Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Glencore 2023 Half-Year Results Presentation Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Martin Fewings, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Good morning, good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to our half year 2023 financial results. Presenting today will be Gary Nagle and Steven Kalmin, and I'll hand over to Gary to commence the call. Thanks, Martin. Good morning to all of you, or those who are dialing in from other parts of the world, good afternoon, good evening. As Martin said, I'm joined here by Steve. Peter Freyberg is also with us on the industrial side, if there's any questions on that. I think let's kick off straight into the presentation. If we go to slide 4, as we normally do, on our financial scorecard, looking at the first half, a real solid set of results for the first half of the year. It's very easy to be a bit caught up in some of the negative variances that we see on that slide, given the tremendous year we had in 2022, with extremely high energy prices, huge arbitrage opportunities, huge volatility. If you look at the results as a whole for 2023, versus some of our history, and if we exclude 2022, it's the best first half we've had in the last 10 years. Of course, as we know, 2022 was an exceptional year because of the circumstances of the year. This has been a very solid and, in fact, record-breaking first half of the year. Drilling down into some of the numbers, and Steve will obviously get into more detail of that later, we've achieved an adjusted EBITDA for the year of $9.4 billion, $7.4 billion of that coming out of our industrial, industrial asset business. On the marketing side, a adjusted marketing EBIT of $1.8 billion. As we've said, that's annualizing above the top end of our range. We normally guide a range of $2.2 billion-$3.2 billion for the year. We've guided that we would exceed the top end of our range and guide it between $3.5 billion and $4 billion for the full year. We're nicely on track to meet that guidance for the full year, and a very solid and strong set of results on the marketing side of $1.8 billion. The business remains highly cash generative, and during the first half of the year, the cash generated by operating activities was just short of $8.5 billion, which has allowed us to return additional cash to our shareholders. Today we're announcing a $2.2 billion top-up shareholder return. That's broken up between $1 billion in cash dividends and $1.2 billion in share buyback. Steve will take you through the details of how we calculate that versus our formulaic capital returns policy. There's a slide on that later in the presentation. When we add that to the existing returns that we've already announced for 2023, that gives us $9.3 billion that we're returning back to shareholders for 2023. A really strong and solid set of results, be able to repay our shareholders, provide them good returns on their investment, and in, in a very strong business. Moving on to slide 5, where we have our ESG scorecard. On the environmental side, and starting there, during the course of the year, the early part of the year, we published updates on our progress in three main areas, that being climate, water, and nature. And those who haven't seen those reports or haven't been able to review them in detail, I encourage you to have a look at our 2022 climate report, which is a standalone report, as well as our 2022 sustainability report, where we really drill down into the details on those three major areas, as well as other areas of our business, and provides real transparency on how we approach our ESG, and in particular, our environmental side of our business. On the social side, our first and primary goal every day that we go to work and we wake up every morning, is to keep our, keep our people safe. Our primary goal is zero harm in this business. It's with a heavy heart that we have to report that we've lost one of our colleagues this year, and that just encourages us to double down on our efforts to continue to improve our safety and strive for zero fatalities and zero harm in our business. This year, we've also published our payments to government report. You would have seen that earlier in the year, where we paid a little over $12 billion of taxes, royalties, and levies to governments around the world. That's up from $7.6 billion in the previous year, obviously, on the back of the record profits we made in 2022. On the governance side, under our agreement with the DOJ, we've had two independent compliance monitors appointed. They've started, work is going well, and we're collaborating very well with the monitors, and we look forward to a very constructive and positive outcome through this monitorship period. At the end of last week, we also disclosed against Principle 15 of the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, as well as the overall conformance to the GISTM for our extreme and very high consequence dams. Those dams were independently assured by a third-party assurance, we continue to work on our full tailings dam disclosure, with the remainder of the tailings dam disclosure to be in compliance or to be disclosed by 2025, as required under the GISTM. With that, I'll turn over to Steve on the financial performance. Thanks, Gary, and good morning, good evening, to all those on the call today. Thank you for joining. Over the next few slides, I'll walk you through the financial performance for the first half. Expectations for second half as well, culminating in the free cash flow generation at spot prices, which we update periodically throughout the year. We'll run through the balance sheet and our capital management initiatives and update as we've walked through the balance sheet. Various moving parts, both in the P&L and in the balance sheets, which we'll get through over the following slides. Many of these slides would look very familiar to those who've been following us for a while. On page 7, these are just some headline financial figures. Gary had spoken to most of these, and they'll all be covered later on in detail on the various slides. At a high level, most of the headline with EBITDA, both industrial and marketing, roughly half of H1 2022's record performance, where conditions both in the marketing and the industrial, particularly in the energy complex, were certainly exceptional. As we work our way through to that business, having generated both large amounts of cash flow last year as well as this year, and both on a lag effect, we've already at the half, in the first half of the year, have made $5.2 billion in shareholder distributions and buybacks. By the end of the year, which we'll see later on, given the second half base distributions as well as the top-ups that we've announced today, we will exceed over $10 billion in shareholder distributions and buybacks during the course of this particular year. Our net debt is still down at a very comfortable low level at $1.5 billion, which is an upturn for the first half. That's with those shareholder distributions, as well as we'll see later on in the bridge of the, of the net debt position, there's been a big catch up on some taxes paid, in respect of the 2002's record earnings, where in some countries you pay on some provisional basis throughout the year, and once one's finalized the tax returns, there is the final settlement in the following period, which has happened particularly in Australia and Colombia, which we'd flagged earlier in the year when we'd made our dividend dist- distribution in respect of the 2022 year as well. If we work over on page 8, the next few slides will cover industrial business before we move on to marketing. Very much a summary on page 8. We'll get to the detailed waterfall on page 9, and then there's some commodity-specific slides later on as well. The reduction down to $7.4 billion from $15 billion, as we'll see later on, the reduction was very much driven by lower commodity prices, and in particular, the lower coal earnings, which was the reason why it's the exact opposite of last year's increase from the 2021 year, where we had positives, particularly on the energy, both industrially as well as marketing. We've also seen, which is notable across many of our businesses in the industrial side, there has been the inflationary impact for us was most- mostly felt, during this six months rather than throughout last year, as the lag, if they're particularly energy prices, both coal, oil, electricity, the full inputs commodity link that we're feeding through the entire sort of economic chain, it takes time for it to work through in terms of contractors, in terms of freight, in terms of parts and pricing. It was notwithstanding that we had the price increases last year, there's a lag effect in terms of when it ultimately works through in terms of your own costs within a business. You've seen some increases generally across the board in most of our business industrially, but we are now peaking, and we expect to have moderating cost, and I'll run through the variances. With some volume benefits, we expect, first half and second half, our unit costs will improve throughout the rest of the year and into a spot illustrative basis as well, which we'll talk on some of the variances later on. In the metals and minerals business, we, there was a decline to $3.1 billion. Cobalt pricing in particular, we did call it out in our production report, last year, as well as having impacted, particularly the African copper business. It's a by-product. Metal price itself, which we gave some of the comparisons period-on-period, was down 59%. What we sell is an intermediate product, both from our Mutanda and KCC operation, producing a cobalt hydroxide. Its mechanical market dynamics is a function of a payability between buyer and seller payability relative to the metal pricing. That itself reflected weakness in that particular part of the market segment, such that our realizations for cobalt hydroxide were even more than the 60% reduction that we saw in metal prices as well. If you look in through the financial report, you'll see just in our copper business, which declined $1.2 billion period-on-period of that $2.8 billion within metals, African copper business itself was $0.8 billion of it, having reduced from $987 million EBITDA first half of 2022 to just $172 million, and we'll see that on the copper chart as it follows. That's a drop of $0.8 billion. The hydroxide pricing period-on-period was more than 70% down, with payabilities averaging between 75%-80% through the first half of 2022 to roughly 60% for this particular period. Mathematically, if you just looked at the cobalt impact isolated of itself in our copper earnings, we produced 19,000 tons of cobalt in the first half of 2022. We've had a reduction in the realized pricing of that product of around $19 per pound, which itself is an $800 million variance. Cobalt, as a byproduct of our copper