DRDGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares

Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us today for this presentation. Before we start, I just want to pause for a moment to remember a very good friend and advisor of ours, John Weber, who was, as long as I've been with the company, he was one of our professional advisors and attorney. with the firm Tiff, Becker & Hofmeyer who passed away the week before last after he was very, very sick. So we all remember him and he was a valuable, he was a dear friend and a valuable service provider. Alright, so it's a privilege again to be presenting to you today. This is the 19th time that I've been doing this. The year-end results were that I was part of the Team that presented the year-end results. Some of you were there the very first time. Many new faces. I'm joined today by my colleagues, Henriette, who's our CFO, and Yaku, who's our Chief Operating Officer. And then there are also several members of senior management who are here. So please, afterwards, we have to eat the food. It's expensive food, so we can't leave before all of it's been eaten. So please ask them questions if you want any clarification on anything. We will be around for a few minutes after the presentation. Please also just take note, there's the customary disclaimer, so there will be forward-looking statements in this presentation, and some of those forward-looking statements are based, or those forward-looking statements rather, are based on Assumptions and some of those assumptions we don't have control over. So just be mindful in the interpretation of those that there are contingents upon a number of factors that we don't necessarily control. It's been a very good year for DRD Gold. It is the 19th consecutive financial year where we'll be paying the dividends and the final cash dividend for the year is 120 cents per share which is just over a billion rand. which was roughly the market cap of the company when I first did the presentation 19 years ago and it was as a consequence of a number of factors working together and obviously in order to have the revenues and the cash flows from which you could pay this cash dividend you need the production so production was pretty teasing we managed to come in just below the 5 tons of production and 5 tons is prominent because you would have seen it in our communications when we talk about Vision 28. And what was pleasing in particular was the fact that it was roughly 5000 ounces higher than the higher end of guidance for the year. And that was because of what I thought was very smart management of the throughput mix of the material going into the mix. You'll see that we achieved an average yield of just under 0.2 gram per tonne. which was a 2% increase, so the plants were working really efficiently. Obviously the big role player this year was the increase in the gold price. and being a deliberately unhedged producer of gold. We've never hedged for the exception of a very small period of time when we needed to protect cash flows in order not to test some of the ratios that form part of a financial arrangement that we had at the time. This was in 2018 when we built Far West Gold. We've never hedged and deliberately so. So we were in a position to take full advantage of the 40% increase in gold price and that translated into revenue for the year of just over 11 billion rand, 42% increase in revenue. Cash operating costs for the year was just under a million rand a kilo, which was also better than and Guidance and a 7% increase year-on-year, which considering the number of double digit increases that form part of the cost basket of coal production in South Africa, I think was testimony to some really good cost discipline. Cash operating costs, slightly higher increase of 10% at R188 per tonne, and that is because there was a larger component of trucking that still formed part of the cost composite this year. And in the current climate, trucking your high grade material, expending the higher costs in order to truck those peanut materials and remnant materials is always a good idea because of the high grade that invariably form part of those tons. And at the current gold price, it does offer a very attractive margin. If the gold price decreases, then obviously that margin decreases. Shares Shares Shares Shares Shares Shares Shares 4.2 billion in headline earnings and 89% increase. Free cash flow, which is a very important parameter for us because as a dividend paying company, generating cash is a very important measure of internal measure of our efficiency. So to generate the 2.2 billion in free cash flow was very pleasing. That was an 85% increase and that was after capital expenditure of 3.5 billion rand for the year. Okay, we'll take you through some of the capital spent this year as well as the capital planned for the next two years. And then it's an important number to remember because we're talking final dividend of just more than a billion against free cash flow of 2.2 and capital expenditure of 3.5 billion. And remember a big part of our story of the Vision 28 story is that at some point in future, this number will is going to become considerably smaller the 3.5 capital expenditure whilst at the time hopefully that number if the gold price holds up will not have shrunk or will not have diminished significantly in fact it could be significantly higher because remember we're targeting about a ton of additional gold production these margins is the margin the cash margin these margins Division 28 Subparts So, my point number 9, that was the free cash flow. My point number 10, that's the capital expenditure. My point number 11 is on the sustainability. This did not come at the cost of our people. This did not come at the cost of the health and the well-being of our people because you see That trend is still a good one from 1.65 to 1.25, 0.8 to 0.7 on those lost injury scales and ratios. And that also is not coincidental. Obviously we are very aware of the fact that sometimes there are near misses where it's only the amount of time that you spend on your knees Sustainable development is core to our business is the usage of potable water. DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares Carbon emissions is an important one. It's still a lot, 233,000 tonnes of carbon that went into the atmosphere because of our activities, but that's down from 303,000 tonnes of last year. And that's obviously because of the solar farm. We haven't stopped. We still have other ambitions with regards to renewable power. We've spoken about some of those in the past, but I think we're on a good trend here with the solar farm working really, really well. and we're seeing that both in the bottom line as well as in the major dividend that we're in pursuit of. I think that's what I'm going to talk to in terms of the first slide. There's obviously quite a lot more detail that my colleagues will talk about as we go forward. So you can report these numbers if you produce. And at this stage we are in an interim phase. We are in a phase where we are managing volume throughput because we need to manage our tailings dams very, very carefully in order to stay within the prescribed safety factors. Some of those are prescribed, some of them are self-imposed, but it's important that we stick to those and therefore we are not sweating our tailings storage facilities. We saw earlier this week again a report of things going wrong on the tailings dam and that is just the unimaginable from our perspective. So, tons are deliberately kept at 25 million tons between the two operations. The yields have been good, and those yields are good for two reasons. It's both the blend and also plant efficiency. Both of our plants are operating extremely well. And the big thing for us this year as well is that, excuse me, Everything that we're producing, that one part of the process where we are most vulnerable, where our products are at its most concentrated, namely when it goes into the smelthouse, that is now universally treated at our own facilities, which was a big, big milestone for us, and Jakob will talk more about that. They get to talk about all the good stuff, the numbers and all the projects and stuff, so I'll slip some of it in here and there. But anyway, the yields were good, and we saw that in the production numbers as well. That is now on the ergo side. Far West Gold, similar. DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares and some of those materials were still being dribbled into the bigger mix. And then production, bang on target, 674 kilos for the last half year and just over 1.3 tons for the financial year. And then on a group basis, these are numbers that you'll see in more detail in retorts to the numbers, but the volumes for the two operations combined DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares

