Good morning, and welcome to Sasol Limited's Interim Results Presentation for Financial Year '25. Thank you for dialing in and listening to our announcement. My name is Tiffany Sydow from Investor Relations. With me is Simon Baloyi, President and CEO of Sasol and Walt Bruns, Chief Financial Officer. Simon will open today's presentation with the business performance update. Walt will then provide a detailed overview of the financials followed by Simon's closing remarks. We will then have a Q&A session immediately after the presentation through the webcast and teleconference facilities. Before we get into the main agenda, I'd like to ask that you please take note of our forward-looking statement shown on the slide. Please preview this in your own time. Thank you. And now handing over to Simon to commence his presentation.

Good day, everyone, and welcome. It has now been nearly a year since I started my tenure as President and CEO of Sasol. From the outset, I understood that addressing the challenges facing Sasol will be more like running a marathon rather than sprint. I'm pleased to share that we are making good progress in this marathon. While we continue to encounter challenges, our understanding of the obstacle we face has deepened. We now have a clear path on the way forward. We have already taken and we will continue taking decisive actions to restore the health of our business. As marathon runner myself, I know that staying on cost requires resilience, focus and discipline. In today's presentation, I will provide an overview of our journey, the progress we have made and the opportunities and the risks that still remain. Following this, Walt will delve in our financial performance in greater detail. Our journey is guided by our strategic ambition strengthening our foundation, growth and transformation. We are committed to unlocking full value and building a more sustainable future Sasol. Our short-term focus remains enhancing delivery from our foundation businesses to maximize free cash flow generation. For financial year ‘25, we have defined five key priorities to guide us on our journey. These five priorities are: first and foremost, all our employees and service providers must go home safely each day. I'm grateful we have not had any fatalities since August 2024. As a management team, we are reinforcing personnel and leadership accountability. Secondly, in international chemicals, our research journey has commenced. This will improve profitability and reposition the business as globally competitive. Thirdly, key decision to restore South African value chain have been taken with this turning as a critical enabler to unlocking performance in the near-term. Fourthly, we…

Good morning, everyone. I'm honored to be with you today to present my first set of financial results as Sasol Group CFO. I've been with Sasol for more than 15 years working across a number of our businesses. I understand our value chains and believe strongly in the potential of our portfolio and our people. Before diving into the numbers, I'd like to outline my key priorities as group CFO. As we strengthen our foundation business, a key priority for me is improving our free cash flow generation to deleverage our balance sheet and create financial resilience. We have several levers to achieve this, including the initiatives outlined by Simon, but beyond that, I am strongly focused on driving operating and capital cost discipline. We are already seeing early progress, which I will discuss today. With a stronger financial base, we can shift our focus towards growth and transform, which will be informed by a strict capital allocation framework. This will create healthy competition for capital driven by economic returns while driving excellence in execution. By taking this approach, I'm confident we can build a more resilient business, which together with robust risk management, creates a clear path to sustainable value for all of our stakeholders. Turning to our results for this first-half of 2025. The macroeconomic environment remains volatile, difficult to predict and impacting us in different ways. The lower rand oil price and refining margin negatively impacted the results of our fuel segment, while the higher chemicals basket price and U.S. ethylene margins supported the results of our chemical segments. In Europe, natural gas prices remain above pre-ore levels and continue to put pressure on the profitability of our European chemical business, requiring us to continually review our asset portfolio in the region. Looking ahead, we expect the…

Thank you, Walt. We shaped our financial year '25 priorities to improve the fundamental of our business, and as Walt said to make sure we translate this into stronger financial foundation. The people of Sasol remain our greatest asset, and I want to thank team Sasol for their resilience, dedication over the past few months. We will continue to safely pursue operational and commercial excellence, while enhancing our cost competitiveness. Our customers are central to our success, but we must also ensure that we create sustainable value for Sasol. To achieve this, we are actively reviewing contracts to drive efficiency and maximize value for Sasol and our customers. As outlined earlier, we are continuously evolving our ERR to ensure that sustainability and economics go hand-in-hand. This journey is a marathon, not a sprint, and we have now reached our first water point. We understand that the route ahead, we understand that the route -- we understand the road ahead. We will remain disciplined and focused to deliver on our commitments. We will be providing more information and clarity on our strategic agenda at our CMD plan for May 2025. Importantly, we will drive deeper into the progress on our initiatives to strengthen our foundation businesses to improve our competitiveness. International chemicals is a world-class asset, and I look forward to sharing more progress on how a strategic reset will improve financial returns going forward in the longer term. A core focus of our growth and transformation strategy is building a strong pipeline of new business building opportunities. We’ll highlight some of these and how we are leveraging them to navigate the energy transition in a value accretive way. Lastly, we will share how our financial framework will support improving our financial resilience and set up a pathway for attractive, sustainable long-term returns. It has been a busy first half for team Sasol, and I'm excited about the progress we've made and we will make in the coming months. It's been a pleasure to present Sasol's results today. My executive team and I look forward to further discussion in their conference call shortly with you. Thank you. [Music Playing]