business, was particularly impactful, both in payability and metal pricing has bounced off some lows in Q2. We have updated our cost structures and our earnings at spot pricing through the last week or so. That itself is helping some of the cost structure improving and some of the spot illustrative cash flow generation and EBITDA of that business as we see it today. We still see the long-term fundamentals of cobalt being attractive. We see synchronized demand ultimately both in EV and non-EV, propelling that business, positively in terms of demand. There is a period currently of both demand and supply factors, which is leading to an oversupply and to build up in inventories, it is something that we expect to be largely a short to medium-term impact with positive fundamentals for that business long-term as well. In terms of volumes on the metals, we will have a better second half over first half performance. That's the expectations across all of our key metals business, whether it's copper, whether it's nickel, whether it's zinc, anywhere between 50%-55% compared to 45% mix or so in the first half of the business. We'll see it in each of the individual commodity sheets later on as well, in all the businesses. Coal, of course, on the energy industrial dropped from $9.5 billion-$4.7 billion, really a function of lower prices, particularly in coal, which dropped $4.4 billion, and also our small non-operated upstream E&P business itself, which produces both oil and gas in West Africa, it itself dropped $400 million between the two periods. If we move into page nine, you can see the aggregate waterfall bridge for our overall industrial business, having declined from $15 billion down to $7.4 billion. The big bar is, of course, the price reductions that we saw contributing $5.7 billion of that reduction. Within that, $4.1 billion of that energy, the biggest contributor there within the $4.1 billion, as I said before, coal was $3.7 billion on pricing. The E&P business was $0.4 billion, then within our metals, we had contributions. There was $1.6 billion copper business, which is both copper and cobalt, had a $0.7 billion. This is the price impact that we do, the absolute prices, less any costs that are directly linked to those revenues as well. Commodity-linked royalties that may go up or down relative to commodity prices would also go into a price variance category as we have. Copper was $0.7 billion, zinc business $0.5 billion, and the nickel business $0.4 billion. As you can see bottom left, we've seen price reductions average period- on- period in the Newcastle benchmark dropped 36%. Even more profound was API 4 and API 2s around 50%. Copper, 11%, was more modest compared to zinc at 26%. Cobalt on the metal, as I said earlier, 59%, but realization is even substantially higher for our particular business as well. In terms of volume, there was a $1.3 billion negative impact. Energy of that was $0.6 billion, and that was primarily in coal. We're calling out Cerrejón as a major contributor within that, was down 6% period- on- period in production, around 600,000 tons. There was some-- both weather and blockade, community blockade, blockade-related impacts during the course of the year, and is a very high margin operation. So the more the loss of tons, particularly out of that business, it has an impact across a volume variance. Within the metals side, $0.7 billion, $0.2 billion was in copper. Most notably, Kolwezi was 10% lower period-on-period. We expect a decent catch-up in H2 on Kolwezi, as well as the copper business generally. Within the zinc business itself was $0.2 billion. We had weather impacts, particularly in Australia. Again, second half should be better, both in the zinc and copper output, particularly out of Northwest Queensland. That saw particular flooding and weather-related impacts in Q1 this year. The nickel business itself was $0.2 billion, and again, we had an INO variance period to period due to the lag effect of the lengthy strike at Raglan, which meant we were ultimately producing final product with more third-party inputs than our own production during the period. Again, we expect a big tick-up in own source nickel production period-on-period. That entire volume variance of $1.3 billion, by the end of the year, we expect to neutralize and finish flat, potentially slightly positive. There is a big second half and first half improvement that we see volume-wise within industrial. On the cost side of the business, it's to some extent, you'd look at cost and FX as a combined cost impacts. There's some negative correlations between U.S. dollar strength and some of the movements in pricing in some local currencies, particularly in places like South Africa. We had a -$ 1.1 billion increase across our, across our cost, cost business. Energy was $0.4 billion of that, and metals was $0.7 billion, with positive currency benefits of $0.2 billion in Australia and $0.2 billion in South Africa, making up that $0.4 billion, with the rand being 18% weaker, Australian dollar being 6% weaker. Across all the inflation and cost variance, we would as I said, we're calling for a moderation in both inflation impact as well as the denominator effect for us of better volumes as we go forward, both H2 to H1. In a spot illustrative sense that we expect the cost variance to not move as it moves through the year. That should have peaked out and should not continue to be a negative factor within the industrial contribution. If we then move into our overall businesses themselves, copper on page 10, this business contributed $2.1 billion EBITDA for the half. We have all of our spot illustrative analysis with the details on page 24, which you can refer to later on when you look at the presentation. You can see on the right-hand side, that business on spot illustrative basis, macro as of last week, and cost structure today at $1.21, is generating just over $5 billion of EBITDA. The actual production itself was a small reduction, 4%. Again, consistent with our expectations around year-on-year movements and contributions from Kolwezi and Antamina. The cobalt pricing, as I mentioned before, was particularly impactful, as well as other byproducts, but we're calling out cobalt specifically for the particular copper business, but they also produce vast amounts of zinc as well, coming out of the Antamina business. You've seen a cost structure at the bottom, at the bottom in the middle, having moved from $0.80 /lb in 2022 for the first half to $1.45. Byproducts itself, with that increase of the $0.65, byproducts was itself a lower credit, i.e., an increase in net cost of $0.45, where it was just a reduction of $0.60 /lb this year, this period, compared to $1.05 in 2020. There was, aside from the byproducts, there was a $0.20 increase in, in the gross effect. Part of that's inflation, part of that is just the denominator effect. Both to do with now second half increases in volumes that we expect in Kolwezi, Lomas Bayas and Antapaccay, as well as cobalt hydroxide pricing having bottomed in Q2. It's up 10%-15%, partially in metals pricing as well as the hydroxide pricing. Our spot pricing in copper business is currently around $1.20, which should see us finishing at $1.32. We're averaging between $1.45 and $1.21. We'll see a pickup in H2 performance and a business that today is generating a little over $5 billion, and you say, has been a solid operating performance during the particular period. If we go to zinc on page 11, it contributed $600 million EBITDA for the year and around $1.1 billion of spot illustrative free cash flow. Its production was down 10%, primarily to do with some disposals of the smaller zinc portfolio that we were working on and progressing throughout 2022, both in Bolivia, Peru, some lost units through the closure of Matagami, a small operation in Canada, which had been running for a while as well. What's worth noting out, just in terms of geography of accounting, given we had expensed or we'd recorded an impairment at the Mount Isa copper business, and you'll see in the nickel business, well, Koniambo itself, that we're taking down to zero. Effective this year, we're now effectively expensing all CapEx as well. It's running through the OpEx because having determined the value long term of that business to we- to be towards zero, to be just capitalizing and impairing at the same time, makes no sense. We're just expensing all that. And within the MICO, the Mount Isa Corporation itself, there was $46 million of CapEx that has been expensed during this particular period, itself having a cost impact of $6.4 million. The flip side, of course, is that will reduce the reported CapEx. It's cashflow neutral as it works through the system as well. We had that for the first half, we were $0.40-$0.42 cost structure. On a full- year basis, we expect to be around $0.35, and we've got the volume benefits of scaling up second half, the first half performance. We've got continued ramp of the Zhairem and the recovery from Mount Isa from the weather impact. The H1, H2 split in zinc is around 46%, 54%, with the movement towards $0.35 for 2023. That's roughly the spot illustrative cost structure, also in the mid-30s, generating a $1.2 billion EBITDA in that business as well, but performing reasonably fine. On the nickel business, this would be an area that it's a business that is that is struggling at the moment, as much the Koniambo itself, I'll talk to itself, but just the nickel business generally, in terms of margins, through a price that had dropped in LME terms, the price had dropped 13%. Realization, you can see in the top right, for this overall business, in fact, dropped 23% to $9.53. Our Australian and Canadian business are selling product broadly in line with LME prices. Our ferronickel business, Koniambo product, is a, is a ferronickel. It's largely competing with the NPI out of Indonesia, where the discounts relative to LME, which is just a calculated expression at a point in time, has increased tremendously. Where it used to be the likes of $500, $1,000 a ton, it's now in the many thousands of dollars a ton in terms of the realization. That'll continue to, for as long as that product is largely competing in an oversupplied and a competitive cost structure, its margin environment is quite tricky, and it's manifested across the overall portfolio at a larger discount to the LME price by virtue of that product that we have within the Koniambo business. Again, as I mentioned, we are expensing CapEx at Koniambo, which was $32 million, having a $0.31 impact across the business. This will be a large recovery in volumes, period-on-period across all of our particular business. INO, as I said, to do with the Raglan strike. It should pick up 10,000 tons of nickel, H2 over H1, and then across Murrin as well as Koniambo, we should have another 5,000-10,000 better H2 over H1 performance as well. That has a large impact in the unitary derived cost, which is improving from $973 