Bluebird Mining Ventures (LSE:BMV) — Investor Presentation

0:01 Good morning, and welcome to the BLUEBIRD MINING VENTURES LTD Q and A session. Throughout this recorded meeting, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted anytime via the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just click Q and A, type in your question and press send. Company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Aiden Bishop, executive director. Good morning, sir.

0:30 Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for coming to the BLUEBIRD MINING VENTURES q and a. So I've got a list of questions that people are are have submitted. I'm actually in The UK at the moment. So I think last time we did this, I was in The Philippines, and there's always Internet connectivity issues in The Philippines. But here in The UK, we seem to be pretty good. Let's go right into it. So the first question, why is it delay after delay with the permit? It should have been sorted years ago. Thank you very much. I sense shareholder angst with that question. So look. Let me under let let's go through permitting. So permitting for exploration is very simple. Why is it very simple? Because you're not trying to take anything out the ground. There's no environmental footprint. There's no social disruption. It's pretty straightforward. When you want to get a stuff out of the ground, the permitting is extremely challenging anywhere in the world. It's a multiyear process anywhere in the world. You can look at in The UK recently, they a coal the the coal mine was refused permits to start another coal mine in The UK. In Australia, a a a mining major was declined a tailings dam after several years. In the Southern Philippines, the one of the world's largest undeveloped copper mines owned by Glencore and couldn't get permitting, still going through the process. Of course, there are companies that do get permitting, but it is a very long process. By all accounts, Korea is a little bit easier in terms of bureaucratic processes than other places in the world. We have all

2:00 the permits by one one one one or two. The mountain temporary use permit, obviously, being key, which is a local permission. So what does it take to get permitting? Obviously, you need to have core some permits in place. We already have this. What we you it's really around there's a political component to it, national, provincial, local. There's a environmental component to it. There's a social component to it. It's it's it's a it's a it's a quite a process. Yes. There's bureaucracy. Yes. There's red tape, but there's a lot of politicking. There's a lot of social community type of that takes place. It's not easy. And it shouldn't be easy because what we are proposing to do is reopen a gold mine, which does have an environmental footprint, which does have a social impact, which does cause disruption, we would say positively in many cases because it brings income into a community. But still, it is a process. It's not a case of, oh, it should have been sorted years ago. The average time to get a to get a a project from exploration through to production is just under thirty years around the world.

3:05 That's from the beginning to to to to the end. So I'm not saying it's gonna be thirty years because, obviously, we're well advanced into the process. But it it whilst I understand the the frustration, it is a process. We still have to keep doing it. We still have to keep going through it. And as we have seen evidence in Korea, there are companies that have been able to receive permits. One being Ivanhoe in the in the nineteen nineties did. There was another company, a tungsten mine. Took them quite a few years, the Sandong tungsten mine. They got permitting. So we're gonna keep going on. Next question. You keep saying the company is undervalued. But as I see it, the Korean mines carry additional value without the mountain use permits. I take confidence that you do not keep diluting the equity. But what is your confidence level in getting the permits prior to Christmas?

3:51 Okay. Several things here. I don't agree with you because to say the com the project has no value or little value without a mountain permit, that basically would mean then any exploration company that doesn't have full permits for production basically has little to no value. The fact is every project has value based upon metal in the ground, based upon its stage of development, based upon investor sentiment, based upon the markets and so forth. So I I would say this project has great value based upon what's in the ground, based upon that we are advancing it. We could say, if we wanted to, could we say, right, we're gonna do some more exploration on on this on this project, build up more resources, build up more of an understanding. There's nothing to stop us doing that if we wanted to. So I actually think it has great value. It's not binary.

