Earnings Labs

Gold Fields Limited (GFI)

Q2 2025 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 26, 2025

$43.17

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Transcript

Michael John Fraser

Management

Good afternoon, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the presentation of Gold Fields H1 2025 results. I'm joined here in the room in Johannesburg by -- with Alex Dall, our Chief Financial Officer, who will take us through the specific financial details of these results. I just draw your attention to the forward-looking statements in the presentation pack. Just going into our results, I just want to remind everyone that Gold Fields is a global gold miner. We have a number of high-quality operations in quality jurisdictions, and we have a high-quality growth pipeline ahead of us. Just to remind everyone of our strategy, our strategy is very clear. It's around delivering safe and reliable and cost-effective operations, having a positive social impact on our communities and environment and continually growing the quality of our portfolio. Our focus really, if you look at our portfolio, we have four multi-decade assets, which provide the production base load. We have an additional four assets that have upside optionality. And through our greenfields, brownfields exploration activities and M&A, we continue to improve the quality and value of our portfolio. The way that we think about creating value is by enhancing the longevity and quality of our portfolio of assets, the focus is on growing cash flow per share. And if we continue to do that, we're allowed to trade off the options of returning additional funds to shareholders, investing in our business and strengthening our balance sheet to take advantage of future options. If you look at our first half 2025 we've actually had a strong performance relative to the same period of last year. Firstly, and most importantly, the benefits of our safety improvement plan are becoming visible, and we've seen an improved safety performance in H1 2025. And in fact, over…

Alex T. Dall

Management

Thank you, Mike. Pleasingly, we saw a $100 decrease in our all-in cost from $2,060 an ounce to $1,957. This was really on the back of the strong production, as outlined on the earlier slides from Mike, offset by an increase in operating costs of of $230. $60 of these $230 is due to the inclusion of Salares Norte in operating costs for the first time. And the remaining is due to significantly from an increase in volumes and mining contractor rates in Australia. Also on the back of these increased volumes, we have seen an offset in GIP as well as the unsold gold of 45,000 ounces. Again, we've also seen an increase in sustaining capital. This is due to winterization projects at Salares Norte as well as higher volumes at our Australian mines and infrastructure spend there. So back to you, Mike.

Michael John Fraser

Management

Thank you, Alex. Just want to quickly run through our each of the operations and talk to some of the highlights. I think, firstly, just to call out South Deep, which has had a 31% improvement in attributable production half-on-half. And you'll recall that we've had a really difficult start to 2024 at South Deep. But pleasingly, there's been some really significant improvements, largely driven by improved underground mining and improved stope turnover. We're also seeing some slightly higher grades from the distress activities, and that certainly provided a benefit to South Deep. Again, because of the higher -- or the higher fixed cost nature of the operation, those higher volumes have translated into a lower all-in cost. At Tarkwa, we were slightly down on the half, but that was largely because of a planned higher stripping -- accelerated stripping in the second quarter, which meant that we replaced fresh rock with the stockpiled material, which came in at a lower grade. We do see that production weighted to the second half and remain confident of the delivery of the full year guidance for Tarkwa. St. Ives, we saw a really good improvement, so a 33% improvement in attributable production in H1. And that was largely due to the improved open pit volumes and improved grade. And pleasingly, again, we see a second half weighting for St. Ives, and they really are tracking really well against their full year plan. Gruyere, we did see a 14% improvement in attributable production. That could have been slightly higher, but we did have some challenges in January with the process plant. I think pleasingly, apart from the difficult challenges that we had in Gruyere over the past few years with our mining contracting, we saw an 82% increase in tonnes moved and really…

