Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. May we please get started. May I ask someone to close the doors at the back, please. Thank you for joining us in the room. I also would like to welcome those that are joining us online, whether you're joining us from LinkedIn or joining us from our webcast and our Corpus call. My name is Sonwabise Mzinyathi, I am the acting Chief Investor Relations and Liaison Officer here at Exxaro, and I'm honoured to be facilitating today's interim financial results. First off, let me start with our safety briefing here at the connection as is our culture here at Exxaro. Please note that we have not planned any emergency drilling today. If the alarm is activated, please remain calm and exit the building using the emergency exit doors. The assembly point is located in front of the building where the roll call will be conducted. We will all remain at the assembly point until the instructions are issued to re-enter the building. In the event of the situation, please note that visitors should always be accompanied by their host. For our ambulation facilities, when you step outside the auditorium to your right, you will find our restrooms. In case of load shedding, which we do not envisage we've had a good run so far. We have generators on site and which will kick in, in 3 minutes starting with the emergency lights plugs and then the Wi-Fi. Thank you for your attention. On the agenda today, our presentations will come from our CEO, giving us a group performance overview. We will then hear from our Chief Coal Operations Officer, on the core performance results. We will then be followed by our group financial performance from our FD. And lastly, the outlook will be led again when the CEO comes back to present. On that note, let me hand over to the CEO to kick us off.

