Tharisa (JSE:THA) — Interim Results for the six months ended 31 March 2025

0:00 Good morning and welcome to the THARISA PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this quarter presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and they can be submitted at any time by the Q and A tab situated in the right corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives in the meeting itself. However, the company can view the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Ilya Growlich. Good morning, sir.

0:29 Good morning, and thank you very much. Just a brief introduction from my side. Our management team is is online. As you can see, all the company information is also available on our website, including the results booklet, the short form, sends an RNS announcement, as well as this presentation, and a copy of this presentation recording will be available on the website as soon as the meeting has concluded. Of the management team in London, I will hand over to my CEO, Fivos Peroulis, who will then take you through the initial results and then hand over to the rest of the management team. Thank you.

1:04 Good morning, and welcome, and thank you for joining this half year interim results presentation for our financial year 2025. Joining me here in London is Bernie Prime, MD of Mining Holdings and Andrew Henward, our FD for Caro Mining Holdings. And in Cypress, Michael Jones, our CFO of the group. So moving on to the first slide, we really are passionate about innovating the resources company of the future. And you can see that we are involved in a vertically integrated value accretive pipeline of exploration, mining, processing, smelting, refining, marketing, sales, logistics, and ultimately producing precious metals, chrome alloys with our redox flow energy storage system.

2:03 We are focusing on energy storage and the massive demand that is forecast coming forward and the byproduct of base metals. These are critical and strategic minerals, and we believe we're in the right place. We're in the right jurisdiction to benefit from the increased focus on securing these critical minerals and metals. So what are the key highlights for our half year? Safety is a core value of ours. And as I always say, it's not necessarily a priority or a a number on a checklist embedded in everything that we do, and we're very pleased to report industry leading safety statistics at the THARISA mine in South Africa, point zero two lost time injury frequency rate per 200,000 man hours worked, and at CARRO platinum, point zero eight.

2:51 As I mentioned, this is a core value of ours and is entrenched in everything that we do. Just to recap, on our half year production, we produced PGMs at some 62,400 ounces and chrome concentrate production of some 755,400 tons of chrome concentrate. In the context of severe weather inclement weather, we had severe thunderstorms, lightning events, which did impact our operations in the first half. And as you'll see during the course of the presentation, we are optimistic in terms of our output for the second half of this year. When we look at the progress that we've made in various aspects in terms of the development areas that we focus on, we have completed the DFS that is undergoing a technical third party review for the THARISA Minerals West Portal underground.

3:50 We will share with you today the value enhancements that we've been evaluating at Cara Platinum. In terms of our AKA metals beneficiation strategy, we've cemented our focus on downstream beneficiation of platinum group metals with us commissioning in the second half of this year our first PGM reactor, and we are producing chrome alloys that we currently sell. And then the commercialization of our Redox one long duration energy storage battery is well on track with us moving to megawatt scale in the new calendar year. So just touching on the vital numbers for the six months In the context of a fairly muted PGM basket price of $1,403 per ounce, slightly up from the prior period or comparable period of 4.4%, and then a metallurgical chrome concentrate price of $253 per ton, that down 12.2%.

4:54 So in the context of lower output and lower PGM and and chrome prices, you'll see that our revenue came in at $280,800,000, down some 24%. EBITDA of 43,800,000, that down 45% year on year, but still generating a net profit after tax in spite of these, constraints of $8,200,000, for the half year.

5:22 Pleasing to report is that we are still generating cash from our operations, some $36,000,000, down from the $86,000,000 in the prior comparable period. And then importantly, we still continue to invest in our business, spending capital of some $52,500,000 with $12,800,000 going into Cara Platinum for the six months. Ending the half with cash and cash equivalents of a $193,600,000. This all resulting in a headline earnings per share of 2.9 US cents. And I think the big news here is that we considered at length at our board meeting and with the board of directors, what our dividend policy is, which you recall is 15% of net profit after tax. And we elected to match last year's dividend of €1.5 cents, which results in a much higher ratio of 54.3 of impact. And it really talks to the belief in our underlying business, the buoyant market prices, current spot price of PGMs, $1,500, metallurgical chrome grade prices trading between 295 and $305.

6:42 So outlook for the next six months looking very positive. And then coupled with that, we are announcing today our second share repurchase program of 5 US million dollars. The first program, which we undertook last year, proved to be very successful and highly supportive of our equity and and share deep value story. So with that, I'll move on now to just unpacking why we are feeling more positive around the PGM outlook. So we've just come out of platinum week in London, and the general consensus is a positive outlook in terms of supply constraints on the one hand and then more robust demand coming in from a number of sectors.

7:37 And you can see the graph on the right hand side, which I'm not proposing to go through in detail. PGMs play a vital role in many industries, not just auto catalytic applications in the commuter or automobile industry, but vast from industrial, jewelry, electronics, medical applications, and and processing power as well. So with that outlook, we look at what the deficits of forecast and have been over the last few years, and we see platinum having reacted quite well to this outlook of increased demand, constrained supply, and with substantial increase in jewelry demand in China as well as coin, ETF, and bar, as we refer to investment demand for platinum in particular, has seen current prices elevated in the region of $1,060 or for sort of average price of sub $1,000 for the last twelve months. So we really look at the BEV penetration, battery electric vehicle penetration, and the slowdown and the pivot to hybrid drivetrains and range extenders or ERVs, eREVs as is referred to, which utilize small engines, either petrol or diesel, to provide charging capacity or generating capacity for

9:09 a battery or electric drivetrain. So this advent and shift to these new energy drivetrains has meant more demand for PGMs for catalysis of the tailpipe emissions. So short to medium term outlook, looking positive. And then we look to the multi decade PGM demand that the hydrogen economy can and potentially will provide. And we see that the European Union looking at independence and security of energy supply are announcing big support for hydrogen projects and new technologies and applications of these critical metals. So with sustained deficits, we see above ground stocks being depleted, supporting a balanced environment and what we believe, hopefully, is a continued positive trajectory in terms of the PGM basket price outlook.

