Ann: 2014 Half Year Report Announcement and Presentation, page-2

Does anyone know what the depreciation schedule is on the deferred waste?

Reading up yesterday, if I understood correctly, mining companies have to determine the cost of the overburden they removed as an asset and depreciate it as deferred waste rather than say it applies as a cost in the year it was removed.

Waste removal is reducing substantially moving forward into the ore bodies in the expanded pit now so the size of that "deferred waste asset" should start to come down depending on the rate of depreciation vs the rate waste is added to the asset.... Given the impact on the bottom line (EBITDA 122.3 M minus depreciation of 139.5 M - mostly deferred waste) it would be interesting to model the deferred waste impact on future periods. If the depreciation schedule is 5 years for example then it would be a few more years of this kind of large impact because of the time it took to expand the pit BUT the ore to waste ratio is improving quite substantially so the EBITDA should go up. If the depreciation schedule is 3 years then the pain is bigger but shorter duration.

Accountants......every investor has to be one to some extent just to get your head around the results!....