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…

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…

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…

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.