Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Capital Limited H1 2023 Results. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session through the phone lines. Instructions will follow at that time. Alternatively, participants can submit written questions using the Ask a Question button on the webcast page. I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded. I will now hand over to Jamie Boyton, Executive Chairman of Capital Limited. Please go ahead. Thank you very much, and welcome to everyone to Capital Limited's First Half Results Call, and thank you very much for dialing in. I'm joined today by Peter Stokes, who's the company's CEO, Rick Robson, company's CFO, and Conor Rowley, Head of Corporate Development. All three are in London. I'm dialing in from Australia. The three gentlemen are gonna be actually, after today, marketing the company in the first half results in London for the balance of the week. It's been obviously another very busy period for Capital and a very pleasing first half. We, we achieved a number of strategic contract wins and delivered another very solid set of numbers. Today, I'm actually going to be handing over to Peter to lead the call. Peter obviously joined us as CEO in October last year, we transitioned myself out of the role following the release of the full year results. On that note, I will hand over to Peter, who will take us through the results today. Thank you very much. Thanks, Jamie. Welcome everyone to the call. I'd like to just take you through, at a high level, the financials for the first half. These are relative to H1 2022. Some really solid improvements across a number of areas, and as Jamie said, some very important contract wins in the first half of the year. On a revenue basis, $154.3 million, up almost 12% on H1 2022. The adjusted EBITDA number continues to improve, up another 10% on H1 2022, really positive number there as well. We talked on the full year results about the adjusted EBITDA concept to take into account the leasing on the Chrysos laboratory units. As we continue to grow that business rapidly, that was an important change to better reflect the bottom line in the business. Cash from operations was also up 9.5% on H1, and we've held the dividend flat at $0.013 per share, same as H1 2022. We will... We've maintained revenue guidance of $320 million-$340 million for the full year. You'll see as we go through the results, that's well and truly achievable. Next slide. Just at a summary level, continued strong returns, 23% ROIC. Net debt has increased, but that's on the back of funding through the business, the mining contract that we'll talk about at Ivindo in a bit more detail. We've provided some results on, through, around that announcement. That project's now in ramp-up stage and starting to deliver both on drilling and mining. Shareholder equity is up, some 5% at $245 million, and the investment portfolio pleasingly is continuing to improve. I think, we'll, and as we go through that in a bit more detail, we'll demonstrate how those investments are starting to move through the mining cycle from some early stage exploration into either near producing or producing operations. On the highlights for the half, drilling is at target utilization at 75%. We talked at the full year results, about having a utilization of our drill rigs around 75%. It's probably slightly down where we may have been with a couple of contracts that have either been a bit slower than planned to start up or some interruption, which we'll talk around on the Sudan project. I'm very comfortable with where we are on utilization, now hitting target. We've also added, in the last quarter, a couple of new contracts for more on the exploration side, but near mine as contracts as well. We're very pleased to have won the second major mining contract, which is now well underway in Gabon for with Ivindo. That will deliver around $30 million annual revenue a year. We're starting to see opportunities for that to grow, as well as we take on other services and, and, additional workers, the clients looking to ramp it up more quickly. The labs continue to roll out both prep labs that we're doing across the business and importantly, a number of new Chrysos units as well in some both in new geographies, but also a strong pipeline of those to go forward and continue on the planned 21 units by the end of next year. The innovation business is starting to see some fruit as well. The first of the Mine Power Solutions solar system has been rolled out in Mali, on one of our operations there, and is really starting to show benefits of having the solar diesel combination. Both improving ESG outcomes and, and saving fuel as well. We're really putting a focus across our African business to drive the Apprenticeship and Competency Academy established in Tanzania and starting to see opportunities for that much more broadly across Africa and into some of our new project areas, like Gabon, Pakistan, and other places where we think we can do that, drive that as well. Rick will go into more detail around the increased revolving credit facility. That's in summary, been expanded from $25- $50 million. Really pleasingly, we continue on a very strong track record to improve our safety outcomes by some 20% again year to date. Big focus for us in the business, and particularly as we start to move into some new geographies, making sure jurisdictions, making sure that we are driving the same safety outcomes across our business and setting world-class standards wherever we operate. As we've talked about previously, we have a very strong focus on high quality assets and customers wherever we work. Importantly, we look for high quality blue chip customers, and a number of those are listed on the right-hand side. The likes of Barrick, BHP, Fortescue, AngloGold Ashanti, B2Gold, Centamin, Maaden, and Predictive some of our newer opportunities there, including Kabanga Nickel, which is also a large BHP investment, Leo Lithium, and others. Over the last several years, we've started to diversify our portfolio from a very strong gold focus, so much more into the battery transition metals, really pleasingly, being awarded the early drilling at Reko Diq. What will become one of the largest copper gold mines in the world, is, you know, really pleasing. We're seeing some significant opportunities continuing to grow at the likes of Kabanga Nickel in Tanzania. Also, Ivindo, our first iron ore project, down in Gabon for Fortescue at a world-class deposit. We see a long-term opportunity in a number of these assets. Projects like Reko Diq, a 30 or 40-year mine life, Ivindo is similar. We work at a number of the, the largest gold mines in Africa, including the largest at Kibali, the