Airplanes take off against the wind. Adversity reveals diamonds, and else, we say leaders are made by hard effort, not born. This is the wisdom from several poets and writers. I'll start with today. Thank you, Sonwa, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your presence here today, and welcome to those joining us on the line. A warm welcome to the fellow board members in attendance today. And recognizing the Chairman, who is here, Mr. Geoffrey Qhena. I'm also pleased to see the members of the pensioners club. I honestly see 2 at this stage. One has already been seated and one just came in just half a minute ago. So, thank you for your continued support and presence. We are really grateful. Looking at geopolitical events that had shipped the operating context for the first half of this year. After a slow start, global economic growth prospects have improved. However, with 49% of the world population, heading to the polls in this year, including our export markets, a wait-and-see attitude continue to prevail, further complicated by the ongoing conflicts in Russia and the Middle East. In South Africa, the recent results from the elections and subsequent creation of the government of national unity have driven positive sentiment towards this country, but uncertainty still lingers in respect of policy execution. Inflation rates have continued to trend downward, allowing central banks to consider cutting interest rates. We expect the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and South African Reserve Bank, among others, to start lowering official or policy interest rates during the remainder of this year. The initial policy rate cuts will mark the end of the most aggressive rate hiking cycle in 4 decades. With inflation rates retreating and interest rate costs imminent, the global economy is expected to maintain its momentum throughout the end of this year. However, it is worth noting that although South Africa CPI has been trending downwards. The mining CPI in this best half was higher than in the second half of last year, on the back of elevated electricity prices, which reflects the NASA's increase of 12.7%, which was effective in April, which is really also complemented by high cost of lending and trade financing due to elevated coke and refined petroleum costs due to the increase in brand crude prices. As Riaan elaborates, you will see the impact this has had on our business. Let's now turn our attention specifically to how these markets have impacted the commodities that we're trading in. Following a weak start to the year due to some new demand in Asia and Europe and lower natural gas prices, thermal coal prices recovered in the second quarter of this half. On the back of tightening sanctioning, Russia, the Middle East tensions, disruptions in the U.S. of export coals to India. And then obviously, the real issues that we experienced here at home in the South African main export corridor to RBCT. Iron ore prices saw a steady decline from January to March as the sentiment was impacted by the fading optimism and uncertainty surrounding the China steel demand. Prices recovered slightly in April and May on the back of the improved demand of steel both inside and outside of China. However, these gains were short-lived. As we look at the new minerals, in particular, copper and manganese, we have been looking at these prices and monitoring the progression of these fundamentals. In the first half, copper remained quite strong as a result of improving investor sentiment and optimism around potential global economic growth, which has obviously been expected, and then manganese prices also rebounded significantly due to supply side constraints, reassuring us that our strategy is on the right track. We have provided further details in the backup slides in this regard. So, please do look at those graphs. Now looking at the home front, we are pleased to report that TFR and industry collaboration have improved. As such, we remain cautiously optimistic for the second half of the year that TFR will perform at the 50 million tonnes per annum, which are levels which are guided by them and will continue to respond with agility. We saw an increase in the core domestic sales in the second quarter of this year. And this is due to the higher equipment availability at the Waterberg power stations. However, this only partly offset the weak demand we saw in the first quarter. And you'll recall, this is a problem that we come in within the previous year. However, as you can see from the bottom graph, and we want to apologize for the color confusion that you may have in your handbook. But we've since corrected -- if I'm correct, I think we have. So, if you look at this graph, you can see growth of our export sales on the back of alternative means of evacuating our project offshore. Now, moving on to our operating performance. We're very pleased to report that this week we have achieved 2 consecutive years of 0 fatalities across all our operations. And must I remind you that this had been a break from a long period of 5 years, we had experienced before that. So now this is another trajectory, 2 years down the line. We're very happy to see this happening in the organization. And as the Chief Safety Officer in the organization, I recognize our team's focus on the 5 keys of safety and continue to encourage them to conduct robust core analysis for all incidents so that we don't experience repeats. And we also want to see demonstration daily from our teams of Khetha Ukuphepha, safety always commitments. And we expect to see this across the organization, underground, on surface, in this office every day. We do strive for zero harm. Our coal operations team under Kgabi's leadership has consistently demonstrated resilience in navigating a dynamic operating environment. However, due to the low demand mainly in the first quarter, as I've mentioned as well, coupled with several logical challenges, logistical challenges we have seen, we have experienced 12.7% decline in coal production from 22 million tonnes to about 19 million tonnes in this fast half. Kgabi will give more color in this regard. So, now given these logistical constraints that we've experienced, it is important to remember what I've mentioned the last time that the design construct of the core business is optimized to perform at 50 million tonnes, with 8 million to 12 million tonnes per annum of apples by rail to RBCT. So, there is, however, a threshold below which even your most stringent of cost containment will be rendered ineffective. So, now let's look at where we are, compared to the current operating levels of 42.5 million tonnes, which is 7.5 million tonnes below optimal levels. With stockpiles, exporting 5 million to 6 million tonnes per annum, some are railed through RBCT and we've got growing volume going to alternative ports, which are railed both by truck and also in a little bit of railing. So, think about that. It has actually fundamentally changed the construct and continues to put pressure on the cost management and cash costs that I think Mellis and team, obviously, Kgabi being there has been really colored under pressure, making it very difficult for us to cushion against the impact of inflation as we have demonstrated over a couple of years. So, you will then see the increase of 23.3% between the 2 halves in terms of our unit cost from 506 to 624 per tonne, which is mainly driven by a lower domestic offtake at our Grootegeluk Mine, coupled with distribution costs because we have railed more and exported more than we have in the previous half. So, thanks to our early value strategy and our market to resource optimization approach, which we've worked on over years as well, which is beginning to deliver value. And the team has continued to respond with agility and efficiency to opportunities in the export markets. And I think Sakkie will tell a good story. This is the most busiest team, an uncertain team and frustrated team in this building and in this company because they do not know what is going to happen tomorrow. They may have a train, but something may have changed in the market. So, you really need to be very sharp from intelligence point of view. So, proven by our export sales, which we've already mentioned that we've increased by 22% to 3.3 million tons in the first half, and I think they deserve a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, really. And as I said, with this early value strategy then allowed us to realize a good price, 95% against the API4 index, which is in line with our set target we've already communicated with you. Yes, it is 2% below our record high of 97%, which we've achieved in the second half of 2023, but we continue to work hard. Now, turning to our energy business. The synergy operations have delivered 339 gigawatts hour of wind energy, which is a decrease of 13.5%. This business has strong win seasonality that we see, whereby the first half of the year is always weaker than the second half. Even though if you look at the 2 halves, and you'll see that if you compare the 2024 to 2023, we can see that there's been an increase of 1.2% in the wind energy delivered. But this variation of first half to second half is what we experienced. Now coming to our financial performance and looking at our group EBITDA, which decreased by 10.5% to ZAR 5 billion, mainly due to our low export prices and lower sales volumes in the domestic market, which we've experienced in this first half. Specifically on the coal EBITDA margin, which was quite stable at 28%, whilst the energy EBIT margin decreased really slightly due to the previously mentioned seasonality that we've talked about already. We achieved headline earnings per share of ZAR 15.8, down 31.7%, including a contribution for SAICA interests due to the drivers which Koppes will elaborate on a bit later. On the tent capital employed, it is at 27%. This achievement is not only attributable to the high basket price performance, but also our disciplined strategy execution and operations efficiency programs that have ensured the resilience of the business. So, in light of this performance and taking into account our growth aspirations in addition to the uncertainty of our operating environment, it is my pleasure to announce the interim dividend, as declared by the Board of ZAR 7.96 per share, which Koppes will unpack later. Isn't that good? So, but I must confess, I used to think that we don't have this number on the slide, so I used to do my little tricks before and try not to give the number, and I realized that actually all the time, the number has always been on the slide. So, it just shows. So, let's go forward. As a purpose-driven organization, the sustainable impact of our business is at the core for strategy. We are happy to share just a few examples of how we are creating a lasting impact beyond our core mining value chain. Exxaro contributed just over ZAR 1 billion in our social impact direct investment over the first half of the year. And the later portion of this is from the coal operations as unit margin, and ZAR 16 million coming from our synergy business. We use this investment to empower our SMEs through capacity development and revenue opportunity creation. Out of 177 suppliers that were registered in the first half of the year, over 60% are now doing business with Exxaro, while over 6,000 individuals benefited from our supply enterprise development and our enterprise development programs, which is really quite good. So, during the first half, we had 47 small enterprise owners from our host communities who graduated from GIBS Exxaro Contract Development program. We're really proud of this program. Because what it does, it further empowers contractors with businesses, with business skills, entrepreneurial skills, amongst others to improve the availability and profitability of these businesses in their surrounding economies. Furthermore, with biodiversity preservation, it remains a very important focus area for our business. And of note, synergy invested over ZAR 2 million towards the Cape voucher food management program to create the Eastern Cape voucher free zone of larger Safe Zone and partnership with the Endangered Wildlife Trust. Now looking at our municipal capacitation program partnerships with the national business initiative really resulted in very good results, especially in the improvement of the audit outcomes with Waterberg district municipality receiving accolades for its exemplary performance among others. We continue to empower the youths through education and also the implementation of our Early-child development program, which benefited 1,400 children. Our school development program as well benefited about 11,000 leaners and teachers during this reporting period. Now, coming to other critical sustainability matters, at the operational level, where we ensure that we invest enough and the right resources and levels of resources to manage. And we do this because it is the right thing to do, and it is in sync with our values. So firstly, the black lines action that you know we've been dealing with is progressing quite well with a dedicated team cooperating with all stakeholders, and we'll keep you up-to-date if there are any further developments. Regarding the Durnacol water treatment plant, we continue to explore alternative solutions, but it is our wish that we focus quite well in making sure that the right quality levels of this decent is on target and stabilized. Additionally, there have been movements regarding the Sandane family relocation. Matla, I'm sure it just put some light in your head when you think about this. And this is one issue that concerns us, and we want to make sure that we see this family integrate quite soon with the community. And we really prefer to handle these matters outside the courts. We are pleased to report that we've regained our position of 4 out of 5 rating on the FTSE Russell ESG index. And Exxaro currently sits at the top 20% of the ESG performance convened by the FTSE Russell. And this improvement is underpinned by our ability to integrate our ESG principles in the course of doing business. And if you look at the outcomes of this, you will see that in terms of our disclosures on the environmental side, I think the team has done quite well. The web we've done a little bit on the decarbonization plan has also added to this. So, as part of our government excellence, we have maintained our BBBEE Level 2 rating exceeding our Level 3 targets, and this speaks to our commitment towards driving transformation in our industry and the broader economy. So, as I've mentioned, progressing very well on the decarbonization efforts for a company like ours is very important that we prioritize these efforts and make sure that we contribute to the much-needed energy solutions through our current business. So, we need to manage this very well. We have been proactive in addressing our impact on climate change since 2008 by partnering with research institutions and growing industry collective knowledge and capabilities as we contribute towards South Africa's energy transition. And what is key to this partnership for us is underpinned by the technical skills dedicated towards specific decarbonization needs of Exxaro, especially around the issue of Scope 3 emissions reduction, which becomes a challenge for us. So, we're very happy to report that between 2019 and 2023, we have reduced our carbon emissions by 12%, resulting in a 7.7% reduction in carbon intensity due to these operational efficiency programs at various operations. So furthermore, we aim to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 40% by 2026, through various projects such as self-generation energy and increased operational efficiency for example. Now looking at what we've done, for example, in places like GG, we had to reconfigure our pet operations to optimize energy efficiencies to ensure that we reduce traveling distances, to reduce diesel consumption and associated emissions. The completion also of our Lephalale solar plant under construction at GG progressing quite well. And this plant, we believe, will really supplement our energy consumption with this self-generated clean energy by the first or second quarter of 2025. So, the first half, we are looking at getting the benefits, including the cost of electricity of power. Going to the high caloric value, which is our high-quality coals, which we mine. It further contributes in lowering Scope 3 emissions, especially in export markets. And we're committed to the diversification of our portfolio, which will further contribute to carbon neutrality by 2050. And as such, our Board of Directors are steadfast in supporting the execution of our plan, making sure that the strategy is clearly laid out and is closely monitored by them against set targets at subcommittee and Board plenary level. And with that said, let me hand over to Kgabi to speak to us about your operations.