So, maybe just to start off with, it's my privilege to present these excellent financial results that we have achieved during financial year 2026. Just a huge thank you from our side. I mean, we couldn't have done it if we didn't have the exceptional teams that we have in DGOLD. So, from the operational guys, straight to finance team, putting this all together and our support services. Each of us have our role to play, and I believe you've done it exceptionally well this year. Okay. If we move... Good operating, sorry. Okay. Ergo, financial results. So Ergo had an exceptional last six months to the financial year, and they increased their gold production with about 150 kilograms for six months versus the next six months, and really taking advantage of that excellent gold price that we saw in the last six months of just about 2,460,000 rands. Ergo ended their revenue at 8.1 billion Rand for financial year 2026 in comparison to 5.7 billion Rand last year. This was mostly due to the gold price increase of 40% that we already alluded to, but also a 1% increase in gold sold. Then, if we look at the cash operating costs slide, there goes overall cash operating costs increased 7% year-on-year, notwithstanding all of the things that Neil already mentioned. So, I mean, we had a massive oil price increase during the last few months. That influences our machine hire, our trucking expenses, reagent costs. We saw some exceptional high increases on carbon specifically. DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares Excellent operating profit trend that you can see there. Ergo more than doubled the operating profit from 2 billion Rand last year to 4.1 billion Rand in the current financial year. On the far west side, also a very stable operation as you could have seen from the operating trends, performing always on budget, on target, in expectations. So they increased their revenue from 2.2 billion rand last year to 3.1 billion rand in the current financial year. That was mostly due to a 40% increase in the gold price. Cash operating costs increased by 10% from $674 million last year to $744 million in the current financial year. As I already, I think I mentioned it a few times, 4West is in a different operating cycle to Ergo. It is growing, it is getting ready for this expansion project, more labour hire. It is an older plant, only two sites operating, of which one is a clean-up site, Refontine 5. This trend increase in cost is expected to continue next year until we see the upside of that Vision 2028, 1.2 million tons per month kicking in. But again, ending up in a very healthy profit margin, 1.5 billion rand to Refontine. 2.3 billion Rand in the current financial year. This is a very high margin operation, so 76% profit margin, which is exceptional operating profit margin. Just even with the increase in the gold price, this is still an operation running at 561,000 Rand per kilogram cash operating cost, and then all interest trading costs of 639,000 Rand per kilogram. So if that operation can maintain this, DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares So if you take that interim dividend into account of 50 cents per share, we paid out 65% of our free cash flow, or we declared 65% of our free cash flow for the financial year 2026. Just then, headline earnings per share, also nice upward trend, 261 cents per share, last year to 492% in this year. This then all translated into a very healthy statement of profit and loss. If you look at that revenue line, $7.9 billion increasing to $11.2 billion. Again, just taking into account the 40% increase in the gold price, but also standing still on what Neil said. So we really did not expect to have a production year as we are. You would have seen our production guidance list quite lower than the previous year. So to achieve that 5,500 ounces is quite substantial. If you look at the cost of sales line, that increased 9% year on year. I already explained some of the increases in cash operating costs. Other than that, depreciation increased. And we had, last year, we had a big credit of 98 million relating to our challenging estimate in our provisions, which we didn't have in this current financial year. Administrative expenses and other costs, it's increased relating to our single incentive and our long-term incentive. The share price has increased. Then going into finance income, increased due to our cash balances. That's much more in this current financial year, although we didn't actually get a dividend from Rand Refinery, which was about 56 million Rand last year. So that cash balance increase would have looked even better if we had that 56 million dividend from Rand Refinery again. Finance expenses mostly relate to our unwinding on our provision for environmental rehabilitation. That takes us then to very healthy profit before tax of $5.9 billion in comparison to $3.1. Income tax, quite a big line if you look at that. Most of that relates to deferred tax, which I'll just stop on the balance sheet. But we also paid about $490 million in tax, mostly relating to ERGO due to the profitability of that operation and the immediate cap that we actually used during the year. Statement of profit of the balance sheet. Excellent balance sheet. Again, date-free. I don't think we thought in 2024 when we actually undertook this debt facility at MedBank, that we would be in the position that we are in today. But yeah, standing still on property, plant and equipment, nice increase, 8.5 billion loss year to 11.9, showing that 3.5 billion reinvestment in capital that we incurred mostly for Vision 2028. Investments in rehabilitation and other funds increased nicely with our interest. Maybe just to highlight, included in there, or most of that balance, actually is our guardrails and cell captives, that's ring things for rehabilitation. During the current year, we actually celebrated going over the 1 billion Rand mark for that environmental trust fund, which is an amazing achievement. If you look at other investments, most of that relates to our 11% investment in Rand Refinery, which is measured at fair value. We had a 220 million uplift in fair value that went through that account. Cash and Cash Equivalents Other Current Assets Fairly Stable Year-on-Year Maybe just to highlight that included in that balance, we've got $117 million receivable from Subania, which relates to the proof to dump transfer. So we expect to receive that money regarding the environmental trust funds as soon as all regulatory approvals have been obtained. In moving over to liabilities, provision for environmental rehabilitation, that increase that you see there from 558 million to 721. mostly relate to updated quotes that we got for demolition that was quite more substantial than what we expected, but then also the expansion on the OOS side. So DD2, doubling up that plant, and the RTSF increased that balance quite substantially. DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares Included in that balance is actually a rate change, so our weighted average rate for ergo increased from 25% to 27%, and then on the four-way side from 29% to 30%, that had a $150 million swing in that line. Current liability is fairly stable, increasing a little bit just due to our accelerated capital spend. If we move over to the cash flow statement, and what a beautiful statement this is. Net cash inflow from operating activities, 3.5 billion last year to 5.7 this year, mainly driven by that cash generated from the operations of 6 billion rand. Finance income received, so there you can nicely see the increase in finance expenses DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares in the past 20 years anyway, the biggest capital reinvestment program that we have done in one year. So quite substantial amount. Then environmental rehabilitation payments, although small, we're very proud of always continuously, concurrently rehabilitating our mining sites. So that is money spent on the Brakpan, on cladding on Brakpan and on our Drieferntein facilities. And then proceeds from assets held for sale. I'm sure you're already all aware of the NOA that we sold NOA in December. So that's just the proceeds that we received from that sale. Dividends paid, that's $780 million, relate to our final dividend that we paid last year of $0.40 and our interim dividend of $0.50 that we declared earlier this year. ending up in an increase of 1.5 billion rand to a closing cash-in-cash equivalence balance of just under 2.8 billion rand. I'll hand over to Yaku to take us through Vision 2028.