third largest at Fekola. Sukari is in the top 10, Geita is number seven. There are a number of other projects, Bulyanhulu, North Mara for Barrick as well. Where we're working on these large projects, we're very focused on longevity of the project, as well as the quality of the asset and the engagement with the customer, and building deep relationships with those customers. We've got a very strong track record of continued repeat revenue, so rolling over contracts at the end of term, and we expect to continue to do that across the business. The labs business is also growing really significantly, now 27 laboratories around the world. A number of those marked in green are Chrysos units. We're well and truly on our path of rolling out the Chrysos units. We'll talk a bit more in detail about that. We're seeing a lot of opportunity from the labs business into drilling and drilling into the laboratory business, some real synergies across the two businesses that have grown pretty dramatically. The labs business is still on track to hit the, you know, the very large increase in revenue that we had targeted for that business. The franchises that we're putting into other places are feeding our multi-element laboratory in Langley. As we continue to grow, we'll look for another multi-element lab, more probably in the Middle East. That's sort of in the next 6 or 12 months, we're starting to really look at that as well. Our customers, like Barrick, are committing to using Chrysos as their base assay methodology for all gold and copper assets. We continue to put a lot of customers through testing, demonstrating the Chrysos capability, the quick turnaround, the low ESG footprint, and the robustness of much larger sample sizes going through Chrysos. The list of customers on the side, on the right-hand side, are really a who's who of in that mining space, both across Canada, now in labs, but particularly, you know, where, where historically we've been stronger in Africa. I think the presence that we're now building in Canada is giving us the ability to build a footprint out in the Americas and really take a, you know, a strong position in that market, both in Canada and down into North, the rest of North America, and down into South America over time. The macro environment is still very supportive of increased exploration, and while exploration, pure exploration work is a less part of, you know, a smaller part of what we do in drilling, it's still an important part of what we do. Our large customers, like Barrick, AngloGold Ashanti, and others, are very actively looking for their next deposits. When you listen to people like Mark Bristow from Barrick, that, you know, as a company, they're very focused on exploration, as well as continuing to add resource to their They're ore bodies. There will be continued focus on both, and we're seeing still more upside in that. The, you know, at the junior end of the market where we're less focused, we're seeing, you know, some challenges particularly, you know, the junior market is struggling to get funding. Where we're focused on the large end of town, large projects, we're continuing to see very steady demand, in fact, increasing across many of our assets as key customers look to replenish their They're ore bodies. Our drilling more broadly, being focused on mining, some 85% is either on mine, underground surface or near mine, mineralization definition or expansion, continues to underpin a core part of the business. We still see rapid growth in some sectors, that's part of our move into some areas like copper, lithium, nickel, where they are on, on the back foot, trying to catch up to demand in those particularly battery-related segments. Interestingly, the, the Fortescue project, Ivindo in Gabon, is a key first step into that mine into the iron ore markets at, at really significant scale. Many of you would have heard about the Simandou project for Rio over there as well. There are a number of opportunities to leverage capability that we're building on the ground in Gabon into a, you know, broader iron ore segment as that starts to open up. The really positive thing about some of those in Africa is that they are very high grade and basically unexploited as assay... Oh, leases that will continue to grow over a very long period of time. We in the end of year results on the next one, so that we really play to our integrated provider, and I think there's some really great examples of how that works. As an example, the recent work we won with Ivindo Iron started with drilling, so, near body, near, near mine, resource definition, metallurgical drilling and the like to really start to open up that asset. Shortly thereafter, we announced the contract around mining, and that's a really significant project as a startup for Ivindo Iron. We're working with them on laboratories, both in country and, you know, potentially offshore, sending samples. Really shows how we can provide a number of different services to key major customers. Many of our major customers, we play across a number of the different parts of the business. Our drilling services are alluded to really end to end drilling from early exploration as needed, near mine definition, orebody definition, grade control surface and underground, and then into the mining cycle on drilling, where we're doing blast hole drilling, you know, weep holes and grade control in the sites. Our, our mining fleet, our drilling fleet, sorry, is 124 rigs. We're working on the, as we've talked about previously, the Capital expenditure, continuing to renew fleet as planned, adding some additional drills where we've won further works like Ivindo. Then we're continue to stay focused on the mine site-based drilling contracts and with a smaller percentage of our exploration. Our load and haul business, which started in 2019, and then rolled into Sukari the year later for Centamin, where we have a large fleet, which continues to perform exceptionally well. We, you know, we engage with Sukari regularly. We, we benchmark our productivity with them. We're driving a high productivity operation, working together with them, both in our cutback and then also drilling down in their current mining areas. Really pleasantly winning the new Ivindo project, which will start off as a really effectively a pioneering fleet, starting that ore body that crops out at the surface we're starting to mine. We're doing drill and blast, and starting to move product from that operation. That'll take on a broader role than we've done previously. We'll do the crushing and screening of that ore body, as well as the mining and the near mine drilling. The MSALABS business provides a full suite of geochemical analysis across multi-elements, and