Good morning, and welcome to this question-and-answer session for Sasol's 2025 interim financial results. In addition to Simon and Walt, we also have other members of Sasol's Group Executive Committee with us in the room today. On my right, to my far right, Victor Bester, who's our EVP of Operations and Projects; Antje Gerber, who is EVP of International Chemicals; and Hermann Wenhold, EVP of Mining, Risk and SHE. Also participating online, we have Vuyo Kahla, EVP of Commercial and Legal; Christian Herrmann, EVP, Marketing and Sales; Energy and Chemical Southern Africa; Sarushen Pillay, EVP of Business Building Strategy and Technology; and Charlotte Mokoena, EVP of Human Resources and Corporate Affairs. You may submit your questions online through our streaming platform on the right hand side of the screen, you will find a dialogue box which you can input your questions. Alternatively, you can also dial-in via our chorus call. There's a link provided where you will have the opportunity to voice over your questions once prompted. I will be alternating between these two platforms to give everybody a fair chance to participate. We'll start with the first set of online questions that have come through the platform, focusing mainly on the Southern Africa operations. I think Simon this one goes to you, I'll maybe ask two questions to kick off the session. The first one coming from Adrian Hammond and Thobela Bixa from Nedbank. How much would the destoning project add in terms of coal volumes, revenue uplift, cost savings or EBITDA uplift? Which other options were considered in improving mining volumes, i.e., was a new mine considered, given the variability of your coal production? The follow-on, impact on Secunda operations, how do you plan to maintain Secunda volumes beyond 2028 when your gas volumes are expected to start declining while reaching your 30% CO2 reduction target? That also comes from Thobela Bixa from Nedbank.

Thank you, Adrian and Thobela for your questions. I'll start first with the 2028 question. I will then give a quick brief opening on the destoning project and allow Victor, I mean, to come in and then Sarushen to also talk about the various levers that we're considering to reach the 30%, then we can cover both questions. Starting first with the 2028, you remember is the gas does go into the market. That will end in 2028 and the gas for our own use, that we have until 2034. And as I said during my presentation, what we're going to do beyond 2024 as that gas declines, we will be able to make sure we reposition and reset our business to keep it profitable. So that's how we're going to deal with 2028. 2028 is more important for the customers, because we need the South African landscape to move over to LNG as previously communicated. Adrian and Thobela, thank you on the volumes. The question on the volumes, you remember our objective is to restore the South African value chain back to the 7.4% to 7.6% range depending on the shutdowns that you do. The destoning project helps us to address the quality. I'll let Victor come in, in a moment to talk about how he sees that evolving. Victor, maybe let's address how we go in the next three years, how do we see ourselves going from where we are now to the 7.4% to 7.6% range.

Thank you, Simon. I think when it comes to destoning, we investigated various options to improve the coal quality to Secunda. As you may recall, we considered a greenfield destoning project, which would have costed us a significant amount. I think through our engineering efforts, we landed on a solution, which is quite elegant in terms of capital cost, but also a proven technology that we currently operate at our Twistdraai export plant. The intent is really to repurpose that plant to reduce the sinks content from two of our collieries, which is Impumelelo as well as Bosjesspruit. I think combined and blended into our coal blended Secunda operations, this will lower the stone contents to gasification below 12%. This is where we've historically operated in terms of sink's content in the feed to gasification. This solution in its own, as you would have seen, will cost us under ZAR1 billion to implement with a significant NPV value. I think if we look at gasification in terms of its performance over the last few years, it has really seen an increased wear and tear, right, due to stone in the coal content. And we expect immediately after the destoning project is implemented in the first half of FY '26, that gasification will see an improved yield. But obviously, I think due to the higher wear and tear, we need to do some maintenance to restore the gasification fleet. And upon doing that, gasifier availability will simply become a multiplier on our route to taking gasification or SO production to its historical levels of 7.6 million tonnes. I think, Simon, I hope that responded to the question in the way that Adrian has asked it as well as Thobela.