4:37 It's not a case of this was worth, you know, tens of hundreds of millions with a mountain permit. It's worth zero without it. That's not the case. I mean, otherwise, you would have to say, oh, this exploration project, like Batangas, for example, if it doesn't have its commercial permits, it's worth zero. That's not the case. So the next part of that question was I take confidence that you do not keep diluting the equity. Thank you very much. That was I mean, as you can see, we are trying to be as non dilutive as possible. Management is converting a substantial amount of of fees into stock that's been accrued since, like, 2021, 2022. If we didn't have confidence in the company, why would we do that? I wouldn't do it. If I had if I thought there was no chance we'd ever get these permits, then I would not be converting into stock.

5:22 I would just rather take the cash and and and sit back, hope, and wait. So that's not the case. We are we are looking to be as non dilutive as possible. We're looking to conserve cash. And we you know, and when that day comes, all those days come that we can unlock the value of this company and which will transform where it is today to the next level, it would have all been worthwhile. Third part of that question was what's your confidence level in getting the permits prior to Christmas? Very hard to say. We're not applying for it's it's not like a bus pass or a fishing permit. Right? You can't just check online. Oh, when is it when are they gonna issue it? There's many components to this. Right? So it's it's it's it's difficult to say. So I really can't I I don't know. I can't answer that question, to be honest. Next question. Can you give an overview of the funding and why you have chosen the loan route? Well, I think we got into that because, you know, the share price was obviously rather low.

6:16 And if we did do an equity placing, then we would be having to do it at a at a kind of a deeply discounted value. On a personal level, I didn't want to do that. And I didn't think it was a good thing for shareholders. I did speak to a couple of substantial shareholders and asked, would they be happy with a deeply discounted placing? It was a resounding no. And so one of our substantial shareholders who has helped us, Catalyst, I'm not quite sure how you pronounce it. But they, you know, they've they've come up and offered a funding package, which we're very grateful for. And it allows us to to to to progress. And and hopefully, with the benefit of hindsight in the future, we'll be looking back and say, we're glad we didn't take that deeply discounted placing.

7:01 We took the loan funding, and it will be best for all shareholders. The next question, £350,000 is a relatively small amount. Is this adequate? Well, yes, it is. So the good thing is, recently, we trimmed back the board from five to three, I believe it is. And so we've cons we keep cash costs very, very, very low. The biggest costs in our company are auditors. Audit fees go up every year. It's astonishing how much auditors get paid. The FCA, of course, are expensive every year, annual fees, various share issuance fees, monitoring fees, the lot of the stock exchange annual fees, r and s fees, share register fees. These are really the bulk of your costs when it comes to a public listing. We keep our cash costs in terms of bulk costs, Spanish costs extremely, extremely low.

7:56 So that's why 350,000 is adequate as per the announcement we we have stated that will last until the last quarter of next year. So we've got twelve months to to transform the value of this company from a funding perspective. What is the current JV model and how much is committed to project development? So I think this one's come up before. You can see that in the r and s's. Three projects, Gubong, 5,000,000. Cocheng, 2,000,000, and an estimated 2,000,000 at Batangas. The difference being Batangas doesn't have a set, you know, dollar amount. It's basically all costs until the environmental compliance certificate and the declaration of mining project feasibility is approved and a construction decision is made estimated to be around 2,000,000.

8:47 I can give a bit more on that, how Batangas is developing as we go through this this q and a. So that was the JV model. Why are you doing a contingent placing too? That's a good question. We didn't necessarily need to do that, but the it was felt that it would only fair to allow existing shareholders to participate alongside the funding. And so what what we came up with was a a a placing at a at a penny with a accelerator warrant at 1.25p. What that means is that if anybody subscribes to this placing, an existing shareholder, you get the shares at a penny, you get a warrant at 1.251 for one warrant.

9:36 And if the share price trades on a ten day volume weighted average price above 1.5, then then you have a period, I believe, you've got to exercise that warrant or or lose that warrant. So if if if we have good news in the coming months, the share price rerates or starts to move upwards, then the you know, for for shareholders is that that they're in the money on the placing share, and potentially, can be in the money as well on their on the warrant exercise. So that's what we did in terms of the contingent placing and and why we did it. How do investors participate? So as you can see from the r and s, you can call the company broker, SI Capital. They can help facilitate the placing. If you're a client of SI, I believe it's easier. If you're not a client of SI, you can ask your broker to contact SI Capital, and they can provide instruction of of how you can participate in the placing. So close of business on Wednesday, I believe, is the last date that anybody can participate in the placing.

