DRDGOLD FY2026 Earnings Call - Record Profits Fuel Dividend Growth Amidst Vision 2028 Capital Surge

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: 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 had been with the company, he was one of our professional advisors and attorney with the firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, who passed away the week before last after he was very, very sick. We will remember him, and he was a dear friend and a valuable service provider. It is a privilege again to be presenting to you today. This is the 19th time that I have been doing this, the year-end results, or 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 am joined today by my colleagues, Henriette, who is our CFO, and Jaco, who is our Chief Operating Officer, and then there are also several members of senior management who are here. Please, afterwards, we have to eat the food. It is expensive food, so we cannot leave before all of it has been eaten. 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 is the customary disclaimer. There will be forward-looking statements in this presentation, and some of those forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, and some of those assumptions we do not have control over. Just be mindful in the interpretation of those, that they are contingent upon a number of factors that we do not necessarily control. It has been a very good year for DRDGOLD.

It is the 19th consecutive financial year where we will be paying a dividend, and the final cash dividend for the year is ZAR 1.20 per share, which is just over ZAR 1 billion, which was roughly the market cap of the company when I first did the presentation 19 years ago. 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. Production was pretty pleasing. We managed to come in just below the 5 tons of production. 5 tons is prominent because you would have seen it in our communications when we talk about Vision 2028. What was pleasing in particular was the fact that it was roughly 5,000 ounces higher than the higher end of guidance for the year.

That was because of what I thought was very smart management of the throughput mix of the material going into the mix. You will see that we achieved an average yield of just under 0.2 gram per ton, 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 have never hedged, with 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 bought Far West Gold Recoveries. We have never hedged, and deliberately 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 ZAR 11 billion, a 42% increase in revenue. Cash operating costs for the year was just under ZAR 1 million a kilo, which was also better than guidance, and a 7% increase year-on-year, which considering the number of double-digit increases that form part of the cost basket of gold production in South Africa, I think was testimony to some really good cost discipline. Cash operating costs, a slightly higher increase of 10% at ZAR 188 per ton, and that is because there was a larger component of trucking that still formed part of the cost composite this year.

In the current climate, trucking your high-grade material, expending the higher costs in order to truck those cleanup materials and remnant materials is always a good idea because of the higher grade that invariably form part of those tons. At the current gold price, it does offer a very attractive margin. If the gold price decreases, then obviously that margin shrinks and you lose some of that gearing. You do want to take advantage of the higher gold price and truck in some more materials. There will be some of that also in the year going forward. The trucking will be part of the throughput profile for the foreseeable future. That obviously then translates into your operating profit, so ZAR 6.4 billion in operating profit, an 83% increase. That is a very nice number, which informs your headline earnings, ZAR 4.2 billion in headline earnings, an 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 internal measure of our efficiency. To have generated ZAR 2.2 billion in free cash flow was very pleasing. That was an 85% increase, and that was after capital expenditure of ZAR 3.5 billion for the year. Jaco will take you through some of the capital spent this year, as well as the capital planned for the next two years. Then it is an important number to remember, because we are talking final dividend of just more than ZAR 1 billion against free cash flow of ZAR 2.2 billion and capital expenditure of ZAR 3.5 billion. Remember, a big part of our story, of the Vision 2028 story is that at some point in future, this number is going to become considerably smaller, the ZAR 3.5 billion 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 are targeting about a ton of additional gold production. These margins, there is the margin, the cash margin, these margins potentially also, if everything stays the same, could potentially also remain very favorable. Then as a dividend-paying company, start factoring in a substantial portion of that into what is available for your dividend. That is the DRDGOLD promise. That is really what we are working towards this stage, and we are hoping that it will find its way into how share price is being interpreted at some stage over the next few years as we get closer and nearer to completion of the Vision 2028 sub-parts. My point number 9, that was the free cash flow.

My point number 10, that is 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 wellbeing 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. That also is not coincidental. Obviously, we are very aware of the fact that sometimes there are near misses where it is only the amount of time that you spend on your knees that saves you from something really bad. We are also very deliberately focused on how we manage safety and improving safety awareness amongst staff. Some of the other sustainability measures that we enjoy sharing, because sustainable development is core to our business, is the usage of potable water.

Many years ago, I forget how many years ago it was. It may have been 15 years, it may have been 18 years. We very deliberately took the decision to reduce potable water usage by 10% every year. That trend, if you follow our reporting on our integrated reports over the years, you will see that trend has been healthy and it has taken us to a point now where very little of our processed water is actually potable water. Once again, you saw 900 million liters of potable water saving this year, 23% decrease. Also, a very deliberate part of our sustainable development value pursuit. Carbon emissions is an important one. Only, well, it is still a lot, 233,000 tonnes of carbon that went into the atmosphere because of our activities, but that is down from 303,000 tonnes of last year. That is obviously because of the solar farm.

We have not stopped. We still have other ambitions with regards to renewable power. We have spoken about some of those in the past, but I think we are on a good trend here with the solar farm really working really well. We are seeing that both in the bottom line as well as in the nature dividend that we are in pursuit of. I think that is what I am going to talk to in terms of the first slide. There is obviously quite a lot more detail that my colleagues will talk about as we go forward. You can report these numbers if you produce. 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 carefully in order to stay within the prescribed safety factors.

