Gold Fields Limited (GFI) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, everybody, and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Gold Fields results for the 6 months to 30th of June 2026. My name is Mike Fraser, and joined today in our Johannesburg office is Alex Dall, our Chief Financial Officer; and Jongisa Magagula, EVP of External Affairs. So today, our message is very simple. Our operations delivered a solid first half performance. We converted this in conjunction with a higher and supportive gold market into very strong cash flows. And that, in turn, it allowed us to deliver higher returns to our shareholders. I wanted to just bring your attention to the forward-looking statements, which include some non-IFRS measures, and I ask you to take note of the slide on Page 2. So in terms of the agenda for today, I will cover the highlights and the operational performance. Alex will cover the financials and capital allocation, and we'll also touch on some of the transformation initiatives underway to create a more reliable and agile organization. And finally, I'll close on growth strategy and the outlook before we open for questions. So turning to the highlights of the first half. So firstly, we had a strong half. And most importantly, we had no fatalities and no serious injuries across the group. This is a real manifestation of the fact that our safety improvement program that we launched in 2024, is really gaining momentum and delivering encouraging results across our business. We were also able to deliver a 12% increase in attributable production to 1.267 million ounces. This was firstly led by Salares Norte, which really delivered 173% increase on the equivalent period, which was an extremely strong performance as well as strong delivery from Granny Smith. Importantly, South Deep also continued to demonstrate productivity improvements in the underground and delivered 151,000 ounces in line with its plan. This was supported by improved distress mining, improved development as well as improved stope turnover. Our sales volumes in the 6 months was 18% higher, and our average realized gold price was 51% higher at $4,678. This drove adjusted free cash flow of $2.225 billion, more than double the prior period, and this translates into a free cash flow yield of 11%. Our cash costs rose 10% and all-in sustaining costs were up 13% to $1,893 an ounce. This was mainly driven by external factors, including royalties, stronger producing currencies and inflation. This also -- the cash costs were reflected the higher discretionary capital that we flagged at our Capital Markets Day in November. Alex will unpack the movements in costs a little bit further when he presents. Just moving to our transformation program. We acknowledge that we can't stand still. And so our transformation program is really driving a focus on productivity, improving efficiencies, cost competitiveness and organizational resilience and simplicity. We believe that this focus on the transformation will really ultimately transform into more sustainable and improved performance over time. When turning to cash generation, we wanted to make it very clear that we are translating the stronger cash generation into benefits to our shareholders. We have paid out 50% of our operating cash flow in the 6 months with an interim base dividend of ZAR 16.25 per share, which is up 132% year-on-year. In addition, we have completed $300 million of buybacks that were completed between the period of March to July. In terms of our top-up shareholder return program, today, we also announced an additional $500 million that was allocated to our top-up program, which takes the total program to $1.25 billion that have been allocated since we first announced this in November of 2025. As we said, the top-up program will be assessed every 6 months as cash is generated. Today, we've delivered $553 million of the $1.25 billion, $253 million in a special dividend that was allocated in February and $300 million in buybacks. Our net debt-to-EBITDA finished at 0.06x at the end of June, down from 0.37x a year ago, and we continue to invest in the business. Windfall is one of the highest grade ore bodies in Canada and our next growth frontier, and I'll talk a little bit about that later. An important milestone was achieved with the signing of the IBA. And we've also progressed detailed engineering and execution readiness to derisk this project. Our portfolio optimization also continues. We've