10:45 Next question. There are significant director fee conversions. What should we read from this? Well, again, I think to just to restate what I what I what what what what you can take from this is that directors, management are absolutely happy to waive the right to to cash remuneration and take equity of the same terms as what is being offered to everybody else. So to me, that is a great it's a great show of strength. It's a great show of support for our existing shareholders. And it's also a great display of confidence in that we believe, you know, we're on the right path. We gotta keep continuing. We gotta keep pushing through.

11:32 But there's a big prize at the other end of this. So and that gives me personally the will, the desire to want to be able to, you know, convert accrued fees because I believe the value of the equity is so much higher than the cash. Next question. Who is eGreen, and why doesn't it have a website? So eGreen is an environmental management consulting company in The Philippines. They have been contracted to do the environmental impact assessment leading to the environmental compliance certificate. So a bit let me give you go into a bit of permitting in The Philippines. So the history of this project, our previous partner, when we first had this project, was a company called RED MONTAIN. Australian company, ASX listed. They they they started hiring foreign consultants, foreign environmental companies, foreign engineering companies, spent well over $1,000,000 and were not able to achieve permitting.

12:28 So we've gone from a complete a completely different way of thinking. So with my knowledge of The Philippines, I understand that permitting is very much about knowing how to navigate bureaucracy, knowing how how to understand politics. It's not so much about having big singing dancing companies that are gonna charge you expensive fees. That's not gonna get the job done. So eGreen is an experienced company. It's in that does environmental compliance work, environmental impact assessments. Now, why did we choose them? Specifically, the reason why we chose them was because our contact inside of the environmental management bureau, the government office of the Philippines said, if you wanna get an environmental compliance certificate, this is the one. This is the accredited person.

13:13 These are the people that you use. So the fact that they have a website is neither here nor there. It makes no difference. The the important thing is that they have a a track record with the environmental management bureau. In fact, one of their partners is an ex environmental management bureau employee. That was another reason why we chose them because they know exactly how to navigate, and that's very important. Similarly, for the declaration of mining project feasibility, the previous partner, Red Mountain, spent over 1,000,000, hired, as I say, expensive consultants, expensive engineering companies, well known branded companies, and they couldn't get it. So, again, because it doesn't come down so much to the technicals, it's about the politics, it's about understanding how permitting really works. So what we've done to lead our declaration of mining project feasibility, we have taken a locally recommended mining engineer, his consulting company, and who's who's capable, who has done this before, is a lot cheaper than all these foreign companies. And he just so happens to be the nephew of the regional director of the Bureau of MINES. And so there you go. So that's another reason why we have done that. So, again, it it comes down to understanding permitting, what it really takes. That gives you a bit of insight into e green, who they are, why they have that.

14:31 I don't know why they don't have a website. Probably isn't really necessary, but they are accredited with the environmental management bureau. Next question. Has any farm out cash been allocated yet? If so, where? Yes. So money has been is being spent. Let's talk a bit more about Batangas because there's a lot more happening on the ground in Batangas than in Korea. So so far in Korea, everything again, there's nothing to do on the ground. Although we are investigating as per a recent r and s, how we can refurbish the adit at Cochang without the mountain temporary use permit. So that's being planned. There's some engineering work, contracting work being designed and planned planned for that one. In terms of of Gubong, there's some there's some discussion going on with a landowner who's amenable to a deal on his land there. But at the moment, the bulk of farm out cash is being spent in Batangas.