10:06 In terms of chrome, we have remained consistent in our view that chrome plays a vital role in terms of the modernized global economy. And you can see the multitude of applications beyond stainless steel in terms of industrial applications, in terms of renewable energy applications, and in our in the in our instance, chrome iron redox flow batteries as an energy storage solution. So there is no substitute for chrome. It is the component that makes stainless steel stainless, and in that essence, South Africa, containing more than 72% of the world's resources is critical supplier, and the Theresa mine supplying around 10% of Chinese imports is a key strategic supplier of this critical metal.

11:00 If you look at global stainless steel production growth for twenty twenty four, that increased some 7% at 62,600,000 tons. And we look at this on a on a sort of more conservative basis, and we say, if stainless steel grows at a 3.5% CAGR, we will require an additional 1,800,000 tons of chrome concentrate per annum. Put simply, that means you need to build another THARISA mine every year just to maintain that chrome unit demand. So with that in mind, we see stability and a very balanced market, potentially even going into physical deficit depending on potential supply constraints, logistics challenges, and so forth. When we look at energy storage, we see the demand growing exponentially with a market forecast to be $3,000,000,000,000 by 2040.

11:58 A terawatt hour of storage is required, and we believe that even if we play a small role in providing a solution through our redox flow battery, we can benefit from this massive demand. Now moving on to the important part of today's presentation, I'd like to hand over to Michael Jones to run through the financial highlights. Thank you, Phevis, and welcome and good morning to our audience who've joined us for results presentation this morning. Our results for the six months period ended 03/31/2025 have really been achieved in an operating environment where the group has managed through operational challenges as well as increased uncertainty arising from the American trade policies, which led to global volatility in currency markets as well as impacting the financial markets, particularly currency, but also the outlook for global growth and inflation.

12:55 And against this particular backdrop, it's very pleasing that our co product business model at the Trees of Mine producing both platinum group metals and chrome has again proved its mettle with profitable operations and cash flow generations. This has enabled us to maintain our three pillars of investment: one, invest in sustainability of our operations and for the Treesome Mine, which is a multigenerational asset, it's also funding and working through on the studies, as Phebe was mentioned, on the transition to underground mining in parallel with the open cost mining, which is going to unlock an excess of sixty years of additional life of mine. On the expansion capital, we continue to invest strategically in a Tier one asset, the Kora Platinum project on the Great Duck in Zimbabwe, as well as in our projects and opportunities such as Redox One, which is a chrome Redox for a battery long and deep storage.

13:56 And then, of course, the third pillar is our commitment to capital discipline and returning funds to shareholders. And as Phebe was mentioned, interim dividend of 1.5¢ and a share repurchase program of $5,000,000 which I'll touch on in more detail going forward. Just to touch on it again, net cash flow from operations, 36,000,000 and net cash of $87,600,000 at the March 31. Just having a look further at some of the numbers and detail behind the numbers mentioned earlier, our revenue of $280,800,000 There is a decrease of 23.9% on the comparable period. There are a couple of factors driving this. There was a reduction in our sales of both Patent Group Metals by 13.5%, chrome by 8.8%, PGM basket price up marginally 4.4% at $14.00 $3 per ounce, and the metallurgical grade price down 12.2% at $253 per tonne.

15:01 If we then start looking at segmental contribution of our revenue and we work this out on an FCA basis, in order to calculate it at the gate, the Theresa Mine gate, and we exclude the shipping and freight costs that are associated with the chrome to a true reflection of that contribution. The chrome contribution to revenue is some 68.7%. And if you look at this further metallurgical grade, which is used in the stainless steel industry, production of some 86 of the total chrome, and this is exported primarily to China, Indonesia and more recently into the Indian market. Our specialty grades, which include foundry and chemical grade and our premium product, some 13.8% of our overall production.

15:47 PGM revenue contributed 26% to our sales and platinum marginally comprising major constituent components at 36.8% and rhodium while comprising less than 10% of the full split contributing 35% to the overall revenue. I'm not going to go through this slide in any detail. It's a unit cost. There's a lot of information on here, but I do want to touch on a number of figures. I think the reef tons mined, up 14.3% at 2,400,000 tonnes, impacting favorably on the cost per reef tonne mined with increased volumes absorbed on the fixed cost element at $38.5 per tonne, down 12.7%.

16:37 Tonnes milled relatively constant period on period and the online cash cost per tonne milled flat at $56.8 per tonne. We're all well aware that Theresa Minerals operates in a weakening currency environment, But unfortunately, there's no help from the currency over this period from a cost perspective with the rand effectively strengthening marginally to 18.2 to the dollar. Another contributing factor to the favorable cost was the reduction in the ore purchases. With improvement in overall production, there was less reliance on ore purchases, which in the prior period was 29% of our total online cash cost reducing to 7%, and we're seeing the benefit coming through on the cash cost per tonne milled.

17:25 We are a co product producer, but if we look in all in cost per platinum group metal ounce, I'm going to take the whole basket of them, we take the credits from the chrome sales. You have an all in cost that's sustaining cost of the CapEx included, but at the trees of mine, but excluding car of platinum, $306 per ounce. And need to measure that against the price of $14.00 $3 and recently as of this morning, a spot basket price for THARISA of $15.25 Now I like this next graph because I really believe that this graph depicts what happens or happened over the comparable period, and it's effectively an EBITDA waterfall graph and reconciling from the prior period to the current period's $43,800,000 I'd like to focus on a number of the bars within that chart. You'll see the red ones in the middle, and that is an impact of the reduction of 8.8% in chrome volumes and a very material impact on our overall EBITDA of chrome prices, which reduced by 12.2%.