then a, you know, really through the Langley lab in Vancouver. Then clearly our, our focus on Chrysos units to provide high speed, quick turnaround, accurate large samples for both gold, copper, and silver deposits. So we're, look, that continues to grow. We've expanded with another 6 units in the first half of this year, and continuing on a path of rapid expansion. We'll have some further announcements to make on some further growth that's coming over the coming weeks. The capital investments part of the business, continues to proactively invest in a number of African exploration and mining companies. As I said previously, we'll come to a bit more detail on this, about how some of these investments are moving through the mining cycle, and, and ultimately that, you know, becomes our, our point of where we look to exit out of different contracts and then start to reinvest. We're, you know, we're, we're doing some really interesting work in that space. It, it provides a different seat at the table for us when we're talking to our customers. You know, we're, You know, we understand that market. We're heavily involved in how that works in the, in that space in Africa, and have a good understanding of, you know, of the different prospectivity around different areas, and continue to focus on where we invest, which is, you know, being led by Jamie. In the Capital innovation, I talked briefly about MPS, our solar solution. We've got a bit more information on that as well. We've put in place a structured process to screen technology. We've been looking at some really interesting technologies as additional services that might sit around either our WellForce business or our Chrysos labs business, to provide other services as part of the assay analysis and understanding the geology and core of those different operations. Next page, please. Drilling, I talked about this in a bit of detail before. We've still got strong utilization at 75% across the business, continues to be a very positive business. We're seeing great opportunities with a number of our current customers and additional ones. We've expanded with a couple of additional tier one contracts. One being the Ivindo project we talked about before. We've, we've now got two drills down there. We're looking to add some further drills, and we're drilling the drill and blast on site as well. At Reko Diq, our first 2 drills will commence during this month. That's been a bit of a slower startup than we'd originally planned, but that'll start to ramp up pretty quickly. The project, as many of you would have seen, some significant commitments from Barrick engagement with the government. We've been, you know, involved in, in part of that and the growth of that project and how. You know, we are back there again after having drilled there in 2010. Where we had three years of drilling in Pakistan already. We were there recently, the government are very keen for us to, you know, for us and others to play a key role in building out a mining segment of global capability. Part of the, what Capital can bring here is capability on the ground, train the local workforce, and take them, you know, bring them to the standards that we'd expect across our business. I talked previously, we've got a strong bias towards mine site drilling rather than pure exploration. We do do some exploration in certain cases. In some cases, we're drilling on the mine and doing explorations. They look to expand, all bodies and, you know, with, with companies like Barrick, we're working right up and down the value stream and, for us in exploration. On the right-hand side, the drilling activity is broken down a bit further, demonstrating just over 15% in exploration, the rest being mine site services. Drilling activity continues to be quite strong. Different commodities, really, you know, are driving different amounts of focus. Gold probably down a bit generally, but it's been more than replaced by nickel, copper, lithium, and now for our iron ore as well. I talked about previously, the second mining project on the right-hand side, here is some of the new equipment we've brought to site. The Ivindo site is quite isolated, it's a, you know, it's a logistics exercise to get our mining equipment out to site. We've moved a fleet of smaller equipment to start the mining operation. Excavators, trucks, dozers, mine, mine-related drilling to drill and blast, and all of the ancillary equipment that goes with that. We're building a workforce on the ground. We're, we're training local Gabonese to to our standards, and we've started to really drive productivity. Some of you may have seen some of the first shipments that Fortescue have had announced of first ore leaving. There's a big focus to really get this mine up and running quickly, and we, you know, we play a key role in doing that. Also working on how the, you know, what needs to change the infrastructure and the government. Working with our, our customer there, Fortescue, we're engaging heavily with the government. The contract term is up to five years, so, and we expect that that will continue to evolve through that period. You know, a fantastic piece of work for us, working on one of the highest grade hematite iron ore deposits in the world. That'll continue to ramp up to full production a bit later in the year as the rest of the equipment arrives. It's a really important part of, you know, how our strategy's worked. You know, this is really on the back, as I said earlier, of winning the RC and diamond drilling program there, which was just some early drilling. That continues as they, as Fortescue, build out the definition of a very large, some 30 kilometer long strike deposit. Which will become a major high-grade iron ore mine over the next coming years. The Sukari contract, as I alluded to before, continues to perform exceptionally well. We continue to either hit or exceed the mining rates that we're being tasked with. That's been very positive, very strong engagement with our customer on that one, and we're continuing to work on reshaping some of that scope of works and continuing to work with them as they build out their mine plans going forward. There's a strong tender pipeline. At the moment, there are a number of mining projects, both in various places in Africa, in different commodities, and of different scales, as well as we're starting to look at some opportunities in the Americas. On the laboratories, I alluded to, we're still on track for guidance of $40 million-$50 million of revenue. Very rapid growth in the business. Sample volumes are really exponentially growing across the group. The rollout of the Chrysos units, which can put through 30,000-40,000 samples, and in some cases, we're running above 40,000 