Earnings Call Transcript
Caledonia Mining Corp Plc (CMCL)
Earnings Call Transcript - CMCL Q3 2024
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Good afternoon. Welcome to this call to discuss Caledonia's results for the third quarter. In addition to the usual discussion of financial and operating results, we'll also discuss the preliminary results of the exploration program at Motapa, which we published this morning. And I'll also make some brief comments regarding the progress at Bilboes. I'm joined this afternoon by James Mufara, who's our Chief Operating Officer. He joined us in May, Chester Goodburn, our CFO. And a new person, a new face, I think, to most of you will be Craig Harvey, who's our Vice President Technical Services, and he's responsible for our exploration activities. So he will say a few words about what we're doing at Motapa. And then I'm joined by Victor Gapare, who's a Director and he will field questions relating to Bilboes and/or the general environment in Zimbabwe. Before we get into the presentation, I just want to make a couple of observations. So the first is that Caledonia is changing very rapidly, and that's reflected in the three announcements that we published this morning. First of all, we've got the financial and operating results, which largely reflect the performance at Blanket. It's fair to say that production has stabilized from what was a difficult time in 2023, but we now need to address the issue of costs. And we are facing some stronger headwinds than normal, particularly in respect of higher electricity costs and labor costs and the effects of continued currency instability. We are accustomed to managing these risks and in the course of the presentation, we'll set out some of the steps that we've already taken to address these areas and will also outline some other issues which, at this stage, it's just too early to quantify the effect or indeed the timing of when they will come into effect. So we've got the financial and operating results dealing relating to effectively Blanket. We've got very encouraging results from Motapa, which reaffirms and reconfirms our strategy of investing in Zimbabwe to create a mid-tier Zimbabwe-focused gold producer. And I think that strategy is now being vindicated by what we're seeing at Motapa. And clearly, we'll continue the dividend. The third press release this morning was the continuation of the dividend. We have attractive and competing calls on our capital, across the business, but maintaining returns to shareholders remains a key part of our strategy. So with that, we'll get into the presentation. Regrettably, we do it. So I'll just go back a minute. Camilla, let me just deal with that. So, yes, we've had a fatality at the mine in late September. James will talk a little bit more about that. Just under 19,000 ounces of gold were produced in the quarter, a little bit less than we did in the same quarter of 2023, but let's just know that was a record production quarter. So we're very comfortable with a production run rate of just under 19,000 ounces and we remain on track to achieve the full-year guidance of anything between 74,000 ounces and 78,000 ounces. As I mentioned, encouraging results at Motapa, which Craig will talk about in a moment. We've also announced the forthcoming sale of the solar plant. That's been operating slightly better than expected. We built it for, at a cost of about 14 million. We're selling it for just over 22 million. We will continue to get the power that's generated from that solar project. So by no means losing the benefit of getting that reliable power. And in addition, the new owner is now evaluating a second stage of that solar plant. So we can release the capital and use the capital elsewhere in our business. I already mentioned the fact that we've declared another dividend of $0.14. And we'll talk a bit more about Bilboes, but we're continuing with the feasibility study and we're making some progress now on funding options for that project. So moving on, I think, can we move on, Camilla or I think I've dealt with most of these things. I mentioned production, gold price benefiting from the high gold price, an average price in the quarter of over 2,400. That's resulted in improved revenue, improved gross profit, but the net profit attributable to the shareholders suffered the headwinds of continued foreign exchange losses and some other unusual expenses which Chester will outline in due course. So I think with that, we're going to move into the presentation.
