Exxaro Resources Limited (EXX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for welcoming us to your private residents or it may be -- some of you may be in the office. My name is Mzila Mthenjane. and I head up Investor Relations at Exxaro. And I'm joined by the management team led by our CEO, Mr. Mxolisi Mgojo; our CEO-designate and Head of our Minerals business, Dr. Dr. Nombasa Tsengwa; as well as our CFO, Riaan Koppeschaar. We had to present to you our results for the 6 months of 2021. A result that we are really proud of given the challenges that we have experienced in this first 6 months. But as with every opportunity also comes -- with every challenge comes an opportunity. I will not be talking much and perhaps let me also remind you that I have had to take my mask off so that you can hear me. We have been practicing our social distancing and all the required protocols to ensure that we limit and make sure that the curve does not continue to steepen. This being a virtual event, I think some of the normal precautions that I would share with you, such as bathrooms and things like that are obviously not necessary. So with the time then available to us, I will hand over to Mxolisi to provide us with the results overview. He will then hand over to Nombasa, who will then share with us the operational results. And then Riaan will then give the financial performance on the back of that operational performance. And then Mxolisi will come back again and close off the session with the outlook. So without further ado, Mxolisi, can I hand over to you.

Thank you very much, Mzila, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And a special welcome to all the Board members who are in attendance on this virtual call. It is a pleasure for me to be here as we present our interim financial results for the 6 months ended June 2021. 2021 thus far has been a dynamic operating environment with seemingly contradictory signals. As you can see in this slide, it highlights some of the major features of our macro context. The quicker-than-anticipated global economic recovery from COVID has contributed to the best overall seaborne coal prices in 3 years, with consequential large discounts to index prices of lower-quality coals. Climate change has become the focal point, not only of our business, but society and global engagement. The risk associated with the energy transition are compounding and not moderating, but continue present opportunities in the course of this transition. The world is under pressure to transition faster and that presents new opportunities. This dynamic environment affirms our approach of maximizing the value of our coal assets through the early value coal strategy, thus minimizing stranded coal assets while building a low carbon resilient business. This is also underpinned by our Cennergi investment, which will further support our decarbonization strategy and further details of this will be provided at our Capital Markets Day in September. Maximizing the value of our coal business and the portfolio optimization drive, supported by the SIOC investment, provides for current and near-term returns from Exxaro. Nombasa and Koppes will elaborate further in this regard. On the next few slides, I will spend some time on COVID-19 and provide an economic and market overview as well as how we are delivering on our strategic priorities. COVID-19 was a major feature during the reporting period. We felt the impact of the third wave, however, with a relatively limited impact on operational performance. We continued our interventions through ongoing testing and awareness campaigns and implementing our health and wellness programs, which enabled us to maintain a 96% recovery rate. Our vaccination program supported by the respective SMMEs for health in Limpopo and Mpumalanga underpinned the auspices of the National Department of Health have started at both our registered sites and will pick up momentum as more vaccinations become available. The visible role played by our leadership in promoting the vaccination campaign has been critical to our progress on vaccinations to date, and also addressing vaccine hesitancy. This pandemic has also had a devastating impact on SMEs. In response, it was an imperative for us to also ensure the sustainability of these businesses through our ESD program through restructuring of loan facilities and providing additional liquidity. And now turning to the economy and markets, the global economic activity reached an important milestone in the second quarter of 2021, surpassing the pre-pandemic rail GDP peak attained in the fourth quarter of 2019. After a 3.5% contraction in 2020, global real GDP is projected to increase by 5.8% in 2021, its strongest advanced since 1973. Increased commodity prices, poorly functioning supply chains and some labor supply challenges increased global inflationary pressures during the period under review. On Exxaro's commodity exposure, iron ore prices continued trading at record levels, driven by strong Chinese steel production also supported by the rest of the world's robust demand conditions. Additionally, Brazil iron ore exports remained soft, keeping the global iron ore market very tight and resulting in spot prices hitting all-time highs. During the first half of '21, India experienced a severe second COVID wave, which has substantially impacted their economy amidst provincial lockdowns. This resulting in constrained production and subsequently reduced thermal coal demand. Amidst various supply issues, the API4 has reached $114 per tonne by end of June 2021. In addition, with the continued poor Transnet Freight Rail performance in South Africa, the index price was well supported at the time. The increased momentum of COVID-19 vaccinations in our key market economy should positively impact on the demand for thermal coal. The shift in energy transition policy will continue to intensify towards a global move for carbon neutrality or net-zero by 2050 in the run-up to COP26, which is scheduled for November 2021. Volatility is going to remain with us for the foreseeable future. The robust and quicker than expected economic recovery is facing various headwinds. Overall, there are reasons for optimism in the short term, but we are also faced with poor visibility over the medium term. The steps we have taken to streamline our portfolio in response to climate change, will stand us in good stead for this world of complexity. I believe that the steps we are taking are helping us build dynamic resilience. Given this macro context, the strategic and active steps we have taken and planning for will ensure that our business remains agile and well positioned to continue creating value for all our stakeholders. Further, to the communication of our strategic priorities in March, I am pleased with the steady progress so far. With regards to the optimizing our coal portfolio, we have fulfilled all CPs for the sale of ECC and are making good progress with the Leeuwpan sale. We remain committed to responsibly maximizing the value of our coal assets, whilst we rebalance the business portfolio for the long term. In addition to maximization of value for the coal business, as a reminder, the strategy to transition to a low carbon business portfolio includes building a renewable energy business that will protect the value of the coal business through self-generation, whilst building market position in emerging opportunities for distributed energy. It also includes using our mining capabilities to move beyond coal and into low carbon minerals and develop a comprehensive impact investment approach to ensure the socioeconomic resilience of our host communities during this transition. Critical to achieving this strategy is our capital allocation framework, which remains relevant for today's market conditions and disciplined for future investments. We will not invest further for growth in the thermal coal, but rather harvest value from the recent CapEx program and continue to fulfill our customer needs. Cash distribution will be balanced between reward to shareholders from current operations and long-term value creation. Riaan will share with you our capital allocation framework when he presents the financial performance. And so the highlights from the first half on the back of these strategic priorities are: we have maintained our leading ESG rating in the FTSE Russell ESG Index and remain amongst the top 100 emerging market performers according to Moody's ESG Solutions Ranking. Safety and zero harm remain critical performance indicators for our business, and are amongst the key indicators in these index ratings. We are very pleased with the record safety performance in terms of both our lost time injury frequency rate of 0.07 and 4 years fatality-free. Good operational performance was overwhelmed by, firstly, a particularly poor TFR performance resulting in a half-on-half decline of 34% in our export volumes. The industry through the Mineral Council of South Africa is engaged with TFR to resolve some of its challenges. Nombasa will discuss the impact of TFR when she presents the operational results. The strong commodity price performance has contributed handsomely to our financial performance. The increase in core EBITDA by 29% and HEPS by 67% is attributable to the performance of both coal and especially iron ore prices. Thus, giving this financial performance, the Board has declared a historical interim ordinary dividend of ZAR 20.77 per share, up 223% on the interim dividend declared in the same period of 2020. I will now hand over to Nombasa to present the core operational results.

