Gold Fields Limited

Good day everybody and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Goldfield's results for the six months to 30th of June 2026. My name is Mike Fraser and joining today in our Johannesburg office is Alex Dahl, our Chief Financial Officer and John Gieser Magogula, EVP of External Affairs. So today our message is very simple. Our operations delivered a solid first half performance. We converted this in conjunction with a higher and supportive gold market into very strong cash flows, and that in turn allowed us to deliver higher returns to our shareholders. I wanted to just bring your attention to the forward-looking statements, which include some non-IFRS measures, and I'll ask you to take notes of the slide on page two. So in terms of the agenda for today, I will cover the highlights and the operational performance. Alex will cover the financials and capital allocation and also touch on some of the transformation initiatives underway to create a more reliable and agile organization. And finally, I'll close on growth strategy and the outlook before we open for questions. So turning to the highlights of the first half. So firstly, we had a strong path and most importantly, we had no fatalities and no serious injuries across the group. This is a real manifestation of the fact that our safety improvement program that we launched in 2024 is really gaining momentum and delivering encouraging results across our businesses. we were also able to deliver a 12% increase in attributable production to 1.267 million ounces. This was firstly led by Solaris Norte, which really delivered a 173% increase on the equivalent period, which was an extremely strong performance, as well as strong delivery from Granny Smith. Importantly, South Deep also continued to demonstrate productivity improvements in the underground and delivered 151,000 ounces in line with its plan. This was supported by improved de-stress mining, improved development, as well as improved slope turnover. Our sales volumes in the six months was 18% higher, and our average realized gold price was 51% higher at $4,678. This drove adjusted free cash flow of $2,225 billion more than double the prior period and this translates into a free cash flow yield of 11%. Our cash cost rose 10% and all in sustaining costs were up 13% to $18.93 an ounce. This was mainly driven by external factors including royalties, stronger producing currencies and inflation. This also, the cash costs reflected the high discretionary capital that we flagged at our Capital Markets Day in November. Alex will unpack the movement in costs a little bit further when he presents. Just moving to our transformation program, we acknowledge that we can't stand still. And so our transformation program is really driving a focus on productivity, improving efficiencies, cost competitiveness and organisational resilience and simplicity. We believe that this focus on the transformation will really ultimately transform into more sustainable and improved performance over time. When turning to cash generation, we wanted to make it very clear that we are translating the strongest cash generation into benefits to our shareholders. we have paid out 50% of our operating cash flow in the six months, with an interim base dividend of R16.25 per share, which is up 132% year-on-year. In addition, we have completed $300 million of buybacks that were completed between the period of March to July. In terms of our top-up shareholder return program, today we also announced an additional $500 million that was allocated to our top-up program, which takes the total program to $1.25 billion that have been allocated since we first announced this in November of 2025. As we said, the top-up program will be assessed every six months as cash is generated. Today we've delivered $553 million of the $1.25 billion. $253 million in a special dividend that was allocated in February, and $300 million in buybacks. Our net debt to EBITDA finished at 0.06 times at the end of June, down 0.37 times a year ago, and we continue to invest in the business. Windfall is one of the highest grade ore bodies in Canada and our next growth frontier, and I'll talk a little bit about that later. An important milestone was achieved with the signing of the IBA and we've also progressed detailed engineering and execution readiness to de-risk this project. Our portfolio optimisation also continues. We've completed the demand exit and have completed $182 million of non-core disposals in the half. In the first half, we strengthened our financial capacity. Our production is tracking towards the upper end of our gardens. Our all-in sustaining costs and all-in costs are expected towards the mid and lower end of their gardens ranges. Our operating delivery is translating into cash, balance sheet strength and capacity to fund growth as well as returning cash to shareholders. I now turn onto our operational performance starting with safety. Importantly, as I mentioned earlier, we had no fatalities or serious injuries in the first half. This is a real manifestation of the discipline of our teams in achieving these outcomes. This is a combination of visible felt leadership, critical risk identification and critical control verification. focusing on a disciplined planning of work and embedding the right behaviours in the execution of work. We continue to track hazard and near-miss reporting with enterprise-wide learning from our incidents. Our focus is now extending from the lagging indicators to the quality of critical control verification and focus on the lead indicators. We are also focusing on psychological safety. and creating a safe operating culture within our safety improvement program, ensuring that everyone goes home safe and well every day. Just moving on to our operating performance. So we, as I mentioned earlier, we delivered 1.25 million ounces of attributable production. and with total cash costs up around 10%, all in costs up 9% as we had slightly lower capital costs coming out of windfall and capital expenditure in total up 6% and our production and costs on track to meet annual guidance. Solaris Norte, as I mentioned, was at a standout performance, now at a steady state. Granny Smith produced 147,000 ounces, up 10%, with high bond grades and improved underground productivity, and South Deep delivered in line with plan due to improved de-stress rates and shortened stop turnaround times. Despite a slight reduction in grade, the mine produced more ounces on a managed basis in the period. Moving on to our production profile and this just shows the bridge of high output and improved quality mix, led by low cost ounces from Solaris. Cerro Corona was in line with the plan and lower year on year as we now transition to stockpile processing. As Solaris achieved steady state, they achieved 173% high production. with plant operating successfully throughout the winter conditions that we had similar to prior years. And this reinforces the capability of that operation and the team in delivering through some extreme conditions. TACO is slightly lower year on year as we realize lower more feed grades as we process more stockpile and move more waste material than all during the six months. We also had some adverse weather conditions affecting load haul and drilling in the period. We are seeing improved performance in the second quarter and expect to see a step change in the second half of the calendar year. South Deep is performing in line with plan and continue to see strong underground performance. Agnew was impacted by the seismic event that we experienced in the beginning of 2026 and we are seeing encouraging signs of the recovery which we expect to continue in H2.

