A conversation with Nolan Peterson, CEO of Atlas Salt

0:03 Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from. I did see it was a bit of an international audience today, so I really appreciate everybody's time. I've got with me today, Nolan Peterson, CEO of Atlas Salt, to give a brief update to the market through answering some of my questions. So I appreciate you being here to be grilled. Nolan, how are you today? Good, Romeo. Thanks for having me. And just as you know, I'm standing right now. So if your audience is wondering why I'm swaying a bit, that's I'm doing this standing up. Always on his feet. Love to see it. Exactly.

0:32 Here's how today's going to work, just for the folks in the room first I've got some questions for Nolan but this is an interactive event so there's a chat button on the bottom right of your screen you can use at any point during today's event. We're going to try to get to as many questions as we can if for whatever reason I don't get your question either it's off topic we've already covered it any reason I'm still going to send it to the Atlas Alt team so they'll be able to tackle it afterwards, so don't worry, your question will still get addressed even if we don't get to it in today's chat. The only other piece of housekeeping I'll say is today's event is being recorded and will

1:03 be available for replay probably around 2 p.m. Eastern. It'll pop right in your inbox if you're here in the room. Otherwise, it'll be available on Six's YouTube channel or at this exact same link. But enough out of me. Nobody really wants to hear from me. Nolan, I'm going to get to you for some questions. So I went through your deck pretty extensively, and I know the 2025 updated FS shows that 66% increase in after-tax MPV to $920 million, while reducing the mine life from 34 to 24 and a third years. So I'd love to know if you could just walk us through the strategic rationale between pulling forward production and how that affects capital efficiency metrics compared to the earlier feasibility study. Yeah, I mean, pretty much the standard in any business context is to try to maximize your revenues and bring those cash flows forward.

1:52 Cash today is more valuable than cash in the future, so it's always something that we need to be looking for opportunities to account for. Now, I didn't develop the original feasibility study, but at the time it was 2.5 million tons and some equipment was sized with the projection to go ultimately at 1.24 million tons. So, when we saw the subsequent years between the original feasibility study and updated feasibility study, saw the opportunity to get to the 4 million tons that was originally contemplated, we thought about, we worked to bring that forward. Now in the longterm for the entire project, we have 25 years in reserve already, and we already have an additional 50 years at 4 million tons of potential material in resource.

2:43 So that's a huge amount of material already. So really, we're not losing anything in comparison to a traditional mining project. We're really just accelerating future cash flows that would have been realized.

2:57 Yeah, that makes sense. Why don't I want to shift to the finance bit for a second. I know with a pre-production CapEx of $589 million and that 4.2 year payback period, where do you stand first in securing project financing? We are in the process of securing project financing. We're working with Endeavor Financial as our financing advisor. They are a group that works out of London, has great experience in the resource sector and we are about to go to market for that very soon on seeking that financing for the major lenders. So, we completed the due diligence package which is an integral component of that. And that'll be going to market very soon. Sorry, Romy, I just have to take a brief second here to talk.

3:50 No problem. Just for the folks in the room, keep in mind if you do have any questions during today's event, feel free to use the chat button on the bottom right. It should be right next to the About button. I think Nolan will be back in just a couple seconds. It'll be great to hear some of your questions. Some of them already came in over email. We'll be sure to tackle those at the end. I've already got them in my little bit here. So don't worry about those if you've already submitted it over email.

4:14 Hey, sorry, Romeo. I'm back. Yeah, sorry. No, not a problem. Good to have you back. So my follow up question on financing, what percentage of total capital needs are currently covered through the committed financing versus what still needs to be raised? Yeah, so really, we don't have any of our project financing committed at the moment. We have in principle MOUs,

4:37 that's the extent of the commitment. We just had an updated MOU with Sandvik, who's our equipment project, our project equipment supplier. They have come in principle with a commitment to financing, but it's not final inked on paper. The remaining financing we are working on at the moment, as I mentioned, endeavor financial, about 60% or so we believe will come from senior secured financing. And then we have the opportunity for subordinate debt to be layered on top of that. And then equity financing will make up the remainder as well as potential government funding sources there. So we're assembling the capital stack right now, but nothing is super confirmed at the moment.