Alex T. Dall

Management

Thank you, Mike. And this is a summary slide. I'll unpack each block in a bit more detail on the further slides. But on the back of the strong production increase of 24% as well as a 40% increase in the gold price, we were able to deliver a very strong headline and normalized earnings of approximately a $1 billion each. This enabled us to declare an interim dividend of ZAR 7 per share, which is a 133% increase on the H1 2024 interim dividend of ZAR 3 per share. We -- pleasingly, we delivered adjusted free cash flow of $952 million against an outflow of $58 million in the prior comparative period, which is an over $1 billion swing or $1.06 per share. Pleasingly, even after the funding of the Osisko acquisition in the prior periods, our net debt to EBITDA is sitting at 0.37x. If we unpack the cash flow a bit further, the operations before taxes generated $2.1 billion. We were -- we paid on the back of the higher gold price, taxes of $463 million to the governments in the jurisdictions in which we operate. After paying interest, working capital and other movements, we were left with $1.7 billion of free cash flow. This does include funding of $100 million of spend at Windfall. Then we paid -- we spent $665 million on capital. Significant capital spend in the first period was at Salares Norte as we got ready for the winterization. We do expect that to come off and normalize in the second half of the year as well as on underground and open pit development at our Australian operations and the St. Ives Renewables project. That enabled us to reach the $952 million of adjusted free cash flow. Again, we have a very robust…

Michael John Fraser

Management

Thanks very much, Alex. I just wanted to spend before we go into questions, just talk about our portfolio and the work that we're doing to improve our portfolio quality. And I think just firstly, to start off with the levers and the way that we think about how we grow the value of our portfolio. And firstly, we look at M&A really through the lens of bolt-on opportunities. And if you look at the two transactions that we've done recently, those were really opportunities that we knew they were low-risk opportunities. One was acquiring the other half of the Windfall project that we already owned, including that very significant land package in Canada, around 2,500 square kilometers of highly prospective land package. And then the consolidation of 100% of Gruyere, plus the additional opportunity that we identified through the Yamarna tenements. And we'll continue to look at value-enhancing opportunities in key jurisdictions. But again, M&A, we see as something we'll continue to monitor, but it's not something we have to do, but it is an element of our growth strategy. The second one is really around brownfields exploration. And we've been very, very successful historically, particularly in our Australian assets in replacing reserves. In H1 '25, we've spent $63 million on brownfield exploration, including $7 million at Windfall. Of this, $48 million was spent with our Australian business and $5 million spent in Chile in H1 with really the focus on extending life of Salares Norte. Lastly, we've also invigorated our greenfields exploration program, and I'll talk a little bit about some of the successes that we've had. And really, the focus there is building the early-stage project pipeline for Gold Fields and trying to fill the opportunity set that will deliver projects a decade from now. We've built…

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Thank you so much, Mike. Just because we've got a combination of questions that are coming from the webcast online as well as through Chorus Call, I propose taking kind of one from each and starting with the webcast questions. The first one is from Tom Middleton. He says, "Mike, leadership is such a critical factor in delivering on the strategy in mining. How do you approach building and sustaining that leadership strength across Gold Fields? And to what extent do you draw on specialist partners in the industry to help you identify and secure the right talent?"

Michael John Fraser

Management

Tom, thank you very much for that and a really excellent question. And it's been really quite interesting in the 18 months that I've been with Gold Fields. We've made quite a number of changes in the way that we organized. And that's certainly been a part of our culture and our change journey. We've also invested very heavily in leadership development, and that was a journey that started probably 6 months before I joined. And it was certainly a recognition that as part of the feedback that we got on the mirror from EB and company that we needed to do a lot of work around leadership development. And we did that, firstly, by having experts like EB&Co and others provide that mirror back to us on where we had gaps. And then we did need to partner up to ensure that we had that capability lift given and provided to us. In addition, going to the way that we think about our talent and our business, we also acknowledge that we had a huge amount of latent capacity that just weren't being given the opportunity to grow and develop. And it's been quite interesting as we've gone through processes of benchmarking our talent externally, we've realized we've got, yes, whilst we have opportunities to close gaps and Chris in the room with us, Chris Gratias is our EVP of Corporate Development, we did bring in externally because we recognize we needed some new thinking and new capability in that area. But increasing -- in addition to that, in the room next to me, we have Alex Dall, who's our CFO and has grown up in the business and is actually doing an excellent job, and I'll still say he is doing an excellent job in 12 months' time. And so I think it's a balance. It's a balance of making sure you grow your own timber in the business but equally supplementing that from time to time where we need to bring in some new capability and skills. So I think it's a bit of both, but I fully agree. Ultimately, the sustainability of our business is going to come down to the culture and capability sets for the next generation.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Good. Thank you. I'll pause for a second, Mike, and we can hand over to the operator to advise if there's any questions coming through the call.