James Mufara, COO
Thank you very much, Mark, and good afternoon to you all. As Mark already alluded to, we regret to inform you that we lost one of our treasured employees, an assistant, on the 21st of September. The employee was in the process of installing support when this fall of ground actually occurred fatally tripping him. Despite all our efforts, with the rescue team to try and bring him out to surface and, you know, resuscitate him. Unfortunately, he succumbed to the injuries that he had suffered in this fall of ground. As an organization, Caledonia, we strongly believe in a culture of care and growth. And this is something that we treasure ourselves with. We also believe in total or real risk reduction all the time, and we believe in learning from the incidents that would have happened. We have given the employee's family support and we've also supported the government with the investigation that they actually took out with regards to the employee that lost their life. Subsequent to the accident, we employed the services of DuPont or DSS Plus to do a total diagnostic on our operations in order to see the whole of our value chain with regards to safety and health. This work we believe will assist us in our quest for zero harm on our mines. We should believe, and totally and thoroughly believe that it's both a moral imperative and an operational imperative. On the production of the quarter, I'm glad to announce that in terms of development, we were actually close to 7% above our plan for the quarter. This is good with regards to our future flexibility that we'll need because the development is opening up our future possibilities of flexibility. In terms of tons, we're neck and neck with regards to what our plan was. However, we were set back because our grade was just around 4% below our plan for the quarter. This was a result of a fall of ground that we had at the beginning of July, in one of our stopes Eureka. And we couldn't actually quickly and in time have the flexibility to replace this stope. As a result, we actually suffered this drop in our asset grades. We have since moved back into better stopes to stabilize the grid, but it was a bit too late to recover the quarter at that moment. As a result of the grade drop that we had, we ended up with our ounces just on 6.9% below for the quarter. The improvement that we see in the development and the achievements that we see with our targets at the moment will ensure that to move, in the future, we'll isolate ourselves from incidents of inflexibility that hampered us in the previous quarter. Thank you, Mark.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Okay. I think we'll move on to finance. Can I, Chester, can I ask you to run through these pages dealing with finance, please?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
Yes. Thank you, Mark. It's good to see our revenue up by 13.6%. That's 28% due to additional prices or higher prices that we've received. Royalties remain flat at 5% of revenue, and production costs have increased by 2.9%. So it's good to see the cost of Bilboes coming down, and also the revenues of Bilboes covering the all-in cost for Bilboes. Production cost at Blanket has increased. And as Mark has said, we've got some cost initiatives to improve on that and we'll get to that in a bit. And then depreciation has decreased, and that's due to lower ounces. I was quite pleased to see the gross profit at an increase of 37% for the quarter. When we look at the production costs, this on a per ounce sold basis, you can see that the wages and salaries have increased and that should be due to additional headcount that we've employed at Blanket as well as overtime that we spend. And we've got some initiatives to turn that around. Consumables increased predominantly due to once-off repairs and maintenance that we've done in our engineering and metallurgical plant and that shouldn't reoccur. So I'm not too concerned about consumables. Other than that, repairs and maintenance charge, we can see that our prices are really good. And there's actually been a slight reduction in our variable consumable costs on a per ounce basis. Electricity has increased at Blanket and that's due to higher maximum demand charges that we are receiving. If you exceed a certain demand charge or let's say electricity load at the mines grid, the utility would increase the rates that they charge, and that increases the cost that we see. In addition, they also levy a penalty if you have a low power factor that comes out of your grid and that has also increased our electricity charges at Blanket mine. But we've got some initiatives and some of them have already been or are about a week away from being implemented. Online costs and administration at the mine has increased predominantly due to the re-basing of costs, due to the volatility that we've seen in the ZIG. And all your local suppliers have increased the cost and we can see that effect of it. But it's not a big increase in absolute terms. Bilboes, I've spoken to that before. That's covered by the revenues and that was on a breakeven basis. If we look at the waterfall of our Q3 '23 cost and how that compares to our current online cost, we've decreased the cost significantly at Bilboes Oxide. So good to see that turning around. Power, labor, consumables and other has increased as said before. And we can see that our all-in sustaining costs also increased and that's pretty much due to an increase in our share price that increases the share-based expense. So that's actually a good cost to see as our investors would be happy with the increased share price. We've revised our cost guidance for 2024. Online cost guidance is now set at $950 per ounce to $1,050 per ounce and all-in sustaining cost is set at $1,450 per ounce and $1,550 per ounce. And that's increased predominantly due to the labor and the power costs, which we'll come on to in a bit. So these are our cost control initiatives. Firstly, power. We're about two weeks away from installing power factor correction equipment and that's expected to save approximately $1.3 million per annum and that should take effect in 2025, the full 2025 being installed in a couple of weeks. We are planning to convert our central shaft winder