to $850. Even if spot is around $820, still not a business that's able to generate much, but it is something that would move from a, a break-even EBITDA during the first half performance to a spot illustrative of around $300 million. Within that $300 million, you've got a, a business around Canada and Australia that's in the $400 million-$500 million with Koniambo, even at these prices, and at expectations of, of producing annualized in, in the 30,000 tons of nickel, would still be, not quite break even. It would be loss-making in the sort of $100 million-$150 million or so. That is something that is-- that we're very focused and the, the whole industry and the French state around what does a future sustainable model look like for nickel production within New Caledonia, both given the structure of the market and the cost structure of those particular businesses as well. We turn on on page 13, we've got coal business, which contributed $4.5 billion for the first half, and on a spot illustrative basis, it generates $6.8 billion. That's fully loaded to latest cost structures, latest pricing, that's with Newcastle average forward, 12 months forward, around $150, with a portfolio effect generating of $22, generating a $130 net price across all of our 110 million tons, with a cost structure at $68.5. That generates $6.8 within our coal business. There has been a cost, at least during recent periods, where we averaged $77 in the first half of 2023. There were some impacts of higher logistics relative to previous expectations, particularly in South Africa. Trucking, de-railing is much more expensive. We've had the impact of the increased Colombian royalties come through, as well as some of the lag effect, as I mentioned earlier on, on freight explosives and contractor costs as well. We will have the lower pricing, unfortunately, also lower costs as well, because we do have royalties in all the operations, particularly Australia and Colombia, which is linked to the revenue that we generate in that business. As we've marked the whole book to the $152 Newcastle or so, on a spot basis, that's taken ourselves down to $68.5 of cost and a margin of $62, which is still a very healthy business, having that outturn of $6.8 billion. We'll see the spot analysis later on. On page 14, we can see the marketing earnings for the year of $1.8 billion, of course, overshadowed by first half of 2022's performance of $3.7 billion. That was in the immediate aftermath of the Russian-Ukraine war, the initial, initial disturbance and dislocations and recalibration and chaos frankly, across all the energy markets there, and prices and volatility that we saw. We've seen a return to Earth to some extent, still very good earnings at $1.8 billion, $1 billion in the energy, $0.8 billion in the marketing. You can see in the graph or chart in the middle of the bottom, those are half year numbers. If you annualize, let's say, $2 billion energy, $1.6 billion in metals, by any historical standards, those would still be respectable and good earnings and tracking towards slightly beating the top end of our range in the $3.5 billion-$4 billion. If we go across to balance sheet on page 15. A lot of words on 15, so maybe we'll shortly get to page 16 and 17 with some easier charts and bridges in our net debt evolution and how we've thought about the capital returns. A few bullet points on page 15: liquidity, committed liquidity of the business around $13 billion, still very strong and same as the start of the year, notwithstanding all the cash disbursements that we've done during the year. We've refinanced all of our core borrowing facilities as well. There was a materially higher taxes paid. As I said earlier on, that's the lag effect of settlement of the final income taxes in respect of the 2022 year, most notably for Australia, $1.8 billion, and Colombia. You would see on page 29 of the financial statements, where you see in the balance sheet, you've got the income tax payable. It has sort of declined exactly by that amount, $2.7 billion, from $4.7 billion to $2 billion. Given the materiality, particularly of the Australian final settlement, which we knew was due clearly when we released our full- year results in February, we said this is a commitment, really like an M&A, that was debt-like obligation that was appropriate to reserve or to take into account when we did our distributional top-up declaration back in February this year. We called out already a payment of $1.8 billion that we knew was due in Australia. That's, that's exactly how the final settlement worked out. We didn't adjust for Colombia at the time because we're just focusing on the most material one, $1.8 billion, and just making an appropriate adjustment in respect of taxes. There was the $2.7 billion settlement. It's now all back to kind of normal in the tax liabilities, that should largely follow in the year of generation as well. It was just to do with the extreme earnings contribution that we saw in 2022, that we're finally settling all our tax liabilities during this first half of this year. We've had a return of working capital, $2.2 billion net in the non-RMI. A $1.4 reduction in RMI itself. I'll speak to that on the next page as well. As Gary had mentioned earlier on, the total shareholder returns at the bottom, $9.3 billion, given the $2.2 billion top up, roughly a 70/30 split between cash and buybacks. On page 16, just to follow through the net debt at the beginning of the year, largely flat at $0.1 billion. The FFO, which is after tax, which reflects the $2.7 billion of taxes that was paid in respect of 2022 during this particular period. So that is a, that's a lag effect that's captured there. One should add that back in terms of doing any comparisons of FFO for any reasonable year-on-year comparisons. The net CapEx, $2.5 billion, there'll be a slide later on. It's spending at a lower rate than what we expect for the full year, but that was the net CapEx after a small amount of disposals as well. The investments on the M&A, that was largely the $0.6 billion inflow, largely the receipt of the cash portion in respect to the Cobalt sale. Non-RMI, we generated $2.2 billion. Within that, it's important to look at what's the marketing components and maybe the non-marketing components. This was a big area that was focused in previous periods as a buildup in working capital, where the marketing business was discussed and highlighted as having consumed about $5 billion in non-RMI working capital during 2022. For this year, working through that $2.2 billion, we had a marketing inflow of $3.2 billion. That was the initial margins, $2.1 billion. As we discussed last year, that had built up to $4.1 billion net margin calls initial during the course of 2022. It's back to $2 billion, which is a more normal level for us, so that's effectively fully reversed. We'd had some buildup last year in the physical forward part of our business. That's where we're have to wait for the cash realization of longer-term fixed price contracts, particularly in our natural gas business, with the reduction in pricing there. There was a reduction, $1.1 billion. That $3.2 billion can be considered as part of that $5 billion of the marketing buildup last year, which has come back, almost two-thirds of that. The remaining amount may come back at some point, but it's a bit more structural in terms of our mix of businesses across terms of trade, classic receivables and payables, where we called out the loss of Russian supply, particularly last year's, of having built up $1.5 billion. That's clearly still the case today, so that's not necessarily flagging that there'll be material further releases of working capital. We also had a $0.2 billion reduction in non-RMI inventories out of our industrial businesses, the likes of Astron having built up some inventories ahead of their restart, and some consumer builds and some of the other businesses. We've got $0.2 billion back there. Of course, we settled the last of the DOJ resolution payments, which we paid in February of the $0.5 billion, and then there was reductions in deferred income of $0.9 billion, which is from time to time, we do sales of non-core byproducts out of our industrial assets to physical buy universe. This is primarily gold and silvers out of smelters. Historical streaming transactions is in that particular area. Distributions and buybacks, $5.2 billion, and other is mainly leases to get to $1.5 billion, which I said is still a very low level for this particular year and gives us capacity to invest in the business, to return cash to shareholders and the likes as well, which we've been quite busy on that front as well. On page 17, you can see how we've thought about the top-up returns as well. Starting at $1.5 billion, we've still got our second tranche of the announced $5.6 billion cash amount at the beginning of the year. That's $0.22 that'll be paid in September. The final $0.2 billion of the $1.5 billion buyback that was announced, was completed in July. We got $1.3 billion of announced transactions, which we expect to close in this half, and Gary will speak to some of those later on. That leaves $4.2 billion, what we'd effectively reserved or allowed for and put a placeholder around potential M&A. Clearly putting a name on it, there is the particular tax situation where we announced that we'd put in an offer, cash for tax coal business back in June. That itself, if it was to consummate, would be material cash-funded acquisition. As part of appropriately rethinking the business and steering it towards its eventual outcomes, we've said itself if that transaction was to materialize, we would look to then spin off that, that larger coal business as soon as possible, once the business had reached its target leverage levels, expected to be within 12 and 24 months. The non-coal business would be brought down to a leverage level of no more than $5 billion. This is an attempt to start thinking about finding the right balance between shareholder returns today and rewarding shareholders and positioning for potential outcomes. Of course, if nothing eventuates from that particular situation, that $2 billion immediately comes back to shareholders or as soon as practical. Of course, we can wait till February. We can do out of cycle, potential increases to buybacks or the like, but that's not going away. It's in the business, and it's been reserved for a particular situation. We felt that was an appropriate balance as we build back up towards the $10 billion of putting down $2 billion and just limiting the, the peak of what balance sheet net debt may be at a particular point in time, where we historically said we wouldn't go to more than $10 billion-$16 billion as well to facilitate M&A and then, delever appropriately as well. That's left $2.2 billion top up, which Gary had mentioned before. We've allocated that between additional cash of $1 billion, which is $0.08, which will take the cash payment then