Sibanye Stillwater - Earnings Call - H2 2024

Transcript

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all the attendees. A warm welcome to our Golden Circle, and you'll see the relevance of that as I move through our 2024 year-end results. But also, note the main heading of the presentation being "Quantifying the Value Created from Our Strategic Differentiation," which I will also cover in some detail. Obviously, they are forward-looking statements, so please take note of our Safe Harbor Statement. If we can go on to the next slide, please. I think it's all well known now that Richard Stewart has been appointed as CEO Designate and will be taking over from me from September. I am exceptionally pleased with that and would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Richard as well.

But the purpose of this slide is also to highlight that, apart from the succession planning, which I'm going to get to, we have a very competent and solid C-suite. That's the first point you should note. I think the other thing is a company is all about the people, and hence the reason this slide is first. The company is in good hands, and I want to say that we have followed a best practice succession planning for myself, and in fact, it is the same process that we follow for every senior management person within the company. And let me highlight the impact. We've been planning for this transition for probably about two years now, so this is not something that was decided yesterday or last month or even last quarter.

Very pleasing to myself, and remember this is a board process when it involves the CEO, is that this is an internal appointment which will result in a smooth transition. And as I've said, the comfort I have is we have a very solid and stable C-suite team. What an internal appointment does, as long as you've got ownership of the strategy as it's being developed by both the board and the C-suite, is that you have strategic continuity, and you are welcome to ask Richard directly what he may be thinking of changing and so on. But certainly, it's my understanding that we have significant continuity. And not only that, I think the purpose of the company is we have a C-suite which is committed to the purpose which is underpinned by sustainability, and that permeates our entire strategy. So I think a very good and important outcome.

If we can move to the next slide, please. Again, I'm not going to go through strategy in detail, but just to say that our strategic positioning and the refocus on the strategic essentials has been validated if you start looking at the trends and the results, and I believe that it's appropriate and important to continue focusing on these strategic essentials, and what are they? Well, it's ensuring safety and well-being. It's prospering in every region in which we operate. It's achieving what we call operational excellence, maintaining a profitable business, and optimizing capital allocation, and as I mentioned at last year's results, ESG will remain an important part of the way we do business. Thank you. If we can go to the next slide, please.

So our vision is to create superior shared value for all stakeholders, and this is new work based on an assessment done by the University of Montana using IMPLAN. And I'm not going to go through the slide in detail, but for those of you who are interested, I would urge you to read it in detail in your own time. But if you look at the tree, and as you know, that represents our ethos, we are impacting over 147,000 jobs. In other words, we're supporting 147,000 jobs. That is very, very significant. In terms of economic impacts, we have an impact of ZAR 225.9 billion. In terms of compensation impacts, ZAR 61.3 billion. And in terms of tax impacts, ZAR 27 billion. So again, confirmation that we do deliver superior shared value, not just for our shareholders, but for all our stakeholders. Thank you.

If we can move on to the next slide. So I would like to just almost skim through the salient features for the six months 2024, and of course, it completes the year ended 31 December 2024. So safety continues to improve with the group SIFR and TRIFR at the lowest recorded level since 2013. So in a way, record safety performance. Very pleasingly, net debt to Adjusted EBITDA came in at 1.79 times at 31 December 2024. And I want to highlight this is before accounting for the $500 million stream. And I do remember reading a number of reports which had us well over three times. And I will cover the net debt to Adjusted EBITDA profile a bit later. Revenue was 7% higher for the second half of 2024 compared to 2023. Group Adjusted EBITDA came in at ZAR 6.4 billion.

That is a stable result for the third sequential six-month period. I will say more on that. We do note that a number of our peers are now starting to show declining EBITDA numbers, where ours have now been stable. We've arrested our decline, and I think we can look forward in a more constructive way going forward. I will cover that in more detail as well. Obviously, South African gold underpinned that change, and there was a 216% increase in adjusted EBITDA for the second half of 2024. In terms of South African PGMs, I think what was highlighted was a 6% operating cost increase, which is very much in line with inflation and probably below mining inflation. I thought that was a standout result for the South African PGM sector.

Our U.S. PGM, in my mind, had one of the best performances within the group with a successful restructuring at the end of 2024, and throughout the year, consistent production and a 27% reduction in All-in Sustaining Costs. There's still some way to go. We're not confused by the very good progress made, and we know there's still a lot of hard work, but the light is at the end of the tunnel. There was a $32 million or ZAR 594 million contribution to the group's Adjusted EBITDA in 2024 from our recycling business in the U.S. Again, quite significant, and in the Australian region, we had a $34 million or ZAR 641 million contribution in 2024 from the Century operation. So to me, those are good results considering the current commodity price climate, and I'm referencing PGMs in that regard, obviously not gold.

A difficult operating environment where I would suggest we've arrested and turned a corner. If we can go to the next slide, please. So I would like to actually demonstrate in a factual way what the value that has been created by taking what we consider the roads less traveled, probably more complicated, certainly more controversial, but not controversial to be controversial, and more complex, absolutely. So if we can go to the next slide. So as everybody on this call would know, we are driven where our strategy is defined by understanding the gray elephants which we've presented previously. I'm not going to go through them, but the one that was influential in driving the diversification of the company into a green metals portfolio company was that one of the angry planet.

We've often presented the sigmoid curves on the right-hand side of this slide, which indicate growth from a gold base through South African PGMs, internationalizing the company in the U.S. through PGMs, and then slowly but surely moving into battery metals. That's well understood. We've also for some time been talking about responsible resource stewardship. You can't be environmentally responsible if you are not sensitive to primary mining, secondary mining, and recycling. We have very consciously been building those portfolios within our business. I want to show you they have become significant businesses and contributing quite significantly to the bottom line. I will do that in the next couple of slides.

Importantly, we have always maintained that having an underlying portfolio of gold is an insurance policy when you have a large portfolio of industrial metals and you move into an environment, a global economic environment that is difficult with high interest rates, high inflation, and so on, and it's become very evident in our business how that insurance policy of gold is working. If we can go to the next slide, please, so they say a picture paints a thousand words, and this is our Adjusted EBITDA slide from 2017, and I just want to work through it and then make some conclusions, so we were a gold business, predominantly a gold business. You can see how that gold business supported the investment into PGMs, and the contribution by PGMs was relatively small.

But you can see as we moved into 2018, how the Stillwater or the U.S. PGM business actually carried the company through a very difficult period while we were growing our South African PGM business. And you can see we took a strike in gold because, to be blunt, AMCU was trying to prevent us from buying Lonmin. And it was our U.S. PGM business that pulled us through that, and eventually, we were successful. But you can see with that disruption in gold, how gold became negative in 2019 due to all those disruptions. But that essentially allowed us to build a PGM business, I want to say, second to none.