Thank you, Mx. Despite the fact that poor TFR performance and the pandemic impact kept us on our toes during the reporting period, I am very happy to present a set of results on the operational side that demonstrates our resilience, our ability to withstand pressures and the challenges that we had to face in this past period. Now coming to the safety front, our LTIFR increased by 40% to 0.07 in the first half, which is 13% lower than the set target of 0.08. Notwithstanding the industry regression in fatalities in the last year, I am pleased to report a record 53 months in Exxaro without a fatality as at the 2nd of August this year. We congratulate all our teams at our operations for continuing to drive zero-harm, demonstrating that Khetha Ukuphepha is indeed the best choice. Now looking at COVID-19 and its impact as at the 31st of July this year. A total of 5,078 confirmed cases were reported with a recovery rate of 96%. And you will agree with me that this is a very good recovery rate compared to the national rate of 90%. We have 187 active cases in the group. Regrettably though, the group recorded 33 lives lost with 2 of these at Mafube. A total of 2,460 employees and contractors were vaccinated. And we're very happy to also inform you that our Grootegeluk and Matla health centers were approved and registered as primary vaccine centers. Strict adherence to screening and testing protocols applied to all our employees and nonemployees who visit our sites, including our contractors across our business units. We were also very fortunate that we remained fully operational during very challenging times of this pandemic. Appreciation goes to all our health workers and managers under the leadership of Dr. Joseph Matjila and Mongezi Veti who really did a stunning job keeping us open in business. Going on to the volumes. As you can see from the bar graphs, both production and sales were lower by 11% for this period. And the table shows a net decrease of 2.6 million tonnes of product. And this is the result of decrease at Grootegeluk, as you can see, of point -- of 1 million tonnes due to increased rainfall in January, compulsory COVID testing that we had to administer after the December break, coupled with poor TFR performance. Belfast was down 0.3 million tonnes; Leeuwpan, 0.7 million tonnes; and ECC, 0.2 million tonnes, also due to poor TFR performance. Matla was impacted by pit-room limitations as we've been reporting over the years and COVID compulsory testing, resulting in a decrease of 0.3 million tonnes. While at Mafube, production was down by 0.2 million tonnes, impacted by TFR performance and COVID impacts. Now looking at sales. You can see the same net decrease of 2.6 million tonnes, which is as a result of a 2.2 million tonnes decrease in our export sales due to TFR challenges and decreased local domestic sales from Grootegeluk of 0.1 million tonnes due to TFR performance and at Leeuwpan by 0.2 million tonnes due to decreased market demand. While at Matla, sales follow production, of course. And that's why we see that we had lower production there offset by increased domestic sales at ECC of 0.3 million tonnes due to export products sold in the domestic market. Now going on to the second half of '21. We focused that production and sales will be 11% higher, mainly due to the ramp-up of GG6 at Grootegeluk and Eskom sales increasing in line with contractual offtake. Let me just take a minute here and explain the question I think we will be getting in terms of what the impact of the August 8 explosion would look like in terms of our offtake. And just to remind you that this explosion, as we understand it, will result in 5 units being operational at Medupi. And as per normal and also as per contract, Eskom would approach us if there's going to be any impact or difference in their offtake. At this stage, we have not heard anything from Eskom in this regard, and we take it that we will be supplying Eskom accordingly. And as in normal practice, as we have observed, 5 units have been running at Medupi and we have been able to supply the full offtake to Eskom. So at this stage, we cannot advise anything different until we are advised further by Eskom. Then looking at further what will increase this with the impact of the second half, will be at Matla where we expect increased production enabled by the ramp-up at Mine 2 and this would obviously be as a result of the development of Mine 2. Then we will expect increased sales at Leeuwpan, ECC and Mafube enabled by the expected improvement in logistics availability. Previously, we have highlighted what we believe would be the amount of volumes that will be at risk as a result of the ongoing TF challenges of -- TFR challenges to an amount of 2 million tonnes. And based on the current performance as we see it, our update estimation is a further 1 million tonnes in addition to 2 million tonnes, giving us a total of 3 million tonnes of volume that will be at risk. We do, however, continue to engage TFR at all levels and monitoring the performance to update the market obviously, later in the year as to whether we believe the 3 million tonne will be changing in any way. And as far as the markets, we can report a good demand in the seaborne market during a period where supply was disrupted on many fronts, leading to high prices less than a decade ago. Unfortunately, Exxaro could not fully participate and capitalize on very robust pricing due to poor rail performance. However, we've made quite good progress in our export sales to other African countries. India and Pakistan remain our 2 biggest destination. Even though sales to India were negatively impacted by lower demand for South African coal, and this is really due to the severe impact of their second wave of COVID-19 as well as the increased competition from the Australian exporters. The banning of Australian coal from China has resulted in China being our third biggest export destination, and is shown under Other Asia. And China is expected to be a viable market for South Africa as long as the Australian coal is under ban. In terms of our increasing average product quality, which you can see on the bottom left, and also price optimization initiatives, all of this resulted in an average realized price of 80% across all our export sales as indicated on the bottom right. This is the highest we've seen in 6 years, demonstrating our success in optimizing our asset portfolio, our product mix, pricing as well as our market positioning. Now moving on to cost efficiencies. We are very pleased that we are able to keep our rent per tonne cost increased at 4.2%, which is below mining inflation of 5.43%. Despite the reduction in tonnes of 2.6 million tonnes, increasing inflation, ongoing high stripping ratios and additional COVID-related impacts, which are unpredictable oftentimes. The highest impact was due to normal commodity-related inflation, which amounted to ZAR 305 million, an equivalent of ZAR 17 per tonne. The rest of the cost movements effectively offset each other, and Koppes will unpack all of the detail when he talks to his EBITDA slide. In addition to the cost performance described above, we have indicated to you previously that we are targeting additional internal savings on production costs and sustaining CapEx. As indicated, production costs were below targets, but not sufficient enough to offset the full extent of the lower production tonnes. However, we continue to focus on specific cost initiatives. Having optimized our integrated centers, operating centers that we've been talking about over the last 2 years, we are now beginning to realize value in the form of cost optimization and increased efficiencies. The next step in our digital journey is to mature our digital platform and analytics maturity, which will enable our decision-making. And then over to my last slide, looking at our total capital spend for the 5 years, '21 to '25, it is expected to be 11% lower than previously guided during the June session of the FD close. Expansion capital is expected to be 5% higher within our tolerance range. We confirm that we will not invest any further growth capital in the thermal coal portfolio, as Mxolisi has mentioned, to focus on sustaining our diversified product portfolio, servicing our markets and executing our early value strategy. Going forward, the focus will be on generating returns from the capital invested over the last 5 years. On sustaining CapEx for the same period, it is 13% lower than what we previously guided, mainly due to the removal of ECC amounting to about ZAR 717 million from the first half of 2022 and onwards. And then Leeuwpan, ZAR 409 million from the second half of next year and onwards. On sustaining CapEx, still very pleased to announce that our sustainable savings still remain at ZAR 1.3 billion. In closing, ladies and gents, you will agree that my core team and our support functions have delivered the best results any resilient team could have in a very tough operating and unpredictable market conditions. And this performance demonstrates that Exxaro has a robust portfolio of assets, which has enabled us to respond competently to these difficult and unpredictable times. I now give over to Koppes.