completed the Damang exit and have completed $182 million of noncore disposals in the half. In the first half, we strengthened our financial capacity. Our production is tracking towards the upper end of our guidance. Our all-in sustaining costs and all-in costs are expected towards the mid and lower end of their guidance ranges. Our operating delivery is translating into cash, balance sheet strength and capacity to fund growth as well as returning cash to shareholders. I'll now turn on to our operational performance, starting with safety. Importantly, as I mentioned earlier, we had no fatalities or serious injuries in the first half. This is a real manifestation of the discipline of our teams in achieving these outcomes. This is a combination of visible felt leadership, critical risk identification and critical control verification, focusing on a disciplined planning of work and embedding the right behaviors in the execution of work. We continue to track hazard and near miss reporting with enterprise-wide learning from our incidents. Our focus is now extending from the lagging indicators to the quality of critical control verification and leading the focus on the lead indicators. We are also focusing on psychological safety and creating a safe operating culture within our safety improvement program, ensuring that everyone goes home safe and well every day. Just moving on to our operating performance. So we -- as I mentioned earlier, we delivered 1.25 million ounces of attributable production and with total cash costs up around 10%, all-in costs up 9% as we had slightly lower capital costs coming out of Salares -- out of Windfall and capital expenditure in total up 6% and our production and costs on track to meet annual guidance. Salares Norte, as I mentioned, was at a standout performance now at a steady state. Granny Smith produced 147,000 ounces, up 10% with higher mined grades and improved underground productivity and South Deep delivered in line with plan due to improved destress rates and shortening stope turnaround times. Despite a slight reduction in grade, the mine produced more ounces on a managed basis in the period. Moving on to our production profile, and this just shows the bridge of higher output and improved quality mix led by low-cost ounces from Salares. Cerro Corona was in line with plan and lower year-on-year as we now transition to stockpile processing. As Salares achieved steady state, they achieved 173% higher production with plant operating successfully throughout the winter conditions that we had similar to prior years. And this reinforces the capability of that operation and the team in delivering through some extreme conditions. Tarkwa is slightly lower year-on-year as we realized lower mill feed grades as we process more stockpile and moved more waste material than ore during the 6 months. We also had some adverse weather conditions affecting load, haul, and drilling in the period. We are seeing improved performance in the second quarter and expect to see a step change in the second half of the calendar year. South Deep is performing in line with plan and continue to see strong underground performance. Agnew was impacted by the seismic event that we experienced in the beginning of 2026, and we are seeing encouraging signs of the recovery, which we expect to continue in H2. Just moving on to all-in sustaining costs. As I mentioned, our all-in sustaining cost was at $1,893 an ounce, impacted by slightly higher strip ratios across some of our assets and structural cost impacts of mining at depth. We did have some uncontrollable factors, which Alex will talk to, including higher royalties, some inflationary impacts and offset by the impact of byproduct credits, particularly at Salares Norte. We have seen a change in the cost base with Salares Norte now moving to commercial level of production and Gruyere now consolidated at 100% rather than 50%. There were some impacts on mining cost inflation at Gruyere and Tarkwa in particular, and Alex again will cover that. But what we are seeing is higher volumes, better recoveries and focus on value-driven spend, again, which Alex will unpack as part of our transformation journey on decarbonization with the St. Ives renewable energy project due to come on stream at the second half of this year and a very key focus on water and where we have achieved 93% recycling of water across our assets. I'll now hand over to Alex to talk through the financial outcomes.