18:31 The green bar mining commodities, that's the benefit of our improved production and therefore reduction in the requirement to purchase run of mine ores. And then selling expenses, while it shows as a favorable selling expenses were flat overall and the, I suppose, improvement there was really unfortunate as a consequence of the reduced sales volumes rather than reduction in overall costs. And that results in our EBITDA of $43,800,000

19:03 Our gross profit is down at $39,900,000 for the six months, and the gross profit margin is significantly down at 14.2%. If, however, we have a look at the year going forward, we have seen an improving trend in our overall production. We have seen an improvement in PGM prices and the chrome market has stabilized at the $295 to $3.00 $5 per tonne. And this would therefore flow through to the profits expected in the second half and therefore an improvement in recovery in our overall gross profit margin.

19:40 We are committed to investing in the future of THARISA and for the first six months, we spent $52,500,000 on CapEx that included $12,800,000 on Cora Platinum and $11,600,000 on deferred stripping. In the comparable period, we spent some $114,000,000 of which Cora Platinum comprised $63,000,000 We will be presenting later on more detail on the Cora Platinum project,

20:07 but just to mention what we have done is while we are closing out on the funding for Cora Platinum, we continue to invest and are committed to ensuring various infrastructure projects, whether it's the water supply, electricity and so forth, continue so that once fully funded, we can expedite the delivery on that Tier one project. If we look forward for the year as a whole, we had budgeted $104,700,000 on capital expenditure, excluding Coral Platinum. Looking where we are at the moment, there might be an under expenditure on that. We continue to review our capital expenditure based on our requirements for other new equipment, used equipment and so forth, and also in light of where the commodity prices were over the last six months.

20:53 Including our capital budget is some $20,000,000 that has been allocated to the underground studies and also the early works to ensure that we have ready access to the portals and that the portals are made safe. Just touching on Coral Platinum, the capital commitments at the moment outstanding of $55,200,000 and that will be funded from the cash that they currently hold on balance sheet and an undrawn commitment against Trees and Minerals for just over $30,000,000

21:25 Our balance sheet remains healthy with $193,600,000 in cash and cash equivalents and we generated cash of some $36,000,000 for the six months. After taking off our debt of $106,000,000 net cash of $87,600,000 If we just focus for a moment on the graph on the top right, we reconcile there between the cash that we generated on a free cash flow basis, analyze it out to sustaining CapEx and then the expansion CapEx. There was a reduction in net cash flow from operations, and this is to be expected with the reduction in the chrome concentrate prices, so net cash from operations 36. We effectively invested the same amount in sustaining operations and then in capital growth and particularly R and D, is Redox One and our beneficiation projects being undertaken by Arco Metals, a further $16,300,000 giving a negative free cash flow after investment growth and sustaining operations of $16,500,000

22:28 Just touching on our total debt, it's $106,100,000 There is a very significant short term portion of some 73% equating to $77,500,000 of short term. And just touching on that, you'll see on the pie charts on the right that there is a bond there. It's a bond that was issued by Cara Mining Holdings. It's listed on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange, and that bond matures at the beginning of December. We have commenced discussions with both the existing bondholders and new potential investors and a significant appetite and we believe that this bond will be refinanced at the appropriate time and that work stream, as I mentioned, has already commenced.

23:13 We also have various term loans and what we're doing is you'll notice because of the significant short term debt is we have undertaken negotiations and signed term sheets to extend the term loans and raise additional funds and capital to be used for funding the underground projects when that cash call is required. Trade finance, its short term debt, some 18.9% and that is the funding for the chrome and we will keep rolling that as we go forward. I think very pleasing one, it's a small facility. We did secure a million facility from the Bank of China. It is a three year voluntary payment term loan of R150 million revolving credit facility partially drawn down of R100 million and then foreign exchange contracts as well.

24:02 So that is also included in the overall debt calculations.

24:09 As indicated previously, we are committed to providing returns to shareholders. We did declare an interim dividend of $0.15 per share, which matches that of our comparable period interim dividend, and it exceeds our dividend policy of 15% of net profit after tax at a very healthy 54.3%. When we assessed the dividend, we did not look just at the profits of the last six months. We also looked forward at where we expected the results of the group to go. Profits for the last six months, we had operational challenges, chrome prices were under pressure, they have recovered, PGM prices have recovered, and we have an improving production trend. And on the back of that, it has given us confidence to declare a dividend of zero one five dollars In total then, we have distributed $114,900,000 to our shareholders over the past ten years.

25:04 This equates to a cumulative distribution of US41.25 dollars per share. If you look at our share price at the time we prepared the slides, the net cash per share comprised 38% of our overall share price.

25:19 In the past year, we had a very successful share repurchase program. And again, we've approved a normal share repurchase of $5,000,000 taking into account the demands on our capital going forward for both underground and for Cora Platinum, we believe this to be a reasonable amount to allocate to such program. And in our current price, which is we consider to be seriously undervalued, that this is an extremely good investment and we expect to get the benefit for all our shareholders from that share repurchase, which will be announced in full in the next few days. I've given a very high level overview of our financial results for the six months. I'd like to now hand over to Phevis, who will talk us through strategy, thereafter underground, and then the Cara team will present on the Cara Platinum project.

26:08 Thank you. Thank you, Michael. And just touching on strategy and the privileged position we find ourselves in with being the custodian of two multigenerational shallow, very large assets being the THARISA mine in South Africa,

26:26 as illustrated on the southwestern limb of the Bushveld Complex, the largest geological formation for both platinum and chrome in the world. And then geographically located in the middle chamber of the Great Duck in Zimbabwe on a very large tier one resource in the Kara Platinum resource on the great Top, the second largest geological formation for platinum group metals.

26:53 And the approach that we've taken is different. We think out of the box. We challenge convention, and we apply innovative thinking to unlock value. And you can see how we've grown over the years. We're we have an integrated sales, marketing, and logistics business that's wholly owned. We have our wholly owned beneficiation site looking at unlocking value through the downstream beneficiation of our platinum group metals and chrome concentrates. And then in Dortmund and Cypress, we have our redox flow battery development team looking to commercialization.

