British Columbia as a Mining Jurisdiction

0:12 All right. Well hello everyone and welcome to the BC mining panel hosted by 6. We are joined today by the leaders of 4 companies operating out of British Columbia. I'm pleased to welcome Dr. Fletcher Morgan the CEO and director of TDG Gold. Peter Espig CEO president and director of Nikola Mining. Mark Jarvis CEO and director of Github Metals and shortly will be joined by Claudia Turnquist, President and CEO and Director of Kodiak Copper. So in this discussion, we're going to explore what Mining and British Columbia has to offer each of these panelists respective companies and then we will open the floor to attend the Q&A. So as a reminder you can submit your questions at any time on the Q&A panel on the right hand side of the screen and we'll be sure to get to them after the discussion.

1:01 And of course the summit is being recorded and will be available to watch afterwards on SIX.com. But to kick things off, Dr. Thatcher Morgan, can you please introduce yourself and your company and describe some of the goals that you're excited to share. DR. THATCHER MORGAN Okay, thanks, Tasha. Well, good morning, everyone. I'm a white settler of English ancestry living as a guest on unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. I'm director and CEO of TDG Gold. We are a major holder of mineral claims and mining leases in the historical Tudorgon production corridor of North Central BC. We hold over 23,000 hectares of brownfield and greenfield exploration opportunities, either under direct ownership or earning.

1:46 And our flagship projects are the former producing high-grade silver, gold, gold-silver, Shasta, Baker, and Metz mines, which are all road accessible and produced intermittently from the 1980s through to 2012. And they have over 65,000 meters of historical drilling, which we've recompiled. And in 2021, we've been focused on drilling the Shasta project. And we expect to have completed sufficient drilling within the next month or so to publish an initial 43 101 mineral resource estimate for Shasta by the end of Q1 of 2022. And there's a lot of drilling activity underway in the Tudor Gorge, and we expect the camp to grow to over 5 million ounces of gold equivalent in the next few years. So it's an exciting time to be working in North Central BC. Great, thank you. You're Welcome. Next, Peter, can you introduce yourself?

2:33 Yeah, hi, my name is Peter Esbik. I'm the CEO, President and a Director of Nikola Mining. We took over the asset or I took over the control of the CEO position in 2013. And it was a very difficult time for the company where we went into CCAA, took it out of CCAA, and then have taken the company to the position where we are now. And I don't think the company's ever been in a better position. So we have 4 assets. The main asset for the long-term asset where we believe the value driver is the historic Craigmont mine, which is located adjacent to Highland Valley Copper.

3:19 It's had some very, it was at one point the highest grade copper mine in history in North America. The underground had grades of over 2%, average grades of 2% copper and the pit 1.3%. And we've had several intercepts of 100 meters grading approximately 1%. We also have Treasure Mountain Silver Mine, which is a permitted silver mine. We have a small mines permit on the mine and we continue to monitor silver prices and decide whether to bring that into production. And the thing that is really our cash flow generator is the mill site.

3:58 We are unique in that we purchase the land, so we own 900 acres, and on the 900 acres sits a $30 million processing facility specializing in gold and silver. And we're, I believe, the only mill in British Columbia permitted to accept material from any well else in the province. And we also have recently made a 50% acquisition into a project called Dominion. And Dominion, so that gives us a 75% economic interest and That's a high-grade gold property located in the Prince George region. And over the past year, we've kind of really focused on, my background is cash flows. I was an investment banker, so I understand the importance of cash flow, because otherwise You're always having to go back to the market to raise capital and our site, our mill site is generating cash flow right now, which gives the company a lot of stability because you never know how the markets are going to, whether they're gonna go up and down. And next year, we applied last year or this year, sorry, for a multi-year, MYAB multi-year permit to do exploration on the Craigmont site, and we hope to get that approved next year for Craigmont and to commence a larger exploration program. Great, Thank you so much. Mark, can you please introduce yourself and Giga Metals?

5:19 Sure. I'm Mark Jarvis. I'm CEO and a director of Giga Metals. We've got a very large, low-grade, open-pittable, sulfide, nickel, and cobalt deposit about 60 kilometers west, or pardon me, east of Dease Lake in north central British Columbia. We're also exploring for sedimentary copper in Brazil, but we're here mostly to talk about today. So our deposit is in territory claimed by both the Tallpan and the Cascadena, both of whom we consider to be completely legitimate claimants to the area.