Thank you, Nombasa. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm excited to present the coal performance results for the first half of 2024. We are proud to report that we've improved our safety performance this period. And to me, this is our biggest achievement, sending all our employees back home safely. As I take the operational performance, it is evident that volume still remains a major component, but adding business value remains paramount in all our business decisions. We also effectively controlled our total cash costs and continued our focus on value-adding projects in capital execution. You will further notice how the operations responded to the changing business environment, making impactful decisions and enabling operations to continuously and diligently adapt to markets, deliver the required products to our customers while we're continuously looking for ways of improving our business. I will now dive into our performance in more detail. Starting with safety, which remains our priority and underpins how we do business. Even though we are grateful to remain fatality free. I would like to take a moment to convey our deepest condolences to the families and friends who have lost their loved ones in the mining industry during 2024. Improved safety comes across the business remains a continued and collective responsibility. Year-to-date, we recorded 4 lost time injuries compared to 5 in the second half of 2023, resulting in a frequency rate of 0.06, an improvement from 2023 where we ended with a frequency rate of 0.08 for the year. This confirms the success of our safety focus drive, as mentioned by Dr. Nombasa at our operations. We remain committed to Zero harm, which is imperative to our business, and we continue to proactively address safety risk at all times. We would like to highlight some low achievements in our environmental performance, demonstrating our dedication to sustainability. A 5% improvement in carbon intensity due to the energy efficiency projects with an ongoing commitment to achieve our 2026 target of reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 40% from the 2022 baseline. Water intensity came in at 167 liters per run of mine to staying well below our target of 180 liters per run of mine tonne and well below the coal mining benchmark of 380 liters per of run of mine tonne. The main increase in the water intensity was mainly due to the lower runoff mine. Our rehabilitation efforts resulted in the rehabilitated area remaining in line with the previous period. We also maintained 0 level 2 and 3 environmental incidents with actions in place to remedy the level 2 incidents, which Nombasa, as highlighted, which is the Durnacol incident, we had a reduced incident in the second half of 2023, and there are remedies to dilute that, as it was mentioned. Social investment for the 6-month period amounted to ZAR 1.045 billion which is higher than ZAR 1 billion, which we spent in the second half of 2023. The local procurement spent on black, small, medium and micro enterprises constitute 77% of the social investment. Combined, these initiatives have supported 372 SMMEs through local procurement as well as enterprise and supplier development. We continue to invest in our mineral succession and education program to ensure we have sustainable communities. We currently support 63 platforms and 3 ESD businesses, which consolidates into 47 projects under this initiative. Next, I will focus on our operational performance. Looking at our production, we are 12.7% down, about 2.8 million tonnes. The 2023 volume impacts continued mainly from lower offtake at our Grootegeluk Mine, resulting in a decrease of 1.8 million tonnes for the 6 months of 2024 despite an improvement of about 1 million tons in the second quarter of 2024. The team has done a lot of work. The Eskom team and the team led by Lazette Houtakhalag to ensure that these improvements are realized. We expect a continuation on this improved trajectory, assisting in all possible ways to continue realizing this improvement. Mpumalanga production was mainly impacted by Leeuwpan where we continue with our strategy to focus on delivering value and not volume, as mentioned before. This resulted in 400,000 tonnes lower production. Our sales volumes were 11.7% down, negatively impacted by lower offtake due to unit outages and equipment retails at our off-takers, and this orcas in the first quarter of this year. We have started to see an improvement in the second quarter for the first half of 2024. Lower product availability from Leeuwpan as highlighted in the comments on production also impacted us. We were successful in developing alternative logistics channels, resulting in an increase of 600,000 tonnes, which we've moved through the ports. And this is equivalent to 23%, as it was mentioned by Nombasa. This impacted the domestic uptake somewhat as available volume was allocated to the markets based on the financial viability and our market resource optimization strategy. Looking forward to the second half of 2024. We forecast production for the second half of 2024 to increase by 1.8 million tonnes, which is about 9.3% and sales to increase by 10.6%, mainly due to the following: an increase at Grootegeluk based on the expected 2.3 million tonnes increased offtake due to the improvements seen in base on the contracted volumes. 18.8% decrease in Mpumalanga production is mainly driven by Matla decreasing by 42% as expected and highlighted previously, with a mine 2 short haul, which is stopped in May, and the subsequent transition to mine 1. We did receive all the capital from Eskom to finish the project. This was offset somewhat by Leeuwpan's optimization value drive initiatives, which are now established. Furthermore, we are expected to build on this foundation, which will enable a new market revenue in a sustainable domestic market, resulting in a production increase of 500,000 tonnes, which is about 45%. We continue to manage the Mpumalanga mines on a portfolio level. And this is important that we don't look at each operation as a unit but we look at as a portfolio. Where management decisions on our operations and distribution of our products only solve for the maximum retail for Exxaro. We are planning to maintain the improved export sales of 3.3 million tonnes into the second half of 2024. I'll move to our market slide. Our market-to-resource optimization strategy continues to add value to our portfolio and ultimately delivering into our financial performance. There is a great collaboration between our marketing team and the operations team to execute our strategy. Starting with our export sales destination at the top right-hand corner. With Europe relating to a normalized proportion of our sales, we have seen India back in the market as coal prices came down. Nearly 50% of our export coal was sold to Indian customers during this period. Our marketing team was able to successfully play into the decarbonization and environmental line imperatives in delivering to the market and also supporting our customers with high-quality products. Moving to the bottom left corner, we show our progress towards optimizing our export product mix, the tandem strategies of early value and market resource optimization continue to guide us to sell the highest value product mix. As per our previous guidance to the market, the RB1 portion of the mix is now at 70%. We'll see short-term pressure as we export higher volumes of lower quality coal via other channels. During this period, 25% of our exports took place via China's Richards Bay Coal Terminal. We continue to develop mechanisms to optimize the sales mix across the portfolio also via the other export channels. Moving to the right, we talk about the average realized prices. We are still experiencing significant pressure on pricing dynamics, both domestically and internationally with a lower API for price of USD 101 per tonne versus USD 112 per tonne in the second half of 2023. With increased export volumes via alternative channels, we have guided previously that there will be temporary pressure on our price realization performance now sitting at 95%. We still view this as a benchmark price realization performance. We believe that we have seen the lows in the Transnet Fright Rail performance and are cautiously optimistic for incremental improvement in export rail performance to reach coal terminal. We are strongly encouraged by the approach taken by the new management under Michel and Russell. We are focused on continued optimization of routes to market, and I'm confident that we will, in time, show even more success in this regard. I'll now move to the cost slide. During our financial results presentation to the market, we highlighted the fact that we have installed capacity to produce 50 million tonnes. And Dr. Nombasa has spent a lot of time explaining the importance of us operating at 42.5%, while we've designed for 50%. So, this is quite important in terms of what it does to our business. We also indicated that offtake and logistics constraints will add additional cost pressure. And our guidance of remaining within coal mining inflation on a cost per tonne basis is at risk. Here, I'm in front of you, telling you the same story, is what I told you earlier in FD also. We are, therefore, pleased to report that our cost of production has decreased by ZAR 147 million, and even including the additional investment of ZAR 614 million in logistics options. Our total cash cost only increased by 5.2%, well below the mining inflation of 7.2% for the first half of 2024. This was made possible by continued cost efficiency and improvement initiatives remaining true to our commitment to produce a benchmark cost level. This commitment remains relevant to ensure we proactively minimize all impacts on our business. As discussed in our production performance, the offtake continues to impact this operation and the higher volumes through alternative channels does come at a premium. The lower offtake impacted the operational rhythm, and again, requires us to pivot regarding our mining value chain processes. We are designed to move coal via convenor now tracking coal also on top of that. So, that is requiring us to pivot. Trivers anomalies, we mentioned have been concluded and strip ratios will return to long-term averages in line with the life of mine designs. In the first half of 2024, we continue to utilize opportunities to prepare our operations to be more responsive to this changing reality. Focusing on equipment maintenance, exposing coal and ensuring that we are prepared for the increased demand as we have indicated in the second half of 2024. Embedding our alternative logistics channels while continuously optimizing. The reduced production volume amounting to 2.8 million tonnes or about 12.7% resulted in an increase of 12.8% in our production cost per tonne and an export logistics cost increase of 10.5% per tonne. The latter investment has resulted in an additional 600,000 tonnes, which we sold through alternative logistics channels. I will now unpack the key contributors to our production cost per tonne as indicated by the shaded area in the bottom right graph. Firstly, the increased equipment and plant maintenance, as discussed above, accounted for ZAR 25 per ton, which contributes to 5%. Employee costs increased by 4% due to normal labor increases of 2% and a structural change due to the technical support services moving into coal. Increased contractor costs of our 3%, this was mainly at Belfast, moving additional volumes in the first half of 2024 to increase coal inventory and enabling product flexibility. The rehabilitation costs reduced mainly due to the impact on the liability as a result of the change in PPI and the discount rate. In conclusion, we remind you again that cost containment remains our highest priority, especially when impacted by decreased offtake and below normal logistic channels, our performance. We pride ourselves in that despite all what has been mentioned, we are still able to remain within the second production cost quota on aggregate at Exxaro. Having said all of this, we continue to challenge ourselves to keep our production cost within the mining inflation. As mentioned, I remind you that we will continue to maintain our operational resilience and responsiveness to changing external factors that may impact our business. This is supported by our commitment to driving digital programs targeted at obtaining insights from data analytics. Finally, we move to our capital expenditure. We are still within the 5% guidance provided to the June 2024 of the FD pre-close. With the actual expenditure at 2% below the forecast set value. We remain committed to our capital excellence journey and spend our cash prudently focusing on the investments to effectively sustain our business. Our spend is also aligned with the normal project execution plans, which reflects an increase in the second half of 2024. Looking ahead, we forecast our 2024 capital expenditure to remain in line with our overall guidance, which is between ZAR 2.5 billion to ZAR 3 billion per year in real terms. Key areas of focus include equipment strategies and license to operate infrastructure as indicated in the table above. Now, I would like to take this opportunity and express my gratitude to the operations team and our colleagues here at a connection for their exceptional agility and resilience demonstrated through. Their efforts have played a significant role in our finance and operational achievements. Now, I will hand over to Koppes, who will provide a detailed overview of the financials. Thank you.