Thanks, Nombasa. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be comparing the 6-month period ending 30 June to the 6-month period ending 31 December 2020. So just a reminder again, we will be discussing the core results, so the IFRS results are adjusted with the non-core items consisting of headline earnings adjustments and other items deemed to be non-core. During this period, there were no additional non-core adjustments and the items included in headline earnings adjustment for the current period is a ZAR 1.3 billion gain on the disposal of our shareholding in Tronox and the related gain on translation difference of ZAR 876 million recycled through profit and loss. Further details are included in the backup slide. So on this first slide, you will see the high-level overview of our core results and the difference between our own managed operations depicted at the top and the income from equity investments at the bottom. The revenue and EBITDA will be unpacked in the following slides. At the bottom, you will see the contribution from our non-managed operations showing a significant increase with equity income increasing 63% to ZAR 6.7 billion, mainly as a result of the exceptional performance from our investment in Sishen Iron Ore Company. This translated into headline earnings per share of ZAR 27.22, an improvement of 67%. If we look at the revenue waterfall graph, domestic prices realized on Eskom sales were higher, but in the domestic market were slightly offset by lower prices in the metallurgical and market coke space in line with international prices. On the exports, the higher benchmark API4 price resulted in an average price per tonne achieved of $78, which is 74% higher compared to the second half of last year. On the volume side, you can see there the financial impact that Nombasa alluded to, so I'm not going to discuss that further due to the TFR challenges we experienced. On the energy side, you will see that the revenue was about ZAR 75 million lower. That is as a result of lower wind speeds during this 6-month period and also warranty inspections that were performed. On the exchange rate front, the rand-dollar spot rate was 11% stronger, and we achieved a rate of ZAR 14.78. On Matla, you can see that the revenue increased ZAR 36 million due to a higher recovery of CapEx from Eskom and partially offset by a lower recovery of production cost. If we look at EBITDA, the revenue variance was unpacked on the previous slide. Inflation on an annualized basis, our labor inflation was only 1.4%; diesel increased 11.2%; electricity costs, 7.8%; and the rest of the cost base at PPI of 3.4%. Employee cost was a bit higher as a result of the higher Esop distributions, which also included the Tronox special dividend and also safety bonuses. This was partially offset by lower training spend at the operations due to COVID. The higher rehabilitation adjustment is due to us discounting the liability at the lower discount rate in line with lower government bond yields. The operational cost, a bit lower due to the lower production volumes, although additional maintenance was performed at Grootegeluk of ZAR 185 million. And we also had higher coal buy-ins from Mafube and also at [ Ermelo ] during the first half of this year at higher prices at an additional cost of ZAR 147 million. The selling and distribution cost is in line with the lower export volumes. On the stock movement and buy-ins, we had higher third-party buy-ins to fulfill our export commitments. This had a negative impact of ZAR 194 million, but we also had stock increases at the BUs due to the TFR performance resulting in a positive variance of ZAR 281 million. The net ForEx variance is a combination of realized and unrealized ForEx differences on debtors and cash balances due to the fluctuation in the rand. The last one on this slide, in the general bucket, the ZAR 76 million under energy. This was a once-off adjustment that occurred last year due to an accounting policy alignment with the step-up acquisition of Cennergi. If we then look at the split between the revenue and EBITDA between Waterberg and Mpumalanga, we're very pleased to report an increase at the Waterberg in EBITDA as well as the commercial Mpumalanga mines. In the Waterberg, it was mainly driven by the higher revenue offset to some extent by inflation of ZAR 134 million and the rehab adjustments of a negative ZAR 77 million. The positive ZAR 634 million variance in Mpumalanga was due to lower selling and distribution cost of about ZAR 400 million, positive inventory adjustments due to production exceeding sales, which was a positive ZAR 231 million and lower mining cost in line with the lower production of a positive ZAR 213 million. This was, to some extent, offset by inflation of ZAR 179 million and rehab adjustments of ZAR 70 million. In the other bucket of the coal segment, the movement there is mainly due to the Esop distribution that I referred to. Also included there was a Sasol -- SARS diesel rebate write-off of about ZAR 30 million and also a donation of ZAR 15 million to the solidarity fund. So all of this translated into a very healthy 30% EBITDA margin for the coal business. If we look at energy. So for the 6-month period, Cennergi generated 331 gigawatt hours of electricity, which is below our expectation due to lower wind conditions and lower plant availability. The plant availability was caused by the end of 5-year warranty inspections that we performed and also maintenance that we planned for in the lower wind season. The plant availability has since increased to normalized levels. And generally, generation is higher in the second half of the year. Also in the top right, you will see the generation that we normally target on an annual basis, and you will see that it looks like we may be lagging it during the current year. So all of this translates into very good EBITDA margins. On a normalized basis, it exceeds 80%, and it shows the consistency of earnings of these wind farms, which are underpinned by long-term offtake agreements. Also the project finance debt, just a reminder again, they will be fully settled by 2031, and has no recourse to the Exxaro balance sheet. It's hedged through interest rate swaps. And therefore, we also apply hedge accounting, and there is no volatility on the income statement. So since the start of the wind farms in 2016, we've maintained availability factor of around 98% compared to the 97% that we've seen during the first half of this year. If we look at core attributable earnings, so the net financing cost, you will see there the Cennergi portion of ZAR 246 million, and we also capitalized interest of ZAR 149 million at our GG6 project. Looking at equity income, Mafube, our JV with [indiscernible], equity profit of ZAR 98 million as a result of higher export prices, partially offset by the stronger rand-dollar and also lower sales volumes due to the TFR challenges. The increase in SIOC to ZAR 6.3 billion, mainly driven by higher iron ore prices as well as high price premium that they realized in the market. So Tronox, that consists of our 26% interest in the South African operations only for 2 months of this year. So Tronox plc exercised the flipping option for Tronox SA shares, which became effective on the 24th of February, and that investment was therefore realized. Black Mountain, this investment, the sales process didn't go through in 2020. So we're now, again, including Black Mountain again. So the increase there is due to lower production cost and also lower financing cost. Also important to note, at the end of last year, our share count was 358.7 million shares. And with the share buyback program, we've now repurchased shares to the value of ZAR 960 million and it translates into just over 6,080,000 shares. So in this calculation for the earnings per share, the share count has now been reduced from 251 million to 250 million shares. So all of this then translated into core attributable earnings per share of ZAR 27.22. If we look at capital allocation, it's still our intention that our net debt EBITDA, excluding the Cennergi project financing, should remain below 1.5x. Our cash inflows during the half year, ZAR 7 billion; ZAR 3.3 billion from our own operations; as well as dividends of ZAR 3.7 billion, mainly