Asia-Pacific Panel

0:10 Hello everyone and welcome to the Asia-Pacific panel hosted by 6. Today we're joined by Anil Warach, Stepgold's Executive Vice President, Derek Iwanaka, Vice President of B Metals, and Stephen Berga, CEO of Ankor Resources Corp. In this discussion, we'll be covering the present state and potential future of the Asia-Pacific regions, as heard from the industry leaders that work there. You can submit your questions using the Q&A panel found on the right-hand side of your screen. And as always, this summit is being recorded. We'll be available to watch afterwards on six.com.

0:40 And Neil, I'm gonna start you off. I'm gonna ask you to introduce yourself, your company, And if you could quickly walk us through what you would say your company's strong points are. Sure. Thanks, Cam. And thank you to my fellow panelists, as well as everyone else attending on the Monday morning. So thanks for taking the time to hear our stories and a little bit more about Asia. We're Step Gold. We're listed on the main board of the TSX under STGO as our ticker. We're one of the world's newest Gold producers. We brought production online just about a year ago for the first time ever. In a very difficult time and environment, We're a Gold producer with a strong balance sheet of about US$30M today. That will continue to grow with production from our heap leach operation this year while we're expanding into our phase 2 CIL plant and flotation circuit, which should commence later this summer.

1:37 In all of building our first mine, we actually doubled our resources as well to circa 2.45 million ounces. So over 2 million ounces, growing resources and production.

1:49 Great. Thank you, Neil. Derek, I'll hand it over to you now. Introduce yourself, introduce your company and what are your company's strong points? Sure, Derek Iwanaka. Been in the industry now for about 18 years and B-Metals is a relatively new company. It's only about 2.5 years old. Started up by the same group of people that have started up B-MA Gold and also B-2 Gold. And So we have a probably I would say a very exceptionally strong board and management team and they lead pretty much most of the decisions but also they're they gave us enough room to actually do what we need to do and we actually just closed on a transaction to acquire 5 gold projects in Japan today. Just this morning we actually announced that news.

2:36 So we're in the gold space now, but we actually started off the company more focused on base metals. So primarily we have a copper exploration project in Zambia, and then we have a polymetallic project in southwest Idaho.

2:51 And you know probably the biggest thing about our team is that you know they've discovered, they've made discoveries, they've built mines and they actually operate mines. We got the whole gamut of experience. Great, thanks, Derek. Steven, over to you. What are your strong points as a company and give us a general introduction? Thanks, Dan. My name is Steven Berega and I'm the CEO of Ankur Resources. We've been in Cambodia now for 12 years. Our primary focus has been exploration in base metals and precious metals. And recently, in 2019, we expanded that resource base to include potential exploration in the oil and gas sector in Cambodia as well. Over the last 12 years, we've developed an exceptional understanding of the geology and the social, fiscal, and I think government environments in operating in a young country like Cambodia.

3:49 And we've established these relationships from the village level all the way up to the government's highest levels. We established our business based on quite a significant land package. We have 5 licenses covering approximately 1,000 square kilometers. We're focused on epithermal Gold targets this year. We do have a number of Copper porphyry targets that we've identified as well. Our team is led on the ground by Dennis Ouette, our VP of Exploration, who's actually been living in Cambodia full-time for the past number of years. And our primary focus this year is 100% owned license called the Andong Mia license and the Wild Boar target, which is an epithermal gold target. And early 2020 float samples were coming back during our mapping work, came back at plus 70 grams per ton.

4:42 We got very excited. We identified very quickly a 700 meter by 300 meter target. And we've been doing surface work

4:51 and pitting and trenching now an IP program to further expand that target. Now 2 kilometers North to South by 1 kilometer east to west. So we're excited by what we're finding lots of work to be done. It's early days yet at the wild boar prospect, but that's our primary focus for this year's work program. And then quickly, as I mentioned, we threw our proverbial hat into the ring. To acquire block 8, which is an onshore oil and gas block. We've been looking at the potential of oil and gas in Cambodia for many years now, for 7 years, in fact. We have a separate team established to handle that component of our business. We're in the process of production sharing contract negotiations once that's completed.

5:39 We had to put that on hold, unfortunately, because of the pandemic, but we expect that to begin again in short order. Once completed, we'll have acquired Block 8, and we'll be moving forward with early stage exploration on that as well. Great. Thank you, guys. Thank you for those great introductions and overviews of your companies. What's exciting? What's happening?

6:00 I'm going to go to Derek for this first panel question, and feel free everyone to leap in from here on out just about what you might think. But Derek, what would you say the primary benefits are of operating in the countries that you do? As you say, you've just made announcements about those Japan projects, but what do you find the differences are between the Asia Pacific regions and other regions in the world? Well, yeah, each country definitely has its own benefits. And since we're speaking about Asia, Japan certainly has some of the highest grade gold mines in the world. The probably most well-known 1 would be the Hishikate Gold Mine. It's averaging between 30 to 40 grams per ton head grade. So it's an exceptional mine. And that's why companies like ourselves are in here

6:47 to find a low sulfidation epithermal vein to Stephen's point. You know there's sometimes they can be the gift they keep on giving. So Asia is super important for us but also Zambia I mean We're in Zambia because it has huge copper exploration potential there. And then in Idaho, we have a very developed project for us, at least not as advanced as Stap Golds, but We have something that we're in the PEA stage, so we're just doing a economic assessment on that. And so probably the advantage, at least for us right now, is since we're based in Canada, getting into the United States is actually relatively easy right now. So we're able to continue our work there.