You can see how the PGM business from 2019 carried this company to new heights and how gold was a very much smaller portion of the contribution because of the very good PGM basket prices of the time. We also used, and to be fair to our gold division, we used our gold division to ensure that if there was to be any sort of strife in wage negotiations and unrealistic demands, that the brunt of that would be carried in the gold business because it was a relatively small contributor. But of course, that created the impression today that the gold business is not a contributor of any substantial amount to our business. And in fact, we often get questions, "Why don't you get rid of it?" Well, you're going to see why not shortly.

So then as the PGM basket price fell off, especially in dollar terms and especially regarding palladium, you can see how the South African PGM business carried the company forward through 2023. But you can now start seeing in 2024 how the relative portion of gold in terms of the contribution to our earnings has increased. And the two bars on the very right-hand side show the second half of 2023 and the second half of 2024 in terms of the contribution of gold. And one of the outstanding features of the second half of this year is that our gold business is really contributing, and we look forward to it contributing. And I think the other thing to note from this is how our earnings have stabilized even though we have got decreasing PGM basket prices. So that's a story. That's the picture that I referred to.

If we can go to the next page, please. Not only has commodity diversification created value and assisted the company through, let me say, difficult times; our move into tailings reprocessing and recycling has also become a very significant contributor. If you look at our secondary mining business, it has become a big business by mining standards, generating revenues of over ZAR 11 billion, a 10.1% contribution to the group. From an Adjusted EBITDA point of view, contributing ZAR 3.2 billion, which is a 24% contribution to the group. To me, that is smart strategic growth, especially in a complex environment with so many changes. If we go to the next slide and look at recycling, again, we've only really started to move into recycling more recently other than the PGM recycling or the catalytic converter recycling in the U.S.

But if you look at it today, a revenue of ZAR 14 billion for 2024, just over 10% contribution to group revenue, and 4.5% contribution to Adjusted EBITDA of ZAR 594 million or $32 million. So again, these businesses will continue to grow. We can do them in an affordable way, and they improve our flexibility through down cycles and so on. Next slide, please. So the other area of our strategy that to some extent has not been seen to really add value, but I want to demonstrate it, is that that relates to multipolarity, which we identified even before COVID. The world was going to deglobalize. You've had to choose which way you face, which markets you're going to prioritize, and we've prioritized the Western markets. And let's have a look at how we've been rewarded for that.

You can read the slides in detail at your leisure, but in North America, the Section 45X credits that are not reflected in these financial results yet have delivered very significant credits or will deliver very significant tax credits in cash of approximately ZAR 2.2 billion and ZAR 1.6 billion for 2023 and 2024, respectively. That's $120 million and multi-million dollars, respectively, for both mining and recycling. Our estimate of the value of the credits for 2025, based on the recently restructured Stillwater operations, is about ZAR 1 billion or $60 million. That is, I think, our rewards for being loyal to providing strategic metals in the U.S.. And I'm not sure where else you would have got that type of value addition anywhere else in the world, other than in Europe, of course, which is similar to the U.S. in that it is dependent on strategic metals.

In France, we've been very well received by the French government. In advancing the GalliCam feasibility study, we've been selected for a grant. Please remember, this is a grant, not a credit of ZAR 2.8 billion once we have a financial investment decision when we have completed that feasibility study. We are eligible for what they call the C3IV tax credit for green industry innovation. That's another value outcome from the strategy. In addition, we have the Finnish government through FMG, the Finnish Minerals Group, as a 20% co-investment partner in Keliber. In my mind, those are really tangible outcomes of the multipolarity strategy and focusing on Europe and North America as providing critical metals in those jurisdictions. Next slide, please. The other aspect I wanted to raise was our early response to a changing economic environment.

And at our August or our mid-year results in 2023, we actually shared with you how we were going to proactively respond to what we saw as a deteriorating environment. And those of you who attend these presentations will remember when the Ukraine was invaded, we already raised the issue of an environment that was going to become inflationary and started preparing ourselves. If we can just build the slide to the next portion, you would also remember at a results presentation, we used a piggy bank to indicate that we were going to save money in a piggy bank and prepare and strengthen our balance sheet. And I think I recognized there were some amusements and probably some skepticism to us actually being able to do that.

To protect your balance sheet, not only do you have to raise money, but you've also got to make sure that negative outflows that weaken the balance sheet are addressed, and we moved into a number of restructurings, both in the South African as well, in the South African region and in the U.S. The U.S. went through two. And in Sandouville, we terminated the Vale contract and started moving, accelerating our nickel sulfate concept studies, which then transitioned into the GalliCam studies going straight to PFS. In terms of reinforcing the balance sheet in 2024, and I'll discuss more about this, we embarked on a number of programs, and I'm not going to go through them all. Probably the most significant one was the stream. But in effect, we raised ZAR 35.8 billion. We improved liquidity by that amount.

To be safe and prudent, we had our covenants uplifted just to give us some headroom in case we were not successful with this. But all these initiatives have had a major positive impact on the company and its current positioning. And I'm going to show you that in the next slide. So in terms of, let's focus on the graph on the right-hand side, and I'll come back to the bullet points on the left. So in terms of net debt to EBITDA and our gearing, you can see how from 2018, from two and a half, in fact, came down to being net cash and then moved up. And the actual number, as I said, was 1.79. But if you include the stream, our pro forma net debt to EBITDA is below 1.1 now. Now, I dare say that is lower than most of our PGM peers.

And I say that and reinforce it because there was a lot of skepticism that we would not be able to keep our leverage below three times. So I trust that in future, when we say we're going to embark on these sort of programs, we will be given more credibility for achieving them. But I also want to acknowledge in a way that it's difficult for analysts to, let's say, know all the forms of funding that we can use. And I know it's complex for them to value and include. But we're not a one-trick pony. We know and we have experience of raising non-debt. We have experience of using structures such as streams. We have experience of analyzing these and fully understanding the negative and the positives of each form of structure. And we made a commitment. We would not use equity.

We would not lean on our shareholders, and we have not, and for that I am, first of all, very pleased, but also very proud. We've retained upside exposure to prices. We haven't locked ourselves into anything. As I said, we secured ZAR 36 billion of financing in 12 months. We have started well ahead of our peers. I would suggest that debt and not non-debt funding is going to get more difficult and more expensive. We have, as I said, accessed non-traditional sources of capital early, and I think that is an exceptional result for a company like ourselves. Next slide, please, so just a little bit on the stream because I've also read the reports about giving away upside, and that's not really true, so we've crystallized ZAR nine billion in future value. As you can see, it's had a very significant impact on headroom and liquidity.

It's almost a one turn in reducing leverage. In fact, it's 0.7, and important to note that that $500 million stream or ZAR 9.4 billion stream is 44% of our total acquisition cost of our South African PGM assets. 44% of what we've paid, we've raised in one stream. Now, let's understand what that stream is. It's primarily a stream based on gold byproducts and PGMs, which we get practically no value for. In terms of the impact on platinum, there's a little bit of platinum stream. It's less than 2% of our platinum. Now, remember, this is less than 2% for a 44% return on what we paid for these assets. So now, that starts putting it in context. In terms of the process you have to go through with a streamer such as Franco-Nevada, they conduct exceptionally deep due diligence.

