Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the AngloGold Ashanti 2022 half year market update. All participants will be in listen only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions later during the conference. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal for an operator by pressing star and then zero. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Stewart Bailey. Please go ahead, sir. Thanks very much, Claudia, and thank you to everyone joining us today for the call for our first half results. You have the full executive team here in the room in Johannesburg. Alberto will provide some comments, Ian will talk us through the financials, and then we'll conclude and take questions. What I would draw your attention to, please, is the safe harbor statement at the front of the presentation that contains important information regarding forward-looking statements that we may make in this presentation. I do encourage you to look at it when you have a minute. Alberto. Thank you, Stewart, and good day to everyone. We started the year with a strong safety performance. We recorded a fatality-free first half, taking us to 12 months fatality-free. Our total recordable injuries frequency rate was 1.33 injuries per million hours worked. A marked improvement of nearly 40% and well below the ICMM average. We remain focused on major hazards and ensuring everybody knows by heart the three or four things most likely to cause fatalities and the actions needed to prevent them. This is an encouraging first half with strong production, costs in line with plan, and guidance intact. We've committed to getting the basics right, and that's what we have delivered. The investment in our bigger assets, Geita, Tropicana, Iduapriem, is tracking well and remains on schedule. We're seeing inflation running at about 10%, but we've been able to limit the cash cost increase to 6% year-on-year. That is, we were able to compensate about 40% of the inflation impact. That's based on a more predictable operational performance, higher grade, and a significant drop in stockpile grades as investments at Geita and Iduapriem start to bear fruit. The rise in all-in sustaining cost was mainly driven by the higher cash costs. It is worth noting that TSF compliance alone contributed an estimated $42 an ounce to the AISC for the period. We declared an interim dividend of $0.29 a share or $221 million. Free cash flow was a healthy $471 million. That's after investing CapEx of $434 million into our assets. Our balance sheet is in a solid position with low gearing and very strong liquidity. The full asset potential review is making good progress. We're making great headway in Nevada, which continues to look better and better. We are taking, however, steps to optimize the portfolio as we have spoken in the past. Together with our JV partner, B2Gold, we have decided to explore options for Gramalote. For us, that means through the potential sale. A look at the work done to date on the optimized feasibility study shows that the scale and returns do not meet our investment threshold. We are also assessing strategic alternatives for CDS, which is part of the AGI Mineracao complex in Brazil, in order to generate the best value for shareholders over the longer term. As I mentioned, the improved grades help offset inflation, which you can see in our cash costs. CapEx was up 2% as we pushed ahead with our reinvestment strategy and ongoing compliance with TSF regulation in Brazil. We also continued to invest in Obuasi Phase Three, which, with which we will increase volumes and lift productions well into tier-one territory. Exploration spend was higher, which aligns with the aim of improving our ore bodies. Our cash flow for the period was significantly up, helped by the cash receipts from the PRC. Moving to the Africa overview. The most important commitment we had to deliver was in Obuasi. Its ramp-up continued to make good progress. Production of 91,000 ounces was within 1% of the plan. We have been hitting lately the 4,000 tons per day. We remain on track to achieve our production guidance of around 250,000 ounces. We are managing through a few teething issues, mainly with the phase build performance, ventilation, and fleet availability. As I said, especially in the last weeks, it's performing much better. Obuasi is a large and complex operation, but we understand it very well. Phase Three of the project will continue as planned through to the end of the year, in particular with Eyaima shaft. Iduapriem, its production was higher as the mine treated higher-grade ore tons from Cut Two. As a result, cash cost improved by around 10%. Siguiri continues to show significant improvements through a combination of better grades and improved recovery rates. Cost control was strong despite inflationary pressures across several categories. The full asset potential was completed during the half, showing strong potential for further improvement. In the next set of results, we will give some quantitative sort of findings on Siguiri, Geita's production was in line with the plan. Underground ore tons were up 50% year-on-year, coupled with a 40% improvement of the underground grade. Q2 production was up 13% and will step up over the remainder of the year. Kibali's production was lower due to