5:26 Great. I want to get into just domestic sourcing for a second, because I know North America imports right now, if I'm not mistaken, 8 to 10 million tons per year of de-icing salt annually. But the planned 4 million tons per year production from Atlas Salt represents a pretty significant new domestic supply source. So beyond the Scott Wood Industries MOU for I think it's 1.25 to 1.5 million tons per year, how are you approaching additional offtake agreements right now? Yeah, so for Scott Wood,

5:58 that tonnage was set in the original feasibility study. Remember when the project was much smaller as we talked about. So there is the opportunity to expand that offtake to encompass the larger project production and we are in discussions with Scott Wood and other offtake partners about taking the remainder. I would also like to point out that, you know, a lot of people, including myself, are maybe coming to the salt industry new. I mean, I came to the salt industry new. And so they have a traditional resource sector mindset with offtake partners. They're thinking about the Glencores of the world, the Traxxases, the Trafiguras, the big offtake partners. In the salt space, the major salt producers are also vertically integrated with their distribution.

6:45 So they actually own the distribution companies or vice versa, if you want to look at it that way. So that is a potential option for Atlas Salt as well. And in that way, you know, there's no competition over margin with

6:58 the offtake partner, and you have full control of the distribution network from supply to customer. So that is something that we are also contemplating as well. And it could be a mix of a variety of these offtake partners or distribution of ourselves and into different markets. It's a strategy that we are developing and we have plenty of time to do that as we focus on building the mine as well. Awesome. And one question is just on your experience in talking to potential offtake. Are customers showing preference for domestic supply given the

7:31 salt shortages in Ontario and New York. And what pricing premium, if any, does your location command? Yes, we would not necessarily command a premium, but we would command a, well, it depends on how you look at it, we would have a margin premium against our competitors. So from just a fundamental business point of view, it's not like we are charging more for salt just because we're closer or in Newfoundland, But we can guarantee that our salt will be sold before others because we have such a margin advantage That if others try to compete with us on price, they eventually put themselves out of business Which is not a good situation to be in so any type of market dynamics when you look at it in a macro scale, they they would be disincentivized to to get very competitive with us on price.

8:24 Now, to answer your question about governments and preference, absolutely. There's a very strong trend. You think about right now the salt shortages in Ontario. If there is a salt shortage and you have your existing supplier and they're tapped out and you say, okay, I need to go further field for salt. I need to call up Egypt or Chile and get a boat immediately.

8:45 They would say, happy to provide you with a boat. Just send the boat and in a month, when I've cleared my backlog, I'll start loading that boat and then it'll take a month to get back to you. And by the time that it's spring and nobody needs salt anymore. So that's a huge advantage for us because we are 3 days proximity and not 3 weeks from major ports. And so there is, if we aren't fully sold out on the SOC, if there's an

9:13 opportunity for spot sale room in our supply chain, we can adapt very quickly and respond. And of course, having customers or suppliers close to you is valuable for customers because let's be honest, when you put in an order from foreign salt, you don't know if they're gonna prioritize your order. You don't know who, if you're talking to a broker, if you're talking to the actual owner of the mine, you don't know the quality guarantees. If there's, and you won't know that, what the quality of the salt is until it shows up on your doorstep. And that's just, and then if there's a problem, you know, what's the dispute mechanism? So having an onshore supply is something that we think is very valuable. And we're hearing that as well. People will pay, I guess, you know, take it back to the start. They have told us, yeah, you're right. Maybe they will pay a little bit of a premium to get that. So you're right, I overspoke earlier.

10:06 Hey, coming around to yes, there is a premium.