Thank you, Kgabi. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to engage with you again, to present our financial results for the 6 months ended 30 June 2024. To remind you, again, the results will be compared to the second half of 2023. The IFRS results are adjusted with headline earnings adjustments to make the results more comparable. And we have included further details in the backup slides. So, on the first slide, the high-level overview of our group results highlights the performance of our own managed operations depicted on the first 2 graphs at the top on the left, followed by income from our equity accounted investments on the top right. So, you can see revenue and EBITDA of our own managed operations declined by 4% and 11%, respectively. And we will unpack that later on. The total contribution from our non-managed operations depicted in the equity income graph was also lower as we recorded weaker performance from all our equity accounted investments. The SIOC equity income decreased by ZAR 1.6 billion. So, it is definitely evident that we are operating in a challenging environment. But despite the tougher trading conditions, our cash generation of ZAR 4.8 billion resulted in a net cash position of ZAR 9.8 billion, setting a solid foundation to execute on our growth strategy. This translated into headline earnings per share of ZAR 15.28. If we look at the EBITDA slide, so EBITDA reflects lower prices with increased logistics costs. If we look at the split of EBITDA between the coal and the Waterberg and Mpumalanga operations, the EBITDA decreased at both Waterberg and Mpumalanga compared to the second half of last year. The decrease in EBITDA oat Waterberg of ZAR 100 million was driven by a decrease in revenue of ZAR 455 million due to lower export and sales volumes at lower prices, offset by higher prices we received on our Eskom sales. Also, we had a favorable impact of higher discount rate used to calculate the rehabilitation liability of ZAR 149 million. As we exported less tonnes from retro, distribution cost decreased by ZAR 63 million. And due to the inflationary pressure, that added ZAR 96 million to the Waterberg cost base. At Mpumalanga, the decrease in EBITDA of ZAR 528 million is attributed to lower revenue of ZAR 30 million as we saw higher export volumes from Belfast and Leeuwpan, albeit at lower prices, while domestic volumes decreased in line with our priority for exports. So, as our Mpumalanga mines are the main exporting mines, we saw an increase in distribution cost in Mpumalanga of ZAR 410 million, in line with the higher export volumes. At Mafube, the JV with Thungela, our buying cost was lower at ZAR 147 million due to lower pricing and also volumes. Inflationary also played a part and added ZAR 41 million to our cost base. And on the environmental rehab liability, we had a negative adjustment of ZAR 67 million. So, as Kgabi pointed out, we continue to look at optimizing the logistics solutions in the group, as well as also at the Leeuwpan mine to focus more on value over volumes at the mine. This translated into a stable margin of 28% for the coal business with the Matla EBITDA remaining stable. If we look at synergy, the synergy wind operations generated 339 gigawatts of electricity for the 6 months, marginally higher than our prior guidance, and we are still forecasting generation of 720-gigawatt hour for the full year. Remember, the generation is normally higher in the second half of the year. The EBITDA margin remained very stable at 79%. And the synergy project finance debt includes ZAR 4.2 billion for the wind farms, which will be settled by 2031, and also ZAR 850 million for the Lephalale solar project debt drawdowns, this debt will ultimately be settled by 2042. So, both facilities have no recourse to the Exxaro balance sheet and are hedged through interest rate swaps. So, the Lephalale construction is on track for completion in the first half of next year and within budget. Cumulative cost incurred up to 30 June on this project was ZAR 389 million. This, as explained earlier, presents the first major project that will reduce our Scope 2 emissions at Grootegeluk Mine as well as contribute to substantial electricity cost savings in the group. If we look at the next slide, the EBITDA waterfall graph, firstly, the price bar. So, as explained, we increased our export volumes but at lower prices, resulting in an average realized price achieved of $96 a tonne, a 12% decrease compared to the second half of last year. Our price realization on coal compared to the API4 price was also 2% lower at 95%. But this was partially offset by higher prices realized in the domestic market, mainly on our Eskom sales. So, our export volumes increased by 581,000 tonnes as a result of our strategy to use alternative logistics channels, and sales volumes in the domestic market decreased as we prioritize these higher exports. As Kgabi explained, we also experienced lower offtake from our off takers in the Waterberg due to unplanned maintenance affecting both the power stations. Inflation, similar to the rest of the mining industry, still experiencing inflation pressure during the 6 months with electricity cost increasing 6.4%, labor 2.1, and the rest of our cost at PPI of 1.9. There was some relief on our diesel costs as it decreased by 3.8%. As explained earlier, the buying cost from Mafube, our JV with Thungela, decreased by ZAR 47 million due to lower volumes at lower prices. Looking at the other costs, selling and distribution costs increased ZAR 659 million, in line with the higher exports through the alternative logistics channels and the increase in operational costs was already covered by Kgabi. We also had an increase in stock movement, resulting in a positive variance of ZAR 280 million. And on the rehabilitation side, the impact from external surveys performed on our costs, combined with a favorable movement in discount rates resulted in a positive variance of ZAR 268 million. The net positive Forex variance is due to the impact of the weaker rand dollar exchange rate on revenue as well as realized and unrealized foreign exchange differences on foreign debtors and cash balances. On the next slide, we will look at our balance sheet. In applying our capital allocation framework, we always aim for a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, excluding our project financing arrangements of below 1.5x. So, for this 6-month period, our cash flows totaled ZAR 5.4 billion, comprising of ZAR 3.3 billion from our own operations, and we received dividends of ZAR 2.1 billion from our investment in Cision iron ore company. In terms of the capital allocation framework, we used this to sustain our own operations and support functions with capital of ZAR 1.1 billion. We paid dividends of ZAR 5.5 billion, consisting of a pass-through of the SIOC dividend of ZAR 2.1 billion and ZAR 3.4 billion from our own managed operations. Included in the other bucket of ZAR 270 million, our shares acquired to settle vested share-based schemes and the translation of cash and cash equivalents. Our closing net cash position as at the end of June, excluding the synergy, a net cash of 4.2 was there for ZAR 14 billion within our target range of ZAR 12 billion to ZAR 15 billion, as previously indicated to the market to be retained for our growth strategy. We shared the economic value of various stakeholders, including ZAR 3.5 billion with employees. We contributed ZAR 2.7 billion to government through taxes and royalties, and we paid ZAR 5.1 billion to our external shareholders as dividend, and we also shared ZAR 101 million with ALK communities. I'm also pleased to announce, as Nombasa already pointed out that the Board has resolved to pay an interim dividend of ZAR 796 and that is at an overall group cover ratio of 1.9x. This is a pass-through of the SIOC dividend and the cover of 2.5x on Exxaro adjusted group earnings. As previously signaled to the market, we aim to balance the level of cash retention with our growth strategy and returns to shareholders. So, taking into account possible downside scenarios and retaining balance flexibility. We earmark the 12 to 15 billion cash buffer excluding the energy project financing for the growth strategy. The cash flow retention will continuously be reviewed by our Board, taking into account the economic outlook as well as the pace of our growth strategy. So, the Board has therefore resolved not to pay a special distribution at this stage as we are within our targeted cash retention range. But however, the Board will reassess the position when we announce our final results in March, taking into account our cash generation over the period. So, also with that, I would like to thank everybody that made the results possible for their contribution, whether you base at the operation here at the connection, also the finance team for all the hard work. Thanks very much. And with that, I hand over to Nombasa, again.