Thanks everybody. I would just like to agree with what Henrik has just said to the operational staff and even our contractors and our consultants all the way through to the board. I think everybody right from the cleaning staff to the top to the board, everybody had to fire on all cylinders to achieve the results. It feels like you've got to celebrate the wins. So hopefully this feels like the Springboks will win on Saturday 50-0. So that's the feeling we get here. But yeah, it's a privilege to present the operational results to you of everybody's hard work. That's just a picture of Dagafontein, which we'll speak to just now. So just to remind you of the five projects, DAGAFONTAIN I'll talk about that a little bit later on. And that is at an estimated cost of about half a billion rand. And that is to reduce the deposition capacity or deposition rate onto Brakman by approximately 750,000 tons per month. Second one, at Ergo, I'm going to jump to number five. is VTOK, so the VTOK tailings dam, that one is still in the authorization phase, and the purpose of that one is for us to get off the Brockpond tailings dam in totality, in conjunction with ERGO, and to then maintain the deposition capacity for the ERGO operations, and that is at approximately 3 billion rand. 2, 3 and 4 is actually one project with three different legs to it. The first one is the DP2 plant expansion and that is essentially doubling up of the existing capacity of 600,000 tonnes to 1.2 million tonnes and we'll talk a little bit about that and that's at an estimated 1.9 billion tonnes. Then the pipelines for BP2 to RTSF, that's the deposition site, but then also the Lebanon Reclamation Station. In total, approximately 135 kilometers of pipeline, and then that is at a cost of 1.2 billion. And then the RTSF, which I think you all know about by now, one of the biggest, largest tailings dams constructed on a liner in the world. 800 million tons facility we approximately 2 thirds through the construction of this facility but again we'll go through that at a cost of about 3.4 billion alright so just an update quickly At Erdang, Dagafontein, as I've mentioned to you, I'm very proud to say that in June we started commissioning of the tailings dam and we have achieved the rate that we expect to achieve, which is 25,000 tonnes per day, which gives us 750,000 tonnes per month. This facility gives us an additional capacity of about 120 million tonne deposition onto this facility. Together with VITOC, it will sustain our mining operation for 21 years at Irga. Now VITOC, as mentioned to you, that's currently in the authorisation phase. We've completed our public participation process. Our design engineer and his team has been approved by the Dam Safety Office and then our environmental authorisation, waste management licence as well as the water use licence has been submitted to the department and we are awaiting approval of this. We hope to obtain these approvals by the end of this year. If we can achieve that, we then aim to complete construction of the dock during 2029. and that will make sure that we then, on to VTOK, VTOK is about 310 million tons deposition capacity, so between the two of them, it will then sustain us for the last, for the 21 year life of mine of Irva going forward. On to Far West, again, very happy that we've ticked the box on DP2 plant. On the 14th of July, we commissioned the spelt house, which is one section of the plant, and also produced our first gold bar from this facility. I'm glad to see Kevin is also here. It was a gold bar, not a copper bar. And we do expect to have the balance of this plant commissioned during this quarter. Just bear in mind that once we've got this plant commissioned, it doesn't mean that we're going to immediately go up to the 1.2 million tonnes. So we're going to commission this plant move over to this plant, operate this plant, and then do some refurbishment and maintenance work on the old plant so that once RTSF is ready to take the full 1.2 million tons, we can then fire up both plants. So we will maintain that 500,000 tons per month throughput capacity until we're ready with RTSF to deposit onto that one. The pipelines, we were waiting specifically for the water use license for the Lebanon Reclamation Pump Station and that we have received during July. So another obstacle is out of the way. and we are about 95% complete with the pipelines and we can now start with the construction of the Lebanon Reclamation Station to be able to put us into a position where we can produce the 1.2 million tonnes of material to RTSF. RTSF, as of 30 June, we were about two thirds through the construction and that's the picture you can see in the background. So there you can see the black, that's the liner. This is the starter wall going around and for those of you that missed it, in July we provided the market with a full market update and we spent some significant DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares We have mentioned during the market update that we obviously are aiming to achieve beneficial occupation a lot sooner, but depending on what the weather does and how it rains, we will then make an informed decision before we start up that facility in all earnest. It's, as I've mentioned to you, one of the biggest in the world. It provides a 35-year life of mine for the operations. and it doesn't help us compromising this facility at any given point in time. So hence being very very prudent in starting this facility up. All right, and just want to spend a little bit of time on this slide. I think what you can see here is that 2026 this year was our peak, peak capital spending here. This was also the year, a very important year for us as operational teams, and well done again to the projects team. This year we had to hit a few milestones. If we missed these milestones, we would have made it very, very difficult for ourselves to achieve the final DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares The majority being spent obviously on DP2 expansion and then RTSF. Going forward, you can see that DP2 is very, very little, just essentially rollovers. UPFLOW REACTORS UPFLOW REACTORS RTSF Spending RTSF Spending RTSF Spending So although we are about halfway through our capital expenditure program, a very, very important year for us and as a team, very important milestones to achieve to set us up for achieving the balance of our requirements going forward. DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares But we've made that up by bringing online QOOF2, which provides us with about 67 million tonnes, so overall increasing the mineral reserves with about four years added to the life of mine of Far West Gold Recovery. I'm going to hand back to Neil, since he's a farmer, specifically I have the sheep up there for you now.