Of course, the upside to them is the optionality of us expanding and having longer lives of mine. That is what they look for. So it's another form of due diligence on the company, which we welcome. I would also add that this is long-term non-debt type of capital. It was at competitive costs, much lower than you can get through, let's call it, vanilla financing instruments. There's no repayment of the advance payment, and there's no minimum delivery obligations. So this is an exceptional instrument for raising money and has served us well. The last thing I'm going to say is, please, when you look at this table in detail, just note the payback on investments we've achieved from these purchases. Something like Lonmin, we've paid for 12.7 times over. So to me, all very good news. Thank you, Henrico, if you could.

At this stage, I'm going to hand over to the Chief Regional Officers to present a detailed operational review. Richard will be first up. Over to you, Richard. Thank you.

Richard Cox (Chief Regional Officer of SA Region)

Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much, Neal. I think if we start off with our safety. As a company, we are now three years into our failure elimination strategy. This has been a strategy that is very much focused on identifying and mitigating the highest risk areas of our business that could result in fatals. It's very pleasing that we can see a consistent decline in terms of those lagging indicators. Looking at our top two, our serious injury frequency rates and our total recordable injury frequency rates, we've seen a consistent 15%-16% decline in those rates over the last three years.

In fact, 2024 was the best results we've ever achieved. Looking at our lagging indicators, which tracks our high potential incidents, and that includes incidents where we didn't necessarily suffer an injury, but it could have resulted in a serious injury or loss of life. We've also seen those incidents substantially reduce year on year and, in fact, month on month, demonstrating the real risk reduction across our operations. Nevertheless, despite an improving trend as well across our fatality frequency rate, it is deeply disappointing and tragic that we lost eight colleagues during 2024. Our sincere condolences go to the families, colleagues, and friends of our fallen comrades. We will not stop until as a company, and we do believe that we can mine labor-intensive operations without loss of life. This will remain our deepest commitment until such time as we achieve that.

We are at a critical juncture in our fatality elimination journey where our focus to date has largely been on identifying the risks, putting the controls in place to mitigate those risks, and embedding that throughout the organization. We are now moving to a point where we are deeply focused on behavior and ultimately how we want to drive our culture through our management routines and our leadership, ultimately underpinned by the values of the company and our value-based behavior. Moving on to our gold operations. I think when we look at the first half of 2024 in particular, it was a very tough operating environment for our gold operations. In addition to the regional restructuring that we were doing across the region, which did have significant disruption on operations, we also had several one-off incidents in the event of infrastructure failures that impacted some of our shafts.

We had some increased seismicity during the first half of the year, and then also stopped a significant portion of the Beatrix operation following a backbreak so that we could redesign that mining method, ensuring we were not placing any employees at risk. I think very pleasingly during the second half of the year, we saw much more stable and solid performance from our gold operations as they settled down. The benefits of the restructuring we started realizing, albeit many of the costs still carried through into the second half of the year, and together with an increase in gold price, that saw second half EBITDA of about ZAR 3.5 billion, which contributed just over half of the total group's EBITDA earnings for the period.

For the year as a whole, our gold operations contributed just under ZAR 6 billion worth of EBITDA, a substantial increase from the prior period. I think looking forward with our gold operations settled, with the benefits of the restructuring coming through, and a sustained increase in gold price that today is some 20% higher than what it was last year, we're very much looking forward to a continued positive output from our operations into 2025. Moving on to our SA PGM operations, we saw an annual increase of just over 4% of our operations, and these were largely steady year on year. That increase largely came from the additional consolidation of the 50% of Kroondal that we acquired from Anglo Platinum during the year.

That was slightly offset by some operational disruptions we had at Rustenburg, most notably the shaft failure at Siphumelele, which took that shaft up for almost two months, and the two weeks' worth of disruptions we had at Kroondal as a result of illegal industrial action. Nevertheless, I think the costs were well managed, particularly in the second half of the year. We saw a decline in our operating costs from H1, and year on year, an inflation-related increase. Operating costs just over ZAR 23,500 per 4E. Our total All-in Sustaining Costs increased to just under ZAR 22,000 per 4E, and that was a 9% year-on-year increase. I think some key drivers to that is the transition at Kroondal from a purchase of concentrate to a tolling arrangement that took place from the 1st of September last year.

Effectively for those four months, we saw us incurring tolling costs. But of course, that also comes with full exposure to the PGM basket price. A 16% decline in the PGM basket price year-on-year did have a significant impact on the EBITDA from these operations. We saw that declining by just under 60% to ZAR 7.5 billion for 2024. It is important to note that during the four months at Kroondal, we did not recognize any revenue or earnings for that period out of Kroondal, given that we are building up the four-month pipeline associated with the tolling contract. That metal will be returned to us from January of this year, and we will recognize the revenue upon sale of that metal as we move forward.

If we have a look at where our current PGM operations across the group are positioned on the cost curve, and we do utilize the Nedbank cost curve in this regard as both an independent source, but also looks at total operating costs as well as capital, and therefore is probably the closest reflection to an all-in sustaining cost that we see across the industry. Looking at this, most of our operations are comfortably positioned on the left-hand side of that curve or just above the 50th percentile, except for the Marikana operations where we are heavily investing through the cycle in our K4 project. The K4 capital or project capital largely comes to an end at the end of this year, 2025.

And we look forward to the following years with reduced capital and continued and sustained ramp-up in metal output that will ultimately see the Marikana operations moving down into the second quartile and therefore a very well-positioned portfolio across the global industry cost curve. I think finally, on Wednesday of this week, we did announce a new agreement that we have entered into with the Glencore-Merafe Venture. This is a significant step for us in terms of our strategy of optimizing value from our byproducts, of which chrome is a critical one. That strategy really goes to diversification of the PGM basket and enhances our resilience during times like this when PGM prices are low, but many of the other metals, in this case chrome, doing significantly well.

Underneath this revised, what we call in the CMA, the Chrome Management Agreement, the Glencore-Merafe JV will take over operatorship of all of or most of our chrome recovery plants. Through that, we look to realize significant operational synergies through a one-owner operator so cost synergies in terms of operating costs, as well as the ability for the joint venture to apply their knowledge, expertise, IsaMill technology to enhancing our overall recovery of chrome from those facilities, including the recovery of fine chrome. I think two other significant benefits to the Chrome Management Agreement. Many of you would be aware that historically, Lonmin signed a long-term off-take contract with what was then Xstrata, subsequently Glencore, under which Lonmin received very low values, less than 10% of the market-related value for its chrome. This particular contract would have run until about 2060 under the current terms.