7:32 The other countries though all have their advantages, but probably in the US, at least for us being in Canada, it's relatively easy to get over there despite what's going on with COVID right now. Thank you for that. Anil, What about you? How do you consider the Asia-Pacific regions, especially in comparison to the rest of the world, but also the countries that you work in?

7:52 Sure. Thanks, Cam. I guess for Asia, I still think relatively underexplored versus North America, even jurisdictions in Africa and elsewhere, you have opportunity. Japan opening up, Cambodia still immature and Mongolia still relatively immature as well, home to world-class assets, as Derek mentioned.

8:16 Mongolia itself has Oetoghe, which is one of the biggest, when brought online the expansion project, will be one of the biggest Copper mines in the world. So world-class discoveries, assets that can be built, operated by majors and still relatively under-explored. So for us, Mongolia is probably 5%, 6% explored today. We think we have a first mover advantage having executed in-country previously. And I think having done things properly where having a local team is very important. So I think that any jurisdiction that you should be as local as possible allows you to weather some of these travel storms or pandemics or whatever you want to call it, where there's restricted travel. If you have a local team, you have to continue to operate, which obviously we certainly have over the last year in a very difficult time being able to produce. So I think what Asia offers is clearly from a demand side, Gold. They love the precious metals. They have a deep understanding of it. It's in the cultures. So it's in our own backyard. We have platforms, I guess, if you had to rely on it for

9:21 acquirers or at least the end users, especially in China and India, being so close and that's a culture I don't think it will ever change. So being very close to that end user is certainly having an advantage and then you know, being first movers in our jurisdictions certainly has an advantage. So Asia is somewhere where our team also has a track record of execution and we're building on that with Stepgo. Great. Stephen, what are your thoughts?

9:49 Working in Cambodia has, I think, been exceptional because you've got a supportive government behind you. Cambodia is looking to leverage its natural resource potential for economic development. And so when you've got that type of support behind the industry, I think you can't help but see this nascent industry is growing quickly. In fact, Cambodia

10:14 is just seeing 2 major milestones. The 1st Gold is being poured from a modern mine with one of our former partners, Emerald Resources out of Australia. Their open pit mine called the Ok Vau mine is pouring gold this quarter. That's the very first modern production coming out of Cambodia on the gold side. And then in December of this past year, late December, they became an oil producing country. So these are exciting milestones for a young country like Cambodia. And I think what they did is they looked around the neighborhood and they realized that they could learn from the neighbors. You have to remember Cambodia is surrounded by production. So you have copper production, gold production, oil and gas onshore and offshore all around Cambodia.

11:04 Yet Cambodia is behind.

11:06 And in some cases, you know, you've got the Gulf of Thailand having producing oil for 40 years now, Vietnam, offshore, onshore production. You've got significant operations of copper and gold. So you've got a country that has had the ability to look and learn what worked and what didn't work. And they've made it fairly straightforward for a company like Anchor coming from Canada. They adopted the Western Australian Mining Code. Their requirements to adhere to international standards and reporting, ESIA standards, et cetera. It's easy for us to understand.

11:47 It's appropriate as an international operator. And I think they've taken quite a bit of the risk out of establishing operations like us, for us. And you've got a country that's growing its infrastructure. So you look at the banking system, the free flow of capital in and out of the country. Biggest bank in Cambodia is called the ABA Bank and it's owned by the National Bank of Canada.

12:12 PwC has offices there. Manulife has an office there. I mean, all of these base components that you expect and you need to see in place are starting to be well developed. So that's, I think that's a sign of the ease in which international capital can come into a country like Cambodia that's growing at breakneck speeds of 7% GDP annually. The differences, really, I think it's very straight. There has not been modern exploration techniques applied. So, you know, magnetics, gravity, good mapping, none of that existed when we arrived in Cambodia. So the maps that we were looking at were from the 1950s and it was on the ground mapping that allowed us to better understand what we were looking at. And it was upside down and backwards.

13:03 And we've redefined in a significant way the understanding of the geology in this country. So we're very excited by it, but that's part of working in a developing nation like this. It's really, really interesting. Lots of conversation about youth and what the future is going to be. I'm going to field this and pitch this to the whole group here. Answer if you'd like to, but at risk of repeating yourselves, maybe. How do you feel about the current state of investment opportunities in Asia at large and in general, right? I'll take a stab at that to start with. I think that countries like Cambodia are well positioned, extremely well positioned, to see significant investment coming in. I mean, one of our former partners was Jogmeca to Japan, where we did some work with them on a copper porphyry a few years ago.