Thank you, Victor, and Adrian and Thobela. Just to close off your questions, we're continuously considering all options to supplement volumes from our own production. Whether it's, I mean, mining the coal ourself or buying the coal from the market, we continue to do that in the most cost-effective way. Establishing a new mine, I mean, that takes time, and we will consider, as I said before, that coal in the short to medium term still remains a critical feedstock that we need. If we need to establish a new mine, for instance, to replace a mine like Bosjesspruit, which is coming to the end around 2032, we will do so. But before we trigger an investment in a new mine, we'll make sure that we assess all options of whether we can produce the coal ourselves or we can buy the coal from the outside. And we'll do that and choose the most cost-effective route.

Thank you, Simon. Did you want Sarushen to add anything?

Sarushen, you can come in on that 30% in terms of the levers, then we can also preempt that question, how the levers will evolve as the circumstances change.

Thank you, Simon, and good morning, everyone. So as Simon said, we're continuously optimizing our ERR. And a part of this optimization talks to how we then look at what we do within our factory premise and what we do outside. And really, our focus has been now on how do we then ramp up production in Secunda through the optimization of the ERR. And in this regard, we've optimized our fine coal solution and the steam and condensate solutions that we do on site, while pushing harder on some of the other levers, like increasing renewables, so we are targeting well in excess of 1,200 megawatts. And this will be both embedded generation, PPAs and wheeling agreements. We're developing all these options. We're also looking at enhanced energy efficiency as we see improvements in coal quality. We expect that our steam and oxygen demands will reduce, and our energy efficiency will improve. And then we also are looking at sustainable market mechanisms. So these are things like renewable energy certificates and offsets to then complement our ERR. But we will balance all the available levers that we have as we head towards this target of 30% and do whatever we need to do to then come to an economically optimum outcome in our achievement of this 30%.

Thank you, Sarushen. I think while we are talking about the ERR, there are a few more questions on this topic, so let's move to that. The first question from -- or two questions from Tabo at the fund. The revised ERR seeks to incorporate the use of sustainable feedstocks provided they are cost competitive. Should this not be the case? What will the impact -- what impact will this have on the ERR targets to be achieved? And the second question is on mining. There was a mention that mining will increase drilling to improve the quality of mined coal. Is this done as part of an exploration program to increase reserves or prioritize mining targets within the existing reserves? Has Sasol reviewed its position on increasing coal reserves as part of a reviewed ERR strategy? Thank you, Tabo, for your questions.

Tabo, thank you. Like I said during my presentation that our commitment to regulatory compliance and the environment remains that Sasol's group target of 30% by 2030 remains. So as we revise the ERR, we are not, I mean, increasing the coal reserves. As we've said before, we've got enough coal reserves for a time frame up to 2050 or so. So the drilling program and it's key aim is to ensure that we can map up exactly where we need to go to balance the quality that comes out of our mines. So that's the main purpose of the drilling, it's not drilling for exploration, but drilling for us to map up and understand the geology that's facing us. So that answers your second question. Then the first one, Sarushen has covered it adequately. For us, this is a dynamic process. We're going to make sure that we keep on exploring on all the levers and targeting them higher, so that if some of the levers don't work, we can supplement with other ones. But our core focus is in making sure that we maximize Secunda production and protect value for all the stakeholders.

Thank you, Simon. Anything you want to add on the mining question or you...

No, covered that.

Okay. Great. If we can move to Chorus Call, please. There are two callers that are lined up. If we could start with Chris Nicholson.

Thank you. Question comes from Chris Nicholson of RMB Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, Simon, Tiffany and Walt team. Yes, a couple of questions around destoning, if I may. So the first question really speaks to the fact that you've taken FID on the destoning plant. Understand that you have a ramp-up target towards 7.5 million tonnes. You've also talked about optimizing that emission reduction road map to 7.2 million tonnes longer term. Now that you have both of those, I wonder whether those affect your impairment calculations? My understanding is you're obviously still carrying the Secunda's fuels volumes at zero effectively and you continue kind of impairing what you spend. Why haven't we seen a write-back of impairments now those two have been taken? That's the first part. Second part, just on destoning, the export coal, the coal that you've previously been exporting, does that get diverted to some fuels pretty much from today? And does that have any near-term impact on quality? I would certainly imagine that's high energy content coal. And then last question around destoning, just your Richards Bay allocation, your railway allocation. Will you be selling that now? And what would that be worth? Because it doesn't look like you'd be -- have any use pretty more? Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Thanks, Chris, for your questions. Let me start and then I'll allow Hermann to answer the questions on destoning, both of them in terms of the FID and then the export, Hermann can adequately cover that. I mean, Chris, the destoning project is to make sure that we restore the quality of coal that goes to Secunda operations. And I think Hermann will elaborate in terms of how we look at that. And that will cover as well our position on the Richards Bay coal terminal because that coal, coming out of that mine, as you remember, we've previously said, I mean, around '26, '27, was actually not becoming export quality anymore. So Hermann, let's go to you and cover fully the destoning, then I'll just start on the impairment and later, I mean, cover it fully as well.