from AC to DC and the efficiencies that you gain from a power use perspective will also decrease your cost by $1.2 million. That should be implemented within 2025. So you'll see the full effect of that coming in 2026 and part of it coming in 2025. What we've already done is to increase our waste payload, hoisting speed and improve the sequencing of our waste at central shaft. That's helped us to increase efficiencies in our operations and that's already taken effect. So it's good to see that coming in place. And we also plan to replace equipment with more energy-efficient equipment. The latter will come through on time. It's not something that you will see immediately taking effect, but we are looking at more energy-efficient equipment. Then from a solar plant perspective, we're looking to get an external party to build a Phase Two. We expect that to be approximately an 8 megawatt. And the rate that it saves, it saves approximately $1.6 million. Now this wouldn't come with a capital cost for us. We'll just be buying the power from a third-party and in turn save on our OpEx. Further on salaries and wages, we retired 106 people of a certain age and plus, at a cost of 2.1 million. That's included in other expenses. It's not part of our OpEx, but it's expected to save our OpEx going forward by approximately $400,000. And also in addition to that, it brings about some efficiencies that we could generate by modernizing the mine. We're planning to do quite a few IT initiatives and hopefully that helps with the implementation of that too. We also plan to implement a new biometric clocking system and this would track staff at the Blanket model. So there's tracking of our staff movements, so we can gain efficiencies and time studies and better allocate our staff more efficiently at Blanket mine. In addition to this, this is to help with the rostering and preauthorization of overtime. So it allows us to allocate labor better to various areas and also track that, but also look at the overtime and make sure that this overtime gets preapproved. So we know why we're spending money over time. So we believe that well quite a bit in helping to manage our staff members.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Just before Chester goes on, so all those initiatives, some of them are very close to being implemented. Some of them will be implemented next year, and we can quantify the benefits arising from those and we're pretty clear on the timing. Some of the things, replacing old equipment with more energy-efficient equipment, the effect, the benefit we can get from the introduction of the biometric clocking system. At this stage, it's too early to quantify the benefits that we might reap and also the timing thereof. But we should start to see some progress from in terms of cost reduction early next year. So go on, Chester.
Chester Goodburn, CFO
Thanks. So the gross profit, as I said, that's gone up by 37%. I'm very pleased with that. Net foreign exchange losses that was quite significant in the quarter. We incurred $3.1 million of foreign exchange losses. 800,000 of that would be intercompany foreign exchange losses that are not eliminated. That's also unrealized and we don't expect that to realize. So I'm not too concerned about that, that's weekly strengthening of the rand. So really not an issue there. But what we see is $2.3 million worth of losses in Q3 due to the devaluation of the ZIG. We'll get down to the detail and how we manage that and how that is broken down. But for the year, we've suffered in total an amount of $9.3 million worth of loss now that's significant for our business. And we can no longer in all that and say, it's not a cost related to our business. We've seen this in every quarter here out. And we've also not counted that back for our adjusted earnings per share. So we look at this as quite a serious cost, and we try to mitigate the effects of devaluating currencies as far as we can. We'll get into that in a moment. And other, that's where we include the one of $2.1 million of retirement fee. So that you as again won't be repeated. And the tax expense increased due to our gross profits during the quarter. Here you can see the foreign exchange breakdown for the nine months, and we've got the ZIG and the RTGS now. The ZIG is the new currency, the RTGS was abolished on 5th April 2024. And you can see I was quite pleased to see that we've got a very small cash and cash equivalents loss of about $2,000 when we had the ZIG. And that's how we manage that to spend the ZIG. We're trying to spend it more efficiently. We do spend it on efficiency costs to ensure that our cash gets converted to inventory that we can use at the mine rather than keeping it in a dollar that could suffer the volatility that we've seen in this currency. In the first quarter, we had a conversion method. We had locked up our cash and incurred $3 million worth of losses under RTGS, and other than those to you, I'd say that there are no significant line items that contribute to our foreign exchange would be the brilliant sales receivable and our battery sales receivable. And the conversion and receipt of that cash is very much outside of our control as we receive our cash from fidelity when they're ready to pay. So normally, that happens in about 10 days, 10 to 14 days, but still in that 10 to 14 days, if there's a significant devaluation that like we've seen with the ZIG, it still comes down to the you know it affects our bottom line in terms of losses.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Can I just make a point that people may not understand, there's no market, there's no properly traded liquid market for the Zimbabwe currency, the exchange rate. The official exchange rate is just set by a committee and it typically steps down devalues in big steps. So casing point would be the devaluation of the ZIG from about nearly from about 13.7% to, I think, about 23%. It's about nearly 50% devaluation. That happened in the space of a few seconds. So it makes it very difficult. The magnitude and the speed of these devaluations makes it very difficult to manage. But there's no hedging mechanism and there's no sort of exchange rate which allows you to move ahead of the curve. Sorry, Chester, go on.