Just moving on to all in sustaining costs.

As I mentioned, our all-interest planning cost was at $18.93 an ounce, impacted by slightly high strip ratios across some of our assets and structural cost impacts of mining at death. We did have some uncontrollable factors, which Alex will talk to, including higher royalties, some inflationary impacts, and offset by the impact of by-product credits, particularly at Celadus Norte. We have seen a change in the cost base with Solatus and Orta now moving to commercial level of production and Gruyere now consolidated at 100% rather than 50%. There were some impacts on mining cost inflation at Gruyere and Taupo in particular, and Alex again will cover that, but what we are seeing is higher volumes, better recoveries and focus on value-driven spend, again, which Alex will unpack as part of our transformation journey, on decarbonisation with the St Ives Renewable Energy Project due to come on stream at the second half of this year, and a very key focus on water and where we have achieved 93% recycling of water across our assets. I now hand over to Alex to talk through the financial outcomes.

Thank you, Mike. And I'll cover, as Mike said, the financial performance, capital allocation and transformation program. So I think H1 2026 was a very strong six months for goldfields with headline earnings, earnings per share and free cash flow all more than doubling. As Mike mentioned earlier, the key drivers were higher production and a stronger gold price. Sales volumes were up 18% and the gold price up circa 50%, which supported a step change in our earnings and our cash generation. Adjusted free cash flow increased to $2.2 billion, while net debt reduced to $437 million, significantly strengthening the flexibility on our balance sheet. Exceasingly for me, excluding lease liabilities, we ended the half in a net cash position of

Importantly, this performance .

This slide bridges our IFRS cost of sales to our all-in costs and highlights the strength of the underlying cost . It is important to highlight that both cost of sales and depreciation have increased materially year on year. This is primarily due to the consolidation of .

and the fit fit just came with the acquisition that have impacted the chart. We believe this represents highly competitive underlying cash and provide

Contractors, labour, consumables and maintenance do make up the majority of our cost base, but this represents our biggest opportunity to improve our competitiveness through the transformation program, through reducing consumption and buying cheaper. These are the areas that this program is going to focus on. Sustaining capital of $497 an ounce, which is in line with what was communicated as part of our capital markets day. reflects a targeted reinvestment into our asset base, including waste stripping, underground development, and the enabling infrastructure to support that production. Included in our sustaining capital leases and other items are all-in sustaining cost of $1,893. From there, we step up to our all-in cost of $2,125. This is due to primarily growth capital expenditure at Australian operations and the exploration expenditure relates to windfall. We do believe that we have a competitive cash cost base that enables us to invest in our assets, fund our future growth and deliver those shareholder returns. We will now move on to capital allocation. Our capital allocation framework remains unchanged and we continue to balance the tension between returns, growth and financial change. The first calls on our capital always remain investing in safe, reliable operations and maintaining our investment grade credit rating and paying our base dividends of 35% of free cash flow before discretionary capital. Thereafter, the capital will compete in order to build balance sheet flexibility, deliver additional shareholder returns and discretionary investments. This bridge on the slide demonstrates that this framework is working as intended. We invested $0.6 billion in sustaining capital, $0.3 billion in growth investments, reduced net debt reduction of $0.8 billion while delivering $1.4 billion back to shareholders.

This is almost 50% of the total cash generated before capital.