27:33 So what is the core investment thesis? So we have a growth focused strategy. This requires patient capital, patient investor, and long life strategic thinking. And this allows us to unlock the multigenerational benefit of these resources. And a measured calculated approach is prudent when it comes to unlocking the value. We've seen the lack of capital investment in our PGM industry in South Africa, and this leads to supply constraints going forward and ultimately benefits this long term focused strategy. We are dividend paying, and we uniquely positioned being a producer of these co product metals to benefit from the commodity cycles. And we've seen that over the years, almost counter cyclicality of the PGM and chrome basket prices, and we've managed to remain profitable throughout the cycle.

28:36 We are very excited about the expansion into value accretive downstream opportunities, be it refining our PGM metals, the chrome alloys that we're using in the grinding media and raw stainless steel, and then the energy storage sectors. So what have we got? Our flagship project is the Theresa Mine. It has just over 39,000,000 ounces contained PGMs and some 165,600,000 tons of contained chrome. That's a 100% chrome content, making it a long life strategic supplier of both of these critical metals. Moving further north, our first phase of the Karo platinum project contains 12,000,000 ounces in reserve, and this is the open pitiful resource.

29:22 And thereafter, a vast resource of some 96,000,000 ounces of platinum group metals. So when we look at the portfolio close to a 140,000,000 ounces of PGMs, it carries very important strategic long term value. And then when we look at beneficiation, we look at it through a strategic lens. We look at creating independence, accessing increased margins and different markets, and ultimately having access to the final metals that we can market and place and out and utilize in different technologies like the redox flow technology. And we are investing in small opportunities that could unlock value for the use of these critical metals.

30:14 So with that, I'd like to pivot now to the phase transition to our underground portal development on the West Pit of the Teresa Mine. We operate three open pits at the Teresa Mine, the East Pit, which accounts for around 70% of our production. The West Pit, around 25%, and the Far West, around 5% of our monthly and annual production. So the advantages of having a shallow ore body, we have been mining the open pit for the last sixteen years, means that we can develop a low cost access to an underground board and pillar mechanized mine on a decline on reef development.

31:01 And this allows us, one, to minimize capital into the project as well as producing a undiluted run of mine feedstock for our processing plants. With this, the obvious benefits are there's less waste development and stripping compared to our open pit. It has multitude of ESG benefits in the fact that we're not moving as much pulp. We're not consuming as much diesel, and the development is on reef and has some significant cost and infrastructure benefits. We use a smaller fleet. Skills availability is predominantly underground mining in the region.

31:46 And to start with, we will utilize a mining contractor model to minimize the upfront capital. So in the top right hand side, you can see a aerial view of the West Open Pit. We will start the development, and we have already started with the site preparation for the m g two portal in shafts. You can see illustrated in green. This will then link up at a later stage with the m g four portal development, and then we will drive out the MG two shaft under the MG two portal. And this really is a dual development, and we'll be mining reef packages of approximately three meters in height. So significant development and large board and pillar mechanized mine. So where are we? We've received a positive tick from the DFS. It is undergoing a technical review by a third party and should be released shortly.

32:46 And and on the release of that, we'll come to the market with the definitive numbers, timelines, which are we are illustrating on the right hand side in terms of the West underground development and then the East following from 2030 with early development and reaching peak capacity by 2035 from both the West underground and possibly the East when we make that investment decision. Importantly, all the geotechnical and geohydrological studies have been completed, and we have converted our first ten years of underground operations into mineral reserves with huge potential to unlock in excess of sixty years of continued underground mining. So as mentioned on the previous slide, it's a twin portal development, and this will be on reef development, which reduces the timeline to ore, and we will be mining development tonnes, which will be fed into the processing plants.

33:51 The design is mechanized board and pillar. We are targeting from both portals 255,000 tonnes per month at steady state, and you'll see we reached that by 2029. So approximately three year ramp up to full capacity. And as previously mentioned, we have already started with the early works program and the operational readiness from the manpower infrastructure and development perspective. So very exciting transition and expansion for our operations to this underground waste pits development. With that, I'd like to hand over to Bernie to give us an update on the Mucarro project.

34:37 Thank you, Phebe, also, and good morning, everybody. Pleasure to be here to really provide you with the status of play at at this hugely exciting project. It clearly, as Fever said earlier, fits into the strategy for THARISA in providing that long term growth and supplying the PGMs into the world's global economy. This is a one of the two largest platinum deposits in the world that both on top of South Africa. This is the second largest, and we have a hugely long life project. It is a significant grade of some sick three grams a ton for six e, and we built this and designed this to allow for future proofing for expansion and maximizing the assets of the infrastructure.

35:27 This presentation, want to focus on the extensive work that we've done to date, so that you can see the the progress we've made and the opportunities that that work has given us in giving us value enhancement opportunities. So where are we in Zimbabwe? The Great Dike is this north to south geological phenomenon stretching some 500 kilometers north of Varari down to the bottom. There are three large platinum producers in Zinplatz being the biggest, Unki, and then Mimosa. And then we are the most developed project, and the last one is Darwendale, is which not progressing currently owned a 100% by the government. You can see the relative production rates on the right hand side of that table.

36:16 We will be the almost equal second. And as we do the expansions, which I'll speak to shortly, we will easily become the second largest behind ZIMPLATS. Zimbabwe has a long history of platinum production for some thirty to forty years. It's established, and mining is a cornerstone of the economy, some 18% of the country's GDP. We will we are currently one of only two greenfield PGM projects in in state of play. The other one is in South Africa, and you can see on the right there our resource and reserve estimates. These are fully drilled out for the open pit into measured and indicated categories.