Chester Goodburn, CFO
Yes, I believe that summarizes everything. Our primary strategy to mitigate volatility and losses is to minimize exposure to ZIG as much as possible. We aim to manage our spending effectively. Additionally, I was encouraged by our cash generation, which did not account for working capital changes. We achieved over $16 million for the quarter, and if you look at the $46 million we've generated over the past nine months, it's more than double what we generated last year. It's reassuring to see that our cash generation has been consistent and significantly higher than 23% each quarter this year. We are witnessing a positive turnaround in cash generation from 2023 to now. We have invested some funds in safety stock to ensure we have necessary spares available, which helps us maintain production without delays, especially given the current gold prices. Furthermore, we have increased our prepayments for long-lead items, which will show up in the Q4 capital expenditures. About $1.4 million of those prepayments are related to ZIG, where we've opted for stock prepayments instead of paying entirely in cash. This has impacted our cash flow positively by ensuring we have safety spares and minimizing ZIG evaluations. We anticipate this will improve in the long run and it's reassuring to see safety equipment available. Regarding capital expenditures, we are still on track for $30.8 million at Blanket, with some unexpected capital expenditures potentially deferring into next year; however, the total amount remains unchanged and should not pose any issues. I'm pleased to report another strong cash generation in this quarter.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Good. Thank you, Chester. Can I ask Craig to run us through the results, the Motapa results, which again, we announced this morning. Craig, can I leave you to do that, please?
Craig Harvey, VP Technical Services
Thanks, Mark. Good afternoon or good morning to everyone. In 2024, Caledonia initiated a widely spaced drilling program at Motapa. As shown on the map, it is adjacent to Bilboes, sharing a common boundary. Motapa encompasses three main trends: Northern, Central, and Southern, which together extend over 9,000 meters. This area is significant in size. Our main objective this year was to explore the continuation of sulfide zones below the historical open pit oxide mined primarily in the '80s and '90s by Anglo American. We have gathered considerable data from Anglo, including old billing databases and underground working plans from previous operators. Additionally, we aimed to trench across the Motapa property to identify new prospective areas that might have been missed or overlooked. We completed over 9,500 meters of drilling, utilizing a mix of diamond and reverse circulation methods across 68 holes, and the overall grade is quite similar to that of Bilboes. It’s important to note that the drilling was widely spaced, approximately 150 to 200 meters apart, so it's still early in our findings. While the mineralization may be slightly less extensive than at Bilboes, there is still substantial work ahead. The reports detail six holes from the total of 68 drilled, which can be accessed on our website. Notably, sulfides continue at depth with comparable grades. We have identified an area in the eastern section of the Motapa Central trend, referred to as Mpudzi. One specific hole, MPZRC02, demonstrated a promising grade, very shallow at only 12 meters below the surface, and seems to contain oxide material. This is significant because the current Bilboes site operates two oxide heap leach processing plants, located approximately 3.50 kilometers and 3.20 kilometers away. We drilled additional holes in this zone, reporting on 15 intersections, with eight yielding grades above 15 meters and shallow. The average grade for these intersections is 4.21 grams per ton, with a high of 10.95 grams per ton, bringing the average back down to 2.6. This represents exciting potential for us as we approach 2025 and 2026, focusing on the Mpudzi area where we believe near-term oxide mineralization is likely, and we aim to secure this for potential resource addition. Additionally, we will concentrate on drilling in the Motapa North area, which is close to the shared boundary with Bilboes and about 1.5 kilometers from the processing plant. Our goal is to establish a mineral resource, whether inferred or indicated, and turn attention to the Mpudzi area. Looking ahead, we are pleased that we have confirmed the presence of sulfides at depth and will proceed with a standard drilling program to incorporate these findings into our records, particularly in the promising Mpudzi area. Thanks, Mark. I’m not sure if you have any comments.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Thank you, Craig. Shall we proceed? I wanted to mention Bilboes briefly. We are actively working on a feasibility study, but there's no new information to share at this time. All the data presented in this slide comes from previously published materials. We remain on track to release the feasibility study in the first quarter of next year. For those familiar with the project, the key focus of our efforts is to upgrade the existing Preliminary Economic Assessment to a feasibility study, specifically enhancing the work related to the tailings facility. Concurrently, we are also evaluating funding options. When we acquired Bilboes, we had some internal ideas about financing, which have now been validated by a specialist debt advisor. We are starting to engage with potential funders. We anticipate looking into three possible