6:09 And, you know, it's interesting, you know, we've, you know, as a large low-grade deposit, we're, you know, we will never be the low-cost producer, but we're among the large undeveloped deposits of nickel and cobalt in the world.

6:25 And interest has come back just in recent years, and it seems to be accelerating in both nickel and cobalt due to the rise of electric vehicles. And so there's a whole new source of demand that is growing incredibly rapidly.

6:41 And a lot of large deposits will have to be brought on stream in the next, well, by 2040, they estimate that it could be 40 to 70 new large deposits will be needed just for the battery business. So it's exciting times for us, you know, from a very quiet time following the crash of 08 and then the re-crash of after 2011, you know, suddenly there's money available. We've been very active drilling and so forth, doing metallurgy and engineering to bring this deposit along as far as we can. Great, thank you so much. And welcome, Claudia. Can you introduce yourself and Kodiak Copper?

7:28 Thank you, Dasha. Thank you, everybody, for calling in. My name is Claudia Tornquist. I'm the CEO of Kodiak Copper. Kodiak is a copper exploration company. Our most advanced project is in British Columbia, a project called MPD.

7:49 I should mention the founder and chairman of Kodiak is Chris Taylor, whom many of you will know from our sister company, Great Bear, fantastic discovery success. Kodiak is following in the footsteps. We were fortunate just about a year ago to be able to announce a discovery at our MPD project in British Columbia. That was a real transformative event for the company. We were able to raise $12.7 million. Tech resources became our largest shareholder. And that set us up for a large drill program at MPD. In fact, the largest ever on the property by far and away. We are drilling around about 20,000 meters this year.

8:38 Started earlier in the year. I'm still busy drilling with 2 drill rigs. We've had some results already, which expanded

8:49 significantly on our original discovery. And we have lots more results coming and are still drilling. So very exciting and busy times for Kodiak. Great. Well, thank you. And welcome to all of our panelists. So this discussion is about BC and I'm wondering what you all think is the most attractive aspect of mining in British Columbia. I throw this to Peter first. Well, I mean, first of all, British Columbia has been is and will continue to be the mining hub of the world when it comes to professionals, when it comes to the ability of raising capital. I mean, British Columbia is the place where people raise capital for projects all over the world. Another thing is that we've got great, we have great infrastructure, as it was mentioned, a lot of these projects are close to highways, close to power, we have cheap mining costs. So I think one of the things that I would just say about British Columbia is that when people, there's often a large emphasis on grades when you have drill intercepts and what the grades of how many meters of X percent are copper. But the reality is that BC is a cheaper mining jurisdiction

10:04 to mine. And so, you know, the same grades in British Columbia are more profitable here than they are in other jurisdictions in the world. Great, Thank you. Claudia, any other thoughts? I would also just highlight the basics, which to us working in BC, probably we just take them for granted. But in many other jurisdictions, you don't have those in place. And those are, it's just a safe place to work. There's no security issues. There's

10:35 no corruption. There is a rule of law. Like all these sort of really basic ingredients that makes a region a favorable region that makes BC rank highly in the Fraser Institute's ranking of mining jurisdictions, those building blocks are just in place. So you never have to worry about that. And many investors rate that highly. They say we want to invest in places where there are ESG concerns, where there is corruption, et cetera, they want to invest in safe and stable jurisdictions such as BC. Absolutely. Thatcher?

11:13 Sure, yeah. I'd like to echo what the other panelists have said so far and just add a few other ideas. For us it's been the government support and resources from the geological databases, the assessment report databases, you know, the ability to stake claims online and hold tenure. And also the other ministry resources. I think it's important to emphasize

11:37 how valuable to us having access to exploration tax credits are and the flow through share financing options that are available to us in B.C. The improving First Nations engagement recognition I think is really important. Working where possible with First Nations owned and operating businesses now to build sustainable exploration and mining operations that leverage their capabilities and knowledge of their traditional territories. I think that's really important. And then finally, something that's just starting to happen now, we're starting to see more and more, is obviously

12:12 bringing on on stream hydro power, hydroelectric power to help make sure that not only are our mining operations affordable and competitive with anywhere in the world, but also green and sustainable. Wonderful. Thank you. And, Mark, anything else? Yeah, all of the above. But in addition, you know, there's something in BC and, you know, and in Canada that's both a challenge and an advantage as far as we're concerned. And that's the very high environmental standards that we have. It's not a trivial matter to take particularly a large open pit deposit through the environmental assessment process and through the permits.