Is that yours? Thanks, Elke. Yeah, I know. We've got to have some sheep in any presentation worth its salt. So these guys keep the grass short at the solar farm. You can't go in there with bushcutters because you're going to trip those beautiful panels. So it's part of our philosophy of full integration. So just talking a little bit about our environmental performance. And Ed made mention of the concepts of concurrent rehabilitation, that you rehabilitate as you go along. And yeah, we flick through these slides and then you see a tailings dam in the distance. I do believe that the DRD team is achieving a goal that we had set for ourselves also many, many years ago, maybe 15 years ago, maybe 18 years ago, being the benchmark in terms of the activities, the various activities that we involve ourselves in. I'm not aware of current tailings storage facilities that are cladded to the extent that the RV is cladded, crown facility, the crown cluster, the black band facility, and the . It's really, if you want to show people Hectares vegetated 43 hectares of vegetation, 44 hectares of vegetation, 40 hectares of vegetation that pertains to those permanent tailings storage facilities that are going to be permanent features going forward or that are at least going to be around for many, many years to come and where the only means of containing dust emissions from those facilities and runoff water from those facilities is by vegetating them to the point that they have. I did speak about potable water consumption, and you can see some of the trends as they've emerged over the last few years. Also, dust emission exceedances. So, many of our tailings facilities, the tailings storage facilities, as well as our reclamation sites, are in close proximity of where people live. So, we have close to 300 air quality monitoring points scattered across the landscape in the Witwaters on Toulon, and that's where we check whether or not DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares And it's part of the geospatial reality of Johannesburg, where certain segments of society, where certain communities were placed and where they lived. And the reality is that many of the disenfranchised communities in South Africa are those that live firstly downwind of these facilities and in many instances also in close proximity. So very few things impact quality of life. as much as the standard of containment that's maintained on these facilities. And that's a good number. 0.5% of exceedances is a very, very good number. So one of the most complex numbers that we deal with, or set of numbers that we deal with internally, is reporting on electricity consumption, on savings on electricity, etc., etc. So we try to reduce those to a few easily understandable headline numbers. The solar power produced this year. It's 146 gigawatt of power units that's been produced. And that is now net of grid losses and net of efficiency losses. A high number of what's actually been produced, but that is what was available for use or that was used within our facilities within the group. Electricity consumption after wheeling and offsetting. So that is the electricity that has come supplied into our group. That's the 260 gigawatts of electricity that ESCOM supplied into the group. So if you add those two numbers together, you can get some sort of a sense of what the total draw of DRD Gold was for the year or roundabout. So the ESCOM units that were necessary to produce one ton of material, to feed and not produce a ton of product, but to feed a ton of materials, That's in the next line, and you can see that that's a very healthy trend. So in 2024, 13.6 kilowatt hours were required to treat one ton of material. That is ESCOM generated and supplied kilowatt hours. This year, on a group basis, that number reduced to 8.6 kilowatt hours. So if you do the numbers, and if you limit those numbers to ergo in particular, you'll see that we actually got very close to the range that we DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares also looking at different times of the day and a variety of other moving parts wheeling and offsetting charges etc etc but that's sort of are the headline numbers The solar gave us 146 gigawatt that was used. ESCOM gave us 216. That was the net number from ESCOM and the trend. And of course, you've got your scope two carbon emissions, and I did mention that earlier as well, how that's reduced over this period. So on the whole, I think considering that we're a company that proclaims to have committed to the ideas of sustainable development, of generating value, at different levels or multi-dimensional value, but integrated. I think this gives a very good idea of how your environmental dividend and your financial dividend or your financial return go close hand in hand if you do this properly, if you plan it properly and if you execute well on it. So on the social performance side as well, or the social capital side, I mean this is very much, it's not a story of impact quite yet, but our team's working on The impact of the social capital programs that our company is involved in. This is from the numbers this year. You can see where the socio-economic development number has landed. These are initiatives directly benefiting communities through small enterprise development and socio-economic development programs, sustainable livelihoods, and now increasingly also infrastructure. You know, when we kicked off 15, 18, 20 years ago on the social capital road path and setting ourselves goals of what we wanted to do. Because of the size of our footprint, we do have the largest footprint, I think, in South Africa. It starts in Springs, maybe even further, and it ends in Carltonville, the most densely populated part of South Africa. You simply cannot be everything to everyone. You've got to be mindful of not only what you want to do, but also what your capacity is, what you can deliver and still impact as many lives as possible. So for a very large part of that whole program, our social initiatives were aimed primarily at poverty alleviation and youth education. and then in terms of poverty alleviation, providing knowledge and a nudge, a small capital nudge here and there, to assist people to sort of trade themselves out of abject poverty and improve their own quality of life. So these were programs that provided knowledge, material to self-empower. Now we're getting to a point where we're actually, and I used to say in those days, Anglo-American built infrastructure. We do knowledge and a nudge. Now we're getting to a stage where DRD is also starting to build infrastructure. And next year, There's a clinic that's being planned. There's a refurbishment of the school that's being planned. These are big numbers that are being committed. And they're worth spending because every life that's changed provides just a tiny bit more of social stability in the areas where we operate. And you need a socially stable environment within which to operate the business successfully. We believe that and I'll continue to believe that for as long as I thumb around. Then in terms of share price movement, I think what has been encouraging in terms of share price movement in the more recent past, the last 24 to 18 months, it does seem as though the lag that we experienced in 2024 when we were talking about all of these big programs and the production numbers were simply not there, it does look as though that lag is has been reduced and maybe it's not there at all. We are tracking the other members in our industry, we're tracking our peers and our peers are tracking the gold price like most of us do. So it's definitely showing signs of having stabilized and hopefully there is something to do with maybe slightly more confidence in the performance of the business. and also restoring a measure of credibility in terms of delivering and delivering on these big projects. And I did show you the numbers earlier on. It's been part of our narrative now for the last few years of how we believe setting up all of this infrastructure, spending all of this capital, DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares If we can contain costs, if