funding structures that utilize different combinations of senior and mezzanine debt. We will continue to explore these options and, in due course, we will be able to announce details about the senior lender and debt arrangements, although I can't provide a timeline for that at the moment. Overall, we are making solid progress. Regarding our outlook, the immediate focus at Blanket is to maintain production at around 75,000 ounces per year. As mentioned, we need to pay closer attention to costs, particularly for electricity and labor. While some of the initiatives we are implementing can be quantified, others cannot yet be measured precisely, but we are starting to see progress. For Bilboes, we expect to publish the feasibility study in the first quarter, and we are also advancing on various funding options. As Craig mentioned, we have achieved promising results at Motapa from three known areas and one new area. We anticipate that exploration will continue for a couple of years before establishing a maiden resource. Given Motapa's close proximity to Bilboes, any discoveries made there could lead to significant synergies in a combined Bilboes-Motapa operation. We can now open the floor to questions. Camilla, would you like to take it from here?
Operator, Operator
That's fine. Can I just ask that you raise your hand if you have any questions.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Can I also say people can type them, but the problem with typed questions is sometimes you may not get the nuanced answer that you're looking for. So you probably got a better quality of answer if you actually raise your hand and do it verbally rather than written. But of course, if you don't want to do that, we can manage.
Operator, Operator
Right. The only question so far is about having the drawing on Slide 14 available on the website. Yes, we can do that. It's also in the press release. There's a question here from Ian Joslin. So I'm just going to unmute you now. Ian, you should be able to speak.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Hello?
Operator, Operator
Ian?
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Can you hear me?
Operator, Operator
Yes.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
You can hear me?
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Yeah.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Okay. Good. Right. Yes, I think I had a similar question last time around, but it's kind of, you've highlighted it, I think, to date. It's to do with the account where you obviously had the IAS, EPSs and then you have your own adjusted. And you've touched on something I was going to talk about anyway. But when I look at your notes, the difference, I think correct me if I'm wrong, but the main difference between the IAS EPS is and the adjusted ones are on FX, which clearly you've highlighted on as being of concern. And I think the other factor was, I think, minority interests, which obviously takes up quite a large chunk of profit after taxes.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
And, well, Chester can answer that question. But I would, Chester, I'll leave you to answer that question if you could.
Chester Goodburn, CFO
So firstly on NCI, we show what is the EPS on an attributable basis. And secondly, we don't deduct the FX. The FX that we do deduct would be the intercompany FX that I spoke about. It's not that big. It's not a significant portion. The significant portion relates to the ZIG losses. And that's still deducted from EPS and adjusted EPS.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
So what's the main difference what accounts for the main difference between the two?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
So if you take out if you look at adjusted earnings, we share, we take out noncontrolling interest, the deferred tax, and some foreign exchange that we don't see as structural to our business. What we've done in the past was to remove the foreign exchange because we had foreign exchange gains for, well, it's a 2020, 2021, and 2022. So we removed those profits from adjusted earnings per share because we didn't feel that was part of our business, and we didn't want to show a number without that. When we look at 2023 and 2024, you see large foreign exchange losses, and now for this year, because we've seen significant losses of about 9.3 million, we deducted the foreign exchange losses that pertain to the Zim operation. We still deducted that from EPS. So we didn't count it back in the adjusted earnings per share calculation.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
And you mentioned minority interests?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
Yes. We want to present a profit figure that accurately reflects our business operations. Therefore, we exclude certain items.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
But isn't that, I mean, perhaps I'm not understanding, but isn't that money paid out, which is a long-term thing.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
No. Hold on. When we adjust for foreign exchange movements, we only account for our share of those movements. Clearly, the foreign exchange losses were incurred at Blanket, and the minorities are associated with Blanket. They must account for their share of that. I think that's where the confusion lies. The calculation of earnings per share is based on attributable earnings per share, which is after the non-controlling interest.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Right. Okay. So really minority interest is then standing behind the share of the losses?