Thank you, Mike. And I'll cover, as Mike said, the financial performance, capital allocation and transformation program. So I think H1 2026 was a very strong 6 months for Gold Fields with headline earnings, earnings per share and free cash flow all more than doubling. As Mike mentioned earlier, the key drivers were higher production and a stronger gold price. Production was -- sales volumes were up 18% and the gold price up circa 50%, which supported a step change in our earnings and our cash generation. Adjusted free cash flow increased to $2.2 billion, while net debt reduced to $437 million, significantly strengthening the flexibility on our balance sheet. Pleasingly for me, excluding lease liabilities, we ended the half in a net cash position. Importantly, this performance does give [Technical Difficulty] fixed assets, funding future delivering top quartile shareholder returns as per our commitment. This slide bridges our IFRS cost of sales to our all-in costs and highlights the strength of the underlying cost base. It is important to highlight that both cost of sales and depreciation have increased materially year-on-year. This is primarily due to the consolidation of Gruyere and the fixed asset adjustment came with the acquisition that have impacted us. [Technical Difficulty] We believe this represents a highly competitive underlying cash and provide asset. [Technical Difficulty] contractors, labor, consumables and maintenance do make up the majority of our cost base, but this represents our biggest opportunity to improve our competitiveness through the transformation program through reducing costs by reducing consumption and buying cheaper. These are the areas that this program is going to focus on. Sustaining capital of $497 an ounce, which is in line with what was communicated as part of our Capital Markets Day, reflects the targeted reinvestment into our asset base, including waste stripping, underground development and the enabling infrastructure to support that production. Included in our sustaining capital leases and other items, our all-in sustaining cost was $1,893. From there, we step up to our all-in cost of $2,125. This is due to primarily growth capital expenditure at our Australian operations and the exploration expenditure relates to Windfall. We do believe that we have a competitive cash -- cash cost base that enables us to invest in our assets, fund our future growth and deliver those shareholder returns. We will now move on to capital allocation. Our capital allocation framework remains unchanged, and we continue to balance the attention between returns, growth and financial strength. The first cause on our capital always remain investing in safe, reliable operations, maintaining our investment-grade credit rating and paying our base dividend of 35% of free cash flow before discretionary capital. Thereafter, the capital will compete in order to build balance sheet flexibility, deliver additional shareholder returns and discretionary investments. This bridge on the slide demonstrates that this framework is working as intended. We invested $0.6 billion in sustaining capital, $0.3 billion in growth investments, reduced net debt reduction of $0.8 billion while delivering $1.4 billion back to shareholders. This is almost 50% of the total cash generated before capital. This -- what I wanted to unpack on this slide was how we think about our additional shareholder return program. And this is an important component of our capital allocation framework and ensures that we are able to deliver on our commitment of top. We already delivered $553 million through the program, $253 million of special dividends as part of our final dividend at the end of last year and $300 million of share buybacks completed between March and July. Importantly, I would like to highlight that these buybacks were executed at an average price of approximately ZAR 590 per share, which is well below today's share price and demonstrates our willingness to act opportunistically when we see the opportunity to create value for our shareholders. Given the strength of the balance sheet and the cash generation in H1, today, we allocate another $500 million towards increasing this program to $1.25 billion. We want -- I want to highlight that this framework remains disciplined and flexible. Special dividends will sit alongside our annual dividend cycle and will be declared as part of our final dividend each year, and we will execute share buybacks opportunistically when we believe that there's value to be had. We are committed to reviewing this program every 6 months as we generate the cash, and we'll top up that program as we make the cash. I think the message is simple. We do believe that we can do all of the things in our capital allocation framework, invest in our assets and our future growth, but we also remain committed to delivering returns to our shareholders. The form of that return will remain flexible, but our focus is unchanged, allocating capital where it creates value for shareholders. We'll now move on to the balance sheet. So I think for me, this is a very pleasing slide. We have now managed to -- after funding both the Osisko transaction and the Gold Road transaction on balance sheet, we have managed to reduce our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio to 0.06x. As I said, we are in a net debt position of $437 million. But if you exclude the lease liabilities, we have moved into a net cash position. What's important is we maintain significant liquidity on our balance sheet with both cash and available facilities as highlighted on this graph. And we do have -- importantly, we also have a really structured debt maturity profile with no near-term refinancing pressures and long-dated funding that will provide us flexibility through the gold price cycle. This balance sheet does underpin our ability to deliver on our capital allocation framework, giving us the flexibility to invest in our assets, our future growth and continue returning capital to shareholders. Next, I'd like to talk to our transformation. This is how we make performance reliable, repeatable and scalable across Gold Fields. But importantly, we are also focused on performing now while we transform at the same time. We have built the program around 2 connected pillars, value being the first pillar, which unlocks productivity and cost efficiencies as well as cash improvements and the operating capabilities of the organization, which will make these improvements sustainable in the long term. Within the value pillar, we have already identified and prioritized opportunities across our operational performance, cost discipline, asset management, fleet performance, processing performance as well as in the supply chain where we have implemented global category management. In parallel, we are building the operating capabilities needed to sustain and scale those gains through a stronger operating model, clear accountabilities, standard processes and a digital backbone that will support this. The objective is simple. We'll deliver value today while building the capabilities that make superior performance sustainable through the cycle. The value pillars extract the value and the operating capabilities lock it in. Together, they're going to help us become a simpler, stronger and more consistent Gold Fields, delivering improved performance today and creating value for shareholders. Now I hand over to Mike to talk about growth.