Operator

Operator

There are a few questions from the call. [Operator Instructions] The first question we have comes from Josh Wolfson of RBC.

Joshua Mark Wolfson

Analyst

First question I have is on Salares. There was some very solid performance this quarter on throughput improvements and grade was healthy. On the recovery side, gold is, I guess, a little bit below plan, silver improved. With all this in mind, I'm just wondering what we should be thinking about more specifically on grade and recoveries in the second half of the year? I'm told there had been some discussion about managing stockpiles and really what that means for the second half?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Thank you, Josh. And thanks for that question on Salares. So I think on Salares, we certainly -- what we have done, and I think we may have flagged this earlier in the year, what we acknowledged in terms of recoveries is that we are struggling with the amount of silver that we could actually process, which kind of ultimately impacted the realized gold equivalent of the throughput. So what we have done is we've actually put in a larger capacity furnace, and that was commissioned in the beginning of August. And we're already seeing some of the benefits of that coming through. So we think that, that kind of those recoveries and maybe some of those challenges that we had a little bit earlier, which I would not call challenges. They're really just part of ramp-up teething issues. I think will be significantly mitigated by that. And already what we've seen in July and into August certainly gives us confidence that we're going to see some of those benefits coming through. I think in respect of grade, whilst we have a very good stockpile management and we've got these key kind of fingers that really allows us to separate the different grades. What we also track really closely is making sure that we try and process largely in line with our life of mine grade profile, because what we don't want to do, and in particular, during this ramp-up is to be high grading those stockpiles even though the grades are super good for us. But I think what we should expect to see for the remainder of the year is trying to get us back towards our long-term grade profile of roughly around that 8 grams per tonne. So I think that's largely what we delivered in the first half and probably something what we should expect in the second half to be close to that as well.

Joshua Mark Wolfson

Analyst

And then one other question on...

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Please go ahead, Josh.

Joshua Mark Wolfson

Analyst

Sorry, if I -- yes, one other question, if I can ask. Just as it relates to Gold Road in the Northern Star share position as part of the company. Could you remind us what the mechanism there is exactly and what the intention is with that share position?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes. Thanks, Josh. And Chris Gratias, our EVP of Corporate Development, is in the room. So I'm going to ask Chris to talk to it.

Chris Gratias

Analyst

Sure. Thanks, Mike. So there was a mechanism agreed that the value of our offer would float with the change in the Northern Star share price. And there's a 5-day VWAP calculation that will be implemented around the court hearing date, which is towards the end of September. And that will fix the amount of the cash that will be paid to the Gold Road shareholders. We will then inherit the shares. And while we're considering our options are -- it's not going to be a noncore holding for us. So we will look to find ways to then offload that position and not take on any unnecessary risk.

Michael John Fraser

Management

I think safe to say very much that I think since the signing on the 5th of May, we have seen a slight construction.

Chris Gratias

Analyst

So the headline value of our offer on May 5 was AUD 3.40 a share. There has been some pressure on the Northern Star share price, obviously, that moves all the time. But currently, the implied value of the offer is AUD 3.30 a share, so there's been a 10% increment. But again, that value is passed through to a Gold Road shareholder is not risk to us.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Operator, just mindful that you said there's quite a few questions on the call. I will take one more, and then we'll go back to the ones on the web.

Operator

Operator

The next question we have comes from Adrian Hammond of SBG.

Adrian Spencer Hammond

Analyst

Thanks, operator. Yes, so I appreciate your slide on 14, the catalyst for portfolio optimization. It sounds like you've got a lot of good things planned. Obviously, this will come at a cost. I was just wanting to give a sense to us, if you can, about where Gold Fields sits in the CapEx cycle, knowing, of course, you also have a few projects lined up as well.