Some of those are prescribed, some of them are self-imposed, but it is important that we stick to those, and therefore we are not sweating our TSFs. You saw earlier this week, again, a report of things going wrong on a tailings dam, and that is just the unimaginable from our perspective. Tonnes are deliberately kept at 25 million tonnes between the two operations. The yields have been good, and those yields are good for two reasons. It is both the blend and also plant efficiency. Both of our plants are operating extremely well.

A big thing for us this year as well is that, excuse me, everything that we are producing, that one part of the process where we are at our most vulnerable, where our product is at its most concentrated, namely when it goes into the smelt house, that is now universally treated at our own facilities, which was a big milestone for us. Jaco will talk more about that. They get to talk about all the good stuff, the numbers and all the projects and stuff. I will slip some of it in here and there. 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. That volume line is a flat line. It is managed very carefully and deliberately.

The yields have been pretty good, and that is as we are getting into a slightly deeper part of dam number 3. As you go deeper into the dam, gold migrating to the bottom, obviously your yields do pick up. You could see it is sort of back to where it was when we were at the tail end of dam number 5, and some of those materials were still being sort of dribbled into the bigger mix. Production, bang on target, 674 kilos for the last half year and just over 1.3 tonnes for the financial year. On a group basis, these are numbers that you will see in more detail when Henriette talks to the numbers. The volumes for the two operations combined, just on 25 million tons. The yields just under 0.2 gram a ton, which is a good number for us.

We are hoping to sustain that going forward. Production just under 5 tons for the year. On that note, I will hand over to Henriette to take you through some of the financial numbers.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Okay. Thank you, Niël. Maybe just to start off with, it is my privilege to present these excellent financial results that we have achieved during financial year 2026. Just a huge thank you from our side. We could not have done it if we did not have the exceptional teams that we have in DRDGOLD. From the operational guys straight through finance team putting this all together and our support services. Each of us have our role to play and I believe we have done it exceptionally well this year. Okay. If we move, group operating, sorry. As I, Ergo financial results. So Ergo had an exceptional last 6 months to the financial year. They increased their gold production with about 150 kilograms month, the 6 months versus the next 6 months.

Really taking advantage of that excellent gold price that we saw, in the last six months of just about ZAR 2,460,000 per kilogram average. Ergo ended their revenue, at ZAR 8.1 billion for financial year 2026, in comparison to ZAR 5.7 billion last year. This was mostly due to the gold price increase of 40% that Niël already alluded to, but also a 1% increase in gold sold. If we look at the cash operating cost slide, Ergo’s overall cash operating costs increased 7% year-on-year, notwithstanding all of the things that Niël already mentioned. 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 cyanide. We had to use the briquettes, which is more expensive. All in all, though, cash operating costs well-maintained.

If you just look at unit costs on the Ergo side. ZAR 1,120,000 per kilogram in comparison to ZAR 1,060,000 per kilogram last year, which is a 6% increase. That excellent operating profit trend that you can see there. Ergo more than doubled their operating profit from ZAR 2 billion last year to ZAR 4.1 billion 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 expectation. Far West increased their revenue from ZAR 2.2 billion last year to ZAR 3.1 billion in the current financial year. That was mostly due to that 40% increase in the gold price. Cash operating costs increased by 10% from ZAR 674 million last year to ZAR 744 million in the current financial year.

As I already, I think I mentioned it a few times, Far West is in a different operating cycle to Ergo. It is growing. It is getting ready for this expansion project. More labor hire. It is an older plant. Only two sites operating, of which one is a cleanup site, Driefontein 5. This trend increase in costs 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. ZAR 1.5 billion to ZAR 2.3 billion in the current financial year. This is a very high-margin operation, so 76% profit margin, which is exceptional operating profit margin.

Even with the increase in the gold price, this is still an operation running at ZAR 561,000 per kilogram cash operating cost, and then all-in sustaining cost of ZAR 639,000 per kilogram. If that operation can maintain this will be a very successful operation going forward. Okay, if we move to the operating trends. Very healthy operating margin, all-in sustaining cost margin. Cash flow, Niël already alluded to some of these excellent results that we’ve seen. But your operating margin last year, 45% in comparison to 58% in the current financial year. All-in sustaining cost margin, 39% for last year in comparison to 53% for this current financial year. In free cash flow, Niël stole a bit of my thunder with regards to the free cash flow, but this is a number that we are always very proud of. It’s your operating activities minus your investing activities.

Yes, that increased by 85% from ZAR 1.2 billion last year to ZAR 2.3 billion in this year. Just to stand still, this is one of the reasons that we could declare that 120 cents per share dividend. 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 a 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, ZAR 7.9 billion increasing to ZAR 11.2 billion. Again, just taking into account the 40% increase in the gold price, but also standing still on what Niël said.