Thanks very much, Alex. So I just want to go on to a couple of comments around growth before we break for questions. And I also want to just talk through a couple of the assets in our portfolio that I think don't really get the value that we believe they should get, but we'll cover that a little bit later. And I think as Alex has quite clearly demonstrated, we are very mindful and thoughtful about how we allocate the capital that we are generating or the cash flows that we are generating. And as we said as far back as November when we unpacked our revised capital allocation framework that we will be measured by how we are able to balance the tension between returning cash to shareholders today and investing for the future. Fortunately, in the environment that we're in, it feels like we're in that really great scenario where we can actually deliver on both of those tensions. What is important for us to do is that as we think about growth, again, our focus on growth is growing cash flow per share. It's about growing the value of the company as opposed to ounces per se. And as we think about the 3 levers of our growth strategy between brownfields, greenfields and potential bolt-on M&A, these are all about trying to improve the quality of the portfolio over time, and we'll need to compete with the alternative uses of capital. If I just really start with Salares Norte, and I think, again, really to talk to the immense opportunity that's in front of us at Salares is in the first 6 months, we delivered 337,000 ounces, up 173% year-on-year. And whilst we had a slow start of the ramp-up, we actually have really hit performance at an incredible level. H1 all-in sustaining cost of $269 an ounce was really supported by obviously some strong silver prices, which helped on the byproduct area. But the fact that we were able to perform throughout winter, deliver great performance, we've seen positive grade reconciliation, positive grade reconciliation and also we've seen real strengthened recoveries through the plant, it leaves us with a great degree of confidence of what this asset can deliver over time. And if you look at the free cash generation of just under $1.2 billion in the 6 months, it's really remarkable considering the conversation we were having 2 years ago on Salares. So just maybe moving on to Windfall. Again, Windfall is one of the Canada's highest grade development stage gold projects. It provides considerable growth prospects along strike and down plunge and is expected to provide a long-life, low-cost production platform. The opportunity extends well beyond the current mine plan. And whilst we have made good progress this year, we have an IBA that's signed. We have an EIA approval expected in H2 of 2026. We continue to do derisking on the project through advancing engineering and making sure that we are prepared for execution readiness. If we just talk to the extension, so we are continuing to do exploration drilling at depth under the existing Windfall ore body. And if you just see some of the intercepts that we are seeing, we're seeing some incredible returns with assays in exceeding 50 grams. We have a 3-year drilling program designed to infill the exploration corridor of the existing asset with the aim of increasing confidence and the continuity of the mineralization, and we believe that this will allow us to continue to add reserves to the known resource. Again, if you think about the style of this ore body, it's very similar to what we know about at St. Ives, where we have been very successful in replacing reserves over a very considerable amount of time. Just looking at the Windfall district, whilst Windfall is the anchor project in this land package, we see the opportunity at considerably larger than the current mine. We have a district-wide opportunity with a very target-rich pipeline and are accelerating testing across multiple target sites. Our objective is to progressively expand the scale, scope and longevity of the Windfall project whether through the next major discovery or adding additional high-margin ounces that allows us to leverage the infrastructure through the existing first phase of the project. The Phoenix JV with Bonterra is an also important part of the strategy and consolidates a strategic ground position around Windfall, which includes the existing Barry and Gladiator deposits. We are targeting completion to the earn-in on this JV in the second half of 2026, which will give us access to 70% of that property. Just moving on to St. Ives very briefly. Again, we wanted to highlight St. Ives because this combines a very large endowment with established infrastructure, giving us a staged pathway to extend life and lift production as we currently have a mill that's not running at full capacity. Firstly, the strategy is delivering scale at Invincible. Part of that is to increase the amount of throughput production from the underground. We are achieving this through the development of a material handling system, allowing us to deliver 3.4 million tonnes a year from the underground throughput within the next 5 years. And then secondly, diversifying the ore feed through the expanded open pit strategy. Santa Ana, Britannia and other near-surface resources will help us fill that latent surface capacity. In addition, the Argo cutback and tailing strategy will add resilience to that feed. In addition, we retained further upside by staging mill and recovery studies, investing a highly prospective tenement package across the broader St. Ives package. We believe that there exists more than 20 years of life at St. Ives with current reserves around 3.9 million ounces with a strong demonstration of a history of resource conversion, which leads us to believe that this asset has got a lot more to give. I'm just trying to get to the next slide. So just looking at some of the other assets, we have got still significant upside at our other assets. At Gruyere, we continue to study the Stage 8 and underground trade-off study, the Gilmour options as well as the accelerated exploration of Yamarna. We are progressing land access that we've acquired with the Gold Road transaction and hope to be in a position to commence drilling