lower throughput as a portion of mine ore was used to replenish stockpiles. Production for the year is expected to be in line with last year, therefore, you will see production improve in the subsequent quarters. Latin American overview. As we've said before, Brazil's production was hurt by flooding, very significant flooding in the first quarter. We continue to manage plant throughput to keep within our permitted tailings limits while we fast-track the transition to dry stacking. A combination of lower production and additional capital contributed to abnormally high all-in sustaining costs. We spent $52 million on TSF conversions and expect a similar amount in the second half. We spent close to $200 million over the last eighteen months. This TSF investment is expected to remain material in each of the next two to three years, albeit decreasing over time. Costs were also affected by inflationary pressures and the stronger real. AGI Mineracao production was lower due to the underperformance at especially CDS. As we continue to focus on operational improvements at our key assets, we are prioritizing assessment of the strategic alternatives for CDS in order to generate the best value for shareholders over the longer term. We will provide an update on the CDS strategic review when it is completed. Serra Grande, this performance saw a slight improvement. Costs included an additional capital required for the TSF, resulting in all-in sustaining cost increase to over $2,000 an ounce. At Cerro Vanguardia, production increased due to a combination of high volumes processed and higher grades. Australia overview. In Australia, productions were higher, and costs were lower despite a number of operational challenges. We continue to experience the compound effect of skill shortages and COVID-related absenteeism. That's causing shortages across the industry, especially for operators and maintenance staff. Nevertheless, Sunrise Dam's production is up 50% year-on-year due to higher grades and recoveries. We're now in the Shallow Frankie ore body which is performing to plan as seen in underground grade profile. Tropicana's production was up 14% on higher volumes and grades. Havana West stripping continues to progress, but the timeline is under pressure due to severe shortage of skilled operators. We've adjusted the mine plan to mitigate this impact on gold production. We have also commenced PFS on an underground mine at Havana, Nevada. The executive team and the board spent some time out at the site in Nevada last month. Plan activities are progressing well, and we're excited to see the potential of the district picture shape. The North Bullfrog feasibility study confirms the plan for combined gravity and heap leach processing. The permit application will be submitted this year. The Silicon pre-feasibility study will confirm the mining and processing configuration, which will be completed by the end of the year. In-field drilling to improve the resource classification continued along with sterilization drilling for processing and waste rock sites. Since putting together the complementary land packages, we are benefiting from the shared project management, specifically around the synergies related to the studies and the evaluation of exploration targets. On a district scale, we see these deposits being developed in a sequential fashion, mined initially as open pits and processed using heap leach and gravity recovery where applicable. This suggests low capital intensity to develop in a staged fashion. With what we currently have, we see a district that is conservatively expected to yield upwards of 300,000 ounces of annual production within the decade for around 20 years at an all-in sustaining cost in the high $900s. That is a tier one in cost. This is developing into an immensely attractive region for us. We're pleased with the position we've locked up, and we look to further consolidate our footprint if the opportunity arises. We should be in early production by around 2025. Full Asset Potential. The key objective of the Full Asset Potential is to complete a detailed analysis of each asset, including mine design, key operating parameters to understand the reasons for the gap between current and best possible performance. The full assessment is designed to identify key areas for performance improvement and to allow a bespoke solution for implementation over the ensuing 18-24 months. Sunrise Dam was the first to undergo the process and has identified 33 improvement initiatives overall. Let me focus on three key initiatives that have the potential to improve the cash cost base by between $80-$100 an ounce per year over three years. On underground productivity, we've identified an opportunity to increase development productivity and achieve a step change in underground mining rates to over three million per year from the current capacity of around 2.5. 