10:10 Exactly. There's one question from the chat that's just on topics. I'm gonna throw it in right now. He wants to know, is it federal or provincial that you plan to help with the financing, government-wise? Both are options, certainly. You know, there's a strong vein of

10:25 messaging right now at the federal government level for those that are in Canada and the US as well in their own jurisdictions, just like, you know, onshore infrastructure, onshore industry, create jobs, look for those types of opportunities. And we have a project here that's permitted, you know, we have the EA approved, there's no opposition from the community and stakeholders. So it's a project that all levels of government could easily get behind. There's a new

10:51 provincial government, and so they're probably looking for these types of opportunities as well. And we're really ramping up our outreach efforts on those fronts. Awesome. Now I want to zoom out and talk about just salt prices for a second because recent news coverage I follow. I'm from Ottawa, so how much salt we get really matters a lot. It's salted down in the winter. It's highlighted salt

11:14 price spikes from $65 to $70 a ton to like $190 a ton. Yes. There's also $25 a ton increases in New York, persistent shortages. So how does your base case pricing of I think $81.67 compare to current market conditions? And what, just for investors in the room, what sensitivity does your NPV have to spot market prices versus contracted sales? Yeah, so spot market prices, it all depends on the ultimate mix. Most of the sales in the salt industry are done on bulk pricing contracts to cities and municipalities And they're struck usually in the spring and summer and then deliveries are throughout the year. So it's not a just a delivery in the winter thing. This does create, though, an opportunity for markets that, you know, maybe a supplier couldn't meet demand for a particular customer that's already on a contract,

12:07 and that customer needs salt, so they have to go to the spot market. Other customers put their tenders out late or they're trying, testing the market, and so they are at the whims of the spot market as well. In terms of our mix, we left about a 10% room in our sales mix for spot prices and we only used a very modest increase of spot price

12:32 over the prevailing kind of market rate, if you will, the contracted market rate. I think it was about 10% more. So it's very, very marginal, right? You know, the numbers that you just threw out there were like a 300% increase and in the US, 25%. And that was in December. So I don't know what their ultimate spot price would be in January, February as now. There is an opportunity for greater spot market sales, but also I want to keep in mind that our base case, just the general bulk product market also probably doesn't reflect the pricing increases that we are going to be seeing next year. Because even though contracts are set on a year to year basis and you don't get those spot market volatility jumps of hundreds of percent, it does flow through into the upcoming spring contracts, which will be let and bid on.

13:26 And I would expect a greater than normal price increase of like 5 to potentially 10%

13:32 as it works through the supply chain. And it's hard to recover from those. It takes years sometimes, months to years to smooth those out again. That is over and above our base price that's in our feasibility study. So there's a lot of upside that's not built into our model right now. Awesome. Great. I also want to talk about the resource because I know the presentation that you've got highlights

13:57 868 million tons of inferred salt resources that 95.2% sodium chloride that are excluded from the 24 and a third year production plan. It's about that 95 million tons that we've talked about before. So obviously, big, big discrepancy. There's still a lot more inferred there. What technical, economic, whatever it is, barriers exist to converting those inferred to reserves. And under what scenarios could you extend mine life or increase annual production so it goes even beyond that 4Mt per year?

14:30 So mine life and mine production are 2 different things, I guess. So to focus on the last part of your question, how do you get past 4? It is a potential opportunity for the project at some point in the future, most likely when the project is in operations,

14:46 expanding the port, understanding the logistics around the port, making it easier to move boats and move product through there, and basically de-bottlenecking it. That would be the opportunity. There is on paper capacity in the port to exceed $4 million right now, but as the engineers and myself and the team, we have to be reasonable here and put forward something that's achievable. But there's definitely potential to exceed that with what's in place and certainly with even more substantial upgrades. Extending the mine life is a very common question, very common theme in the mining industry. You have a 7 to 10-year life gold mine, adding a few extra years is huge significance

15:28 to the cash flows. For a salt deposit, we already have a 25-year mining life in reserve. And then you're right, we have potentially just working back the quantities another 50 years, if all of that resource could be converted to reserve. Now the technical limitations are simply drilling. We don't want to drill anymore because with a salt deposit, actually drilling creates a risk of water ingress into the actual deposit.

15:57 So this is also different from traditional mining. So you have to actually grout and seal all your holes and monitor them for moisture going forward so you're not creating a highway of moisture in inbound. So that takes us to the point where we, you know, when you're discovering a salt mine, just get it big enough where you've got a 25-year mine life to start with and have that confidence that you can expand that when you're in operations and drilling from underground horizontally. At that point, it makes sense because what does an extra 10-20 years do for us today? In an NPV basis, it doesn't really do anything. The discount is just too great. And then for a traditional resource investor, they can just look at the resource and know that at some point, there's great confidence that that would be moved into reserve. And that's what we would do. When the mine is in operations, typical mining operation, you mine for a year and you're looking to replace your reserves 1 to 2 years.