to $0.30 next month, as well as incremental buyback, $1.2 billion at $0.10. In terms of CapEx, nothing particularly on page 18 to highlight. It's as we were largely, so we're keeping 2023-2025 CapEx as it was earlier this year, $5.6 billion per annum. Which at the time was felt that it was gonna be $6 billion in 2023. We now are calling for a 2023 CapEx of around $5.5 billion. There is a slower spend in this particular year that will ultimately get caught up. We'll come again towards the end of the year when we do investor updates and just recalibrate exactly where we expect CapEx over the next two or three years. We do think a reasonable guidance still out for the next three years is averaging $5.6 billion. Just before I hand back to Gary, just a final recap on slide 24, where we show details of our free cash flow and spot generation as well. We showed the EBITDA of $17.4 billion split between the various businesses, copper, zinc, nickel, and coal. The other categories are oil, ferro, a small alloy business, and SG&A coming out to $0.8 billion. Marketing, $3.4 billion, conservative relative to historical performance. We've pitched that at around $3 billion EBIT, of course, we've been way above that in recent years, plus some of the depreciation getting to $17.4 billion. Our cash, taxes, interest and other is net interest of $1.3 billion. That's at funded debt of $28 billion max at around 5.7% average cost of finance, with taxes at $3.1 billion. Of course, on the CapEx side, $5.5 billion industrial and $100 million on marketing for a $7.3 billion. That's declined from a $10.6 billion number, which is where we were guiding to or highlighting at the end of February. That's been a function of declines in prices, particularly in the coal, part of the business as well, which itself is still a good margin, $62 for a $6.8 billion. That's the cash flow of the business, still very healthy, still very strong, still able to invest, return, to shareholders and just manage a solid business. With that, I'll hand back to Gary just to conclude and wrap up. Thanks, Steve. I mean, maybe just following on Steve's theme of capital returns, capital allocation, I'll just touch on three of our M&A activities that we've concluded during the first half o f 2023. Which you're all aware of, but I'll touch on them quickly now. In the alumina bauxite space, we announced an acquisition of a 30% equity stake in Alunorte and a 45% stake in the MRN bauxite mine, both in Brazil, from Norsk Hydro. Total consideration on closing, which we expect sometime, probably Q4 of this year, is in the region of $700 million. And that gives us a stake in a Tier 1 long-life asset. This is one of the largest and lowest cost alumina refineries, ex-China. The MRN deposit, terrific resource base and terrific quality, and gives us exposure to also lower quartile carbon product, which helps us service our customers particularly in the Atlantic market. A very good asset for our portfolio. Fits nicely into our aluminum, alumina, bauxite trading business, and something, as I said, that we should close in the fourth quarter of this year. On the copper side, recently, we announced the acquisition of a little over 56% stake in the MARA c opper project in Argentina. We bought that from Pan American Silver. This is a brownfield copper project that we already owned, the remaining 44% of. This brings us up to 100% sole owner and operator of this project. It's a terrific brownfield project, very low capital intensity. It's a life of nearly 30 years. It will be a top 25 producer for the first 10 years of its life. It will produce at least 200,000 tons of copper and a project that we're very excited about, as I said, brownfield, so much lower risk, much lower capital, much faster to market. We'll bring that to market as we see the market needs those tons. I think the world has started to recognize the shortage of copper coming in the, in the next few years, and this will be one of the first projects that's able to feed into that copper demand. Before we bring this on, we certainly want to see higher copper prices. The other announcement that you, that you would have seen, more on the smaller end of town, but more cleaning up the, the PolyMet structure, PolyMet, a listed company, where we owned around 82% of, of, of that company. We're taking out the other 18%, and we've made a cash offer to shareholders, and that's subject to approval to from those shareholders and the courts and various other closing conditions. That will take us to 100% of the PolyMet project or the PolyMet company, which is in a 50/50 joint venture with Teck's Masaba project, which we now call inte graded project, is the NewRange project. A very good, also brownfield project that will produce copper and nickel right in the United States. Critical minerals right there where it's needed. Something very exciting for the future. We'll allocate capital to that as required going forward. If we move on to slide 21, I guess we just try to capture the key elements of our business on one slide. At Glencore, we're a major critical minerals portfolio. We have all the right minerals for a decarbonizing future, very large copper producer, nickel, cobalt, growing in the aluminum and alumina space, as you would have seen, and zinc, the sometimes the forgotten commodity of decarbonization, but absolutely critical in the decarbonization journey. Focusing a little bit more on our copper portfolio, we're a leading copper producer, 1 million tons of copper production. A very exciting part of our business is our portfolio of mainly brownfield projects, one very large greenfield project, but mainly brownfield projects, and we did touch on the MARA project, which could add up to another 1 million tons of copper into our portfolio, which we will bring on as the world needs and as the price environment is, is welcoming for those additional tons into the market. We also continue to grow our recycling business, and we promote circularity. We've invested in, in recycling over the last couple of years, and we'll continue to invest in that, both organically and inorganically. We already produce significant amounts of metals through our recycling business, and it really gives us a added advantage when we visit our customers, being able to offer third-party material, our own material, and recycled material. Not only is it the responsible thing to do, but, you know, when you look at where the world is going and the requirements under law and the requirements of what our customers need to be able to provide that recycled material is really beneficial to our business, and we expect to see that business grow further in the years ahead. In the i nterim, as the world decarbonizes, and we do recognize that the world needs to decarbonize as quickly as possible, but it's not achieving some of its goals in the short term, the world does need energy to progress and to grow and to take people out of poverty. We are supplying the energy needs of today, and we do that through our coal business. At the same time, we responsibly run down that coal business to ensure that we achieve our net zero ambition by 2050 in our energy business i n our company. Then lastly, our marketing business, where we source the materials that our customers need. This is a best-in-class marketing business that year in, year out, delivers terrific returns. We've always had our range of $2.2 billion-$3.2 billion EBIT that we've delivered to our customers or to our shareholders. The last three years, we've achieved above the top end of the range, which has been a great achievement for us, and we continue to work on that business to be able to supply the commodities that our customers need and provide the returns to our shareholders. Overall, that gives us a very responsive and very highly cash-generative business model. Steve touched on the numbers, but just to reiterate them here, a spot illustrative EBITDA and free cash flow of $17.4 billion and $7.3 billion, respectively. With that, we'll conclude the presentation and hand it over to Q&A. Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, that is star one and one to ask a question. We will now go to your first question. Your first question comes from the line of Liam Fitzpatrick from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Good morning, Gary and Steve. Just two questions on the, on the EVR bid and your coal strategy. Firstly, can you confirm if the cash proposal that you submitted back in June is at least as high as the $8.2 billion that was offered as part of the original merger? Linked to that, would you be willing to partner on the deal with other companies who may want a minority stake in EVR? Secondly, if you're not successful in this approach, where does that leave your coal strategy? Will you look at other acquisitions? Will the aim still to be to eventually demerge the business or, or something else? One final one, just on the operations on Koniambo, that seemed to drive a lot of a big part of the miss versus our numbers, at least today. What sort of solutions are you looking at for that asset, and when could things actually start to happen? Could it be in the next six tto 12 months or could it take longer? Thank you. Morning, Liam. Thanks for the questions. I'm unfortunately, gonna have to disappoint you on your first few questions on the, on the price and the partners on the EVR. I can't comment on those, on those particular issues, so we're just gonna have to leave it there. I'll move on rather onto your second question around the coal business and what happens if we're not successful. I mean, nothing really changes in the sense that we have a world-class coal business, mostly steam coal, some coking coal in our business across Colombia, South Africa, and Australia, as you well know, and our commitment to responsibly run down that business. We've always said that we will listen to our shareholders, and which we continue to do. We've said that business, if our, the majority of our shareholders want to see us spin that out, we would spin that out. The most recent consultation with our shareholders has been that if we are not successful in acquiring EVR, we would keep that business within Glencore. We continue to consult with our shareholders. Ultimately, it's their capital that we deploy, and we here at their pleasure. If they would like us to change strategy and spin out our coal business, we'll do that at the time. At this stage, the feedback from our shareholders is that if we are not successful in acquiring EVR, the coal business would remain within Glencore. With respect to Koniambo, agree, very disappointing. In fact, disappointing in the sense that production-wise, even the last three months have been very good, and a real shout-out to our management on the island, have done a terrific job. Steve mentioned the nickel market, which has been, which has not been in favor of Koniambo, given it's a fair nickel producer. We've worked very