Thank you, Koppes. So, as we conclude our presentation, and looking at what we did in the organization in terms of skills and having new acquired skills, which are necessary for us in execution of our sustainable growth strategy. We are confident to say we are actually executing our growth strategy, as communicated before. Blessed to have a robust coal business, which is enabling us to diversify our business. And we're looking at the diversification of our minerals business, at the same time, growing our energy business into a formidable Energy Solutions business so that we could reach our carbon neutrality by 2050. And we have reviewed our strategic levers that will further position Exxaro to win in this ever-competitive fluid dynamic, whatever you call it market. And we've identified and strengthened the value or the levers that we're looking at in terms of leveraging technology solutions, including generative artificial intelligence to support in these following key areas: decarbonization initiatives, our M&A intelligence and Investor Relations, in addition to efficiencies and productivity across our business value chain we have been reporting over the years. It is becoming more and more important for me as a leader of this organization to champion a supportive and nattering culture that will ensure that our strategic objectives are achieved, including diversity, equity, and inclusion in the center of that culture. Globally, we continue to experience a challenging M&A environment with lower deal volumes that we've seen in this year with just a few larger consolidation deals that have been announced, which we all know about. This, however, has not deterred us from our diversification activities, and Richard can share a little bit of what we've seen. But obviously, when there is something to share, we will share with you. But we're very deliberate, as we've said to you, in ensuring that we evaluate all deals deeply, robustly, as guided before, and we will execute on value-accretive deals. Now that we have concluded our structured organizational effectiveness process in the organization, I can confirm that all our people and resources are directed towards execution, and further positioning your business to win. And I want to remind you to say the business has gone through various transformation and changes. And we had to look at a certain point that we consolidate the resources of the organization and line it to execute in areas which are important for the strategy. If you're going to be an acquisitive company in the short to medium-term to achieve this strategy, we needed to build those skills to execute the strategy. Hence, Richard's team, you will see has actually been beefed up. So, our success is rooted in the quality of our people and their ability to generate market intelligence, and agility to respond to these market dynamics. We talk about this all the time. We've demonstrated this in the core business. So, this strength gives me confidence that we will deliver on our previous guidance of coal production between 39 million and 43 million tonnes. Our total sales of 38 million to 42 million tonnes, coal exports ranging between 5.7% and 6.3%. And what we've guided in as far as sustaining CapEx for coal being between 2.5 billion and ZAR 3 billion per annum. And with our wind conditions remaining favorable, we expect that the generation for the year to be between 700 and 720 gigawatts hour. Turning now to issues that impact our business, that a successful functioning state breeds driving businesses like Exxaro that are enabled to contribute towards favorable economy for its citizens and a better place to be or a better place to do business. So, we're encouraged by the following developments that we see today. There has been promising legislation that has recently been signed that we view as progressive. The first being the climate change bill, which is an important step towards determining meaningful actions, which are required from South Africa's response. The amendments to the company's Act of 2008, which is imposed in greater transparency on the earnings gap between the highest and the lowest paid person in the company. And this is a journey that Exxaro has already started as disclosed in our 2023 remuneration report, which forms our suite of integrated reports. Other visible developments are in the real infrastructure. So, you may have heard that the long-awaited infrastructure assessment has just been concluded, and it has been shared by the industry, and this really puts us on the path of planning the next steps in terms of how we engage with the challenges that we see. And following the publication of the network statement that you've also seen this year, and its public process in terms of comments and inputs. We are also looking forward to the final network statement, which I heard this morning that could be in the next month or 2, which is quite pleasing. And progressing from there would then go to an open access network, which allows train operating companies to offer real services to minus from 2025 onwards. The South African Development Bank approved about ZAR 18.85 billion, corporate loan for Transnet business recovery plan, that can be positive under this new management. Even though the performance numbers that we see in the second half do not show any improvement from Transnet, but we are encouraged that the approach and the openness of the new management is taking us ever so close. It is, therefore, our belief that the restoration of Transnet rate capacity will be slow. It's going to be a long process. However, as an industry, whether you look at the Minerals Council, you look at the BFSA, you look at BLSA, we have committed to continue to support the TFR initiatives in making sure that we restore the journey where relevant, working with the National Logistics Crisis Committee. Furthermore, significant improvements in the energy environment has also been very encouraging. In terms of the execution of the generation, operational recovery plan and the National Energy Crisis Committee is so visible because now if you look at what has been happening with load shedding, we have not experienced much. And recently, you'll notice that the utility has exceeded its availability factor of 70%, marking a significant turnaround from 12 months ago. And this has given a reprieve to a lot of businesses, especially small businesses, improving the ease of doing business in our country. And following the elections, the market is reporting a cautiously optimistic outlook. Look at the Bank of America, which reported about 71% of surveyed fund managers were very optimistic about equities over the next 3 to 5 years, while 82% of those surveyed said they were prepared to bring back offshore fund if domestic re-stand looks superior or as attractive. However, investors are plying a caution of a wait-and-see approach. And ultimately, it will be in the successful execution of South Africa's great policies that will be put to the test. I think that is the way the industry commitment is, we cannot allow this to happen. And hence, you see the step of picking a little bit more closer in terms of the support of what and private partnership. And that are beginning to really prove that working together, really there's nothing that we cannot achieve as a country. We do this to power possibility to our country for Africa and beyond, suturing the current and future energy needs. Last but not least, regarding our BBBEE unwind of the CSRs, which were under a 10-year lock in period, available to be exercised for either the option to sell part or all the shares in 4 tranches. The first tranche being about 40 million shares at the end of 2024. The shares are not automatically released and sold because ASCRF must first exercise its option to sell or retain within ASCRF subject to the normal preemptive rights. So, as Exxaro and our advisers, we're engaging with ASCRF make sure that we execute the option of their preference. And that work is ongoing, and we do get a lot of these questions. So, that work is ongoing, and we are quite comfortable that towards the last quarter, we will be able to share some more. These results would not have been possible. We thought our men and women at the hat of your business. Who have proven to be the ad claims that took off against the wind, the diamonds that are revealed by market adversity and every day becoming better leaders through their hard efforts. With these words, I'd like to thank each and every one of you at operations in this building, everywhere, partners, on our value chain for your continued dedication, resilience and loyalty. A special mention also goes to a board that continues to direct us and guide us in the work that we do and making sure that standards don't drop. And ultimately, when all is said and done, wherever you are, you know that hashtag, cruising nicely. Thank you very much. A - Sonwabise Mzinyathi: Indeed, we are cruising nicely. That brings us to the end of our interim financial results, and we bid farewell to those of you that are joining us from LinkedIn. Enjoy the rest of your day. We will now in the room and online, we will be going into our Q&A. I'd like to invite Leon Groenewald, our MD for energy to come and join the presenters, please. We will take 3 questions from the room. Please say your name, where you're from and then answer the question -- ask the question, rather.