16:56 In that case, you have essentially endless mine life. And that's what happens in the salt industry. And we have the starting points for that

17:06 concept as we advance right now. And certainly beyond those 50 years, there's actually even more we would expect. The drilling is not complete. We just, you know, we've got the buffet here. There's no point in thinking about the next one yet. Sure, I appreciate that. And I love the insights, because I follow so many gold and silver stories where they just, you know, drill it like Swiss cheese.

17:28 Exactly, yeah. So yeah, I want to talk about just part of the deposits. I know the cross-section imagery you've got shows really significant concentrations of over 98% sodium chloride within the pillow shape that you guys described. Now I'm just curious, are there scenarios where you pursue premium grade production for chemical or industrial applications beyond de-icing? Could that affect revenue mix and margin profile or is it just a de-icing play? Absolutely. Yeah. So very, very astute observation. There are many different uses for salt beyond de-icing. De-icing is the lowest margin product. It's used significantly,

18:10 like one of the largest consumers of salt in North America and the world for de-icing as well. I think we're 4 times the market size of Europe. For that, it establishes a nice baseline market for us to sell salt into, which is important for a feasibility study when you're talking about marketability.

18:31 That's why de-icing was chosen because we know that almost all of our salt, certainly all the salt we're mining from reserve, can meet that de-icing standard. But that does create the opportunity for that higher grade to be sold into other markets that are higher margin. But to do the research and understand what those, you know, which years that could be and what does that market look like and forecast it for 5 or 6 different other salt industries to get a marginal, potentially marginal increase. You know, it could be significant, but it's most likely marginal. It's just not worth the effort, right? It's 6 times the work and maybe we boost the NPV 5, 10, 20% even, and the IRR a few percentage points and maybe 10, 20, 30 million dollars more free cash flow. That's great, but is it worth it at this point in time or do we put our best foot forward right now with the limited resources a junior developer has and just focus

19:32 now on getting the project going. As I like to say, you know, people who've heard me say it before is it's like the song, right? If we can make it there in the de-icing salt market, we can make it anywhere. And so, Yeah, everything else is an opportunity for investors to work into their thinking as well as upside. Awesome. One other thing I wanted to ask about is I know the 2025 UFS incorporated significant design improvements, optimized drift engineering, updated port logistics and that Sandvik equipment integration. So given the reference there to Irish salt mining's killroot mine as a kind of comparable operation, do you have any technical learnings that have incorporated from that operation?

20:15 And as a side question, what do you see as the de-risking milestones between now and production in 2030? Yeah, so de-risking on a corporate sense, like the whole project, or just on a technical sense? Both would be great, actually, if you can. Okay. Yeah. So the Kilrood mine is a good example of a mine that it's historical mine. It's been operating for many years. They've done expansions at various points. So they have incorporated new learnings, but they're an underground mine where they bring it onto a conveyor and they convey it to a port and then ship it to de-icing markets in Europe. Sounds very familiar, right? That's exactly our concept. So when we, and I haven't visited the mine, I joined after the team did, but we have

20:58 2 technical people, or more than 2, but 2 very key technical people, Bob Booth, Bob the builder, he's called, and Andrew Smith are our leads on the Great Atlantic project. They've visited this mine, seen it in operation, and then we also engaged a number of consultants who work on underground mine shafts and tunnel designs

21:22 for the Kilroot project. We engage them on our project as well to solve some of the challenges, the engineering challenges. I shouldn't say challenges, but what I mean by it in a neutral term, the idiosyncrasies of our project that we're working to the feasibility study, updated feasibility study. So remember, when we did the original feasibility study, we treated this as a typical hard rock mine, drill and blast, shotcrete structure, put a conveyor system in there.