20% increase, which is very significant for this type of developments. The first step involves establishing the underground maintenance workshop, which has added four hours of jumbo drill rig availability per eight-day cycle. By focusing on priority headings and implementing a new fleet management system, we will improve operational decision-making and outcomes. That gives us a clear path to growing underground production over the next two to three years with only modest capital investment. On mine planning and strategy, we see a potential pathway to significant increased mineral resource and ore reserve, including through cutback at Main Pit, which extends mine life by four to six years. This has the potential to increase NPV by around AUD 300 million, and we expect to be increasing resources by about million tons by the end of this year. On metallurgical recovery, the site team also identified processing enhancements to improve recovery rates by 0.5%-1%, with a longer-term target of 2%-3%. These initiatives represent options to extend life, increase production, and improve margins over the medium and longer term, daylighting significant value in this important asset. Importantly, we believe the process will be successful in unearthing similar value at our other assets. A similar assessment was completed at Siguiri Mine, which identified 29 initiatives, including the ability to increase mining volumes and raise feed grade. As I said before, we will talk the quantitative numbers in three months on Siguiri. Cuyabí is still in the process of completing the full asset potential assessment, and the team is working through 46 improvement opportunities, which will be fully scoped over the next weeks. We'll be leveraging the learnings from these initial pilots in the next wave of full potential assessments, which will take place at Tropicana, Geita, and Serra Grande before the end of 2022. We will provide an update on the process at the next release. I will hand now over to Ian for the financials. Thanks, Alberto. Our cost performance for the first half of 2022 remains solid and is underpinned by operational improvements from both increases in the volume of ore tons processed and higher overall recovered grades. Total cash costs for the first half of 2022 were $1,068 per ounce, with the year-on-year increase contained to 6.5% or $65 per ounce, despite inflationary pressure and other uncontrollable factors. Inflation contributed $106 per ounce or 11% to the total cash cost increase and includes inputs like oil and gas, explosives, lubricants, and cyanide. The cost environment remains dynamic and uncertain, and we expect higher input costs to remain for the year's second half and beyond. We expect to see continuing inflationary pressures with the full year costs, total cash costs expected to be closer to the top end of the guidance range. We saw inflation of around 29% in oil, which comprises about 12% of our input costs. This impact amounted to $41 per ounce out of the total inflationary impact of $106 per ounce. Our current outlook for the rest of the year is about $105 per barrel versus our original year-end guidance assumption of $80 per barrel. Labor and mining contractors are our largest cost components, making up approximately 65% of our total cash cost base. Here, we saw average inflation of 6% and 8% respectively in the first half of 2022. We continue to manage our supply chain risk through increased inventory levels, which has helped delay inflationary impacts. We are collaborating with strategic suppliers to explore forward buying, especially explosives and cyanide, and built-in rise and fall mechanisms in our main contracts. In addition to the inflationary impacts, royalty costs linked to the higher gold price impacted total cash costs by $6 per ounce, while volumes impacted by $20 per ounce. The upward pressure on total cash costs were partially offset by ore stockpile movements of $56 per ounce and the positive impact of higher grades achieved of $27 per ounce. All-in sustaining costs were up 6% to $1,418 per ounce, driven by the higher total cash cost and the planned increase in sustaining capital. Sustaining capital, including equity account of joint ventures, increased by $19 million or 6%, mainly due to the ore reserve de-development at Obuasi, Geita, as well as the Brazilian tailings storage spend. Our continued inward reinvestment to extend mine life and improve operating flexibility remains a key priority. All-in sustaining costs include an estimated $16 per ounce COVID-19 impact and $42 per ounce for the Brazilian tailings storage spend. Our balance sheet remains in a solid position with long-dated debt maturities, low leverage, and $2.6 billion in liquidity. Adjusted net debt of $740 million at 30 June is down 13% year-on-year and includes the cash received from Kibali of $549 million, partly offset by the $365 million payment made for the Corvus Gold acquisition. The adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 0.41x at the end of June 2022. Our leverage target remains below the 1x target through the cycle. Our strong liquidity provides us with good flexibility. We have around $1.3 billion in cash and a further available $1.3 billion on our revolving credit facility. In June, we replaced the $1.4 billion syndicated facility agreement with a new agreement on the same terms, except for the inclusion of two one-year extension options at the end of years one and two. One less banking partner, and an update to the interest rate benchmark. From a credit ratings perspective, Moody's affirmed in April our Baa3 investment grade rating and lifted the outlook to stable from negative, in line with the SA sovereign rating. In February, Fitch