37:05 We have a fully detailed mine plan and a competent person's report standing behind that. The underground, which has a potential for another fifty years to develop some of the 96,000,000 ounces that are in situ, gives us great long life opportunity. We have all the key documents in place for our license to operate, both from the government and from local, authorities. The key point for any greenfield project is not only geology, but what about your infrastructure? We are fortunate that we are building a very large dam, which I'll show you in a subsequent photograph, to cater for all our water needs, both now and our future expansion. Only 30 kilometers away is a very large substation, and we're bringing high voltage electricity.

37:55 We have excellent road access. And, of course, with the background of Zimbabwe having very high education literacy rates and a long history of mining, we have great support for personnel with the right skills for both build and develop this project. To date, with all the construction that we've done, advised that 99% of our personnel in country are building this here have been Zimbabwe employees, which is very pleasing. We've focused to date on a lot of the work on derisking the project, and I'll go into this a bit more in detail and also shortening the schedule so we can bring the cash flows earlier into the into account. As we've gone through this development and we have, as you're probably aware, last year slowed down a bit of the development given the stubbornly low platinum prices until recently, we looked at value enhancements, and I'll be talking about the base metals coproduction and the underground planning that we've commenced on.

39:03 We focused on derisking in really five main areas. That is the geology. I indicated earlier that we fully drilled out, and we've got a a fully developed measured and indicated reserve. We've done a full mining plan, and we've done a 100% of the design and engineering of the project. The other two high risk areas for construction, we're in earthworks. It's always challenging when you dig a hole in the ground and what you find. We've completed those to a 100%. And the civils are some 80% concrete, and you can see in the picture there on the right, the extensive mill foundation, bill structures, and just to advise you there's more concrete below the surface it which you can't see than the concrete you can see. So these are significant structures, and there's been a lot of concrete poured throughout the site.

39:58 Procurement is 78%. We've done all the long lead items and fabrication of steel. And then as we go into electrical and instrumentation is about 37% complete. I've talked about bulk water and electrical power. They are secured, a key key requirement for any project. As we move forward through 2025, we've commenced a tender for the mining contract. This is a large contract. We have a relatively high stripping ratio, and we need a highly competent mining contract to help us move the extensive amount of material some 1.4 to 1.5 a million BCM per month. We will this is an international tender, and we will look to close that in the third quarter of this year and then start mining with that contractor towards the end of this year.

40:50 Once we close all the final funding, which Andrew Henry will talk about in our last slide, we expect up to fifteen months of final construction until we can put first ore in mill. This gives you a very good Google Maps picture. I indicated to you the water supply right to right. We're building a large dam at Chirondazi that will hold an immense amount of water that can supply both our first stage and our second stage project. To the bottom left of the picture, you'll see the concentrator and where the mining contractor would be. We are in close proximity to the the mine the first mine pit there, KPSE, Cairo Platinum Southeast, and the ore body goes directly north from there.

41:40 We have a substation, and that red line is the high voltage power line, some 30 kilometers to the Slough Power Station. And and we have a tailings dam outlined by that pink outline just built to the north of the contract of of the concentrator. So you can see it's a compact area. It's a big project, but everything that we need is in close proximity. I think this photograph demonstrates, the extent of construction that we've done. We spent over a $140,000,000 to date on the project, but then studies exploration and on construction. I do wanna point out, I mentioned access to the site. On the left there is the main highway. That is a fully bitumen road, which is about ninety minutes from Harare or the international airport.

42:30 So access is superb. I know all of you may have visited sites where you've traveled for hours over bumpy roads. This is probably one of the best access sites I've ever worked in. Just to give you an idea of area of that, that construction area is probably about the size of four to five football fields. So you almost need a bicycle to walk or to drive around it. I mentioned earlier long lead items. Here's some of the bigger ones. The primary mill in the middle there, the secondary mill with the painted in blue. We have these very large flotation cells, the high intensity flotation cells. There's 16 of those. Only a picture of one of those. Immense size. And then we one very large 175 kVA transformer, and all of these are in storage, ready to be transferred to site when we want to do this. So we're well advanced on procurement.

43:29 This is part of the exciting part for the platinum project. Obviously, our phase one is is produce the PGM reef, and that is that diagram in the middle shows you the grade distribution as you go through the the ore body from top to bottom. So we mined the platinum reef. You can see the grades of platinum, palladium, and some gold in there. About 10% of our revenue is gold and silver. But sitting on top of that platinum reef is a base metal reef, which we have to mine anyway to get to the platinum reef. So with the opportunity of having that almost free issue base metal reef, and we've got all the infrastructure of power water in place, it just makes a logical sense to build a base metal concentrator alongside the platinum concentrator to treat that and then be this is becomes hugely cash flow accretive.

44:29 It it we would operate that for ten years because that's the life of the open pit. And then after that period of time, that concentrator can convert to well, actually just transfer. There's not much work needed to a second platinum concentrator, which we can then utilize as we develop the underground mine and then hence double our platinum production. We are, over the first ten years, really a co product as we see at the top there, with 30% of our gross revenue coming from this base metal reef. Obviously, a very successful model as THARISA has outlined earlier in the slides. The last part of the value enhancement that we've been working on is the underground development.

45:18 We've embarked on a drilling program of 27,000 meters. This is to do the shallow drilling just along a strike of the open pit, long strides of as we go north through the Great Dike. And this is to identify some further 45,000,000 tons or another nearly ten years at the expanded production rate of 400,000 tonnes per month. That that that drilling program will give us that resource that we require to be able to move ahead. That will take us about ten months from now to come out to the market on the results of that drilling program. The drill holes are quite shallow. We would look to do a similar to THRESA declines.

46:05 We won't be utilizing a shaft in the earlier days. We'll put be putting in portals and be mining it at a parent deck across the ore body to simplify the mining method. So what does this mean in terms of PGM 60 equivalent annual contribution from both the base metals and then the future underground? The first one, number one, shows you the of the first ten years, the platinum production from our platinum concentrator. Number two is the production from the BMR in PGM equivalents, and you get to about 350,000 ounces. And after ten years when those open pits phase out, you will then transfer into the underground with both concentrators then producing PGMs.

