've discussed up until now. Revenue up 14% period-on-period. So, gold price up 20%. Gold sold, down 5%. So that combination gives us the 14%. Cost of sales, up 13% period-on-period. Our rand tonne -- rand per tonne cost up 18%, with the specific references that we provided for that. Gross profit overall then, the ZAR1.8 billion, up 14%, and taking into account some small other income, administration expenses and other costs leaves us with results of ZAR1.6 billion. The finance income line is still high as we still started the year with significant cash balance, but obviously, towards the end of the financial year, with big outflows around our battery system, which is being installed and activated as we speak. So still big finance income that we generated for the year. That picture will look different, obviously, going forward. And then finance expenses, the majority of that, as you'll see in the cash flow, is the unwinding of the rehabilitation provision on the balance sheet, a very small portion in cash. Income tax, always an interesting line. So the majority of that line is deferred tax. Every accountant's favorite topic. Just to explain what's included in that line is a tax rate change, the deferred tax rate change for Ergo, which resulted for this year, the impact was ZAR67 million through the income statement. But it has a very positive story. As you know, Ergo pays tax as does Far West on the gold formula, which is a formula based on future profitability or the profitability of the operation. So as that rate increases, the underlying story is we expect into the future, and it's over the life of the operation, more profit, driven mainly for Ergo by two reasons, increasing gold price similar to Far West. But the other great story is the electricity costs that we, as Niel alluded to it, we're not as conservative, I believe, as we were last year on the ZAR9. So we do see -- I've already seen and expect a larger benefit for Ergo for electricity. So both of those aspects and others resulted in an increase in the deferred tax rate for Ergo from 22% to 25%. And that leaves us with profit for the year, up 4% to ZAR1.3 billion. Statement of financial position, or as maybe other people would remember, the balance sheet. And yes, the statement of financial position also balances, which is always a good thing. Again, the great story is that line. I mentioned when we discussed this with the Board, if this was a government balance sheet, that is a great story. So we're investing for the future. We're investing in assets. We're investing in infrastructure that will create lasting benefits over a very long period of time. So a wonderful balance sheet to present from that point of view. Non-current investments and other assets, also very positive. Most of that is rehabilitation funds. I always say DRD is in a wonderful position from that point of view that we've built up funds over many years. While we also rehabilitate in essence, our model is rehabilitation. So -- and we're always looking to optimize and see how we can optimize that going forward. Some rand refinery fair value also in that line. Cash and cash equivalents, again, I'll elaborate on the cash flow statement. But as expected, we're expected to invest in our solar projects. So the cash balance will deplete, but over ZAR1 billion of cash still available at June 30. And at the same time, we've secured a facility. Overall, a ZAR2 billion facility with Nedbank, which is available for our capital expansion over the five years. Equity, as you would know, essentially profit less dividends with some other smaller adjustments. Provision for rehab, again, it's something that we monitor very closely. We will see in the booklet, which I always encourage you to then read, which is prepared with great care, you'll note the comment there around some decrease in the estimation of historical cost, which is great. So that is in our ethos, to keep on cleaning. So part of that reduction is in that estimation. Deferred tax liability, again, yes, you'll see an increase there and potentially also going forward as we utilize the CapEx that we've spent based on the tax regime. So that balance, yeah, will probably increase going forward, but that's the current estimate. And then, yeah, if you look at current assets, current liabilities, obviously, not a massive ratio as it was last year on the current ratio, but still a very solid and positive position. Then ending off before the end of the slide to Niel on my personal favorite statement, the cash flow statement, because of its simplicity. So no fair value measures, no historical cost, just so how the cash has moved in the business. So yeah, my favorite, but -- and it's good reading. So net cash inflow from operating activities increased 11% period-on-period. Finance income, obviously lower than last year, and we would expect that trend to continue with our capital program and our cash balance being much lower. And then here you can see the finance income paid small in cash in relation to what's on the income statement. The cash tax that we paid, obviously, utilizing the CapEx regime based on tax legislation, much smaller than last year, most of that relating to Far West. And then still the highlight that I referred to, so in this balance sheet, just under ZAR3 billion in cash spent mostly on the solar project, but there's also some other projects at Far West and also at Ergo, but mostly towards the solar. This is extremely exciting for us, yeah. So wonderful investment of cash. And then just to allude as well, the cash dividend paid, so that's obviously the last year final dividend of ZAR0.65 and the interim of ZAR0.20, so ZAR0.85 included in that line, which leaves us with just under ZAR2 billion total cash decrease. And then relating that to the opening cash and cash equivalents, leaving us with a closing balance of ZAR521 million. And as I mentioned, the facility is in place going forward. And then I call it the end of the slide because I'll say something and then Mr. Pretorius can maybe add to the share price. Yeah, my comments were -- at least there were a steady increase from February on our -- so for five or six months. But for me, the significant increase happened still over five or six years. I looked at it and it's quite mind-boggling to some extent. I think in May 2019, if I got it right, you could still buy DRD just over ZAR3. So -- and if you compare it to where that price is in that growth over the five-year period, it is really special from that point of view. And obviously, we're a different company now and also with the Far West assets. But maybe I'll leave it at that. Hopefully, that will make it easier or not maybe for you to comment if you want to on the share price as well. But I'm going to hand back to Niel. And then, yeah, I'll join at the end again for questions.

Thanks, Riaan. Thank you very much. Yes, I'm not going to say much about this issue other than maybe to say, can you imagine if we get this right? What it might look like then? So looking at ESG performance there, again, my favorite word, ESG, if you want to slip in sustainable development, please feel free to do that as long as market insist that ESG is an important concept. I'll keep on talking about it. If you want me to change to sustainable development, our energy level might lift ever so slightly my enthusiasm. But be that as it may, let's talk through these topics. I think what's very nice in this year is a collection of information, was the trends over 10 years of what's happened since sustainable development has brought on board as an important theme in DRD strategic thinking, electricity usage. Obviously, we want to decrease our carbon footprint, but at the same time, also improve the robustness and the resilience -- embedded resilience of the business while saving money. It's nice to see that number swinging the way that it did. It's going to change even more going forward. And with some interesting exciting things in the future, not too distant future, hopefully as well, a big number here in South Africa, a dry country, where we could reduce potable water usage by 83%. It's going to be shooting water over water in South Africa in the not-too-distant future. So it's important that you have your access toward a better down that it's in place. Environmental expenditure of ZAR530 million also over that same period of time. In fact, I seem to recall that in the early years of declaring it at Brakpan that the amount of money that we spend, not on operating expenses, but just on ongoing rehabilitation at that dam was higher than the dividend. And that's really how you should be modeling your business. If you're not mining to close, if you're mining and then making closure, somebody else's problem 10 years or 20 years into the future, then you really running a distorted model. That's going to make mining less attractive and not more attractive going forward, unless you're an opportunistic investor. And I think there are fewer and fewer of those around. And then in terms of vegetation, 477 hectares, that's a vast area. It's probably about the size of downtown Johannesburg. We're not done quite yet, but we've broken the back on this. And there's very little that's coming in any of our facilities anymore. I think quality of life in that area has improved quite a lot. And an interesting comment that was made by Mark Hoffman, whom we consult on reporting. He said that environmental issues very quickly turn into social issues, and that is so true. And if you're responsible about the environment, then it's almost as though the social issues in your immediate vicinity are also less intense. Then in terms of social performance, so the numbers -- employment numbers are quite stable. We're still at permanent of about 870 souls in full-time employment. The enterprise development spend or socio-economic development spend, it's also been on the uptick since we've been making a little bit more money. And as I say, we believe that there is a directly proportionate relationship between social stability and just the ease of doing business in a particular area. We've definitely seen that over time. And then also on diversity, it's amazing what an open mind and targeting the best talent can achieve over time, and that's exactly what you're seeing here. That's a wonderful number, and I'm proud of that. I'm very proud to be associated with every single member in our team. The social capital strategy that we pursue of wanting to play a role in communities and assisting them and establishing a sustainable future for themselves and mainly through the unlocking of the informal economy, I think that's also increasingly starting to pick up momentum. And it's amazing if you proactively engage in this regard before moving on to a site just how much different the mood is as and when you do step on to that site. From a governance perspective, so governance in the South African mining context, a very large part of governance is how well you manage your tailings and what the systems are with regards to tailings management. And ever since we decided to take a more personal control of tailings management and establish line of sight management systems, relying increasingly on technology half, that has also just changed, chalk and cheese. And I do believe that Brakpan in terms of how to manage an established old mature dam, both from an environmental perspective and from a structural integrity perspective, ongoing management, I really think that it's an exceptionally well-managed facility. The amount of buttressing that's taken place, especially since 2018 when we decided that Ergo is not stopping, Ergo is going ahead, the amount of buttressing that's taken place, the additional filters that have been installed, the launders, I don't think there's another tailings dam in the world with the system of -- to discharge surface water and the way that's being done at Ergo, it's -- the return water dams, just the optics of the entire facility, it's -- I think the team has done itself proud on how they have managed that. And then, of course, the latest and the best in terms of technology. World Gold Council is becoming increasingly exciting. It's something that we held out on for a while, actually for a long while, but then eventually decided to join when given the opportunity. And I must say, in terms of gold as an investment and not an investment just on the retail side, but institutional money finding its way into gold, I think the World Gold Council is doing a lot of work. It's been very intelligently managed and steered strategically by its executive team towards setting up gold as a qualified liquid acid, as something that institutional investors will increasingly also look at. And they know where the issues are. Nobody wants to buy or invest in something where there's the potential for embarrassment because of human rights abuse and so forth. So on the part of provenance and the part of certification identity in terms of unified standards and so forth, there's an enormous amount of work that's going in there. And I think that they are picking up momentum in that regard and that we may pretty soon find that gold would hopefully become less of a safe haven investment, sort of a grudge investment and more and more of a capital preservation and even a growth return kind of asset. It's -- we all know that's the only real currency. So why not? So let's dwell a little bit on looking ahead. I do think that I spent quite a bit of time initially in explaining what it is that we want to do with regards to Vision 28 and how we're trending towards that. So, for the near term, once again, guidance is premised on the throughput. So you'll see that the guidance is around sort of in the middle. There's about 5 tonnes. Obviously, the access to tonnes at the start of this year compared to what it looked like last year is chalk and cheese. At both of our operations, we will now be running, for the foreseeable future until our deposition facilities have been put in place, we'll be running at a slightly throttled back run rate. So, Ergo as I said earlier, at 1,650,000 tonnes and Far West Gold at 500,000 tonnes, and that will continue until the Brakpan/Withok and potentially other facilities at Ergo been established and the RTSF have been put in place. Cash operating costs remain on the higher side in terms of industry norms, but still very healthy margin. We do believe that, that will start coming down incrementally over time as the model becomes less complex. And then we'll continue with capital investment program. A big chunk of that this year is Far West Gold. So Far West Gold is full steam ahead in terms of the construction of the RTSF. And then it will also start in the construction of the additional capacity at the Driefontein 2 plant. That needs to go to a 1.2 million tonne a month plant, and that needs to coincide with the date for beneficial occupation in September 2026. So lots to do and a lot of loose moving parts that we need to manage. The Ergo 2 decision has been taken. That's full steam ahead. And there, again, it wasn't do we sort of do it, do we continue as long as we can and so forth. The reality for Ergo's was either closed or it invested the necessary capital to open up another 14 years of production. And we decided on the latter because we do believe that it makes commercial sense to do that. Then, I spoke about Far West Gold recoveries and the things that we want to do there. I think that sort of summarizes everything that we wanted to share with you. Obviously, we'll take your questions now. Riaan and Jaco, you can join us here. I'll just stand here with Charmaine, and then we can look at the questions.

Thanks, Brendan. I'll go to you first, Brendan. Let's just set ourselves up and then we can go. Okay. I'm going to go to Brendan first. And then if there are other questions, we'll deal with the questions in the room first. And then we'll go to the Internet. Thanks, Brendan. Fire away.

Brendan Ryan, Miningmx. Can you talk about the implications for your dividend payouts over the next three years of this high capital expenditure program? Riaan described your final dividend is light. I would call it downright stingy. And is this what shareholders have to look ahead to for the next three years? Thank you.

Yeah. Look, if we don't make money, then there won't be a dividend. If we do continue to have free cash other than the growth capital, then we'll continue to pay a dividend. But we've got to be responsible in how we manage our cash flows. And the one thing that we're not going to do is borrow money to pay a dividend. So we are putting facilities in place for project funding. But we don't want to play pretend and then pay dividend with money that we're borrowing and paying interest on there.

So basically, you're saying capital is going to take priority over dividends?

Yeah.

Okay. Can I follow up, please, Niel? In the past, you, unusually for a CEO, have been very outspoken on the value of your share and prospects. At one stage, as I recall, you actually advised people not to buy DRDGOLD because the share price was too high. So can I ask you, at ZAR70 or ZAR80 a share, what is your assessment of DRD's value in the current share price?

Yeah. Look, the only shares that I own in my own portfolio are DRD shares. I'm not selling them now. We're going to be getting some shares as well in about a month or so. And I think I'll be taking up those shares and keeping them. Yeah, I want to repeat what I said earlier. Obviously, at this stage, if I were managing other people's money, I would want to make sure that this outfit actually that they know what they're doing and that they're getting it right. I would take comfort from the fact that the solar farm is not just a success, but it's probably sort of a benchmark setting success in project execution in South Africa. But there's still a lot of money that needs to be spent. So, let me say what I said earlier. Imagine if we get it right, adding a tonne to our profile and if the gold price stays where it is with a reducing cost profile, it could be very exciting.

And then one final question. Is there anything you could tell us at this stage about the work you're doing around or keep assessing where there is a possible copper recovery operation there for the tailings dams in the area?

We're doing an assessment of the ore body. So we have an option to acquire half of that resource. It's about a 80 million tonne resource, Jaco, if I'm not mistaken.

Right.

It is a complex mentality though. And we've drilled some holes, and those samples are being analyzed. And then we'll take a decision after that. The reason why -- keeping the reason why it's here is when it comes to complexity, if it comes to learning the geology and the metallurgy associated with copper tailings, we think it's a very good place to go. And I'm not trying to sort of pretend like it's tiny. It's not tiny. It is substantial. But compared to some of the other copper opportunities out there and copper tailings out there, it's relatively cheap. It's relatively accessible. And you can gather a lot of information and build up a knowledge base without stretching the balance sheet. At some point, Riaan start saying no and he stops explaining it, this is no more, and you're not getting a check for this. So we want to do that on a relatively conservative budget. If we get it right there or if we build up a knowledge base that sets us up to, with confidence, tackle other resources, this could be the way that we expand into other metals. And then we've decided, or maybe decided is a strong a word, but we're not going to play around in anything outside of the current group portfolio of assets. And when I talk group, that includes Sibanye. So if we're going to be doing tailings, it will be gold tailings, platinum tailings. And the only thing outside of that, that we'll be looking at, at this stage in terms of owning assets, acquiring and owning assets and developing those projects would involve copper. So I think it's an exciting opportunity for us.