What I wanted to unpack on this slide was how we think about our additional shareholder return program. This is an important component of our capital allocation framework and ensures that we are able to deliver on our commitment of top. We've already delivered $553 million through the program. $253 million in special dividends as part of our final dividend at the end of last year, and $300 million of share buybacks completed between March and July. Importantly, I would like to highlight that these buybacks were executed at an average price of approximately R590 per share, which is well below today's share price, and demonstrates our willingness to act opportunistically when we see the opportunity to create value for our shareholders. Given the strength of the balance sheet and the cash generation in H1, Today we allocate another $500 million towards increasing this program to $1.25 billion. I want to highlight that this framework remains disciplined and flexible. Special dividends will sit alongside our annual dividend cycle and will be declared as part of our final dividend each year, and we will execute share buybacks opportunistically when we believe that there's value to be had. We are committed to reviewing this program every six months as we generate the cash, and we'll top up that program as we make the cash. I think the message is simple. We do believe that we can do all of the things in our capital allocation framework. Invest in our assets and our future growth, but we also remain committed to delivering returns to our shareholders. The form of that return will remain flexible, but our focus is unchanged. Allocating capital where it creates value for shareholders. We'll now move on to the balance sheet. So I think for me, this is a very pleasing slide. We have now managed to reduce, after funding both the Asisco transaction and the Gold Road transaction on balance sheet, we have managed to reduce our net debt to EBITDA ratio to 0.06 times. As I said, we are in a net debt position of $437 million, but if you exclude the lease liabilities, we have moved into a net cash position. What's important is we maintain significant liquidity on our balance sheet. with both cash and available facilities, as highlighted in this graph, and we do have, importantly, we also have a really structured debt maturity profile with no near-term refinancing pressures and long-dated funding that will provide us flexibility through the gold price cycle. This balance sheet does underpin our ability to deliver on our capital allocation framework, giving us the flexibility to invest in our assets of future growth and continue returning capital to shareholders. Next, I'd like to talk to our transformation. This is how we make performance reliable, repeatable, and scalable across goldfields. But importantly, we are also focused on performing now while we transform at the same time. We have built the program around two connected pillars, value being the first pillar, which unlocks productivity and cost efficiencies, as well as cash improvements and the operating capabilities of the organization, which will make these improvements sustainable in the long term. Within the value pillar, we have already identified and prioritized opportunities across our operational performance, cost discipline, asset management, fleet performance, processing performance, as well as in the supply chain where we have implemented global category management. In parallel, we are building the operating capabilities needed to sustain and scale those gains through a stronger operating model, clear accountabilities, standard processes, and a digital backbone that will support this. The objective is simple. We'll deliver value today while building the capabilities that make superior performance sustainable through the cycle. The value pillar extracts the value and the operating capabilities lock it in. Together they're going to help us become a simpler, stronger and more consistent goldfield, delivering improved performance today and creating value for shareholders. Now I hand over to Mike to talk about growth.

Thanks very much, Alex. So I just want to go on to a couple of comments around growth before we break for questions, and I also want to just talk through a couple of the assets in our portfolio that I think don't really get the value that we believe they should get, but we'll cover that a little bit later. I think as Alex has quite clearly demonstrated, we are very mindful and thoughtful about how we allocate the capital that we are generating or the cash flows that we are generating, and as we said as far back as November when we unpacked our revised capital allocation framework that we will be measured by how we are able to balance the tension between returning cash to shareholders today and investing for the future. Fortunately, in the environment that we're in, it feels like we're in that really great scenario where we can actually deliver on both of those tensions. What is important for us to do is that as we think about growth, Again, our focus on growth is growing cash flow per share. It's about growing the value of the company as opposed to ounces per se. And as we think about the three levers of our growth strategy between brownfields, greenfields, and potential bolts on M&A, these are all about trying to improve the quality of the portfolio over time and will need to compete with the alternative uses of capital. If I just really start with Salatus Norta, and I think, again, really to talk to the immense opportunity that's in front of us at Salatus, is in the first six months we delivered 337,000 ounces, up 173% year on year. And whilst we had a slow start of the ramp-up, we actually have really hit performance at an incredible level. the H1 all-in-sustaining cost of $269 an ounce was really supported by obviously some strong silver prices, which helps on the product area. But the fact that we were able to perform throughout winter, deliver great performance, we've seen positive grade reconciliation, positive grade reconciliation, and also we've seen real strengthened recoveries through the plant, it leaves us with a great degree of confidence of what this asset can deliver over time. And if you look at the free cash generation of just under $1.2 billion in the six months, it's really remarkable considering the conversation we were having two years ago on Solatus.

So just maybe moving on to windfall.