samples a month now, drives a dramatic increase. We're looking now on how we make those units more efficient, how we feed them more, you know, I, I guess, more efficiently and take the sample volumes away. You can imagine when we're putting 40,000 half kilo samples through a facility like this, we need to manage the logistics of getting samples in and out. It's a very different proposition to 50-gram fire assay when you're doing 10 times the volume. Massive benefit for our customers around the ESG reduction through the, you know, reduction in energy that's needed on these, the chemicals that are not used in this process. Also the much larger sample size, giving a much more representative sample particularly for gold and copper deposits, where they can be quite spotty. So, and, and the turnaround time of days versus weeks, is also very attractive to our major customers, and we have a continuous pipeline of new customers looking to prove up this technology, given the success it's having at the moment. With the rollout we have now, we are the largest user of the Chrysos units globally. Currently, we have the only units off outside of Australia. That will change over the coming months, but we'll still remain the largest pro- user of these laboratory, of this laboratory capability, for, you know, for the foreseeable future. As we've stated there, we have 21 units committed out of 25. We're nearly half of the volume of Chrysos at the moment. The lead time is still about 18 months for someone to buy a new lab. We have a pretty unique position where we have a pipeline of additional labs that we can start rolling out in the business. On the investments, I alluded to this before, so really positive quarter again. We've, we've invested net $2.5 million in H1. Mainly through some equity raises into some very high quality companies that we've been working on building up. It's really interesting, they're moving quickly through the through the the value chain of mining. Wia is a great example of where we got involved in that one in grassroots exploration. It's now built out at an ore body or, you know, built out at an ore reserve. There we're looking to, and we've invested in that as it continues to grow. Leo Lithium's just is in the process of now moving to its first mining, they've started their DSO and stockpiling that on surface. We've got other assets in various places in the investment cycle. Allied, many of you would know, it's bracketed there, is going to IPO, which we expect sometime later in this quarter. That'll drive a, you know, a solid return for us in, in that business. The business continues to deliver very good returns. We've made exceptionally good investments that continue to show the, the value of doing this. It, as I said previously, it really gives us a lot of insight into the segment, and we become a, a player, you know, a, a part of the market that really none of our competitors are doing that. One, there's none of our competitors have the end-to-end mining services capability, and certainly don't have this knowledge and in-depth understanding of the segment and the, and the different types of, you know, exploration projects and, you know, into mining and producing companies that we're part of. Last page for me around innovation. I alluded to some of these. I think that, you know, we, as we've said previously, Capital's always been a, a very good company at finding new technologies. Bringing them to bear into our business. There's some great examples. Chrysos is probably the biggest success story around that, but there are many others where we've been early adopters of new capabilities. I'm really pleased to be part of having the Mine Power Solutions JV with Enerwhere. First unit's rolling out, it's been very successful. The nLight software that underpins that is really driving a very efficient solar diesel combination for the exploration camp and workshop that we're running for at the moment. We're looking for further sites that we'll then put this technology into and, over time, we use this for our assay businesses as well as supplementary power. The International Apprenticeship and Competency Academy at, in Tanzania is really starting to get some good traction now, and I think part of what we're doing, and we've done the health and safety passport for a number of people, you know, now 200 people. We have a broader offering of apprenticeships and other things that we're starting to look at as well. I think in a number of the African countries that our, you know, the governments that we're working with are very keen to build these capabilities so that they can build self-sustaining workforces to support the mining industry growth. Our WellForce business, which is the downhole tools in the business, we're really looking to broaden that capability with one work there in Gabon and Reko Diq for Pakistan as well. Looking to, as we grow that business for external customers beyond what we already do with the directional drilling, which is a pretty much an industry standard that we offer, through the WellForce business. On that note, I'll hand over to Rick to go through the detailed financials. Thanks, Peter. Good morning, everybody. Many of the headlines are covered already, but just to raise a couple of points on the slide here. You know, as discussed, another strong performance from the group across all of our key divisions and across all of our key regions as well. Very encouraging to see. EBITDA, we continue consistently use the, our adjusted measure for EBITDA. This is EBITDA, traditional EBITDA, if you like, adjusted for the cash cost of our, of our, IFRS 16 leases. For the half, that adjustment was $3.5 million. As we previously alluded to, that, that dollar value, the cash cost of those leases will increase as we really roll out the units, the Chrysos units across the MSA Labs business. You know, we've given the context before. We believe the adjusted EBITDA measure is the best way of viewing the profitability of the business. For consistency and for those who want to revisit, we've, we've included the slide in the appendix just to cover off the mechanic, if you like, of how to get there. Importantly, we express our margins on that basis as well, i.e., using our adjusted EBITDA metric. Good to see those margins held at a consistent level for half on half. I think it's worth mentioning, half on half for NPAT and basic EPS there, have, have come off. That's primarily a result of the higher debt that we've taken on and the higher cost of debt that we've taken on, as we, as we've grown the business, and particularly in view of the Ivindo mining project. I think, overall, you know, as the points made, made there on the page, well positioned for the