Earnings Labs

DRDGOLD Limited (DRD)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 20, 2015

$26.77

-2.41%

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Transcript

Riaan Davel

Management

Thank you very much Niël, good morning ladies and gentlemen. It's my privilege to take you through the financial trends this morning and also focusing on the statement of profit and loss and statement of financial position very much a quarterly focus that I will take you through. As you all know more detail recorded in the report to shareholders that you have access to here and also on our Web site. So looking at the operating margin trend very positive operating margin increase over the last four quarters and almost getting us through that very good second quarter for 2014 financial year, so a really positive trend for operating margins. All-in sustaining cost margin that Niël referred to at some point it's difficult nature to understand and especially on that graph that it was very specific whether for non-cash adjustments in the fourth quarter of the 2014 year that distorts that number, but I want to focus on the last two quarters. So a good increase in the all-in sustaining cost margin and taking to account that the average gold cost for the year decreased by 2% and I think cost containments are the order of the day which is a very positive trend we see in the operation. EBITDA of earnings before interest tax and depreciation very much a major of profit loss before tax with those adjustments the finance cost any impairments any tax just and then the big one that shows the big increase for DRDGOLD is depreciation which you'll see on the next slide which is quite a big number on a quarterly basis that's obviously adjusted in the EBITDA number. But the one that I want you to mark with an X and when you leave here and maybe spend time with colleagues definitely…

Q - Adiran Hammond

Management

It's Adrian Hammond Standard Bank. Yes, I've got three questions. Firstly on the yield, if you achieve what you expect with the next two streams coming on, in terms of carbon efficiencies, extraction overall, what sort of yield could we expect to see? And secondly, could you comment around head grades, what are you seeing in the head grade now and give us an outlook if you could? And thirdly I am not -- could you just explain a bit more about your ability to handle heavy rains my understanding was that the thickener that was bought online would deal with that? Thanks. Niël Pretorius: Let me start at the back and then I will give just the overview on yields and head grades. As far as the heavy rainstorm was concerned this was a particular instance one of the reclamation sites have filled up and it choked the valve that's suppose to deal with excess water. So this wasn’t something that actually went into the plan, this was restrictive access into a specific reclamation site and as a consequence of which we couldn't mine that particular site. We had a done postmortem investigation as to why this had happened and apparently what had happened is the rainstorm itself was a fairly heavy down pour, Henry my recollection was about 80 millimeters in an hour or something if I am not mistaken. So heavy down pour and we saw a bit of debris that was on site choked up the valves itself, the screens going into the valve into the port and we couldn't access that bit that for a period of time and we weren't going to send somebody in there because once you unblock obviously you have significant suction and then that could pose a grave danger to…

Unidentified Analyst

Management

So just to jump back to the numbers there trough yield was about 0.16 you have climbed nicely in a straight year to just shy of 0.2 and you were mentioning that your recovery has got -- your residue grade is now being came down to about 0.03, I was just wondering what was it back then when the yield was 0.16? And then therefore what is feed grade gradient and how has your feed grade changed? Niël Pretorius: Look the head grade doesn't change by much but the recovery efficiency are certainly going up quite a bit, I think we were sitting at about 38% and we're now starting to bump against 50% and 51% of actual recovery efficiency I think that something you can – I'm sure that you're going to write. We've identified the two main culprits as being one, the fact that a lot of gold ended up in solution, ended up in the water and a lot of work there was being pumped out of the plant at that stage. And our early sampling didn't quite pick up just how much gold was have been dissolved, what the soluble gold content was and what the dissolved losses were? So, that we identified during this period also the suspension of the plant during this period of analysis. We've identified that is one of the main culprits, the dissolve losses and the excess water that was being pumped out and go through the process. Every time the thickener trips you've got to drain that thickener doesn't go through much of it doesn't go through the process every time there is a rainstorm and remember last year between February and March we've three weeks of uninterrupted rain, a lot of water came in and we didn't get to…

Jaco Schoeman

Management

Sorry, carbon efficiency? Niël Pretorius: Carbon efficiency.

Jaco Schoeman

Management

The carbon efficiency is dropped to about 60% and you need that about 80 and then it comes [indiscernible]. Niël Pretorius: So, it is and I suppose that is something that afterwards was a concern for us is a fact that and maybe it's also because it was the commissioning of a new plant. It wasn't to do anything with the operation of the float plant so nothing to do with the operation of the actual mills it was to do with a mentality and key component being carbon inefficiencies. So, it was manageable. A concern that we had was whether the float reagents, we're having an impact on the carbon efficiencies. Were we having clouding of carbon et cetera et cetera and that turned out and that was a question that we solved that remained unanswered at the time when we started doing test work as it turned out to be the impact of those reagents is negligible.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Just one other thing, could you just give us an idea of what's happened with cyanide prices? Niël Pretorius: Jaco, what happened with cyanide prices, I know our cost have come down, I mean some of that chemical is actually down a little bit and I think steel is also come down a little bit. It's been a change in the pricing regime in some of the monopoly suppliers where they're restricted from import parity pricing they've got to do it on an export parity basis. An advantage that we have here supposed at this stage is the fact that energy associated with oil which is your delivery cost and so forth. Oil is cheap so diesel is cheap so you don't see that price volatility or that passing on of price increase in deliveries with chemicals and steel is similar scenario steel prices are pretty much tanked so those are down or at least they've stayed flat, chemicals also on the pricing regime. And then we manage to extend our labor wage agreement by a year, so that's been locked in we can pretty much plot that. The only uncertainty at this stage is what's going to happen with Eskom pricing but there too our exposure is so much lower than many of the other companies I think we're at about 16% of total cost, it's electricity cost.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

If I could just -- you mentioned tail grade of 0.3? Niël Pretorius: Yes sorry, that's a drop in the tail grade that we seeking, not the tail grade. Yes, sorry, Jaco, you're absolutely right. And let's say, it's not the tail grade itself that's just improved efficiencies with floatation fine-grind specifically designed to reduce the tail rate by 0.03, so 2 million tonnes 16 kilos of extra gold.