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes. Really good question, Adrian. And I think the issue for us as we think about all of these opportunities is trying to ensure that whilst we want to identify and pursue these opportunities, we are going to rank them. So we've got to make sure that we deliver the most value-accretive options as priorities. So we are ranking all of these options. But I do think it's important for us to think about, and it comes back to capital allocation, which Alex talks to, is we are in a very privileged point in the price cycle where we are generating a huge amount of cash. And what we're wanting to do is to, again, deliver those 3 things that we spoke about is, one, invest in our business for the long term, take debt off the balance sheet and improve the quality of our balance sheet, but equally making sure that we continue to deliver upper quartile returns to shareholders. And I think the -- how we're going to be measured undoubtedly in the coming years and particularly as we deliver on this potential of this business is how we manage and balance those opportunities, because if we kind of create imbalance, i.e., we keep all the cash on the balance sheet, we don't invest in our business, we don't return to shareholders. We're not going to be attractive. So it's really about trying to manage that balance. So as you rightly identify, many of these come with capital. And I think the wisdom for us is about how we can balance those competing tensions and using the benefit of the tailwinds that we have today to invest judiciously in the future and where we do make these investments, making sure that they're setting up these assets for the long term at a lower cost and at a higher margin, which really becomes a multiplier in the ability to return -- deliver superior returns to shareholders. But I think you've hit the key issue here. Yes, one thing about identifying the opportunities and being very focused on how they add value to us, but then being very, very judicious about how we are disciplined in allocating capital to those opportunities in the portfolio. Alex, if you want to add to that?

Alex T. Dall

Management

No, I think Mike has hit the nail on the head there. And I think, Adrian, if you look at a lot of those opportunities on those slides, a lot of them come to life extension, and that's just continuing our investment in brownfields Australian assets, that being Gruyere and Agnew. Yes, if materials handling systems become an option at both Granny Smith's and St. Ives as we look to unlock that value, that will obviously come with a CapEx spend, but the market needs to have the right returns on it and give a material decrease in costs and increase in volumes. But otherwise, a lot of them are just sort of the baseline expenditure we spend anyway.

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes. And I think the other point, Adrian, I'd just make is we also -- as we think about these projects, we're looking at them through the lens of, in addition to ranking, what is the point at which they become sterilized as an option. And some of these options, you get to a point, well, if you don't make this investment, then really we probably need to think about what is the time to move on because then if we're not prepared to make some of these investments, then it's better off in the hands of others.

Adrian Spencer Hammond

Analyst

Yes, that's clear. I mean no doubt these are the challenges in mining. But while Alex was happy to talk a bit more. I mean the dividend surely is obviously a balancing act with everything else that you discussed, CapEx and debt reduction. Yet I think it's fair to say that the market is looking towards returns more now that you have a windfall from the gold price. You're paying a ratio that is still somewhat short of the top end. I mean, should we be thinking that given what you've discussed with us today, that we should be a bit more conservative in the way we should be modeling dividend payouts?

Michael John Fraser

Management

No. And Alex can talk to this. I think what we've done in the interim this year has been quite consistent with how we paid out an interim in the past years in terms of percentage of underlying earnings. But what we do know is that there is going to be further opportunity for additional returns. And I think Alex is going to talk about that in November. But we certainly think that with the outlook in our portfolio and the significant cash generation even at consensus, we will absolutely be in a position to be a bit more generous in how we think about returns to shareholders. But Alex, maybe you want to cover that?

Alex T. Dall

Management

No, no, I think that's spot on. Mike has covered it, Adrian. We have consistently paid out approximately 35% of normalized earnings as our interim dividend. And then we look at the year-end at any top-up optionality.