46:56 And you'll ultimately be at a circa 450,460,000 ounce producer eight years, twelve onwards, thirteen years onwards from first door in mill. So exciting today and exciting tomorrow and great growth opportunity. Now I'd to hand over to Andrew for our last slide on on the funding structure for for Cairo. Thank you very much, Bernie. I think just illustrative to start the discussion was to to indicate sort of the Cairo basket price over the last almost six years. We've been lower for longer, as you can see on the right hand side. And pleasingly, we've started to see an uptick in price. The car basket price this morning now coming in over a thousand $400 an ounce, having gone down to sort of levels of 1,150 previously.

47:50 So I think in line with the fundamentals that we outlined earlier. The project is profitable. It it enjoys solid margins, certainly at the current basket price, and it did at the lower prices that I indicated. Pricing really is fundamental to the projects as it would be at any stage in the project. And the PGM market fundamentals as we're currently seeing, as we outlined earlier, are supportive. That said, just looking at the various pricing levers that we are looking at, the top three are highly advanced. THARISA PLC has committed a $160,000,000 to the project. The VFX bond that we issued circa two and a half years ago, that closed raising $37,000,000.

48:40 And as Michael indicated, we're looking to extend that and increase that. That has been a strategically very important and successful raise. We've done that in country, in dollars, and very well supported by the institutions in country. As far as the debt portion is concerned, we are in advanced discussions with the lender syndicates, South African and African banks. We're targeting a $165,000,000 of of that funding. The technical due diligence and the various lender due diligences are well advanced in those. The final two that we would be looking to to support the project are Goldstream. I think as you're aware, Cora has a very high eight or 9% gold contribution to its pro split higher than the THARISA mine.

49:29 And there, we're looking at a gold stream in the region of 50 to $100,000,000. Terms have been received on that. PGMs are obviously core to us. The gold certainly is beneficial to the basket, but the stream does make sense in a project such as this. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle is a strategic investment that is well progressed. Again, dependent on the stream, we would be looking at a strategic investment from about a $100,000,000. That's progressed. As far as the timing is concerned, I think as as we've mentioned, once we've got this squared away, we would be looking at first ore and mill starting fifteen months after we close the financial fundraising. Thank you, Andrew. And then just in closing, we are passionate about what we do, and we do make a difference in people's lives.

50:21 And it talks to our our statement of enriching lives through innovating the resources company of the future. We've been operating for sixteen years, been cash generative for eleven years, profitable for ten. As Michael mentioned, we've returned some $115,000,000 to shareholders. And as you can see, we've invested a significant amount of capital in sustaining and developing these vast resources that we we hold and have a responsibility, you know, to develop responsibly of some $832,000,000 to date. And this talks to our commitment to the underlying fundamentals of, the extractive industry and the benefit and the role it plays, in terms of the global economy.

51:09 With that, I'd like to close and hand over, to Ilya to run through the q and a for us. Thank you, Ilya. Thank you. Let me start pulling up some questions. There's also some questions relating to to the THARISA underground, and I'll pull up the relevant presentation slides, and you can elaborate on that, Phebeus. But let me start with the chrome business. First one is about the chrome production guidance for the next half, bearing in mind that we, as a company, have a total annual guidance of about 140 to 160 PGMs and 1.65 to 1,800,000 tonnes. So I think the question relates to where we see ramping up from here given the slightly better production outlook after the first six months.

51:55 So as I think you can tell, we haven't revised our guidance. And so we are cautiously optimistic that we will meet our guidance the lower end of the ranges that you mentioned. So an improved second half, certainly, drier season. We're going into winter in South Africa at the moment and benefiting from some vast stripping that we've done, waste stripping to access the reef horizons. And in the month of April, we exceeded our target for run of mine, so on a good trajectory in terms of providing ore to the plants.

52:41 We will review our guidance post the third quarter production update and see the trajectory from that point on. But at this stage, we maintain that guidance as as you articulated, Ilya. Thank you. Thank you. Staying on the Chrome Chrome business, two questions. One is relating to our logistics and the talk currently with regards to potential industrial action around Transnet. I think the the question relates to how will we deal with any industrial action. Obviously, we do have more than one port that we service with regards to exports. Yeah. So certainly, we're acutely aware of the the challenges around transmit and the ports in South Africa. We utilize three ports successfully, Richards Bay, Drybulk Terminal, Durban, as well as Maputo in Mozambique.

53:35 So we've have the flexibility to direct and redirect cargos. As you will recall, there were a number of disruptions at the border and within Maputo post elections last year, and we still managed to to reroute and direct our cargos successfully and not have disruption. So I think having multiport exit strategy has proven a good mitigant, and it provides us flexibility. So at this stage, we don't see any disruption to our the THARISA supply. Having said that, there very well may be disruption for cargoes exiting the Eastern ports of South Africa. Thank you.

54:20 Staying in the chrome business, and I know this is relatively new news out of South Africa with regards to chrome being classified as critical minerals under the new announcements that came out on Tuesday. What are our expectations with regards to this critical mineral strategy and how it affects our chrome business? So we've always believed that chrome is a critical mineral. When you look at the concentration of resources and the massive endowment South Africa has, it certainly plays a key pivotal role in terms of criticality. Our strategy embraces beneficiation, diversification of the products that we produce.

55:05 So so we welcome the classification, and I think we are well positioned to benefit from support from the government, which is what we believe will will be the byproduct of this to look at local value enhancement and potentially accelerate our plans for for the projects that we we mentioned previously, which involve the redox flow, electrolyte production in South Africa, that's the chrome iron chemical utilized in the storage solution, The grinding media, which we produce currently, which is a iron chrome alloy that's utilized in the grinding media for the industry. And in fact, it provides a beautiful circular economy. So the very balls that we utilize to crush our ore utilize the chrome that we produce at the THARISA mine.