Again, Windfall is one of Canada's highest-grade development stage gold projects. It provides considerable growth prospects along strike and down plunge, and is expected to provide a long-life, low-cost production platform. The opportunity extends well beyond the current mine plan, and whilst we have made good progress this year, we have an IBA that's signed, We have an EIA approval expected in H2 of 2026. We continue to do de-risking on the project through advancing engineering and making sure that we are prepared for execution readiness. If we just talk to the extension, so we are continuing to do exploration drilling at depth under the existing windfall ore body And if you just see some of the intercepts that we are seeing, we're seeing some incredible returns with assays in exceeding 50 grams. We have a three-year drilling program designed to infill the exploration corridor of the existing asset with the aim of increasing confidence and the continuity of the mineralization. And we believe that this will allow us to continue to to add reserves to the known resource. Again, if you think about the style of this ore body, it's very similar to what we know about at St. Ives where we have been very successful in replacing reserves over a very considerable amount of time. Just looking at the Windfall District, you know, whilst Windfall is the anchor project in this land package, We see the opportunity at considerably larger than the current mine. We have a district-wide opportunity with a very targeted pipeline and are accelerating testing across multiple target sites. Our objective is to progressively expand the scale, scope and longevity of the windfall project, whether through the next major discovery or adding additional high margin ounces that allows us to leverage the infrastructure through the existing first phase of the project. The Phoenix JV with Bonterra is an also important part of the strategy and consolidates the strategic ground position around Windfall, which includes the existing Barry and Gladiator deposits. We are targeting completion to the earning on this JV in the second half of 2026, which will give us access to 70% of that property.

Just

Moving on to St. Ives very briefly. Again, we wanted to highlight St. Ives because this combines a very large endowment with established infrastructure, giving us a staged pathway to extend life and lift production as we currently have a mill that's not running at full capacity. Firstly, the strategy is delivering scale at Invincible. Part of that is to increase the amount of throughput production from the underground. We are achieving this through the development of a material handling system, allowing us to deliver 3.4 million tons a year from the underground throughput within the next five years, and then secondly, diversifying the ore feed through the expanded open-pit strategy. Santa Ana, Britannia, and other near-surface resources will help us fill that latent surface capacity. In addition, the Argo cutback and tailing strategy will add resilience to that feed. In addition, we retain further upside by staging mill and recovery studies, investing a highly prospective tenement package across the broader St Ives package. We believe that there exists more than 20 years of life at St Ives, with current reserves around 3.9 million ounces, with a strong demonstration of a history of resource conversion, which leads us to believe that this asset has got a lot more to give.

So I'm just trying to get to the next slide.

So just looking at some of the other assets, you know, we have got a significant upside at other assets. At Gruyere, we continue to study the Stage 8 and underground trade-off study, the Gilmore options, as well as the accelerated exploration of Yamana. We are progressing land access that we've acquired with the Gold Road transaction and hope to be in a position to commence drilling shortly. At Granny Smith, we're extending the Wallaby at depth through further drilling at zones 150 and 160. We are developing the materials handling and also exploring additional open-foot feed to feed the surplus capacity in the mill. What we are also doing, obviously, at Granny Smith, which Alex will talk to, is applying that discretionary investment in extending some of the infrastructure, enabling infrastructure, which allows us to extend Granny Smith over time. South Deep has also got an exciting future. We continue to progress the South of Wrench study. We have commenced in the last six months drilling from surface, exploration drilling for the first time in a long time, to really define the outer limits of the South Orange, and that continues to be promising geologically. We continue to also progress the shaft and renewable energy studies to see if there's a pathway to further lift production of the medium to longer term beyond the target 20% to 25% increase that we flagged that was available over the next five to seven years out of South of Ranch. What is also pleasing with that early drilling from surface, we have intercepted reef and certainly it looks promising that that ore body continues in a very homogenous way. Tarqua is also an area that has opportunity to lift value by improving productivity across the fleet and improving, throughput through the plant and continue to remain and preserve the Contra Vecchi upside and looking to sequence growth capital along in terms with the lease renewal. These are some of the capital efficient options that compete for capital and will improve portfolio quality within our existing portfolio.

Let's move to the next slide.