Any idea how long it will take before you make up your mind what you're going to do?

It depends 100% on the outcome of the test work. If the test work is favorable, there's absolutely no reason why we can't get going. Because it keeps one of those assets where again, or projects where again, there's existing infrastructure that could be used. It's an available tailings dam. I'm not quite sure what the licensing regime looks like there. Jaco would be able to elaborate on that. But there is a plant that can be upgraded for high-volume throughput. And there is a place where you can put the tailings. And there's also a very nice environmental restoration angle to it as well. Jaco, do you know what sort of timeline for execution would look like?

Yeah, Niel. So test work is at least going to be another nine months. So we're looking at a nine-month period. And then based on that, obviously, depending on what the test work tells us, it's process flow development, process flow and licensing. And that's going to take at least another year to 1.5 years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brendan. Martin, I see you've got your hand up.

Martin Creamer from Mining Weekly Online. The business case for solar just seems compelling. You've already got half of your solar electricity you need at Ergo. Would you be thinking of going to the West Rand as well and doing a similar thing? And then swinging back to Ergo, could you go to 100% at some stage? Or am I too early in my question?

We do not have for the foreseeable future, we do not have any plans to build another solar farm for that matter. But we are always on the lookout for green energy and an opportunity to participate in some form of distribution of available capacity. So I think before we build another solar farm, especially -- we're not planning a solar farm on the West Rand. But if opportunities do present themselves to pull, let's call it, green units off the grid, units that are being fed into the grid somewhere else and pulling them off at Far West, then we'll certainly look at them.

And just final question. You spoke about platinum tailings, but are you emerging into a possible business there? Or is it still a very long way off?

It's really a decision that's in the hands of Sibanye-Stillwater at this stage. The model itself in terms of the operational model is not a complex model. So the logistics of picking up the stuff, taking it to a plant, the adjustments that got to be made to the plant, the deposition, that part of it is relatively straightforward. But what we found was that the -- remember, Sibanye as a company, Sibanye's platinum assets are made up of several transactions that happened in rapid succession. So you have different minorities and different corporate structures in each one of those. And it's -- so if you look at it operational and say that dump and that dump fits beautifully into this, but then you find out that, that dump belongs 30% to this crowd and 20% to that crowd, and they've got an interest in the chrome and they've got an interest in the PGE. So it's a very complex structure, both the ownership and also the corporate structure. And I think what Rich Stewart is doing is just disentangling this whole lot and saying, how can we put it together? And once it's there, we'll be involved in some form or another in executing on that project. I'm not sure it will be an ownership-type arrangement, but I can imagine that project going forward with us being involved in some form or another in terms of operating and development and so forth. And remember, it's also -- it's going to be mostly chrome. Chrome is a bulk commodity. And we like our product to be flown out of South Africa, not driven on the back of a truck or a train to a harbor.

Thanks, Niel.

Des?

If you were successful, and I'm sure you will be, if you achieve a cash operating cost of somewhere between ZAR833,000 going up to about ZAR870,000 per kilogram, this will be the smallest percentage increase in operating costs that you have achieved probably going back four, five years. We look at where your operating costs were going back to [ZAR217,000, ZAR218,000] (ph). This will be a very small percentage increase of about 4% or so. And given where the rand gold prices today tells me that the margin that you're going to likely to achieve if gold price remains where we are, it's going to be the best margin you've seen for many years.

Des, remember the construct of -- thank you for that question. The construct of our cost profile is changing, as I mentioned earlier. So there will be fewer machines. There will be fewer trucks and back actors and loaders and so forth. Those were expensive. So if you're running those flat out at seven sites and the trucking material across the width of [indiscernible], that's a lot of money. That would be anything up to ZAR80 a tonne. I think we paid in certain instances, if I'm not mistaken, Jaco. So you factor that out, and obviously, those costs look different. Don't underestimate the solar farm. That's a big number. You have ZAR15 a tonne at 1,650,000 tonnes a month. You add that over 12 months. And suddenly, the dividend starts looking more affordable. So it's a lot of things coming together. If it does stay at these levels and if we maintain good discipline and if we don't have interruptions, in other words, if we get the throughput, we're not going to be drawing much off the facility that's been put in place, not at this particular gold price level. So it's an extremely favorable situation that we find ourselves in from a gold price perspective and also the way that the business has been set up with all of the things that happened in the last 12 months. And it makes us very excited, but it also makes us a little bit anxious. We want to get this right. We really do want to get this right. We want to take advantage of this opportunity. You want to be spending the capital when you can afford the capital. You want to set yourself up because at some point or another, the gold price, this margin is going to be a lot flatter than what it is now. And once you get to that point, you want all of those capital to have been invested. You don't want to be paying off debt. You want to be running off a clean sheet. So three years from now, four years from now, when we're not spending in the tune of ZAR3 billion a year on capital and we've got that different revenue profile with a relatively attractive cash cost profile, you run the numbers. You know exactly what it looks like then.

You'll be very happy with these dividends.

We can make up for the dividends, yes.

For a while.

Well, we'll definitely make up for the dividend then if we can then. Promise you that. Any other questions? Yes? All right. So we've got a few questions from the...

Yes. A couple from Nick. So he is the first one.

Okay. All right. So the 14-year life of mine extension is Ergo's. We're really looking at the clusters that we're targeting once the new infrastructure is up and running. So once we can get back to 18 -- to 1.8 million tonnes a month and then at 7 plus 7, so those are two distinct clusters. So it's not 32 years. It's, in fact, 14 from D-day onwards.

I need to go back down to Nick.

Let me just take them from the top. Here we go. Right. So the first question here from John is for Ergo's ZAR3.1 billion capital cost cited in the outlook, does that include the solar plant? No, no, that's -- the solar plant is paid for. I think there's about ZAR240 million carryover into the new year for some of the batteries. But other than that, it's mostly -- and that's not this year, obviously. That is now through to 2027. And that's mostly tailing storage facility and also the pipeline infrastructure to...

And DP2.

No, this is just Ergo. I'm talking about the Ergo. So John, I hope that answers your question. So the solar plant has been paid for. It's not just this year. It's over an extended period of time through to September of -- or July, rather, of 2027, and that is the tailings storage for Ergo, pipeline facilities and the commissioning of new sites. So now let's see if we can get to the question through again. I'll go to the next one. Lisa Steyn is asking what progress has been made on assessing the Copper 360 waste dumps. Are they viable. Brendan, that's your question. I think I've answered that. I think we've covered that. Lisa, I hope that we have. We have Johan Lindgren. How much are depreciation is expected to increase as a consequence of the solar plant investment compared to full year 2024? Riaan, you were just waiting for that question.

I'm not really. It's noncash, that's been. So simplistically, we'll be appreciating by another 20 to 25 years. So if you can take your ZAR3 billion investment per year over 20 years, so anything in the region valued ZAR50 million a year in addition, yeah. So -- but all non-cash, but important to consider.

Thanks. Thank you, John. Then, [indiscernible] is asking three questions. Firstly, given the heavy growth CapEx, could you please give some guidance about dividend during this period? So I'll just very briefly repeat my answer to Brendan's question. We're not going to be borrowing money to pay dividend. But if we do make -- if we do generate free cash after sustaining CapEx, we'd be comfortable taking on a measure of debt to pay for the project, if that means that we can continue paying a dividend. It really depends on free cash, excluding project CapEx then. Assuming that the yield is 0.2 gram a tonne, we should be able to achieve 7.2 tonnes per annum gold production. Yes, so the yield won't be 0.2 gram a tonne. The yield would be lower because we are introducing lower head grades into the circuit from 27 onwards. A lot of the higher grades, which had allowed for a 0.2 gram a tonne yield was some of the coarser material. So you will see a slightly different head grade profile from that period onwards. And that's partially offset by the fact that there's less milling, your slime goes straight into your CIL tanks. So there is a bit of a cost offset as well. And then could you give more color about your production target and yield after 2028? Yes. So after 2028 onwards, for at least seven years after that, that's where the 7 and 7 comes in. You're looking at 3 million tonnes per month and a targeted 6 tonnes of gold per annum. The changes after seven years because of changes at Ergo, there is a subtle change. But then the CEO at the time will then tell you more about that. I think that's everything, Charmaine. I don't think I've missed anything.

We have a couple of others.

Sorry. We didn't close this one. My apologies, my apologies.

It might just be easier from here.

So John is also asking what's the expected return from the solar plant. Riaan, if you want to offer a more intelligent question that's already been given, feel free to do so. But the -- I just call it a ZAR3 billion prepaid facility, less the operating cost. And if you divide it over life at ZAR15 a tonne at 1.8 million tonnes a month, but you might have a more accounting answer.

I don't think we see -- look at accounting for that. I would focus on the between ZAR9 and ZAR50 per tonne saving. And again, obviously, we'll have a -- let's call it a broken year. Not broken year, not the full 12 months. So we'll be connecting the batteries, and Jaco can elaborate on that, but towards the end of the year. So hopefully, we'll have a full six months slightly longer on it. But then let's look at that benefit and then hopefully talk next year on more exact numbers. But just do that number. So 20 -- the tonnes down ZAR15 million, ZAR24 million per month saving. So Jaco, I don't know if you want to mention anything in addition.

No. It's all good, yeah.

John is also reminding me that at the last result call, I said that in July, I will discuss the effects seen coming out of the solar plant, so that we can fully understand the business case. And how come there was no meeting. John, what can I say? I'm really sorry. I was away. No, not really. But we'll try to make up for that. So yes, from Nick, only for me. It was mentioned, again, the reason for cost reduction at Ergo. When will we see normal cost decreases from 220? I think we are budgeting for it in this financial year. Nick, so let me read the whole question so that everybody in the room also gets it. Finally, from Nick, there was mention again the reasons for cost reductions at Ergo. So when will we see nominal cost decreases down from ZAR220 per tonne? We're hoping to see that this year already, Nick. So we're in the final throes of some of the legacy sites. So every month, there are fewer machines being used. So that should come through this year already. Are you happy with that answer, yes? Jaco?

Yeah. And obviously, maybe weighted towards the next six months. So maybe in the first six months when we report that in February, you won't see the full effect again. But we're hoping that the next six months, again, also with the solar fully in will be relatively better than the first six. But overall, a decrease, yeah.

Nick was also asking about the total -- can you clarify total CapEx to reach the 2028 financial year targets? In other words, you set us up for Vision 28. What's the total CapEx for that? So there's ZAR3 billion already spent. There is about another ZAR7.1 billion to get us to 1 July 2027. So the total number was just over ZAR10 billion. Nick was asking about the 25-year life of mine extension at Far West Gold operations. This has seemed to include third-party materials. Actually, it doesn't. It just means that the fenders post material would also come in. But we are in ongoing conversation with our neighbors. Ultimately, we have 250 million tonnes of material that we can put on to this tailings dam. The capacity is 800 million. We are open for business. What we are saying to our neighbors, though, is that you're not paying us to put material on to this tailings dam and anything other than real currency, and real currency means ounces of gold. So that's what the facility is getting us in terms of participation going forward. I think that's it. I think I've covered everything. All right. There we go. Any final remarks or questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for attending. Really, it was very nice to see you all again. You've weathered COVID much better than I have. And yeah, it's really just so pleasant to have you here. Hopefully, you could stay for a chat and a cup of tea before we all go our different ways -- separate ways. Thank you so much.

[Technical Difficulty] There is nothing different to the format this time. We’ll be using very similar information or a very similar format to that, which we used in the past. There are a number of themes that will emerge, though, that we’ll pay some additional attention to. And those themes are going to be volume throughput, it’s quite a lot that we want to say about that, our cost make-up for the 6 months, what’s happening to electricity now and going forward, the social dynamic that is starting to also have its impact or that had an impact and how that’s being managed, and then also 1 or 2 things maybe about the political and regulatory reality within which we function. But let’s jump into the presentation itself and go to the key features for the 6 months. So the gold price has been very, very good. And that, I think, has brought some welcome color into these results. It’s enabled us to, for the 17th consecutive year, pay an interim dividend. This dividend matches the one of last year’s half year dividend, ZAR0.20. That’s on the back of strong revenues of just under ZAR3 billion, 12% increase; operating profit, increase of 15% to ZAR909 million. I would have loved to be in a position to say around about a ZAR1 billion. So I think that is a number we – internally, we’re thinking what may have been, what could have been. Production was down by roughly 7%, and I’ll elaborate on that as I go through the segmental analysis. Headline earnings on the back of both revenues and the increase in operating profit have gone up by 10%. And I think because of positive headline earnings, it’s just all the more compelling to again declare that dividend that informs the – to an extent, it’s one of the considerations when it comes to the decision whether or not to declare a dividend. We again played our part into the [indiscernible] with ZAR127 million going to revenue services in pay as you earn. You’ll also see in the detailed analysis, the tax position, we are paying income tax. All-in sustaining cost margin of roughly 19.4%. So the book price did help us there. And then pretty much right in the middle of the page, the main feature is being in a position to take advantage, not to the full extent of the potential advantage, but being in a position to take advantage of a very attractive gold price with a 22% increase in the gold price receivable, just under ZAR1.2 million per kilo this year or last year rather, was my 20th year with DRDGOLD, and I remember when I joined DRDGOLD, gold price was hovering around ZAR60,000 a kilo. So it’s a long time since then, lots of things have changed. I think the gold price is definitely now rebased and recoupled relative to a number of different dynamics that inform it. And we’ll talk a little bit about that as well later on if there’s time. Because our operations are by and large in the city, the amount of dust that comes off our various reclamation and deposition sites are important. We measure those very, very closely with, if I’m not mistaken, just over 290 monitoring sites and the exceedances that we saw there and those are exceedances in terms of the stipulated regulatory thresholds, those exceedances came down to 0.6% of the number of samples taken. So, less than 1% of the samples that we took registered an exceedance of the dust standard and by a larger relatively margin exceedance as well. So the fact of the matter is that DRD is putting very little dust into its surrounding communities. You no longer – if you live next to one of our tailings dams, you no longer have to wash your curtains twice a month as was the case I think 15 years ago when we started these programs to vegetate the permanent tailings deposition facilities and so forth and so forth. So it’s an important parameter for us as well. Looking at the operating trends. And here, we’ll elaborate a little bit more on some of the impacts that we dealt with during the course of the half year. So as you could see, just looking at Ergo’s operating volume trend from half year ‘23 to half year ‘24, see that volumes are quite a bit down. And that’s, by and large, a function of the fact that two large sites that we had wanted to commission during the course of last year already were delayed for a variety of reasons, and those only started early this year. Now in the past, including second part of ‘23, we were in a position – in fact, the bulk of half year 1 as well, we were in a position to make up tons from a number of legacy and cleanup sites. We spoke about that in the past, where we had between 6 and 7 legacy and cleanup sites at any given point in time where we systematically started working through those sites to take them to a point where they could be handed back for use, so where they were restored, cleared of all remaining mine waste. Now that process had to be accelerated when it became apparent that the overlap between sites that had become depleted and new sites that were supposed to come online at Ergo where that time schedule had become distorted because of these delays. So up until roughly October of last year, we were in a position to source quite a lot of material to make up for the lost times from those two sites. And the shortfall or the call from those two sites, roughly 500,000 tons a month, which we couldn’t source. So there was quite a big gap to fill with mechanical lifting and transportation and so forth. All of that ran out by the end of October. Those sites are clean. They’re down to what was referred to in the past as down to [indiscernible]. Now we just say down to red earth and there was 2-month gap while we were waiting for the two sites in particular to come online before we could resume full volume production. We’re in the process of ramping up production from these two new sites. And those 2 months were November and December. You’ll see in the letter that I wrote, we talk about how we managed to sort of keep up and do quite well up until early in November when those sites have just been cleaned up. Now of course, the advantage is that cleanup work with earthmoving equipment that was due next year and the year after, that’s all now being brought forward. The other advantage – I suppose, if one wants to see the silver lining here, the other advantage is that quite a lot of ounces that form part of our resource, our mineral resource, have simply not been mined because these ounces do not form part of that resource. So they certainly didn’t feature in our life of mine plan. So you sort of had substitute ounces that were unplanned. It’s now filled the place of ounces that we’re supposed to have come in earlier. And then would then have the effect that they are going to be mined later. They are not lost, they’re just going to be mined later and they’re going to be hopefully sold at a time when the gold price is even more favorable, so huge frustration not being able to sort of stick to the plan. But then at the same time, it’s not all bad. These aren’t perishable goods, gold doesn’t weather. So if you don’t mine it now, you’re going to mine it at some point into the future. And that will also obviously play a bit of an impact, will have a role on the TRS and we’ll update that as we go along. But just to illustrate that the stock difference in how high-grade material from cleanup sites had offset the lower volume. So whilst belt production is down 7%, the volume throughput numbers were down by 13%. So there’s a bit of disproportionality in the two, which indicates to you the extent to which there was a reliance on sites that didn’t form part of the life of mine. But we’re through that and we very relieved that we are, and we can now look forward to stabilizing these new sites. And you’ll also see that the guidance on costs, for example, is slightly lower than what the unit cost per kilo were for the half year. So we do believe that there’s going to be a slightly softening in impact. So moving on, sorry, that was a bit of a mouthful, but moving on, yield was also slightly down. The reason being that we did start mining one of the high-volume sites, so there were four sites that were supposed to come online as part of this transition. The first one did come online in November of 2022, the second in July of 2023, that was a very low volume site, thanks to Rooikraal and the other two only later on. And the slight dip in recovered grade was the impact of the high-volume lower grade coming in from Rooipoort and also, obviously, the mix and match from these various sites, but still a fairly good yield, slightly higher than planned, and that helped to offset the lower tons as I spoke about earlier. Production over the last 3 periods, illustrated there, relatively flat. And this is where what could have been comes into the equation. We went far away from matching last year. If either the sites had come online or if we didn’t run out when we did in October, we would have been within spitting distance of half year ‘23, but it is what it is. And as I said earlier, the gold price has been very good to help sort of close that gap that had opened up in that regard.