21:52 What we found through geotechnical drilling that was done earlier this year, as well as from the environmental assessment process, is that the town and community and our designs required more certainty that we could avoid water inflow, right, as we talked about earlier, water and salt. You know, some people say they don't mix very well, but they actually mix very well, which is the problem. So we created a, in our updated feasibility study, a design for a hydrostatic shell. So instead of a typical hard rock mine,

22:26 you know, where you just shotcrete the top of the drift, we're creating more of a subway tunnel that will isolate the entire workings, water will go around it and won't enter in. So that's one way we de-risked it. We know that water won't become an issue or be less of an issue going forward. And so in terms of de-risking going forward on a technical sense, there's more work that will need to be done at the site during the construction phase that gets incorporated into the designs.

23:00 And so that is something that we're looking to start very soon as well. And to everything that we do up front to ensure that the designs that we put forward in the updated feasibility study are workable and minimize the risk will reduce the capex going forward. And on a corporate front, you know, reducing the risk includes technical execution, but also project financing. But I think your question was more on the technical side. No, I appreciate it. I think both actually are interesting.

23:28 I got one. I know my audience hates it when I talk about ESG, but I promise it'll get financial. Bear with me for 2 seconds everyone. I know you're all electric mine design powered by the hydro power positions with leading environmental performance, only 950 tons of CO2 per million tons of ore production, which is crazy. But here's my question is, can this environmental differentiation translate into commercial advantages, like premium pricing from ESG customers, or improved financing terms?

23:57 And has anybody on your side done any work to quantify the potential benefits that come from that? Yeah, so that's actually a very good question, and I haven't given a very thorough answer on this previously

24:10 open, so maybe this is something new for people who are who are have watched many of my videos. Important thing to understand is when it comes to ESG, I understand the concern that some people have is like when a company is spending more or doing something just to be ESG and there's no bottom line enhancement, right? Then it seems kind of like performative or wasteful. For us, even if it didn't have the ESG benefits, we should be looking for battery electric operation. Why? Because of the economic benefits, just from an operating cost basis. When you have access to cheap Newfoundland hydroelectric power in a regulated industry, and it's on your doorstep, literally 2 kilometers away, just tap into that and find a way to use as much of that power as possible. That's one of the reasons why our operating costs are so low and why our,

25:06 yeah, why our operating costs are so low. Also the equipment is battery electric, so that reduces the emissions underground. So it reduces ventilation requirements. It makes your drift smaller. It makes your accesses required to be smaller, your fan smaller, your operating cost assumptions smaller to ventilate. Safety is better as well. There's less risk of drilling and blasting

25:31 issues as well as fires underground. So all of these are tangible, material, just business benefits before we talk about, and this is what I, again, I haven't really spoken to previously, but I want people to understand that. It's not like people have really pushed back against this either, but I wanted to just emphasize that because you asked that question so well. Now we get into the intangible benefits, which are starting to become tangible because the ESG element certainly is being taken up very well on the investment side. A lot of funds, a lot of group, including government money that we just talked about earlier, they're looking for exemplar projects that they can put onto a pedestal and point to and say, if these guys are doing it this way, why can you not do it that way?

26:20 You tell me you're doing this as clean and green as you can, but they're doing it cleaner and greener than you. Oh, well, you know, we have to make trade-offs. Well, you know, they're making the trade-off. Just so happens, of course, that it's beneficial to us and maybe not so beneficial to others, but that's not our problem. It's something that helps us get the message across. And then on the customer side, there are significant benefits. There are jurisdictions, primarily in Europe right now, very heavily starting to price greenhouse gas and carbon emissions into their models. Many jurisdictions in Canada, I think even in the United States, I think Colorado, some jurisdictions in Colorado have started that. And So in the coming year, we're not just planning for today, we're planning for 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. And certainly the trend is growing that carbon emissions are being priced in. So all across the board, it's an advantage to us, tangibles, intangibles, business

27:16 case, social case, it's just a huge plus. And I have no doubt that it attributed to one of the reasons why we've got, we received an EA approval for this project in 2 months, which was, you know, as those who follow the mining industry know, an EA can take years in many cases. So 2 months is very, very favorable. And these are the types of things that pay off for that. Now, not to belabor the point, but sometimes there's company management that is just like, well, I don't want to subscribe to that ESG and then I'm not even going to look into it. And they end up going down a path that just doesn't make sense on some weird principle. We just do what's right for the project. I appreciate that. Like every time I talk about ESG, I promise I'm eventually talking about money.