Thank you, Simon. I think it's important that one realizes that the export quality coal from our Thubelisha colliery, the yield associated with that coal or with that reserve base will actually reduce to the low-20% level from the current 30% level. So that actually makes the export business and to export that reserve, it doesn't make it viable anymore, and that is happening within the next two years. So having that as a coal reserve, we know the coal is gasifiable as the middlings coal has gone to the Secunda operations up to now. We've taken the option to repurpose the Twistdraai export plant and then to destone the entire Thubelisha fleet -- the entire Thubelisha feed to Secunda operations, that will bring about that we will have a discard that will go to our destoning or the discard dumps. I think from a perspective of RBCT shareholding, we will still keep that shareholding in RBCT, and we will be leasing it out for the short to medium term.

Yes, thank you, Hermann. Chris, on the impairment, I mean, as you'll recall, the Secunda value chain has two CGUs that intertie and interlinked the chemicals CGU and the Synref CGU, which is our refinery portion. And the CGU that's being impaired is the Synref CGU. So with the revised or optimized CRR, we actually had a significant value uplift on both of those CGUs. However, there's still a small gap on the Synref CGU, and we're working hard on that one. I'll allow Walt to elaborate on that.

Thanks, Chris. Yes, I think so just to further elaborate just on Simon is on the -- we did see the uplift from the ERR, but we also adjusted our macroeconomic assumptions more longer term. So oil prices are lower, the rand is slightly stronger and then some of the product differentials are low. So we had that impact coming down. I think just to clarify one thing, just on the CGU, Simon, it's -- there's chemicals. There's a number of CGUs within chemicals itself. I think they're about six in total within the Secunda space. So the good news is on all of those impairments -- I mean all of those CGUs, we saw a significant increase also in the value and use. And so we remain focused on how do we further optimize our capital and cost spend on the ERR to, first, as one step stop the impairments of the capital that we're spending, and as a second step potentially reverse the impairments at a later stage. Thank you.

Thank you. I think we can move to the next question on Chorus Call.

Thank you. Next question comes from Gerhard Engelbrecht of Absa CIB. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity. I have a number of questions. I just want to clarify, Simon, you mentioned a CapEx number, lower CapEx, ZAR11 billion to something ZAR16 billion or something. Does that only refer to the transform CapEx? And secondly, can you give us maybe some guidance as to what your maintenance CapEx or your overall CapEx budget looks like for the next five years? Is it coming down quite significantly? So just the normal maintenance CapEx. I've got questions around feedstock, coal and gas. With Bosjesspruit running out, when will you have to make a decision on a new mine? What is the lead time? I'm just trying to understand that. And also, Isibonelo, so how long you say you've extended the contract, for how long? And then I'm just curious about gas, the last question. The plateau hasn't been extended beyond 2028. It doesn't look like there are more reserves. So what is the impact of extending sales to your external gas customers? What would the impact of that be on your own operations, given that nothing else might have changed?

Thank you, Gerhard.

Thanks, Gerhard. Let me start on the gas, then I'll allow Hermann to cover both Bosjesspruit and Isibonelo in terms of the time lines that we need there. And then after Hermann does that, I can close with your -- I mean, the transform capital in terms of how we think about that. I think first, I mean, Gerhard, the five year outlook on CapEx, we will give you that at CMD. I think it will be prudent to do that. Firstly, on gas, the impact, I mean, as you know, if you look at Secunda running at 7.6 million tonnes, usually, gas accounts for, I mean, 500 to 600 kilotons once your quantity is fully fixed. So if were to expand, which we will not consider about, I mean, maximizing value for all the stakeholders that will be the impact. I mean that gas runs out in any event. So for us, I just want to reiterate it's about making sure that the country moves on to LNG and LNG comes in. So that's the first on gas. Hermann, can you please cover the two on Bosjesspruit and Isibonelo.