from SIOC. Following the disposal of our shares in Tronox, we received ZAR 5.8 billion. In terms of our framework, we used this to pay financing costs, sustaining our coal operations and support functions with CapEx of ZAR 686 million and also expanding the coal business with further CapEx of ZAR 488 million. We paid a dividend totaling ZAR 6.4 billion, which includes a ZAR 1.9 million special dividend from the proceeds of Tronox. So the share repurchase program, as I pointed out, up until the 30th of June, we've repurchased just over 6,080,000 shares to the value of ZAR 960 million. So all of this resulted in a net debt position at the end of June of just over ZAR 7 billion at the net debt equity ratio of 6% and the net EBITDA cover ratio, excluding Cennergi of 0.4%, well below our target of 1.5x. So as Mxolisi pointed out, very pleasing that we were able to pay a final dividend of ZAR 20.77. So as our coal CapEx expansion program is now nearing completion, we have in line with our policy applied to 2.5x cover ratio on adjusted group earnings and thereby, balancing the shareholder distributions and our strategy for future investment in low carbon. And as a result of that, the Board could pay this dividend of ZAR 20.77. So with that, I'm going to hand back to Mxolisi, thanks very much. Also the -- everybody that contributed to the result. The people at the operations, support functions, also the finance people for all the effort and the long hours, I really appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Koppes and also Nombasa for presenting the sterling results, operational results. And within this context, our business outlook. We'll focus on delivering on our strategic priorities. Firstly, completing all our sales of non-core assets, remaining being Leeuwpan and also including Black Mountain Mining. Secondly, to continue to maximize the value of the coal business for the benefit of all our stakeholders. And lastly, position the Exxaro business for a low carbon future and ensuring that we take all our stakeholders along during this transition. From a country perspective, although the recent unrest and economic damage could have lasting effects on investor confidence and job creation, initial estimates indicate that the full extent of the recovery and impact of the progress in economic reforms, as evident in South African economy during the first half of '21, have been delayed. All these fiscal socioeconomic imbalances, together with the COVID-19 third wave impact, will have a knock-on effect on the economic reconstruction and recovery path for South Africa into the second half of this year. The likelihood of Eskom playing in the renewable sector will accelerate the decarbonization of industry and create a low-carbon growth opportunities for the economy. The progress of vaccination campaigns will be pivotal to global economic activity and recovery. As economies reopen after the wildly spread COVID-19 Delta variant, governments were forced to reintroduce more restrictions. However, social activities have resumed within the prescribed COVID-19 protocols. Coal prices are expected to remain at elevated levels. However, these price levels should not be seen as a long-term trend for the future of coal. A correction can be expected as logistics challenges are addressed. The COP26 event in Glasgow is significant in relation to the 2015 COP15 and Paris agreements in terms of, amongst others, financing of the energy transition and its impacts. We will be active participants at the event with a view of informing and shaping our just transition strategic direction towards a low-carbon future. Local dynamics are clearly negative to both immediate operational stability and long-term investment efficiency and attractiveness. The issue of COVID-19, the recent social unrest, the Transnet need to be addressed separately and holistically and with urgency. Whilst interdependent, they do require a prioritization and framing based on practical and time-based actions, which must be agreed amongst all stakeholders and executed at speed and scale. They do have a dire implications on SA Inc. Business and government have been engaging intensively to identify key themes to a short-term recovery and long-term economic performance, such as closing our country's inequality gaps, restoring confidence in our economy and strengthening national security. In this regard, government and business have agreed on their key respective actions briefly described on this slide. From a government point of view, there is definitely a requirement to unblock red tape, address labor issues and some policy directives in the short term to support the growth agenda and enable rapid job creation. Leadership, including the President, must be visible and to be seen as being in the control and owning the broader national challenges. A more proactive communication that instates confidence in our economy and reverses some negative perceptions arising from the last few weeks must be undertaken with great vigor. From the business side, business will augment government efforts in the following key ways: by identifying areas of local support to vulnerable communities and executing accordingly; mobilize and develop critical ideas for job creation linked to geographic areas where they are located; providing collective support to SMEs, especially those operating within rural and township areas. Exxaro support through our ESD program is worth noting here. 66 entities comprising 44% being 100% black-owned and 26% women owned are supported by Exxaro and have grown total revenues by 160% since inception of the program in 2018 to ZAR 1.2 billion, of which ZAR 1.1 billion was derived from doing business with Exxaro. A total of 1,102 additional jobs were created, including a growth in paid salaries of 185% over the 3-year period. The ESD program is one of the critical drivers of our objective of being a catalyst for economic growth and environmental stewardship as we embark on our transition to a low carbon business portfolio. Business has committed to collaborating with government and we will keep the momentum going, and we should keep each other accountable in terms of our commitments. In conclusion, these results underpin our approach to deliberately managing risk and maximizing our investment proposition. Currently, we are predominantly a coal company that must reward shareholders and responsibly maximize the value of the coal assets equipped to us. Even as climate change threatens the future of those who have entrusted us with these assets. The results demonstrate our disciplined progress in streamlining our portfolio to deliver efficiency and protect shareholder value while adjusting for a future of lower risk and moderate returns. Recent events and the demonstration of the social instability in our domestic market is an urgent reminder that business must work with government if we want to protect the investment proposition for our country. It highlights the importance of an environmental, social and governance framework and a just transition in our management of decarbonization and energy transition. I do look forward to our Capital Markets Day on the 20th of September where we will take you through our strategy for managing in a world in transition in which risk and volatility have become permanent features of our personnel and economic realities. And so ladies and gentlemen, let me also take the opportunity at this moment to thank our Board, to thank our -- my management team and all our Exxaro community because it is through your support and commitment that we continue year-in and year-out despite the difficult challenges, but having the resolve to ensure that we continue creating an even stronger Exxaro of tomorrow, I thank you all. And I want to thank you very much for your time this morning, ladies and gentlemen. And I just wish you that you keep safe and healthy. And when your time comes, when you can get vaccinated, I really urge all of you to do that. It is our collective responsibility to keep each other healthy. So I know there are some instances of hesitancy, but think also of your families and all the people around you. And with that, I now want to hand over to you, Mzila, for our question-and-answer session. Thank you all.