28:01 Exactly. Exactly. Right.

28:04 I want to talk about M&A in the salts like in most mining M&A is obviously heating up right now. Recent activity in salts includes ContextLogix acquisition of US salt for $900 million, which was I think 16.5 times EBITDA. And K&S's 2020 sale of America's Salt Assets for $3.2 billion, which is 12.5% EBITDA. So with your current EV of approximately $70 million against LOM average annual EBITDA projections of 325.

28:34 How do you think about your relative valuation and what milestones do you expect are going to drive that multiple expansion towards those industry benchmarks? Yeah, so certainly, of course, the

28:46 thing that we have to point out is these are operating projects. We're not under any illusion that we should get operating valuations for a pre-operation project, but that isn't to say that along the way as you de-risk the project and get closer to operations that you should start to realize some of those higher multiples, right? Sure. A 1 multiple today would be a 3X on our market cap, a 3X return. Sure. And 1 Multiple is not out of the question. So yeah, long story short, it's always better for investors to come to this realization themselves, but we are significantly undervalued in the market. At various points in the past, we were closer to those valuations for reasons that we can discuss at some point. I think that the company took the foot off the gas on marketing and awareness and making sure that people saw the value in the company. And that's one of the reasons that we're back out there making sure people see that value so we can defend it and fight for it. But that does create the opportunity though for acquirers to look at a project like ours and say, okay, well, I currently get 10, 15x EV to EBITDA for my past EBITDA, right? Prior EBITDA.

30:09 Going forward, if I were to bring in and integrate a company like Atlas Salt, and there really is no other company like us, we're 1 and only, could they realize a higher multiple than we are? And I think that the clear answer to that is yes, because if we were vertically integrated with another player that's getting a 10X, it would easily get us a 3X, 4X within their stable. The risk profile would be significantly diminished. It wouldn't be a single asset company anymore. And so therein lies the opportunity for accretive investors to be putting on their thinking caps as we are, advance this project and think about how we can unlock the value. So yeah, to go to your point, I think that was underlying your question. It is something that is higher on our radar to always be considering best positioning ourselves as an attractive target to work with, partner with, or ultimately be acquired by. Although that is not our 1 and only goal, we're focused on building this thing and then discussions will emerge from that, I have no doubt.

31:17 Great. There's 1 specific thing that I want to check, but before I get into audience questions, there's some good ones in the chat and they came in over email, so patience folks, just one more second. Did you guys, you have a Lassonde curve case study with Artemis Gold that I encourage everybody to take a look at actually, that shows really meaningful re-rating through project milestones. So with your EA complete, as you said in pretty record time, I've never seen one that fast I don't think, the updated FS delivered, early works development plan approved, What do you see, just for the folks in the room, as the next major catalyst that's going to drive evaluation re-rating? And as a secondary question you can answer after, what comparable mining developments progression paths do you see as analogous to Atlas Salt? Yeah, so obviously Artemis Gold is a very recent case. When we put that slide together, it was kind of last summer-ish time frame.

32:11 And of course, it's worked well still in terms of messaging because Artemis was just coming online. I actually worked on the Blackwater project over 14 years, 15 years ago now under New Gold's banner, so very familiar with it, but it just shows how long sometimes it takes to get these projects through to a phase where they get financing and funding. Now, in terms of us, we view the next major milestone on the so-called Lassonde curve is when project financing is secured. And as I mentioned earlier, We're aiming to have a good idea of what that looks like by the summer of this year. We're working with Endeavor very diligently on that. So that is one big piece, right, that that could unlock a significant valuation, right? Because at that point, equity investors have a reduced risk of, you know, in their minds of if I put money into this company, is there going to be money coming behind me to support it? And that will answer that very, very important question. And when they know that it's part of a group of capital stack now, it reduces the risk. So that's one big milestone. Now, with that being said, there are many other milestones along the way, including the start of construction.