Under the new management agreement, we have been able to accelerate the delivery into that through the synergies that we expect to realize, and on the back of the current life of mine profile, we'd expect that contract, although the Marikana contract, to come to an end around about 2033, after which Marikana will receive market-related prices for their chrome output. In addition, as part of the agreement, we have agreed that any new projects that come online on the Marikana property may be ring-fenced if required and therefore receive full market value for their chrome, even if developed prior to 2033. In particular, we have three projects, three shallow, usually two mechanized projects, therefore low cost, very low capital intensity, given that they are brownfield projects that we are progressing through a feasibility study.

This agreement certainly adds significant value to those for those to be brought online at an appropriate time given the current PGM markets. So I dare say these are three of the most attractive projects within the industry at the moment. This agreement has just further enhanced that value quite materially. Thank you very much. I'll now pass over to Charles to discuss the U.S. operating region. Thank you.

Charles Carter (Chief Regional Officer of Americas)

Thank you, Richard. We have done two rounds of significant restructuring on the Montana operations in the fourth quarter of 2023 and again in the fourth quarter of 2024. If I reflect on the first round of restructuring that drove our operating plan through the year until our second restructuring that disrupted the fourth quarter production, we delivered mined 2E production, which was stable at 425,842 ounces. We saw a 27% decline in AISC to $1,367.

Total operating costs reduced 4% to $480 million. We saw a combined reduction of $191 million in capital, with a 50% reduction in ORD and a 72% reduction in sustaining capital. Project capital declined by 62% to $16 million. We also saw the average PGM basket price decline by 21% to $988 announced through the year. This persistent low price pressure led us to a further substantial restructuring during the fourth quarter of 2024. As you are aware, we have reduced our mine production by 200,000 ounces in the 2025 plan. We placed Stillwater West Mine on care and maintenance. We increased production from our high-grade Stillwater East Mine to 130,000 ounces. We reduced production from our East Boulder Mine to 135,000 ounces by moving from six ramps to four, which in turn allowed us to push out our capital on our tailings and rock dump expansion plans.

In the process, we reduced our workforce by 636 employees and contractors, a reduction of almost 40%. These changes have significantly reduced our cash bleed. Although given the significant reduction in ounces, you will see that our AISC on a unit basis is forecast at $1,420 an ounce to $1,460 an ounce in 2025. Any future booking of the 45X tax credit has the potential to reduce this AISC forecast by $30 million or approximately $100 an ounce. Given that the 45X rules are retrospective, we are expecting that combined credits for 2023 and 2024 financial years are estimated at approximately $120 million combined. As noted at the time of our restructuring in our last market presentation, we have a three-year game plan to move these operations to a $1,000 an ounce cost structure.

As you will have seen in the industry cost curve slide covered by Richard, we are now in the middle of the pack, whereas a year ago we were the highest cost producer in the industry. Our aim is to shift to the lowest quartile over time, and I believe that we are well on the way in that journey. We set ourselves a three-year game plan to hit the $1,000 an ounce, and obviously, where we can bring that forward and accelerate it, we will seek to achieve that. Certainly from December, we started hitting our ounce and cost targets according to the run rates we have in the 2025 plan, and we have continued this through January. Most pleasingly, we were injury-free through December and January in the Montana business, and this is a first for these operations.

Given the amount of change we have been through, I think this talks to the character, commitment, and professionalism of our employees. And I'd like to thank all team members for leading in safety in this way. With that, let me hand off to Grant to cover our recycling business, where we have seen an excellent integration of Reldan into our North American recycling platform during the course of the year. Over to you, Grant.

Grant Stuart (Head of Recycle)

Thanks very much, Charles, and a good day to you all. As Neal illustrated in the earlier slide on the diversification benefits of our metal portfolio, the acquisition of Reldan has expanded our recycling footprint, providing exposure to a broader suite of precious metals and collector networks across North America, Mexico, and India.

Our autocatalyst recycling business fed 317,000 ounces of platinum, palladium, and rhodium, a 2% increase from the previous year despite persistent soft market conditions. While marginally better than 2023, there is no indication of any meaningful recovery in spent autocatalyst volumes as inflationary pressures and higher prices of new and used vehicles continue. Over the 10 months since the acquisition of Reldan, the operation has processed over 20 million pounds of precious metal bearing waste and sold 108,000 ounces of gold, 1.7 million ounces of silver, 35,000 3E PGM ounces, and 2.6 million pounds of copper. Reldan has certainly demonstrated strong safety performance, operational and financial performance, underscoring the ability to deliver value without requiring further group capital investment. The combined recycling segment contributed just under 5% of total group adjusted EBITDA, some $33 million, or just under ZAR 600 million, with Reldan contributing 45% over the 10 months.

The autocatalyst recycling operation contributed the ZAR 326 million balance with annual profit margin of 4.3%. As mentioned earlier by Neal, this excludes the Section 45X credit specific to the autocatalyst recycling operation, estimated at some $58 million or ZAR 1 billion for 2023 and $32 million or ZAR 580 million for 2024, which enhances the profitability of the recycling operations. Looking ahead, the evolving recycling landscape presents both risks and opportunities. Our strategy prioritizes long-term value creation over short-term competitive tactics, ensuring that we maintain access to critical feedstock, technology, and infrastructure to deliver the unchanged forecast of 300-350,000 PGM ounces. Reldan is looking to deliver 120-130,000 ounces of gold and 2-2.3 million ounces of silver.

Across both businesses, our key priorities include fostering a performance-driven culture, realizing synergies across the recycling operations, leveraging global sales networks for spent autocatalyst collection, and reinforcing our commitment to responsible sourcing and green premiums. With that, I will hand over to you,Mika. Thanks.

Mika Seitovirta (Chief Regional Officer of Europe)

Thank you, Grant. Greetings to everyone from Helsinki. For Region Europe, in Sandouville, we had a year of transformation and restructuring. Actually, the team did rather good job. The primary goal was to reduce the losses of the existing operations, and we managed to do it by producing 8% more than the year before and through rigorous cost management, which resulted in 43% better result as the year before. We also did good working capital management and freed cash from the operation.

At the same time, when we are preparing ourselves for the ramp-down of this operation, we believe that it will happen H1 this year. We also developed the possible future of Sandouville operations, which is the project GalliCam. GalliCam is a result of different repurposing alternatives that we analyzed, and the strategy is to take us towards battery metals and the battery metals ecosystem in France through precursor manufacturing. We are currently doing the pre-feasibility study for that, so originally, we said that we would finalize that already November 2024. However, due to a change in scope, we decided to split it to PFS 1 and PFS 2. Now, PFS as a whole will be finalized this year, Q4. We are a strategic project now. We got the status from the European Commission.