55:57 And then lastly, we've been focusing on raw stainless steels and very specialist chrome alloys, which provide a diversified market and potential value accretive opportunities. Now the environment needs to be supportive, infrastructure, particularly around power, security and the cost of that electricity become vital for any downstream beneficiation strategy. But I think we are well positioned. Thank you, Ahmed. Phoebe, so I'll stay with you, and this is why I pulled up this slide with regards to the underground. There's a question here around at what point we expect the THARISA surface mine volumes to start declining as you replace this output with the underground mine volumes. And I think that's quite an important factor with regards to the longevity of the East Pit and the ramp up on the West Side.

56:52 So so the beauty of that question is that we have flexibility. So you we will get to steady state of 255,000 tons by 2029. That allows us to continue the open pit mining, as you can see, for a period up until 234. Having said that, we can mine deeper and longer in the open pit. So we will start depleting our requirements or the requirements from the open pit will be minimized as we ramp up the waste mine, which provides us accessibility and flexibility from that operation. And you will see that the East Portal has been capped at our milling nameplate capacity, but it's actually designed at 255,000 tonnes as well. So there is a sort of false ceiling that's been put there and matching our nameplate capacity that we could see ourselves producing over 6,000,000 tonnes of ROM on a fully fledged east and west underground portal of projects place.

58:03 And have strong we Thank you. And staying with the operations, Phebeus, there are some questions here around what changes we've made operationally or strategic to implement and to mitigate the weather related disruptions in Q2. I think we can talk here about the pumps that we have in here, but also the challenge that we've had with lightning strikes rather than pure rainfall in Q1 and Q2. So I think what's encouraging is that a number of years ago when we had severe rainfall, we brought in hydrogeological experts that undertook a massive study around the open pit, the inflow and ingress of water.

58:53 And we embarked on a capital expenditure program to engineer the water management for the open pit. And I mentioned yesterday to the analysts that had we not put the strategy in place, we would still be contending with vast volumes of water. What that entailed was dewatering boreholes around the perimeter of the open pit and upgrade of our pumping capacity, pumping millions of cubes of water out of the open pit and depositing them into raw water dams has actually borne fruit and allowed us to navigate challenge. The second point you mentioned around the lightning events.

59:40 Because we're an open pit mine, we run a storm scope very similar to a golf course. You hear the siren go off and and the radius for the storm scope of the alarm is set at 50 kilometers radius. And in many instances, we're evacuating the open pit, which sort of disrupts the operations two to three hours at a time for storms that potentially pass and don't actually cross over our open pit. So so we are looking at reducing that radius through a legal application process with the regulators to 30 kilometers for future understanding and management of the of the evacuation of the open pit. It is a vast pit with with many employees, it does take time to to remove you from the open pit. So between the two strategies, the dewatering and the lightning, I think we navigated it relatively well and improve on it going into the future.

1:00:45 Thank you. Michael, let me move over to you. I know you addressed the dividend and the buyback, but maybe reemphasize the thinking around and also focus on the second half again. What is the thinking behind maintaining the dividend and initiating a buyback whilst you're also funding key growth projects like Coro and the Theresa underground transition? I think it's all about capital allocation. Sure. Thank you for that question. I think if we have a look at our philosophy and say, this goes way back to an effect we listed first on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. There's always a perception that from a mining point of view, you keep investing in projects and you do not return funding to shareholders or funds to shareholders.

1:01:35 And we made a commitment at that point in time to exercise capital discipline and we put in place a very conservative dividend policy. So we have and it is a conservative dividend policy of at least 15% of consolidated profit after tax. And we're pleased that we were able to implement this and maintain it. So I think it goes back to the original commitment and we will continue with that commitment to return capital to shareholders. There's often been pressure over the last few years to increase the dividend policy, but we do have the ability and flexibility as it specifies a minimum. And when we sit that in place, it also takes into account the growth projects that we are looking at and how we are going to fund them. At the moment, we have a very healthy balance sheet, net cash position and therefore enables us to fund the project and also to return capital to shareholders. So I suppose in a way, we are simply honoring that obligation that we made.

1:02:33 The share repurchases are probably I'm going to probably a little more opportunistic when we have a look at them and evaluate it from time to time. From an executive perspective, we really believe that our significantly undervalued. As I indicated earlier, some 40% of our share price is effectively net cash on the balance sheet. So it makes sense then to deploy some of this cash and invest in our own belief and our ability to deliver on the projects that we are undertaking and giving that return and the benefits to shareholders going forward. So effectively, think that should answer that question as to why we're doing it. And in terms of dividend, we do recognize that there are capital commitments that they are taking forward, but we also have to reward the shareholders who have over time subscribed for shares, funded the business and continue to fund the business with a return on their investment as well.

1:03:31 I trust that answers that question. Yes. Thank you, Michael. I'm going to stay with you, Michael, because it relates to structuring around Coro and THARISA. And let me read the question out. The arrangements you have made with minority shareholders in Coro are complicated. Could you please explain in particularly in relation to how much THS shareholders' share is? Sure. So if we go through and have a look at the structure for Coro Platinum itself. So Coro Platinum has a 15% shareholder in the government of Zimbabwe, and that is a free funded carry. At the point in time that these were all negotiated, you may remember that there was an digitalization requirement of some 50% of mining. This relaxed over the periods of time and very successful in negotiating with the government for that 15% free carry.

1:04:27 And effectively, I suppose that's the payment in kind for the mining rights that you effectively have. Going up from that, you then have a position where THARISA PLC has a controlling interest and is all of intermediate companies going through it for various reasons and we'll be simplifying that structure going forward, where our current shareholding is some 75% into KARA Mining Holdings and then into the 85%. So that could give you effective interest of some 60 odd percent as an effective interest. In the initial days, a company called Midway, which is also our THARISA PLC significant majority shareholder, doesn't own a majority, but is a very significant shareholder. They had developed this asset and we had proceeded to invest in that asset.

