South32 Limited

Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us today for our financial results conference call for the year ended June 30, 2021. I'm joined on the call today with our Chief Financial Officer Katie Tovich and our Chief Operating Officers Jason Economides and Mike Froser. I'll give a brief summary before handing back to the operator for questions and just as a reminder there is a short video summary of FY21 financial results available on our website. Look, this year has been a challenging year for everyone as the impacts of COVID-19 continue to be felt globally. At South32, we've remained focused on keeping our people safe and well, maintaining safe and reliable operations and supporting our communities. Despite these challenges, our operations have performed very well. We set free production records at Worsley, Illumina and Brazil Illumina and Australian Manganese. We also exceeded initial market guidance of South African Manganese, Ceramitosa and Cannington. And it's great to see that that strong operating performance has been combined with improved commodity prices has been translated into a 153% increase in our underlying earnings. I'd also like to note that substantial progress has been made in reshaping our portfolio with the divestment of South Africa Energy Coal and Temco and a portfolio of non-core precious metals royalties. This greatly simplifies our business. It reduces capital intensities and will improve our margins. In terms of our growth projects and the way forward, at Hermosa we continue to progress studies of both Taylor and Clark. At Ambler Metals we commence a summer field season drilling program and continue to progress a study at Arctic. We announced our medium-term target to half our operational carbon emissions by 2035 from our 2021 baseline, supporting our pathway to net zero by 2050. To achieve this, we'll invest in efficiency projects, shift to lower carbon energy, apply low-carbon design principles and adopt new technologies. At the same time, we continue to increase our exposure to the base metals required for a low-carbon future. Looking ahead, we expect to see strong volumes at our base metal operations, Moselle Aluminium, Ceramotos and Kennington, with improvement projects designed to increase production into favourable markets. At the same time, we continue to pursue cost and volume efficiencies to offset stronger producer currencies and cyclical inflation. We believe we are well positioned to take advantage of improved commodity markets and continue to transition our business for the future. backed and underpinned by our strong operating performance, our high-quality growth options, and our disciplined approach to capital management. Thank you, and I'll hand back to the operator for questions.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Khan Peker from Royal Bank of Canada. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Graeme, and morning, team. Just great to see a step up in the dividend, but just wanted to focus on the buyback. So since restarting the buyback, South32 has averaged roughly around $250.50. Given free cash flows stepping up in FY22, it's really relative to FY21. Why only 250 committed? And also, just wondering if that's more of a half-year number than a full-year number, talking about September 2022 for the program. First question.