We really did not expect to have a production year as we had. You would have seen our production guidance was quite lower than the previous year. 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. Last year, we had a big credit of ZAR 98 million relating to our change in 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 incentives and our long-term incentive. The share price, that’s 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 ZAR 56 million last year. That cash balance increase would’ve looked even better if we had that ZAR 56 million dividend from Rand Refinery again. Finance expenses mostly relate on our unwinding on our provision for environmental rehabilitation. That takes us then to a very healthy profit before tax of ZAR 5.9 billion in comparison to ZAR 3.1 billion. 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 ZAR 490 million in tax, mostly relating to Ergo, due to the profitability of that operation and the unredeemed CapEx that we actually used during the year. Statement of profit. The balance sheet. Excellent balance sheet. Again, debt-free.

I don’t think we thought in 2024 when we actually undertook this debt facility at Nedbank, that we would be in the position that we are in today. But standing still on property, plant, and equipment, nice increase, ZAR 8.5 billion last year to ZAR 11.9 billion, showing that ZAR 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, most of that balance actually is our Guardrisk cell captive that’s ring-fenced for rehabilitation. During the current year, we actually celebrated going over the ZAR 1 billion 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 ZAR 220 million uplift in fair value that went through that account. In cash and cash equivalents, I will just highlight when we go through the cash flow statement. Other current assets, fairly stable year-on-year. Maybe just to highlight that included in that balance, we have got ZAR 117 million receivable from Sibanye-Stillwater, which relates to the Kloof 2 dump transfer. We expect to receive that money regarding the environmental trust funds as soon as all regulatory approvals have been obtained. Moving over to liabilities, provision for environmental rehabilitation. That increase that you see there from ZAR 558 million to ZAR 721 million 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 Far West side. DP2 doubling up that plant and the RTSF increased that balance quite substantially.

Our single biggest liability on our balance sheet, that ZAR 2.9 billion deferred tax asset, which grown quite substantially during the year. This balance will continue to grow as we spend capital and as we remain profitable. Included in that balance is actually a rate change. Our weighted average rate for Ergo increased from 25% to 27%, and then on the Far West side from 29% to 30%. That had ZAR 150 million swing in that line. Current liabilities, fairly stable, increasing a little bit just due to our accelerated capital spend. Okay, if we move over to the cash flow statement, and what a beautiful statement this is. Net cash inflow from operating activities, ZAR 3.5 billion last year to ZAR 5.7 billion this year, mainly driven by that cash generated from the operations of ZAR 6 billion. Finance income received.

There you can nicely see the increase in finance expenses, or finance income that we actually received from the banks. No dividends received. Finance expenses paid, very small, and the income tax that I already alluded to. Net cash outflow from investing activities, where you can see that ZAR 3.5 billion that we spent. I believe this is, in the past 20 years anyway, the biggest capital reinvestment program that we have done in one year. Quite substantial amount. Environmental rehabilitation payments, although small, we are very proud of always continuously, concurrently rehabilitating our mining sites. That is money spent on the Brakpan, on cladding on Brakpan and on our Driefontein facilities. Proceeds from assets held for sale. I am sure you are already all aware that we sold Stellar Energy Solutions in December. That is just the proceeds that we received from that sale.

Dividends paid, that ZAR 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 an increase of ZAR 1.5 billion to a closing cash and cash equivalents balance of ZAR 2.8 billion, just under ZAR 2.8 billion. There you are. I will hand over to Jaco Schoeman to take us through Vision 2028.

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: Okay. Thanks everybody. I would just like to agree with what Henriette 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 have to celebrate the wins. Hopefully, this feels like the Springboks will win on Saturday 50 and zero. That is the feeling we get here. It is a privilege to present the operational results to you of everybody’s hard work. That is just a picture of Daggafontein, which we will speak to just now. Just to remind you of the five projects that makes up Vision 2028. Two of them at Ergo, number 1 and 5, and then 2, 3 and 4 at Far West.

The first one is Daggafontein. That is a Tailings Storage Facility which we have commissioned. I will talk about that a little bit later on. That is at estimated cost of about half a billion ZAR. That is to reduce the deposition capacity, or deposition rate onto Brakpan by approximately 750,000 tonnes per month. Second one at Ergo, I am going to jump to number 5, is Withok. So the Withok tailings dam, that one is still in the authorization phase. The purpose of that one is for us to get off the Brakpan 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 ZAR. Then 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. We will talk a little bit about that, and that is at an estimated 1.9 billion ZAR. Then the pipelines for DP2 to RTSF, that is the deposition site, but then also the Libanon reclamation station. In total, approximately 135 kilometers of pipeline, and then that is at a cost of 1.2 billion ZAR. 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 tonnes facility. We are approximately two thirds through the construction of this facility, but again, we will go through that, at a cost of about 3.5, 3.4 billion ZAR. All right. Just an update quickly.