Michael John Fraser

Management

And just again to call out, I think we are very confident with our portfolio outlook that we can both fund our internal growth options and a number of these capital improvement options that we identify in the portfolio and deliver upper quartile returns to shareholders.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Thanks, Adrian. Just two from online from [indiscernible]. Please, can you give us some color on the winterization program at Salares and whether the operation is now fully winter proofed for coming years? And then I'm also going to lump in a next question from her is, can you give us guidance at a high level on production and ASIC for '26 and '27?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes. Thanks, [indiscernible]. So on Salares some of the additional capital that we spent this year was following a review that we had undertaken by independent experts to say, is there anything additional that we could do to provide protection for Salares. And that wasn't because we didn't believe that our existing design was sufficient, but we said what additional could we do? And this really entailed a couple of things. It entailed additional heat tracing on the larger diameter piping. It entailed complete encapsulation on our -- some of our exposed pipes as well as some full encapsulation on our exposed large diameter valves, which we've now completed. And I think -- that in conjunction with that continued operation, which is always going to be a requirement and operational readiness to make sure you minimize downtime during winter is really what's enabled us to deliver the good results this year. And so as long as we continue to operate this plant in that consistent way, then there's nothing really additional that we need to invest in for future winterization. So we think we're in a good place at Salares. In relation to your second question, we will come out at the Capital Markets Day in November and provide long-term guidance. And so I'd ask your indulgence to hold until then for us to provide that.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Thanks, Mike. One more from [ Peter Comridge ]. Could Gold Fields look at another U.S. dollar bond to replace the Gold Road acquisition facility?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Alex?

Alex T. Dall

Management

Thanks, Peter. So obviously, once the Gold Road bridge facility is in place, we need to look at our various takeout options, which could be putting in another bank facility, either revolver term loan or it could be looking at the U.S. dollar bond markets as well as in this strong gold price environment, the strong cash generation in the group, there could be some ability to use that cash to pay down a portion of the debt. But it goes back to balancing that tension of our capital allocation framework. We know that we need to delever the balance sheet after these 2 investments being Osisko and Gold Road and give returns to shareholders as well as invest in our business. So I mean, we will keep all our options open. But as always, the window for when we can do a bond is in April and May on the back of our publishing about 20-F. So we do have some time to see what our debt profile looks like.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Over to you, operator, to just check in if there's any other questions in the queue.

Operator

Operator

We have two more questions. The first question we have comes from Chris Nicholson of RMB Morgan Stanley.

Christopher Nicholson

Analyst

My questions largely revolve around just CapEx, a couple of interrelated questions. So not to lose the wood to the trees here, obviously, the news that Salares is ramping up and has done well through the winter so far is great. The expenditure on Salares, I think you have explained is quite a bit higher than what you originally guided this year. I think you're tracking already at around $200 million. Where do you think that the Salares total CapEx for this year will end up? Kind of linked to that then, obviously, you're spending quite a bit more CapEx this year at Salares than originally guided, but you aren't changing your group capital guidance. Are you pulling back on CapEx anywhere else through the remainder of the year? And then just final question. There is some capital expenditure in the group that I think has kind of moved up. So obviously, you're doing stripping at Tarkwa. Certainly, the infrastructure build-out in Australia is higher and you're doing a bit of catch-up there. Should we expect that to continue into 2026?

Alex T. Dall

Management

Thanks very much for that question, Chris. If we go to the CapEx at Salares, we do expect that to come off significantly in the second half of the year. There is an element of a small element of uncertainty on what exact month we reach commercial levels of production because there you're reclassifying operating cost to capital expenditure. So that will determine where we land up, but that is going to come off significantly in the second half of the year. And when you look at the total group guidance, there are probably two other key drivers there that bring us back within the range. The first being that as Damang has a life that is shorter than 12 months, all of their capital spend, what would have been classified as capital spend is being classified as operating expenditure on the stripping of the mini pits as well as at Windfall certain items that we had originally included in the guidance as capital have turned out to be exploration expenditures, so they go to the operating expenditure line. So we're quite comfortable from that capital perspective on that side. And in 2026, we do expect to see the continued stripping at Tarkwa.

Operator

Operator

The next question we have comes from Tanya Jakusconek of Scotiabank.

Tanya M. Jakusconek

Analyst

Thank you for taking my 3 question. The first one is on Windfall. Can I just confirm that there is still going to be that updated feasibility study on November 12. Is that, Mike, what you were talking about that we're getting?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes. I think, Tanya, just to put that in perspective, we will provide an update on capital estimates as well as the execution plan. We will likely put -- when we declare the reserves for Windfall, which we're expecting in February of 2026 which will be in line with the expected timing of the EIA receipt. That's when we'll probably more formally release some of the detailed documentation. But what we intend to do on the 12th of November is at least provide some insight and guidance. Clearly, one of the things that we don't want to distract from during the EIA process is to have formal additional documents in the public domain. But we will provide updates on capital and development pathway.