At the same time, we got a grant from Innovation Fund, which is EUR 144 million for this project. We are also eligible to another grant in France, which is called the C3IV Fund. Now, over to Keliber. Keliber construction progressed very well and on time. You can see here some beautiful pictures of the mine, of the concentrator, and of the refinery. You can see the difference, which has happened only in more or less six months in between the pictures. A lot of people have been working in the construction, and it has gone well, as mentioned. What happened last year as well is that we got the funding of EUR 500 million. We also recruited people. We are an attractive employer. The project is very much liked. Our headcount increased according to our plans as well.

What we are doing now is that due to authorities and regulatory changes and some changes also in the scope of the project, that means that it's necessary to review the CapEx needed and also the OpEx concerning the ramp-up. This work is now underway as we speak. We are now also targeting for the ramp-up H1 2026. That's the hot commission as well. And we have a change against our earlier plans and mainly due to commercial reasons. We are not going to do the external feed phase at all, but we have decided, and the current plan is that we go directly to our own ore, and that's, as mentioned, H126. There are good news as well. As you know, we have done a lot of exploration, and we are updating our reserves and the resources. They increased, actually, mineral reserves by 36.6%.

We feel that that is a very good result. We have a future here, and we have a future potential to grow. Thank you all. Over to you, Robert.

Robert Van Niekerk (Chief Technical and Innovation Officer)

Thank you very much, Mika. Hello, everybody. I'm Robert Van Niekerk, and I'll talk to the Australian region and the Century reprocessing zinc operations. The region produced 82,000 tons of payable zinc material in 2024. Disappointingly, this is not a big improvement on the preceding 10 months. Quarter one was severely impacted by excessive rainfall and flooding. Production did recover strongly in Quarter two and Quarter three, but then in Quarter four, again, production was impacted by bushfire. The bushfire was on the 19th of October, and the team did exceptionally well. They managed to protect most of the assets. Unfortunately, we did lose in excess of 23 km of large diameter poly piping by the fire, and this impacted us severely.

We were impacted for about 60 days. So I'll say again, the fire was on the 9th of October. We were in production again by the 16th of November, but we were only back to normal production on the 4th of December. We had a 22% decrease in production for the second half of 2024 compared to the same period, 2023. The All-in Sustaining Cost was $2,317 per ton. This was 17% higher than in 2023 due to what I've just spoken about, but compounded by higher royalties associated with the higher metal costs we received, and it was slightly higher sustaining capital as well. $3.5 million of the increase in the sustaining capital was directly attributable to the bushfire. During the year, we were assisted by two very strong tailwinds. We saw a turnaround in EBITDA.

The operations contributed a positive adjusted EBITDA of $34 million. This is in excess of ZAR 640 million. This compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of ZAR 15 million for the preceding 10 months. The average zinc price for the year was $2,805 per ton, significantly higher than the $2,541 per zinc ton for the preceding 10 months. We were also fortunate with lower treatment charges. The treatment charges decreased year on year from $264 a ton to $148 a ton. I am optimistic that we are going to continue to have strong metal prices in 2025, especially given the deterioration of the Australian dollar to the U.S. dollar. I also believe that our treatment charges are going to be significantly lower than the $148 we had per concentrate ton in 2024. The region is also busy developing two growth projects.

The first you are familiar with, the Mt. Lyell copper project. A feasibility study has commenced for this project, and we're expecting that to be completed by the end of this year. This feasibility study is backed by a very significant increase, a 28% or 20.8% increase in copper resources. And then we're also busy with the development of a phosphate feasibility study. In this regard, we are assessing the opportunities to leverage our existing infrastructure in the region together with a large regional phosphate deposits. And this we can bring into operation post the completion of the Century tailings retreatment project. In this regard, the feasibility study has also commenced, also which we plan to have finished by the end of the year. I think I'll leave it there for the Australian region, and I'll hand over to our CFO, Charl. Thank you very much.

Charl Keyter (CFO)

Thank you, Robert.

Turning to the financial results for the six months and year ended 31 December 2024. Revenue for the six months increased by 7%. This was mainly due to higher rand gold prices and the inclusion of Reldan for this six-month period. The effective date of the Reldan acquisition was March 2024. Although cost of sales was up 8%, on a like-for-like basis, normalizing for the Reldan operations, cost of sales increased by only 0.5%. This is very commendable cost performance, read against the backdrop of still high global inflation. Adjusted EBITDA came in at ZAR 6.4 billion, and this is the third half year in a row where we have kept EBITDA at this level. Finance expenses are partly due to the debt service charges on the convertible bond, which was issued in 2023, and the utilization of borrowings.

The gain on financial instruments reflects the impact of lower medium- to long-term commodity prices, which has a direct impact on the valuation of third-party liabilities, which include dividends and profit share to our empowerment partners. We have booked a further impairment at our U.S. operations due to the impact of consensus lower future palladium prices. Profit for the period was ZAR 1.3 billion compared to a loss of ZAR 45 billion for the similar period in 2023. No final dividend will be paid. Moving on to the full year results. 2024 saw a 1% reduction in revenue despite the inclusion of the Reldan operations. The main driver was lower PGM prices, as the basket price at our SA operations were down 16%, at our U.S. PGM operations down 21%, and at our U.S. PGM recycling operations, it was down 46%.

The reduction in PGM prices was partially offset by an increase of 22% at the SA Gold operations. Cost of sales increased 7% year on year, but again, if we normalize for Reldan, costs only increased by 1%. It is important to note that the positive impact of Section 45X is not included in any of the financial numbers. The estimated impact for 2023 is a credit to cost of approximately ZAR 2.2 billion, and for 2024, a credit to cost of approximately ZAR 1.7 billion. Adjusted EBITDA was ZAR 13.1 billion for the six months ended 31 December, compared to just under ZAR 21 billion for the same period in 2023. Finance expenses, as highlighted earlier, were impacted by the convertible bond and the utilization of our facilities, specifically the EUR 500 million facility for Keliber.

The gain on financial instruments, as explained, were impacted by lower future commodity prices, specifically PGMs and lithium. The full year impairments were ZAR 9.2 billion, with ZAR 8.8 billion at the U.S. underground PGM operations. The loss for the full year was ZAR 5.7 billion. Excluding the impairments, it would have been a profit of ZAR 3.5 billion. Headline earnings per share was flat year on year at ZAR 0.64 per share. Borrowings increased from ZAR 33.6 billion to ZAR 39.4 billion. The increase of ZAR 5.8 billion is due to the drawdowns of ZAR 5.7 billion under the Keliber EUR 500 million green facility as the project ramps up construction. Cash on hand is ZAR 16 billion, and net debt was ZAR 23.4 billion. Including the USD 500 million stream on a pro forma basis, leverage for 2024 would have been 1.1 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA.