we can drive those throughput numbers and production numbers, and if the gold price doesn't weaken significantly, that once this capital phase is over, the net cash flow profile of this company could look considerably more attractive. And hopefully that will also then reward those shareholders who got their timing right and that remain supportive of the stock. If you sell shares in March, you would have been paid 60 Rand a share if you got your timing right, and I think some of you may have. And maybe those were shares that you bought for 8 Rand or 15 Rand or 25 Rand. So it is a stock that does reward very significantly if you understand the dynamics that drive the performance of the stock. And hopefully in terms of a production delivery and future investment perspective, we could give you some material to work with Then you need to go and do your numbers with regards to gold price performance and so forth. And the one undertaking that I do give is that for as long as we can, we will remain unhedged and we will provide you full exposure to movements in the gold price so that you can trade the stock on either side of the cycle. Right, so then in terms of looking ahead, I can't get enough of this picture. It is just such an impressive piece of information of Engineering. And it is enormous. The scale is not fully appreciated by just looking at the picture. But just in terms of 2027 guidance, and we did try to be realistic in terms of our guidance. It's obviously quite a bit more than what it was last year. And not all of that is to do with the increase in volume throughput. There are some of these guidance numbers that also pertain to the materials that Ergo is going to be mining for the year going forward. So we're guiding between 160,000 and 170,000 ounces for the financial year. And again, the assumption premised on volume throughput and on head rate and on a particular standard of recovery efficiency. Cash costs, just over a million rand a kilo. All-in sustaining costs, 1.2 million. And then planned capital... of just over 3 billion rand for the year. Important milestones for us, we spoke about some of those, but important milestones for us obviously is the completion of the DP2 plant expansion and that's just about ready to happen. We have a board meeting in October and the intention is to take the board members to that plant and to show them a plant that is completed. and that at that stage, that particular section, the new section, to be close to operational, if not operational, so that the service of the existing circuit, that that can take place, that we can have two virtually new sections up and running and ready to accommodate the 1.2 million ton a month throughput that's envisaged for Far West Gold from next year onwards. It's important that we complete RTSF, or Beneficial Occupation, and if you want to have a better understanding of what Beneficial Occupation means, please just run through the presentation that we did in July. It will give you some sort of an indication as to where it needs to be. It doesn't have to be the dam, it doesn't have to be finished, the facility doesn't have to be finished in order to do that. It's going to be sort of two-thirds finished and more or less where Yucca is now, but there's some odds and ends that we still need to to take care of. There are a few regulatory hoops that we need to jump through. So beneficial occupation is a technical term that basically means that we are now ready to start impounding material onto that facility. And a big part of that initially will be the successful commissioning. It's a complex process, one that we need to get right. As Joachim said, you're not going to be taking shortcuts now on a facility that's supposed to last for 35 years. Commissioning of the Lebanon Reclamation Station I was so relieved when we got the water usage license for the Lebanon Reclamation Station. And there were a number of, not just our own colleagues but also individuals working at the Department of Water and Sanitation that I know pulled out the stops to facilitate this. They knew that it was on the critical path. They were sensitive to the fact that there was a lot at stake and they came in and they made sure that we got this hopefully in time to delivering to the expectation that we've created with regards to 1.2 million tonnes a month in financial 2028. Obtaining the relevant approvals to commence construction of the talk We spoke about the complexity associated with that site, the fact that there's some underground geological features that we need to look into that need to be insulated from the facility over and above the liner that's going to go in, some of the design complexities as well, especially where the two dams abut. We've got to talk about the black band tailings facility. It's not a simple process, and therefore we've built in some additional time to do that. It's not going to meet The 2028 timeline that we had aspired towards when we first set out with this, the initial gap, the initial hole in the volume throughput though, we explained through until 2029 when Vittor comes online, is 150,000 tonnes per month. So it's a relatively modest impact in the near term. It's essential though that this dam is built by 2029 because that 320, or rather 310 million tonnes of capacity that it provides is very important for the remainder of ergo's life of mine and then of course we also want to continue to explore opportunities for growth beyond South Africa and this is something that we have been talking about and there are there are companies that we've had conversations with to see whether our model is appropriate for what they have left on their side with the margins that that our model has been generating and other companies have been managing to also achieve I think a lot of the focus on tailings seed treatments has sort of moved away from the impact that it has from a sustainability perspective or from a mine closure and an environmental restoration perspective to commercial aspects. And I think there's a lot of expectation and maybe even some political maneuvering with regards to legislation and so forth that's starting to overemphasize the commercial aspect. However, things have changed in the world in the last DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares and the restoration of ecosystems. Those standards have changed and corporates are giving and the takings, they're making promises in that regard. Promises that are going to have to be fulfilled with money that did not form part of the initial modeling. And that's really where failing sweet treatment hits the sweet spot. Failing sweet treatment is that part of your business, that latent value that's remained ignored for many, many years or unrecognized that can now kick in and that can deliver into that without Eroding Shareholder Return or the Expectation of Shareholder Return. That is the essence of Fading Street Treatment. Yes, it's nice to have these super profits. Yes, it's nice to have all of these programs. But essentially what's happening here is a profitable, sustainable restoration of a poor legacy. And it's something that needs to take place globally on a global scale. And it's worth doing it because it has become a compelling financial proposition as well. Seven years ago, Subanya Soilwater had a project that they spoke about in the Far West Rand. If, however, you looked for financial reporting on that project, the only evidence that you would have found would have been a $250 million provision in their balance sheet, an environmental provision, so in other words, a cost, a liability. Today, seven years later, Subanya, after having merged that DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares In the last two years, R955 million in dividends from their 50.1% interest in DRD Gold. That's the value proposition that DRD Gold can bring to your business, to your waste. You want to do it yourself? Carry on. You want to achieve success in this sort of adventure or endeavour? Let us through the front door. Maybe we could do something with your tails. That's our story. We'll be taking questions now, if you guys want to join in.