So the volume trend there is encouraging and it’s going along nicely. The initial recoveries from Driefontein were slightly lower head grades as the topper sections were being opened up and face established in those sections were slightly lower. You would have seen in earlier communications, though, that we talk about the high shear agitator that’s now been launched or commissioned rather, it uses a bit of power, which also contributes to cost. But the impact of that, we believe, and based on early results, is actually quite good. We’re seeing some very nice improvements in recovery efficiency there. And the way it basically means is introducing a lot of energy into the slurry mix during cyanidation, it improves cyanidation bleaching and [indiscernible] has an explanation for those of you that are technical, that goes into the kinetics of the whole process and so forth. You’re more than welcome to ask him about that. Basically what it means is that more of the gold that’s in the mix now gets released, finds its way into solution and ultimately onto carbon. So production there was good, back to 663 kilos for the half year, up from the previous 6 months. So then, looking at the group operating trends, sharp dip in volume between the first 6 months and the – rather the last 6 months of – correction, the first 6 months of the calendar year and the period preceding that, and then a slight recovery with, as I said earlier, 2 of the sites coming on stream at ERGO. Also in the yield, I think, has been explained, still pretty good. The fact that we can get that sort of recovery out, and that’s testimony both to the high grades from these reclamation sites, these cleanup sites, but also plants that are running well. Our plants are being managed really well. Their efficiency factors are good, and I think the way that information is being managed is also assisting to keep them at relative stable state. So looking at production, pretty flat, half year-on-half year, but as I said earlier, 7% down relative to the comparative period of ‘23. So now the financial review and I’ll hand you over to Riaan to take you through some of the numbers. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Niel. Good morning everyone. As always, my privilege to take you through the financial numbers, just to provide some, again, context from my side. It’s really an exciting period for DRD as we’re building our gold growth story. And always when I talk about DRD, I get excited because we’re very sure of what we want to achieve in the long run with our purpose being reversing the environmental legacy of mining. And every time I look at the results and every period that passes, I can see a little bit more of that. And for me that is the theme. And you’ll see it through in the property plant equipment numbers, you’ll see it in the cash flow and I’ll emphasize that in the presentation. And then while we do that, while we’re setting up for the future, we’re also operating. And Niel provided that context. And just a big thank you from my side to an exceptional operational team that runs the business 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That’s amazing to see, when there’s challenges, how the team reacts. And that’s become part of the DRD story, which I’m very proud of and also ably assisted to on the financial reporting side by an exceptional team. So thank you very much for that. As Niel has mentioned, we always present these results taking the first 6 months of our financial year in comparison to the first 6 months of last year. Because as everyone knows, we do have seasonal changes – well, seasonal rain and no rain, the winter, but also, for example, around the winter tariff that we pay in the winter months for electricity. So we always use that as a base. But it’s good to look through all the various periods to understand it. Niel alluded to our booklet, which is always prepared with great care. So I encourage you, other than just this presentation, to have a look. Then looking at the overall financial results with the context that Niel provided. And again, I’m generally comparing the first 6 months of our financial year ‘23 with the period that’s just passed, so 31 December, 2023. If you look at revenue up 12%, assisted, as Niel mentioned, by a 22% increase in the average rand gold price to ZAR1.173 million per kilogram. And in the context of the ERGO results, with tonnages down, gold sold was 8% lower than the comparable period in 2023. Then cash operating costs, as Niel alluded and just to recap, so continued reclamation of legacy and cleanup sites, together with double-digit increases in machine hire and contract reclamation costs, at resulted in a period-on-period increase of 12% in costs. And then with some gold inventory adjustments, leaves us with an operating profit, up 29% period-on-period to just over ZAR431 million, which again is a very solid contribution. And as Niel put it, and more-and-more, we look at it this way, this is just the financial profit number, which is very important. But together with that, we saw massive environmental cleanup. So if the environment had a profit number or a value number, that’s definitely a tick or a green block in that vast areas, where clean to red earth, as Niel mentioned, which is a great win and solid results from ERGO, with the 6 months looking ahead, as we communicated, large volume sites up and running, which is our sustainable business, large volume that we want to focus. On the Far West Gold Recoveries site, very similar revenue numbers in that gold sold was down by 8% period-on-period and also assisted by the same rand gold price increase of 22%, leaves revenue up 12%, up period-on-period for Far West Gold Recoveries. Cash operating costs looks more severe at face value, but very good reasons for it. So, up 24% period-on-period, with specific increase in reagent use, [indiscernible] particularly slime and steel balls, and dealing with the increased acidity and coarser material coming from the Driefontein 3 site. And then obviously, the electricity costs relating to Driefontein 3 is more than in comparison to Driefontein 5 in the comparative period. Niel mentioned the installation of the high shear agitators adding to costs, but in a good way that it will look to release more gold for us, which is why we’re after that kind of technology and then also for Far West, similar to ERGO, still continuous cleanup of the Driefontein 5 site, with [indiscernible] and diesel also contributing to that increase. So then looking at the operating profit, obviously with that higher cash operating cost increase, the operating profit up just 4%, period-on-period, still very impressive for the size of the operation and what the team is busy doing there still to contribute just under ZAR0.5 billion. Very impressive results overall. Then looking at the group financial trends, yes, operating margin, we see margin creep there, which is something that we manage on a daily basis and also in our long-term model is something that we look at closely. Obviously, we’re a price taker. We don’t generally hedge or fix the price of gold. So this is something that we continuously manage, but to have the margin still 30% is very healthy. And then the operating margin flows into the all-in sustaining cost margin, with our sustaining CapEx down 14% period-on-period, with that margin close to 20%, which is still very healthy for us. Then the highlight for me, as I’ve mentioned at the start of the presentation, and it may look negative, the free cash flow that we’ve generated for this 6 months ending – that ended December 2023. There’s such a good and exciting story behind it, and the main reason for that, and we’ll obviously talk to the cash flow in a while, was our capital expenditure, our increasing property, plant and equipment, up by ZAR687 million or 177% to almost ZAR1.1 billion. So what we’re doing with our cash and both the ZAR2.5 billion that we had at the start of this period, but also cash that we generate, is to set up that growth CapEx. And at the moment, that’s very exciting for us. Don’t think at the same time, but really exciting to see the business set up for decades to come. And then headline earnings per share, obviously, we still operate while we’re building our future business still a very solid ZAR0.68 per share and very much comparable to the 6-month period ending December 2022. And moving on to the income statement, the statement of profit and loss, as it’s called, hopefully, all of this will make sense now in the context that Niel sketched around operations and also the financial trends for both ERGO and Far West. Yes, obviously, revenue follows that trend, up by 12%, gold price up 22%, gold sold, down 8%, cost of sales with the cost increases, as we explained, up 11%, period-on-period, leaving us with gross profit from operating activities of just over ZAR762 million. Admin costs, some increases the on human capital spend, and also IT expenditures. Finance income in line with the previous 6 months still high cash balances that we carry and also growth in our environmental funds and some dividends received making up that balance and then income tax. Niel alluded to it, although this wasn’t a high and cash paying period for us from an income tax point of view. Based on the profit that the 6 months generated, there’s definitely an income tax number, changes in deferred tax as well, going through that line. And there’s also an income tax payable on our balance sheet, leaving us with profit for the period, up 10% to ZAR589.3 million. Moving on to the balance sheet with the statement of financial position, as it is now called. Again, I want to emphasize that first line. So, from a sustainability and long-term business planning point of view, for me, that is excellent reading, so more than ZAR1 billion increase, period-on-period, to that ZAR4.4 billion as presented. And that’s really encouraging to see. Non-current investments and other assets, next slide just shows our contribution still any rehabilitation growth, and also mainly our investment in [indiscernible], reflected at fair value. Cash and cash equivalents, yes, we’re using our cash, which is part of the plan. So that’s down period on period. But I’ll color that in with the cash flow statement. On the next slide and other current assets, just to explain that big increase, so that includes ZAR610 million prepayment towards our solar project obviously, as we order that, and it’s being manufactured specifically on the battery side, obviously as soon as we commission those and bring them into use, that will move up to the property plant and equipment line. But it’s all part of our capital expansion that we’re executing. Equity, nice increase period-on-period, provision for rehab. Obviously, we don’t go through full rehabilitation re-estimates at all tiers. It’s very much the unwinding sits there. Deferred tax liability will grow as we claim capital allowances. So it creates that temporary difference. And then current liabilities, the increase in increasing trade and other payables. And as I’ve mentioned, a current tax liability also recorded. So current ratio, so yes, not at the 5.4 previously but still a very, very healthy 3.7, as you can see on the slide. Then the statement of cash flows. I always say, for me, the most relevant, because ultimately we need cash to pay our employees, to pay taxes, to add to our property, plant and equipment, to pay dividends to shareholders, and very much forms the backbone of our reward structure on a short-term basis at DRDGOLD as well. So it is the most relevant for me and the one that is what it is, if I can put it like that, where other measures sometimes in accounting may be criticized. Cash flow is, I believe, as pure as you can get. Just briefly talking through that. Then cash generated from operations, stable period-on-period at ZAR600 million. Finance income received, yes, we still do carry large cash balance so that’s the finance income on our own. Cash dividends, as I’ve mentioned, mostly from Rand Refinery, very small finance expense paid. The bigger finance expense and income statement relates to the unwinding of the discount on our rehab liabilities mostly. And then, as I’ve mentioned, not a big income tax paying period from a provisional tax point of view. Obviously, that’s based on our 12-month forecast. We obviously look towards the end of June to revisit that position. And then again, to emphasize from my point of view, one of the highlights, so that we added, to property, plant and equipment in this period, more than ZAR1 billion setting up around our major projects. Mostly that’s relating to the solar. Then other big line item there is dividends that is reflected. There is our final dividend of ZAR0.65 that we paid in September as a part of this period. And, yes, so an overall net decrease in cash, with most of that being contributed to property, plant and equipment, or a big part of that, as you can see, leaving us with a closing cash and cash equivalent, still very healthy ZAR1.5 billion at 31 December, 2023. So, yes, moving on to the handover slide, before I hand over to Niel, share price, we had an exceptional 6 months of the calendar year last year. So up until May, June, with not as impressive second 6 months of the calendar year very much reacting to trends that we see in the gold index. But at this point, Niel, I’m going to hand over to you to please take us through the rest of the presentation.