15:24 So, again, that's the process of the environmental impact assessment, the declaration of mining project feasibility, and all that that entails. So that's where the bulk of cash right now is being deployed by our local partner that will I think there's a question about that a bit later on. What's next for Batangas? Okay. So next for Batangas is to continue that well, the environmental impact assessment. So the environmental impact assessments takes place over two seasons. So wet season, dry season in terms of data collection. And the declaration of mining project feasibility, there's a number of technical aspects to that. One of which is we're looking at the non cyanide, not using cyanide in terms of processing gold. So cyanide is pretty much a standard, when it comes to processing in gold. The cyanide is very emotive.

16:13 Maybe it's overplayed. I I think it probably is overplayed, but it's very emotive. It makes it more difficult to get permits in The Philippines. So we're using a green solution, a non cyanide solution. So some metallurgy work that will be done on a on various ones, cyanide substitutes. So we've done that in Korea, actually, historically, and we got very similar recoveries, which was positive to to that of cyanide. Next question. What's the latest in South Korea? Well, I just gave you the latest in South Korea there. We're looking still at the the refurbishment of the edit and what's been happening there in in Gubong. Are you going to revisit the business case financials given the increase in the price of gold and silver? Good question. Yeah. We could do. So let's look at Batangas. I mean, Batangas had a pre feasibility study done. I think it was back in two thousand fourteen, fifteen. Obviously, the price of gold was very low back then. So the the economics of Batangas has been transformed.

17:16 Now, part of the declaration of mining project feasibility and the approval is an updated feasibility study. And that will be very detailed, you know, very refined, very accurate in terms of what is the project economics going to be. The project economics were attractive before, but they're gonna be a whole lot more attractive now when the declaration of mining project feasibility work concludes. So I'm I I don't know exactly what it's gonna be, but it's gonna be good. Of course, in Korea, we we know that the economics are very attractive in both Kochang and Gubong. Those were calculated previously on very low gold prices. We know where gold is today. It transforms the economics of the projects. It brings it brings breakeven on the projects, you know, forward significantly, materially.

18:01 So at some point in time, we we we will definitely do that. Of course, once we get the permits, we start moving into the construction phase. I think everyone's gonna be quite excited about the economics there. Next, what CapEx is required to get everything up and running? How quickly can we see revenue, and what is the anticipated revenue and profit margin? Well, I think we sort of touched on that. CapEx in in Batangas, first of all, with the declaration of mining project feasibility, we'll confirm this. My personal expectation is that the CapEx is gonna be sub $5,000,000 on the first 100,000 ounces. Very cheap. So I think that's gonna be very that that that's that's gonna be very good. The CapEx on Gubong, Kochang is basically a phased we we know we know at Kochang, $2,000,000 is more than adequate to bring about production in Kochang. And $5,000,000 in Gubong in Gubong will bring about initial production in Gubong as well. So those are some of the economics there. Next question.

19:06 Will you bring in offtake partners? Well, you know, so this is gold. Right? We're talking we're talking gold. You don't really need off take partners so much for gold. Gold is a is easy to sell. In The Philippines, you can sell gold to the central bank of the Philippines. In Korea, you can sell gold to the the Korean central bank. So selling gold is is not a challenge at all. So, typically, you look think about offtake partners. You would think about other other metals, you know, nickel and so forth. When you say big prize, what are we talking about and what's in our way? Well, the big prize is look. It's getting into it's getting gold out the ground. So if you let let's look at Batangas. First 100,000 ounces. Let's say cash cost is $600 an ounce, let's say. I think it's gonna be about that. Right? So right now, current gold prices, there's $2,000 of of of net profit. So figure that one out over a 100,000 ounces, figure it out over as the resource size reserve increases. It's a very, very big number. That's just Botangos alone.

20:13 So look. So the the price is is very big. I don't really focus so much on the big price. I focus about on how how how we get there. So, you know, what's in our way is well, processes. Right? Declaration of mining project feasibility, environmental compliance certificate, Batangas, Korea, mounted temporary use permit. You know, obviously, getting a land agreement, we we we'll do that that quite easily. I think in Gubong, you know, obviously, there's construction to go through. There's more metallurgy to go through. You know, there there's a number of I wouldn't call them obstacles that that we call them obstacles barriers or or or paths that we gotta walk down to get there. So that's that one. It was another question that somebody asked, who is the local partner? I don't know if I saw it somebody in in Batangas, the company called Alpha Diggers that was an SPV vehicle set up by the Rodriguez family.