At Ergo, Daggafontein, as I have mentioned to you, I am very proud to say that in June we started commissioning of the tailings dam. We have achieved the rate that we expect to achieve, which is 25,000 tonnes per day, which gives us the 750,000 tonnes per month. This facility gives us an additional capacity of about 120 million tonne deposition onto this facility. Together with Withok, it will sustain our mining operation for 21 years at Ergo. Now Withok, as mentioned to you, that is currently in the authorization phase. We have completed our public participation process. Our design engineer and his team has been approved by the Dam Safety Office. Then our environmental authorization waste management license, as well as the water use license, 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 Withok during 2029. That will make sure that we then, onto Withok. Withok is about 310 million tonnes deposition capacity. So between the two of them, it will then sustain us for the 21-year life of mine of Obor going forward. Onto Far West. Again, very happy that we’ve ticked the box on DP2 plant. On July 14, we commissioned the smelt 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. 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. 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 tonnes, we can then fire up both plants. We will maintain that 500,000 tonnes 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 Libanon reclamation pump station, and that we have received during July. So another obstacle is out of the way. We’re about 95% complete with the pipelines.

We can now start with the construction of the Libanon 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 June 30, we were about two-thirds through the construction, and that’s the picture you can see in the background. Obviously, now hopefully I don’t stuff this up. Yeah. So, there you can see the black, that’s the liner. This is the starter wall going around. For those of you that missed it, in July, we provided the market with a full market update, and we spent some significant time on explaining the technicalities around the RTSF. If you want to just review that, you’re more than welcome. It’s on the website.

But this facility we do hope to have available so that we can do the full 1.2 million tonnes in Q1 of the 2028 financial year. 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. It doesn’t help us compromising this facility at any given point in time. So hence, being very prudent in starting this facility up. All right. 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 capital spending year. This was also 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 difficult for ourselves to achieve the final timelines. They have done so by making sure that DP2 has been started up or completed, commissioned, as well as Daggafontein. What you can see here is that the majority are being spent obviously on DP2 expansion and then RTSF. Going forward, you can see that DP2 is very little, just essentially rollovers. We get the UFRs, which is the upflow reactors, part of DP2. This is specifically technology aimed at improving recoveries, which we are implementing on that specific plant.

You can see we continue with RTSF spending, and that will also run over into 2028. But then we also intend to bring, hopefully, some of Withok expenditure online during the later part of this financial year. Then, very important, that will continue then to 2028 and 2029. 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. Last slide just on reserves and resources. You will see that we depleted our reserves with about call it 23 million tons of material that we have treated. But we have made that up by bringing online Kloof 2, which provides us with about 67 million tons.

Overall increasing the mineral reserves with about four years added to the life of mine of Far West Gold Recoveries. Well, I am going to hand back to Niël. Since he is a farmer, we specifically had the sheep up there for you, Niël.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Yeah. Is that yours? Thanks, Jaco. Yeah, I know. We have got to have some sheep in any presentation worth its salt. So these guys keep the grass short at the solar farm. You cannot go in there with bush cutters because you are going to chip those beautiful panels. So, it is part of our philosophy of full integration. Just talking a little bit about our environmental performance. Henré made mention of the concept of concurrent rehabilitation, that you rehabilitate as you go along. Yeah, we flick through these slides, and then you see a tailings dam in the distance. I do believe that the DRDGOLD team is achieving a goal that we had set for ourselves also many years ago, maybe 15 years ago, maybe 18 years ago, of being the benchmark in terms of the various activities that we involve ourselves in.

I’m not aware of current tailings storage facilities that are cladded to the extent that DRDGOLD has cladded Crown Facility, the Crown Cluster, the Brakpan facility, and Daggafontein. It’s really, if you want to show people what a tailings dam should look like if it’s properly managed from an environmental containment perspective, I do believe that those tailings dams are benchmark setting in the standards that are being maintained by the team. This has been throughout. When we talk about 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 years to come.

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 here you could see some of the trends as they’d emerged over the last few years. Also, dust emission exceedances. Many of our tailings facilities, the tailings storage facilities, as well as our reclamation sites, are in close proximity of where people live. We have close to 300 air quality monitoring points scattered across the landscape in the Witwatersrand to learn. That’s where we check whether or not dust coming off our facilities and off our sites, whether they fall within the statutory thresholds and whether they in any way contribute towards a reduction in quality of life of those people living in the vicinity of those.

It’s part of the geospatial reality of Johannesburg, of where certain segments of society, where certain communities were placed and where they lived. 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. Very few things impact quality of life as much as the standard of containment that’s maintained on these facilities. That’s a good number. 0.5% of exceedances is a very, very good number. 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, et cetera. We try to reduce those to a few easily understandable headline numbers.

If you want to go into any deeper detail, then you’ll have to go through the financial statements in order to decipher it from there. What we’ve decided to do was to give you sort of headlines of just the impact of the solar farm now that it’s been implemented over time. The solar power produced this year is 146 gigawatts of power units that’s been produced. That is now net of grid losses and net of efficiency losses. It’s actually 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. That is the electricity that Eskom supplied into our group. That’s the 260 gigawatts of electricity that Eskom supplied into the group.

If you add those two numbers together, you can get some sort of a sense of what the total draw of DRDGOLD was for the year, or roundabout. The Eskom units that were necessary to produce 1 ton of material to treat, not produce a ton of product, but to treat a ton of material, that is in the next line, and you can see that is a very healthy trend. In 2024, 13.6 kilowatt-hours were required to treat 1 ton of material. That is Eskom-generated and supplied kilowatt-hours. This year, on a group basis, that number reduced to 8.6 kilowatt-hours.