Thanks, Riaan. Yes, not as impressive is a nice way of putting it, but then I think that was pretty much the same for all of the gold producers. The markets were not kind to the gold stocks in the last 6 months of 2023. And interestingly, that notwithstanding the fact that the gold price held up quite nicely, and it was suggested to me during conversation that there is a new dynamic – a different dynamic that impacts this, firstly, the gold price, and secondly, the share price. In the past, when the West lost interest in gold because of higher interest rates and they started selling gold, there was no safety in it, nobody bought it, and it was in free fall. Now, whenever the West does that, there are a whole lot of institutions, there are several governments outside of that trading block, so to speak, or that alliance, so to speak, that are keen to reduce their foreign currency holdings in dollar, their dollar position and their foreign currency holdings, and they have been accumulating gold at a steady state. So gold price is determined, by and large, by or influenced to a very large degree by appetite for gold outside of the West, outside of London and New York. Whereas the price of commodity or the price of stocks, the gold shares, is very much determined by market sentiment in the West. And perhaps that’s the reason for the very significant disparity between what gold companies are producing in terms of profits and revenue and margin and so forth, and their share price. Compare that to some of the technology stocks, because that’s where appetite now lies in the West, especially with the seven large companies, Amazon, Tesla, Google, Meta, Nvidia and so forth, they have cobbled up a big chunk of investor capital. And as a consequence, because sentiment with regards to gold is bearish in the West, those shares are traded – those shares are disposed off or dumped, and notwithstanding the fact that they are trading at significantly better multiples to earnings, to EBITDA, to all the earnings that you can think of compared to the technology stocks. We’re not complaining though. We think that it’s probably a period for accumulation. At some point or another, it’s going to turn. I don’t think there is going to be a massive collapse. And sorry, I’m not the expert, but sort of just my own opinion. You go to these gold conferences and you listen to these profits of doom and profits of gold, and there is always talk about this massive inflation and fiat currencies collapsing and so forth. Maybe, maybe not. Fact of the matter is, doesn’t really have to be a significant swing. It’ll be a relatively marginal swing in market sentiment. And then you start seeing some of the outcomes that we saw in the first 6 months of 2023, where DRDGOLD was not just the best performing stock on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange between January and June, but also came second over 5 years, losing out to Gold Fields, which makes it bearable. It’s another gold producer that is a very well run company, and I think Martin and his team did exceptionally well and it’s well deserved, the place that they got. Would have been nice to see Harmony and Pan in 3 and 4 and maybe next year. I think we offer very, very good value as a gold industry in South Africa. And depending on what sort of risk appetite you have, what your expectations are from your investment, you could really pick any one of those four stocks and they won’t disappoint, not with the quality of management that they offer – that they present. So, moving on to the next slide, to our environmental social governance slide. It is a big part of our makeup, it’s a big part of how we think strategically. Simply said, this is a 100x in the past, you cannot do business in South Africa without being very aware of your environment, being very aware of society. You know we’ve been dealing with a whole host of issues in the last few years, including security, including logistics, including electricity and so forth and so forth. And I think what the private sector has done exceptionally well is closed the gap where services started failing or collapsing in many, many instances. We see private sector now also stepping into the Transnet logistics gap and hopefully we will have a solution for that. A very, very significant contribution in terms of renewable power over the last few years, while government acted only towards its own convenience, not adding 1 megawatt of power to the national grid. I don’t think I would be wrong in suggesting that the only development in that regard was generators at the house of the ministers. Private sector added 4 gigawatt of renewable power, that is now systematically also being introduced into the grid. So that’s how the private sector has responded to the situation. Now the next big challenge for South Africa, I believe, is going to be water. I think we are one drought away from a very serious issue with regards to drinking water, with regards to potable water. And in that situation or against that premise, I’m really, really pleased to see that we managed to decrease our potable water consumption by close to 60%. It will be a little bit higher in this period. I mean there are reasons for that, but we had set out quite a number of years ago to systematically reduce our usage of potable water, setting the not-particularly-scientific goal of reducing it by 10% every year to the point now where more than 95% of all of our water and most of our processed water, if not all processed water, is in fact recycled and gray. And we need to look after the sources of that gray water that curdled water. There might be some competition in that regard going forward when the taps and tanks starts running dry. So that’s very much part of our, let’s put it, our broader value pursuit and our interpretation of our risk environment and their initiatives in that regard as well. I spoke about dust emissions earlier on. Also rehabilitation, we mine – our mining is rehabilitation. So this sort of rehabilitation is really to do with final stages of rehabilitation. A big chunk of future rehabilitation, as I mentioned earlier, has now been taken care of with the lifting of – the floor cleaning of a number of legacy sites that are now clean. The vegetation of tailings deposition sites is also going along, Brakpan in particular, which is the larger one with an approaching urban sprawl. So there a lot of attention is going into making sure that we contain dust. The dam is also lifting as we speak. It’s an active dam. Obviously, quite a bit of attention there in and around the West of Central Rand. We think we’ve got dust under control. It’s been a long, long time since we’ve had a complaint in that regard. And if we do, it’s typically because of either an open road or because of a construction site nearby, something to that effect. So compared to where we were a decade ago, there is been a massive change in terms of quality of life, one which I do believe the outcome has been very, very favorable and in-line with what we had set out to achieve. So moving on to the next slide in terms of environmental value-add. It’s going to be interesting to see where that second line is going to be. Obviously, the consumption will remain pretty flat, but the carbon emission component is likely to start coming down over the next few months to the point where it could potentially almost halve with the solar plant coming on systematically. We’re pulling 14-megawatt off that plant as we speak. We are throttling back a little bit because we’re not in a position yet to feed back into the grid. There is an 88 kV line that will link up the solar plant with the Brakpan tailings, and then going into a series of substations from there into the Eskom grid. So we will have the full advantage of the 60 megawatts of solar power. We will be in a position to start taking full advantage of that from roughly the end of March, when we anticipate the construction of the solar plant will be done. And then, as I say, if the line is up and running at that stage and we can get billing sorted out, then we will have the full benefit of the 60-megawatt. The battery energy storage system, BES system, that is also now going to come in systematically, bit by bit. It should be finished by the end of October, but it’s not wait until the end of October and then we switch it on. It is also a modular system and it gets installed in chunks of a third each. So we will keep the market informed in that regard as well. But this slide is going to be an interesting slide, and its significance will not only be the consumption patterns, but also the impact that it’s having on both the environment and on the financial bottom line. So in terms of the safety performance and social performance, which includes safety, obviously, once again, we are very grateful that we managed to avoid serious injury and that nobody died in the performance of his or her duties. We’re also very, very thankful that there weren’t any instances of violent crime. Our security is – from time to time, they are getting shot at by gangs, especially in the Far West Rand. Hopefully, one day we will, as a nation, start taking measures against that and eradicate crime in that area. But for the time being, our stance is one of taking all reasonable measures to protect our staff, but for the fact that they were driving in armored vehicles, this could have been a serious incident. So this is the life of a security officer in the mining industry in South Africa today, dealing with illegal miners and with copper thieves. And they are having to be protected at a level that none of us envisaged a few years ago. So quite a bit of money still going into employee training. Women in mining stayed at 24% and HDSA and management, 74%. A lot of clever young people coming through the ranks. So exciting times ahead as we start moving – redefining the extent and scope of various senior positions and starting to bring some of our young talent into strategic decision making and senior managerial roles. So moving on to the next slide, water shortage solutions. This is something that we’ve been talking about now for quite some time and it’s lovely to see how our Broad-Based Livelihoods program is still continuing to grow. It’s a process that’s intuitive, it’s very easy to scale, it grows exponentially. And the interesting part of this, and this is how one brings, let’s call it, the sort of overlapping broader value pursuit into these endeavors, is that finally, this is now also starting to play a role in our operational community interface where an established relationship with a community is assisting in community interface. And I’ll talk a little bit about that in the looking-forward slide on some of the social dynamics that we experienced in the last 6 months. And I think finally, we could now demonstrate, with reference to what we see here, how social investment impacts the financial bottom line as well, where in fact, there is a compelling commercial rationale. If your key driver in terms of business is commercial rationale and commercial outcomes, and you’re looking for a reason why you would want to invest in social capital and assist communities becoming increasingly self sustainable and take that first step out of abject poverty and become more independent along some of the programs that would be launching, if you’re wanting to find that argument, here it is. It’s that network that assists you and that facilitates consultation going forward when you need it most, that you’re not just a face showing up and wanting to impress, not really understanding what the social dynamic is for the community that you’re interfacing with. So on the next slide then, looking-ahead slide. So based on the outcomes of the first 6 months and particularly the last 2 months of those 6 months, we’ve deemed it fit to not adjust our guidance, but to, at the very least, qualify it and say that we seem to be trending even with a recovery towards the end of the year, we seem to be trending towards the lower end of guidance. The sites that were delayed are in the process of ramping up, process of being taken to steady-state and typically it’s between 6 and 12 weeks that it takes to really get all systems to go. But they are running, they are contributing and we’re seeing the effect already as we speak. And as a consequence, we also deem fit to guide our cash operating costs down from what the average cost per kilo were for the 6 months, down from ZAR814,000 to ZAR800,000. So we expect to be producing at lower than ZAR800,000 per kilo for the remaining 6 months, and then also revised capital investment for the remainder of the year of ZAR3 billion. So we are about halfway through CapEx for the solar. There is about ZAR1 million or ZAR1 billion debt rather in that regard, a big chunk of which is being committed. And then, of course, we’re also hoping to start the Far West with the RTSF anytime soon now. At Ergo, looking forward to the commissioning of the solar plant. As I said earlier, construction of the solar plant itself should be done by the end of March, the BES by the end of October. And as and when the system gets linked into the national grid, that 88 kV line is incorporated into the national grid, we will have the full benefit of that, ramping up of those tons I referred to. So 4L3 is the site where a water usage license that we had hoped to secure late in 2022, or at least early in 2023, only came about in January of 2024. And I’d just reiterate it once again, the fact that this is an exceptionally complex regime that these officials are having to deal with. It’s a regime that’s not necessarily proportionate to the site, it’s not site-specific, or it doesn’t discriminate between sites. It’s a general set of rules that is applied in respective of all sites. And the consequence being that you’ve got to jump through so many different loops, the amount of paperwork that needs to get compiled and submitted in order to get finalization, and every time that there is one little thing wrong, then you basically add 6 months to the process. So we’ve had to up our game fairly significantly in terms of the amount of detail that we submit upfront. Fortunately, the environment has become – between 2018, when this process started until during the [indiscernible] of last year, the environment in which we function has definitely also improved. In 2018, you wouldn’t get a meeting with an official before submitting an application for a water usage license. The position – the stance was, submit your license and we will tell you as we go along what you’ve got wrong and what we need in addition to what you submitted, and then you happily fetter along for the next 2, 2.5 years, answering questions and doing it one at a time, adding 6 months every time. That’s changed. That’s definitely changed, without a doubt. We saw in our interactions with the department on the RTSF and the Far West Rand that very senior officials are quite prepared to engage with our teams early on, give them a sense of what it is that they expect to see, give them a sense of indication, obviously a non-binding indication of whether we’re on the right track. And all in all, while that hasn’t detracted from the complexity of the process, I think the relationship, the working dynamic is definitely completely different compared to what we saw in 2018. And moving on to the next topic of Far West Gold Recoveries, it is as a result of that, because of ongoing and recent conversations with the regulator, that we do believe that we should be able to stick to our time lines, that we should be able to get going on construction anytime soon. Both dam safety is involved as well as the licensing part. Here we’re not applying for a license, we’re applying for an amendment to the license. But dam safety really is the catalyst to give us the go ahead to start construction. And we do believe, based on the latest conversation that we’ve had with them, that we’ve ticked all of their boxes, literally boxes that get ticked, amongst other things, plus submit very substantial evidence and material on the construction, the design, the safety parameters, etcetera, etcetera, and that we should get the go ahead there anytime soon, bar anything unexpected. In terms of the longer-term, looking ahead, obviously, we don’t want to have another situation like the one that we had in 2023, where we were delayed between 6 and 8 months in the commissioning of sites and then delayed basically from when we really need that site, not delayed from when we initially targeted to have the site online. So it’s obviously important that we take a look into – that we learn from the experiences of the past and something that is a bit of a concern. And it’s the first time that we’ve really had this to the extent that we did was the social dynamic. Now, you would say, but you just said that you have these wonderful relations with communities and you have – and you – and that is a basis for your consultation. That is indeed the fact. I don’t know what the situation would have been, but for the fact that we have these elections, because the stark reality for many of these communities is that they have been let down to the point where they don’t really have anything. They don’t have services, they don’t have jobs, they have very poor healthcare, their schools are a shambles, their infrastructure and logistics are a shambles. There are no trains. So for those lucky enough to have a job, you’ll see a third of your income getting eaten by taxi drivers and so forth and so forth. So when they do see any sort of development, when they do see any kind of opportunity for economic involvement, then everybody wants to be involved. And it’s – I don’t know if it’s sad or what it is that one’s supposed to experience when this happens, but if you have social unrest and people are saying, we will not let you do anything unless you give us a job, so rioting in order to get a job, that’s desperate, that is desperation. And of course, if you combine that with criminal opportunism, sometimes with very strategic relationships and suddenly so-called community representatives and counselors, for that matter, from time-to-time, they step into the fray and they just make it very hard for you to go ahead, especially when there are representatives involved. And I want to make it very clear that I am not talking about the construction of a pipeline. This has got nothing to do with the licensing. There is not even a suggestion of what I am about to say when it comes to the licensing process and that I believe the standards of governance that we are witnessing are beyond reproach. But at this local level and at this community, so-called, representation level, there is always sort of an indication that maybe there is a way that we could solve this problem. This problem can go away, and you have just got to bat through that innings. And ultimately, I think the realization sets in that there is not going to be anything funny here. This thing is going to go its course. There won’t be any departures from corporate governance. So, we need to anticipate those, going forward. We need to engage early on. That means that the makeup of your senior management is now also different. This is not sort of a side issue that somebody can go and deal with from time-to-time. You really have the community engagement by prominent, dynamic members of staff that have gravitas to deal with these situations and to convey our message into these communities. We will never, for as long as we can, stop investing in our corporate social programs. And we will always invest towards sustainability. We will always invest away from creating a culture of dependence, of creating more dependence, and always towards becoming more and more independent and self sustainable. But it’s a program that’s become sophisticated, complex, and we need to keep a tab on that, so lots to do. We are very pleased that we are positioned the way that we are in terms of volume, throughput, capacity, that’s been restored in terms of where our cost profile is likely to go now, not having to rely as much as we did in the past on these machines. We are excited about the impacts that our solar plant is potentially going to have on our production going forward. We have a vision that we are going to be driving with a very specific future date, 2 years into the future, 3 years into the future, and we are going to be bringing some of the more senior members of management and experienced members of management to drive that process, at the same time, as I have said earlier, creating some opportunity for upcoming talent. But we want to make sure that we deliver into the next round of major capital projects. We want to make sure that we build this RTSF and have it up and running when it’s due. We want to increase the plant size of Far West Gold Recoveries of Driefontein 2. We will double the size there, link up their entire infrastructure, commission our solar as and when at Ergo, there is a cluster of dams that need to come online in roughly 3 years from now, that’s going to be up and running. At the same time, we need to increase the size of the Withok tailings dam. We will get that commissioned. So, lots to do. And with the platform that we have established now, albeit a little bit behind time in the biggest scheme of things, it’s really not going to make that much of a difference over 5 years or 10 years or 15 years. But with that behind us and with this as a very, very solid platform, it’s go time to make sure that we get those things put in place and that we set ourselves up for the next phase for this business and that we do not leave any value behind if it is preventable. I think that is the presentation. Yes, that’s everything. So, there will be an opportunity to ask questions, and that will be both myself, Riaan and Jaco, we would be happy to take your questions. Thank you for dialing in and thank you for listening. Riaan, are you guys able to log back on, I just see you, I have been talking. I was a little bit worried now that I was talking to myself.

No. All good. And I see there are currently no questions that have been posted.

Okay. Well, then that must be the quality of the presentation, Riaan. Well done to you and the team. Thank you. Any final comments from either you or from Jaco?

Sorry, Niel, there is one, if you have a look there, that has just come through.