closely with the French government. The media has reported on a report, a report that the French government have put out. I assume you may have seen that. They ultimately have recognized that all three nickel processing facilities on the island have challenges and a solution is needed. We absolutely agree that a solution is needed. From our perspective, all options are on the table. It's right up on the top of our agenda. We're working very closely and collaboratively with the French stake and our local partners on the island, and we hope to have a solution on the way forward for Koniambo as soon as possible. Thanks, Gary. Just very briefly coming back to the, to the coal strategy. If EVR doesn't happen for whatever reason, do was this just a one-off exceptional opportunity, or do you think there are other assets out there that could kind of improve the business and open up a demerger further down the line? I mean in all our commodities, t here are terrific assets out there. Now, you know, this is an opportunity that came up because of a particular circumstance. We're not out there chasing assets simply because we think, they're nice to buy or whatever it may be. This was a particular opportunity that came up. Of course, we'll only allocate capital to assets to buy, provided they meet our very strict capital allocation framework, in terms of returns, in terms of jurisdiction, in terms of commodity. It's very difficult to speculate on what may be out there that meets that capital allocation framework and that would, that would, fit within our portfolio. You know, it's, it's not I'm not trying to be purposely evasive, but, you know, you can't point to another asset and say, "Well, if we don't buy this, we'll buy that." This was a particular opportunity that's come up, and we, and we're engaging on that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Jason Fairclough, Bank of America. Please go ahead. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for the presentation, Gary, Steve. Just two quick ones from me. First one's on resource nationalism. Last year we had a negative surprise from Queensland on the coal royalty, and obviously some chatter now coming through about higher royalties in New South Wales. Just wondering on your thoughts here, how you're engaging with policymakers. Second would be on MARA. You've bought in 100% from partners who perhaps didn't want to execute. I guess from here, would you now consider syndicating this project to bring the NPV forward and use somebody else's balance sheet for the CapEx? Morning, Jason. Thanks for the question. Look, I mean, resource nationalism has always been a concern for us, and particularly what we saw in Queensland. You've mentioned New South Wales. We continue and we are engaging with the New South Wales government as we attempt, and we do engage with governments around the world, around any signs of resource nationalism or change of fiscal conditions. We obviously would like a fair discussion and transparent discussion around not only a one-year scenario around commodity prices, but history, future forecasts, investment, certainty and the like. We continue to engage with all governments around the world, on our business. With respect to MARA, no decision's been made around syndicating. I mean, as I said, this is a low capital intensity business. You know, w e have a very strong balance sheet, as Steve has outlined in the financial presentation. There's no real need to syndicate out any part of this. Of course, we're always, we work well with partners, and if it's something we choose to do at the time we could do that, but there's no need to syndicate anything out on MARA. Well, just as operator, we can sort of get our own sort of hands across the sort of asset and make it our own planned property, optimize feasibility. It's sort of been a joint venture. It's been non-Glencore operated, sort of historically, so there's a degree of work still to be done to put sort of Glencore's overall stamp on this asset and optimize it should the transaction close. It hasn't closed yet, so there's still a need to, still, still some work to do there. Just to follow up, if I could, guys, on MARA. Any kind of a indicative timeline to final investment decision and first metal? I mean, there's no indicative timeline because, I mean, we have our own timelines in terms of how it's, how long it'll take to investment decision. The investment decision will only be made when we believe that the market is there for these terms. This is not something that we're gonna rush to market. The market is below $8,500 of copper now. We see copper projects ramping up around the world. We certainly don't want to bring copper units into a market that may have additional excess supply. We're not sitting on our hands. We're working on the project. We are de-risking the project as we are with all our projects, but we're not gonna sit here and put a date out there in anticipation of perhaps demand being there. We want to see real demand for copper. We want to see higher copper prices. That's where we'll bring that, that to market. Okay. Thanks, both. Thank you. We'll now go to your next question. Your next question comes from the line of Danielle Chigumira from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Hi there, morning, and thanks for the question. On the additional $2 billion reserve for M&A, how should we interpret this? Is it an indication of how likely it is you think the EVR transaction will go through? Assuming it's not successful, the EVR transaction isn't successful, what would cause you to add that back into consideration for additional returns, or would you just keep that $2 billion in the back pocket? That's the first question from me. Yeah, thanks, Danielle. I mean, if that transaction was to not transpire, it would automatically and mechanically come back to shareholders at the first, at the first opportunity. There's no general reservation. We've never done it. This was just something that is a sort of a live process, and it's a material process, and we put an announcement out in June as to what our the fact that we had made an offer. It was circumstantial to the sort of major size and just where we are in that sort of transaction deliberations that are currently in change. It will-- if there was an announcement at some point that says that, that's been sort of unsuccessful, that will just get released, and it will flow back into. It'll automatically come through in February, and I guess we'd have the opportunity to access it earlier, if it was appropriate, through some other top-up or buybacks that was sensible at the time. There's no reservation or some other sort of M&A situation that's being thought about in the context of having a placeholder always there. There's no M&A budget, there's no war chest. This is just around that particular situation at the moment as being appropriate for sort of balance sheet management sort of now and into the more immediate future, should that be successful. Very clear. Thank you. Just another question on the balance sheet. Just given your previous comments, Steve, we should not be expecting a further reduction in non-RMI working capital in the second half. Is that correct? You should not be-- Yeah, I think it's-- I mean, it can happen and there's still obviously working capital sort of in the balance sheet, but the easy, the low-hanging fruit has reversed out with the, with the sort of more normalization in valuations on our physical contracts, volatility levels, margining trading levels. The sort of low-hanging fruit is clearly back. There is other areas that to do with mix of business and other opportunities that could well happen that some of the remaining, largely just normal receivables, payables, mix of business. I think for now, I think the sort of direction of travel should be just position it for no further release, but there's probably some bias towards, if anything, if there's gonna be some movement, it's likely to be, a smaller release rather than investment. I'm not saying just some of that release here is at risk of getting clawed back in the absence of a return to the highly volatile and high price environment, which we would welcome. I mean, both in industrial and marketing business, this was always one of those, questionings we'd get: When do you expect working capital and how much? It's sort of careful what you wish for, because I would have preferred to have still been stuck in 2022's, sort of environment, both in pricing and general opportunity-rich environment that we were- that we're at. I would say, certainly don't have a number in there. There's some bias, bias towards further release but the easy stuff's done. Very clear. Thanks. Just lastly from me, is $3 billion-$4 billion now the right range for marketing? Notwithstanding 2022, that's about where the business has been. We're not quite ready to sort of formally raise the guidance. I think, there's still the world is still tricky, still geopolitics, still sort of a slightly above average opportunity set, but it is more normalizing. Let's see where the next six months and maybe into 2024 as to how that progresses, as to whether we settle in in the $3 billion, or whether there is some reversion to a number more in the $2 billion. I think during the course of 2024 would be an opportunity for us to finally sort of get off our sort of holding pattern, and I understand it may be a bit of a non-committal position. I think during 2024, we'd be able to, through into first half 2024, to properly reconfirm whether it has stepped up higher or whether it's still appropriate. Great. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now go to your next question. Your question comes from the line of Alain Gabriel, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. Two questions from my side. Firstly, Steve, the question is for you. The coal costs were historically very much price linked or correlated, where they would fall sharply as prices correct. Is it fair to assume that this no longer is the case with the royalty structures in both Colombia and Queensland and potentially New South Wales? How real is the risk of these new royalties in New South Wales being introduced? That's my first question. It is still very sensitive to royalties. I don't know if that was your question, to say that it's much more sensitive to royalties, given the changes that have been made, both in Colombia and particularly Queensland. That's why you've had costs move between, sort of $82, is where we finished in 2022, moving to a spot of $68. That's almost 90% would be due to royalties, give or take some other inputs into the business, whether in contractors, freight inflation. It still is a factor in that $82 cost. I think it peaked even higher when we were running spot scenarios in the middle of last year. If we assume now that prices are more in people's expectations long term, or at least the real froth has come out of the business, we're running Newcastle $150. It's still elevated, but not nearly the levels that it was last year. Sort of it's been rebased significantly downwards. There's still some royalty that's baked into that number. If prices came down, it would still come down a bit. I don't know if that answers your question properly, Alain? Yes. Well, I guess, my question was more if, if costs were a bit stickier now with the new, the new royalty structures, in place, i.e., if we go back to a price environment of two or three years ago, will costs go back there, or will we stay around, where we are today or in the $60s? That was my question more. Well, they certainly will come down a bit, but the big sort of, almost, sort of, I don't wanna say windfall elements necessarily, but there is sliding scales such that they are much more punitive the higher you go. They step up from 15%, 20%, up to 40% in the case of Queensland. There is a big sliding scale as you move higher, but you would have to reach the absolute lowest of those bands for prices to not be influenced still by those royalties. We're still not at the lowest bands in, in any of the particular Colombia and Queensland. There still is a degree of cost elasticity that we will. If prices lower, our costs are not sticky. They can easily come down another $3, $4, $5 on the cost to royalties. Thank you. That's very clear. The second question is on the CapEx guidance. You are now expensing certain previously capitalized items at Koniambo and Mount Isa, and yet you have kept your CapEx guidance unchanged for the next three years, with the disclaimer, you're gonna have a look at it at the year-end. Is that an implicit CapEx increase, or will we have to assume that your CapEx will come down by a commensurate amount of the that is being capitalized and now expensed? Thank you. It's a good question 'cause we, we're having our cake and eating it on that one, in that it was not material enough to consider in the overall whether there is an increase or a decrease, because we are through the major planning cycles now to do with life of mines, optimizations, budgets, timing, project sanctioning. The $5.6 billion per annum is a reasonable placeholder. We'll come back at the end of the year. I mean, like- for- like, maybe you can say it should be less by maybe $100 million to do with this expensing, but then our cost structures have been burdened with that cost. But it wasn't material enough to do too much forensics now, given that geography, and we'll come back at the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now go to your next question. The question comes from the line of Alon Olsha from Bloomberg Intelligence. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks very much for taking my question. Just firstly on, on cobalt, you've outlined that, you know, the market's been, been pretty weak, both on price and payabilities. Notwithstanding the long-term outlook, which continues to look relatively positive, do you see kind of light at the end of the tunnel in the near term in terms of prices firming, volatility reducing, and payabilities reaching an acceptable level? Related to that, if that doesn't happen, you've indicated before you wouldn't be shy to necessarily step into the market to support pricing and, and, provide some equilibrium. Would you, would you be willing to do that if that happens? Morning, Alon. Thanks for your question. I think, I mean, you did say a positive outlook for cobalt going forward and you've seen. You're absolutely right. We've seen the lows, we're off the lows and cobalt pricing is even up a little bit in the last couple of months. Not bad, but certainly not where we think it is. There's still a surplus in the market. We do believe it'll take some time for that surplus to come out the market. EV use of cobalt is incredibly strong, and forecast remains very good for that. Aerospace and, and defense, also very strong. It's more weak, been weaker on the sort of home use, consumer goods, iPads, iPhones, all those sorts of things. That's starting to pick up slowly as well now, particularly in China. We've also seen on the supply side, additional supply coming onto the market, Kisanfu coming on. We've seen all the additional cobalt coming out of HPAL in Indonesia. You've had a supply-demand imbalance over the last few months, and that's resulted in the lower prices, but that's starting to work itself out the system, and prices, as I say, have recovered. We do foresee future a recovery in the future, but there is still excess stocks on surface and additional and, and the market isn't quite yet in balance. To your second question around us taking action, yes, it is something we've done before, and it is something that we will consider in the future. We're not here to sell our cobalt at a loss or supply material into an oversupplied market. We are a large producer of cobalt, and to the extent that we believe it makes sense for us to to take some action in a supply side response, we would certainly do that. Which could be both in the lower production and/or stockpiling for a period of time or a mix or a combination thereof. Okay, great. Thanks. That's very clear. Just another question on MARA. You've said that's a project you're not willing to pull the trigger on quite yet, given where the price is. Are you able to give an indication of, kind of the metrics for the project's feasibility? Previous feasibility work suggested kind of CapEx around, you know, just under $2.4 billion. You know, what do you think about that number? Is that likely to rise? Could you give us your latest sense of cash costs for that operation? Just related to your comment around not necessarily pulling the trigger quite yet, I mean, given this looks to be a pretty low cost, low risk project, which would generate a good return in this market, what's preventing you from pulling the trigger now, given that it could take three, four years for this material to come to market? I think, Look, I mean, it's all one question there. Yes, it is a lower, low capital intensity project. We're obviously, with recent inflation and recent changes in various commodity prices and inputs, we're reworking our capital estimates. You know, we're not gonna put out a guidance or an estimate now— We don't own it yet. Yeah, we haven't even closed on the transaction. It certainly is a low capital intensity. If you look at it versus some of the other potential projects that could come on in the world, this is significantly lower from a capital intensity perspective. That's why we're very excited about the project. It is brownfield, so, and it is quite significant in terms of volume, 200,000 tons of copper in the first 10 years. It's a nearly a 30-year life. Cash costs, likewise, towards the low end of the production scale, so a very exciting project. If we did bring it on now, and as Steve rightly says, we haven't even closed on the transaction, so difficult to do anything until we close the transaction. If we did bring it on now, based on our current capital estimates and cost estimates, yes, and we would make a good return on it. We like to make great returns on our assets, and given where we see the world going and the copper shortfall in the future, we'd rather feed those copper tons into a stronger copper market, where we see prices in excess of $10,000 a ton of copper. That's where we think, you know, we'll get the best returns on our investment for our shareholders. It's a finite life. It may be a nearly 30-year life, but we wanna make a lot of money for every one of those 30 years, and not not put tons into the market, which in itself could oversupply a market or keep prices, you know, sort of, or inhibit prices, which impact our existing portfolio. It's about timing and getting it right, ensuring the world gets the copper it needs, when the world needs that copper. That's our responsible way of bringing this asset onto the market, to bring that copper into the world as it needs it. Our responsible way of working for our shareholders is to ensure we do that at the best possible return for our shareholders. Okay, understood. Thanks very much. Thank you. We will now go to our next question. The next question comes from the line of Myles Allsop from UBS. Please go ahead. Great, thank you. Maybe first question for, for Steve on working capital, because in the past, I think we had talked around $6 billion of the working capital build would reverse over time. Is that still the way we should think about this over the medium term, or is it actually more of a structural build in working capital that we saw last year? Thanks, Myles. I, I don't know exactly where your $6 billion comes from, but we sort of articulated, at least I had, on the marketing component of that movements last year, there were a lot of different sort of geographic places of where it may have shown up in the cash flows as a working capital movement, but it wasn't directed towards investment or balance sheet. It was paying out the likes of the resolution settlements on the investigations. It was paying various other VATs and, and, and payroll accruals and the likes as well. The marketing component, we'd sort of pointed towards about $5 billion, and we grouped that up between the three buckets of initial margin, physical forwards, and normal receivables, payables, which the latter was the $1.5 billion, which we noted as being more structural to do with loss of Russian supply and the terms of trade that we're able to command historically with that. The $3.5 billion was, if you like, the ones that we said was more cyclical, should come back in the ordinary course of business, and $3.2 billion of that $3.5 billion, being those two components, has now reversed. That was just that passive passage of time. The $1.5 was potentially a bit stickier, which to the earlier point that someone raised, to say, "Well, what should we think about as a potential future sort of release?" Yes, that $1.5 is still on the balance sheet. It's working for us. It's generating returns, cost of finance, hurdle rates, it's all factored into our terms of trade. Our marketing performance has been strong. Return on equity is good. It's recovering its interest and then some. It's not dead capital, it's just a different mix of business that's orientated towards having moved away from non-Russian business sort of historically. Of that $5 billion, $3.2 billion has come back, $1.8 billion. Maybe, yes, there's a few hundred million, which is still, could be a release passage of time, automatic. That's still as of a point in time. But we're starting to get into less material amounts to think about and to be responding to on a six-monthly basis. We should have. Yes, we're gonna have cycles of working capital during periods that can go up or down billion dollars, depending on margin calls, depending on other factors, and we would explain, what they are. The big movement of last year in marketing and the sort of, reversal