12:58 But it's done all the time in Canada. And so it's a challenge, but particularly for the, you know, because of the commodities that we're involved with that are feeding to electric vehicles, it's an advantage because If you're buying an electric vehicle and you're thinking, well, I want to save the planet by buying an electric vehicle.

13:24 Well, it really all depends on where the materials that go into that electric vehicle are sourced. And if those materials are sourced in Canada in general, and BC in particular, you can feel very good about the environmental standards of what you're buying. But also the social standards, our level of engagement in British Columbia with First Nations is very high. And also, you know, this was raised earlier by Fletcher, you know, the access to hydroelectric power, You know, our goal at the Turnagain deposit is to ultimately have a carbon neutral nickel mine, which compares extremely well, particularly to alliterate deposits and so forth, you know, that are other sources of nickel. They're extremely high in carbon intensity.

14:21 So it's a challenge, but it's also a benefit, ultimately. Great. Thank you so much. All right. Well, I'll throw this next question back to you, Mark. How do you think that BC compares to other Canadian or North American jurisdictions? Well I think the Fraser Institute rates Saskatchewan as the highest and Quebec as the second best in Canada. But BC is pretty good, actually. And it's interesting, I had an opportunity to meet years ago John Horgan, who's the current premier of the province. We've got an NDP government, a left-wing government here.

15:02 But he, at the time, was the critic for the National Resources File. And when I met him, I thought he was very smart and he understood his portfolio extremely well. He understood

15:17 First Nations issues, the necessity to engage meaningfully with First Nations. But he also understood that if you want good blue collar jobs, high paid jobs, you need to encourage the mining business. And so there were previous NDP governments in British Columbia that had a reputation for hurting the mining business. I think the current government is quite different under Horgan's leadership. So

15:48 it's a pretty good place to do business. Great. Thank you. Fletcher, what are your thoughts? Oh, yeah. I think BC is obviously socially conscious. It's competitive. But we think there's always room for improvement. Quebec is a prime example where the Quebec institutions readily support their mining industry with financing. We'd like to see more support from B.C. Institutions for the operations that we've got underway and the ambitions that we've got. We'd also, I think, like to see more R&D support from the government. For example, Australia, we're aware now, has done a great job with sponsoring industry and research, but a couple of key areas where I think BC is starting to get it right and actually put itself ahead of the curve.

16:34 I mean it's adoption of UNDRIP and and also now fast tracking of permitting for production where there's clear and obvious support and benefits from for not just the investors but local communities and businesses and the wider stakeholders. So I think BC is heading in the right direction. We feel very privileged to be able to operate here.

16:53 We are ourselves looking at other jurisdictions in South America where we would like to operate in the future and really using BC as more of a template as to what we expect to see. That sort of socially conscious approach to the minimal distraction industry. Great, thank you. Claudia, how do you think BC compares?

17:17 I had an interesting conversational experience a little while ago with a US-based advisor where Kodiak has a second project in Arizona. And this lady said, I think BC, Canada, has 5 or 10 years ahead

17:39 of Arizona when it comes to community engagement, First Nations or tribal engagement. I was surprised at that time when he said that. But my experience certainly is that British Columbia is leading the pack there. The First Nations with whom we engage, they are really on the ball. They are set up used to dealing with mining companies. They have deep expertise in geology. They have the technical consulting arms. And are really set up to work with mining companies and are a pleasure to work with. And my experience in Arizona certainly is that there is less capacity and less experience at PSDB.

18:25 And there is engagement, of course, but I think BC has been at the forefront there for longer, and is really leading the pack there. And I think that's important. That's great. Peter, I have one of your thoughts. Yeah, I mean, I thought Everybody had very good and pertinent comments. I think that what I find interesting in British Columbia that I believe makes us somewhat unique even in Canada is that there's a difference between the political side of putting, you know, like rules or policies out and the community actually implementing them. And what I see in British Columbia that is very unique is that, for example, UNDRIP.