Let’s see. Oh, yes. So, I did say in the letter that we will elaborate on that by the end of financial ‘24. All I want to say at this stage is just that we are looking and if there is something to report, then it will be around about the end of financial ‘24, end of July. If there is anything before that, then obviously we will. But we do want to see if we could take this methodology, this intellectual capital that’s been established over time, if we can apply it a little bit wider than what we currently have. That seems to be it. No, there is another one. There is another one. Please share more details about lodging an appeal proceedings by community forum. Okay, so basically, look, what that involved was when a license was issued in 2022 to start – that would enable us to start mining a particular site, there were a number of mostly commercial demands by what we believe was inspired, maybe not by the community, but by an influencer over that community. So, an appeal was lodged which would suspend the license until after the appeal has been heard. The Minister of Water Affairs has the authority to lift the suspension if you could submit compelling reasons. And we have submitted that request, and the Minister did indeed then lift the suspension. So, maybe I could just comment on that. So, water usage license is not – you don’t just show up and say, I want a license, and they hand it over the table. It’s not like taking out a dog license. But once they have issued it, they have gone through such an extensive process of checking and double checking it that they have confidence in the integrity of that license. So, when an appeal is lodged, and unless there are compelling reasons for that license to remain suspended, they would lift the suspension, and this is what we saw here. So, very pleased about that. And then in terms of the community concerns that prevented construction of the pipeline. So, there are two sets of concerns. On the one hand, there is the genuine concerns of community members who are pleading for a job, and then there are other concerns which aren’t really concerns, they are really just threats that are dressed like concerns. On the one – the latter, you get from so-called representatives, and the former you get from community members. And what you would have seen, what was done in terms of this pipeline construction is there was a little forum established. In fact, we have got several of these with a solar farm. I think there were about 250 community members who in some way or another participated in the construction, ongoing maintenance, and also, in terms of the cables that were erected, about 250 community members. And obviously, you work to now also with – going forward, that somebody is going to look after the solar farm. So, there is ongoing opportunity in that regard. But here, the former concern of, please just is there an opportunity for us to earn some sort of an income, there was an initiative established involving earth-moving because this pipeline had to be buried during certain sections of area where it was better to have it as underground. So, that was accommodated. We didn’t accommodate any of the other concerns. The other sort of extortive concerns weren’t accommodated, and then that’s what added time to the whole process. So, Nick, your question, looks like you are going into debt soon, hopefully not. But obviously, we do envisage taking out some cover in the event that we need to draw down to maintain – to hit the targets that I think you understand better than most. And we want to see if we can hit those targets. It features prominently in our conversations. So, this is how we feel about dividends during periods where there is debt. If we make a loss, we won’t borrow money to pay a dividend. But if we make a profit, if we are generating good cash flows, and if we make a profit, because of the quality of these projects and because of this short time horizon, before we start seeing upside and benefits from there, if we do take a bit of project-associated debt, then that won’t get in the way to develop, if we are at the same time also generating healthy profits and if we are cash positive. We would have been cash positive, but for the fact that we have project strategic capital expenditure. So, we do want to maintain this run rate. So, 17 years, it is a long time, and with every year, it becomes more and more important that you want to maintain that. We would love to be to get to 20 years, but as I have said, if we make operating losses, we won’t borrow money to pay dividend. We got to be – we got to make profits to pay dividend. So, Juan Lundgren, you are asking, can you give an estimate of cost savings. That’s all we can do at this stage, an estimate. What we would rather do is there are going to be a series of webinars over the next few months. The first one is on the 7th of March. And then we will be discussing the changeover of the five sites that closed or the three clusters that closed and then the new sites that came onboard and how that’s repositioned us. And I will just give you a little bit more detail and color on that. There will be a second and third webinar, if the first one is a success, where we really want to go into some detail discussing the effects of the solar plant and how that’s positioning us now with respect to our cost profile, but also how it’s setting us up for the future. So, that’s the solar plant. And then we also want to do a deep dive with the RTS or what’s always called Phase 2. It’s a lot of capital that we are going to be spending there, investing there. And the TRS paints the entire picture. So, we really also want to get into some detail there. So, look out, around about, let’s call it June, July for the first and then the second one a few months later. And then we will be in a position to say to you exactly how much. I don’t really want to deal with estimates because at the moment for six hours a day, if you factor out the capital that we have invested, it’s really just the O&M costs associated with a solar plant and that 14 megawatts is what the plant needs. So, for six hours, the plant is running off the sun. It’s going to have an impact and a fairly significant one. Once the base is up and running, then there is a very real chance that we pass peak tariffs because we would be able to charge with using both solar and off-peak and then discharge during peak. So, it’s a complex cost dynamic and rather than give you estimates, we will rather give you the actual numbers once we have run a few months on full capacity. Jaco, are you comfortable with that answer or do you want to add anything to it?

I think it’s a good answer. Thanks.

Salma Khan [ph] is asking if a transcript of the session is provided. Not a transcript, but I think it is recorded, so you will be able to listen to it. And then the presentation is on our website. So, Brendan wants to – Brendan is asking, what do you mean by operational and corporate complexities delaying your plants to diversify at Sibanye? So, Brendan, what it basically means is that Chrome and ownership of Chrome in that area is extremely complex. I think there are three different companies that own different percentages of the same ore body. So, you mine an ore body, it’s got PGEs in it, and it’s got Chrome in it, and then different companies own different parts of the upside. And exactly how they divide that up, I don’t quite know. So, it’s very difficult if you are building a project that spans over several kilometers and there are dumps from different sites that originate from different Sibanye subsidiaries, where there are different associations and relationships, both in terms of minorities and also with regards to other companies. It’s very, very difficult to say, well, this is how this piece is going to be divided up. That’s the first instance. And then the second instance, which is closely related, if you are dealing with three or four different sets of minorities and other interest group, what does your corporate structure looks like, what does your corporate structure look like, so it’s not an imagined complexity. It’s really something that we are trying hard to sort of decipher and land on a solution. But you have got several people around the table, and not everybody is willing to wait and to have the benefit of a long-term relationship. Sometimes, premium upfront also sort of pops up in the conversation. And we are not premium upfront people, not when it comes to waste treatment. So, I can tell you that both us and Sibanye are working hard and in good faith towards finding a solution for this. And it’s going to get done. There is no doubt it’s going to get done. It’s just when, because this is also a very busy time. And you have got to understand also where projects feature in terms of priorities and so forth. But it’s a good project and it will work, provided that we can sort all of those out and provided we don’t distort the market. Yes, Juan, I am not going to be able to give you a comment on how savings on costs have been factored in at this stage. Solar has been very little that I can tell you, and trucks also. So, we are hoping to sort of see how that pans out and then that will feature more prominently. The only real dynamics that we have considered up until now, really, is the higher tons and the effect that, that has on diluting the fixed overhead and the unit costs. Nick is asking that CapEx spend target has reduced by nearly 20% in less than six months. Is this an indicator of how the really large CapEx targets you have set will go? I hope not, Nick. I really hope not. I am hoping that now that we can spend more time, and if I say more time, sort of at the right level of management, dedicating more of their time towards these things, I am hoping that, that won’t be the case both internally. But then also externally, remember, there has been a massive logistics issue at our harbors and our ports, and a very, very large component part of the equipment that we are sourcing has to come through harbor. So, our management and our engineers have had their hands full to get stuff through harbor. So, yes, I am hoping that this is not an indicator, but some of the work that’s going to be happening going forward also, when you talk about construction, you are not waiting for something to come through a harbor in order to move on construction. You move, it’s something that you do physically. You are just going to maintain the rate. The supplier of our liner, which is a very, very major item for the construction of the RTSA, that’s a local supplier, not quite sure what the position is with regards to the resins and other components, but I do know that, that supplier is local. But I think a big chunk of the lag in capital spent up until now, considering that the biggest part of our capital spend up until now has been on the solar, a big part of that lag is because of clearing stuff through Durban and East London and Maputo and Walsh Bay. And everybody knows where there is a harbor, then you would be getting something through it, and then on the truck and then to Joburg. Nick, your second question also, at this stage, we are expecting that there should be a reduction, but we will know when we know. It’s very hard to make an absolute prediction on what the absolute reduction in costs are going to be. We can estimate it, but to take a guess, I am just going to have to explain it afterwards why we got it wrong. Riaan, you are going to have to help me on Juan’s question, the next one, to clarify, does it mean your cost estimate does not consider any positive effects from the solar plant? I don’t think we have factored in much in terms of the solar plant. I think it’s really based on volume throughput and the fact that we are back to sort of high volume sites, if I am not mistaken.

That’s right, Niel. And as we commission in now various parts of the solar, it’s very difficult to factor the saving into account. But I do recognize Juan’s comment and we have discussed it and you elaborated on that is that at some point, when everything is set and up and running, we need to provide that detail to the market. That is really important. We are investing significant capital. We believe it’s a very good project, but we haven’t distilled all that detail, which is important and we will at the right time do that. So, we definitely take Juan’s comment seriously. And as you have said, we will set that up and we will provide that detail in due course.

Juan, I just wanted to echo that. I mean it’s not that we haven’t done the work, that we are not sensitive to legitimate expectations of our investors. We just want to make sure that when we do give you the numbers, that they are the numbers. And as I have said earlier, I am not quite sure the extent to which, for example, how effective the avoidance of peak spend to be, what the real impact of that is going to be, the extent to which we will be able to start wheeling back into the grid because there is a third-party involved here as well, the extent to which that is facilitated. What we do know though is the solar plant is working. When we started that plant that is running at designed capacity, maybe even a little bit better, Jaco, when that first line or that first line came onboard, we were hoping for 6 megawatt and I think it was sort of registering just under 7 megawatt. And we now are now pulling 14 megawatt off that system, which is way beyond what it’s capable of delivering. But that is how much we can feed into the project as we speak. So, we know it’s working. We have confidence in the team that’s constructed it, the technology that they are using to monitor its operation. It’s good technology. It goes into very intricate detail to give them proper analysis. So, we are very keen to give you these numbers. But we do want to make sure that we give you the actual numbers. And it will be interesting to do that also in terms of the cash flow statement. Obviously, you have got your balance sheet where the Sun Capital where that plays a role. But it will be interesting to see just how much less do we spend on a month-to-month basis now that the Sun is providing most of our power, or half of our power. So, I have skipped over one. Are there any regulatory changes that potentially have an impact on the operations? Not that I am aware of. I know that there was talk a while back with regards to provision for rehabilitation, but I think that’s been deferred. So, there is nothing that we are factoring at this stage. We are planning to the regulations as they currently are. Yes. So, Brendan, we are looking at other opportunities where we can leverage existing infrastructure and then also looking further than that into sites that are beyond our existing infrastructure. Not massive, but we are sort of poking around it. Yes. Juan, I am really going to try and sort of just in terms of the numbers that we offer really, give you numbers where I don’t run the risk of having to explain afterwards why we got it wrong. So, we planned the projects. The project has a very interesting and robust NPV. If you look at the way that the NPV is calculated though, then there is one portion that is attributed to the subsidiary that’s generating the power, and then another portion of the NPV that’s attributed to the company actually using the power based on its savings. So, these are calculations based on accepted theory. So, to release those numbers will mean that it’s a few months from now we will explain to you why the methodologies that are used for valuation and why the actual numbers, why they differ. So, please, if you will indulge us and just be a little bit more patient with us so that we can give you the actual performance numbers. And then what we will do, and this is the undertaking that I give is that we will take one month. We will take, let’s say, the first month that this thing is fully up and running. And we can do it sort of in two. We could do one before basis up and running to the full potential, and then one after basis up and running to the full potential. Because I know this is important for you to do your calculation. We will say, for arguments sake, and I am sort of now creating an implied expectation, but let’s say July. We will take July of 2024 and compare the actual amount spent on electricity with July 2023. And that will be an apples-for-apples calculation. But no balance sheet movements, no provisions, no deferred, anything, just this is the size of the check in July of ‘23, this is the size of the check in July of ‘24. And this is the number of units that we actually consume. And this is the number of units that we consume back then, because there are always these little bit of interruptions as well. So, I do ask you if you could be a little bit patient with us. We ask for your indulgence. Yes. The answer to your second question is, yes. We are scheduling a solar plant webinar, without a doubt.

Yes. I will just say that – sorry, Niel, the one number we mentioned in our integrated report that gives a very high level estimate is ZAR9 a ton saving over the current life of mine, approximately. I mean we need to build out on that. And as you indicated, we will.

And hopefully, when we do this presentation, we will be explaining that why it’s ZAR10 a ton and not ZAR6 a ton.

But that is always the challenge.

Yes. But yes, we will have an extensive webinar on that or a detailed webinar on that. So, thank you for indulging us. Alright, we seem to have reached the end of the questions. Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you for dialing in. Thank you for your support. Hopefully, next time we come together, we are in a position to give you an account of how we had delivered on the expectations that we create for the forthcoming period. So, thank you very much.