Furthermore, had we included the ZAR 1.7 billion impact of Section 45X for 2024, leverage would have been below one times net debt to adjusted EBITDA, which is the level we have always indicated as our comfort level. Liquidity remains high, with headroom at ZAR 45.7 billion, or almost 250% of our financial policy, which requires that we have available liquidity of two months of OpEx and CapEx. Our debt maturities and the repayment profile remain very manageable, and the balance sheet is in a strong position to ensure that we continue to navigate the low PGM price environment. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I will now hand you back to Neal for the conclusion of our results.

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Thank you, Charl. And before we move on, I would urge the audience just to look at the speedometer, and it's actually marked in miles per hour. So the company's at speed.

So let me conclude with what I think the key points are. So record safety performance, however, eliminating fatalities and reducing high potential incidents is a major focus area. The balance sheet reinforcement, I'm very pleased about, and we currently have a pro forma leverage of 1.1 times, and as I've said, better than most of our peers, and especially when you consider that our earnings have now been stabilized over the last three-and-a-half-year periods. There's no doubt that our diversified portfolio ensures greater financial stability through these price cycles. Our South African gold operations are contributing significantly to our profitability, and in fact, let's call it current depressed PGM prices, we expect our South African gold business to generate more than half of our EBITDA this year in 2025.

Our recycling and tailings reprocessing businesses are delivering stable and good margins and have created significant value for our stakeholders. I think our proactive decisive restructuring of the loss-making operations has arrested the declining profitability, and you now have three and a half year periods to demonstrate that. Our multi-polarity strategy has resulted in also significant value creation. So in my view, our strategy remains relevant. However, there will be a continuing focus on the strategic essentials, as I said right at the beginning of the presentation. So finally, I'll conclude with guidance for 2025. And again, I'm not going to go through this in detail. It's much of a muchness. There's no major differences from the previous years.

I think in terms of output, the one area I would ask you to focus on are little Reldan recycling business producers almost as much gold as DRD, significant amounts of silver, PGMs, and copper. Costs have escalated in line with inflation, and I would leave it to you to read this in detail in your own time, but operating guidance shouldn't create any major surprises, so with that, let me hand over to James to manage the question-and -answer session. Thanks, James.

James Wellsted (EVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs)

Thanks, Neal. Greetings, everybody. I think I've just got two questions here, Neal, gold related. It seems we can't please everybody anytime, even though we produce a ZAR 3.6 billion EBITDA from these operations for the second half of the year. There's still some questions about this one from Chris Nicholson. You mentioned shaft infrastructure issues at the gold operations.

Could you please give a bit more detail on this? And could you please give us comfort that these assets, oh, sorry, that's Arnold van Graan, give us comfort that these assets are adequately capitalized? And should we expect a sharp increase in CapEx at these operations on the back of the higher gold price as seen elsewhere in the gold industry? And then the second one is also related: unit costs are guided up by 8%, 3%-8% year on year. Is this not a disappointing outcome given the restructuring we've done in 2024? Is ZAR 1.3 million a kg the new base AISC for the SA Gold operations?

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Thanks, James, and thanks, Arnold and Chris. I think Richard is probably the best place to answer the question in detail, but let me just say volume is a major driver of cost.

You would have seen both in the U.S. and now with the restructuring in South Africa. I think it's actually a very pleasing outcome that cost escalation has been contained to about 3% on lower volume. So the restructuring has definitely worked, and I'm sure Richard will tell us there's more benefits that will still flow through. But Rich, over to you just to pick up both of those questions. Thank you.

Richard Cox (Chief Regional Officer of SA Region)

Perfect. Thanks. Thanks very much, Neal, and good morning. Arnold, thanks for the question. I think in terms of the incidents that we suffered at gold last year, there was the one K7 incident where we had the conveyance that caught a bunton in the shaft. So from a safety perspective, we stopped that shaft for two months while we inspected the entire shaft and fixed those bunton.

Then we also had a two-week outage at our Driefontein 8 operations where we did some maintenance work on our winder. That is actually something that had been planned to be done over the break, but based on a safety assessment and risk assessment, we decided to move that forward into earlier in the year. I can assure you that we do have detailed risk assessments and plans that are done annually to make sure that our maintenance and infrastructure is appropriate. So they are well capitalized. Of course, these are old assets, so that is a big focus of ours. I can also assure you that there isn't a significant jump coming in capital at all. Our sustaining capital and our ORD capital for these operations is pretty steady going forward.

What we have in the plan right now is what we will sustain going forward, and the exposure to the gold price, we should see that full benefit coming through on the bottom line. So no, there's no capital change expected due to gold price at all. I think you can model what we have right now as fairly sustainable going forward. Chris, thanks very much. I think, yeah, just to pick up on that and perhaps just to qualify, I think obviously the All-in Sustaining Costs you see reported, that I think you've done your sort of comparison to in terms of increases total for the group, including DRD. If we look at our managed operations, which is the guidance we provide for, our guidance is in fact slightly lower versus what we achieved in 2023 across the managed operations.

So I think, as Neal said, look, that for us is actually quite pleasing. We saw a 20% drop in total output with the restructuring we did from 2023 to 2024. So being able to manage that decline in output and effectively work inflation out of the cost year on year, given that they flatten nominal terms, I actually think is a good outcome. In terms of your question, is 1.3 the next base? I do think we can still get that cost. I think it's a base certainly for the next 12-18 months. Beatrix is a stable operation. At Driefontein, we're opening up a significant new block of ground on VCR, and at Kloof, we're transitioning to a greater proportion of secondary reefs.

And I think as we see those two projects coming through, we can look to a continued decline in those costs. So I would like to see about a further 10% or so reduction on that cost base over the coming period. But for this year on the managed operations, 1.3 is probably a good number. I think including DRD, I would expect that to be closer to 1.2. Thanks, Chris.

James Wellsted (EVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs)

I think while we've got you on the mic, Richard, another question from. This is from Nkateko Mathonsi at Investec. Could you please talk us through the free cash flow generation of SA PGM assets in 2024? Rustenburg, Marikana, and Kroondal. Sure. Listen, I think what I might, given that there are a lot of intercompany movements in terms of the free cash flows, et cetera.

Charl, would you like to just comment on that change from all-in cost if you could?

Charl Keyter (CFO)

Sure, Richard. I think, Nkateko, I think to be fair, if you look at the all-in sustaining cost and if you look at the basket price, these operations were still cash generative on an all-in basis. But as Richard has pointed out, obviously, because our treasury vehicle sits within what we refer to as the old Sibanye Gold, there are quite a few intercompany movements that skew the free cash flow. But I think as a good benchmark, just using the basket price and all-in sustaining cost, you'll see that for 2024, they still made very good bottom line cash flow for the group.

James Wellsted (EVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs)

So I think it's probably worth important to add onto that is that at Kroondal, at the end of the year, we went from a POC to a toll arrangement on the 1st of September. So we didn't recognize any revenue from Kroondal at all for four months at the end of the year. And as such, no cash flow, obviously. And that's because from the POC, where we normally sell concentrates to the processing party, we then fill the pipeline before we get the refined metal back at the end of that period. So that would have had a big impact on the cash flow as well. More questions just on the 45X. When will the 45X credits for 2023 and 2024 be received? Will we get these physically in cash, or is it an offset against future taxes?