second half. We've got the ramp-ups coming across the drilling contract at Ivindo, and Reko Diq, and importantly, the, the ramp-up of the, the mining contract and crushing services, at, at Ivindo. Next slide. On the investments, all the headlines have basically been given already. Just to reiterate, we're a net buyer, still see opportunity in the market there. A net buyer of $2.5 million in the half. That takes us to a net invested total of $15 million in this strategic initiative to date. So far, a very healthy return there on the portfolio, 181%. Giving us an investment value at the 30th of June there of $42 million, which over that half, picked up a small gain of $2.8 million. Next slide. So consistent returns, I've mentioned the margin already. So we're pleased to have maintained that margin across the group into this into this half. We certainly see that continuing into the second half. I think on a, just to mention a point around MSA, now on the page, with a little more context, we're obviously, you know, deploying, deploying the units, building labs and ramping those labs up, as that business really, really grows. As, as expected, we will see lower adjusted EBITDA margins in the near term, as that whole ramp-up takes effect. We maintain our view that we'll see consistent adjusted EBITDA margins with the broader group. Perhaps slightly lower, we guide roughly to 25%-30% broader group. We should probably see margins around 20% adjusted EBITDA, MSA. Importantly, that's on a lower CapEx intensity, so we should see that pull through strongly in the ROCE. Looking at the ROCE for the group for the half, again, a peer-leading return there, broadly consistent with what we've delivered in the recent past. Moving on to the net debt waterfall. This is our sort of the bridge, if you like, from where we started the year at $47 million net debt to where we finished the half at $66 million net debt. Some key points to highlight: working cap and CapEx, I'll deal with those sort of together, if you like. Those two numbers are reflective of deployment and mobilization on the Ivindo project. That, that has happened to date in the half. I think the interest component as well is worth worth noting. As I've mentioned, we're seeing higher interest charges for the debt, and we've obviously taken on more debt to fund that growth. On a net debt adjusted basis, i.e., adjusted for investments, we have a position of $24 million. Overall, feel pretty comfortable with where we are at. CapEx, for the half, $36 million. Importantly, that's all of our cash expenditure on CapEx, but includes the assets that we've already debt-financed, which is about up to $6 million in the half. We had previously guidance of $50 million-$60 million. Obviously, with the success on the Ivindo mining contract there, we, we increased that guidance to $65 million-$75 million. We previously announced that. That just obviously gives us the, that's the, the delta there is, is the Ivindo CapEx, is the Ivindo deployment. What we'll see is, is obviously the business here is a higher sustaining CapEx, just in respect to that increased scale of growth. Then we'll see the Ivindo project ramp up and deliver a good run rate in 2024. Onto the balance sheet. A couple of, couple of points already. We increased our RCF from $25 million- $50 million. Brought on a second lender, so we now have both Nedbank and Standard Bank as our lenders on the RCF. The RCF fully drawn at $50 at the half. That, again, is reflective of the growth there in the business, particularly with Ivindo, the mobilization and deployment onto that contract. Taking a step back, that's exactly the rationale, if you like, on our part for increasing the size of the RCF, was to be able to take on a larger contract, fund the working cap, fund the investment. Then obviously once it kicks in, have that sort of debt position reduced. Leverage multiple with that in mind, remains pretty modest at 0.04, net debt to trading EBITDA. Again, to reiterate the, the comfort factor that we feel in this position. Then to finish off, we've maintained our dividend, at the interim at $0.013 per share. Again, reiterate our point here, remains committed to a, a disciplined approach. Yeah, as I say, maintain our dividend and we've got an October date penciled in for payment. To hand back to Peter for outlook. Thanks, Rick. Just really to wrap up the presentation. The diversification that we've got across both mining services and the commodities that we're now focused on, really provides a strong outlook for us. You know, we're seeing strong growth in non-traditional commodities like nickel, copper, and now iron ore and lithium. That's been good, independent of a very, very strong gold price, which was, I think, over the last 12 months, the highest average price it's ever been. That continues to underpin a key part of what's been happening in the business. The second part is diversity is around the services that we provide. Where we uniquely placed, having expanded on our initial drilling business to now include mining and the labs business, provides an end-to-end solution for a number of our big customers. That example that I talked about at Ivindo is not unique. There are other customers that we provide, you know, various services at different parts of that value chain or almost end to end. I think that that continues to provide us opportunities to see both provide individual services and/or multiple services, or one that grows into other parts of our business. You know, really pleasingly, you know, we expect to continue to see the strong growth that we've shown over the last couple of years. You know, adding another mining contract in the first half, I think really vindicates the capability that we've got, and we're demonstrating that, and we're getting to, you know, we're getting invited on key mining opportunities, both in Africa and now starting to see that in North America as well. I think, you know, really positive looking forward. I think just in summary on the last page, our investment proposition still is very strong. We're seeing it. You know, we're a premium provider across the technology, across the different sectors that we operate in. We have a tier one client base, both in the customers and the assets that we work on. We have an industry-leading safety record, and continue to have a very strong focus on delivering that across the business, and that's why, you know, it's a key part of why we won a contract like the Ivindo contract with Fortescue, who expect a world-class safety outcomes on that world-class asset. Really limited options to bring people in who've got the African experience, as well as can deliver on that safety outcome. That was a, a really positive win