So just very quickly on our Greenfields program, you know, we spent nearly $180 million in our Brownfields and Greenfields program during the first half of 2026. A couple of real call-outs on our Greenfields program. Firstly, you would have seen recently we extended our position in Founders Metals as they brought out their partner, to consolidate 100% of that position. We funded that acquisition, which allowed us to get to 19.9% on a 100% basis. They continue to deliver very strong results, exploration results, and we continue to work very closely to look at how we can consolidate that district. In Australia, we continue with a district scale pipeline. across a number of target zones on the East Coast as well as in WA. And in Canada in particular, we continue to focus on the very extensive exploration program across the 2,500 square kilometer land package around Windfall. And we have undertaken significant access to land to undertake the next drilling phase of the program. In addition, in South America, we have undertaken some initial drilling in the Wayra project in Peru, which is our first greenfields campaign in over a decade, as well as the Vietati project in northern Chile, which has continued in the quarter. So, again, very excited about the growth and the opportunity set in our greenfields program as part of our growth strategy. So just moving on to our strategy and outlook and just two slides to close out. Firstly, just an update on the TARQA lease renewal. Our current leases expire in April of 2027 based on the engagement of the government of Ghana from the time of the transition of Demangman in April last year. We did submit a detailed technical study and lease application in November of 2025. and we did provide a comprehensive commercial proposal which was submitted to the government in July of 2026. This proposal supports a continued investment in this asset to unlock the potential of the asset for the next 20 years and which would allow a fair sharing of value between the government of Ghana, the local communities, as well as our shareholders. We are waiting for a formal response from the government But we did flag today in our results that the timing, outcome and the terms of the renewal remain uncertain. And as we progress this, we'll obviously provide an update in due course. And then just lastly, our production guidance remains unchanged. We expect to deliver towards the upper end of that guidance with our all in sustaining costs expected towards the midpoint. falling costs slightly towards the lower end on the basis of lower capital spend in the second half with group capex revised slightly down and sustaining capital unchanged. And I think just lastly to close on just some of the relativities, you know, we think that the Goldfields investment proposition really rests on a quality portfolio with strong cash flow, disciplined growth and a demonstrated commitment to balanced returns and investment. Solaris Norte has undoubtedly strengthened the mix and diversification of our performance with more than half of our assets having upside from existing infrastructure and installed capacity. We see ahead of us high quality production and margin expansion. supporting sustainable free cash flow in our business, which will allow us to fund reinvestment, allow us to deliver a stronger base dividend and additional returns whilst continuing to strengthen our balance sheet. We also have a very deliberate and clear pathway for brownfields and exploration, as well as the development of windfall, provide a strongly funded pathway to long-term growth with discipline gating before major capital is committed. If you look at us today, we have free cash flow yield of over 10%. In our view, this is amongst the highest in our peer set, and we traded a 4.9 times EV to EBITDA against the lowest in our peer set with a balance sheet that is net cash and ungeared with growth at windfall and safe sonars, which is fully funded. We believe that this provides a compelling investment case for investors. If you look at our priorities for the second half, you know, these are very clear. Keep people safe. Guarantee everyone goes home safe and well. Hold Solatus Norte to nameplate. Deliver on our plan for the remainder of our assets. Advance windfall permitting and conclude the tarp release renewal. And we'll continue to scan for opportunities within a very disciplined pathway using the three levers for growth that we've defined. So thank you for listening. to our presentation. We'll now hand over to the operator to take questions.

Thanks, Mike. Sorry, operator. I just wanted to acknowledge that we've got participants that are attending via Chorus Call who will be able to ask questions, but we also have attendees via the webcast who will have to type their questions and I will share them with Mike and Alex. May I propose, and I see that Ephraim and Raj are already in the queue for the chorus call, so we'll start with their two questions, move on to the webcast questions, and then alternate backwards to chorus call. If that's okay with you, operator?

Perfect. Thank you very much. Nick, first question comes from Ephraim Ravi of Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Thank you and congratulations on a very good set of results. So firstly on the probably the best performing asset versus expectations Solaris Norte. In terms of the guidance that you've given at the Capital Markets Day last year, 500 to 550,000 ounces of gold equivalent and you did almost 65% of that already in the first half. Is it fair to say that it could be kind of exceeded for this year and next year, or is there some kind of a safe thing for grade? And as the grade normalizes, would it be kind of fair to see a higher rate? sort of ASIC cost or is there other levers that you can pull to kind of keep ASIC cost kind of at current levels and related to salaries as well I mean the free cash flow of 1.2 billion I mean nearly covers the just for this half kind of nearly covers the entire capex you spent on this project so just replicating that to windfall? I mean, again, the capital is about 1.7 to 2.1, the last time I remember the guidance that you've given. Is there a possibility to kind of scale up the scope of windfall more now that you're doing more drilling and go with a bigger mine than initially planned, given plenty of cash available for a bigger operation to start with there? Thank you.