19:21 So we, it's interesting because UNDRIP is really effectively being used on British Columbia and the government has put out a lot of policies. And I agree with Mark in that the NDP has been actually a very good government to work with when it comes to mining in the province. But

19:42 what's really surprised me over the past 2 years is the speed and efficiency that First Nations and the tribal councils, the bands directly have become experts in understanding what their concerns are and what they support and how to work together. And I think that they're actually further ahead than the government. So we're kind of in this environment right now where it's very easy to work with the communities, work with First Nations, work with stakeholders, interesting parties.

20:22 And it makes it quite easy for us as a company, for Nikola Mining, to understand what the expectations are that they have for us to do, to complete. Thank you. So we talked a lot about the benefits of mining in British Columbia, but can we just talk about some of the challenges that you're faced with by operating in British Columbia? I'll turn to Claudia. Well, The first thing that comes to mind this year is the weather with wildfires, droughts, and so on. But in general, I would say I would turn this point on its head, particularly in South British Columbia where we are. The weather actually is very amenable for exploration and mining.

21:13 And unlike other jurisdictions, it's quite temperate. There is not much snow. It's not very cold. Neither is it super hot in the summer. So you can very easily work year round. And that's certainly a big benefit. Peter, I'll throw it to you next. Yeah, I think the biggest challenge that we face, and I should say, I believe mining companies face, is that really we have 4 ministries that we have to deal with. So we have to deal with FLNRA, which is a Ministry of Forestry, Lands, Natural Resources, Operations and Rural Development. We have to deal with the Ministry of Environment. And then we have to deal with the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon innovation.

22:02 And within the Ministry of Mines, there's the regional and then there's the Victoria, which is the large mines. And in general, there's a lack of communication between the ministries when it comes to projects. So I think it'd be good to see the ministries facilitate transparency in the communication that they have with one another, because often we're answering the same questions to 2 or 3 different ministries.

22:35 Other than that, we haven't really faced a challenge, but it's more an administrative challenge. Of course. Mark, any challenges you can think of? Well, I guess the one recommendation I would make to the province is that they should probably invest more in the permitting department. You know, it could be faster. And it's not that people that work there lack confidence. They're very confident. It's just there's not enough of them. And things are picking up. I mean, if you look at the price of copper, the price of gold, the price of nickel, et cetera, you can expect a lot of exploration in British Columbia over the next few years.

23:25 And so I would just recommend, it's an investment, staff up, the province will benefit from that. So there's my recommendation. All right, thank you. Fletcher. I have a list. Look, this year operationally, there've been bottlenecks on permitting that Mark just mentioned. We're also experiencing delays at the laboratories for sampling assay. That's obviously holding up our progress because it's nice to have that information to hand to actually then refine your drill programs as you go along. So I'd like, you know, clearly we're in a cyclical industry and that means that lab capacity doesn't tend to exist when, you know, there's not so much going on and then it's slow to catch up when things are getting good again.

24:19 I think we'd like to see more labs, more lab capacity certainly opening up. And as I've already mentioned, I think we'd like to see more support from BC financial institutions. And I mentioned certainly on the government side, working hand in hand with industry on on research and development. I think that's really important. But like everywhere I think at a high level you know in B.C. There's obviously a lot of competition for accessibility to land. Whilst at the same time respecting First Nations parks wilderness areas and other resource industries like forestry and tourism. And we ourselves are always trying to strike that balance between advancing our projects and putting as many dollars as we can into the ground, whilst also balancing that with the needs and wishes of local communities and businesses.

25:10 Ultimately trying to strike that balance so that we're always doing what's in the best interest of all stakeholders, doing things in the right way so that they're sustainable and in partnership so that people want to continue to work with us. And our mission as a company is to leave our projects better than we found them. And so taking that longer term view on things is not always commensurate with how this industry operates. It's either all on or all off. We'd like to see much more of a happy medium and we're looking to BC institutions to try and help support that. You know, If I can add something to what Fletcher said, the backup at the assay labs is not just in BC, it's kind of everywhere.

25:56 Another aspect that we found challenging this year was basically a labor shortage. Wow, it was hard to get drilling crews. You know, we managed to do it, but I guess it's related to COVID and then suddenly things are heating up in our business. And I heard stories and I can't verify the accuracy because I wasn't there but in Terrace which is sort of a central airport you know drilling crews will fly into Terrace and then they get taken out by you know float plane or fixed wing or helicopter to the mining camps. I heard that there was people in Terrace and they say to the drill crew, okay, well, you're going to Company A to drill.