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Certainly, I think Pieter Henning, the CFO in the U.S., is best placed to pick it up. But for my understanding, it is that for the next five years, we get it in cash. But Pieter, come in, please, on the details. Yeah, Pieter, we can hear you.

Pieter Henning (Division CFO)

Thank you. Morning all. Yeah, Section 45X is for five years. You elect direct pay from the first year. We've already, with our tax returns in anticipation of the 45X, made the election for direct pay. So from the tax years effective 2023, for five years, we will get direct pay.

Post that event, from the years onwards, and there's no expiry date on the 45X as it relates to critical minerals. You will have this, first. You will apply it to your taxes payable at that period, and thereafter, you can sell the credits here in the U.S. at a discounted rate for cash as well, so at the end of the day, you will offset it to post the five years of the insured taxable income, and the balance can be converted into a cash resource quite relatively easily in the U.S. markets. We do expect, as it relates from a timing point of view, we do need to resubmit our 2023 tax returns during this year to make the claim. Depending on administration process with the IRS, we expect that hopefully this year, but I guess depending on timing, that could roll into 2026.

Neal Froneman (CEO)

The 2024 tax return will be submitted during this year of years, and that will be paid out within hopefully 12 months, and therefore also expected into 2026. Thank you.

James Wellsted (EVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs)

I've got two more questions for the U.S. PGM operations. The first from Nkateko Mathonsi. What is your targeted Palladium break-even price for the restructured Stillwater operations? And I guess we'd have to look at a Section 45X and without Section 45X price, I assume. And then do you think $1,000 per ounce AISC is still achievable at the U.S. PGM operations? From Chris Nicholson.

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Charles, will you, Neal, will you go for, yeah, sorry, Charles, please, would you pick that one up?

Charles Carter (Chief Regional Officer of Americas)

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Neal. So let me take the second question first on driving towards 1,000. So we've set ourselves 36 months to really achieve this. Obviously, where we can bring that forward, we will.

It covers multiple fronts. It's everything from logistics changes to mining areas, mining method changes, mining cycle changes, material and maintenance strategies, and, in my opinion, all of that is a people and skills focus. We're really opening up and resource loading current mining fronts, even though it's a reduced footprint. We're optimizing our fleet requirements, and we've got really two phases on the mining methodologies. Phase I, which is going to really run six to 18 months, is to fully mechanize MCF. Phase II that follows that is to convert to SLS, and where we can overlap that, we will. I think 36 months is realistic. There's a lot to do, but this is our intent. Obviously, on a unit basis, if we lift volumes with better prices, we will get that accordingly.

But the intent is to get a sustainable $1,000 an ounce cost structure to our production machine, and then to scale that up with better pricing. And as we can bring volume back on Stillwater West Mine, further down the road, it'll be on a more efficient basis. So that's the game plan. Obviously, quarter-by-quarter, you're not going to see dramatic changes there, but I think over the 12-18 months, you'll already start to see a shift underway. As I noted in the presentation, 45X effectively takes $100 an ounce off AISC. So at $950 pricing, we're still bleeding cash. $975, we're still bleeding cash. We start to get towards $1,200 with 45X, you're starting to see a break-even scenario. So this machine is very geared, very levered to price upside. It's also very levered to getting productivity improvements and then volume increases over time.

So I think it's a good game plan that we have on the go. Thank you.

James Wellsted (EVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs)

Thanks, Charles. And I think it's probably worth pointing out that that $110 per ounce benefit from 45X is actually only on the portion that applies to the mining operations. If you include the $30 million from the recycling, it actually goes up to over $200 per ounce. So depending on how you look at these things, it can be quite a big difference for U.S. operations. $60 million is quite chunky for next year. Some questions on the Appian case. From Shashi Chettiar, Citi, could you please provide some details on the status of the case with Appian over canceled Brazilian mines deal? How much are you planning to keep aside in provisions? And then Lisa Steyn at News24, is Sibanye open settlement talks?

She mentions here a worst-case scenario of cost scenario of $1.2 billion, but I think we dealt with that last year. The claim is half of that at most. So, Neal, I think that runs for you.

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Yeah. No, thanks. And I think there was one more that came in, James, from Lorenzo D'Angelo at J.P. Morgan. And he highlights that I see that the potential claim payable ranges between $0 and $522 million. So, Lisa, there's no chance of a $1.2 billion claim. I think that's the first thing. Let me say, we're struggling to see why there's actually any claim at all. But having said that, we're quite open to engaging in settlement talks, remembering that Appian has a duty to minimize the damages while we're in dispute. So let me leave it there. The rest, we can't really comment on. That's really sub judice. Thank you. Thanks, James.

James Wellsted (EVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs)

Okay, thank you, Neal. A question from Arnold Van Graan. Will we be able to recoup some of the bushfire-related losses at Century from insurance and our insurers?

Charles Carter (Chief Regional Officer of Americas)

Yeah. So I think let's ask either Barry or Rob to pick that up. Rob, back to you.

Robert Van Niekerk (Chief Technical and Innovation Officer)

Okay, thank you, Neal. And hello, Arnold. Let me start off by saying that the full cost of the fire is included in the 2024 results, while most of the insurance payments are thought to be received in 2025. Insofar as damaged equipment is concerned, we are fully covered for that after a small excess of AUD 1 million. And we also have full business interruption insurance. That being said, that comes into play after a 30-day period. So, in summary, our damaged equipment, fully recovered business interruption insurance after a delay of 30 days. Thank you, Arnold. Thanks.

James Wellsted (EVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs)

The next question, I'll just quickly answer one from Jandré Pienaar about U.S. credits: are they based on profit or cost CapEx? So the credits actually based on 10% of operating costs at our extractive operations, which is the mining operations, and then recycling as well. So it's a double benefit there. This one is on a few questions back on the gold again. Hi, Richard. At what shaft and what average depth is the new Driefontein VCR Block and at Kloof, the secondary reef project target the Main Reef. And again, at which shaft and at what average depth and does this access require pre-development? That's from Bruce Williamson. You can see the old dogs ask the very detailed questions. And then one question about whether we plan to reopen the fourth shaft.

Richard Cox (Chief Regional Officer of SA Region)

Bruce, good morning and thanks very much.

Bruce, in terms of the VCR Block at Driefontein, that's actually quite a significant block that we explored and started opening up about a year ago. It actually sits amongst the predominantly Driefontein 5 shaft and some of the extremities at Driefontein 1. So that would be a total depth of about 2,700 odd meters. So that's the VCR Block and certainly forms a big portion of what's going forward at Driefontein 5. The Turf secondary reefs we're targeting are actually the Turf and the Middelvlei Reef. We have very successfully targeted these in the past out of the Turf 8 shaft. And currently, we are looking to open that up at the Turf 1 shaft. So that would also be at a depth in the region of about 2,500, 2.2 to 2.5 km. That block of ground does require opening up.