Thank you very much, Mxolisi, and thanks to Nombasa and Riaan as well for an excellent delivery. I have already received a number of questions but they really cluster around 3 themes. And the first one being around TFR, and so I will just read out those questions related to TFR. And when we responded to all of them, then I'll go to coal. And then the last theme being around energy and specifically Cennergi performance. So on TFR, the question is around our confidence in terms of the second half performance on TFR given the recent shutdown and some challenges in KZN. And the other question on TFR is the extent to which, I guess, Exxaro as part of the coal industry is considering private investors participating alongside TFR to improve its performance as I think we've seen in the iron ore business. And then I think those were the 2 key questions around TFR. If there are any others, I will pick those up. Maybe if we can have a response on the TFR questions. So Sakkie Swanepoel, who's our GM for Marketing and Logistics, will respond to those questions.

I think on the TFR question with regard to our confidence for the second half, important that we understand that we're battling 2 challenges in the mine here. The one is the operational challenge, largely stemming from the lack of availability on the locomotive fleet. And we've also had quite a few derailments in the 6 months period, that's kind of uncommon at the level at which it occur. So we are fairly confident that TFR will towards the fourth quarter start to win on the operational side, specifically with regarding to the locomotives. And we believe that towards the end of the year, we will hopefully see that being resolved. The bigger challenge and the bigger uncertainty probably remains with the security-related issues. On the coal line, you will understand that the coal line geographically is stretched over a very long distance. And it's quite difficult to police that beacon area. So TFR has employed all array of measures to curb the impact of the security-related issues, which largely is in the form of cable theft and vandalizing of rail and infrastructure equipment. So TFR is really doing a lot of work in that area. And then we also know that industry, and even through the Minerals Council of South Africa, there is a lot of engagement with TFR to, say, how can we collaborate, how can we solve this issue jointly into the future? We also know there's a lot of effort at national level to bring an end to this risk that the security issues posed to the industry and to the face in the loss of revenue that we incur. So yes, I think we're fairly confident for the second -- or for the last quarter for this year and looking forward to a resolution of the security issues.