for us. We still have very strong returns and margins in the business. You know, we're delivering EBITDA margins in the mid to high 20%, which is, you know, exceptionally strong. That continues to, you know, underpin a, a business and, and deliver high productivity for our customers. Enables us to continue to invest in the equipment that we need to, to stay at the forefront of technologies. Some of the contracts that we're doing, you know, we're driving to another level of capability across our drill rigs with hands-free operation, things which will start to become the standard across our business. We do have a strong exposure to the energy transition, I talked about that in a couple of places with copper. We've been working on graphite deposits as well, that I should have mentioned. Lithium and nickel. I think one of the other really important things that we do, is we have a, a very deep engagement with our local communities. Across the business, we're now running at 92% national employees. We're built from, from scratch in Sukari, for instance, we have nearly 900 people who, by far the, the majority, 95% plus Egyptian nationals, who are now highly skilled operators, who we now are using in different geographies to help us start up as we go into new contracts. Similarly, in Tanzania, we've built a capability, and we've been able to give people opportunities to go and work in other countries and, and really drive home the, you know, the importance of building a national capability in those countries to underpin the growth of that in, in our sector. Guidance remains at $320 million-$340 million CapEx. You know, on the upgrade that we did on Ivindo, $65 million-$75 million. The drilling quality was-- you know, we've added a couple of really critical contracts in the first half, being Reko Diq and Ivindo in Gabon. Mining ramp up in H2 will see us now delivering mining services and crushing services at Ivindo. Then, as, as we said, we would, we've continued to grow the labs business significantly to-- and still remain on guidance for $40 million-$50 million of revenue this year, up from $27 million at the end of last year. Still really significant growth in that space, too. On that note, I'll hand back to take any questions. I think Conor has a number that he'll go through first, then we'll work through the questions that might come online. I think we might do it the other way around, actually. I think we might. Okay. If there's anyone on the operator first, and then we can tackle the ones in the webcast. Thank you. We will shortly begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, participants can submit written questions using the Ask a Question button on the webcast page. To ask a question on the phone line, please press star and then one on your touch-tone phone or on the keypad on your screen. If you, however, wish to withdraw the question, you may press star and then two to remove yourself from the question queue. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star and then one. We will pause for a moment to assemble the queue. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you would like to ask a question, you are welcome to press star and then one. It seems at this moment we have no questions from the telephone lines. I will now hand over to Conor Rowley, Investor Relations and Corporate Development Manager of Capital Limited, to run through the written questions submitted through the webcast page. Sure. Thanks. I will split these up into the different segments. Look, if we start with drilling, there is a general question on the drilling market now and, and specifically on the equipment. Are you seeing a tight drill rig market? In general, what is our rig fleet strategy from here? Yeah. Thanks, Conor. Yeah. Yeah, the market is still tight. The shortest lead time on any sort of standard drills now is minimum 6 months, and then specialist drills are out to about 12 months. That's pretty typical across the different brands, well, the different types of drills that we use. We continue to partner with a couple of major drilling companies, and are working with them to have rolling drills coming through. You know, we, we're, we'll, working with them to commit certain, you know, replacement drills and have flexibility around new drills coming into the market. It's certainly difficult. You know, part of winning new work is, a big part of that is planning the fleet that we'll bring in. We do have, with 75% availability, we're now working that we have some flexibility to start a contract, and then over time, we'll bring in, you know, the long-term solution for them. We need that... You know, we use that flexibility across the group, and that's part of us driving the utilization around 75% enables us to stay on top of maintenance, rebuilds of gear, but also have some drills available. Most customers don't want to wait for a year for a drilling program to start, so very few do. We need to have that flexibility in the fleet, both on drilling fleet and the support equipment. Thanks. Another one on drilling, I guess, more specific: Can you give us an update on Sudan? Yeah. What the condition on the ground is like, and the equipment, et cetera, and any idea on that? The Sudan project, and Perseus have made two announcements on this, too. We're not back on site yet. We were drilling there until April. We took all of our workforce out, and we've been working on that with Perseus on how we might get back into that project. Currently, we're both looking to get back into the last quarter of this year. We think that there'll be some work to do there. We expect that there'll be work to be done to get the equipment and things back to the standards that, you know, it needs to be. There, you know, from what we've seen, we've only had photos so far. There's certainly some, you know, equipment that's been vandalized, as Perseus called out. We'll work through that once we can get people on the ground and, and really get an understanding of the extent. As I said previously, though, you know, we have capability to bring some drills in on relatively shorter notice. We're confident we can restart up in the last quarter once, you know, things are sorted on the ground. I should say, the project, the Meyas Sand project, you know, it's in the very north of Sudan, so it's some 1,000 kilometers north of Khartoum. Through the civil unrest, there wasn't any, you know, the, the fighting between the rebels and the army in that region, it was much more in the south. Clearly it's impacted the country. The northern cities are starting to get back to more normality, so we would be coming through, Egypt like we did when we first went in there anyway, and get back into operations that