Thank you. Congratulations on the results. It's Tim Clark from SBG Securities. My first question is just on your unit costs in coal. They've obviously bumped up a little bit, and you've showed us the logistics breakdown and the unit and the sort of denominator issue that you've had of a lack of sales, but you've got a very strong second half. You've got a big bounce in Grootegeluk and a nice little bounce as well across Mpumalanga. So, perhaps you can give us an idea of what you think the unit cost trajectory could be in the second half given that improvement in productive capacity. My second question is just on your 40% carbon reduction of Scope 1 and 2 by 2026. I was a bit surprised by the extent of the number and the speed at which you're going to achieve that, just given diesel and diesel abatement and how much of a challenge that would be. So, I wonder if you could just speak about the breakdown of that number and how much diesel is of all of your Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions and how you're planning on abatement. And then just taking the offer that you made for Richards to comment on what you've seen in the market? And just overlaying that with your comment on manganese and copper that you'd seen your strategy playing out. I guess, the problem with that is making procyclical investments, right, when manganese prices have been strong and copper prices have recovered and that there's great optimism, perhaps the price of acquisition rises, too. So, maybe you can comment on what you've seen, Richards and how you would manage procyclicality?

Thanks very much. Thanks for the question, Tim, and good afternoon to everybody in the room. Tim, you would have seen the reduction, obviously, of the 2.8 million tonnes and we've indicated what has that done to our rand per tonne picture, but we've also indicated what our absolute cost expenditure looks like. What we've tried to do, if you use a 40% of variable cost to our calculation, if we had to normalize the costs, our inflation per rand per tonne would have been around 5%. We have to normalize that. So, if you're going to use that as a proxy to cater for the bump as you've explained in the second half of the year based on our detailed cost graph that we've put in the presentation.

Before we get to the decarbonization plan, Richard, on the market and manganese.

Cyclicality is something where we're very conscious of. I think important to note that we're not seeing cyclicality in manganese. This is an event that has caused prices to spike. So, in our discussions with manganese producers, there isn't this overlay of prices are now higher. The longer-term price has remained stable because we all know it's going to come back to normalized levels. The discussion you correct is different in copper. There seems to be a new fundamental floor in what is a long-term copper price, what is the demand. And even though EV trajectory has slowed down, there's still this underpin that $10,000 is the new norm. So, what does that do to our longer-term prices. So, I don't think we're at the top of the cycle. I think we're seeing a revaluation of what is a norm in long-term pricing, and hence, bringing that into our models, et cetera. And we're doing this across all the commodities that we're looking at.

Tim, 2 key drivers on the decarbonization between -- for 2026. You will remember that we looked at optimization of the portfolio itself. In terms of certain assets that need to be off our carbon register and also the huge shift that we're going to get from the LSP project, I think the LSP were just below 20%, which is significant. The balance of that would be the early results from our energy diesel efficiency. I don't have the numbers for specific diesel right now, but we can do that breakdown and put it on the net. But suffice to say that we know beyond 2026, it's going to be a challenge to take out cover. We know that because then you get your low-hanging fruits are no longer there. But I think we're still in that wave of a low-hanging fruit. Yes, we're also looking to see whether we can do the same in Mpumalanga. But we know that in Lephalale, LSP is going to end you for longer, and we're going to see that benefit, and it actually does contribute to the broader emissions in the group.

Pumalelo from Capital. I've got 3 questions. The first question is, can you give us a sense of what supporting the Richards Bay Coal benchmark? And what's your outlook for the second half? And then the second question, is with regards to Page 6 on the slides. I'm not sure I quite get -- but the question on that is the alternative channels of the 3.3 are we saying the majority of it is not going to the Richards Bay, are we saying it's getting tracked. So, I want clarity on that. And then the last question, I noted that your second half for sales and production guidance is higher, especially for Waterberg. What's the reason for that, but also, I noted that Belfast and Leeuwpan, the forecast is actually lower. So, I just want to get some clarity on that.

Pumalelo, thank you for the question. So, Richards Bay benchmark API4 that we commonly talk about. We also had a question earlier this morning from the media on why does the coal industry seem so bearish at $100 per tonne, which normally was a very good price. And it still is quite a good price if you're a South African producer and you have a capacity through RBCT. And that's exactly where the problem sits, with Transnet performing at 47 million tonnes annualized per year. Exporters do not have the rail capacity through that efficient channel, which makes $100 per tonne a challenge if you cannot put it on rail. If you look at the mining inflation that we showed earlier, and you look back over the last 3 to 5 years, what that has done to mining costs, as we also indicated to you, there is a huge bump up in cost of producing coal. And I think you will generally find that where $80 was a fairly decent price 3, 5 years ago in a balanced market. $100 is probably that price today, even what mining inflation has done. So, I think there's a cost underpinned to that Richards Bay benchmark that we can see. What also remains quite elevated is the Australian benchmark, the API 6 sitting at about $140 into the Pacific. And that there is a certain differential between that and API 4, which also assists South African producers. Then I think the other question you had was on the outlook. So, we prefer not talking for our own outlook in the public domain, but talk about what the analysts are saying. So, if you look at what with Mackenzie is forecasting for the rest of the year, they have now in 3 months, changed up then down and then up again. So, just to illustrate how volatile environment is out there. But I think the current type of API 4 price that we see now is more or less what's expected for the rest of the year if I look at the analysts. And then you asked about the alternative channels versus RBCT. So, the tons that we moved through RBCT in the first half was more or less 2.5 million tonnes with about 800,000 tonnes through the alternative channels, which, as Nombasa indicated, a multimodal trucking railing in some cases.

We'll take one more question in the room, and then we'll go online and come back to the room. Over to you, Shilan.