also confirmed our BBB- investment grade credit with a stable outlook. S&P affirmed in April our BB+ sub-investment grade rating and changed the outlook to stable. Our cash conversion received a boost from the $549 million received from Kibali in the first half of 2022. The cash receipt effectively clears our backlog lockup of $499 million that existed at the December 2021 year-end. Our remaining share of the outstanding cash balance at the end of June was $41 million. It is expected that routine cash distributions will follow on a quarterly basis. As a result, the outstanding balances owed to the group in the form of cash, VAT receivables, and export duties came down by 51% during the first half of 2022 to $431 million. Those lockups at Geita and Kibali and export duty receivables at CVSA remain a challenge and focus area. In Tanzania, the net VAT receivable increased during the first half of 2022 by $6 million to $148 million. $22 million of VAT claims were verified and processed by the Tanzanian revenue authorities, which was set off against corporation tax payable. New claims of $28 million were submitted during the same period. We continue to engage with the Tanzanian authorities regarding the mechanism to recover the historical VAT accumulated between July 2017 and in June 2020 of $118 million, net of discounting provisions. In the DRC, our share of recoverable VAT and field duties decreased by $2 million to $77 million, net of discounting provisions at the end of June 2022. In Argentina, the export duty receivable decreased by $4 million during the same period. Cerro Vanguardia had a cash balance equivalent of $149 million at the end of June. These funds are available to settle previously declared offshore dividends. Application to transfer a portion of these funds has been made to the central bank. The total cash balance continues to be invested at attractive rates of return locally and remains fully available for Cerro Vanguardia's operational requirements. Guidance. We are on track to achieve full year guidance for 2022 as the stabilized operating trend continues and sequential quarterly improvements in production and costs are expected for the remainder of the year. In line with past trends, production this year is expected to be second half-weighted, 55%, with Obuasi expected to continue its ramped up, marginal improvements anticipated at Iduapriem, Siguiri and Geita, and steady performance is expected at the remainder of the assets. Production for the full year is expected to end in the top half of guidance. Total cash cost guidance remains unchanged between $925 per ounce and $1,015 per ounce. Although we anticipate that current inflationary pressures are catered for in the current guidance range, we remain aware of the ongoing cost pressure created by this inflationary environment and anticipate that total cash costs will end in the top end of guidance by year-end. All-in sustaining costs are guided between $1,295 per ounce and $1,425 per ounce and expected to end in the top half of this guided range, with elevated sustaining capital continuing to underpin our reinvestment strategy. Total CapEx is guided at $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion, and once again, we remain on track to end the year within guided levels. Our guidance continues to exclude any incremental impacts on production costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which have been muted so far this year. Argentina was marginally impacted early in the year and is almost back to normalized underground capacity and production, while in Western Australia, there remains a high risk from absenteeism and shift losses, and we will continue to monitor that. I will hand over back to Alberto to conclude. Thank you, Ian. We've made a good start to the year. In order to see operating improvements and remain focused on continuing to make improvements and delivering more consistent results in line with the target we've set out. Our guidance is intact in a world of 10% inflation, and the full asset potential is working as intended. Wasi's on track. We have the right people in the right place and the right organizational structure. We are focused on improving operating and capital efficiencies. Our world-class exploration team continues to add value to the drill bit across our properties. Our technical team continues to uncover value in Nevada as they work to bring the resource into a consolidated reserve. Why AngloGold Ashanti? We have a high-quality asset portfolio, a self-generated project pipeline, good people, and an excellent balance sheet. Those are the critical foundation blocks for the long-term success of any mining company. We are doing what we promised. We're taking meaningful steps to achieve our full potential. Rates are improving, so is cash conversion. We're embedding a more focused operating culture. We're taking clear steps to focus our capital and efforts on the right assets. We're showing leadership in ESG, particularly on climate. We're on a clear path to take AngloGold Ashanti and its valuation back to its place among the top gold mining companies where it belongs. Thank you. With this, I open to questions. Thank you very much. For the participants that have dialed in, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your touch-tone phone or on the keypad on your screen. If you decide to withdraw your question, please press star then two to remove yourself from the list. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. The first question comes from Jared Gillard from RMB Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question, Jared. Afternoon, Alberto and team, and thanks for the call. A few questions from my side, please. I thought I would start with your great performance. I mean, on the face of it's up 10% year-on-year on your underground grades, that is. I mean, that does show that the reinvestment across the portfolio is working. I just wanted to get some color as to if there were any assets in the portfolio that you were disappointed with in this period and potentially didn't hit your planned grades. My thinking is that, yes, the grades are up 10% year-on-year, but the base is very, very soft because this time last year the company had a very, very soft operational performance. Maybe that 10% year-on-year grades should have actually been a bit higher. I'll leave it there for now, and then I'll follow up with two more. Thanks. Look, if you look at the last four years, our grades have been declining. It wasn't only last year. It's been quite persistent. This is, in the end, it's about how much you invest and the right investment into your assets. We do see this as a reversion of the trend and not as a one-off. Yeah, I think a 10% increase in underground grade is, for those of us who've been in operations, it's not a minor achievement. Okay. Okay, thanks, Alberto. I guess the Australian operations weren't necessarily. You're not too worried about the labor movement and that impacting material movement and therefore grade because, I mean, once this reverses, it's really just kind of transitory rather than structural. No. Look, what we are concerned about in the Australian operations is that there has been labor shortages. We've said it all in all these calls. They have been impacted by COVID. That meant that the team on the ground had to prioritize production over development. We have fallen behind on development for the production that you will see in 2024. We need to make up for that. That's what we have said before, but this is just something related to not the ore body or not investment. It was just the impact of how they managed COVID and the impact of how they managed immigration. Okay. I guess sticking with Australia and maybe just moving to the full asset potential program. I guess my question is really I'm just trying to contextualize the execution risk in some of these initiatives that you've highlighted in the release. Because, I mean, on paper it looks pretty good. You've given us some NPV impacts and where recoveries and development could potentially get to. My understanding is that ramping up the underground tons from Sunrise Dam is not something that's new. It was always probably in Sunrise plan. It just hasn't happened for whatever reason. I guess my question is, has it not happened historically because it's been too difficult to do? Is it the case now that you have a healthy balance sheet and new management and more focused teams that you can actually get it done? Really just some commentary around execution risk on the FAP. Yeah. Look, I will ask my colleagues to go deeper into this, but it is the former. The understanding is that even though this was contemplated as an option for a long time, the actual technical path to have a plan like we have, which is very advanced, we are moving now into feasibility study. So the actual being able to get the plan of where we are today demanded very advanced analytics. It is not as simple as saying, "Oh, we move from open pit to from underground to open pit." I've said it in other calls, but that is always a very difficult move. I can say from a previous company I had, Olympic Dam, that's always been the issue. They have never been able to find a way to go from underground to open pit. It's in general a very difficult thing to do. They have found a way, and now I'll ask Pierre Gillard to tell us a bit more of why is it difficult. Well, we have said with a lot of confidence that we're gonna be able to add 1 million ounces of resource by the end of the year, but just talk about that too. Obviously we're doing the work now, and this will continue into next year on the feasibility. Like Alberto said, it's quite complex, so it requires the know-how and the resources from technical people, which we're using from the outside as well to basically guide us through this process how to do that, not to sterilize future underground production by doing this. That's the work we're doing at this moment. Yes, at this moment it looks good, but there's still a lot of work to be done in this regard. In terms of your question around the execution of getting the underground production up, I think what the difference is this time that we've actually shown again the pathway through the experts that help us how we can do it. How is actually very clear for the operators on the ground. We've got a tracking system that actually I think is very good, which we can actually see every KPI and every initiative how to execute that. I think that's the difference from the past. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thanks Steve. Very last question for me, please, on Nevada. I mean, this asset looks like it's shaping up quite nicely, and you did mention now that you see it coming into production by 2025. I guess my question is, you put out aspirational targets to be somewhere between 3-4 million ounces, but importantly at a cash cost between $800-$900 an ounce. Is it critical for Corvus to come in to hit those aspirational targets, or can you actually hit those targets from the existing portfolio as is with the full asset potential improving those assets? I'll leave it there. Thanks. No, this is at this stage, and we've now for the time being optimizing the whole province. We're talking about the combined to the assets we have in exploration and the assets that come from Corvus, and it's now run as a single integrated sort of study. How it works, and we've talked about, it's sequential, is that you actually start with what we have most advanced, and actually Corvus had most advanced was North Bullfrog. We will be finishing this year the feasibility study. We are already pursuing their environmental license, and that's the first one that goes into operation. That will be by 2025. We, at this stage, we think that we will be hitting the 300,000-ounce threshold by the end of the decade. On 25 we're 100, and then you start bringing others, and you start ramping up production. What is more important is that at this stage, we have identified the resources to be able to sustain a province for circa 20 years at around 900, 900s, in an all-in sustaining cost and the +300,000 ounces. Probably I'll add, I'll end by saying we continue to invest a lot of money in exploration there and continue to be very positively surprised by what we are finding. There are things that at this stage are preliminary, so we are not discussing it. I would say that on the risks of probability, the upside is much higher than the downside on this, on Nevada. Thank you. The next question comes from Dominic O'Kane from JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question, Dominic. Hi, guys. Two questions, if I may. The first is with the Gramalote project now postponed and the net debt of the business now down at 0.5 times, I think it's conceivable that you could be close to zero net debt to EBITDA in the next 12 to 18 months. I just wonder if I could ask the question that I've asked previously. Is there any better investment for AngloGold Ashanti than buying its own shares here? My second question is a bit of a technical question. The depreciation guidance you've reiterated for the year implies quite a big step-up in depreciation in the second half of the year. Could you maybe just help us understand where that's going to be attributed to? I assume it flows into 2023 as well. Okay. I'll ask Ian to help on the depreciation. I'll start answering the Gramalote. Look, we've talked about this in the past. If we had a crystal ball of where the gold price was going to be, I'd probably be more open to buybacks. But you can see the volatility of this. The gold price lost nearly $100 in a few weeks, then it went up again. Probably it's gonna soften a bit again. How I see things is the next two or three years are critical and are unusually high years of CapEx, especially on sustaining CapEx, the TSFs, and catch-up CapEx that we absolutely need to do. We just, we've done different modelings for the finance team, and we just wanna make sure that in every scenario we contemplate, or let's say in 98% of the scenarios that we contemplate, we can continue with the program that will in the end lead to retaining cost competitiveness with our peers. At this stage, we are not contemplating buybacks, and we think that the most prudent is to continue the policy, the dividend policy that we announced. Let me probably end with something, and I won't say home, but I got a nice email, because this was discussed three months ago. The email was from one of our large shareholders who said, "Congratulations for not doing the buyback. You would have been killed, because obviously the softening of the gold in the past months have been significant. It's just you never know how these things work and. I'm not closed to it. If in 18, 12 months we're generating cash, and there's no better use of the resources, and we have confidence in the future, we can talk again. At this stage, I just wanna make sure that under every scenario that we can think of, we have the resources to be able to regain that cost competitiveness that we lost. Ian, on depreciation. Yes. On the depreciation side, we do expect a step up in the second half of the year on that charge. The Obuasi Phase Three development comes into commercial production, and amortization of that will start. That's a big step up. Obviously the ongoing TSF spend in Brazil, as that comes through, creates further depreciation and heightened levels of depreciation in the second half. Two main reasons. Okay. Thank you. I will not ask you next quarter about the buyback. Thank you very much. Very clear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Leroy Mnguni from HSBC. Please proceed with your question, Leroy. Hi. Good afternoon, guys. My question is for Ian. Your Brent assumptions have increased by about 30% or so from the last time you gave us guidance. Yet, you