Okay. Thanks, Sakkie. And then if we move over to the questions related to the performance of the coal business. I think this first question is actually a complement to the coal team in terms of the cost cutting because I will use a specific word here where Sandile from Umthombo Wealth says, "How much cost savings are you looking to eke out in the second half?" So I think you suggested that it does get difficult as you continue to succeed with cost cutting. And then a question around the markets that the growth -- the export growth in Africa has been quite substantial. Are you able to share which countries those are? And how sustainable is that growth in Africa? And then related to those export markets, what you're seeing in terms of buying trends from Europe where at some point, it was at 0, and it's now at marginally low levels. And then the other question on the coal performance around the price that how sustainable is this 80% level of API price that you've been able to achieve. Maybe let me stop there -- or sorry, maybe related to the 80% of the price achieved, is the -- if you look at the trend in the RB1 in your graph, looking forward, is that potentially sustainable in terms of the RB1 component?

Sakkie, do you want to start? Good.

Yes. If I can start with the markets on the question about Africa. So I think important to understand that Africa is actually a very small market in the seaborne thermal coal market. And the increase that you see in ourselves, there was success on specific tenders that we had in this period. So it is not necessarily a growth in demand from the market, but successes that our international team had on that front. On Europe, I must say, for the bulk of the first half, the API2 price vis-a-vis the API4 price was actually very unattractive for South African exporters, and not a lot of coal has gone to Europe in the early part of this half. It's actually geared towards the latter part of this half and then over the past months that you've seen. API2 really steaming ahead, and we probably will see more South African coal going into that destination due to the positive price differential between API2 and API4, and the Atlantic Basin generally is very tight. So we will see coal flow into that area. On the price side, I think important to understand that the price is a very deliberate or the achievement of the 80%, vis-a-vis the index, is a very deliberate effort from the Exxaro side. As Nombasa has alluded to earlier, it really is a result of the optimization of our asset portfolio, but it also comes very strongly through in the way that we look at our product portfolio, both from a production and a sales mix perspective, where we have specific initiatives to improve on that. Also, our international team has then done very well on pricing compared to the benchmarks that we use in the 6-months period. Going -- looking forward, we believe the percentage of RB1 in the portfolio, as we indicated on the slide, is definitely sustainable, and we see no reason why the achievement of a higher level of actual price realized against the index is not sustainable. So we definitely expect that to be sustainable. Nombasa, back to you on the cost one.

Maybe before you walk away, there's one question on TFR, Sakkie, on whether we're seeking any alternatives to exiting our coal, that I just forgot to mention earlier.

Yes. So on the challenge that TFR has posed to the business or the lack of export capacity has posed opposed to the business, we definitely are looking at all options to evacuate coal from our operations. who I think has done a wonderful job in balancing the production with the redemand from the market influenced by logistics so that we do not sit with undue stock volumes, but we are looking at all options with regard to port, to rail and other exporters to make sure we try and get as much of our export product still off our minds and into the market to our customers.

Just for -- on the cost, I know I'm going to ask Mellis to stand as well. But I think it's always important to recall what do we have advised in the past in terms of remaining within mining inflation. And that's the confidence we have going into the second half. But I know he does it so much better than me, I think he must just unpack some of the initiatives that we're looking into in the second half now.

Yes. Thanks, Nombasa. And the question from Sandile is correct. I mean it does become more and more difficult to eke out savings as you get to a different threshold in your cost base. But there are a number of initiatives that are being driven. And staying within mining inflation is what we measure ourselves on, and that's the guidance we've given to the market, and we've managed to do that even with the 2.6 million tonne reduction in the volumes, coming down by 11% essentially. We saw that our costs only went up 4%. If you see on Koppes' slides, 20 and 21, the derived EBITDA cost of sales has come down by ZAR 400 million. That's in absolute terms, that's after taking into account inflation increases, et cetera, et cetera. So that's how we measure ourselves. We're looking at exiting ECC at the end of August. That's one of our higher cost operations. And we're also looking at progressing the Leeuwpan divestment. That's also a high-cost operation in Mpumalanga, and has been one of the operations that have been mostly affected by the TFR constraints because of its product mix and market demand limitations. We look at our fixed costs and we try and compress those as much as possible. We try and eliminate any variable costs associated with tonnes that we don't produce. So those are the things that we focus on, and we will be back in November to explain -- and early March to explain how did we perform now in the second half when we hope some of the logistical constraints are assisted and our portfolio optimization in terms of being low on the cost curve has actually progressed as well. So just some indication of where we're going to be.