If you do the numbers, and if you limit those numbers to Ergo in particular, you will see that we actually got very close to the range that we guided when the solar farm was in construction phase, of a saving per ton of between ZAR 9 and ZAR 15. It looks as though it is somewhere between ZAR 13.50 and ZAR 14.50 per ton saving at Ergo. That is a number that pertains to Ergo itself. There are a number of movable parts here. An exact number is very hard to say, simply because we are talking about different rates that is being charged by Ergo. If you look at direct savings, you are also looking at different times of the day, and a variety of other moving parts, wheeling and offsetting charges, et cetera. That sort of are the headline numbers.

The solar gave us 146 gigawatt that was used. Eskom gave us 216. That was the net number from Eskom and the trend. Of course, you have got your scope 2 carbon emissions, and I did mention that earlier as well, how that is reduced over this period. On the whole, I think considering that we are a company that proclaims to have committed to the ideas of sustainable development, of generating value at different levels, or multidimensional 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.

On the social performance side as well, or the social capital side, it is not a story of impact quite yet, but our team is working on the impact of the social capital programs that our company is involved in. Just on the numbers this year, you can see where the socioeconomic development number has landed. These are initiatives directly benefiting communities through small enterprise development and socioeconomic development programs, sustainable livelihoods, and now increasingly also infrastructure. 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 Carletonville, 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. For a very large part of that whole program, our social initiatives were aimed primarily at poverty alleviation and youth education. Then in terms of poverty alleviation, providing knowledge and a nudge, 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 builds infrastructure. We do knowledge and a nudge. Now we’re getting to a stage where DRDGOLD is also starting to build infrastructure. And next year, there’s a clinic that’s being planned.

There’s a refurbishment of a school that’s being planned. And these are big numbers that are being committed, and they’re worth spending, because every life that’s changed provides just that tiny bit more of social stability in the areas where we operate. And you need a socially stable environment within which to operate a business successfully. We believe that, and I’ll continue to believe that for as long as I’m 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’d 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 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 that has 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. I did, and 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, will set us up in terms of net cash flow. And our company hasn’t changed its value proposition or what it seeks to deliver in terms of its value proposition. Dividend flow is still a very big part of that.

And we do hope that if things remain more or less the same, 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 sold shares in March, you would have been paid ZAR 60 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 ZAR 8 or ZAR 15 or ZAR 25. So it is a stock that does reward very significantly if you understand the dynamics that drive the performance of the stock.

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. 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. In terms of looking ahead, I cannot get enough of this picture. It is just such an impressive piece of engineering, and it is enormous. The scale is not fully appreciated by just looking at the picture. Just in terms of 2027 guidance, we did try to be realistic in terms of our guidance.

It is 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. We are guiding between 160,000 and 170,000 ounces for the financial year. Again, the assumption premised on volume throughput and on head grade and on a particular standard of recovery efficiency. Cash costs, just over ZAR 1 million a kilo. All-in sustaining costs, ZAR 1.2 million. Planned capital, excuse me, of just over ZAR 3 billion for the year. Important milestones for us, Jaco spoke about some of those, but important milestones for us obviously is the completion of the DP2 plant expansion, and that is 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. 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 1.3 million tonne a month throughput that is envisaged for Far West Gold from next year onwards. It is important that we complete RTSF or beneficial occupation. 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 does not have to be the dam, does not have to be finished. The facility does not have to be finished in order to do that. It has got to be sort of two-thirds finished and more or less where Jaco is now, but there are some odds and ends that we still need to take care of. There are a few regulatory hoops that we need to jump through. Beneficial occupation is a technical term that basically means that we are now ready to start impounding material onto that facility. A big part of that initially will be the successful commissioning. It is a complex process, one that we need to get right. As Jaco said, you are not going to be taking shortcuts now on a facility that is supposed to last for 35 years.

Commissioning of the Libanon Reclamation Station. I was so relieved when we got the water usage license for the Libanon Reclamation Station. 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 deliver into the expectation that we’ve created with regards to 1.2 million tons a month in financial 2028. Obtaining the relevant approvals to commence construction at Withok.

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, where Withok abuts the Brakpan 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 Withok comes online, is 150,000 tons per month. So it’s a relatively modest impact in the near term.

It’s essential, though, that this dam’s built by 2029 because that 320 or rather 310 million tons of capacity that it provides is very important for the remainder of Ergo’s life of mine. Then, of course, we also want to continue to explore opportunities for growth beyond South Africa. This is something that we have been talking about, and there are companies that we’ve had conversations with to see whether our model is appropriate for what they have left on their site. With the margins that our model has been generating and other companies have been managing to also achieve, I think a lot of the focus on tailings retreatment 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.

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 30, 40 odd years. The standards that we insist upon in terms of environmental closure, in terms of restoration of mining footprints, in terms of biodiversity and the restoration of ecosystems, those standards have changed. Corporates are giving undertakings. 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. That’s really where tailings retreatment hits the sweet spot.