13:56 That's an example of one of those significant players taking a serious look. We've hosted countless groups from Korsa to Korea, Freeport, Xinjian, the list goes on. There is significant interest in the geology and in the potential that Cambodia and surrounding countries offer. You have to remember that there's an absolute massive population between India and China and everything in between.

14:25 So I think that there's a marketplace for assets and we're extremely excited about being positioned the way we are in Cambodia with with such potential, because we plan on taking advantage and bringing some of those those investment dollars to bear in Cambodia directly.

14:45 Right, absolutely. Yeah, I'll tell you as well. I think the benefit of also doing business where we are in Asia is you tend to see that Asian countries recover a lot quicker than the Western jurisdictions. So coming out of COVID and

15:03 the revolution we're seeing in terms of green revolution and recoveries and the amount of supplies that will be needed. You're seeing that demand pick up, as you can see, from Copper already, right?

15:13 And that will increase for all of our commodities that we're in today. The growth rates are already higher. As Stephen mentioned, I think they're 6% or 7% in Cambodia. You see Mongolia's GDP this year is expected to be similar. So you have the GDP expansion is much bigger and easier, I'd say, than in the Western jurisdictions. And going back to COVID, I think the way they're able to handle it is a lot easier than you can in Western jurisdictions, again, not just in terms of vaccinations that are happening now, but in terms of preventative or the measures they can take in terms of lockdowns and all that stuff. So example of Mongolia not having a case till November of last year, homegrown case, right? And as they were able to restrict travel immediately in January of 2020 and not allowing too many foreigners in the

16:06 country. And then putting in, you know, all these preemptive measures that were very successful earlier on, which actually kept our team safe, and allowed us to continue to operate because mining is their number 1 GDP driver today, their number 1 employer in tax and fees. And I think that's going to continue to only grow with how resource rich these countries are. They're obviously going to take advantage of that. That's why we're in the right place, I think, at the right time. Well, both of you have done well on this question. I'll expand a little bit from our point of view. I mean, Japan is kind of like virgin territory. I mean, there's very few companies operating in Japan.

16:49 It's relatively underexplored, especially by modern methods, probably similar to Cambodia. I mean, I would expect that there's not a ton of Western companies operating over there. So you don't have a huge amount of competition, But you also have an area that's relatively untapped for kind of modern methods. So, you know, we see some some huge advantages of being over here being having kind of early mover advantage over other countries or companies. And if you just look at our kind of our broader teams experience, I mean, B2Gold's operating out of the Philippines. And so we, they have no production experience in the area. So that helps for us as B2Gold is our largest shareholder. Right, okay. So we've talked a lot about what's exciting and coming up in the future, but what are some challenges that are faced by mining companies in the Asia or Pacific regions?

17:44 And How have you overcome some of these maybe specific or general obstacles?

17:52 I'll take a run out of cup. A few come to mind. I think in a developing country like Cambodia, of course, Logistics and infrastructure are always improving. But if you look at how Cambodia has changed in the 12 years that we've been operating there, it's unbelievable. Now there's paved highways that run through all of the properties. Accessing our assets is relatively straightforward. Used to take us 2.5 days to drive from Phnom Penh up to the Northeast quadrant of the country. Now it takes about 7.5 hours. I think there's also been a general misunderstanding of the mineral cycle. So, as I mentioned, we work extremely closely with our local communities, through to the commune level and provincial level and then up to the federal level.

18:47 But that education is a major component of our process, because when you show up into a local community, and the immediate assumption is that you're mining.

19:03 They don't understand the difference between an exploration program and a mining program. So that's something that we have to manage, and it's a major component of what We've always agreed and made a priority for us to ensure that everybody understands these processes and the limited impact that we have on the environment at the early stages and how we want to work together in mitigating and ensuring that environmental impact is managed

19:34 and that everybody is on the same page as we move forward. That's a couple of obstacles. Yeah, I'll jump in on, I mean, there's a lot, just the perception. We're in exotic countries, so A lot of people just don't understand what's happening there. They think it's very difficult to build a mine.

19:53 We've demonstrated in a couple of years that in a very short order you can build a mine, you can build the infrastructure. Infrastructure, again, going back to my point previously, is all these things, they know how to build things faster and things can get done quicker. And in many cases, I would say still at Western standards. So we built our first mine in 14 months with all local teams, staff, contractors, with the government support, with the local support, so same thing before we broke ground we went and educated right from all the villages in any 1400 square kilometre radius, we went and educated and told them what we're going to do, who we are and what our plans were. And from that now I think within 99% of our staff that are Mongolian, I think about 60% plus come from within that region, that province. So that's a big win too because now you get a lot more local uptake in terms of employment,

20:45 education, we've got scholarship programs, we've trained unskilled labour force now into full-time skilled labour on our roster. So everyone's seen the benefits both locally, provincially, federally. Clearly we have a government and most governments are being more supportive of foreign investment, because if you do things properly then they benefit from royalties, from taxation. It's a better way of using more modern methods to extract. So we have the government as an investor in our company, as the first investment they've ever made into a mining company, their newly established sovereign fund, provide us capital, help us get into production last year. You are seeing a lot more support, it's just an education process. People hear horror stories of what happened in either our countries or others in the last few decades. But those are similar stories that happen in Northern Ontario sometimes, sometimes in BC.