shortly. At Granny Smith, we're extending the Wallaby at depth through further drilling at Zones 150 and 160. We are developing the materials handling and also exploring additional open pit feed to feed the surplus capacity in the mill. What -- we are also doing, obviously, at Granny Smith, which Alex will talk to, is applying that discretionary investment in extending some of the infrastructure -- enabling infrastructure, which allows us to extend Granny Smith over time. South Deep has also got an exciting future. We continue to progress the South of Wrench study. We have commenced in the last 6 months drilling from surface, exploration drilling for the first time in a long time to really define the outer limits of the South of Wrench, and that continues to be promising geologically. We continue to also progress the shaft and renewable energy studies to see if there's a pathway to further lift production over the medium to longer term beyond the target 20% to 25% increase that we flagged that was available over the next 5 to 7 years out of South of Wrench. What is also pleasing with that early drilling from surface, we have intercepted reef. And certainly, it looks promising that, that ore body continues in a very homogenous way. Tarkwa is also an area that has opportunity to lift value by improving productivity across the fleet and improving throughput through the plant and continue to remain and preserve the Kottraverchy upside and looking to sequence growth capital along in terms with the lease renewal. These are some of the capital-efficient options that compete for capital and will improve portfolio quality within our existing portfolio. Just move to the next slide. So just very quickly on our greenfields program, we spent nearly $180 million in our brownfields and greenfields program during the first half of 2026. A couple of real call-outs on our greenfields program. Firstly, you would have seen recently, we extended our position in Founders Metals as they bought out their partner to consolidate 100% of that position. We funded that acquisition, which allowed us to get to 19.9% on a 100% basis. They continue to deliver very strong results, exploration results, and we continue to work very closely to look at how we can consolidate that district. In Australia, we continue with a district scale pipeline across a number of target zones on the East Coast as well as in WA. And in Canada, in particular, we continue to focus on the very extensive exploration program across the 2,500 square kilometer land package around Windfall. And we have undertaken significant access to land to undertake the next drilling phase of the program. In addition, in South America, we have undertaken some initial drilling in the Wayra project in Peru, which is our first greenfields campaign in over a decade as well as the Villa Tati project in Northern Chile, which has continued in the quarter. So again, very excited about the growth and the opportunity set in our greenfields program as part of our growth strategy. So just moving on to our strategy and outlook and just 2 slides to close out. Firstly, just an update on the Tarkwa lease renewal. Our current leases expire in April of 2027 based on the engagement of the government of Ghana from the time of the transition of Damang Mine in April last year. We did submit a detailed technical study and lease application in November of 2025. And we did provide a comprehensive commercial proposal, which was submitted to the government in July of 2026. This proposal supports a continued investment in this asset to unlock the potential of the asset for the next 20 years and which would allow a fair sharing of value between the government of Ghana, the local communities as well as our shareholders. We are waiting for a formal response from the government, but we did flag today in our results that the timing outcome and the terms of the renewal remain uncertain. And as we progress this, we'll obviously provide an update in due course. And then just lastly, our production guidance remains unchanged. We expect to deliver towards the upper end of that guidance with our all-in sustaining cost expected towards the midpoint, all-in costs slightly towards the lower end on the basis of lower capital spend in the second half with group CapEx revised slightly down and sustaining capital unchanged. And I think just lastly, to close on just some of the relativities, we think that the Gold Fields investment proposition really rests on a quality portfolio with strong cash flow, disciplined growth and a demonstrated commitment to balance returns and investment. Salares Norte has undoubtedly strengthened the mix and diversification of our performance with more than half of our assets having upside from existing infrastructure and installed capacity. We see ahead of us high-quality production and margin expansion, supporting sustainable free cash flow in our business, which will allow us to fund reinvestment, allow us to deliver a stronger base dividend and additional returns whilst continuing to strengthen our balance sheet. We also have a very deliberate and clear pathway for brownfields exploration as well as the development of Windfall provide a strongly funded pathway to long-term growth with disciplined gating before major capital is committed. If you look at us today, we have a free cash flow yield of over 10%. In our view, this is amongst the highest in our peer set, and we trade at a 4.9x EV to EBITDA against the lowest in our peer set with a balance sheet that is net cash and ungeared with growth at Windfall and St. Ives, which is fully funded. We believe that this provides a compelling investment case for investors. If you look at our priorities for the second half, these are very clear, keep people safe, guarantee everyone goes home safe and well. hold Salares Norte to nameplate, deliver on our plan for the remainder of our assets, advance Windfall permitting and conclude the Tarkwa lease renewal. And we'll continue to scan for opportunities within a very disciplined pathway using the 3 levers for growth that we've defined. So thank you for listening to our presentation. We'll now hand over to the operator to take questions.