Questions in the room, so please raise your hand and then state your name and a gentleman will bring a mic to you. And then once the questions in the room are done, we'll go to online questions.

First of all, congratulations, this is the third set of results and might you believe that GRD is a world leader in terms of what it's doing? and I just wanted to just state that you know the one aspect that you said that you're tracking the SA Gold companies and that to me is what is at no geological risk so yes gold price is a proxy and it's going to follow gold but to be trading at a discount to your peers that have so many more risks from a geological point of view is just Thank you very much. We appreciate that. And look, I'm not again trying to explain the performance of the stock. There's an expert, he's been doing it for 60 years, he'd be able to maybe explain those things.

But the fact is, there does seem to be a correlation, and we don't want to lag. I think that's the main thing, and we were lagging for a period of time, and we seem to have overcome that. It is tracking the industry a little bit more closely. But thank you very much for your time. Hopefully we can continue to deliver into those expectations. It's a long way down. Mr. Darfel, welcome.

From my personal point of view, just considering the significant capital expenditure, substantial contribution to the fiscus and a very healthy 50 cents interim dividend, I just want to comment relative to the final dividend of 40 cents last year, the one-rent 20. is definitely not a stingy dividend. So thank you very much for that. It's just a comment and well done.

It's brilliant. Thank you. A lot of thinking went into that dividend because what you obviously don't want to do is uh be silly about the dividend that you pay because next year you're hopefully declaring another dividend and do you really then want to have a sort of a 40% drop on your dividend and do you have to go to I mean thank you very much Netbank for for this facility but if you don't need to draw against it you don't you shouldn't want to draw against it so uh we did put a lot of thinking into that in order for it to be uh a um responsible dividend in the circumstances And then, by the way, just on the point of tax, and you've given me the opportunity to do that, you know it's one of my favorite topics as a proud taxpayer, so it's not only the $490 million in income tax. Was it $490 million in income tax? There's also the $312 million lending page you earn. So it was less than $800 million paid in taxes. And that doesn't take into account pension taxes and VAT that was paid this year. So I think there was probably a contribution towards fiscus in excess of a billion rand this year out of our operations.