Thank you, Niel. Thanks so much.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for joining myself, Riaan and Jaco for our results presentation for the financial year ending the June 30, 2023. Before we start -- all right. I think this is somebody who needs to go on to mute. Thank you. Before we start, I think maybe just a moment to remember Derek Watts, who passed away yesterday. I think we all remember Derek is a fearless journalist with integrity, relentless pursuit to the truth (ph). And I think he state for certainty leaving a gap in the community, the media community. Moving on to the first page. That is our disclaimer. We are keeping the content of this presentation fairly light. We're not going to go into a lot of detail, really just the highlights and the events that impacted and contributed to our financial operating performance this year. We'll obviously deal with everything from more extensively in our integrated report. Just in terms of highlights, the key group features for this year, see that on the back of a very good gold price. Our revenue is up 7% for the year, and that also contributed to an 8% increase in operating profit of just over ZAR1.8 billion. That in turn contributed to a very nice increase in headline earnings, a 14% increase of just 14% or rather 14% to just over ZAR1.2 billion, and that has enabled us to pay, 16th consecutive dividend. We're topping up the interim dividend by another ZAR0.65 to take the total dividend for the year to ZAR0.85. And I remind myself that being a shareholder myself, a very large percentage of the shares that I purchased and which are now earning dividends I bought for just over ZAR2, I think ZAR2, 13 months. It's been a long-term strategy on my part, and I'm hoping that some of the shareholders are finding results in a similar position. Moving into the operating trends. We'll deal with both operating segments individually and then we want to be the group operating features. And I think what we want to emphasize here and what the graph is showing, two things really. The first being volumes coming under pressure, especially towards the second half of the financial year, but offset to an extent by an increase in yield. Obviously, every year, we do anticipate certain things from happening, and we factor that into the -- into our thinking as part of what we provide for in terms of contingencies. I think there were one or two additional ones this year in terms of the volume throughput that we were unable to respond to the way that we would have preferred. And that really involved the delay on a number of new sites. You would have seen in the letter that we also released this morning that we consider this year to be an in-between year that some of the earlier sites initial sites, the Elsburg site in particular that those are coming to an end, they reach the end of the producing life and they need to be replaced. Now we have a program of sequencing our reclamation sites. And we work towards a time line, and there were a number of delays in actually implementing that. So you would have seen in the letter to the right trial site, which is the main volume of site, the replacement side. It's only come online recently and is only now starting to get to a stage of -- state rather of, or steady state. So that being the case, a lot of the throughput this year was supplemented with material from, we call them clean-up sites, a few years back. We started a program to start cleaning up some of the legacy sites. So there's a fairly large fleet of yellow machines lifting and stockpiling material. And these were activated and a lot of the material that came in into the plant into the Ergo plant was from these sites. And that helped with recoveries, the head grade from the sites typically is higher because it's also material and the, therefore, the increase in yield of 0.25 gram per tonne compared to where it was in the past. And then you would have seen how that impacted the Ergo production output as well -- there's just one microphone that needs to go into mute. So that's how you would have seen the -- I mean you could see the impact also on the production throughput right at the end of just over 2 tonnes per half year to just under 2 tonnes per half year. And these sites are -- or these circuits are sensitive both to volume and grade -- grade does help quite a bit higher grade. Moving on to Far West Gold operating trends. There too, you would have seen in the letter that towards the end of the year, there was a delay in the new site that's been commissioned, the number 3 dam. So the first slide number 5 dam, which is really just a few baby steps away from the Far West Gold Plant, very neat and simple operation. Let's now move on to the second slide. So the number 3 dam has also now come online, but that too has its own set of challenges at getting it commissioned on time. And that had to do, by and large, with the delay in the delivery of componentry that we had to import to a logistical issue and we attribute part of that really to global economy and supply lights that have yet not fully recovered following the lockdown, the COVID pandemic associated lockdown. Far West Gold also had a direct impact of the impact of the load curtailment arrangement that we have with Eskom. And you see that in the production numbers, the yield and also the production number. So it has to switch off it to mills to grind down the course material. It runs close-circuit mill, but you've got to switch that off and the benefit that you have from the mill has lost. And you could see some of that also coming through both in the yield and in the production numbers. So on a group basis, a very, very steep decline, which, thankfully, is only a temporary decline. It will start picking back up again now that both number 3 dam, [indiscernible] number 3 at Far West Gold and reroll at [indiscernible] to now that they're up and running again, and there are a few others in the pipeline that will systematically also come online. You will see the opposite happening in terms of yield. So it's higher volume, lower grade material. And then hopefully, these will balance each other out, and we've been delivering to the guidance that we give at the end of this presentation. So total production for the two half years or for the financial year, so just under 3 tonnes for the first half and 2.5 tonnes for the second take us just to be low 6 tonnes for the year. The 6 tonnes really, I think, is where we want to be, somewhere between 5.5 tonnes and 6 tonnes. That gives us the volume throughput, the weight or the scale that can support the overhead structure of the business. I think the next is the financial review. I'll hand you over to Riaan to take you through some of those numbers. Riaan, thank you.

Thank you very much, Niel. Good morning, everyone, from my side. As always, a hedge privilege for me to take you through the financial results, was very helpful with the operating context that Niel has fined to be, before I do that, just two specific words of thanks from my side, firstly, to our operational team for delivering these results. We all know that we're a 24-hour a day business. In a sports analogy, what that means is we can capitate our eye off the ball, the ball is always in play. And I want to recognize the operational team that produces ultimately these results. And then secondly, just a reporting team as well. I know when we talk, as Niels said, in a summarized way in these presentations that it may look pretty simple, pretty easy, but I can show you it's not a lot of effort and dedication by the team goes in, and I want to just want to thank each and every one of them for their support in ultimate coming up with the set of numbers for our year, which I'm very, very proud to present. And then as Niel said, yes, there's a summarized presentation. Hopefully, we'll give you the key features of our results. But please do have a look at our condensed financial statements that we've released. We prepare that booklet with great care, and I know you will find the information in there. So on the financial review side, as nearest time to start with ERGO. As you could see there, Ergo's revenue overall for the year, increased by 11% in comparison to the FY 2022 financial year, which was driven by overall an increase of 16% in the average rand gold price received although gold sold was down 5%, as alluded in an environment for ERGO, which had much more difficult tonnes, so lower tonnage but a higher yield. Just period-on-period, if you compare the first six months of the FY 2023 financial year to the second six months, in that time, we saw also a steep increase in gold price, if we compare second six months, the first six months, gold price was up 17%, although gold sold in that period, was down 7%. But overall, a very good revenue performance. From a cash operating cost point of view, obviously, overall, if you look at a cash operating cost increase only 6% year-on-year. But obviously, that's in a lower tonnage environment where the volume was down 22%, but yield overall, up 21% sort of offsets that for us in very neat way. But yes, the cost pressures are very much there. We noted in the booklet as well, reagents, diesel electricity security. It's a very large focus for us Cheniere yellow machines for late-stage cleanup. We've experienced very high and well above inflationary increases there and all of that contributes to the cost overall. So the net of those two have some inventory adjustments then get us to operating profit. And again, what a very good six months that you have with, obviously, profitable ounces. And as such, we had high yield and slightly lower tonnages and a high gold price wonderful second six months. Year-on-year, the increase was 26% increase in operating profit for Ergo, which is an excellent result and just over ZAR920 million is a gross contribution. So excellent performance, I believe, on the challenging circumstances from our mothership operation urban. Moving on to the Far West. A slightly different picture, as Niel mentioned as well. There are not many sites there. It was in the late stage -- final stages of Driefontein 5. But unfortunately, and that's often how it works in these -- on these sites. We cannot choose the grade, and we work through those sites in a methodical way. But at Driefontein 5, they didn't contribute it was a lower grade part of the dam. And then also when Driefontein 3 got online, the parts that we mine in there at the moment is also not close to the average overall of that site. And as everyone knows, those sites aren't homogeneous, the grade isn't spread evenly through some areas higher than others. And we often look overall at the average grade of that site only. So tonnages impacted that overall. And unfortunately, it didn't have the yield impact that Ergo did. So if you look at revenue than year-on-year, overall down by 2% with gold sold down by 15%, but offset by the 16% increase in the average gold price received. If I look at cash operating costs in that context, so up 11% year-on-year. Similar cost pressures as Ergo that we experience in there -- at this stage of both Driefontein 5 late stage and the start of the Driefontein 3 sites, unfortunately, not that yield offset that we saw very distinctly in ERGO, giving us with some energy adjustments. Overall, on the operating profit side, 6% down year-on-year in this scenario where revenue is slightly down, costs up. Obviously, that will impact operating profit. But still look at the number, just below ZAR900 million contribution by Far West to the operating profit of the group, which overall by is still an excellent result. If we look at the group then overall, operating margin percentage, again, assisted by the gold price as our patients, specifically in the second six months, increased 17% period-on-period, a very healthy operating margin and that 36.1% is the highest we've seen over the last four half years, and you can see that on the slide. All-in sustaining cost margin, similarly, very healthy at 24% was taking into account that we've spent ZAR476 million in sustaining CapEx and it's very much in line with last year. So still, even with that sustaining capital investment, very healthy 24.1% margin in the year in the second six months and overall all-in sustaining gross margin of 20.6%. Moving on to the free cash flow. It appears, yes, and that's true that the cash flow, free cash flow year-on-year decrease. Although, when I get to the cash flow statement, I'll talk to that, cash generated from -- cash generated from operations up year-on-year. So what that free cash flow shows us, and we'll talk to that in the cash flow statement as well is that over ZAR550 million of capital spend on the growth side. And for me, that is a really wonderful growth story. So as with sustaining CapEx also down more and more with growth CapEx. We invest in a business that works and we're investing in a purpose that we believe. So for me, it's a wonderful result. And I've almost summarized that. So we've tested over ZAR1.1 billion of investing activities. So you'll see that in the cash flow later as well, which is almost 90% more than last year. Last year, we spent ZAR626 million. And remember, free cash flow is a gold number. It does not lie. It just take operating cash, less investing cash and that is the answer. So a very positive cash position, but I'll elaborate on that, when we get to the cash flow statement. And then headline earnings per share, a wonderful result that you already alluded to, so overall, 13% increase in headline per share to ZAR148.2 -- ZAR148.2 share and again, it's a very solid second six months of 85.9%. Then moving on to the statement of profit and loss income statement. Just that at a high level, revenue increased by 7% as a result of the gold price increase, 16% year-on-year, offset by gold sold down year-on-year by 8%. Cost of sales, up 5%, so one of the other elements more than cash operating costs that come in there is depreciation, for example, depreciation was down period-on-period with lower tonnages that we produced as has mentioned. Leading our gross profit from operating activities up 15% year-on-year at just under ZAR1.6 billion. Net income, we remained lowest here at 91.3, the majority of that was COVID claim that we successfully been accounted for and received mostly in that period and the last bit in this year. [indiscernible] expense is 7% year-on-year increase. Finance income up year-on-year. Obviously, in our environment, we're very fortunate to carry cash balances less, obviously, in a high interest rate environment, that means that more finance income. Obviously, if you have debt in that environment, you pay higher interest charges were fortunate to earn interest at the current high relatively high interest rates. And that line also includes dividends from [indiscernible], but you see both of those on the cash flow statement. In finance expense, as you know, was a small -- just a small portion, only 5 million of that in cash. The rest is an unwinding -- mostly an unwinding of the discount on our environmental liabilities. And then income tax current and deferred. As you know, in that line, leaving us with a profit for the year of ZAR1.281 (ph) million, ZAR1.2 billion, up by 14% year-on-year. Looking our statement of financial position, more on balance sheet. Wonderfully, if you look at the property plant and equipment line that Niel alluded to, there's a healthy increase as we keep on investing in our business, in our assets, which is always the best kind of investment, if you can build and maintain through capital infrastructure. And we've seen in other businesses, some of them owned by government and the result, if you do not do that. And the big method, as I said, to our purpose and we'll continue to do that. And it's a healthy increase in property, plant and equipment. Market investments and other assets, mostly our rehab assets that sits there, also benefit from a higher interest rate environment. So healthy growth year-on-year in that line. Cash and cash equivalents, again, I'll talk through in quite some detail on the next page. But overall, what you can see there is only a ZAR54 million so-called cash burn year-on-year, but I'll elaborate that on the cash flow statement. And then other current assets came up year-on-year, but the positive way is that it includes and we alluded to that in our results booklet as well 185 million prepayment towards solar project capital, which again, all investing activity for us and very positive that we can execute also our solar project. Equity, how to increase year-on-year, even after the dividend. And again, as you know, the profits contribute overall to the equity of the company. Provision for environmental rehabilitation, fairly stable year-on-year, mostly the unwinding and some other changes that we lead to in the note in our financial statements. Deferred tax liability that increased year-on-year, some property plant equipment items that we've already fully claimed for tax purposes under our tax regime. And then current liability is slight increase year-on-year, but giving us in a very, very healthy current ratio at June 30, 2023 of 4.5. Then to the statement of cash flows. Yes, my personal opinion, the most relevant and useful primary statement of the ore. Because as you know, it doesn't deal with fair value versus historical cost, pros and cons of both in just deals with gas, and it tells you the truest, in my view, picture of what the business has generated. And for us, really, really good reading. So if you look at the net cash inflow from operating activities, obviously, for any business, the most important line is our cash generated from operations. So in my thank you at the beginning of what I said, that's what drives the business. The underlying operations, what kind of cash does it generate. And for us, the year-on-year increase to just over ZAR1.7 billion in cash generation. Finance income received that I mentioned, obviously increased year-on-year, as a result of the balance that we carry and cash that we still generate and then the highest interest rate -- high interest rate environment dividends you see mostly from rand refinery. You can see there separately. And there's the ZAR5 million finance expense paid in cash that I mentioned, relatively small in context of the other numbers. And then income tax paid from my viewpoint is a significant contribution that our business also makes directly in that income tax line, also in other tax lines to the fiscus and we always hope that, that money will spend in a responsible way. The net cash flow from investing activity is also very happy reading. If you look at acquisition of property, plant and equipment, so at just over ZAR1.1 billion, almost doubled from last year. which is, I believe, an excellent message. So we keep on investing in our business and more so also in non-sustaining or growth capital expenditure. And then environmental rehabilitation payments, we'll continue to do that. I still believe not many other mining companies get that right. We continue to spend money. And most of that spend to currently active tailings facilities, so DRDGOLD Withok and Driefontein 4. And sometimes it's challenging if it's -- as it has been a very high rainfall summer sometimes those activities are slightly delayed on the vegetation and some other challenges, but that's something we're committed to, and we'll keep on spending money to rehabilitate concurrently. Then on dividends, as Niel has already mentioned, we paid just over ZAR500 million in dividends in this financial year in cash. So then that's the overall that ZAR63 netted off by the positive at [indiscernible] variance. That gets us to the ZAR54 million essential cash burn for the year. But overall, from our perspective, we've invested more than ZAR1.1 billion in property, plant and equipment paid over ZAR500 million in dividends and our cash position stayed virtually unchanged, which I believe is a really magnificent result. Then yes, this is always the sort of handover slide to Mr. Pretorius. And maybe he would like to speak to this because this is also a very, very happy reading. As you can see, we had it there for a least February. But even if you go slightly back, we've had a really wonderful run in our share price, and I believe we're one of the best-performing shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for this calendar year. We take 1 January to 30 June, but our run started slightly earlier. So we were hovering 10 around just under 10 in October and moving to November. So if you just look at that, from 12 obviously to around 24 is more than 100% increase. So a wonderful result, I believe, our shareholders in this period. But with that, I'll hand over to Niel to maybe say something on that and then talk to the ESG and the rest of the present question. Thanks, Niel.