way. Okay, thanks, Peter. Look, if we move to mining. Look, a number of people have asked this in different ways, but, can you talk to the Sukari mining contract? When is it due to finish, and, and sort of what are your expectations of, of what next? Yeah, so I, I think as we said on the end of the year results, Sukari or Centamin will release their updated mine plans in Q3. You know, expect that over the next month or so. They've been working through in detail on, you know, the balance of underground and surface. Most of you probably know their underground mine there has higher grade than surface. For them, getting the balance of throughput on the plant grades that are coming through from underground and surface is a key part. We've been working on the cutback in the pit there. We've actually, more recently moved into it, a little bit further into a cutback. So we're taking another flitch of material out, starting nearer the surface to open up some of their ore bodies a bit further down sooner. We're working still at full capacity at the moment, and you'll see that for the foreseeable future. In theory, our volumes will run out in Q2 of next year. There is a, you know, there's a, a date on the contract as well, so. You know, at the moment, we don't have any more detail to add on the contract, other than we'll work closely with Centamin and, you know, work that through. I should say, you know, in the background, that's a pretty unique fleet in Africa. The scale of that equipment, the 785s, 150 ton dump trucks and bigger excavators there, give us, You know, if for some reason it didn't continue, there's certainly some options with that fleet. If Sukari decided to do that or Centamin decided to do that themselves, there's certainly some options there. At the moment, our focus is on working closely with Centamin on a way forward. Okay, thanks. I guess moving on to labs, the question is here, in terms of the ramp up, you know, Rick, you alluded to it earlier in terms of lower margin in the near term, how should we think about that sort of margin trajectory over the next few years? I, I think so, I guess two things in there. There's, there's the lab, the Chrysos labs, which are a big part of the growth. There is a big part of the growth, too, which is more samples through our core lab in Langley. Sample prep, that is, you know, we have a number of those that we've implemented this year, and we expect to keep doing that. We're building a global footprint that will feed into our multi-element labs in addition to the Chrysos units. Our expectation, this probably lines up well with some of our big competitors, ALS and SGS, where mine site labs, you know, it's, it'll be slightly lower margin, so, you know, high, high teens. We expect the exploration-focused labs or, you know, commercial labs, we'd probably say, to be slightly higher margin with an average as, as Rick alluded to, around adjusted EBITDA close to 20%. There'll be a bit of variability on those. I think the key parts of that is, unless it's a mine site lab and it goes from zero to full straight away, a big Kibali or something, where we're putting 40,000 samples through the lab, the commercial labs do take a bit of time to build, and that's part of this, you know, I, I, I guess at the moment, we're investing, bringing customers on board, but we do expect to get to 20% average EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, over the next probably year. Thanks, Peter. Maybe just to finish off with a couple for Rick on the balance sheet. I guess, given sort of the cost of debt is high, well, higher than it was at the beginning of the year, you know, can you just reiterate sort of your comfort levels on, on where we are today in terms of the balance sheet? Yeah, sure. Look, yeah, the cost of debt is higher. The base rate is, is, is, as, as everyone knows, is at that sort of elevated level now. I think what's, what's notable from, from our side is some of the margins from the banks are coming down as we, as we work with them, as we demonstrate history with them. Obviously not-- one doesn't offset the other. We are picking up higher costs of funds. I think what's fair to say is, as we look forward and attend the pipeline, we'll start to price or we will price that higher cost of funds in. We've started in some cases already. We'll try and price that in. Look, we've got strong cash generation ahead of us. I think the position we're looking at here in June is one where we've obviously taken on Ivindo. We're in full swing on a deployment there prior to cash generation on that particular contract. I think we're sort of cutting this at a certain point, and I think as we look forward, that cash generation kicks in. We should see a good pathway to bring the debt levels down and have the capacity back into the RCF. Thanks. I guess just final one on the, on that cash generation. Is there any major swings you're expecting in H2 on working capital? Look, we don't guide on working capital specifically, but I guess contextually, we are, as I've just said, we are midway or mid-swing on a ramp-up at Ivindo, cross-bore drilling and mining, quite frankly. We've seen a build on inventory for that suite of contracts. What we have seen, or we can see from the numbers, obviously in June, is a, there is an elevated position on receivables. Just for a little bit of context, that includes crushing equipment that we've procured for Ivindo, that we will on sell to them. Again, just point in time, we've picked up a slightly elevated receivables balance there. Obviously, as that project gets into full swing, ramps up, then, you know, that position on the working cap will, will, reverse to a degree, and, and as that project gets going. I think, look, as I say, we don't guide on it, but contextually, I think the position we're looking at is, is reflective of the, Ivindo, ramp-up. Okay, that's it for the webcast. I've been asked by the operator to hand it back to the phone line, just in case there was anyone who will try that once more. Otherwise, I'll hand back to Peter and Jamie to say thanks. Operator, can I just ask you to check the phone lines one more time? Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just another reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you are welcome to press star and then one. We have a question from Mark Simpson of Excellent Investing. Please go ahead. Hi, team. Thanks, Peter, for the presentation. I've got a question for Rick on the finances, and then, if I may, come back to Peter with a couple of strategy questions. Rick, in the last conference call, the guidance was that admin expenses would moderate going forward because there were some exceptional factors, such as writing off a drill for equity deal in 2022. However, these results are showing admin expenses up about 19%. Can you give some more color on that? Also, you know, are we still expecting admin expenses to come in below 2022? Look, I think, the position. At the point when we gave that guidance, obviously, we were unsighted on the new contract at Ivindo. I think, that we have had to scale up for that. We have a lot of growth in the pipeline, which, again, we'll have to invest in the, in the, in the headcount, et cetera, to deliver that growth. I think, in terms of the June position itself, point to note is we, we do have a higher provision in respect of our debt with Morila. That's, that's something we had to part provide it for at the last year end, and now fully provided against that position as that situation to Firefinch and Morila is, is continues to be, well, hopefully resolved, but be worked on. I think, look, the admin expenses will probably come up a little bit just in regards to the, the investment we've made in the, in the team, et cetera, to, to, as I say, to bed down that, that growth that's coming. So just to clarify, when you say come up a bit, you're expecting H2 levels to be at least H1 levels? yes, I think that would be a fair comment. Okay. Yeah, I, I guess, the market seems a little bit disappointed that the EPS is down, and you've kind of obviously explained that. Are you comfortable with, kind of market expectations going forward? In terms of the current consensus? Yes. Yeah, we're relatively comfortable with consensus. Thank you. Yes, then coming back to Peter with sort of a couple of operating questions. The first one is that the risk in operating in Africa seems to have increased recently. Not just Sudan, but we're kind of hearing news from other areas as well. I, I'm aware that we, you know, we don't, we don't, we don't hear these in the U.K. in the, the news. What's the company's view on this? Is this, you know, is risk increasing here, and how is this impacting your decision making? Yeah, it's a good, a good question. I mean, we clearly, before we go into new countries, we do a, you know, a full diligence to understand exactly, you know, I guess, political stability, all of those sort of things, as best we can. You know, sometimes that doesn't come to fruition, whether Sudan was probably caught everyone by surprise, you know, given that it had been quite stable for a while. I don't know whether there's necessarily an increase, you know, from our on the ground in Egypt, you know, which is our biggest contract. Our second biggest in, in Tanzania, we're seeing, you know, really good stability. Those operations continue to go well. There's big investment from various countries, companies into those countries. Similarly to Gabon, you know, I think on many fronts, stability. There's elections at the moment, so that'll always cause a bit of uncertainty, but, you know, overall strong stability there, into Saudi and you know, and what we're seeing in Pakistan as well. I do think, you know, looking from the outside, media sometimes, you know, portrays things that what, is not what we see on the ground. You know, stability doesn't necessarily make good media coverage. I think, you know, we're very conscious of wherever we work to ensure safety of our people, as an absolute priority, but, you know, also making sure there's the right, understanding about any sovereign risk or, you know, any other currency risks and other things as, as best we can. I think, you know, one of the reasons, you know, our business drives very strong returns is that we know Africa better than I think anyone else in our space, and understand where to make our investments for companies and assets. I think the key there is focusing on the right assets with the right companies, because they, the likes of Barrick and B2Gold and some of the, you know, BHP and others, are very focused on these things too, and are, you know, very conscious, not to invest in places, where they don't see a long-term future. Good to hear. Thank you. Final one from me. Kind of Rick points out that, you know, the company has a sector-leading return on capital, and now it's sort of trading at a sizable discount to tangible book value. You know, surely larger peers must be watching Capital carefully. In the past, you've had kind of large holdings from founders and other directors that have acted as a sort of big defense and, you know, yeah, nothing would happen without Jamie's say so, really. With Jamie being quite a large seller recently, together with other directors, it, it feels like that, that big defense isn't in place anymore. Are you worried that you're gonna get taken out on the cheap? What can you do to defend against an opportunistic offer at these times? Jamie, did you want to jump in on that one, or do you, do you want me to? I, I, I mean, I think that's maybe the first part. Jamie and Brian are still really significant shareholders, despite, you know, Jamie selling down some recently. Still the biggest shareholder in the business. I think the other positive is, you know, we've seen a couple of our big holders increase over the period. we've got actually two institutions who are both around 10% now. I think that's a, you know, another positive on, you know, on understanding our business and where we are. you know, maybe, Jamie, if you want to just make a comment on the sort of potential takeover, cheap takeover target. Yeah. Look, to your point, Peter, I mean, between the founders, which include incumbent directors and some that have left the company, but they're still on the register, we're still speaking about 20% of the company. Then major shareholders beyond the founders and directors, you know, we have some example in the 10% range that have been on the register for the better part, like, in one case, 13 years. So it's a, it's a very tight register with some very long-term shareholders. Still a substantial director and founder presence on the register. I think one of the biggest defenses as well is that, you know, to, to do something hostile, and not have the, the wealth of experience of the management team who actually understand how to operate in what are more challenging jurisdictions, to the point of your earlier question, I, I, I just don't see that as being a likely event. Okay. Thank you. That's it from me. Bye, team. Thank you. We have no further questions, and I would like to hand back to management for closing remarks. Okay. Thank you. I'll just to wrap up, thank you very much for attending our H1 2023 results. Appreciate you all taking the time and, and engaging with the questions, both beforehand and the, and the, on the call as well. Thank you. At that point, I'll hand back to wrap up the call.