21:39 Actually in some cases, it takes

21:42 multiples longer in terms of years to do what we can achieve in our companies in our respective jurisdictions. So it's what we find I think is the education process. People need to understand where we're doing business and how, and how it really isn't as difficult as they may seem. I think maybe unlike Mongolia and Cambodia, Japan's relatively mature. It's been fairly Westernized. And so actually, although the country has fairly recently just opened up to foreign and Western companies to get in there, but you find that the rules are fairly rigid and structured, but that's fine, because as long as you understand and you follow the rules, it's actually

22:25 very applicable here. So, you know, for me, at least I have a Japanese background, I have family in Japan, I have an understanding of the culture that obviously goes a long ways when you're working in another country. And so Japan we think is actually going to have some really tremendous opportunities for us. We actually just closed the transaction today, so we're just so eager to get in there. Absolutely, that sounds great guys, thank you. And we mentioned it before, and that was great to hear about some of the infrastructural barriers that we're faced with in that region, but more at hand is the COVID-19 situation.

23:09 How has COVID-19 affected your company's ability to not only develop your projects, but could you go into how the response in the countries that you operate in has been to COVID and where you're now and where you're going to be, how you see recovery happening. Derek, I'd love if you could kick that question off. Sure, yeah, in Japan, this basically has locked down, the country's locked down from foreign

23:34 people coming into the country, which is okay for us at the moment. We have guys boots on the ground, so we have an independent team technical on the ground right now, so we're able to continue advancing the project, but getting new people in is going to be a little bit of a pain, I think. We might have to wait until the limits are completed in early August, and then we might be able to get people on the ground there for additional people.

24:02 But we also have projects in the United States, like I said, you can get in there fairly freely, of course, you have to quarantine when you get out of the country. But going into the US has actually been pretty straightforward and easy to get into because mining is an essential business in the US, and so it hasn't really been an issue. Zambia, we're operating in as well, and that hasn't really been too much of an issue. Of course, there are supply chain delays. I mean, getting stuff in and getting stuff out, There can be some delays. This year we experienced some delays with getting drill assays back. But all in all, because we have independent teams working in each country, it's actually been pretty good so far. We haven't really had any interruptions. Wonderful, Neil?

24:51 Yeah, so I think I highlighted before, obviously the country took a pretty proactive stance, pretty and really very aggressive, thankfully, early in 2020 when things were starting. So the country did close, and obviously we can't get expats in the country freely, but we were able to operate and because we were able to bring our production online for the first time ever, start up a mine, operate and produce almost 35,000oz profitably in our first year during COVID. For us, we manage, I would say obviously, we all know, and every investor and mining company knows globally, there are some logistic issues that you have to deal with. Delays on the labs, because at some point all these countries were locked down and this creates a queue. So even when the deal opened up, there was still a lab. So let's say us getting lab samples, or sorry, samples out of the country even to Canada for our phase 2 expansion or Feasibility Study. You saw some impact there in terms of delays of getting stuff out as well as in the country.

25:56 Procurement, there's always that worry about procurement that it could be delayed in terms of bringing chemicals on site or key equipment while we're in production today. It hasn't had a material impact yet. We're mindful of that and you have to be, but certainly that's something everyone is dealing with. Most people understand and expect that there's always a buffer of time here. When we say we want to accomplish something in a certain period, everyone understands that it may not be achievable given that. So we've seen that for exploration, for example, our ability to restart exploration earlier, maybe late last year when we wanted to because there was a lockdown in the country. You could still operate and produce, but you couldn't start new exploration for example, during lockdown.

26:41 So you're seeing some of that, but luckily we've been able to build our balance sheet and become stronger in the last year in terms of that strength. And we haven't seen any real hiccups as yet, maybe just a few months delay here and there in terms of delivering a Feasibility Study or whatnot. So nothing material yet, it's more phase 2 where you might see a little bit of delay. And the last piece is, of course, getting people in the country for debt packages. If you're looking for international lenders to build your second mine, which is our plan here, certainly it's hard for them to send people for due diligence when they can't get in the country. Some people have the ability to get locals to do that on their behalf, but I think that's where you're seeing it today. But again, the government has done a great job in mitigating the issues for us. So we're very thankful for the measures they took.

27:33 Great, thanks. Steve, what do you think? What's, how's COVID? We, so Cambodia is feeling COVID today more than they have over the last year and a half or a year, I'm sorry. So really it's the first time that COVID has reared its head, so to speak, in a very significant way. So Cambodia has put Phnom Penh into a lockdown scenario, but Accessing into Cambodia has been very limited over the past month and a half. And previous to that, if you were to land in Cambodia, you were mandatory quarantining in a government-run hotel for 2 weeks. It was never, It's not been, it's, they've made it safe enough for international travelers to arrive, but they did so in a very methodical way and in a controlled way.