Thank you, Simon. Good morning, Gerhard, I think it's important to note that we have enough options to supply coal to Secunda operation up till FY '29. Those options consist of our current reserves that have already been deployed or opened and ready to be mined. It also includes Isibonelo and it also includes other suppliers that are delivering coal via road. So that we have enough coal up till FY '29, and we have commercial contracts in place that can also be extended to make sure that we have the coal up to '29. All commercial contracts for coal supply for FY '26 is already in place. And as I said, we can extend those. For now, we have extended Isibonelo up till the end of the '25 calendar year. So we've extended their supply base with six months. To extend further would entail a lot of work at Isibonelo. And we are, at this point in time, having commercial discussions considering coal quality as well. The lead time on a new mine Bosjesspruit's closure, depending on the quality of that colliery, will be a tail from about FY '28 onwards till approximately FY '31, '32. To replace that mine, the lead time for a decision on that mine is from now between 18 months and 24 months. Please take note that we've progressed well with studies on our existing reserves, mainly the Alexander reserve. And we are also, at this point in time, evaluating commercial proposals from the market to potentially also supply coal from FY '30 onwards. So that processes are well progressed, and we will take the final investment -- well, choices and then final investment decisions or commercial choices within the correct time period that's required.

Thank you, Hermann. Finally, Gerhard, on your question, on the ZAR11 billion to ZAR16 billion, you're right, this is a reduction over the period. So this does has a potential to impact, I mean, our overall CapEx number. We're working on it. Suffice to reemphasize that our key focus will be making sure that when capital is set free that we prioritize the balance sheet. However, that will have to balance with, I mean, both growth and transformation. But the balance sheet will be, I mean, our key and number one priority to strengthen it as Walt said.

Okay, thank you for your set of questions, Gerhard. I'm going to move back to the online platform, and we've received a number of financial-related questions, which I'm going to direct to Walt. Adrian Hammond from SBG and Sashank Lanka of Bank of America have both asked a question on carbon tax. Given the latest budget speech, like not really a budget speech, but what carbon tax savings can you quantify for us? And then another question from Adrian around restructuring the large offshore debt, given the majority of earnings are in South Africa. And given the uplift in your assumptions for Synfuels volumes post 2030, is there a possibility of reversing impairments? I think let's pause there.

So I think first on the carbon tax. We've been working closely as part of the public engagements with National Treasury on carbon tax. The impact of that phase 2 document that was released in November had a significant impact on our overall free cash flow generation in our South African business. We currently pay -- the carbon tax for us is about ZAR 1.8 billion a year. That number would have quadrupled by the end of the decade with the revisions or the proposal that are included in the budget's documents that we've now seen, but will be presented again in March. That number obviously reduces significantly to what we previously calculated. In terms of -- should I just handle the other -- I think on the impairments, I think we've covered that with my answer to Chris. At first stage is to stop impairing the capital that we spend in the first half of the year. We believe there's further opportunities that we can do if we look at cost and capital with regards to the ERR, particularly post 2030, and how we set that business up to be competitive and successful and that we will share more of that as we get to Capital Markets Day. And then in terms of restructuring the large offshore debt, I think you're right. I think if you look at the split at the moment, more than 90% of our debt is sitting in U.S. dollars and 90% of our earnings are generated in South Africa, so we have a mismatch. We're currently looking at different refinancing options. The reality is the South African debt market is just not big enough to absorb that quantum. But having said that, we think that together with some of our partners, we can look at how we structure that slightly differently. First price, to be honest, is to reduce the amount of debt that's on the balance sheet, and that's part of our driver on the free cash flow generation.

A couple more just around the ERR CapEx range, which I think Simon has already addressed. But there is some clarity required from, I think, Sashank and both Tabo from the fund, just on the range of capital. So we've -- the question is, you've narrowed your maintain and transform CapEx target range from ZAR27 billion to ZAR34 billion down to ZAR28 billion to ZAR30 billion for this year. So detail on that? And then I think just some detail about the lower ERR CapEx, and does this relate -- purely does the lowering of capital from ZAR25 billion to ZAR16 billion on the ERR relates solely to the revised ERR or total for first order capital spend? I think there's just some clarity required there.