Thanks very much for the question, Ephraim. So just a comment on Solaris. I think one of the things that we have seen in the first six months, which is different to what we were expecting at the capital markets in November, is we have seen a more positive grade reconciliation out of the pits, which we are doing further testing to see how extensive that is. That has allowed us to achieve higher gold units. We've also seen better recoveries out of the plant, which has obviously had a factor. And then the second and more impactful thing is that we've seen higher realized silver prices, which is also translated into higher gold equivalent production for the six months. So I think as we think about the full year, you're quite right. I think the guidance of 550 is likely to be beaten on the upside. and today we've said that it's more likely to be in the range of $550 to $600. And then on the cost side, you know, I think cost is going to be a function of what happens to silver prices. And the second thing, though, is that we are also moving into an optimization phase that Alex has spoken to in terms of productivity, cost efficiencies, and cost optimization. And certainly, Solartis is not immune to it because now as we've ramped it up, we certainly see that there's an opportunity for us to make sure that we are running that asset as efficiently as possible. So, you know, we can certainly see some benefits to that. And I think just I'll ask Alex if you want to add anything to Solatus before I go to Windfall?

No, I think you've covered it all, I think.

Okay. And then just on Windfall, you know, I think what we have always been constrained at by Windfall is is the environmental impact assessment and the approval application was set before we acquired our position in Windfall. And for us to change the scope of that project today, we would have had to go back and almost restart that process. I think our strategy for Windfall always is let's get the EIA, let's get this first phase of the asset developed. But quite quickly, once we've done that, we would want to be studying what a scale-up opportunity looked like for that asset. And there's a number of things that come to play there. And we certainly would not sit on our hands waiting for that to happen. And we'll be ready to continue those studies as soon as we get the approvals. But I think what we feel today is that it would contaminate the consideration of the approvals if we did anything different today.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Roger Ray of BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, Mike and team. I have three questions, if I may. First is more of a clarification from Alex. So the 500 million additional capital returns That is not necessarily just for H2. That's over the remainder of 26 and 27. Is that correct?

So, Raj, the way we're going to look at it is we've allocated $500 million additional. It may not all be completed in the next six months. We may also use some of that for our special dividends if we consider it as part of our year-end results. And then what we will consider at each six-month period is do we top up the program further. as we generate the cash. So we're looking at it a little bit more differently than we're not basing it necessarily off long-term projections of future cash flows, but rather as we generate and earn cash, we will continue to top up the program that we feel that we are quite confident we'll be able to deliver into.

Yeah, and I think the way, Raj, the way that we'd like to think about this is a sustainable program, so it's not just a one-off. It's how do we deliver something that's sustainable as long as we earn it, we allocate in return.

Okay, that's great. Thank you. A couple more questions. First on your Australian material handling projects at St. Ives and Granny Smith. Can you give us some color on how much you have spent in the first half and when do these projects really ramp up in terms of your capital spend and activities? And second is on windfall. So if I look at the All-In-Cross breakdown and if I'm doing my math correctly, you spend around $147 million in windfall in H1. Now, you said that part of it has been reclassified at exploration expense. You're now saying that the cap expense is going to be towards the higher end of that $1.7 to $1.9 billion. My question is, is this whatever is being expensed and spent this year, Is this part of that 1.9 or is this over and above that 1.9?

Yeah, so maybe I can start with windfall. Alex, do you want to talk to the material handling capital? So, Raj, I think at this stage, given that the project is not being approved, this is why it gets converted into exploration expense and expense. So it isn't being capitalized at this point in time. and some of that capital is going to be included in the initial estimate. So, you know, that's why we said we will come out once we've got a project that's ready to approve with the remaining capital to be spent and help with the reconciliation at that time.

And Mike, so the, sorry, the feasibility study results, that will be, that will come out once you have the permits, is that correct?

Yeah, and look, we've largely completed the studies. It's really a timing issue. When do we get the EIA that allows us to move this project into execution? So there's a bit of an interplay between the timing of the delay and when we can actually approve the project.

And obviously, Roger, the one thing is When we talk about that project capital, we talk about directly attributable capital to that project. Incurred in some of our expenditures to date is also all the greenfields exploration on the property, the exploration of debt, sitting overheads and stuff. And we'll give that clarity and guidance when we put it out. And then if you just want to talk about the materials handling system, so I think Basically at St Ives we have commenced the accelerated development of the decline for the conveyor system and in the first half of the year we spent approximately $20 million on that. That will continue at that sort of rate for every six months. Then the real spend comes when you start putting in the enabling infrastructure that you will order from the various suppliers. We have placed the orders for the long lead items. And then at Granny Smith, we are still just finalizing sort of the feasibility study before we make any magic.

Okay, that's great. Thank you. That's it for me. Thanks, Raj.

Operator, I think we can take one more question.

I see Tanya's in the queue before we move over to the webcast questions. Thank you. Next question comes from Tanya Yogaskhani of Scotiabank. He's got a hand.