Tailings retreatment 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 tailings retreatment. 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. That’s something that needs to take place globally on a global scale. It’s worth doing it because it has become a compelling financial proposition as well. Seven years ago, Sibanye-Stillwater 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’ve found would’ve been a ZAR 250 million provision in their balance sheet, an environmental provision. In other words, a cost, a liability. Today, seven years later, Sibanye-Stillwater, after having merged that project into DRDGOLD, owns a ZAR 15 billion asset. That’s the value of their shares in DRDGOLD. So they’ve gone from ZAR 250 million negative, or ZAR 300 million negative, to ZAR 15 billion positive in terms of the value of the equity of their company. They have earned, or they will have earned after this dividend that’s declared today, in the last two years, ZAR 955 million in dividends from their 50.1% interest in DRDGOLD. That’s the value proposition that DRDGOLD 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 venture or endeavor, let us through the front door. Maybe we could do something with your tails. That’s our story. All right, we’ll be taking-- Sorry, that was maybe a little bit of a cheek in there to end it on, but anyway, we’ll take questions now. Do you guys want to join in?

Moderator: Questions in the room. Please raise your hand and then state your name, and a gentleman will bring a mic to you. Once the questions in the room are done, we’ll go to the online questions.

Moderator/Support, DRDGOLD: Just for the benefit of people dialing in, just state your name before.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Please, if you do not mind. Thanks.

Moderator/Support, DRDGOLD: My name is Michael Salter. I am from Element Investment Managers, and indulge with not really a question, but a statement. First of all, congratulations. It is a superb set of results and I do believe that DRDGOLD is a world leader in terms of what it is doing. I just wanted to just state that the one aspect that you said that you are tracking the SA Gold companies, and that to me is what is have no geological risk like they do. So yes, gold price is a proxy and it is 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 something I do not understand.

For me, it is really well done, guys, and it is so good to see that there is life in the South African gold industry through people like yourself.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Thank you very much. We appreciate that. Look, I am not going to try and explain the performance of a stock. Des Meyer is an expert. He has been doing it for 60 years. He would be able to maybe explain those trends. The fact is, there does seem to be a correlation, and we do not want to lag. I think that is 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 kind words. Hopefully, we can continue to deliver into those expectations. It is a long way down. Mr. Davel, welcome.

Riaan Davel, Previous CFO and Shareholder: Mr. Curtis. Thank you. Riaan Davel, previous CFO and shareholder. From my personal point of view, just considering the significant capital expenditure, substantial contribution to the fiscus, and a very healthy, $0.50 interim dividend, I just want to comment relative to the final dividend of $0.40 last year, the ZAR 1.20 is definitely not a stingy dividend. So thank you very much for that. Just a comment now, and well done with the results. That is brilliant.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Thank you, Riaan. Look, a lot of thinking went into that dividend because what you obviously do not want to do is be silly about the dividend that you pay, because next year you are hopefully declaring another dividend, and do you really then want to have a sort of a 40% drop on your dividend? Do you have to go to, I mean, thank you very much, Nedbank, for this facility, but if you do not need to draw against it, you should not want to draw against it. So, we did put a lot of thinking into that in order for it to be a responsible dividend in the circumstances. By the way, just on the point of tax, and you have given me the opportunity to do that. It is one of my favorite topics as a proud taxpayer. So it is not only the ZAR 490 million in income tax.

Was it ZAR 490 million in income tax? There is also the ZAR 312 million in pay you earn. So it was close on ZAR 800 million paid in taxes. That does not take into account rates and taxes and VAT that was paid this year. So I think there was probably a contribution towards fiscus in excess of ZAR 1 billion this year out of our operations.

Martin Creamer, Journalist, Mining Weekly: Martin Creamer from "Mining Weekly." You’ve 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? Secondly, there’s platinum group metal tailings around the place. There is 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?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Yeah, certainly. No, thank you, Martin. In terms of additional renewables, Jaco worked on a program. You saw the ZAR 145 million asset 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. Then we sold it, but we locked in a number of units. 30 megawatt?

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: 30 megawatt.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Yeah. So we’ve got a 30-megawatt facility coming our way through the grid in a few years from now. So hopefully, with the additional power that’s going to be used at Far West, it will have the impact or the effect that our carbon footprint doesn’t grow in size because of more power from Eskom. Look, the power station, I’m trying to encourage, 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 only 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.

Sorry, what was Oh, on the platinum. Obviously, the obvious partner for platinum would be Sibanye-Stillwater, and it would be entirely up to them to invite us into the room. There was planning done a long time ago on that, and we do know that there’s plenty of opportunity, multi-billion ZAR NPV opportunities in that regard. 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. The opportunity is there, and it’ll be a case of Sibanye inviting us into the room. There’s a lot of work happening in Sibanye in terms of tightening up on the asset 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 capital markets day as well.

It’s a big company with a lot of moving parts. Everything has its turn, and everything has a priority, and I’ll be very surprised if we’re not involved in that conversation.

Moderator: Okay. We’re going to take some questions.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Camilla, sorry, there’s another question. Sorry.