Sorry, operator, I just wanted to acknowledge that we've got participants that are attending via Chorus Call and who will be able to ask questions, but we also have attendees via the webcast who will have to type their questions and I will share them with Mike and Alex. So can I propose and I see that there's already Ephrem and Raj already in the queue for the Chorus Call. So we'll start with their 2 questions, move on to the webcast questions and then alternate backwards to Chorus Call, if that's okay with you, operator.

Our next first question comes from Ephrem Ravi from Citigroup.

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

Thanks very much for the question, Ephrem. So just a comment on Salares. So I think one of the things that we have seen in the first 6 months, which is different to what we were expecting at the Capital Markets Day in November is we have seen a more positive grade reconciliation out of the pits, which we are doing further testing to see how extensive that is. That has allowed us to achieve higher gold units. We've also seen better recoveries out of the plant, which has obviously had a factor. And then the second and more impactful thing is that we've seen higher realized silver prices, which has also translated into a higher gold equivalent production for the 6 months. So I think as we think about the full year, you're quite right. I think the guidance of 500 to 550 is likely to be beaten on the upside. And today, we've said that it's more likely to be in the range of 550 to 600. And then on the cost side, I think cost is going to be a function of what happens to silver prices. And the second thing, though, is that we are also moving into an optimization phase that Alex has spoken to in terms of productivity, cost efficiencies and cost optimization. And certainly, Salares is not immune to it because now as we've ramped it up, we certainly see that there's an opportunity for us to make sure that we are running that asset as efficiently as possible. So we can certainly see some benefits to that. And I think just -- I'll ask Alex, if you want to add anything to Salares before I go to Windfall.

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

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

The next question comes from Raj Ray of BMO Capital Markets.

I have 3 questions, if I may. First is more of a clarification from Alex. So the $500 million additional capital returns, that is not necessarily just for H2, that's over the remainder of '26 and '27. Is that correct?

So Raj, the way we're going to look at it is we've allocated $500 million additional. It may not all be completed in the next 6 months. We may also use some of that for our special dividend if we consider it as part of our year-end results. And then what we will consider at each 6-month period is do we top up the program further as we generate the cash. So we're looking at it a little bit more differently than we're not basing it necessarily off long-term projections of future cash flows, but rather as we generate and earn cash, we will continue to top up the program that we feel that we are quite confident we'll be able to deliver into.

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

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

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

And Mike, so the -- sorry, the feasibility study results, that will come out once you have the permits. Is that correct?

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

And obviously, Raj, the one thing is when we talk about that project capital, we talk about directly attributable capital to that project, incurred in some of our expenditures to date is also all the greenfield exploration on the property, the expiration of depth, certain overheads and stuff. So -- and we'll give that clarity and guidance when we put it out. And then if you just want to talk about the materials handling system. So I think basically at St. Ives, we have commenced the accelerated development of the decline for the conveyor system. And in the first half of the year, we spent approximately $20 million on that. That will continue at that sort of rate for every 6 months. Then the real spend comes when you start putting in the enabling infrastructure that you will order from the various suppliers. We have placed the orders for the long lead items. And then at Granny Smith, we are still just finalizing sort of the feasibility study before we make any major commitment.