Oh, great. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I just wanted to follow up on windfall, if I may. Can you remind me at what point, if we don't have this permit in place, do we start slipping on this project? Is it if we don't get it by the fall of this year that we start slipping? And then remind me on the slippage again, is it one year, the winter?

Yeah, and look, Tanya, we haven't really gone out to the market and said, look, this is our revised schedule, because what we would rather do is wait until we have an EIA. But to be perfectly honest, we are now starting to impact on the ability to execute work during this first winter period, and therefore, If we don't have an EIA by the end of this calendar year, we're certainly looking towards slippage at least to the back end of 2029 and if not later. So that's what we're trying to navigate through at the moment. We are ready to mobilize, particularly the civil works, which are critical for us to move on, and then being able to deliver on the camp infrastructure. We remain hopeful that we can move forward, but again, we were expecting this to be delivered in June, so we're already two months, nearly three months late on this, and that's starting to have an impact on what we can realistically deliver through the first winter. I think what I'd rather do is hold back, and once we've got clarity on the timing of the EIA, we'll come back with the timing on the project.

Oh, yeah, fair enough. And that's on the capital as well and operating costs because those are a little bit stale a bit as well, right? Exactly. We've seen some other companies come out with some capital updates and costing updates with inflation coming through. So, you know, I know you've guided to the upper end of that range, but is it fair to assume that, you know, if we have further delay plus you factor in all of these other inflationary pressures that we are going to exceed that $2 billion mark.

Yeah, and look, I think we'll unpack it. I mean, it's probably early days for us to talk to that. The reason we got it at the higher end of that range is since November, there were a couple of factors that did impact on the capital estimate. There was some specific scope items that were requested by the environmental agency, you know, for example, a nitrate treatment plant, which was around $50 million. That was not planned in the original scope. And secondly, there was an EVA order that came out, which meant that we had to start paying labor from the time that they left home, which was, again, a change to our estimate. So those are kind of examples of things which were unplanned for and unknown at the time we made the guidance note. But, you know, as soon as we have an ERA, we'll come out with some revised schedule and capital.

And just to confirm, Tanya, that range was in real 2025 terms when you provided it in November, so would that be adjusted for inflation?

Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you for that. And maybe just coming back to your pillars for growth, you mentioned the exploration, the brownfields, and then opportunities, bolt-on opportunities. I'm interested in how you define bolt-on opportunities. I mean, you're pretty much, you know, joint venture partners are all gone. Would those be more opportunities of access to jurisdictions you work in? Or how do you define that? Is it more production versus development opportunities? Just interested in how you look at those bolt-ons.

Yeah, Sonia, I'd say that typically what we've been looking for is assets that really, and as we've always said, ideally come on and create incremental value in our portfolio. I think we've always said that we would probably only execute one material project at a time, so we've got windfall as our priority to execute against. You know, would we go and buy a shovel-ready project today that probably wouldn't be the right kind of area of focus? You know, quite clearly, you know, producing assets of high quality in the right jurisdiction are not that easily available, and if they are, they're super expensive. So, you know, we are very – trying to be very discerning. We don't have to do M&A. I just want to make that point very clear. We have a very good outlook on our existing portfolio. Our greenfields program is gaining momentum and will deliver outcomes from a decade out, but we'll always be opportunistic, and if the right opportunities come up, we will look to that. Today, it probably wouldn't be a development project that is near term, but if it was something that came to be delivered seven years out, maybe that would be something of interest. So it's hard to put a definition around it. We look at the entire universe and we look at where it would come into our portfolio at the right time to deliver on our aspiration of growing cash flow per share over time.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much for taking my question.

Thanks, Tanya.

Thanks, Tanya. It's okay, I will take, there's a few questions on the webcast, so I'll just read them. There's three from Delegi E. Delegi from Maratori Capital Markets. He says, do you foresee royalty issues cropping up in other regions around the world, like what is happening in Ghana? If so, how do you go about taking an initiative to resolve impending royalty debacles going forward? Is there an internal blueprint in place? His second question says, given the industry's massive revenue and cash flow, there's high risk of stiff competition for critical skills, which could lead to high employee turnover. Have you evaluated this risk, and is there a retention strategy in place? Maybe park there, and we'll take a look at you.