Okay. So I think first on the -- I think on the ZAR27 billion to ZAR34 billion versus the ZAR28 billion to ZAR30 billion, the ZAR27 billion to ZAR34 billion was a Sasol 2.0 target that was then -- so that was often FY '20 baseline and then escalated, I guess, in real terms to 2025, the ZAR28 billion to ZAR30 billion -- sorry, it's an annual average. The ZAR 28billion to ZAR30 billion is our FY '25 outlook that we're providing for this year. And you'll see we spent roughly ZAR15 billion in the first-half of the financial year. So hopefully that clarifies that. I think in terms of the longer-term capital range, Simon has already alluded to that, we'll share more details in Capital Markets Day. But it goes without saying, we're pushing for a reduction in our first store capital and not by doing maybe less, but just how do we do it more cost effective. In terms of the transform capital, if you remember, the previous guidance was ZAR15 billion to ZAR25 billion over a five-year period to support the transfer -- the ERR. Our latest estimate is the ZAR11 billion to ZAR16 billion. So it's roughly ZAR10 billion to ZAR 15 billion adjustment on the CapEx for the emission reduction roadmap and the change in the pathway.

Great. Walt, a couple more for you, just on the balance sheet and around capital allocation. Shane Watkins from All Weather is saying that there's insufficient value unlock from the operational improvements. In his view, what assets can you sell to reduce debt? And then I think just some clarity around the gearing of oil, which Alex Comer from JPMorgan has highlighted has decreased from about ZAR850 per barrel. Just extend, why are you not hedging more oil? I think there we need to just give clarity on that. And then some plans around refinancing and Sasol debt maturity profile going forward.

All right, cool. Okay, so thanks, Shane. I think on the operational improvements, I think we do see significant opportunities to generate free cash flow. We have a lot of latent potential in a number of our assets, not only in Southern Africa, but also in our international chemical space. And so that's our focus right now is how do we -- through a combination of selling out and selling up those assets, taking some of the cost out that we can unlock value from those businesses. Selling assets right now, I mean, it's an option. We can always look at it. And we have, as shown in the past, but the valuation that we feel, especially on some of the international chemical assets would not be justifiable at this point. And our focus is getting the runs on the board for ourselves that we show that we are still the best owners of those assets and can get the best value from those assets. In terms of the debt maturity profile, our most immediate maturing is a U.S. bond, $650 million that matures in September of 2026. We are currently looking at our plans with regards to refinancing that. And obviously, we'll share more details as it becomes appropriate. And then thanks, Alex, on the sensitivity to oil. So I sat with the team and we looked at the correlation coefficient of our chemical prices to the changes in the oil price. And over time, especially over these last two to three years, the linkage between chemical prices and oil has not been as strong as before. If anything, chemical prices are much more driven by demand supply dynamics in the different regions, but especially in China. So our sensitivity, the correlation wasn't as strong. And then in terms of hedging oil forward, we have hedged oil more forward. We haven't changed the barrels that we hedge. So even the linkage that I've mentioned, the link to chemicals is lighter, but we've also gone further out and so now hedging 18 months out. So you'll see in the details of our analyst book that we've almost completed more than 85% of our hedging program for FY '26 already and also the -- obviously, it goes without saying that FY '25 was already completed. Thanks, Tiffany.

Great. Thank you, Walt. I'm going to move to Chorus Call. There's one more question in the queue, please.

Thank you. Next question comes from Alex Comer of JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Alex, your line is open. You can ask your question. Alex, your line is open. You can ask your question.

Alex, are you online? I think we can look back to him later. I think the next set of questions is around our international chemicals business. I will direct those to Simon. A couple -- I'll just ask three questions at a time. Any updates and plans with regards to the disposal or IPO of the International Chemicals segment, from Lorenzo Parisi at JPMorgan. Can you elaborate on reasons for mothballing some of your international assets as opposed to divesting these operations? That comes from Peter Comber at Merger market? And the last question on International Chemicals. The guidance of $100 million to $200 million EBITDA uplift seems very bullish given a weak half one. Can you explain what is driving this, also from Alex Comer.

Thank you. I'll start and Antje, I will allow you to come in, especially on the reset, what we're doing there. We can cover the $100 million to $200 million, you can also deal with the mothballing of the assets, what's driving that. Then maybe let me start with the first one. On the IPO, like we've said and Antje will elaborate now for us, it's about first resetting and optimizing the business to make sure that we can restore the cash flows and generate value. And once we're doing that, then it will give us opportunities to exercise various options, which might include partnering or even an IPO. So that will depend on how we're going to progress on -- I mean, and the speed that we progress in terms of resetting the business, and we're going to share the whole evolution with you at CMD. And I think with that, I'll let Antje to come in and answer your two questions in terms of the reasons for mothballing and why we feel confident about the $100 million to $200 million uplift on FY '24 performance.