of the material nature has already occurred this year. Okay. Maybe on the M&A front as well, I know you can't talk about Teck, it's a live transaction, but more generally, obviously, we've had the MARA transaction, PolyMet. I mean, both seem like they're more tidying up the portfolio, and opportunistic. Do you see more opportunities coming through, apart from Teck or, you know, Alunorte obviously was, was another move? Is this the new Glencore as such, that we're pivoting a little bit more towards growth again over cash returns? Which commodities do you feel, are underrepresented in, in the portfolio in terms of where the growth could be going forward? Myles, I don't think you could say it's the new Glencore. I mean, Glencore, M&A has been in the DNA of this company since for many, many years. We've also been very strict on capital allocation and, you know, ensuring that we, we allocate capital towards assets that are correct for our portfolio and provide the right returns for us. In the instance of the various M&A that we've undertaken over the last period of time, these have happened because we've had the opportunity to do that. We've had a terrific relationship with Norsk Hydro. This opportunity came up because they wanted to divest some stakes. This was not a public tender, public market sale. This is through a very close marketing relationship and working relationship with, with a terrific company, and something that we were able to capitalize on. MARA, something similar, we bought out Newmont's stake first, and now we've bought out Pan American Silver's stake. We were already a shareholder in that project, and it's something that, a project we're very excited about. It perhaps didn't fit the portfolios specifically for Newmont and for Pan American, and was an opportunity for us to be able to consolidate those stakes. Those have been very good. PolyMet we've been a shareholder in for some time, and taking out the minorities probably makes a lot of sense. Obviously, with Teck's Mes aba project next door, putting those two together made a lot of sense. It's not that, that we're out there with a new way of approaching M&A. This is still the way we've always approached M&A, which is looking for the right value, right returns, right commodities for our company, and we continue to do that. Okay. Maybe one, very last question on coal price outlook. Obviously, prices have held up still pretty well. you know, what would stop coal prices from falling back below $100 over the next sort of two, three years? Do you think, you know, the prices are now pretty well bedded at this sort of level? you know, why wouldn't we go back to where we were two, three years ago? Look, I mean, it's very difficult to predict. No one's got a crystal ball, Myles. You know, coal is so, is so dependent on the supply, demand, and what happens. Now, we've seen so many different things happen in the world. You've seen Indonesian supply increase significantly. You've seen imports in China have grown significantly. Chinese are still building coal-fired power stations. India continues to, continues to grow imports. Both on the demand and the supply side. On the supply side, what does give us some comfort that, and particularly in the high quality, which is where we play. Remember, Indonesia produces mostly the lower quality. Our mines generally produce high quality coal, steam coal. We're not seeing any new capital allocated to new high quality steam coal mines. You know, mines are finite resources. We've closed three mines in the last few years. We continue to close a number of mines going forward under our responsible rundown strategy. We've seen that it's very difficult on the supply response side and high quality, you don't see new supply plans coming into the market. On the demand side, demand still remains very good. As I say, China, okay, mostly low quality, but that's taking most of the Indonesian. We have seen even Europe last year imported over 85 million tons of coal. This year, we expect them to also import high-quality coal. Middle East, Southeast Asia, continue to take coal. It still is the cheapest form of base load power and particularly in developing nations. If you don't have supply side responses and the demand is still there, there's no reason to think that coal prices, particularly for the high quality, need to fall any further. Okay, thank you. Thank you. We will now go to our next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of Chris LaFemina from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Actually, I have two questions. First, on the two DOJ monitors. Gary, I think you said that that was going well. What exactly are the DOJ monitors doing? What's their involvement on a day-to-day business, and how might their involvement impact the way the marketing business actually operates? The second question on coal strategy: Can you explain the rationale between why it makes more sense to list the coal business, demerge it and list it, if you do an EVR deal, and then it doesn't make sense potentially to demerge coal if you don't do an EVR deal? I would have thought Glencore Coal on its own is smaller, smaller float, maybe easier to list in, in that regard. Just not really clear to me why listing Glencore Coal as a standalone might not make sense. I understand that, you know, you've been consistent with the point about it depends on shareholder feedback, and shareholders want you to keep that business, but I'm not sure why it makes more sense to list the coal business and not Glencore Coal on its own? Thank you. No problem, Chris. Morning. Hi. Just quickly on the DOJ and the monitors, they, they started here in June. Their involvement is to assess our compliance program and our obligations that we've made, or commitments, excuse me, that we've made to the DOJ, but largely around assessing the effectiveness of our compliance program and assessing our culture. It's something that, and I've said before, I, in fact, think it's quite good to have these, the monitors here. I'm very proud of the compliance program that we've implemented in this company, and it's been implemented over many, many years, and we've continued to grow it and strengthen it over many years. Having the monitors here is in fact a positive because we have a terrific set of professionals who are going to try poke holes in it and look to see if there's any weaknesses so we can strengthen it. We're very proud of it. As I've said before, I think it's the gold standard, so it's fine. Their involvement around marketing that you asked around or their ability to impact marketing, I think is limited in the sense that our marketing department operates in full compliance and conformity with our compliance program. As Steve pointed out, over the last three years, we've performed above the top end of our guidance range. I don't see any impact on our marketing business. Our marketing business is very strong and works in line with our compliance program. In terms of the coal strategy, the way we look at it is this: we've always said that if our shareholders want us to spin out our coal business, we would spin out our coal business. I'm just talking Glencore standalone. Our most recent consultation, the majority, the overwhelming majority of our shareholders were very supportive of keeping our coal business within Glencore and following our responsible rundown strategy. We have also consulted with our shareholders around a potential spin out if we are successful in acquiring Teck's coal business. There is an appreciation from our shareholders that when you put our world-class coal business together with Teck's very, very good steam met coal business, you actually get an even bigger, better coal business. The ability for that business to, in fact, trade at a better multiple to even Glencore standalone coal business is certainly there. There's a value creation by putting a met coal business out of Canada together with our steam and met coal business in Australia and our steam coal businesses in Colombia and South Africa. You do get a bigger, better coal business. Despite the fact that our coal business standalone is a world-class coal business, you do get an even a bigger and better coal business. Standalone, we believe that, that business and, and we'd have no issue around size. We believe the New York market would be able to swallow that up very quickly. The demand for stock in a standalone business like that, particularly the amount of cash flow that it would generate, is substantial. Our shareholders are supportive of this value accretive spin out, if we are successful acquiring, Teck's met coal business. If not, we're very happy to keep our world-class steam coal and met coal business within Glencore. Of course, we continue to consult with our shareholders, and if at any stage the majority of our shareholders feel that it's better to spin that out, we would do that too. In that case, would you think that in the event that you do a deal with EVR, the valuation uplift that you would get on that combination would be dependent upon a demerger? In other words, you wouldn't get that value creation within Glencore if you kept coal? Because if we think about, you know, unless the market is totally misvaluing coal within Teck versus the way it values coal within Glencore, I would have thought that that valuation capture happens whether you keep coal or spin it off. Right, so I'm just trying to understand why there's a better arbitrage in terms of valuation on a merger demerger than there is on a demerger as a standalone without doing any EVR deal. Yeah. Does that make sense the way I asked that question? I think so, I mean, maybe I'll, I'll answer, and then tell me if I've answered your question. If you look at Glencore and the valuation Glencore trades, and I even talk about when we trade, that we don't believe we trade, we're not getting true full value for our coal business. There's no question we don't believe we're getting true value for our coal business. Even if we spun out our coal business and the way the market values standalone coal businesses, and you can look at the likes of Whitehaven, New Hope, and the likes in Australia, even the market, we don't believe is valuing those correctly. Just spinning out our coal business by itself, we don't believe is going to create any value for our shareholders in the sense that, on a see-through basis, it's not providing any, or it's not providing the true value within Glencore or if it was standalone. However, when we take Teck's business and we put it with our business, now we have something that is more geographically diverse. It is more product diverse. It really becomes the best, biggest, greatest coal company in the world, cash flow, cash generative through the cycle, met coal, steam coal, as I say, four different continents. We believe that that would, in fact, achieve a better rate, re-rating versus just a standalone Glencore coal company being spun out. We believe that is something that is value accretive for our shareholders, and I'd like to see. Great. Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to our next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of Sylvain Brunet from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Good morning, Gary and Steve, thanks for the call. Two questions for me on the portfolio, please. The first one on Viterra/ Bunge. If you could, perhaps talk to your commitment in the long term to the 15% stake you would end up with in Bunge. The second one is on lithium. You announced this joint marketing initiative with Eramet out of their project in Argentina. If Glencore is keen to develop a marketing presence in lithium, would you say this could involve some backward integration in assets as well, eventually, if and when opportunities arise? Thank you. Morning, Sylvain. On the Viterra/ Bunge, look, we'll get a 15%, in fact, it will probably be higher than a 15% stake with the with the Bunge buyback. We have no commitments around what we will do with that 15% stake. I mean, we will own a terrific share and a terrific agri company that is across the whole spectrum in terms of origination, supply and the likes. Bunge is a terrific company, Viterra is terrific, and the two together really is world-class. You know, we're very proud to be shareholders in that company and no, you know, we've made no decisions or, or we have no plans around the shareholding that we will have in that joint company. With respect to lithium, yes, we went into a marketing arrangement with Eramet in Argentina. We have a number of marketing arrangements and a flow of lithium through our books, largely through our recycling business. It's a growing business. It's a profitable business. Our customers are pleased with the fact that we can supply them all the critical minerals that are required, whether they be nickel, cobalt, copper, lithium, whether it be recycled, whether it be primary, traded material, we have all of those in our book. For us to backward integrate into operating assets and owning assets, it's unlikely that we would get into lithium. It's not something we like very much, in terms of the abundance of the material and how much of it is, you know, sort of, within hands that of operators who can increase supply for the benefit of, what they produce, which may be batteries or whatever it may be, and rather it's not a supply-constrained commodity. Not something that we like, and there's no intention at this stage to look at, any sort of equity investments or operations of mines. Okay. Great. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Ian Rossouw from Barclays. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Just a question on Zhairem. Would be great if you can give us an update just how the ramp-up's progressing. I see in the release you talk about that you've delayed processing own material in favor of the third party. Maybe just provide a bit of details around that, please. Secondly, just on, just a follow-up on cobalt. Your guidance you've given in February, I think, has volumes for next year ramping up to 60,000 tons. I mean, do you think, given what you've said about the market dynamics, that that is still an appropriate sort of target for, for, production for next year? Thank you. I'll let Peter talk on Zhairem, and then I think Steve can take the guidance on, on cobalt. Just very briefly. Hi, Ian. Just very briefly on Zhairem. The remediation project is progressing at a steady pace, and we've recently commissioned parts of the plant that needed repairing, and that's now operating. The ramp-up continues through the second half. In fact, our mill throughput rate goes from 50% of design or 56% of design capacity in the first half to around 75% of design capacity in the second half and early in the new year, we should be running at the 5 million tons per annum throughput rate. Thanks. [crosstalk] Third parties, Peter? Well, that's always— It favors us at the moment to do that in terms of where the markets are, the products that we're producing at the moment. It favors us to take in some of these third-party products and then sell on some of the concentrates to other parties. There's always a balance in all of those issues where we're looking for maximum value. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I'd say on, cobalt, treat, longer term guidance that was, it is fail. I would say a cautionary approach towards that. It will be lower as we rerun and recalibrate, different plans across the whole sort of cobalt sphere that we have at the moment. That will come down further to Gary sort of comments, and I think Alon's comments earlier on around just managing through this sort of period of oversupply. It will be less, but we're in the middle of that whole process to determine the base case sort of production, stock management, stock movements, if you like, around cobalt. Yes, it's gonna be lower. We'll come back to you in a few months. Thanks. maybe just follow up. Have you stockpiled any in the first half, or did you sell the around 22,000 tons that you produced? We have stockpiled some, which also, which also affects, obviously, some of the costs coming out of the copper business. If it's not sold, it does also temporarily inflate the cost somewhat. In terms of expectations for the full year, versus production versus sales, Can you give us any guidance there? Not specific guidance, Ian, other than sales will be less than production. Okay. All right. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you. We will now take our last question for today. Your last question comes from the line of Daniel Major from UBS. Please go ahead. Hi there. Thanks so much. Three questions. The first one, just back to MARA in Argentina. Can you give us any indication on assurances around capital controls that you have around the project yet? Or is it too early to tell on that? That's the first question. The second one, just on your alumina aluminum strategy, we had the Alunorte acquisition, also, I suppose, indirect acquisition of Jamalco through Century. Are you looking to acquire more assets here? Is this a focus more on the bauxite and alumina, or are you looking more upstream into aluminum smelting as well? I'll start with those two. Thanks. Daniel. Hi. Thanks. Look, on the alumina strategy or bauxite aluminum strategy, this was, as I said, an opportunity that came up to invest in a Tier 1 world-class long life asset. We've been trading aluminum, alumina bauxite for many, many years, very successfully. Having, you know, an equity stake in this Tier 1 low cost and low carbon asset, certainly helps us in that in our marketing business. I don't think you should expect us to be looking to do any large M&A in the alumina, aluminum, bauxite space. This was something that is, as we said, it's about a $700 million check, certainly, the IRRs are very good on that business. It will supplement our marketing business. Of course, it doesn't mean that we're not, you know, aware or alive or open to additional opportunities within that in that space. I don't think you should think that we're going out there aggressively looking to buy bigger assets in that area. We're very comfortable with what we bought, and it supplements our existing marketing business. On MARA and capital controls, I mean, it's a bit too early to talk, but certainly when we do eventually, you know, get to the stage of approving that project, we'll have world-class capital controls. We'll have a world-class projects team, managing that project to ensure that we keep to budget, keep to timetable, certainly way too early to preempt any of that now. Okay, thanks. If I could just squeeze one last one in. Since you've changed your distribution strategy with your $10 billion net debt target, there's been, I guess, consistent one-off adjustments, whether it's, you know, DOJ, M&A, et cetera. We look at your $2 billion provision for M&A that you've put in now, obviously, this is related to a specific transaction, is there a threshold on size of potential M&A deals in the future that would cause you to continue to hold, you know, hold capital back? Is there a threshold number or size of deal? This has certainly met that threshold. We know where we know what's in, in terms of sort of material, where we've been historically. I mean, some of those discussions, like the sort of Alunorte was brewing for a while, and there was a lot of work and engagement there for a while, and was sort of in the working behind the scenes. That certainly was not something that there was a small enough, of course, size. You've got some sort of bookends there. I t would have to be sort of multiple billions for us to be thinking that some reservation was appropriate. It's always easier to do it when there's a live situation with some sort of market knowledge. If there's things that we're working on, we would have to think very, very carefully as to whether that was appropriate. In any event, we've got these guardrails around the business with its $10 billion debt cap. We've always said would take it maximum to $16 billion, if there was opportunities within M&A world. This is certainly something that is testing that for the first time. There hasn't been anything near the size in terms of materiality, as we've been more working M&A in the few billion here or there, whether it's buying or selling. This was quite sort of a specific situation that, that sort of materialized through, through engagement with Teck during the course of this particular six months. It would be something in a very high sort of dollar range that was more in the public sort of domain as to whether that was appropriate, that we could sort of engage with and get-- Have these discussions as to whether and board deliberations that was appropriate. I don't know exactly where the number is, but obviously, basis this transaction was appropriate, and it's not like we've reserved the full amount. We've sort of taken a balanced, measured approach towards allocating some capital towards a potential transaction. It would need to be material. This clearly is. Other transactions that are $1 billion or $2 billion or $3 billion is sort of not material. Maybe at some point, I don't know where that cutoff is. It probably needs to be tested at some point. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes the Q&A session. I will now hand the call back to Gary Nagle, CEO, for closing remarks. I guess just a thank you to everybody who joined the call. In summary, a very robust, cash generative, very strong business in all the right commodities, the critical minerals for the future, the energy needs of today, a growing recycling business and a top-class marketing business, and terrific shareholder returns for our shareholders. With that, I'd like to say thank you and any other further follow-up, Martin's available for you. Thanks very much. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.