John Krensruw, Attendee: My name is John Krensruw. What about uranium? Is there an opportunity there?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: I think uranium will be the next CEO’s sort of focus area. I will tell you exactly why. When uranium became a thing many years ago, when, who was it? The outfit out at Mine Waste Solutions, Gordon Miller and then-

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: Rand Uranium.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: That was not Rand Uranium, it was Mine Waste Solutions. Remember that Mine Waste Solutions was going to be primarily uranium, and they raised a lot of money, 125 million Canadian dollars, sold their gold forward, sold their gold $400 an ounce in order to fund a uranium circuit. I went to go and see a gentleman who worked at Areva called Daniel Wouters, and he will forgive me for reminding him of this conversation, but I think he was right. Said to him, "Listen, everyone is doing all this uranium stuff with tailings, and I am feeling, 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 and uranium. Don’t do a dual product stream in terms of tailings. Focus, because you will favor the one at the cost of the other.

You are going to be producing lots of uranium but not much gold at the cost of your gold efficiency. Or you are going to be producing a lot of gold, but at the cost of your uranium efficiency. They are not happy partners in the same circuit. That is in terms of secondary mining. Primary mining is obviously the opposite. I have a bias when it comes to uranium from tailings, and there is going to have to be a very compelling argument made by my colleagues here to justify or motivate large capital amounts to build a tailings uranium circuit as part of our current throughput profile. Not a fan.

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: Niël, if I can expand on that.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Yes, please do, Jaco.

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: The two processes are on the opposite side of the pH scale. Uranium recovery happens in the acidic side of things, where you are leaching it with sulfuric acid. Gold obviously happens in the alkaline stage, right up at a pH of 10 and a half. It is exactly what Niël is saying. You are going to sacrifice one for the other to do that recovery. Ergo did that I think about before 2000s, Ergo treated uranium and gold. Stopped it for that reason. Mine Waste Solutions did the exact same. Also treated uranium and gold, and at a point in time stopped doing that because you sacrifice one for the other.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: So to-

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: Technology. Sorry.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Is there no new technology?

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: No, unfortunately not at this point in time, no.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: If you look at our average yield, the third slide. Our very first, third slide. It is important that we, because we quote these numbers and it has become so much part of our language that we do not really appreciate exactly what they mean. Look at that number there. Where is the recovery? Yeah.

Moderator: Oh, yeah.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Look at there, 0.193. There is a reason why we say 0.193 gram a ton. Very good reason. If that was 0.183, you multiply that by 3 million, that is 30 kilos. That is ZAR 60 million of revenue that you lose because you got that second digit wrong. So your uranium has got to give you an additional ZAR 60 million in net profit in order to justify sacrificing 0.01 gram of gold production. That resource does not exist, not in South Africa. Not at these throughput rates. Right, Camilla, I think we have, is there anyone else in the room?

Moderator: Is there one more?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Oh, Martin.

Martin Creamer, Journalist, Mining Weekly: I just want to harp on what the Minerals Council South Africa and a whole group of individuals has been saying. South Africa is falling behind the rest of the world when modernization of technology is involved. I cannot see that quite happening with you guys on the operational side, because there are so few people that do what you do. There was a clear picture that they painted that some of the main jurisdictions in the world are ahead of us, and that we are quite badly behind on the modernization front. Have you people looked at that, or 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 context, when they discuss the modernization, was that it was creating jobs rather than actually diminishing jobs, particularly in the operational front. I do not know whether there is any modernization mechanism that you can bring in that would help matters. Would you think you have reached the stage of modernization that is needed?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: In terms of digitization and using AI and so forth, I think AI is a very helpful tool 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 would be very reluctant for people to sort of just mechanically follow numbers on a 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 are 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 maintaining stable state, the throughput rates that we’re doing. When we’re separating out 200 parts per billion, you do need big data and that’s being reported on an ongoing basis. With regards to new technologies, the UFR, the upflow reactor could be part of that cracking the code and making that small incremental change. There’s never not some kind of research happening. It’s just being able to scale it. That process will never end. It will continue. We’re still putting back 0.17, 0.18, 0.15 gram of gold per ton. We’re still putting back onto our tailings, in some instances a little bit more. At some point or another, there might be a different kind of process.

Can actually probably extract what’s remaining there as well. It’s a never-ending endeavor. But we’re excited about the upflow reactor. It is showing good promise.

Martin Creamer, Journalist, Mining Weekly: Why are you excited about it?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: It reduces your residue grade. It’s one more pass. Once it’s gone through CIL, it goes into the upflow reactor, and then there’s some more absorption taking place.

Martin Creamer, Journalist, Mining Weekly: Considering that to prove itself, you weren’t convinced the last time.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: 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 modeling it, we want to give you proper numbers before you start bringing it into a model.

Moderator: Okay.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Thanks, Camilla.