Thank you, Simon, and thank you for the question, Peter, about mothballing of our assets. So as Simon has referenced earlier in his presentation, we have various levers, which we are addressing at the moment to improve the profitability of International Chemicals footprint. One of those is kind of reassessing the asset landscape, which we are operating in and addressing at pace, also those loss-making assets, which we have carried on for a while. Where we've not seen that we can turn around those assets into profitability quickly because of demand or capacity utilization. We have taken the tough decision to mothball and stop the bleeding at the moment. That doesn't kind of refrain us from taking other steps in the future. That means, if the market picks up, we can bring these assets back to operations, but also kind of we could still look into selling those operations. That's the first point. The second one, Alex, coming to your question about being bullish of the $100 million and $200 million uplift for the entire fiscal year of Sasol in International Chemicals. If you look at our results year-to-date or for the first-half of the year, we have almost doubled our EBITDA coming from $86 million for the first-half of fiscal year '24 into $162 million into the first-half of this fiscal year. So we have started our journey only a few months ago in transforming this business. We are pulling through all the levers, and we see still opportunity for cost improvement, but also margin improvement of the business. And therefore, we don't think this is a bullish number but an ambitious one, and we are confident that we will achieve that.

Great. Thank you. I think there's a few more questions around our destoning and coal purchases. I'm going to read Jesse Armstrong from Fairtree has asked quite a few questions in one. I'll maybe just read through and we can deal with those thereafter. The immediate plan to lower coal purchases by rerouted export coal to Secunda operations to add to or add that in addition to current external purchases around 9 million tonnes. I think, clarity around what our forward-looking plan is on coal purchases? The gasifier time line, for full repairing of that. And once destoning is up and running, what is the total coal intake you're aiming for, including both own coal and external purchases? And a question around the total capacity being processed through the destoning plant per annum and which mines will go through the destoning, which mine's coal will go through the destoning plant?

Thank you, Tiffany. I'll allow Hermann to handle those questions. Suffice to say that our key focus is on restoring the coal quality. We have to do that. We've seen the impact of what this has done in terms of the volumes where in the last four years, we've ran at around 7 million tonnes. We've seen the impact of what that has done to our equipment in terms of, I mean, putting coal quality, which is not desired for the gasifiers. We've seen how that has impacted our availability. So coal quality is our number one focus, and Hermann will elaborate as he answers the questions. Then is an issue about cost. And cost for us, you have an interplay between on production and purchasing, and we're going to make those decisions. So we can't tell you exactly which mine is off or how much we're going to buy. That will depend. If you can maintain the coal quality by producing all the coal, we will do that. If we need to buy some coal, we're going to keep that flexibility open because we need to maximize coal quality. We then need to maximize cost and costs can be maximized by either our own production or purchasing. And that's how we think about it on a strategic level. Hermann, you can then go into the details.

Thank you, Simon. I think it's important that I start by just mentioning that the purpose of the destoning plant is to take stone from the coal feed into Secunda operations. And it's important to note that the destoning plant will take approximately 2 million tonnes of stone out of the coal feed. So that automatically implies that the feed into Secunda will be approximately 2 million tonnes lower. Currently, we are in discussion with Victor and our colleagues at SO. The indication is that, that will reduce the intake of Secunda to approximately 34.5 million tonnes to 35.5 million tonnes per annum, that's 2 million tonnes lower, because we've taken out the rock. So we are planning around the 35 million tonne mark to supply coal into Secunda operations post the implementation of the destoning plant. It's also important to remember that when you do provide less stone or rock into the gasifier, it will make the gasifier more effective, which could also lead to even a further slight reduction in the amount of coal feed that is required to obtain the same output and yields from the gasifier. At this point in time, we are busy with a SIMOPS type project. So we have already started with the construction, as we've indicated, but the Twistdraai export plant is still functioning as an export plant at this point in time and that will continue up to May, whereafter we will shut down the plant, do the relevant tie-ins. And then in the first-half of FY '26, we will then go live or take beneficial operation from a destoning perspective on that plant. The throughput for the plant is designed at 10 million tonnes, so not all coal from Sasol Mining will go through it. And the reason for that is, as Victor indicated earlier on, we need to reach a percentage of sinks or which is then stoned of 12% or lower. And we will be destoning the full Thubelisha coal, and we'll be destoning approximately 25% of the Bosjesspruit coal through the destoning plant. Post the destoning plant, we will have coal with a sinks percentage of approximately 1%. And with our blending facilities, we will then blend that into the current coal blend, and that will then ensure that the sink's content that will go to gasification will be below the 12% level. So we will feed the whole Thubelisha and Bosjesspruit. In parallel with this, we are also investigating other technology, which could be implemented in a modular way to further help with destoning, but that's in the pilot phase. Thank you, Simon.