33:29 So we did raise some money in October of last year, and we're going to be devoting a portion of that to site construction activities, which include detailed engineering, as well as site clearing, groundwork, ground preparation to prepare for the greater capital program. That in my mind, as an engineer at heart, is a meaningful development milestone. There are other milestones that we can't point to directly like Endeavor that could be very catalytic in terms of driving those increases such as a bridge financing that could come before the main project financing piece, or government financing support, or other mechanisms there that could emerge. So yeah, there's many elements that on the Lassonde curve journey that we are expecting to emerge in the future. And of course, a strategic partner emerging or some sort of deal coming is always a huge catalyst for improvement in the Lassonde curve. In terms of other projects, We haven't really done too much detail into trying to draw analogies here, except just the general case of Artemis, which was new, and the general sense that the Lassonde curve exists. It's been observed historically.

34:46 We're not trying to create a new concept here. It's got a name for a reason. But there are other industrial minerals, certainly, and other, of course, gold and silver projects that have benefited from that tremendously. And we see no reason why we would be treated any differently. Great. Now, there were a number of questions about financing, but I think you've actually covered all of them. If anybody disagrees in the chat, please let me know. We can do some more specific ones, but I think we've tackled most of those. There's one that came in right at the beginning of the hour. This was a longtime shareholder who was in the TPR spinout. I just wonder when TPR is going to trade? Yeah, so we, as most people know, and if anyone's asked me about this, TPR is a completely self separately managed company with their own board and their own management team. There's no overlap between Atlas Salt and TPR except for Roland Howe who sits on both boards.

35:44 But it's, you know, Other than that, we have no insider day-to-day understanding of what their plans are. We are shareholders of TPR, just as your shareholder asked. We want them to do well. We do try to get updates frequently as well. But at the end of the day, we're Atlas Salt and we're focusing on what's important to us, which is advancing the Great Atlantic Salt project. We are under a 15% shareholder at this point. So yeah, we have no insight on when they will be beginning to trade. We expect that they'll trade at the right opportunity when the market supports it. But and we and we look forward to that day and we hope that that happens as soon as possible. It's always good when a public company has a market for their shares so that new investors who like the story can get in and other investors also can hold or acquire more.

36:37 Great. Writer Peter Epstein, now somebody gave an answer in the chat, but might as well hear it from yourself. Does Vulcan Minerals still own shares of SALT? If so, how many? Vulcan Minerals owns about 28-29 million shares right now of Atlas SALT. Most of those shares came by way of being spun out. Atlas was spun out of Vulcan Minerals many years ago, so that's not atypical for them to retain an interest. They are a very supportive shareholder. They never sold any shares on the way up or on the way down from prior increases, and they took part in our last financing. So they're very supportive along for the ride with Atlas and they want to see this project built too.

37:24 Awesome. And the person in the chat was pretty much dead on. So S Reinhart. Yeah, great. Dr. Cliff asks, this is actually an interesting question. I'm curious about it too. He asks, how do you keep salt from clumping or solidifying during shipping process? Yeah, so there's a anti-caking agent that's added to the salt. Sorry, I don't know the exact chemical composition, but it will be added at the port before loading onto the ships. But that's the primary method of reducing it. Also, of course, there's particle size composition and making sure the material is at the right size, that it flows properly and doesn't clump. Those all contribute to the science of it. Great. I appreciate it. I'm curious. Yeah. So jumping back to Vulcan, somebody just asked, how does Vulcan's ownership and royalty potentially affect any M&A conversations?

38:16 I think that it doesn't really. I mean, they're a smaller company than Atlas Salt is. They have shareholder interests and obligations to maximize value for their shareholders, just like anyone else. They have a fiduciary responsibility in such a case. They also have responsibilities to, if there is a deal that emerges that wants to consolidate Atlas Salt or take the company out or dilute or whatever, they have to judge it appropriately and that's what they will do, just like any other publicly traded company would. This is not the business world where you can just put your foot down and say, not that, and the only reason I'm bringing this up is because, you know, the natural inclination in the junior sector is sometimes, you know, companies own 60 or 70% of a company. That's a little bit of a different piece of the equation here. The ownership stake here is about 30%.