It's Shilan Modi from HSBC. Just a couple of questions regarding volumes. Given the numbers that Sakkie just mentioned that you exported 2.5 million tonnes through RBCT and 800 kilotonnes tracked. You still have 3.3 million tonnes exports in your guidance for 2H. Should we expect a similar split? Or do you think there will be an improvement in Transnet's capabilities in line with their guidance? The second thing is at GG, you are guiding quite a big step-up in volumes in the second half. Is that just based on the contractual volumes with Eskom for Medupi and Matimba? Or is that a real number that's going to play through. Part of this is what is -- do you know what the stockpile is at Medupi and Matimba, and can they still add to that stockpile? I've got one follow-up question.

Sakkie, do you want to push and then Kgabi will sweep.

Shilan, thanks so much for the question. Similar split second half, I think so. I will be very happy if Transnet give us something more than 47 million tonnes annualized. I saw a figure yesterday of if you take the second quarter number. So, first quarter, we had a lot of derailments, if you are to take the second quarter of the calendar year and you will extrapolate that for the rest of the year on an annual basis, you get to 54. So yes, we really would hope that we can close off the year much closer to 50, if not a little bit over that, which will then help us definitely on the export tons. The tonnes in the second half definitely looking forward to a much-improved performance by TFR. We have witnessed -- started to witness actually in my better performance, June, much better, July also quite good, and August also going good. So, we're quite hopeful that we will at least stay on contractual levels, minimum contractual levels for the rest of the year. And if we're lucky, hopefully, they can claw back a bit of what was lost in the first half. And then the stockpile yes, we prefer not to comment on Eskom's business and what is over the fence. There's a lot of coal. And I would prefer if that question can maybe rather be directed at them. We have not seen that Eskom is not able to take the coal because they full on a stockpile yet. So maybe just to give that answer.

Maybe you can help us understand where do you guys derive comfort in your working with Eskom.

Yes. The team at Grootegeluk and the Eskom team, they're working quite very closely. If one looks at the first quarter. The challenges are known with tacitly mass and conveys the feeding system. Those were addressed in the first quarter. If one looks at the second quarter, actually, there was 1 million tonnes improvement. Hence, now we're quite comfortable that we're going to see a 2.3 million tonnes in improvement into the second half.

And then just the last question, Nombasa, you mentioned that 40 million shares in the BEE structure will become available towards the end of the year. Assuming everyone exits the structure, what does that mean for Exxaro? Does once empowered, always empowered hold in your view?

Good. Do you want to take that?

Yes. So currently, we're busy with the engagement with shareholders. So, I don't think there is a view that the 40 million shares will all exit the structure. And obviously, from a regulatory perspective, we are the whole time monitoring the position. But also in that structure, remember, there's also some of the shareholding is held by our community trust and also our employee share ownership trust, which are ever green vehicles.

Yes. But maybe just take you back, Shilan, in terms of where we're coming from with the BEE, where we have performed above what law had asked of us because we believe that was the right thing to do. We've experienced the benefits of being a BEE company. And we think it needs to. It's something we look at it positively. So, it just can't be about the law. It has to border between what the shareholders' interests are, but at the same time, also on our value system. So, between what I've said, you should probably read the answer.

Okay. We have two questions on the line from Sandile Magagula from Umthombo both of which are M&A related. The questions are, how much progress have you made from an M&A perspective and what could drive Exxaro's appetite for premium valuations. The second one is, when looking at M&As, what considerations do you have for the choice of your acquisition targets in relation to Exxaro's climate targets and policy?

Thank you, Sandile. In terms of progress, I can confirm that we've made positive progress. In the course of this year, we have, as Nombasa alluded to, scaled up the growth team within Exxaro. We are actively involved on a number of detailed due diligences. We are engaging with principles and owners of assets across a number of commodities. So, I can confirm that there has been very positive progress. What we are seeing, again, reinforcing Nombasa's presentation, is far fewer sales projects globally than in previous years, which means we are having to engage far more on bilateral basis on encouraging sellers to interact with us. And when you get into that environment, you have to entice them to sell. And one of the levers you have is the premium that you can offer. So, in a number of these discussions or most of them, you're right, we have to think about what is that level, what is that strategic premium because of the scarcity in the market when it comes to M&A. So, it is something we have to consider. But within our targets on our return on capital employed and IRRs, et cetera, we build these numbers in to make sure we're doing responsible deals. The second part of your question around how much does ESG drive our investment criteria. I think the answer is that has to be at the heart of everything we do as a business right now and in what we invest in, it is an aspect that we have to consider. How does it affect our Scope 1, Scope 2, Scope 3 targets? How do we utilize our due diligence in ESG to make sure we're selling a good story to our shareholders across the assets we're looking at. And the fundamental goal of investing into transition metals guides that narrative around what are we doing in energy generation, energy storage, energy infrastructure that enables decarbonization and a cleaner world.

And maybe to say that internally, we do set targets of how we see the phasing of what we call the current business, which is looking at Energy Solutions and then diversifying it through this new acquired mineral businesses, which will still complement the energy transition. Surely, we have to model it as we pace ourselves. And suffice to say that given the demand that we see, which is strangely enduring on coal, where we would have anticipating a pick in 2019, but it continues to be over 1 billion tons globally, then it actually sees that you've got enough room to build value out of the business that actually is taking very good quality product because of climate change, because we have to change the product as well to talk to the fact that you're going to need -- well, relatively coal that is not as emitting as other coal, which really gives us that play. But if you look at it internally, we've got to pace ourselves such that the 2050 target is achievable by looking at how much EBITDA we're looking at over time, how do you model that in terms of what you acquire between your manganese, your copper. And another play for us, which is becoming more and more interesting is looking at some of these commodities with a long-term view of going in and saying, for a type of commodity like copper, maybe you need to look at being more exploratory than wanting to go to the hard cash and diversify to your manganese and other commodities that can complement from those energy transition minerals to create a portfolio view. I think for us, that's what is important. We're not looking at each one of these commodities as a single commodity, but we continuously look at how long will coal endure and how much can on the back of coal diversify in a smart way. So, I'm comfortable personally to say that for as long as we decarbonize our current operations and what you acquire is not as emitting as coal, then your net carbon balance is actually taking you to your 2050 target.

Okay. Operator on Chorus Call, I believe you have some questions. Can we take 2 for now, and then we'll come back to the room.

Thank you. First question comes from Shashi Shekhar of Citi.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for this opportunity. I have 3 questions. The first was the first one is on the guidance. During the pre-close, you marginally increased your production and domestic sales guidance. But now they have been revised down. I just wanted to understand what is in the past couple of months? My second question is on cost savings, which you are targeting through Lephalale solar project? And my last question is on TFR. Do you see any more downside performance -- any more downside in TFR performance from current levels?

So, where do we start? Sakkie, you have the tail end.

Shashi, thank you for the question. I'll take the TFR one. We think we're through the dip with TFR, we're pretty certain that we've seen the lows, and I think people may get despondent by saying we've done 48 million tonnes last year for the whole year. And this first half, we've done 47 million on an annualized basis. So, we actually regressed by 1 million tonnes on an annualized basis. I think what we're missing is where we may have been as an industry, if the level of collaboration between TFR and the industry, and even at the National Logistics Crisis Committee did not happen. We could easily have gone down to a 45% and lower annualized performance. And I think the fact that we averted that was already something very positive for us. So no, we do not think we're going to go down for a year. We think we've seen the lows. Yes. So, on the second half, we go up. I think if I can refer back to my previous answer on one of the questions. I think if we could invest, Kgabi also referred to, if we could invest in the infrastructure challenges that is there, that is causing a lot of speed restrictions on the rail line causing the ailments and also on the signaling. Now, all of that is not going to be sorted out in the next 12 months. In fact, if you look at the assessment results, it's going to take 5 years to resolve some of these structural issues. But we definitely think we will start to see improvements in the second half of the year. So yes, we're quite positive.