Thank you, Hermann.

Okay. I think there's a couple of additional questions around our International Chemicals business. So we'll move to that. I'll ask the next three questions. Question from P.J. Prince Lou from St. Joe. The costs involved to mothball the three chemical assets? Sashank Lanka is asking for clarity on the -- why we have margins -- why have margins underperformed peers? And the EBITDA uplift of $100 million to $200 million, how much is driven from macro and how much from self-help or cost savings? Then quite a few regarding -- from JC Armstrong at Fairtree, but I think centering around the progress that we've made so far and what still needs to be done on the asset review process. And I think a few more around the utilization on our Chemicals America performance and Eurasia. And do we see lower volumes from Chemicals Eurasia as a permanent loss in demand?

Thank you. The questions are all interrelated. So let's ask Antje to just handle them, I mean, in one sweep.

Thank you, Simon, and thank you for the questions about the International Chemicals business. So first of all, just to remind, as Walt has also said, our ethylene cracker in the U.S. had been down for eight months last calendar year and started back up only in November, that might kind of give you some background as well in terms of the results compared to peers and others. Obviously, we had some other income through insurance, but that is not covering the full loss of income, which we would have had if we had the east cracker running the entire period. The other question about the self-help. Self-help, we started really our program with those kind of different measures last year in the September, October time frame. So that means that we will see further savings in cost and margin benefits coming in the second-half of this fiscal year. This is why I'm also confident that we will deliver on the $100 million to $200 million. And there are various different levers, which we have addressed. One is the streamlining of the organization, which will give us also kind of a better exchange between the two assets, which we have, for example, between Europe and the U.S. We've seen some best practice sharing already, which has led to some savings in that regard. Operational excellence, commercial excellence are full, up and running. And then the other one is as well, obviously, the asset review, which we are doing currently as said before. We have taken the decision -- the tough decision on three assets, one in Italy, one in Germany and one in the U.S. And we are reviewing our footprint further for other, again, loss and not performing -- loss-making and nonperforming assets in our landscape. So these kind…

Thank you very much. I think there are -- there's one more question. If you have any further questions, would you please go online and put them in the chat box. There's one more question on the ERR from Gerhard Engelbrecht. There seems to be a future focus on boiler turndown, renewables and other feedstocks, which -- what fine coal solutions are you looking at? And is it still briquetting? Simon?

Thank you, Gerhard. You're spot on as briquetting still our primary solution to deal with fine coal, and the teams will continue to assess other solutions as well. I think the key focus for us is going to be on capital efficiency and making sure that we minimize the cost or we choose the most cost-effective solutions. However, as we bring in more renewable energy, the boilers or the coal that was used to produce team, for electricity, we will have to turn those down, and we have to deal with the fine coal. Thank you for your question. You're right. I mean, briquetting is still the primary choice for dealing with fine coal. However, as I stated, the teams are looking at other means to also deal with the fine coal.

Thank you, Simon. I'm going to check with Chorus Call. Are there any further questions in the queue?

Yes. We have Gerhard Engelbrecht online from Absa CIB.

Just on battling just with the mass balance of Synfuels. The previous times, you achieved 7.4 million tonnes, 7.5 million tonnes at Synfuels, you took in a lot more coal, closer to 40 million tonnes. Now you're saying you can probably get there by taking in 34.5 million tonnes to 35.5 million tonnes, but you only taking -- the destoning only takes you back to 12% sinks. So how do I balance all of this out?

Thanks, Gerhard. The coal intake will always, I mean, depend on the coal quality. I think what Hermann was referring to when he was thinking about that 34.5 million tonnes is just for FY '26, it's not the long-term coal that you're going to take in. That, we will continuously assess based on the quality, then it will set what is the volume of coal that you need to take into Secunda. And like Hermann has said, we'll always supplement what you produce with what you buy, I mean, either from Isibonelo or the other contracts that we have to bring in coal.

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

If there are no further questions online and no further questions on Chorus Call, I will wrap up the session for today. We thank you for your participation on the market call and engaging the management team in questions. We wish you a pleasant day further. Thank you. Good-bye.