Martin Freeman from Mining Weekly. You said you've got a greater ambition when it comes to renewable energy. What is that ambition? What do you see as the final part of it? And secondly, there's platinum-drift metal tailings around the place. There's an opportunity in platinum, is there not? Have you really studied that to the full? How far are you from doing something with regard to platinum?

Yeah, certainly. Thank you, Martin. In terms of additional renewables, Yaku worked on a program. He sold 145 million assets for sale. So he worked on a project, and in fact, the team took it to licensing, to the point where they can start constructing. And we sold it, but we locked in a number of units, 30 megawatt. So we got a 30 megawatt DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares I'm the main cheerleader when it comes to maybe more investment into solar. I think my team is still recovering from the previous process, but I think there's opportunity too. We've got this fantastic expertise in the group. I think we should take advantage of it.

I don't know if we should only own one solar farm. Maybe we should own more than one.

But yeah, I'm not getting a fully supported from the team on that one just yet. DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares I don't think we'll buy anything, but there's no reason why we can't participate technically and maybe get paid a fee as a member of the group. So the opportunity is there and it will be a case of Sabania inviting us into the room. There's a lot of work happening in Sabania in terms of tightening up on the as a portfolio, and I know that there's a program and they'll talk about that. I'm sure that they do talk about that, spoke about that at their markets, capital markets day as well. So it's a big company with a lot of moving parts, and everything has its turn, and everything has a priority, and I'd be very surprised if we're not involved in that conversation.

Okay. We're going to take some questions.

Camilla, sorry, there's another question. Sorry. My name is John Kranzru. What about uranium?

Is there an opportunity?

I think uranium will be the next CEO's focus area. I'll tell you exactly why. When uranium became a thing many years ago, when... Who was it? Outfit, Outfit, Mindwaste, Gordon Miller, and then...

Uranium.

I want to go and see a gentleman who works at Ariba called Daniel Vouters. And he'll forgive me for reminding him of this conversation, but I think he was right. And said to him, listen, everyone is doing all this uranium stuff with tailings. And I'm feeling, you know, am I the only idiot in the room not wanting to pursue that because we have the largest tailings portfolio? He said, whatever you do, don't do tailings at uranium. Don't do a dual product stream in terms of tailings. Focus, because you'll favour the one at the cost of the other. So you're going to be producing lots of uranium but not much gold at the cost of your gold efficiency. or you're going to be producing a lot of gold but at the cost of your uranium efficiency. They're not happy partners in the same circuit. That's in terms of secondary mining. Primary mining is obviously the opposite. So I have a bias when it comes to uranium from tailings and there's going to have to be a very compelling argument made by my colleagues here to justify or motivate DGDGDGDG

The two processes are on the opposite side of the pH scale. So uranium recovery happens in the acidic side of things, where you're leaching it with sulfuric acid, and gold obviously happens in the alkaline stage, right up at a pH of 10.5. So, it's exactly what Neil is saying. You're going to sacrifice one for the other to do that recovery. Ergo did that before 2000. Ergo treated uranium and gold, stopped it for that reason. Mineway Solutions did the exact same. also treated uranium and gold and at a point in time stopped doing that because you sacrificed one for the other.

So if you look at our average yield, the third slide, our very first slide, and it's important that we, because we quote these numbers and we

has become so much part of our language that we don't really appreciate exactly what they mean. I mean, look at that number there. Where's the recovery? Yeah, look at that, 193. There's a reason why we say 0.193 gram a tonne. Very good reason. And if that was 0.183, You multiply that by a few million. That's 30 kilos of gold. That's 60 million rands of revenue that you lose because you got that second digit wrong. So your uranium has got to give you an additional 60 million rand in net profit in order to justify sacrificing 0.01 gram of gold production. That resource doesn't exist, not in South Africa.

I just want to harp on what the Minerals Council of South Africa and a whole group of individuals have been saying. South Africa is falling behind the rest of the world when modernization of technology is involved. I can't see that quite happening with you guys on the operational side because there are so few people that do what you do. But there was a clear picture that they painted that some of the main jurisdictions in the world were ahead of us. and that we're quite badly behind on the modernization front. Have you people looked at that? Are there any ways you can do things better? Of course, this AI crops up all the time, but how you use that is important. Most of the time when they explain the use of it in this concept, when they discuss the modernization, is that it is creating jobs rather than actually diminishing jobs. Digitalization and using AI and so forth. I think AI is very helpful to

to better understand data. AI shouldn't be a decision-making tool. It should be an analytical tool, something that you use to understand more data better in order to inform your decision-making. So I'd be very reluctant for people to sort of just mechanically follow numbers on the screen and then say, all right, well, AI is saying I must do this, that, and the following. It's important that people understand what it is that they're dealing with because if things go wrong, AI is not going to fix it for you. You need to understand your process and you need to be able to do it yourself. I think in terms of big data, we've been doing big data in any event now for the last 15 years to track and understand and maintain in stable state the throughput rates that we're doing. We're separating out 10 parts per billion. You do need big data and that's being reported on an ongoing basis. With regards to new technologies. DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares 0.17, 0.18, 0.15 gram of gold per ton, which we're putting back onto our failings in some instances a little bit more. At some point or another, there might be a different kind of process. You can actually probably extract what's remaining there as well. So it's a never-ending endeavor. But we're excited about the upflow reactor. It is showing good promise. It reduces your residue rate. So it's one more pass. So once it's gone through CIL, it goes into the upflow reactor, and then there's some more absorption taking place.