Thank you, Mellis. And I think just to add that the teams do take opportunity to save costs depending on what's happening. For example, our market to resource strategy, which really already is disrupted by the TFR performance. And the fact that, that the impact on the production side, we have full stockpiles, we've got to stop production, you've got to slow your plan. So we do make sure that from a stripping ratio point of view as well, we do align our stripping such that we don't over-strip when we are not going to need to take out the coal. So those are opportunities, I think the team has been very smart in terms of sporting and then adjusting accordingly.

Thank you very much for that feedback and response. And so if we move over then to questions on Cennergi and some I will direct to Riaan because they relate to the debt. But the first one on the -- how Exxaro is responding to the 100-megawatt threshold on embedded energy, maybe for Roland to respond to that. I think from an operational, that's really the only question. The others, Riaan can jump in there. So the question from Peregrine, David Fraser is, "Why would the interest charge be down 43% year-on-year when the debt level is actually 2% higher?" And also related to the debt is where -- if I can find that question. But maybe, just carry on Roland, while I find the second part of that question.

Okay. So the debt, I don't think it's down 40%. It's more or less the same. What he could be referring to was the first half of last year, we only acquired Cennergi in April. So finance charges was included for the first half of last year for 3 months, for the whole of last year for 9 months and now for 6 months. So it's probably to do with timing on the acquisition because previously, it was equity accounted.

Okay. And then I found that other question on the Cennergi debt in terms of whether we plan to settle the Cennergi debt? And whether it will be fully settled or we'll refinance it?

Look, those are options that we'll consider as we go along. So currently, we -- the debt will be settled by, as they mature on a yearly basis, we do repay some of the debt by 2031. But to the extent that it makes commercial sense to refinance them or to extend the maturities, it is definitely something that we will look at. But at this stage, it's not something we're actively looking at.

All right. Thanks, Roland, do you want to take the question on the 100-megawatt.

Just to that point on the debt, we did do an analysis. I think it was last year, yes, last year on the refinancing options and earning, economically it didn't make much sense for us, but it's something that we'll be looking at on a regular basis. It's obviously a key potential additional value to the Cennergi assets. So it is something that we keep an eye on. On the 100-megawatt question, I mean there's probably a detailed answer and a fairly simple answer. The simple answer is that it definitely helps our strategy in that it enables us to develop renewable energy solutions potentially quicker with a threshold increase. And a slightly more detailed answer is that we're still awaiting the exact gazetting in terms of what that 100-megawatt threshold increase means for the renewable energy industry. But I think the most important point to take from it is that, the original threshold was 1 megawatt. The initial suggestions from government was that they were going to raise it to 10 megawatts. There was pressure to raise it to 50 megawatts. And when the announcement came, it was 100 megawatts. So I think that just shows that government is really committed and interested in engaging the private sector to help provide some of the solutions that were -- to the problems we're seeing in the electricity industry in South Africa. So it's a pretty good sign that legislation is moving in the right direction, and we expect to see more improvements in that regard.

All right. There is another question on Cennergi, but it's related to strategy. And [ André ], I'm not picking on you by mentioning your name, but it's a question we've had throughout the morning as well. And our response is that we will share additional strategy information at our Capital Markets Day, for which we have announced the date after 20th of September and further details will be provided. Your question was talking of really wanting to understand an order of magnitude CapEx to M&A spend on renewables energy projects and how it will compare to coal CapEx. So that's a question that I think will be answered fairly detailed at the Capital Markets Day on the 20th of September, if you could please endow us just with your patience. And then I think the last question or the last 2 questions. The first one being around our vaccination in terms of what's our current daily vaccination rate. And how much do you think we -- do we have enough vaccines available and where we are in terms of supply of vaccines, if they're regular.

Well, let me -- I don't know -- Mxolisi?

I think what we can do is to highlight the fact that it has been -- already been -- already publicized. I think even on television, the program that we are running in so far is really driving our efforts. Firstly, by ensuring that our centers, health centers, facilities have been registered and the effort that we are driving with government to support not only the vaccination of our people, but also their families and extending to the communities. Thus far, we have no limitation on the ability to vaccinate the people. The capacity is there. I think what has been -- basically what we had been waiting for was the consistent arrival and the supply of vaccinations to the extent that the Board had even given permission for us to spend about ZAR 50 million...

ZAR 70 million.

ZAR 70 million in so far as acquiring these vaccines in advance so that we could actually claim that back through the program that they have where the treasury has made an undertaking to finance the whole vaccination program of the country. So there is no lack of capital. There's no lack of capacity. I think, by and large, what we are waiting for is to ensure that we can get the consistent supply of vaccinations. Now we do know that the government with the work of support from Business for South Africa have been very much working on this to ensure that we can be getting more vaccinations or vaccines for the country. And by and large, what we do know is that now with J&J also being supported. And I think there's another one that has been recently approved. I think it's a Chinese one, if I'm not mistaken, that with those now coming on stream, we're going to be having more vaccinations being made available to the country. There was a slight disruption that took place in terms of what happened a few weeks ago, especially in some of the vaccination sites, especially in [indiscernible], and -- but all those vaccines were redirected to other provinces that were not affected. And so to the extent that even within ourselves, we are trying to ensure that by the end of this year, as Exxaro, we want to be in a position when, by and large, we would have vaccinated basically the full population, also given the 25-year-old plus going forward. And so our intent is that when we come back into the -- by the time we go for our holiday season, but it is -- we don't have to have the same challenges we had at the beginning of the new year. And now we had to go and do mass testing and that impacted initially the -- our production ability at the beginning of the year. So our strategy is to maximize our vaccination of our people and their families and the immediate surrounding communities as quickly as we can before the end of the year.