Adrian Williams

Management

Hi Niël Adrian Williams from Avior Capital. Just a quick question can you give us a bit of guidance on where you see production for your full year and still 4,500 kilograms does that sound about right if you keep your yields flat at about 190? Niël Pretorius: We're targeting roughly 145,000 ounces at this stage I think it's the range within which we're targeting we on 76,000 so we need another 70 to get to that so I think the lower end of our estimate at this stage is about 145,000ounces, 146,000 ounces.

Alan Cook

Management

Alan Cook from JPMorgan, could you just explain there seems to be a mismatch between the capacity at the high-graded circuit now, post that expansion if you go to 2.1 million tonnes what happens to the float and fine-grind because that can only be 1.8? Niël Pretorius: We won't be able to put the entire fleet through the flow pot we're restricted to 1.8 million.

Alan Cook

Management

So that's just material from Van Dyk for example go straight to the low grade CIL? Niël Pretorius: Well it doesn’t necessarily have to be Van Dyk material it could be from any of the three lines yes but some of it would go straight into CIL.

Alan Cook

Management

So you will still be doing assuming you run all three float banks 1.8 through that circuit upgrade? Niël Pretorius: Yes that is correct and the feasibility study it was also done on the basis that it doesn’t go through the float circuit so there are 384,000 kilo that's assuming recoveries that don’t benefit from the float circuit.

Alan Cook

Management

Which is what 50%? Niël Pretorius: No-no that's low that's about 42%.

Alan Cook

Management

42. Niël Pretorius: Between 40% and 42% recovery.

Alan Cook

Management

And if you decide at a later stage to increase the capacity at the high-grade circuit what would that cost? Niël Pretorius: We won't do that it's really -- I suppose we could increase the float circuit because we're only using about half that building at this stage.

Jaco Schoeman

Management

We do have to think now that can be refurbished but at this point in time whatever number I'm going to give you it probably would be out there and so by the time you view that so we'd like to do the full feasibility on that study to understand exactly the capital cost for that, but there is a fourth bank that we can refurbish to take roughly 2.4 those are designed to do even in total 2.4. Niël Pretorius: Our consideration is that it's not just the capacity of the plant but it's also the capacity of your tailings dam. We got to manage the rates of rise very carefully because there's a lot of material going up onto that debt. And something like that would probably form part of an expansion of the tailings facility footprint as well. There's a whole cycle almost the same size or maybe not quite but substantial portion right next to the Withok tailings dam, that used to be a tailings dam but Anglo has – they have reworked and it's a licensed tailings site but that would have to be refurbished as well or that would have to be re-commissioned rather in order to take up this additional flow on an ongoing basis so you could have your little spice of 2.1 and so forth from time to time but you don’t want to run it at full capacity and saturate your tailings dam prematurely.

Alan Cook

Management

And then just the last one I think got it right when you start this focus it adds about ZAR40 million a month is that all three banks? Niël Pretorius: That's all three banks.

Alan Cook

Management

So that's to add o operating cost? Niël Pretorius: Correct, yes. And so the first question is on the ERPM sale, do you have concerns re the performance of suspensive conditions? One, well it's the only suspensive condition outstanding or the regulatory conditions and we don’t see anything out of the ordinary there beyond the receipt of the required funds we've been given assurances by the buyer that they do have the required funds and this was done all through an extensive due diligence by the funders I think there were uncertainty at times they've also put a fairly substantial deposit on risk into the transaction so that is as far as the assurances that we've got. We don’t work any of that into our cash flow forecast or expectations at this stage so we'll see the money when you see it but there's been some assurance given of availability of fund. When would you anticipate the payment of these funds? That will happen on the ERPM sale that will happen once we the loss of the suspensive conditions are being fulfilled in other words once the DMR says that the deal is a go. Do you have plans how to use these funds? Yes we'll pay off debt if there's still any debt outstanding and then we'll look at what our cash balance is we want to maintain a month's worth of working capital and then depending on what the share price is we'll either pay dividend or we'll ask the Board if we can buy back some shares.

Alexandra Wexler

Management

Alexandra Wexler, Wall Street Journal you mentioned that Eskom was one of the biggest tariff challenges that you are facing and that running the diesel generator isn't really economically viable, so are you looking into any sort of alternative energy power sources or what sort of a long-term plan now? Niël Pretorius: Most of the in-house power generating plans that we have are conceptual at this stage. I suppose the most realistic of all would be the gas turbine. There is a gas line from Sasol that runs past our door step and once an adequate supply of gas from Mozambique is secured and sourced we can approach them and say can you give us X was it gigajoules, is that the term that you use, of gas supply, and we could put up a turbine. It's not that difficult to boil water, it's a case of getting to through the regulatory issues and so forth and if the supply is there the supply is there ask anybody who lives on the gas line in the northern suburbs. Does that answer your question?

Alexandra Wexler

Management

Yes. Niël Pretorius: I think Insofar as the Eskom situation is concerned it's more of the uncertainty, it's more of perceived risk but good days and bad days we have had a few good days tomorrow could be different. All right I think we're all done. Thank you very much everybody.