Operator, I think we can take one more question. I see Tanya is in the queue before we move over to the webcast questions.

Next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek of Scotiabank.

I just wanted to follow up on Windfall, if I may. Can you remind me at what point if we don't have this permit in place, do we start slipping on this project? Is it if we don't get it by the fall of this year that we start slipping? And then remind me on the slippage again, is it 1 year slippage for the winter?

Yes. And look, Tanya, we haven't kind of been too -- we haven't really gone out to the market and said, look, this is our revised schedule because what we would rather do is wait until we have an EIA. But to be perfectly honest, we are now starting to impact on the ability to execute work during this first winter period. And therefore, if we don't have an EIA by the end of this calendar year, we're certainly looking towards slippage at least to the back end of 2029 and if not later. So that's what we're trying to navigate through at the moment. We are ready to mobilize, particularly the civil works, which are critical for us to move on and then being able to deliver on the camp infrastructure. We remain hopeful that we can move forward. But again, we were expecting this to be delivered in June. So we're already 2 months nearly 3 months late on this, and that's starting to have an impact on what we can realistically deliver through the first winter. So I think what I'd rather do is hold back. And once we've got clarity on the timing of the EIA, we'll come back with the timing on the project.

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

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

And just to confirm, Tanya, that range was in real 2025 terms when we provided it in November. So would have to be adjusted for inflation.

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

Yes. Tanya, I'd say that typically, what we've been looking for is assets that really -- and as we've always said, ideally come on and create incremental value in our portfolio. I think we always said that we would probably only execute one material project at a time. So we've got Windfall is our priority to execute against. So would we go and buy a shovel-ready project today, that probably wouldn't be the right kind of area of focus. Quite clearly, producing assets of high quality in the right jurisdiction are not that easily available. And if they are, they're super expensive. So we are very -- trying to be very discerning. We don't have to do M&A. I just want to make that point very clear. We have a very good outlook on our existing portfolio. Our greenfields program is gaining momentum and will deliver outcomes from a decade out. But we'll always be opportunistic. And if the right opportunities come up, we will look to that. Today, it probably wouldn't be a development project that is near term. But if it was something that came to be delivered 7 years out, maybe that would be something of interest. But -- so it's hard to put a definition around it. We look at the entire universe, and we look at where it would come into our portfolio at the right time to deliver on our aspiration of growing cash flow per share over time.

If okay, I will take -- there's a few questions on the webcast, so I'll just read them. There's 3 from [indiscernible] Capital Markets. He says, do you foresee royalty issues cropping up in other regions around the world like what is happening in Ghana? If so, how do you go about taking an initiative to resolve impending royalty debacles going forward? Is there an internal blueprint in place? His second question says, given the industry's massive revenue and cash flows, there's high risk of stiff competition for critical skills, which could lead to high employee turnover. Have you evaluated this risk? And is there a retention strategy in place? Maybe park there and take...

Thanks for those questions. Look, I think what we've seen in Ghana is certainly, in some respects, unhelpful because certainly, we think that it starts placing Ghana in a fairly uncompetitive position for inward investment and it's certainly a step-up on royalty regimes elsewhere. At the time, we engaged on a bilateral basis as well as through the industry bodies like the Chamber of Mines as well as our peers to try and impress on government to not take short-term decisions that could impact the long-term health of the sector. Despite that, this was a country -- is a country that's under some financial stress and therefore, saw the sector as an easy target. When I compare this to Western Australia, for example, which I know is in a very different position, but they've held royalty rates steady for a very long period of time despite movements in gold price because I think there's a real understanding that what you do need as investors is predictability. And you can just see the kind of investments that going into a region that whilst it's prospective, it's certainly no better than what Ghana has available to us. So it's really important that we make those messages clear, and that's why you see certainly sovereign risk in certain jurisdictions. But the way that we approach it is very much through industry bodies on a direct basis and bilaterally to try and impress some governments not to take short-term decisions because that's certainly not helpful to sustain the health of the sector in the long term. I think in respect to skills, you're quite right. In certain parts, we've had real pockets of turnover, interesting enough, South Deep, we spoke about turnover 2 years ago where we were losing some real skilled operators. Today, we're seeing those people coming back. And again, it talks to being consistent with the value proposition. And once you've got assets that are performing, people want to come and be part of that. The other area where we've seen high degrees of turnover is, for example, Western Australia, even through our business partners where they've seen turnover. And we work very closely with them to make sure we have competitive positions, competitive value propositions and if necessary, tying people in through retention mechanisms. So it's -- I wouldn't say it's not a one size fit all. It requires real insight and being deliberate about how we hold on to talent for certain parts of the world, it's a really competitive position.