So we do use, of course, the main infrastructure that's previously mined the VCR, but there is opening up on the secondary reefs, which is currently occurring, and part of the reason why there was a slight increase in ORD costs across turf over the last year. Thanks, Bruce. Oh, sorry, second question around reopening K4. So that's something we do continually assess, but there are no plans at the moment to open it right now. No. Thanks, Richard. I don't have any more questions from the webcast. So could we maybe go to the lines? Of course, call lines, please.

Operator (participant)

The first question that we have comes from Marina Calero of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for the call. I have a couple of questions.

Marina Calero (VP of Equity Research)

First, to follow up on the 45X, given the change in administration in the U.S., how likely do you think this program will stay in place?

Neal Froneman (CEO)

All right. Let me pick that up. Marina, thanks. I think that if the strategic metal we were producing was about, let me call it the green energy revolution, I would probably be a little bit worried. The fact is that the strategic metals we produce are strategic in terms of where I think President Trump wants to take the country and make it self-sufficient. So I don't think there's any risks related to 45X for our business. I hope that answers your question.

Marina Calero (VP of Equity Research)

That's very clear. Thank you. And one more, if I may, on Rhyolite Ridge, given that you are prioritizing the value chain in the current market environment, how likely do you think you will exercise this option this year?

Appreciate the field report evaluating the latest details, but how are you thinking about that? And when do you think you will be in a position to communicate the decision to the market?

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Again, let me pick that up. The board is currently deliberating. We've presented, let's call it our assessment, having received the detailed feasibility study. I think probably within a week, we will be able to advise the market of our decision. The funding of Rhyolite Ridge, we've always said, if we were to go ahead, it would be separately funded. But I think let's rather wait for our board to deliberate and make a final decision. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question we have comes from Adrian Hammond of SBG. Please go ahead. Y

Adrian Hammond (Executive Director)

eah, good morning. I have three questions. First, for Mika, if she's able to answer my questions on Keliber.

I'm just curious why the scope's changing and what the impact is on CapEx, and then as well as since you won't be taking in feed, you will be mining your own material. That will be assumed you're going to move into the commercial state of production as soon as next year. Are you able to give us some cost and CapEx guidance for this business for modeling purposes? And then for perhaps Neal or Charl, I see you've done a $50 million current repayment. Which assets were those? Was it Rustenburg or Kroondal? And is this separate from the Glencore JV? Has that money flowed? Would you do some more? And then since Neal invited the question for Richard, I'm going to ask what does he envisage as changes he'd like to implement for the business going forward? Thank you.

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Perfect. Thanks, Adrian.

So I'll ask Charles just to pick up the current repayments. And then I'd ask Mika to answer your question in terms of Keliber scope and guidance there. But let's start with Richard on Adrian's question regarding any strategic changes you may be thinking of, Richard.

Richard Cox (Chief Regional Officer of SA Region)

Adrian, good morning. I'm afraid the answer I'm going to give you is probably going to be a little bit boring in that. I think as a company, we've spent a good few years developing the strategy that we have. I think in many instances, that strategy has been very forward-looking and really been based on what we as a team see as very long-term fundamental issues, whether that relates to energy transition, whether it relates to multipolarity. I think we've given a lot of guidance to the market on how that strategy was developed.

I dare say I don't think that any of those sort of long-term fundamentals have changed. So the broad strategy of the company remains appropriate and certainly not something that I would be looking to significantly change at all. I have been part of developing that with the team and our board. And I think that supports it going forward. Of course, we always have to look at our current operating environment in the short term and as well as our strengths internally. And I think as you can hear in this presentation, our focus is very much at the moment on our strategic essentials balance sheet. And that's that we've got to take into consideration. So that will remain the short-term focus.

But the long-term strategy around ultimately growing our diversified base in terms of green metals will remain the long-term strategy, but will be executed as appropriate given market conditions and our current position. So, Adrian, I hope that assists.

Adrian Hammond (Executive Director)

Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Richard.

Richard Cox (Chief Regional Officer of SA Region)

So if you'd like me to take the Chrome prepay, I can pick that up as well, or.

Charl Keyter (CFO)

Rich, I'm happy to go. So in terms of the Chrome prepay, this was done 100% on Rustenburg material. As you pointed out, it was $50 million, and it was for a short period of six months. I think this was basically a first transaction to make sure that we can execute the Chrome prepay. And this does not impact the JV that we announced recently. Would we do more? I think for now, we've done the self-help measures that we believe had the biggest impact.

We'll keep this in our back pocket in case we need it going forward. And then you would also know, for instance, we've got about ZAR 25 billion of inventory sitting on that we can always also use to monetize that. So, Adrian, we have a lot of dry powder to make sure that we can protect the balance sheet. But I don't think we're going to rush out and do further prepayments because as the balance sheet stands now and our liquidity, there's no need for us to do anything else beside what we've done to date.

Adrian Hammond (Executive Director)

Thanks, Charl.

Neal Froneman (CEO)

And Mika, if you can answer Adrian's first question, please.

Mika Seitovirta (Chief Regional Officer of Europe)

Thank you, Neal. And thanks for the question. Concerning the Keliber CapEx, so as mentioned, based on the regulatory changes and changes from the authorities, including consequently some changes in the scope of the project.

So as we speak now, we are working on an updated CapEx profile. We have also included into this work our ramp-up considerations and risk mitigation on that one. I would say that within four to six weeks, we are in a position to announce our stakeholders the updated numbers. Concerning your second point about external feed, actually not using it is improving our numbers this year because of the current market environment. And we will be on time with the mine so that we have enough own ore, which obviously has a completely different cost profile. So this is how we plan to do the H126 ramp-up of the refinery. Thank you.

James Wellsted (EVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs)

I think that's it. We don't have any more questions on the webcast on the chorus line. No questions, I believe. So, Neal, would you like to say a few wrapping up words?

Neal Froneman (CEO)

Yeah.

So again, I just want to thank everybody for joining the call. I hope you found our presentation interesting. I must say 2024 was a year where we implemented what I want to call austerity measures. We arrested the declining earnings profile. You can see that started some way back already. I believe the company is very well positioned. And I would just like to thank the Sibanye-Stillwater employees and the senior management team for working through what has been quite a difficult period, especially when you consider there's been significant job losses. Looking forward, though, I think the company is very well positioned, especially relative to our peers. And again, let me say I'm very pleased with the CEO succession transition that we're entering into. And certainly between Richard and I, over the next few months, we'll ensure an orderly transition with minimum disruption.

So again, thank you for your time, and please have a good and a safe day. Thank you.