Tanya M. Jakusconek

Analyst

Okay. Got it. And I'm saying capital, I'm assuming it's operating costs as well?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes, we'll provide guidance on that, yes.

Tanya M. Jakusconek

Analyst

And on Windfall, I just want to try and understand what -- where are we exactly on the permitting and the negotiations with First Nations. Can someone just give me an update on what has been done and just not up to speed on where we are on that process?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes. So the EIA has been in train for some time. We have now, at the end of July, submitted the second round of questions to [indiscernible], which are really the recommended body to approve the EIA. And we're now waiting for their responses to that. We are still expecting to go to public consultation around the end of October which really puts us in place to then get that approval in Q1 of 2026 in line with the timing of the FID. So that's going according to plan. We don't think there's any further kind of questions that we expect back from them. So we've addressed two rounds of them and certainly, the second round were relatively minor. In terms of the engagement with the -- our host community, the Cree First Nation of West Winnipeg, we have been engaging again for extended period with the community. And I think we started in February with the actual chapters of the IBA. And we've done, obviously, as you can appreciate, some of the easy chapters. And we're now this month getting into the specific compensation chapters. So Again, we are moving at the right pace in line with an expected timing of having this completed by the end of the calendar year. And again, just to remind everyone on the call, the one thing that is really unique about our relationship with the West Winnipeg First Nation is they have an active economic interest in seeing the mine developed because of their ownership and operatorship of the hydro power line that supplies power into windfall. And the sooner we get that plant up and running and developed, the sooner the rent from that and that investment in that transmission line starts paying effect. So we think the economic is strongly aligned, but we do need to work through systemically the chapters of the IBA, which is in train at the moment.

Tanya M. Jakusconek

Analyst

Okay. And so the IBA, we don't need that to be in place to -- with the permit to start? If we don't get it, it's not critical? I want to understand.

Michael John Fraser

Management

I think they both should be looked as a package. They will be stapled. And I think the IBA and the EIA, we should expect at the same time.

Tanya M. Jakusconek

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. My second question is on Salares Norte. I just want to understand because I thought the definition of commercial production was at 30 days at 60% capacity at the mill and 85% recovery on the gold side. I see the recovery at 85% on the gold side. So is it the mill? I understood you had an issue with the silver recovery. I'm just trying to understand what exactly is happening to declare commercial production.

Michael John Fraser

Management

I'll leave it with Alex to answer that.

Alex T. Dall

Management

No. Thanks, Tanya. And that is correct as a definition, but the other element of it was that we would -- we're also forecasting to maintain that. And there was just, as Mike mentioned, some uncertainty around the silver grade and the new furnace coming online. So our group technical team went and actually are doing a detailed metal accounting review. And once they are comfortable with the recoveries and where they're sitting, we will be in a position to declare commercial levels of production.

Michael John Fraser

Management

And I think just from a -- just to manage the expectations on disclosures, I think Jakusconek, we will disclose that with our quarter 3 production update rather than a separate release.

Tanya M. Jakusconek

Analyst

Okay. All right. Got that. And then my last question is just on South Deep. I know you talked about the portfolio optimization, Mike, about some of the stopes and work you're doing there. How does all of this fit into that previous plan and maybe it's not a plan anymore of getting this mine up from that 300,000 ounce production to 400,000 plus in the next 3, 5 years. Is this still a plan? Or is that gone? I'm just trying to understand.

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes, absolutely. So we do have a future plan for South Deep, where we will see a ramp-up. And that part of that is about the investment into South of [ Ranch ], which is the next mining domain. So again, we'll share some of that more strategic insight into the future for South Deep. We do see it as an update. But I think, again, for the next few years, and as I've always said, every year that we can incrementally improve South Deep until we open up those new domains until we've sustainably delivered on some of the reliability on stope turnover, if I can call it that or removing that variation, I think we want to be cautious certainly in the next few years. But certainly, in the longer horizon, our ambition is absolutely to unlock some of the potential that sits in South Deep, and we'll share some of that in November. But again, I mean, if you look at South Deep, even for the 6 months, we produced 150,000 ounces of gold, but we generated $170 million of free cash flow, so over 6 months. So South Deep is becoming rapidly a very valuable contributor into our portfolio. And so getting that right will provide a real long-term anchor to our contribution from Gold Fields.