1:05:18 And people ask, why would you do that effectively going back on related party transactions? Is when we did the original listing and worked for the original listing, there was an expectation arrangement put in place at any projects that Midway developed, we would have the first option on those projects. We evaluated it. We believe it is a Tier one asset and therefore invested in it. And they do still maintain a small shareholding in Cara Mining Holdings. They have the right to fund as we go through, but typically what we have done is we have diluted them and our intention I think is to continue diluting them to the point where we have absolute control over those assets or significant or majority well, we have a significant shareholding and increased shareholding in that business. We believe in the economics of it and we'll continue to pursue that strategy going forward.

1:06:10 Thank you, Michael. Looking at here, there's just one more question, but I think it goes into the the company's philosophy and and strategy. So I'll also pull up a slide on it, but it goes to both Bernie and and Phebo Sue. But so let me read it out. Coro is very exciting and clearly a positive catalyst for the company. Can you please provide some comments around Coro cash cost, payback period expected? And how more importantly, this project compares to Ivanhoe's Platreef mine currently being developed and market valuations of the project. So I think it's with regards to some of the points that Bernie made, but Phebe was maybe from your side and underground versus open pit and maybe the pool split that is very different from the two projects. Yes. So I'll start, and then we'll dovetail with with Brady's comments. So I think when we look at the operating cash costs that are estimated based on the extensive studies that we've done, the lock cycle test work, which has been repeated numerous times to confirm the expected recoveries of the PGMs plus the base metal credits. We're coming in at sub $800 per PGM ounce in the context of a $1,400 basket price less the payables for a concentrate because this is a concentrate that we'll be producing. There is a very healthy operating cash margin.

1:07:36 Now as we improve efficiencies and effectiveness, like we've done with THARISA, we should see that cost improving over time. In terms of how do you value this project, right, the open pit has a valuation. If we add the BMR plus the underground potential and the terminal value, this is in excess of a billion dollar valuation business. So it really depends on how you look at this. And if you're fully valuing the resources or you're just looking at on a project basis, it will vary. And then depending on the commodity outlook or the consensus price, we look that also has an impact on it. But there's no doubt that this is a hugely valuable resource, and we will be sharing more of these value enhancement metrics with the market once the studies, particularly of the BMR, are completed and bolted on as well as the underground expansion.

1:08:34 In terms of comparison to either of that, different ore body. Obviously, that's a flat reef ore body, but not dissimilar in terms of its pro split. We have a, as Bernie mentioned, some very nice copper, nickel and even some cobalt byproduct credits. And with the base metal refocus, that could be enhanced. And we know the focus on those base metals from a critical mineral security point of view is vital. When we look at the palladium platinum split around 38% palladium, 40% platinum, and then as mentioned, a very nice eight to 9% gold and the balance of the minor metals in prostrate.

1:09:22 But Bernie, I don't know if you'd like to comment on the question. I think there's one extra comparative that's just probably more relevant rather than Ivan Platts would be the other PGM producers in Zimbabwe. Similar ore body, similar location, similar logistics. And if you compare it to, say, Ziplat's operating costs are circa $850 an ounce all in. Obviously, difficult to work out what goes in there in terms of overheads and and what isn't, but it gives you the benchmark, and there's that's very much in line with the numbers that Phoebus has just mentioned. So we are aligned with the other producers in Zimbabwe, which I think is a better metric to look at. Thank you. Last question coming in just recently now, Michael, and I think you did address it with regards to how we deal with minorities in KARA, But maybe you can expand on that. And the question is here, if we have 60% of the KARA, how much is any minority shareholders contributing to the investment? I think we've got more of KARA, but maybe reelaborate how we've increased our shareholding in KARA.

1:10:29 No, definitely have more shareholding than that. It's approximately 75% to the 85% at the bottom level in terms of that shareholding. How we participate in that shareholding going forward and the minority relationship is when there is a funding call, there is approaches made to both shareholders to evaluate that on their own merits. It is priced and to the extent one party chooses to follow or not follow, there may be a dilution going forward. From our perspective, and that is THARISA, we do believe this is, as I mentioned, a Tier one project. And ultimately, we would like to obtain full control of all the cash flows on the underlying projects. Going forward then, there are going to be further funding calls.

1:11:15 And on that basis, we do under evaluations and continue to increase our investment in the project and ultimately may very well buy out the minorities to ensure that we can have full control over the cash flows. If you look at our other businesses that we have, whether it's THARISA Minerals, ARCO Metals, ARCO Logistics, ARCO Resources, they all are wholly owned businesses. And what that enables us to do is access those cash flows as and when necessary for the benefit of the business and the group as a whole without any impediments and minority shareholders. I think that answers that question earlier. Yes. That's great. And I think that's actually all the questions. Thank you very much for answering those questions from investors. Of course, the company can review all the questions submitted today and we will publish the responses out on the Investor Meet company platform.

1:12:06 But just before redirecting investors, provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to you all at the company. VIVUS, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? Yeah. Thank you very much. You know, it's a real privilege working with the team that we have. We employ with contractors over 4,000 people, and we make a difference in people's lives. And and I think when we look at impact investing, you can see the benefits that employment creates upliftment of communities as well as sustainability of job creation is a key benefit for our strategy, and and it's very rewarding. So with that, I'd just like to commend my team for their dedication, commitment, and steadfast belief in our vision, in our strategy, and in delivering value to all stakeholders on a measured, sustained, and, calculated basis. So with that, I'd like to thank you all for your time today, and wish you well further.

1:13:08 That's great. Thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order the management team can better understand your views and expectations? On behalf of the management team of THARISA PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.