So, the guidance that we give is between ZAR 80 million and ZAR 100 million for a full year of production.

Okay. Operator. Second question.

The next question comes from Brian Morgan of RMB Morgan Stanley.

Kgabi mentioned in the presentation that stripping ratio at GG are quite high at the moment and that we should expect them to come down towards life of mine levels. Could you just elaborate and that's a little bit more where stripping ratios are at the moment? And what the profile looks like over the next few years?

Are you asking across the operations, Brian, or just at GG?

GG.

Thank you very much. I think the stripping ratios for GG, if you look over the next few years, next 5 years going forward, we expect it to be more or less in line with what would have been communicated in terms of the life of mine plans of GG. So, we're expecting it to be around 0.7 or so, which is a figure that has been communicated previously.

So just to clarify. That's 0.7% for the next 5 years? How does it evolve?

The way it was is that the rest 74 will be the average for the remaining life of mine. But what we've seen is that we're starting to normalize at what the life of mine have been communicated previously. But more or lesser, 0.74 will be what we'll see over the next 5 years and over the next 10 years and 15 years. So, it's an average that you're going to see across the business.

Okay. So, you shouldn't really be expecting a decline in stripping ratios from here.

No, no, no. I think as we move forward, is more or less the level that should be expected.

Thank you. Operator, we'll move back into the room. There's a question.

Morning, all. It's Thobela Bixa from Nedbank CIB. I've got a few questions. Let me start with you, Koppes. During the pre-close, your net cash as at 31 of May was around about ZAR 15.3 billion. So, a swing of about ZAR 1.3 billion to what it is now. Could you just talk to us as to what happened in that month of June? And are there things that occasionally happened in that last month before the end of period. And then the other question is with regards to the loss -- well, Mpumalanga is making losses on an EBITDA level, which of the mines in Mpumalanga are loss making? And what is currently being done to improve them, especially if the volumes remain constrained? And I will come back with another question.

All right. So, the cash position from the end of May to June, the big one was, unfortunately, we had to pay provisional tax of ZAR 1.6 billion at the end of June. So, that was one of the reasons. And then, Meliss and Leon, I don't know, do you guys want to talk about Leeuwpan, the optimization initiatives, et cetera.

Yes, so you saw the picture for Mpumalanga, which was a loss of ZAR 40 million. There's only one operation making a loss in the Mpumalanga and that's Leeuwpan. You saw the volumes dropping in the numbers, and you see them kicking up and you see some of the volumes going into Eskom in the second half, about 1 million tonnes. So, there's a lot of stuff that's being done at Leeuwpan. Firstly, I mean it is our highest cost operation. It is the operation that's got a portfolio of lower-quality coals. So, we've gone through a whole rationalization process where we've gone from 2 pits to 1 pit. We've gone from 2 mining contractors to 1 mining contractors, so a lot of optimizations that we've achieved there. We're also making sure that on the plant processing side, we're not utilizing plant capacity for nonvalue accretive volumes. So, we've also rationalized that. So, we've got a bit of a hybrid at Leeuwpan as well, where you've got some of your own capacity, both in the plants and in the mining environment between your own capacity and contracted in capacity. So, we're really rationalizing that. And when we get to that position and the volumes go up, you'll be in a much better position from a profitability point of view.

Yes. So just to add, I mean, as I previously mentioned that we're looking at Mpumalanga as a portfolio, because Leeuwpan alluded to because of the low-quality coal, but also proximity to market from a trading point of view is how we make decisions, where we allocate trains. So, I don't want us to look at Leeuwpan on its own. But also, what is important is what we've achieved down. We've achieved the market for Leeuwpan. We started moving volumes now into the domestic market, and that will also improve on the profitability. So, I just wanted to make sure that is not an isolated conversation.

Okay. Just to follow up, maybe just to bring Sakkie in. With regards to realized pricing. So, if one looks at your Slide 13, besides product mix, what else affects your realized price? Because if one looks at your 1H '23 product mix, versus 1H '24 product mix. It's more or less the same, but your realized price actually declined by I think 3% or so. And then maybe also just looking ahead in terms of the second half of 2024. I'm trying to sort of gauge as to what is likely to happen to that realized price. And then last question from me is on the rail network. I think there was a report or an assessment that was supposed to be done with regards to the coal line. Could you just talk to us as to has that already come out? And what are some of the key elements that are being focused on.

Thank you Thobela. So, if I look at Slide 13, you will see second half '23, we sold about 80%, 79% RB1. That has come down now to 70% in the first half '24. And we think we're going to hopefully achieve 71 or more or less the same in the second half. So, what we've indicated in March is if we were to export all our tonnes through RBCT, then they afford me the opportunity through our market to resource optimization, strategy to optimize the sales mix in RBCT to get the best value out of that product coming from the mines. Now with a certain portion of our products now going to RBCT and nearly 1/4 of our export tonnes now going through the alternative ports. We do not have that opportunity yet in the other ports to optimize the sales mix. We're working on it, and eventually, we will get there. So, that definitely will place pressure on the sales mix and on the price realization. I think what we also have seen in the past 6 months, when previous 6 months period and even more so over the past 3, 6 months period, RB1 typically traded at the premium to the index in the physical market. What we see today is RB1 for the past 6 months trade at the index or slightly below the index in the physical market. That also places pressure apart from your sales mix optimization on what you have. We still believe that the 95 that we achieved in the 6-month period, we're going to work very hard at maintaining that. So, as we ramp up volumes through other ports, initially in the short to medium-term, there will be pressure, and we've seen it now. But as we improve our ability in the other ports to also do sales mix optimization, we should start to see that number definitely stabilize and hopefully revert back up. So, we still feel comfortable that that's a target we can chase. Then on the rail assessment. So yes, the rail assessment has been made available to industry. And as much as we would not like to talk about Transnet's assets on what is wrong with their assets. I think what the assessment confirmed is that there is a massive backlog in maintenance on the rail network. And we must just understand that this assessment was only done on rail infrastructure. It didn't look at locomotives or rolling stock anything. It looked at the fixed infrastructure. And you will have seen the article in the media that says it's about ZAR 12 billion needed for the infrastructure portion over a 5-year period to get it to move back, to get the capacity of infrastructure to move back into the 70 million tonnes. Now we must just acknowledge then that this is just the infrastructure. What is going to move on that infrastructure is a different topic. But yes, that's more or less the outcome is a huge backlog in maintenance. A lot of per way investment that will have to be done, a lot of signaling investment. And I think between signaling and per way investment, it's probably 75% of the capital that's going to be required. So huge investment required.

Okay. Any more questions in the room? Okay. Going once, going twice. Operator, do you have any more questions?

We have no further questions from the lines. Thank you.

I guess, then that brings us to the end of our interim financial results. Thank you so much to all of you for joining us. For those that will be joining the sell-side roundtable, please help yourselves to some refreshments and then we'll see you at 12:30. Thank you, and goodbye.