Thanks for those questions. Look, I think what we've seen in Ghana is certainly – in some respects unhelpful because certainly we think that it starts placing Ghana in a fairly uncompetitive position for inward investment and it's certainly a step up on royalty regimes elsewhere. At the time we engaged on a bilateral basis as well as through the industry bodies like the Chamber of Mines as well as our peers to try and impress on the government to not take short-term decisions that could impact the long-term health of the sector. Despite that, this is a country that's under some financial stress and therefore saw the sector as an easy target. I compare this to Western Australia, for example, which I know is in a very different position. But they've held... royalty rates steady for a very long period of time, despite movements in gold price, because I think there's a real understanding that what you do need as investors is predictability, and you can just see the kind of investments that are going into a region that, whilst it's prospective, it's certainly no better than what Ghana has available to us. So it's really important. that we make those messages clear and that's why you see certainly sovereign risk in certain jurisdictions. But the way that we approach it is very much through industry bodies on a direct basis and bilaterally to try and impress on governments not to take short-term decisions because that's certainly not helpful to sustain the health of the sector in the long term. I think in respect to skills, you're quite right. In certain parts, we've had real pockets of turnover Interestingly enough, South Deep, we spoke about turnover two years ago where we were losing some real skilled operators. Today, we're seeing those people coming back, and again, it talks to being consistent with the value proposition, and once you've got assets that are performing, people want to come and be part of that. The other area where we've seen high degrees of turnover is, for example, Western Australia, even through our business partners where they've seen turnover. And we work very closely with them to make sure we have competitive positions, competitive value propositions, and if necessary, tying people in through retention mechanisms. So I wouldn't say it's not a one-size-fits-all. It requires real insight and being deliberate about how we hold on to talent. For certain parts of the world, it's a really competitive position.

Good. The next one, I'm going to take three. is from Luke Roberts. He says, given the decline in net debt, are you considering early repayment of any debt facilities at this stage? And then the next one after that is from Arnold Van Graan from NetBank CID. He says, Mike, what do you think is needed to close the valuation gap with your peers? How much of that do you think is due to TAFA? and then the third one is from Bruce Williamson from Integral Asset Management. He says, Hi Mike, how many surface holes do you need to drill south of French to make you comfortable with the geology, tons and grades?

Yeah, thanks very much. Maybe Alex, you want to do the first one?

No, thank you, Luke. From a debt perspective, obviously the first thing we do when we have excess cash is to pay down our revolving credit facilities because those we can re-access. But we will continue to assess whether it makes sense to pay down other facilities. For example, our term debt in Australia would probably be one of the easier ones to look at. And we do continuously monitor our bond prices. And if there was something where we could get them below par, we would definitely look at that opportunity for the roads.

Okay. Thanks. And Arnold, you know, I think this issue around the valuation gap is interesting. You know, certainly from the starting point, we believe that we are, you know, have delivered on our strategy in the last two years. And certainly from a delivery point of view, we are no different to our peers. And in fact, we have some, you know, a lot more exciting future potential. I think Taqua has been a drag on our share price. And if you look at the underperformance in the last, six months, you know, we've underperformed by about 10%, which is probably the kind of value attributable to TAQA or there and thereabouts. But I think the third one is maybe just a slight misunderstanding on how we're positioning our additional returns program and what our capital allocation framework looks like because, you know, we absolutely do believe that we have a very competitive capital returns program. It is a capital returns program that's designed to have longevity and not just a big announced headline number. And I think if we can continue to be disciplined on capital allocation, invest in our business and deliver superior returns, hopefully the market will get to understand that we are really trying to deliver a sustainable delivery of returns rather than just one-off. And hopefully the combination of resolution on TAQA, the announcement of windfall into execution, and continued delivery on our commitments and capital returns should see us rewarded. So that's what we're really working towards. And probably lastly, and that's why in the presentation we spoke about the inherent potential in our portfolio, because maybe there's still not a full value being attributed to some of these options that we have in our business. Bruce, and just to your question on South Deep, I think the way that we should think about it, this is some infill drilling on South of Wrench, but equally it's also extension drilling to really understand the extension perimeter of South Deep. So hard to put a number to it today, but this would be certainly over the next five years, you'd expect us to be doing at least 100,000 to 200,000 metres of drilling to start defining that. But we have got reserves declared over that property, so it's not like there has to be a major reserve declaration around those assets. This is about an extension drilling more than anything.

Thanks, Mike. Just mindful that we're up on time. I'll hand back to you to close in comments, Mike. There were a few questions that were still remaining, but we'll reach out directly to address those.

Yeah, thanks very much. And look, again, I'll just call out a couple of comments. We believe this was a very strong performance in the first six months. We were able, through the support of Gold Price, as well as strong operating performance, really deliver superior returns to our shareholders as we had flagged, as well as continuing to invest in our business. We think we have a number of catalysts and opportunities in our portfolio that to improve our business, not least of which is the moving into execution of Windfall, the continued improvement in our existing portfolio, and then also hopefully resolution of TARQA, which would unlock further value. So, you know, hopefully this was a good representation of the performance and certainly we are excited about what the next six months will bring. Thank you everyone for joining.