39:17 Vulcan is happy to be diluted at some point in the future. They don't need to continue to own 30%. And there's no reason why if there's a deal to be done that a company wouldn't just talk to both companies at the same time and get it done. There's no way that a small junior company could impede a very creative deal for all shareholders like that. That great. Makes sense. Yeah. Colin from the chat asks, Basically, when did your market maker services start? November or more recently? They started in November and we just announced today that they started, but it wasn't a necessary requirement to announce immediately, but they'd been starting in November and just as a matter of housekeeping, we announced that we had engaged them in November.

40:06 Perfect. And it's important to understand too, the market maker is just there to create liquidity. They're not trying to drive the price up or price down or anything like that. Yeah. Same person asked, just as a follow-up, so when does that end? He says it's at the 19th, or when does that service wrap up? Yeah, so we currently are on a month-to-month relationship with them, so We will continue to use them as long as they're doing good work for us. One of the things, a great thing that a market maker has as well is all the asks and selling that sometimes companies see through anonymous that other investors, including the company, are frustrated and trying to understand where it's coming from, they tap those asks and then they get a determination of where those shares came from and that really helps us with market understanding. So in terms of liquidity analysis and market intelligence, As long as they continue to deliver on those reports and give us that information and create liquidity for investors to buy and sell, we'll continue to use them.

41:12 As most mature companies have a market maker as well. Everybody hates anonymous. You see it on every board. Who's anonymous? House number 1, right? Yeah. Awesome. So I'm going to give everybody in the chat one last chance to ask a question. While I give them that time, I'll ask you, what are you most excited about for the next phase of the company? Yeah, so you know, there's no just one thing. Oftentimes I've been on, seen many of these presentations where the CEO will say, you know, I'm excited to see what our drill program results will look like. But I joined Atlas specifically because there's just so much stuff that we have going on. So many different fronts and different avenues that can deliver value for shareholders that they all excite me. The project financing, as I mentioned, is a huge one that I am excited about, but the opportunity to attract bridge financing is also a huge thing that will excite me. The opportunity to actually start constructing this project is also a huge opportunity, and being able to attract government support.

42:18 Again, and I should have said earlier too, we're not looking for a handout here. We're looking for an opportunity for the government to really just throw gasoline onto this fire and get this blaze going and going strong. So that excites me certainly as well. So many things excite me instead of just sitting here waiting for drills to spit out good results or something like that, which might excite other CEOs, but certainly not me. I have more that gets me going. I'll tell you waiting on drill results is the answer I hear most. Exactly. 4 or 5 of these a day. Yeah, and you know, before I joined Atlas, I had many opportunities to be a CEO of a company that was just waiting on drill results, but there's something in me more on wheeling and dealing and creating value.

43:07 Appreciate it. So there's one last question that came in while we were doing that one, so I'll wrap it up with that one. S. Reinhart notes that mine was originally supposed to be up in late 2028. Now we're talking about 2030. What broadly caused that 1.5 year delay? Are you wondering if it's financing or if there's something else? Yeah, so obviously I wasn't here for that initial plan, so I don't know exactly what set that 2028 date. I know though speaking to some shareholders who have expressed similar comments that at various points in the past the company may have stated that this could be built very very quickly in 1 or 2 years. Maybe this was pre-feasibility study or something like that and at that point it's a shot in the dark. And so I would say that we now have a very good understanding of what the project will require, what it will take to build.

44:05 It does require getting financing by certain points and having, or at least having it lined up. We can mitigate any schedule risks by starting construction as quickly as possible, which is exactly what we're doing. It's very important to get momentum built. But that's largely the reason I would attribute is just a better understanding now what it will take to build a project of this size and scale, do it safely, do it properly, do it in the right manner, and not just rush ahead and shoot from the hip and say that this can be done in X number of years and blow out the schedule or something like that. Awesome. Appreciate that answer very much. And Nolan, generally, thank you for letting me grill you. I like to get into the details, so I appreciate you. Anytime. And everybody in the chat, thank you so much for great questions and for rolling with us today as well. If you think of the perfect question to ask right after the event ends, as I often do, please do still let me know. I'm going to send it to the Atlas Salt team and they'll get back to you as soon as possible.

45:01 But Nolan, thank you so much. This was great. Thanks, Romeo. Thanks everyone. Enjoy your Friday and go Canada today. Go Canada. Have a great weekend, everyone.