Moderator: We’re going to go to the online questions. Arnold van Graan asked, "Niël, is it fair to say you’re keen to see Vision 2028 through to delivery? How do you think about leadership continuity beyond that point?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Sure. I’d love to. Everyone in this room who works for DRDGOLD who is younger than 40, can you put up your hand, please? All right. There you see it. A lot of young people working for the company, and there are a lot of smart people already being positioned for the next generation of management. I’m confident that we’ve got the depth within the company to deal with both a crisis scenario and also with a managed and structured scenario.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Okay. Nick Holland, he says, "Niël, are you pointing to a change in operating plans at Ergo with more reliance on trucked high-grade ore for the foreseeable future? Where is this coming from and for how long will this go on?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: What we’re pointing towards is not a change, the opposite of change. There will still be trucking going on for the foreseeable future, but not an increase in trucking. No.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Nick Holland asked another question. "The deadline for approval of the Theory of Constraints approaches. If no approval by December, can you give us a sense of how you’ll play the uncertainty into your revised plans?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: We will just have to camp out and bang on the door and say, "Listen, can we please have it?" like we did with some of the other licenses. Jaques, you want to comment on that?

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: Yes, it is important that we do get to that timeline. If we do not, the backup plans would be, that is why we have implemented Daggafontein. Daggafontein takes the 750,000 off the Brakpan tailings dam. We have got a bit of leeway in that process, but it is important that we do hit that end-of-year timeline. But it is not a humpty dumpty, fall-off-the-wall exercise. We do have some additional capacity.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Yes. If Withok does not come online in 2030, then it means until it does, Ergo would have to be running at somewhere between 750 and 1 million tons a month.

Jaco Schoeman, Chief Operating Officer, DRDGOLD: Right.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: You will shave another 650 off its volume profile. Not ideal, but as Jaques is saying, it is not existential, just annoying, an inconvenience, and it is going to cost money.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Johan du Toit asked, "Well done on the great results. Could you expand on your capital allocation policy? What dividend payout can we expect going forward? What is the expected benefits from the upload reactors costing ZAR 880 million in CapEx?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: As the capital reduces and provided everything stays the same, the dividend will grow. Simple as that.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Okay.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: That is why we include the capital profile.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Lebumo Faking asks, says, "Well done, guys. Please guide on AISC and AIC for financial year 2028 and financial year 2029, unit cash costs as well. Can you also guide on running CapEx number post Vision 2028?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: No, I don’t think-

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Sure. That is so-

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: I don’t think we give guidance on those numbers that far into the future. There are just too many assumptions that we don’t control. 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 2028 and 2029 all-in sustaining cost guidance. CapEx guidance is there. That’s pretty much as far as I think we’re prepared to go.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Jandre Pieterse. "What are your expectations of cash tax versus accounting tax going forward?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Oh, gosh. Somebody needs to explain to me what that is. Why don’t you take that one, Henriette?

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: On the income tax side, deferred tax will keep on growing. From a cash flow point of view, our income tax balance will continue growing as well, in the foreseeable future. We still have a big capital balance for Far West, 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 tax-paying position during the next financial year. Ergo will definitely still be, even with the planned capital spend on the Withok side, they will continue to be in a tax-paying position next year.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: I think I’m correct in saying, Henriette, that with the solar less than two years ago, and recognizing 125% of the tax-

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: 125

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: It’s gone. It’s been expended. It disappears very quickly in this sort of margin gold price margin environment. 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 labor plans, only in terms of social and labor plans or some sort of equity participation thing and so forth. Somehow we ignore or 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 that are affected by mining industry. That you see, and I just mentioned like ZAR 1 billion in tax.

The sad reality is that we see very little evidence of any of that billion ZAR finding its way back into our surrounding communities. If you look at the kind of services that is being provided there, at the kind of help assistance that our company needs to provide in order just 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 tax revenues are being reinvested into constituencies. As a percentage of our contribution into the fiscus, we are seeing very little of that being plowed back into our communities, into the areas where we operate. Very little.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Thank you.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Which is wrong.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Dineo Faku asks, "Good morning. Can you say where outside South Africa you are looking to expand?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Yes, we are looking at Africa and South America.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Herbert Kharivhe says, "Is diesel a meaningful input in your production process?

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Cool. Ingrid.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Yes.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Very much so.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: We do, at this stage, have got lots 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. 167 to 100 big pieces of equipment currently running at RTSF. On the operational side, from a cleanup operation, all of the cleanup sites, we use lots of machine hire, and then the trucking expenses. Biggest portion of that is a diesel component. Yes, diesel is impacting us quite substantially, especially on the Ergo side, less of an exit seen at this stage on the Far West Gold Recoveries side. I think that leads Matthew Whitelaw to his question, "What price have you assumed for diesel in your financial year 2027 cost guidance?" Look, you’ve seen that the diesel price has gone up and it has gone down.

We have built in the latest information that we could, and we built in some risk factors. You are going to always have things that is directly impacted, from a diesel point of view, our diesel usage versus your deliveries was more expensive, et cetera. We have brought in some risk factors into our budgeting process, but it was an interesting year to budget.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: What’s that range, about between 11% and 17% risk factor on some of the-

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Yes

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: components. Yeah.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Okay.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: It’s part of a composite, really.

Henriette Muller, CFO, DRDGOLD: Perfect. I think some of the other questions are a little bit more detailed, which we’ll take time to respond after the session.

Niël Pretorius, CEO, DRDGOLD: Okay. Thank you very much everyone for joining us, and we really appreciate your attendance. Please join us for some snacks.