Peter Steenkamp
Analyst · Bank of America
Patrick, just maybe - just to come in there. One of the things we tried to do this year because if you look at last year's performance, the net effect prior to COVID. Now, obviously, COVID had its own little plan. But if you look at the planned performance at a time, on volumes and everything else we were there, we were just not there on the ground. So we in actual fact, you know, had a very, very hard look in terms of our assumptions that we make in terms of you know, things like for instance, dilutions and things like that. So we – you have to - when Beyers and even our team here in the next year level, actually went quite a lot of detail in terms of understanding our grades and make sure we don't over optimistic in a graded again. And I think we've got a very good plan at the place. I think this is a very realistic plan. Obviously, there is upside and there can be upside in that. And obviously, as we incorporate Mponeng in latter part of the year, we would guide again, you know, in the middle of the year what our things will be. But I think one of the things that we want - don't want to get into the same problem, again, is to have the incorrect grades in place. And there are some place – not surprises, but there some areas where we had grades - for Joel, for instance, the first part of that bottom area is a much lower stoping width than we normally have. So we don't have the volumes that we normally have per square meter that we give and the greatness is not necessarily improving the indexing. So what I'm trying to say, I think we went through a very, very thorough planning process this year and got to that - those guidance. If one look actually at the cost itself, I think it's a 4% increase, total cost, you know, without the units at show level [ph]. So, yes, we - it was a very tough thing to guide, I'm telling you, there's not that easy to guide, you know, the impact of COVID or the second wave or things like that. We had some COVID related that we know of, that we will have an impact, because we only have our final foreign nationals back in at work in the first of September. And so, you know, it took us forever to get them into South Africa. You know, we've got them in dribs and drabs and things like that, et cetera, which we - you know, there was actually quite a – I’ll say, one thing in a COVID didn't work well is actually bringing the foreign nationals back. And it's because we had home affairs in there. We had the police in there, we had our Department of Labor, Department of Health, and everybody had to put some time and sprag in the wheel to get people back and eventually we got them over the line and got them cutting back. And, you know, it took much longer than we expected it to take. But yes, I think the guidance at the moment I would say is probably fairly conservative guidance. But you know, we will keep people updated as things change.