Great. And then there's a couple of other questions, individual. So -- and this one, Riaan, to yourself. When we expect to complete the sale of non-core assets?

So the sale of ECC will be completed at the end of this month. We -- on Leeuwpan, we are hopeful that we will conclude the sale by December, but then there will still be conditions that will have to be met, the competition and Section 11. And also probably by the end of the year, good progress on the Black Mountain one.

Okay. Thank you. And then there's a question related to coal again, specifically around the stockpile levels at Medupi at present. And if we have any concerns on offtake given the stockpiles level?

Well, I can just say at this point in time, that we look at and see the stockpiles of Medupi over the fence. We don't often measure them necessarily. And we can always take an estimate, they've got enough stock on the Medupi site. And I can say anything between 15 million to 17 million tonnes at this point in time. That is not the strategic stockpile. On the live stockpile side, there may be slightly lower than Matimba. And we offer a system if they need to reclaim in any way. So no issues there that makes me worry about the offtake necessarily that they may not take stock.

Okay. And then the next one is more of a plea than a question, and it's one that I will certainly take further with [indiscernible] regarding our enterprise and supply development where I think in his questions, also suggestions of how we can further improve on the ESD program, for instance, in terms of further facilitating the process at business unit level, and that is certainly an area that we continue to look at because that's where our communities are located. And then he is asking us to consider reviewing some of our conditions in terms of the ESD process, and [indiscernible] I'll need to engage with you to understand which particular conditions you're referring to. And also, I mean, the whole point of the ESD is to lower the barriers to access to finance. So I think the suggestions that have been made here by [indiscernible] will be taken into consideration. And my details are available on the website, please do drop us an e-mail and let's see how we can offer a better service to yourself and others similar to yourself. And then a question from F. David, and this is an interesting one. If we've considered carbon capture usage and storage together with some of our customers like Eskom to offset our carbon heavy activities. And I can venture a response there, Mr. David, that I think you'll appreciate that this is a technology, which is, I think, globally still in development. And in terms of our overall decarbonization strategy, we're looking at both current and future technologies that will enable us to achieve our 2050 target of being carbon neutral. In the short to medium term, we are also looking at what we call nature-based solutions, which from where we are today, we see could potentially serve as carbon sync. So there are various ways of approaching -- addressing the issue of carbon heavy activities in terms of offsets. But carbon capture and storage and land usage is one technology that we are watching, and we see how it's developing to assist us not just ourselves, but I think it's one which we'll greatly advance the world's cause towards achieving some of the emissions targets that we've set. I hope that answers your question. I don't know if there are any other questions from Chorus Call.

Yes, sir. We have 3 participants on the line at the moment. First question comes from Patrick Mann of Bank of America.

I had 2 kind of interlinked questions, both around the dividend policy. So there seems to be a bit of a subtle change in the dividend policy where the cover has gone from kind of your core coal earnings to group attributable. Can you just explain what's changed and the thinking behind that? Is it done sort of to increase the amount of cash available for reinvestment? Or how should we be thinking about the current policy versus the previous policy. And then the second question, which is linked is just how do you think about paying out dividends versus doing share buybacks, particularly when you look at kind of the discount to the look-through value for -- position. I mean your dividend today is over 10% just on the interim dividend. So how you balance up doing these really high dividends versus buying back shares?

Okay. So firstly, on the dividend policy. So you'll recall, I think we already changed the policy last year. And previously, the policy only included the synergy operations. So we changed it now to Exxaro to the group. By implication, it now will also include the energy business, Cennergi. So when we calculate the dividend to be paid, the earnings of Cennergi and energy will also be taken into account. And then secondly, the question around share buybacks versus dividends. I mean, at the end of the day, it is a question about what is your view on the intrinsic value of the share that you need to take a view on. So when we embarked on the share buyback in earlier the year, we obviously took a view what the intrinsic value is. And as long as the share price is below that intrinsic view, then we may consider buybacks. To the extent that we don't think the share price is below the intrinsic value, then we will earn more towards dividends.

Okay. And then sorry, just one follow-up question, if I may. I think somebody else did ask this, and I apologize if I missed the response. But there was some suggestion of private sector participation in Transnet. Can you just comment on whether that's something Exxaro would consider? And what could the potential benefit be?

Look, there are a lot of engagements between Transnet and the industry. I mean it's not just the coal business only. Even under the auspices of the Minerals Council, I know that they are also engaging iron ore and the chrome side of the industry, and we are part of those engagements. And there's really nothing at this stage we can share that is tangible.

The next question comes from Brian Morgan from Morgan Stanley.

Two questions, if I may. Just the first one is on the disposal of ECC and Leeuwpan, you sold ECC now to Overlooked, not a company we know. So how do you make sure when you're selling an asset that the buyers are going to appropriately rehabilitate those assets? I believe in the case of ECC that you've taken the rehabilitation cash as part of the deal. So that probably makes the hurdles even higher for them to care. Do you have an answer for that?

Do you want to start or should I?