28:28 Unfortunately though, COVID has started, has had a fairly significant impact in recent weeks, especially recent months. Now all of last year, we had a full-time team on the ground. So as I mentioned earlier, our VP of exploration, Denis Ouette, lives full-time in Cambodia. So, our team has been in place and exploration has continued, but you also, we have a down period during the rainy season. So, a number of months that we typically wouldn't be very active on the exploration front. It's more when we're cataloging core and doing the housekeeping work during the heavy rains. Our work programs began in December, but we have been able to continue working, albeit at a perhaps a lesser rate than what we would previous years, but we have continued, we've maintained safety protocols and managed that process throughout. And we've worked really closely with our local communities to ensure that they have safety masks and hand sanitizer and what we can to identify issues and we try and help work with them to rectify or to fix or to address these issues. So, you know, our chairman, Mike Weeks, flew in in November into Cambodia, went through his quarantine process, and he's still there now, 6 months on, and he may stay for

30:00 another 6 months, depending as this lockdown has continued. There is no travel between provinces at this point. It's very significant. They're taking it very seriously. And we're working with our community and provincial heads as much as we can to help, to assist and to help. Absolutely, thank you for that. And much like how it seems most meetings with family are, let's get off of that topic, right? Everyone's tired of talking about COVID at this point in the day, I guess. But, and again, this will be a question I want to pitch to the field. So feel free to answer if you have something to crop up, but how should investors view the Asia Pacific region for mining? Not only now, but in the future. Are there trends that you're aware of that you look to to see that the investment community at large should be more aware of or pay attention to, but not only for the countries you operate in, but the region at large as well?

30:59 I can start off with, I mean, for us at least, even though Japan is a fairly mature country and has a fairly significant economy, that economy has actually struggled in the last 20-25 years or so, and so It's interesting because they've opened up the country for the first time to foreign investment and allowing Western companies to enter the country and that's kind of unusual. You know, typically as North Americans are used to operating in the Americas itself or maybe even in Africa or somewhere like that. But you don't see a lot of investment, I would say, from the Western companies into these areas. And so I think Japan is just kind of virgin territory for new exploration.

31:47 And the fact that you have Barrick is involved with Japan Gold, you have Newmont involved with Irving Resources, which are kind of our peers in the area, that actually, that has to show that there's interest for the larger companies to come into these areas. And so that's certainly very good for support for us. And then you have B2Gold supporting us with our exploration activities there. So we just think that there's just tremendous, you know, exploration upside from here on in. I think if I'll just jump in quickly, I think it's really important. And we may, we've mentioned this a little bit earlier, but just the greenfield exploration, you know, The fact that so many of the countries in the region are underexplored, don't have necessarily those base data sets to draw on. I think we're going to see a tremendous amount of excitement for the region over the coming decade, as more of these majors are paying attention.

32:52 And virgin territory is harder and harder to come by. I think it's fair to say that the majors have looked around the world and done what they can to identify the lower hanging fruit. And a region or a country like Cambodia that is still, you know, we're still barely scratching the surface from an exploration perspective. On the hard rock side, You look at a country like Cambodia with potential for oil and gas, when you have assets operating all around the country, it's pretty hard to come up with a country as another example where there hasn't been a single drill hole put down on shore at depth for oil and gas potential.

33:39 I think it's extraordinarily exciting the opportunities that a country like Cambodia and others present, And I think that the world is paying attention to Southeast Asia and Pacific region as a result. And the market is supportive of that because, you know, we're entering into a pretty interesting super cycle, I believe, for the resource sector. So it's an exciting time moving forward. And when you've got a supportive country like Cambodia that's trying to become self-reliant for energy and rely on natural resource development as a key driver for economic growth. All of those factors play into the potential. And that's pretty exciting for us.

34:28 Yeah, I mean, you guys did a good job answering the question, but yeah, the region, again, just to reiterate what they're saying, it's underexplored. You're seeing majors come in, obviously in Japan, right close to where we are in Nepal, with BEREC and Newmont. So there really is not many frontiers remaining, and I think people need to understand that ESA provides probably one of the last frontiers. It's like going into Africa a few decades ago, which these majors have already done and picked off, so offers a lot of exploration. There's been big discoveries and deposits in all these jurisdictions. For someone like Mongolia, we have obviously a super major in there already, but that's for focus on the copper side with Rio Tinto. And I think at the right time, you're going to see very similar strategy.

35:16 The major is trying to get a toehold into virgin territory where you have a lot of exploration potential. You have now a pro-mining, pro-foreign investment government. So the Mongolian government signed an asset protection agreement with Canada in 2017. Singapore was the first country before then. They're saying all the right things, they've confirmed and learned from their mistakes. It's still, these are functional democracies, but still new, I would say. And so they have their usual growing pains over the last couple of decades. But a lot more to offer, I think that people are starting to see, so we're obviously positioned well to take advantage of this, what could be a super cycle coming out of this recovery.