Mark Learmonth, CEO
No. They have to. Absolutely, yes.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
No, that's fine. It just had a line minority interest, so I thought possibly you were just adding back the total.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
No. So what we do, the adjustment for foreign exchange is then the adjustment is further adjusted for the NCI component and to the extent there's any tax relief on the foreign exchange loss.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Got you. Okay. So it's effectively yes. The two words misled me thinking. Could I ask another question? Sure, it's to do with, I think you gave examples of putting in extra inventories to try to ensure that if you hit low grade, you're able to have flexibility, perhaps more faces to do the mining. I was just wondering if you could give me an example of how the extra inventories will help you?
Mark Learmonth, CEO
The inventories are related to development. We are working to develop in various areas to provide flexibility in case of another event like what occurred at Eureka. The inventory buildup is to ensure that we have enough backup stock in case, for example, pumps fail. We are adding new pumping systems at the bottom level of the mine and the 34 level. If those pumps fail, we risk having too much water accumulate at the bottom of the mine. Additionally, we purchased spare parts to maintain the new tailings facility and increased our inventory to ensure that we are spending ZIG cash instead of holding it. This allows us to buy necessary items for the business and reduce our foreign exchange risk.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Okay. I understand. And I had just one last question. Obviously, it's interesting and quite exciting that you discovered oxides in Motapa. And I think you mentioned you're looking at a two-year horizon for any sort of development. So would that include doing some shallow mining for taking out the oxides that?
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Yes, we have had a challenging experience in oxide mining at Bilboes a few years back, and we certainly do not want to repeat that. However, if we can access relatively shallow oxides, we will proceed and utilize the existing heat leach facilities at Bilboes to convert it to cash as quickly as possible. If it proves to be economically viable, we will move forward, but we aim to avoid the same mistakes we made in early 2023. So, if it makes sense, we will pursue it, but we will do so cautiously.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
And could you remind me what happened at Bilboes because obviously you thought that you could do it there, but it didn't turn out to be?
Mark Learmonth, CEO
The stripping ratio is too high. We will access the remaining oxides at Bilboes eventually as part of the broader sulfide package, but on their own, they are not cost-effective.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
You just carrying too much earth around.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Yes.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Got you. Okay. Well, that's been very helpful. Thank you.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Okay. We do actually have some written questions, which are quite detailed. Camilla, should I try and address these written questions?
Operator, Operator
Yes. Okay. Yeah, but don't do this.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Okay. The first question was, please explain the circumstances surrounding the fall of ground in Eureka. Craig or James, do you want to talk about what happened in Eureka the fall of ground early in the third quarter?
James Mufara, COO
Yes. So what happened was a very unfortunate instance where there were two structures that were forming a whole structure. Some of the people that understand this would remember. So it was forming a whole structure. And in between, you would obviously form a wedge where our teams were supposed to proactively identify that, pin this wedge and be in a position to carry on with work. Unfortunately, we did not do that in time actually. And as a result, when they were trying to put in support, they did unfortunately not put in temporary support. The risk was not received to the extent to which it was, and the fall of ground happened, unfortunately, when they were still there, and we lost the man.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Okay. And then the further question was the incident at number four shaft that disrupted hoisting. That was quite simply a piece of equipment was being lowered down the number four shaft. It broke loose. It fell down, it fell down at the shaft and caused some damage to the shaft infrastructure. And that lost us about what a week's worth of hoisting up number two shaft, was that correct?