Well, we did pilot scale.

I think what we don't want to do is create expectations and say we believe it's going to give us this, that and the following. But even on a conservative interpretation, we're committing a lot of money and we're doing it because we think the technology works. Just before you start modelling it. We want to give you proper numbers before you start bringing it into a model.

Okay. We're going to go to the online questions. Arnold van Graan asks, Neil, is it fair to say you're keen to see Vision 2028 through to delivery? And how do you think about leadership continuity beyond that point?

I'd love to. Everyone in this room who works for DRV is younger than 40. Can you put up your hand, please? So there you see it. A lot of young people working for the company and I mean there are a lot of smart people already being positioned for the next generation of management. So I'm confident that that we've got the depth within the company to deal with both a crisis scenario and also with a managed and structured scenario.

Nick Denham, he says, Neil, are you pointing to a change in operating plan that ergo with more reliance on trust hybrid or for the foreseeable future and where is this coming from and for how long will this go on?

So what we're pointing towards is not a change, the opposite of change. There will still be tracking going on for the foreseeable future, but not an increase in tracking.

And then next, another question. The deadline for approval of the TUC approaches. If no approval by December, can you give us a sense of how you'll play the uncertainty into your revised plans?

So you are

DGOLD Limited American Depositary Shares Biddle doesn't come online in 2030

And it means, until it does, OGO would have to be running at somewhere between 750 and a million pounds a month. So you'll shave another 650 off its volume profile. Not ideal, but as Jack was saying, it's not existential. Just annoying and inconvenient, and it's going to cost money.

And then Mark Dutoy asks, well done on the great results. Could you expand on your capital allocation policy? What dividend payout can we expect going forward? And then two, what are the expected benefits from the Apto reactors costing $880 million in CapEx?

As the capital reduces and provided everything stays the same, the dividend will grow. Simple as that. And that's why we include the capital profile.

And Leboumofa King asked, well done guys, please guide on AISC and AIC for financial year 28 and financial year 29, unit cash costs as well. Can you also guide on running CAPEX number post Vision 2028? No, I don't think so.

I don't think we give guidance on those numbers that's far into the future. There's just too many assumptions that we don't control. I mean, you could extrapolate them more or less and form a view on the assumptions, the veracity of assumptions that we use for our guidance, but I don't think we can do 28 and 29 all in sustaining cost guidance. CAPEX guidance is there. I mean, it's pretty much as far as I think we prepared here.

Yeah, Andre Pieters says, Your expectations, what are your expectations of cash tax versus accounting tax going forward?

Somebody needs to explain to me what that is. Why don't you take that one in, Ed?

So again, on the income tax side, deferred tax will keep on growing. From a cash flow point of view, our income tax balance will keep continuing growing as well in the foreseeable future. We still have a big capital balance for four weeks, for instance, for the year ahead. But if the gold price performs in line with what it's performed with in the past, even far west can go into a taxpaying position during the next financial year. Ergo will definitely still be, even with the planned capital spend on the vertical side, they will continue to be in a taxpaying position next year.

I think I'm correct in saying that with the solar less than two years ago, solar less than two years ago, and recognizing 125%, or 565%, it's gone. It's been suspended. So it disappears very, very quickly in this sort of margin, gold price margin environment. And look, I think it's important that that number is out there because... Sometimes the contribution of the industry, of South Africa and the mining industry is understood in terms of social and labour plans, only in terms of social and labour plans, some sort of equity participation thing and so forth and so forth. Somehow we ignore, we don't really spend enough time reflecting on the physical contribution, the contribution in taxes that this industry is making and something that I think I'm surprised that there's not more awareness amongst communities affected by mining industry. You see, and I just mentioned a billion rand in tax. The sad reality is that we see very little evidence of any of that billion rand finding its way back into our surrounding communities if you look at the kind of services that's being provided there, at the kind of health systems that our company needs to provide and what it is for basic things to be delivered into those communities. I really think that As much as we look at the social contribution of mining companies in the context of regulation and so forth, maybe from time to time we also need to reflect just how efficiently that revenues are being reinvested into constituencies. As a percentage of our contribution into the friskers, we've seen very little of that being ploughed back into our communities, into the areas where we operate. Very little.

Thank you.

Which is wrong.

Dineo Wafaku asks, good morning. Can you say where outside South Africa you are looking to expand?

Yes, we're looking at Africa and South America.

And then Herbert Caribe says, is DVIL a meaningful input in your production process?

That's cool.

We do at this stage have got a lot of yellow machine hire. If you look at the massive projects that we are undertaking on the RTSF. Kevin, how many yellow machines are on RTSF at this stage? 167, 200 big pieces of equipment currently running at RTSF. On the operational side, from a clean-up operation, all of the clean-up sites, we use lots of machine iron, and then the trucking expenses. The biggest portion of that is the diesel component. So yes, diesel is impacting us quite substantially, especially on the ergo side. Less of an extent at this stage on the 4S gold recovery side.

I think that leads me to Matthew Whitelaw. What price have you assumed for diesel in your financial year 27 cost guidance?

So look, we have done, you've seen that the diesel price has gone up and it has gone down. And so we have built in the latest information that is good and we built in some risk factors. So you're going to always have What's that range, between 11% and 17%? That's part of a composite, really.

I think some of the other questions are a little bit more detailed which will take time to respond after the session.

Thank you very much everyone for joining us and we really appreciate your attendance. Please join us for some snacks.