36:02 Great, Thank you guys. I mean, it's always amazing to hear insights like this, especially from people that are operating there on the daily. And to talk about a country is one thing, but to also talk about a region as large as the Asia Pacific regions is another. Steven, what catalysts is your company working towards in the coming years, specifically, just to narrow the focus a little bit in the conversation? Our ongoing work program at Wild Boar is our priority target right now. And we actually have an IP team on the ground right now. They've probably got another 2 to 3 weeks of work to do. There's 2 separate IP programs being shot. One's 250 meter at depth and the second is up to 500 meters. And we're basically, we're Tracking, we identified a series of shallow dipping quartz veins through our pitting and trenching program that we're following up and we're trying to identify what's the engine behind that, what could possibly be below in situ.

37:04 Is there an intrusive in place there that is the engine behind what we've seen near surface? So the work that we've got complete, that we are in the process of completing right now is of major importance. Marrying that with all the mapping, the geophysical work that we've done, we'll then get to targeting. And then we'll be drilling somewhere around the 1,000 plus meter range of diamond drilling when we're getting all this done before the rain start later on in the summertime. And then the second big catalyst for us is reengaging on the production sharing contract negotiations with the Cambodian government. So once those negotiations are completed, We acquire full access to Block 8. And then I, myself and my team have been in various conversations with potential strategic partners and looking for that right fit to move the oil and gas story forward.

38:05 We'll need to be shooting mag, seismic, and eventually getting a data set to a point where we are comfortable targeting for drilling. So we've got a lot of work and a lot of excitement coming forward in the next months. It's great to hear. Anil, what catalysts is Stepgold looking towards? Yes, quite a few. Obviously, we are a producer today. In short order, I think by the end of May we're actually listing on the Mongolian stock exchange. So, it will be a mini IPO, you know, giving the demand in country for locals who want to own assets in their own country. Like I said, we always consider ourselves a Mongolian company anyways, listed on the TSX. This was the right move to potentially increase liquidity, but allowing all the domestic investors there to trade our stock with ease. It's very difficult today for investors in Mongolia to try to buy shares.

39:07 So this new alignment with the Mongolian stock exchange, where I think we're going to see a lot more demand, the very minimal 1% share offering here. It's not a capital raise, but you're going to see a lot more demand I think pick up there. It's another step of us showing that we want to be as Mongolian as possible or at least allow for Mongolians to have the ability to own our stock and also gives the employees who will have shares of the company in Mongolia to see what the value of those are. So, by the end of May, we think that will happen. So, that's a great step. Exploration restarting on both of our properties. So, we have 2 exploration programs going to be starting in a matter of weeks, starting with the UK project, which is an undrilled licence, never been drilled, but we did all the groundwork, IP, magnetic soil sampling and trenching.

40:01 Now we get to drill for the first time ever. So that's exciting, self-funded exploration that we're going to start on that project. And then we're going back to ATO and Munk where we're in production and we start exploration there this summer as well. So, you know, lots of news flow on both projects. And obviously ATO and Munk, we just announced doubling our resource. Well, that's only down to 400m. So now we actually can look down at depth for more discovery drilling or at depth extensions, but also stepping out for the first time ever 1, 2 and 5km from the core deposits. So that's exciting new drilling and exploration. And then in the summer we're delivering a revised Feasibility Study, which will tell us how much the capex is for expansion into phase 2. And we'll actually start that expansion when we announce a BFS. So there's not going to be a year or 2 delay. Once you announce a VFS, you're actually going to start the expansion immediately. So it's a nice little mix of news floods, I guess, between expiration, expansion, and obviously cash flow. So that's our milestones as a catalyst for the coming year.

41:05 Thank you, Anil. Derek? Well, we couldn't wait to get our catalyst going. So we started with today. And so now that we closed the acquisitions in Japan, and as part of that, we also have B2 Gold coming in as our largest shareholder. So they're investing 7.5 million dollars into the company. So that's obviously a big catalyst for us. We now have about $11 million in the treasury, which is ample enough money for us to get exploring there. We haven't actually announced the exploration program, but I think that that's gonna be really interesting. We will have to at least fly some aeromagnetics and get some targets set up for us. But I think that because we acquired the company and the people included, personnel, especially boots on the ground in Japan.

41:50 That's going to be critical for us to set ourselves up for drilling over there. But secondly, in Idaho, we have a new resource estimate coming out for our South Mountain deposit. We'll also have a preliminary economic assessment completed by September of this year. And in Zambia, we'll have the largest drill program to date actually launching this year. And to Stephen's point, actually, we also have Jogmech involved with our company here for funding the project so they're putting in 1.5 million dollars a US into exploration this year so sorry this year and next year so yeah we should we have Joe Riggs turning on 3 projects this year and so we should have, I would hope, a series of catalysts coming up in the coming months.