James Mufara, COO
Yes, it was a week's worth of hoisting.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Yes, but that issue has now been resolved. There's a detailed question regarding the difference between IFRS production costs of $20.1 million on Page 11 and Blanket's production costs of $19.3 million on Page 12. Chester, can you address that easily, or does it require an email to the person who asked?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
If I look at Page 7, that's where production costs are shown on the slide, not Page 11.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
But I'm not sure about this. I don't know if page 11 refers to the Management Discussion and Analysis or possibly the accounts. I'm unclear on which document is being referenced.
Chester Goodburn, CFO
19.3 million. I'm going to assume a few things here. But if it doesn't answer, let's do it on e-mail. 19.3 is the cost at Blanket. We do incur some costs at a group level that gets added to that. And you also get the Bilboes costs.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
So that's ratably sending the messages whilst we have. So, ratably, please, if you send me your e-mail address and then I'll forward your e-mail to Chester and Chester will deal with this over e-mail. It's a bit too detailed to go into on a call like this. The further question is the reallocated employee costs into the shared services center. It's about $2.4 million for 2024. Those are costs that we will need to carry as we go forward with Bilboes. So, yes, those will be recurring costs. So where we are at the moment is we're effectively building up head office infrastructure to service not just Blanket and Caledonia as it currently stands, but Blanket plus Caledonia plus Bilboes as we will be in the future. And so we are in this uncomfortable period now until we get Bilboes up and running of carrying those costs. Now clearly, when Bilboes is up and running, we do expect our all-in sustaining costs and our own mine cost to fall very, very substantially as we spread those shared services costs and the higher head office costs, they have substantially more production. So it will work its way out in the wash over the course of the next couple of years. But we need to have got Bilboes up and running. Okay. Further question was about our funding in Zimbabwe, the overdraft facilities and working capital. Chester, do you want to talk about liquidity in Zimbabwe?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
Yes. So as we go forward, Mark mentioned now, we've got some cost initiatives that should bring down our operating costs going forward. So that will increase the cash generation. We don't see the working capital outflows. We don't see that carrying on going forward. We just got the safety space to ensure that we don't have any delays in our production. So we don't see that cash coming through or cash expense coming through cash outflow. So, yes, our cash position should improve going forward. And for the short period of time, when we've increased our inventory where we will be utilizing the full facility before year-end, but it should normalize going forward.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
But the point of those facilities is to use them. And I know that the Blanket is very ungeared?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
Maybe if I could add to that, and Mark did mention the solar plant that we're planning to sell for 22 million after CGT, which generates about 19 million. Blanket is very profitable at these gold prices. So you should see an increase in the cash flows coming through in 2025. So all these factors will improve our cash flows going forward.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
And then the final question was the ZIG, the adoption rate of the ZIG and do locals, does Zimbabweans still primarily transact in dollars. I guess the person who's best placed to answer that is Victor. Are you able to talk about the general acceptance or nonacceptance of the ZIG in the country?
Victor Gapare, Director
Thank you, Mark. At the moment, if you look at the global transactions in Zim, what you find is that the US dollar is somewhere between 70% and 75% and moving up to probably somewhere 75% and 80%. So approximately 20% to 30% of transactions in Zim are mainly ZIG. So the easy level of acceptance where you have to use it anyway. So for us, because we get some of that money in Zim dollars in ZIG like just I say is we use it to pay taxes and buy some local consumables.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
And I think the other trend in Zimbabwe is the extent to which people just don't use banks anymore. Do you want to talk about that, Victor? The sort of de-banking?
Victor Gapare, Director
Yes, a significant part of Zimbabwe operates on a cash economy. Many businesses have become informal due to high unemployment, leading to a prevalence of informal traders. Consequently, most transactions in this context are conducted in cash, primarily in US dollars rather than Zimbabwean dollars.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Okay. Right. That deals with those written questions. Any further questions, Camilla?
Operator, Operator
Yes, there are. So Howard Flinker wants to ask a question. Hold on a sec. Howard, you're unmuted.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Can you hear me?
Operator, Operator
Yes.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Good. I have a few questions. Craig, you cited one hole in Motapa. Do you just say 15 meters or 50 meters?