Tanya M. Jakusconek

Analyst

Yes, thanks Mike. It would be great to get an update on that one.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Just a question from the webcast, Mike. On Windfall, how much flexibility will you have within the environmental approvals to potentially scale up Windfall mine? Can you get amendments to the approval post FID if the mine design looks vastly different to the Osisko design? Or would you need to restart a more comprehensive approval process?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes. Thank you for that question. And I think we're already starting to look forward. I mean, what is really the way that the Windfall project was conceived in the initial application was really to ensure that it stayed within the provincial approvement levels and didn't fall into the federal approval levels. As we think about the technical review of the project ahead of the next stage of FID, we're not just looking at the optimization of the process plant, but really looking at how we optimize the mine for the long term. And so we've really looked at some incremental improvements there. But all of those are designed to stay within the intent of the current feasibility study as well as the provincial approval levels. But quite clearly, when you're looking at a mine with this kind of horizon and life that we believe it has, and with the upside optionality of even nearby exploration, we are already starting to put our minds to, well, what could the future look like for Windfall. And there's a number of studies that we will need to go through. And I think once we've gone through those studies, that will then start informing us, well, what is the development pathway. So at this stage, it's probably a little bit too early to answer that question. And we're clearly mindful that in particular during this approvals process that we remain largely in -- remain -- retain the integrity of the current application. But there's no doubt that given the potential of Windfall that there's more upside opportunity to come.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Thanks for that, Mike. A question from Patrick Jones. He says, another major mining company this week indicated that a lack of technological and commercial advancement for trucking and decarbonization is delaying diesel replacement and thus presents a risk to miners' long-term emission reduction targets. What has been the key impediment to progress? Are you confident that major OEM plans for truck transition can deliver -- can be delivered? Or does the industry need to shift focus to different decarb pathways?

Michael John Fraser

Management

Yes. That's a really good question, Patrick. And I'll answer it this way. That answer is precisely right. I think we are seeing a very slow reaction to how we remove diesel out of our fleets and how we look to electrify fleets. And we've done various different studies along the way. But you're right, I think the way that we've got to start thinking about it. And probably if we answer the reason well, why has the industry been slow, it's probably because the OEMs see our industry as relatively small scale compared to some of the other vehicle sectors or uses of vehicles. And there hasn't been that kind of crossover yet where OEMs have seen the value and the returns in significant investments in low-carbon fleet solutions. So we've got to continue to try and work with the OEMs and try and drive that forward. But in the absence of that, I think it looks at -- it comes down to how each mining company can look at the opportunities in the portfolio to drive decarbonization. And an example is the one opportunity that we highlighted at Granny Smith, for example. When we get down to Zone 160 or even at Zone 150, you've got a 3-hour cycle time of haul trucks from the bottom of the decline to the top. And the best way that we can take diesel out of that system is to put in a material handling system, which enables us to eliminate trucks out of the cycle. And if you combine that with renewable energy sources, immediately, that will unlock and decarbonize. So I think we're not sitting on our hands by any means. And despite the slow transition of diesel fleets, there are definitely alternatives that we've got to pursue.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Thanks, Mike. Back to you, operator, to check in if there's any questions remaining on the call.

Operator

Operator

At this stage, there are no further questions on the conference.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

There's none further on the webcast or online as well, Mike. So over to you for closing remarks.

Michael John Fraser

Management

Great. Thank you very much, and thank you, everyone, for joining on a Friday for our results presentation. Just to summarize, we're very pleased to have delivered a safe, reliable delivery for the first 6 months of this year. And at this stage, remain very confident of our delivery in the second half. We're also very excited about the work that's going on to optimize our business, simplify it and set it up for long-term success. And we look forward to sharing some of the outlook and the great upside that we believe is in our business at the Capital Markets Day in November. So I look forward to engaging with you again then. But thanks again for joining. I really appreciate it.