42:40 That's wonderful to hear from all of you. Thank you so much for sharing. So I'll remind the audience that's in attendance today that you can of course use the Q&A poll on the right-hand side of your screen. We'll be moving into some questions and answers. So, you've seen the presentation, you've heard from what the panelists have said. Whatever strikes your fancy, feel free to submit your questions and we'll launch right into some of them that were submitted ahead of time. We have a question here from Terrence Ortslin who wants to hear from the panel about what your asset is, your operating and product sales protections within the mining and financial laws, and just go a bit more into detail about your investment itself. Does anybody want to speak to that right away? I can jump in right away.

43:26 Just, yeah, so obviously we are operating today. We are producing Gold and Silver bars in country, which we sell actually today all domestically to the central bank or central bank approved banks that buy on their behalf without any deduction besides the refining charge of US$2 per ounce on Gold and 1 on Silver, and then the government Royalty will be deducted as source to 5% government Royalty. But we get spot pricing, there's no export risk, quick sales cycle on our production. I think I mentioned that The country has signed an asset protection agreement with Canada, but also through the World Bank IMF and, well, Global Bank financing package for the OT project a few years ago, you know, there are a lot of strings attached with the government there. So there's no nationalization or expropriation type of opportunities for the government.

44:19 They're unable to do so. So we have another layer of protection where we don't have to worry about government trying to take over our asset or any of that kind of stuff. In fact, I think I mentioned the government has given us capital by investing in our company and they're actually giving us capital to grow and they want to increase gold production in country from primary sources and we're one of the leading companies that can actually provide that to them. So lots of good support from the banks, the governments in country. I think you'll see as part of our debt package for phase 2, we'll have some more capital coming locally from commercial banks within Mongolia before we actually bring in the international lenders. So again, just showing that alignment within the country of trying to provide capital to grow, because they see the importance.

45:05 And obviously a lot of protection measures in place. So that's the other step side. Wonderful to hear. Steve, Derek? I'll just give a quick answer. Thanks, Terrence, for your question. On the protection side, I think, you know, as an exploration company, of course, our business model has been primarily as a project generator. So we've had some asset sales. We look for partners, strong partners. We bring the understanding on each license up to a certain level. And then we bring a partner typically forward and use their dollars and their ongoing experience and expertise as well to build further value.

45:56 We've raised close to $20 million in USD over the years, deployed it on the ground. And that's been through partnerships, through asset sales. The wonderful thing about Cambodia is that there are no restrictions on foreign ownership. So we own 100% of our licenses. We do not have any local partners mandated or otherwise. We have the ability to right now focus on our 100% owned licenses. That's including the Cognac license and the Andamia license, without getting any further detail on that asset base. But that's that's that those are some of the protections that are in place right now. We own 100 percent of the licenses and and I'll leave it at that for now.

46:46 Thank you, Derek, would you like to speak to this question? Sure, I'll just add a little bit. For us, we're just getting into Japan, obviously. But Japan has been around for a long time and has rules and regulations that we can easily understand. They're fairly in line with Western policies and regulations. So from that standpoint, I think we're in good position. I would say in Zambia, it's a well-established copper producing district, so no issues. And I'd probably just add that our team, given that our greater team has operated in Russia, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Mali, Burkina Faso, I mean, if you can operate in these jurisdictions and do it well, which we have and our team has, I'm pretty sure you can operate in Zambia, in Japan, in the United States. I mean, you can certainly operate in those areas. So, yeah, I think that's about all I'd add.

47:44 Great, thanks guys. John Zadkiewicz has asked, is the panel seeing growing demand from investors to comply with or introduce strong ESG principles for projects in APAC? Yes, I would say you've seen that globally, not just in Asia. Globally, that's a theme that you're hearing all the time, it's continuing to grow. And I think COVID has exaggerated or expedited that need because now it's a green recovery now and it's not just between copper or EV, it's in terms of green and being as green as you can or the standards have increased. For us, I think we had already set up our company in the way we do business with that in mind anyway. So it wasn't a requirement. We were proactively, you know, to be working on being environmentally safe when we bring our operations online, education, the social side of, you know, we set up a meat and dairy co-op, we provide scholarships to the region, we sponsor wrestlers.

48:43 In fact I think we're doing a good job of, you know, even marketing in the country in terms of showing that you can do business, you can get the support. They're trying to mitigate or clear up some of the misconceptions or perceptions of the country in terms of risk profile, but certainly ESG and that social side we've been focusing on since day 1, so it's something that we weren't required to do. It's something that was already established and ingrained in the way we run a business, and I think you've seen that just how we ran our business with our CEO being local or our board are local, all our employees in country, so from that obviously the environmental comes in and the social comes in and we obviously have the government support as well.

49:30 From our perspective, I think that's a great question. It's a really important component to all business in the resource sector. Anchor started in 2009 with a very distinct plan, and that was to do business differently and to establish ourselves as a conduit, not just through strong linkages to government at the highest level, but to also ensure that we had these relationships established all the way down to the commune level. And it's because of those partnerships that we've established over the years that I think we're being afforded access and opportunities. For example, in the acquisition of the oil and gas block. It's because of our longstanding relationship in over a 12 year period.