Craig Harvey, VP Technical Services
I'm not quite sure what?
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
You said 15 or 50 meters at some grade. And I didn't know which one you said?
Craig Harvey, VP Technical Services
No, it's the fourth hole that's listed there. So it is at around 50 meters below surface. It's 4 meters down the whole intersection at a grade of 10.95.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
I see. 50 meters downhole. Okay. I misunderstood. And Chester, could you please explain. No, I'll rephrase that. Is the large increase in administrative expense attributable to expenses at Bilboes and Motapa or is that something else?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
If you look at our admin expenses, increased quarter-on-quarter. So increased by approximately 1 million. And so that's predominantly cost compared to do the feasibility study. So we've bolstered our forces there to complete that.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Howard, that's the point I was making earlier, which is that over the next few years, we need to establish an owner's team to manage and operate this project. Therefore, we will incur costs at the head office or group level to develop these projects. Yes, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. I wanted to clarify that in my mind.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Yes. On the other slide problem arising from those sort of follow-on problem arising from those is those costs aren't actually tax deductible because they're not in a taxable entity. Okay. So that's one of the reasons why our effective tax rate looks quite high because we've got costs sitting in areas that aren't making aren't making profit and therefore are not having tax deductions. Again, that will wash out eventually once we've got Bilboes up and running.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Sure. You preempted my next question about taxes. Is the foreign exchange loss also tax deductible or not really?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
The realized, yes, which is most of it's a realized portion is.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Okay. And you also said you're going to save 1.2 million of electrical expense compared to now I think you meant compared to now. Does that mean that the financier owning the solar plant will actually save you another $1.2 million?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
Yes. So the solar plant, the saving would be 1.6 million.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
1.6?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
1.6, yes. So we're planning to get somebody else to build that. So it would be a PPA that we enter. And the cost would be cheaper than that estimates based on a mixture of using gen sets or the utility. So that's what we will be saving instead of using utility at a higher cost, we'll be using the solar plant at a cheaper cost, and that should save us about 1.6 million.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
And is that also 1.6 million cheaper than what it is now or cheaper than what the utility would charge?
Chester Goodburn, CFO
Currently, we're reselling the plant and we're going to generate cash for that, but it would be cheaper than that Phase 1.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
It's cheaper than what we pay at the moment. That's the point, isn't that?
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Okay. And second and last question, a point. Chester, on your cash flow statement at the bottom, it looks as if you're ending balance is a negative 7.6 million. And I think you meant the cash outflow net was 7.6 million because you do have 7.2 million on your balance sheet. So the last label on that statement is a little misleading. You might want to clarify that too.
Chester Goodburn, CFO
I'll have a look. I'll get back to you.
Victor Gapare, Director
Well, if you look at the US dollar inflation, it was less than 1% and the US dollar inflation and the ZIG inflation. If my memory says me right, might have been around 6%, 7%. I think that's my colleagues. Does anyone of you remember?
Mark Learmonth, CEO
No, I could find out. I could find it out. But I need to refer it about a bit. I couldn't do it easily on this call.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
That's okay. 6% or 7% in ZIG or 1.6?
Victor Gapare, Director
No, no, no. I said the US dollar inflation was unchanged at 0.7% in October, while the ZIG inflation sold to 37.2% month-on-month after the Arab visit devalued the local unit at the end of September. These are figures released by ZIMSTAT.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
All right. Thanks, guys.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Howard, I just check the cash flow, it seems right there.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
No, the cash flow is right. The label makes it appear as if your ending balance was negative 7.6 million. And I think what you meant was the cash outflow was 7.6 million because cash on hand is 7.2 million.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Yes. I'll send you an e-mail, but it should be negative.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Because the balance sheet shows 7.2 million in actual cash. And the label on the cash flow statement makes it look negative.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
You see there's liabilities too.
Operator, Operator
Howard, have you got any more questions?
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
No. Camilla, thanks. Mark, thanks.
Mark Learmonth, CEO
Okay. Thank you for your time this afternoon. And we will be doing the same thing again when we publish our full-year results, which will be towards the back end of March next year. So thank you very much for your participation. Goodbye.