Good. And the next one, I'm going to take 3, is from Luke Roberts. He says, given the decline in net debt, are you considering early repayment of any debt facilities at this stage? And then the next one after that is from Arnold van Graan from Nedbank CIB. He says, Mike, what do you think is needed to close the valuation gap with your peers? How much of that do you think is due to Tarkwa? And then the third one is from Bruce Williamson from Integral Asset Management. He says, Mike, how many surface holes do you need to drill South of Wrench to make you comfortable with the geology tonnes and grades?

Yes. Thanks very much. Maybe, Alex, you want to do the first one?

So thank you, Luke. From a debt perspective, obviously, the first thing we do when we have excess cash is to pay down our revolving credit facilities because those we can reaccess. But we will continue to assess whether it makes sense to pay down our other facilities. For example, our term debt in Australia will probably be one of the easier ones to look at. And we do continuously monitor our bond prices. And if there was something where we could get them below par, we would definitely look at that opportunity if it arose.

Yes. Thanks. And Arnold, I think this issue around the valuation gap is interesting for -- certainly, from a starting point, we believe that we are -- have delivered on our strategy in the last 2 years. And certainly, from a delivery point of view, we are no different to our peers. And in fact, we have some -- a lot more exciting future potential. I think Tarkwa has been a drag on our share price. And if you look at the underperformance in the last 6 months, we've underperformed by about 10%, which is probably the kind of value attributable to Tarkwa or there and thereabouts. But I think the third one is maybe just a slight misunderstanding on how we're positioning our additional returns program and what our capital allocation framework looks like because we absolutely do believe that we have a very competitive capital returns program. It is a capital returns program that's designed to have longevity and not just a big announced headline number. And I think if we can continue to be disciplined on capital allocation, invest in our business and deliver superior returns, hopefully, the market will get to understand that we are really trying to deliver a sustainable delivery of returns rather than just one-off. And hopefully, the combination of resolution on Tarkwa, the announcement of Windfall into execution and continued delivery on our commitments on capital returns should see us rewarded. So that's what we're really working towards. And probably lastly, and that's why in the presentation, we spoke about the inherent potential in our portfolio because maybe there's still not a full value being attributed to some of these options that we have in our business. Bruce, just to your question on South Deep, I think the way that we should think about it, this is some infill drilling on South of Wrench, but equally, it's also extension drilling to really understand the extension perimeter of South Deep. So hard to put a number to it today, but this would be certainly over the next 5 years, you'd expect us to be doing at least 100,000 to 200,000 meters of drilling to start defining that. But we have got reserves declared over that property. So it's not like there has to be a major reserve declaration around those assets. This is about an extension drilling more than anything.

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

Yes. Thanks very much. And look, again, I'll just call out a couple of comments. We believe this was a very strong performance in the first 6 months, we were able, through the support of gold price as well as strong operating performance, really deliver superior returns to our shareholders as we had flagged as well as continuing to invest in our business. We think we have a number of catalysts and opportunities in our portfolio to improve our business, not least of which is the moving into execution of Windfall, the continued improvement in our existing portfolio and then also hopefully, resolution of Tarkwa, which would unlock further value. So hopefully, this was a good representation of the performance. And certainly, we are excited about what the next 6 months will bring. Thank you, everyone, for joining.