50:17 And because the company has said what it's going to do, done exactly what we said we were going to do, and reported on it, that we've established these, this relationship. And I think ESG, I'm excited that it's taken hold. I think it's long overdue. It used to be corporate social responsibility, then it was social license, now it's ESG. Whatever you want to call it, It needs to be part of every mandate. The way we work with our local communities is in partnership. We've always said it's not about just a handout, it's about a hand up. The idea really has always been that we'll supply the training, we'll supply the materials, but if it's a latrine program, the locals have to learn how to build it. If it's a water sanitation program, they have to maintain it.

51:14 We need to work together, ensuring that these programs have as big of impact as possible and it's not about us mandating what's needed. We need to listen, we need to understand what those touch points are, local business development, whatever it might be And because of the work that we've done, we've been asked to present at the United Nations over the years at the IGF conference, because as a small explorer, we like to think we're hidden above our weight class, but it's vitally important. And it's very nice to be acknowledged at the highest levels where Prime Minister has mentioned us by name as be more like anchor and commit to your local communities, commit to the country and commit to economic development. And that's something we're very proud of.

52:04 Of course. Thank you. Derek? Well, 100 percent in agreement with both of the panelists here and I applaud what they're doing in their respective countries. I mean, for us, we're actually not producing any revenue at the moment. So we're still kind of early stages in the countries we're in. But because of our relationship, I think, with B2Gold, and we've kind of, I think, transferred those same kind of principles of respect, fairness, and transparency throughout all of our business. And because we operate in the countries with locals, so we have domestic people operating, whether it's in Japan, in Zambia or in the United States, that obviously everybody's working for the best interests of those people that live in the area, and everybody's going to benefit from what we're doing. And obviously do that in an environmentally and safe fashion. So I mean, if you're operating in the area, you're not going to destroy your backyard.

52:59 And so I think by employing that instead of just having expats working on each country, that we were in line with those same visions. Great, thank you very much for that. I think that we're getting close to time here, but we do have, if we're up for it, a bit of a rapid fire question. It's a little far-reaching, so if we can answer it as easily and fast as possible, as concisely. Michael Potter wants to know, how do you see the mining sector developing in the Asia-Pacific region over the next 10 years? So I'll hand it right to, back to Derek. What do you think? Well, I'm like literally just getting into it. We're day 1 into Japan. So I would say that there's there's tons of potential here.

53:46 I don't know the rest of the Asian districts as well as probably my fellow panelists here, but I would say that Japan is relatively virgin territory. I mean, it's interesting because when we were talking about getting into Japan, we have an advisor named Dr. Richard Sillitoe, who was sitting with our, which would be one of our directors, Clive Johnson. And it was saying that, you guys want to get into Japan. Well, I happen to actually know one of the best gold projects in Japan and he said the project's name escapes you right now but it'll come back to me and I guess the next day or 2 he did come back to me and he said yeah the project's name is Seta River. As it turns out the project that we one of the projects that we acquired is called Kato, which has actually changed its name from Seto River. So as it turns out, we have this project that Dr. Saito, who is a world renowned geologist, has said that he was very enthusiastic about getting his feet on the ground to drill that project.

54:52 So, you know, that's the type of opportunity that I think that Japan has, and I'm sure the other countries that are in Asia have similar exploration potential. That's great. Steve, what do you think the next 10 years looks like for Asia Pacific? I think it's going to be a boom. I think there's going to be a tremendous move in the direction of early assets coming to fruition. I think that Cambodia, Mongolia, Japan, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, all around the neighborhood, there are exciting potential targets that are being explored. And I think that the Asia Pacific region as a whole is due for a really exciting 10-year window.

55:40 Awesome. Anil? Yeah, I echo the same as my peers here and We have a big run ahead of us and being in position certainly helps, but I think over the next decade, obviously the amount of investment in these countries and infrastructure, the world-class potential discoveries that can be made across all commodities, oil and gas, the base metals, the precious metals, I think you're going to see a big shift here. There's tier 1 type discoveries and tier 1 partners that are obviously already coming in. So it's a very exciting time to be positioned ahead of this next boom over the next decade. And what you're also seeing is a lot of relationship building between these countries. And so Mongolia for example, landlocked, heavily reliant on Russia and China is now growing relationships with Japan, Korea, you're seeing India.

56:33 All those countries are actually investing in 1 manner or another, whether it's infrastructure projects or getting into resources, building refineries, and you even have the Europeans now coming into Europe. So that's another wave that you're seeing, the Germans and others, Nordic countries now more interested in Asia Pacific region. So it's certainly exciting time to be in the region and it should be very, very exciting 10 years ahead of us. Amazing. Well, Anil, Derek, Stephen, that's all the time we have. So I just want to thank you for coming here and speaking. It's been wonderful to hear the insights that you've been able to provide. I'd also like to thank everyone that's been in attendance and watching. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for your time early this Monday morning. But with that, we are going to wrap it up. So I will say again, thank you everyone involved.

57:19 And with that, we'll be closing things off. Have a good rest of your day and stay safe, everyone. Thanks very much. Thanks, 6th. Thanks to my panelists. Thank you. Cheers. Cheers.