“Gold Fields had earnings growth of 15 per cent to R1,267 million against a gold price increase of 5 per cent. Production increased by 5 per cent to 872,000 gold equivalent ounces compared with the March 2011 quarter, despite unscheduled production interruptions at St Ives in Australia and at KDC in South Africa, as well as the six public holidays in South Africa.

Costs during the June quarter were impacted by the annual increase in electricity tariffs in South Africa compounded by seasonallyadjusted winter tariffs. Despite this the Group managed to contain net operating costs to R5.1 billion, an increase of 5 per cent on the March quarter, with all four Regions benefitting from the Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) programme introduced in the second half of 2010. Excluding the effects of the electricity tariff hikes, which accounted for R180 million (US$27 million) of the cost increase during the June quarter, net operating costs would have risen by a mere 1 per cent. The NCE margin for the June quarter was maintained at 21 per cent compared with the March quarter. For the six months ended June 2011 the NCE margin improved to 21 per cent compared with a 14 per cent NCE margin for the same period last year, with the improvement largely attributable to the 25 per cent rise in the dollar gold price over the same period.

Safety remains our single most important operational challenge, particularly in the South Africa region where we regrettably recorded seven fatal injuries during the June quarter. This brings the total number of fatalities for the first six months of the year to 13 compared with 11 fatalities during the previous six months. We are concerned that, following three years of consistent and significant improvements in safety at our South African mines, the trend has levelled off. We remain committed to improving safety with an immediate focus on interventions to engineer-out risk, improve compliance to standards, and bring about further behavioural changes in support of safe working practices by all employees.

During the June quarter we made significant progress at our four major international growth projects as part of our plan to achieve five million quality gold equivalent ounces, in production or in development by 2015.

In addition our South Deep project in South Africa continues to progress towards its target of 750,000 ounces per annum at full production.

At the Far South East project in the Philippines, where Gold Fields has an option to acquire 60 per cent, we now have eight underground diamond drill rigs turning. During the quarter, initial results confirmed our preliminary mining model and identified significant additional mineralisation outside of the model, both laterally and at depth. Our aim is to deliver a first resource model, by March 2012. Concurrently we are making good progress on a range of technical, social and environmental studies required to advance this project.

We are also on course to complete a feasibility study for the Chucapaca project in Peru by mid-2012. Twelve drill rigs are onsite to complete Phase 2 of our drilling programme and we expect to complete an updated resource model in the last quarter of this year.

The Arctic Platinum project in Finland has progressed to a prefeasibility consolidation study (PFS) which will review and update the previous feasibility study, completed in 2005. The PFS is set to be completed by December 2011. Metallurgical test work at the pilot plant, which forms part of the PFS is progressing on schedule and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

At the Yanfolila project in Mali the resource definition drilling programme continued apace with four drill rigs turning. We expect to complete a scoping study on this project in the third quarter of this year.

On 20 June 2011 our shareholders overwhelmingly approved the acquisition of IamGold’s indirect 18.9 per cent stake in the Tarkwa and Damang mines in Ghana which has increased our shareholding from 71.1 per cent to 90 per cent. This acquisition adds about 180,000 ounces to our annual attributable production and 2.14 million ounces of reserves.”