Thanks, Riaan. Yes, it has been a good period for us in terms of share price performance. I think you could see that the share price is still tracking the gold price compare to the multiple might be slightly more steeply get to the gold price than some of the other companies. And to Riaan’s point, on performance year-to-date minus loans I think basically, we kindly emailed me some statistics in July, suggesting that year-to-date at the time, DRD gained 58%. But I think that the one number that I thought I feel just explain this, performance gold sector performance or return over 10 years, which is 794%. And that's what DRD is all about. It's the long-term performance. It's a sustainability focus. That's hopefully taking us into the future and is setting us up to take full advantage of ore body and continue to deliver into the multiple value focused areas that we've made part of our strategy. And that takes us into sustainable development, the very next slide, what we've been doing in that regard. So moving on to the environmental aspect of that. The prior to reduce potable water usage by relying increasingly on industrial water, recycled water or water that we harvest that continues. And again, we saw a 10% decrease this year. And compared to where it was 10, 15 years ago, it's come down every year. For most years, and we're now a point we're roughly 90%, which is more than 90% of all the processed water that we use. In fact, all the water that the we use in our process is non-potable, which I believe is an important part in terms of the sustainability drive. We're having power issues now. We know that in the not-too-distant future, we're going to be adding to those issues, namely not enough water because of the -- simply the size and the availability of water for use for personal years. So it's a good way to set ourselves up to not just from an environmental perspective, but also from the business resilient perspective. [indiscernible] to use 187%. And those are, by and large, not related to tailings thus from tailings, but more infrastructure, so dust from grows or from where vehicles are moving in terms of recommission of materials. So that also is a number which I personally find encouraging. The rehabilitation spend remains high in the circumstances. And when these are costs that are directly attributed to rehabilitation categorized in that line. We know that our mining process, in essence, is rehabilitation with the removal of tailings from areas where were they shouldn't be and processing them and storing them elsewhere that's about 42 million. And then another 25 million hectors are permanent storage facilities, tailing storage facilities have been vegetated during the course of this year. And to a large extent, the dust risk that these facilities pose to surrounding communities. I'm talking about the current facility in particular. That has been dealt with fully, which I believe is very important. And I remember like it was yesterday, 2006, when we were presented by a budget proposal by the then General Manager of [indiscernible] a refer saying that ZAR116 million to start revegetating these tailings. And now many years later, 15 years later, we could stand back reflect on what's been achieved over that period so that the people are so delivering around this facility are no longer suffering being convenience of us coming off those facilities. Moving on to the environmental add, which is the next slide. So there too, I think what I want to focus on here is more what you can expect to be seeing going forward, particularly in terms of the electricity consumption aspect and the carbon emissions aspect. So there, you could see the trending from the '21, '22 and '23, where as we go. And of course, with 20 megawatt of solar power coming online in the not-too-distant future, that consumption from the national grid will reduce. And 18 months from now at the end of the next calendar year, we hope to have an additional 40 megawatt put in place together with very significant storage capacity, 160 megawatt storage capacity or timing and then the carbon emission number would look quite differently. The electricity consumption of the grid would look quite differently. And our risk profile would it differently. The impact on cost would also start flowing through. And this is what we like about our model is that we're really taking four out of five sustainable development capital stock boxes integrated value that it's really, very going to be alive. So this is an exciting time for us and it's pleased to be investing money in. I will reflect a little bit more on that later on in the presentation. So moving on to the next slide on our social investment aspect with long been containing for the notion or being supportive of the notion that you cannot run a business. It cannot be an island of stability and an ocean of anarchy. So it would be stability of societies around your operations is essential to be successful in business at some stage, frustration falls over and this could be very disruptive when it comes to business. And the money that we spend in that regard, particularly in terms of community development, the broad-based livelihood part of the business. I think that's really taken off beyond expectation. And it's contributed towards a very significant network that we have access to and a little bit more about that later on. The one thing that we do believe we should be cautious of, especially now that the private sector has become increasingly involved in some of the gaps that are been left by the state just to become a proxy for delivery in terms of the state. This company, which is one of the smaller companies on the JSE, paid ZAR314 million, ZAR320 million in income tax in the last year. And I think it's important that we monitor the extent to which some of that is being reinvested by the state in the communities where we operate. This cannot be a situation where private sector pays taxes and then still expect it also to deliver into what essentially is government's responsibility. And one of the things that I think we will be increasingly focusing on -- in the years to come and the months to come and the years to come, would be awareness, to create awareness through our network that yes, it does make an impression if you have a protest. And if you're disruptive in response to lack of services or the absence of services, but they're better ways of doing that. Many of these things that form the subject matter of protest action are services that society is entitled to in terms of constitutional guarantees. And failure on the part of the state of delivering to those is a failure to delivering to a constitutional guarantee, and there's a legal process available in terms of which departments, both local provincial and at national can be held accountable. They can be ported to delivering to those services, and if we fail to do so they can be held in it. And somehow I just think that we're at a point where the likelihood of a positive result of an official getting locked up or content of court is better than just be burning another tire. So that's certainly -- and we're not going to be causing uprising and stuff like that, but we will be -- we've been talking to communities to maybe just make them aware of some of the remedies that are available, that are legal remedies that are enforceable and they are effective in terms of the desired result that we want to achieve. Looking on to the next slide. This is the community to support aspect. Now here, too, just on the longer story line of sustainable development and overlapping value. So it's not always easy to motivate the capital spend in terms of corporate social investment and on existing communities to empower themselves. It's not always easy to motivate those in terms of brands and central to motivate commercially. But what we are finding is that the networks that are being established through these initiatives are increasingly becoming part of the consultancy platform or the consulting platform rather that is required on so many levels when it comes to regulatory compliance. So you apply for a license, whether it's a water usage license or whether it's an environmental authorization. Many of these things or most of these things have an element of community consultation that's required as part of the process. And we believe that this was value and we're actually witnessing that now there's vice value being recognized through this network. And this is increasing the facilitating consultation. And I know I have one about this, but this is once again an instance where there's multiple integrated value delivery and the notion of sustainable development. And was in terms of social investment that's now been eight, nine, 10 years in the making. We're finding that there's another level of value that's been delivered in this regard. And the same agency that's been conducting many of these initiatives on our behalf they broadened their service delivery -- proposal service delivery ability to also include the type of consultation that's required for regulatory approvals and so forth. So we'll continue with those and approach remains the first step out of property, property deviation, to a knowledge and a match very keen focus still on youth education, math, science and accountancy and we're starting to actually see some of those candidates finding the way to our bursary scheme and also into employment with our company that we're very pleased about and very thankful for. But those will continue, and hopefully, we can broaden them in terms of some of the material that's been created over the last few years, the circled five pillars of sustainable development within a community. Some of those on that finding its way, we see into our social and labor plans and really excited about the impact that we've had just gauging by what we've seen just out of a very modest program otherwise. So moving on to the next slide. This is on the excellence in reporting. There is something I wanted to say about tailings management. Just want to make sure that I'm still on the right track here. Somehow seem to tick over that. So that is in the latter in terms of some of the governance steps that you've taken there and how that's being dealt with. But moving on to excellence in integrated reporting, we're very proud of the delivery of this particular team and also proud of the rest of our colleagues in providing the material that we can report on that is sort of quality that supports recognition of this kind. And this is a lot of effort, a big part of this is from announced resources. So we want to congratulate our team. And also, we want to congratulate our service provider in this regard for assisting and guiding also delivering to us very, very good result. So moving on to the last slide, which is, looking at this slide. In terms of guidance, we are seeing a nice reversal of trend in terms of volume throughput. So we are in a position to be slightly more ambitious in terms of our production guidance for the year. And then also you'll see the cash operating cost guidance of ZAR770,000 per kilo. It is up from last year, but you are looking at a slightly more complex circuit at Far West Gold. And then, of course, pleased with the normal cost pressures as well. We do have our [indiscernible] in the controller. And hopefully, we'll be able to match the previous year's performance in terms of guidance in so far as costs are concerned. And hopefully, also in terms of production, we did land in terms of production for the current year, we sort of landed in the midrange of guidance. We're expecting to spend about ZAR3.5 billion on capital in a number so that this is still a number that catches the eye considering where we were a few years ago and what we're tackling now and just the relative ability to actually venture into these things. And I'll spend a bit of time maybe just talking about the environment into which we're investing this. Now a very large chunk of this ZAR3.5 billion will go into the solar plant. And just on some of the conversations that we've had we've been having in that regard. We believe that this is a very sound investment to make because it's clearly speaking, it's not just mining investment. So it's not dependent solely on what happens in mining, what happens in the gold price. This is something for which there is a very significant national requirement. And we happen to be very well positioned geographically also in terms of the national grid. So we are delivering power into the grid is not a challenge to us at all having gone through the regulatory process a certain scopes to actually do that. So this is probably something that you're not going to be stuck with. So we will be taking a bit of funding in that regard, and then Riaan can elaborate a bit if required to. But we think that it's a solid responsible investment in current circumstances to be investing in solar power to the extent that we have. The second part is we are -- we're determined to mine as much of our resource as we possibly can. And we've been talking about blend and sequencing some for retreatment at now for a long, long time. In the Johannesburg area, we treated more than 138 [indiscernible] over the life of this company, cleaning up an excess of 2,000 hectares. So a big part of that is now more recently land that we ourselves own. So sustainable land use and how that can contribute also to quality of life into Johannesburg. I think those are going to become topics of conversation going forward. It's a very large area that well, ERP in the brand area, that's my final phase and will be cleaned up over the next year or so. And then these are areas that are very near or very close to where people actually work. So hopefully, where the areas where development is taking place, where those have been moving further and further away from the economic hub of the Johannesburg and surrounding areas by opening up these areas, that will reverse. We're encouraging other land owners where we cleaned up land and we're in a position to hand them over to do just that, to make that contribution to reduce the duration of the compete and to vested into something that can bring quality to the lives of the communities who up until recently live next to a tailings another living next to an area which has been cleaned to a very, very high specification and that can now be used for something different. And we're hoping to see that. We're hoping that those areas once they handed over, don't become reduced upsides or informal settlements but they are being put to us that we can actually even of sustainable lands. But that's been part of what's been driving us, cleaning up these areas, making them available and contributing towards a different kind of society in Johannesburg placed as more space closer to where people work. And that is dependent on one very important ongoing qualification and that is to make sure that we have a good deposition space. So when you look at the money that's being spent at Far West Gold, the ZAR800 million, a big part of that tailings dam and in the not-too-distant future, amount not quite as high, but a similar amount will be spent at ERGO in order to also expand the size and capacity of the [indiscernible] tailings capacity so that we can deliver into this site deal. We're not going to be running out of resources anytime soon. But we do have to manage tailings deposition quite carefully, and we do spend time collaborating on that in the letter to shareholders on the design, challenges and the regulatory process and how we just aligning ourselves closer to what we believe the contemporary thinking on that, what that involves. So in summary, ZAR3.5 billion for the next year, a big part of which is going into solar and a big part of which is going into long-term sustainability by creating the position facility. Of course, in the Far West Land that drive the pace to drive of the West Land operations that involves this lifting a whole range a whole cluster of tailings from areas where at the moment, they still built over environmentally sensitive areas and pose a risk to underground water. And the big part of the environmental authorization associated with the Far West bill operations. A big part of the motivation involves the removal of those sailings from two areas where they’re no longer pose that risk. So there's a societal aspect. There's an environmental aspect. And most part of it is that in doing it, we can contribute to the economy and provide to delivering to the integrated deals in South Africa. Now a question obviously been, that one has to ask when looking at these sorts of numbers is, are you investing in the sort of environment where it's responsible to invest this kind of money. And we switch on television and maybe you would wonder -- you read the Fraser Institute report and maybe you would wonder, if you look at where capital is going, and a lot of it is going away from South Africa, not much or less is coming into South Africa. So one has to reflect on these things carefully before you commit your shareholders running into that. And we believe that there is, it is responsible to invest in South Africa. We do believe that South Africa doesn't stand or fall based on the quality of political governance in the country. There's a private sector and there's a society, which when they join forces become unstoppable and can really turn things around. So increasingly, in order to assess whether or not there is responsible. One looks not so much at the kind of challenges that we face, but you also look at what has been the response or what is the response to those challenges. And the responses to some of those challenges, in fact, I believe, have been remarkable. What we are seeing, well, firstly, what we are seeing is that the face of political leadership is systematically changing. We're seeing a different kind of leader, emerging younger dynamic with lots of energy, paid firm values, at the moment, maybe still more at proven local and provincial level. But increasingly, I think we'll start seeing those phases and those profiles finding their way into the national leadership as well. People who are externally focused, a genuinely wanting to deliver into the well-being of their constituency. So that certainly is changing. It is going to take a while before it changes completely. But we are seeing very positive first indications of a changing face of political leadership. I think the second thing which is really encouraging is that it seems the private capital has found its voice. We're seeing less in the way of nuanced attaints (ph) on the product business leaders for more direct communication and more very prominent leaders are becoming involved in initiatives that can contribute towards some of the very pricing challenges that we are faced with, like prime, like logistics and so forth. Very recognizable names, very influential people who have come on to reverse capital, and that can activate the capital over which they have concerning ship activate that quite quickly and bring about positive change. I think something which is also very encouraging is the way that we are seeing private capital being mobilized with that towards -- that which is strategically important. I read a very interesting article just this morning, suggesting that the amount of energy that's being generated from rooftop solar panels, that’s now reached 4.4 gigawatts. It's 2 phases of low ceding. And it's jumped almost doubled in the last year. So the private sector come to realize that sitting around and waiting is not going to be the solution. We've got a jump in, and they're jumping at a rate that I think is catching us by surprise. So 4.4 gigawatts of electricity already being generated. That's not the conduct or the behavior of somebody who's given up on the country. So we're seeing capital at work. We've seen on again people at work, we're seeing a different kind of energy. People are not waiting for government to step in and fix it for them, but communities doing it for themselves. So the same sort of resilience that we've been working hard at as a company to establish to overcome some of the challenges that we're facing. We are undoubtedly seeing that becoming a feature also of our society, more and more pockets of society while behaving in this way. And South African people becoming an increasingly resilient people. So yes, what has happened in the recent past in terms of how we position ourselves. We position ourselves favorably in terms of water. We've positioned ourselves favorably in terms of security and we're positioning ourselves favorably in terms of -- we're not allowed much larger sections of society are doing the same thing, either getting involved. We're doing it for themselves. So we do believe that this is many [indiscernible] spending and looking towards future for South Africa. Yes, I think that's pretty much it, Riaan. I don't know if you want to add to that. I don't know, Jaco, if you want to jump in, but I think that's what we wanted to share for purposes of this presentation. There are -- I just want to check. Anything else, guys? Or can we go to the questions.

Thank you.

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you very much. So I just wanted to ask the master of ceremonies, can I move on to the question for lack of a better description. So we seem to be -- Okay, good stuff. So we can move on to that. So [indiscernible] from Nedbank once a breakdown of the 3.5%. I don't I think I sort of cover that in the looking forward in terms of the solar and the large part also in terms of tailings. And then, of course, there's element of sustaining CapEx as well, Riaan, I don't know if you want to elaborate on that?

No, that's right, Niel. So the majority of it, as you said, towards the solar project at Ergo, then different than to what is if expansion is the ZAR800 million, and roughly that difference, as I alluded to around ZAR500 million to the sustaining CapEx for both operations. And again, it sounds quite a number and it will be a challenge to spend all of that. But again, for something like the battery I think a lot of that is happening as we speak and we're confident that we will be able to execute that. Jaco, I don't know if you want to add any comments to that.

Riaan, you are 100% correct. Do you hear me? So the -- as you said, the majority of that is on base and Phase 2 of Far West and in some reclamation sites at Ergo. There will possibly be some capital from the solar and batteries running over into the next year, but that's a normal cash flow.

Riaan, and then do you want to have a little bit of the next question from Alexander, the contribution towards decommissioning liabilities that come down? What informs its reduction and what future contributions can we expect on average, please?