know, your all-in sustaining cost guidance sort of remains unchanged. I know you're saying you'll probably now come in closer to the top end of the range, but are there any other items that maybe offset that such that the impact of the oil is not as pronounced? If you could maybe please remind us of the sensitivity of your costs, whether cash costs or all-in sustaining costs of changes in the oil price, please. The Brent price, as I've mentioned in my script, the oil price, constitute only 12% of our total cash costs. A 30% increase on that base was with what was in our guidance originally assumed at $80 per barrel. You need to take that as a 30% increase on 12% of your total input costs. We have catered in our guided ranges for that level of step up, and that's why we're comfortable to maintain that guided range there. On the sensitivities, a change. Sorry, Mark, can you just help me with. Yeah. For a $10 change, every $10 change in the oil price at $10 per barrel gives you an AISC impact of about $9 per ounce, gives you a sense of what the sensitivity is there. Well, let me probably add something. There is no doubt that the biggest impact on the inflation that we felt in the first half was diesel, by far. It was, I think, close to 40% of the whole impact that we felt was that. That is pretty bad. That's gonna be good for 2023, because in 2023, in spite of, I think, we will still be having 7% inflation currently as things stand, obviously, we should see a decline in, we are seeing in the futures versus today, let's say Brent at 90s versus 107, which has been the average that we will pay this year. That should help something balance up any, still remaining inflationary pressures for 2023. The cusp of the inflation will be in the second half, and what we've said is that we have catered in our guidance for a 13% inflation in the second half. That even with that inflation and with the expected increase in production, basically we have like a 45-55 split in production between first half and second half. If you combine those two and we're able to deliver and inflation is around 13%, we should be still within guidance in the cash costs. We are much more comfortable and highly confident that we will be within guidance, way within guidance in all-in sustaining costs, and that we will be in the high end of the guidance and production. That's very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Adrian Hammond from SBG Securities. Please proceed with your question, Adrian. Good afternoon. Yeah, I have three questions. Alberto, firstly, you recently acquired Corvus, and do we see further M&A as part of your overall strategy for the group? Secondly, project delays due to ESG is becoming a increasing headwind and a trend. I think, amongst your peers, yourselves as recently with Colombia, Quebradona projects, some in Chile and also in Nevada. I guess my question is, do you foresee any potential stumbling blocks for a 2025 start for Corvus given this surge in, you know, pushback from environmental authorities? Thanks. Thank you, Adrian. Let me start with the high end of M&A, and what I've said is, at this stage, at the life of AngloGold, what can add the most value for AngloGold is internally. It's doing the basics right, it's recovering that cost competitiveness, it's doing the full asset potential. Now, as always, there are exceptions to the rule. Corvus was an exception because the synergies of Corvus with the existing exploration ground that we had were enormous. What does enormous mean? Basically, it means that we could basically share and use the same infrastructure that we were gonna use for the planned exploration, but now for the combined exploration ground and Corvus acquisition. If we extrapolate into the future, are there any bolt-ons to places where there are evident synergies? If there are, yeah, we would look at them, and there's a whole team under Terry that looks up opportunity for bolt-ons. What I can tell you is that we are not looking, and we don't foresee in the short-term anything of significant economic scale because of what I said before. Regarding project delays and ESG, the answer is we are not seeing or have not seen anything related to that. The delays in Quebradona were not really related to ESG requirements. They were related to a probably misunderstanding of what the environmental authorities was demanding that we prove, and the type of information that we delivered on the project to basically prove that the hydrological impact of the project would only limit itself to one community and not to two communities. Basically, what we did was we proved through modeling that there was a separation and that they were not connected. The view of the authorities and technically, they could be right. They say, "Well, we see your models, but you need to prove it with empirical information." What we are now doing is proceeding to put piezometers on the ground. We've drilled plenty of holes and put these piezometers on the ground. Then we need to spend 12 months to recollect the information of water that will allow us to hydrology, that will allow us to prove what we believe, and it's that the municipalities are not connected. We believe that's the biggest stumbling block in the discussions with ANLA, with the environmental agency. That's