21:03 I've been in mining for over fifty years. When I say mining, not so much mining exploration, producing mines. We've had some of the largest mines in The Philippines. So that was one of the reasons why we selected them as partners. I've known them for, you know, almost twenty years. So they understand the mining. They understand permitting. They they're very, very well connected within government. So that was one of the reasons why. So we've gone through all of the questions. And and if anybody wants to ask another one, you're welcome to do so. We've done it all in twenty two minutes. I don't know if that's a record. I don't know. Thanks very much, indeed. Thanks for covering off all those questions. Of course, as you say, any further questions that do come through, do please file them across because the team will be able to review those and publish responses where appropriate to do so on the investor meet company platform.

21:49 Perhaps, Hayden, before redirecting investors to give you their feedback, know particularly important to you and the team, could I just ask you for a few closing comments maybe? Yeah. Look. I I wanna thank everybody whose shareholders for their continued interest and support in in the in the company. You know, I I hope that you have the confidence to take part in the the placing component. You know, I think that would be that would be fantastic if you do. But look. The management's committed. We've demonstrated that by our conversions into equity. We're gonna keep, you know, pushing forward. Nothing is certain in this world as we know, but we are working absolutely hard. Hold on. Here's a question. What are the main reasons given by the authorities that the TMUP hasn't been issued so far? MTUP, Mountain Temper Use Permit. So okay. I hope couple more questions coming up here. So it doesn't really it doesn't really work like that. So it it's so they don't really say, oh, well, we're not issuing this.

22:48 You know, it's not sort of done so much formally as such. So it's basically they keep spinning around with questions, questions, questions, questions. What that basically means is they're not ready

22:57 to say yes. And then you gotta really kinda delve into to why, what needs to be done. This is where local partners are so much better than foreign foreigners in a place like Korea because you don't have to understand the nuances of culture and and and and so forth. So, again, as I say to you, permitting, any permitting, apart from exploration permitting, that's pretty easy. Permitting is really comes down to several factors. Politics, local, provincial, sometimes national, environmental, and social. So, basically, you know, if you think about this, right, who grants that mountain temporary use permit? The local government. Right? Who runs the local government? An elected official. What does the what does an elected official want to do? Make sure he gets reelected. Right? So he wants to make sure that everybody is gonna be on-site for this type of project. And also that he's completely satisfied environmentally that no one's gonna come back, you know, and bite him in the ass, basically.

23:52 So we so these are some of the things that we have to to to go through, which is normal in any permitting process. You never apply for a permit for production. And, you know, in your application, you get a, you know, a letter back fourteen days later. Thank you very much. Approved. Off you go. It never works like that. It's a process. Next question. Given the undervalued status of the shares, why not do a share buyback to clear up disbelievers? Yeah. Could do. You could do. But here, look. I I'd rather convert disbelievers to believers so people buy stock or buy more stock. You know? I think you've gotta look at the best use of capital. We we've we've we've we've announced funding of £350,000.

24:40 That'll keep us going until the last quarter of next year. Not sure it's a great idea if we would announce suddenly use some of that to buy back shares, but who knows? And thanks indeed for taking those last few questions. As said, is there anything further you wanna just wrap up with? Otherwise, we'll always send those investors to give you some feedback. Okay. Thank you very much. Lovely. Good day, everybody. That's fantastic. Can I please ask investors not to close the session? It's now automatically be redirected to provide your feedback in order Aiden and the team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete and is greatly valued by the company. Above of Aiden and BLUEBIRD MINING VENTURES LTD, I'd to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session, and good morning to you.

25:23 Hi.