Yeah. Thanks, Niel. Thanks, Alexander, for the question. So yes, you note well. Maybe just some of the points that were also elaborate on in our results, booklet, and for example, on Far West, we only spent -- we only vegetated five week days [indiscernible]. But in this year, that positive maximum available CapEx that we could vegetated. So it's still a relative good achievement. At Ergo, for Bracknell storage facility. Yes. So we experienced by long wet season. There was some rain damage scores, which avoided us to vegetate the tailings and to the extent that we would have liked. And there's also some community disruptions sadly that hindered our vegetation program on the [indiscernible] complex. But to give you an indication now, so that's not the level that we would like to spend at. And we've again committed to up that to at least between ZAR30 million and ZAR40 million for this year and hope to achieve, and we'll continue to do that. So specifically on our tailing stands to keep on with the concurrent vegetation program. Hopefully, that gives you a sense of what we want to do. Unfortunately, it's not always possible for us to keep that up in the way that we would like, but we'll definitely continue to do that.

Thanks, Riaan. [Indiscernible] has a question about [indiscernible]. I'll deal with that question. But before maybe that's a bold strategic issue. Before I do that, there is still a question on some of the numbers Riaan, which I'm also going to deflect to you. And that is Nick Hoskin, asking the discussion around the [indiscernible] and reflecting that it's positive and optimistic and an early build up. To ask you question about the expected Phase 1 build and also the NPV improvements on the project. I'm not quite sure the extent to which we can delve into the specifics, but we're in a position to give an indication on sort of the range I suppose the one thing before you go into that. The one thing that we should maybe just point out is the fact that the regional trading facility, the design that we've now submitted, which is an amendment will enable us to perceive tailings in addition to our own resource. So once we've depleted our entire owned resource, there will still be an efficient space on the standing stand to receive very significant quantities of material to from surrounding mine. So everyone in that area as a trading stand on [indiscernible] and who wants to remove it, or is going to take in to remove that because of the impact that the infrastructure is having on underground water, there will be an opportunity to do that. And I think a good way of describing that would be a sustainable solution, environmental site as solution, but also a collaboration or consolidation of sorts. So we're setting it up for the next generation of operators to bring about an enduring and effective solution environment that and that is a purely on the capacity that we're creating in terms of the tailings not going to be all in one go. And this thing is going to be built the curve over six or seven years if I'm not mistaken. You can correct me if I'm wrong. But once it's there, the footprint is there. That it does provide a very significant opportunity to bring about a wholesale cleanup of the 12 weeks, right? So Riaan, if you want to maybe reflect on what Nick (ph) is asking there?

Yeah. So specifically I agree, Nick, it is very exciting around the route that you also alluded in the letter to shareholders and yield around that are really taking for the [indiscernible]. So we're not pursuing the interim solution that we indicated last year, but going for that build of the [indiscernible]. And as we indicated, that has always been our objective from a Far West trend consolidation point of view. So we're planning for much more resources than what we currently own, but we know those resources in that area. So -- and a lot of work has gone into that design. I know over the last year, and we're very optimistic about the next steps. And then, yes, you will maybe on the detail of that. As everyone knows, this is our just condensed financials that we give out. So no reserve changes that we are anticipating. But more detail, obviously, spelt out in our integrated report and other reporting that we do towards the end of October around the 20-F filling and its related documents. But we're very enthusiastic about this Far West project, which is hopefully coming to fruition. And I'll maybe ask Jaco to add anything to that.

No, Riaan, I think you've covered it well.

Thanks, Riaan. And then [indiscernible] question on guidance. So his comment is that the guide for higher production, but the mid guidance ranges around this year's gold production, does this mean you guide for an [indiscernible] gold production. I think if we do hit midrange, then yes, it's in essence, we are guiding the same. But I think we're guiding within a tighter range because of -- hopefully, we passed this what I referred to as an interim phase or a changeover year with some of the higher volume sites now coming on stream. So effect which we're assuming and that which we're anticipating and that which we're factoring into our planning for the time being, if that were to play out, been hopefully in the range. The volume range will be tighter than last year, we'll get closer to that. And of course, if we sort of hit the higher end of at range and if we can maintain plant efficiencies. And hopefully, we will do better than mid guidance, we do not guiding in order to hit the mid-range we are guiding hopefully to meet to test the higher range of guidance. But yes, I think it's a valid comment. So it’s tighter range and hopefully less uncertainty based on current assumptions in terms of volume throughput. And then with higher CapEx, the interest income will be less and with higher cash operating costs unchanged production does this mean that net income will be negatively affected by the higher CapEx. Yes, I'm pretty sure that we'll see less in net cash flow. And then the 20-megawatt solar plant will be online during next year, how come we do not see positive effects on the cash operating cost. We're sort of talking about that internally, but I think we want to see exactly just what the actual reduction is going to be. And then we might want to factor that into the guidance as well. But the guidance that you're seeing, you're absolutely right, does not take into account the potential flow-through of benefits from the silo in terms of power costs. I'm correct in saying that.

That's right, Niel. And maybe I can -- you alluded to it. So that's something, although we're executing it flat out the solar and battery project at Ergo. We are busy fine-tuning, let's say, the structuring. And we have many possibilities there because under our control to optimally structure for, as you mentioned, we are to make sure that we do not only benefit Ergo, but also because it's not only an asset that will contribute to Ergo. That's why we planned it, but there's also other possibilities. And we're setting that up to ultimately with the capital that we're spending. And clearly, it's clear from our cash balance now, what we're spending, what will generate that it is that time towards the end of the financial year that we need refinancing in place for that solar project. I mean, it's ideally suited, it's a wonderful project, and we're doing it almost the other way around. We'll take cash, building it and then refinancing the best terms possible. And those benefits and what you are asking will then optimize around how do we account and how do we allocate to show the benefit in Ergo, by Far West definitely for the group and then very precisely say how we measure that. So that's an exciting development. But like I say, the most important bit is to run build it, and we know it -- we're busy doing that and then to update the market as and when we've progressed on that funding solution. But ultimately, we're aiming for that to be in place nothing later at the end of our financial year 2024.

Thank you, Riaan. I think that also deals with question that’s next asked [indiscernible] on the solar project and how we'll see that in the numbers also in terms of its sort of let's call it, stand-alone valuation. We have a few questions from the floor from Bruce Williamson. Before I take Bruce’s question, I just want to answer [indiscernible] question, which was, do you still see any value in being listed on the JSE and the answer to it is, we do and the reason why we do a significant or register then we're certainly seeing some names popping up in the register, which we find encouraging local names, local funds, some money that's finding its way into the register, which we've been hoping to happen. And that is finally starting to happen. We don't consider it to be particularly onerous, and we don't consider. We don't see any downside in the invested [indiscernible]. So yes, we didn't see that as a benefit. Remembering also that we are the oldest [indiscernible] Johannesburg that's still in business. Many there's been a tradition there as well, but we are looking at the value proposition. So please, Bruce Williamson, rise his hand up. Happy to take your question, please.

Yes, Niel. Hi, good day and good day to Riaan and Jaco. Thanks very much for the update. It's been great. Also your closing remarks on the interaction between this additional private expenditure and some pretty positive outcomes with society, and that's great to hear. Can you maybe just tell us whether that is spot over and that the security side of things has improved. And then secondly, could you sort of look a little bit further out and say, let's say, over the next five years, your confidence in continuing to convert resources to reserves and possibly just a wild guess of how much more CapEx would you spend over five years on infrastructure, tailings storage, et cetera. And then finally, third one is any progress on the PGM recycling opportunities?

So I'll deal with the first one. Let me deal with the second question first on the wild guess of CapEx going forward. Since we've been required to file a technical summary report for the SEC will no longer take qual cases. We're very careful about what we put in there and this is also to a question that [indiscernible] asking of a contradiction between the SK-39 production cost guidance on this guidance and as to explain the reason for that. In as much as we do qualify the numbers that we published, and we do list the assumptions on which we rely and we try to be thorough in using the contingencies associated with that. Then we reassess them from time to time. I think as much as those assumptions have changed, we apply them. And hopefully, it's not seen as a contradiction because of an oversight or is there anything that we got wrong, it will be seen as a number that's been adjusted because the assumption on which it was based, which at the time was a responsible assumption at some of those assumptions of chat. To give these forecasts in the sort of environment that we're in and where the volatilities and contingencies associated with that environment. There are a lot of things over which we do have control, but then there are also a whole lot of things which you do not have control. And you need to take a view on the things over which you have not controlled. But in fact, you've got to take a view on both. And sometimes, you don't get it right. And if you don't get right, you've got the same way. You've got to explain why and then explain what the basis is for whatever the newer [indiscernible] assumption is. And I foresee -- and this is based on my experience in the last and how many years, it looking at life of mine plans year after year after year, looking at the sequence at which we want to bring certain resources in and others that you will see an adjustment on these numbers every year. And sometimes, they will be material to the point where you actually have to file an amendment and sometimes they will not be material. But there's zero chance that you will get your life of mine plan 100% correct going forward. There are just too many moving parts. And that's part of the industry. I think we do explain that very, very clearly, both in our 20-F filing and also in end of the second quarter summary report. And that's the nature of mining. That's the nature of investing in this industry. The other industries that are less volatile like fixed income, this is not fixed income. We have -- we filed a 20-F I don't know how many pages and a very large portion of the stages deal with contingencies, risks and so forth to read those. And I think that will then also give a perspective as to why from time-to-time you will see changes. We do our best forecasting. So we do our best to interpret them and to form a view. But it does not make signs -- sorry, the other question that you asked, and I'll come back to the other question that the impact of the investment in society on crime and crime patents and climate tendencies. So the societies where we operate to a large extent, they're not the criminals. They suffer at the hands of the same criminals that pose a threat to our operations. Whilst you must have community protests from time to time, while you might have angry community members from time to time demanding to be accommodated in employment and that sort of thing. Those aren't -- that's not crime. Crime is the group of people are showing up with heavily on group of people cutting through your cables, cable network or hijacking your vehicle or shooting a security guard on their way to a theft. But that's crime. And no degree of investment into society that's going to alleviate that. That's where the authorities to step up and spin and start dealing with it. And we're hoping the initiative that's now been launched between the private sector and the present will start bearing fruit because these are behaviors that need to be categorized as special crops. And we are canvassing for a regime in terms of which they are dealt with in a very particular way procedurally. So without violating the principles of our constitution, it's becoming apparent that. The criminal support these clients need to be removed from society for an extended period of time. And then not be allowed to find their way back into these domains where they perpetrate these crimes. There are certain areas where there's been a loss of sovereign team where hotels and I'm talking about illegal mining, in particular, where it's simply to dangerous we're pleased to go there, considering their current resources and the current capacity and training that they have at their disposal. That needs to be restored. So -- and that is a problem that all of South Africa's face, but the communities where we operate, they're really at the short end of this neglect, to maintain law and order and to the cost of them. So there's just a whole host of factors that combine to make life in those areas quite tough. We're trying obviously to do our part in enabling these communities to self-mobilize and to become self-sustainable. But an intervention is required, we can certainly no longer have these game people ripping apart our infrastructure stealing electricity infrastructure, mining below the streets of Johannesburg maybe even potentially contributing to a street getting blown up and at the same time, also mining illegally in areas and having shutouts and bringing terror to the communities where they operate. That is something that requires a national response. We've got means to protect ourselves we been serious about that, where they go, how they get exported, et cetera, et cetera, we make use of technology through a private company, and I do not believe in private arms, there are private armies in South Africa, some of our stock were held up by one of them not too long ago when they were violating a taxi road they were pulled out of their cars. By people yielding AK-47. So very disappointing the police didn't do anything about it and repeat prosecute them because maybe too. They are being held ransom by this. So that's what a private army does. That's what it could turn into a -- the private sector has no business having private armies. The government police and the armies to step up in that regard. And sorry, Bruce, I didn't just repeat your last question, the third one, if you don’t mind.

It was on the possibility of the PGM tailings project.

Yes. So it's been a project that we've been involved in as, let's call it, almost in a consultancy capacity in providing and collaborating in defining what could potentially become a project and the plans have been finalized. And I think what we're waiting for now is to see whether we could sort of transition from being a so-called consultant into being an operator. But that is -- remember, it's a binders asset. It is [indiscernible] choice as to whether or not they want one of their subsidiaries to operate that or whether they want to do that in us. We remain keen, and we think that we can make that contribution. But it's a decision that will be made on the basis of where the best value contribution is. And obviously, we have a responsibility to all of our shareholders, so we need to make sure that whatever structure is decided upon is for the benefit of all of our shareholders. But the opportunity is certainly there, and we're certainly keen to be part of that, but it's going to be -- it's a decision that's going to be taken at a different level. But I have to say that, which is very important to present. And I think this is something that we only appreciated the deeper we got into this study is that this particular the layout is very complex, and it is extensively integrated in existing operations. But they're also -- it's a very complex legal structure, they're minorities that own different parts of the whole -- it's what the PGM footprint. I remember that entire footprint that Frasenburg footprint is made up of several companies that have been acquired over time, they were acquired over time, and they have different empowerment structures, et cetera, et cetera. And then the one thing that I never do, but that's become I find confusing but also that it's been explained to me is that, it would seem that different entities have conflicting or competing interests in different parts of the basket of minerals that come out of what we refer to as a PGM resource. And then that also needs to be thought about. So it's not easy to sort of just wondering you don't just open a plant and say, hey, I'm [indiscernible]. It's a little bit more complicated than that. Having said that though, it's an exciting project. It's got exciting prospects. So it's certainly doable, and we dead keen to be part of that, if given a chance given half the chance.

Thanks very much, Niel. Thank you.

I think that covers it. I don't see any more hands. And I think we question...

There was one earlier question by Alexander Dave. Asking about total water, if you're comfortable, can I answer that?

Yes, please do that. Sorry, I saw one question by Alexander I didn't see the second, thank you Jaco for pointing that out. You can please go ahead.

So just on optimization of the portable water, we specifically look at optimizing the usage and reusing of our water from the tailings dam by investing in infrastructure and distribution and collection infrastructure, making sure that we take the water back to the mining sites. Secondly, we utilize additional water from TCTA treated asset in drainage. And then the third source is dams that were created to cumulate rainwater. We also utilize that in the circuit. And only once all of that has been depleted, do we actually look at the potable water circuit itself. So that's the way that we reduce the amount of water intake portable take into the operation. Second section of your question was just around the radio activity, all of the resources that we are currently treating are below the exposure limits. So that's not a problem for us. And then as mentioned, the third section -- the third question you had is on grade. How do we intend to maintain a Far West operations. We've moved over from Driefontein 5 tailing dam to Driefontein 3 tailings dams. Both tailings dams have got very similar head grades. But Driefontein 3 being a much larger resource than Driefontein 5. Going forward, as part of Phase 2, we will obviously look at bringing in additional resources, as Niel said, and that will look at -- those resources will be at lower grades. But for obvious reasons been, higher tonnages and therefore, unit costs also comes down. So I hope I've answered that question now.

Thanks, Jaco.

All right, I think that covers it. I don't see anything else. So I think we can call it a day. Thank you very much, everyone, for listening in, and we'll obviously update as we go along from time to time and thank you for dialing in. We appreciate it.

Thanks, everyone.