what we're doing now. We have not seen any delays of projects. Going to Nevada, there's a good relationship with the environmental agencies. We've actually received already a permit, the Eagle permit that we were working on, and we received that permit. We are now working on something that is well known for the team over there. We're working with the Bureau of Land Management that reports to the Ministry of the Interior. It's a thorough but well-known process. There are several companies that have been before us that have followed that process and have been able to get the environmental license. At this stage, we have no evidence to tell us that we should have any, let's say, significant delays in that process. Can I ask the tenements you have in Nevada relating to Corvus and Silicon, do they fall on private, state or federal land or the above? Federal. They fall under federal jurisdiction, let me put it this way. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Adrian. I'm gonna ask a couple of questions now from the webcast to the team in the room. I'll start off with Arnold van Graan from Nedbank, who asks if we've had any interest in assets in CDS. The third part of the question is, are we still happy with CVSA? On CDS, we've just started what we call a strategic review. You can understand that. When we have something, we will let you know, but we really don't comment on ongoing sort of processes like this. In CVSA. What I've said is that we have generated profits in the last two years that would have surpassed the value that we had received for that asset or the value that we were expecting when we were trying to sell it. Actually, right now, we are happy owners of that asset. It's what? It's 170,000 ounces. They did well. As I've said, they were one of the ones who did much better in this half year versus the previous half year. The GM, Luis, who used to run it, who is the... He is the senior VP in charge of the whole Latin America. They understand that asset. They run it well, and so it belongs in the portfolio. Great. Thanks, Alberto. Next is from Sandile Magagula from Entimbo Wealth. He says, "Can I expect interim dividends to be sustained in the coming reporting periods? Yes. What you can expect is that we will apply the policy that was approved of 20% of the free cash flow, excluding growth capital. We will be abiding by that policy in the foreseeable future. The next one, also from Sandile, I think you've answered, but it's asked in a different way: Would you consider M&A opportunities given the strong balance sheet that you have at the moment? Oh, yeah. The answer is, as you said, we at this stage, the biggest value for our shareholders is internally, and that's where we are focused. There's always an exception of add-ons, but nothing that would be significant. All right. The last question, I think before we sign off, is: What levers are you looking to pull in order to maintain these high cash conversion rates that we're seeing of late? Look, there's no you know, there's no particular levers. We are in permanent communication with our JV partners, Barrick, and that's something that we track. It's a very significant amount of money that we receive periodically. So far, we're quite happy with the progress of the last six months. We're quite happy with having brought that what was almost $500 million to zero. So that's quite good news. I think it's also positive, even though it's small baby steps, but in Tanzania, it's mildly smaller sort of lockdowns. Even in Argentina, it's very small, but still smaller. It's not growing. In Tanzania, there's always a team in discussions with the government, and we're confident that at some point in the future, we'll be able to have a pathway towards that. In Argentina, it's more about the macro situation. It's not a particular mining issue. All companies are suffering that. At some point, Argentina's gotta be able to solve the issue that they have with black exchange rate that is three times the official exchange rate. That will begin to solve issues. The important thing is that in every place we have a lockup, our money is secure. We're in control of the US dollars. There's no like risk that our US dollars are not in our hands. Good. Thanks, Alberto. I think that's it. Maybe just a closing remark, and then we'll sign off. Oh, I thought we were signing off. Oh, look, the closing remarks. I'll tell the closing remarks. We had a town hall with all of the employees around the world, and there's sometimes you stop and say thank you. I think the team is performing very well. I think the assets, there's a lot of good work done. Change is not easy, and there's been a lot of change in this company in the past year. It's just pleasing to see everything fitting together from the team at the executive committee to the teams at the assets to the operating model working together. Then when you see that, production is as planned, that our guidance is as planned, that we're able to offset at the highest inflation the world has seen in 40 years, and we're able to offset it 40% of that, I sometimes you can step back a little bit and say, "Well, yeah, I'm pleased." I'm particularly very proud of our 30,000 employees. Thanks, everyone. See you next quarters. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.