26:44 I want you to go to Company B and here's a $5,000 bonus if you do it. I mean literally the labor shortages were like that. And so you know and I think one of the solutions is to offer training particularly to the local communities and particularly the First Nations, drilling is well-paid. And so we're trying to engage, particularly with Pekowska, to offer money for training. And let's get more drillers available, because I don't think things are slowing down. I think we're speeding up. Thank you. Well, so as experts in the jurisdiction, How do you all see the interest in British Columbia evolving in the future? And what should investors be excited about in British Columbia?

27:38 I'll pass this to you, Fletcher, to kick things off. FLETCHER Yeah, for the reasons that my fellow panelists have already mentioned, I think the future for BC looks extremely encouraging. I think we're doing a lot of things right. I've said there's an awful lot of things I think we can still improve. I like Mark's comments there about investing in people. I think that's gonna be a really key area that if we work together and certainly work together with local communities and their businesses that over the next 10 to 20 years, we can see an industry that I think we'll all be very collectively proud of. Just looking at what the TOLTAN has achieved in the Red Criss area in terms of employment and opportunities is just nothing short of remarkable. And so I think that's something that we need to embrace and continue to support. I think we're starting to attract the international major companies back into the region.

28:34 For example, again, that Red Crest, New Crest investment. I think we want to see more majors coming back in and getting involved and supporting the revisiting and revisioning of historical projects. And areas that were previously thought of through 1 paradigm. They're seeing this revisioning of current metal prices. And a great example of that is what we're doing in the Tudor gone, where it was already known in the 1990s that there was surrounding the high grade and ultra high grade that the small scale operations were targeting that there were these mineralized halos of medium grade and you know that lend themselves now to bulk tonnage operations. And so working in partnerships with local businesses to try and bring those projects back on stream is something I think all investors should be extremely excited about because it's it's not like we're having to go off and make new discoveries in B.C. We have this wealth of mineral endowment that we can still tap into if we go about it in the right way and work in partnerships.

29:40 Great, thank you. Mark, what do you think? Oh, I think British Columbia has a lot of geology and so both what Fletcher was talking about, but there's new discoveries made. In fact, there's new discoveries being made, you know, even in old places. We were talking about this earlier, you saw in the hole that Northwest Copper put out today. Holy smokes, that's a big hole. And I don't recall ever seeing a hole with that grade over that kind of interval in my career. And that was drilling in the middle of a known low-grade copper porphyry deposit.

30:26 So, you know, it's just so much geology here and there's, you know, you can't be surprised unless you make a drill turn. So, I mean, let's just, you know, drill on, baby. All right, Peter, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think I'm getting, kind of following up on Fletcher's comment, there was a period where a lot of the majors were pulling out of British Columbia, and I think that part of that was due to frustrations with regards to permitting and the length of how long it took to get permitting, but you're seeing that become a global issue. So, you know, we're not, it doesn't necessarily take longer in British Columbia to get permits than it does Peru, Chile or in other jurisdictions.

31:17 So, what the majors are starting to realize is that BC is there for business and you need patience. And in the meantime, the companies that are operating here such as Nikola being one of them, is we've learned to become better at transparency and and we continue to grow as a company but you know the it's it's part of the getting the approval and the permit approval is having people understand exactly what what you're going to be doing and what the potential risks and mitigants of that project are. And so we've become much better at being transparent with the community, with First Nations, with various groups. And I think that's being recognized by majors that British Columbia, and as Claudia said, we are several years ahead compared to other jurisdictions because we had to be.

32:15 And so I think you're going to see, you know, continued, you know, augmenting, augmentation of transparency. And what really excites me about British Columbia as well is that, you know, there's been a lot of drilling exploration done in British Columbia over the decades, but at the same time there are new technologies that have come into play that augment the effectiveness of drilling. It's not just about putting steel in the ground, it's about doing a Z-TEM survey, your electromagnetic surveys, your IP surveys, and putting them all together, and that expertise really exists here. So I look at the Nicola Art Project, which we have 10,000 hectares adjacent to Trans Mountain. And this is on the site of a historic copper mine, and there was no exploratory exploration done outside of that pit. So there's a lot of opportunity in this province.

33:15 All right, Thank you. And Claudia, how do you see interest in VC evolving? A lot of good points from my fellow speakers. I would echo all of them. What excites me and what I really think will increase interest in VC going forward is just its leading role in ESG. Because this is becoming more and more important to investors, to corporates. And BC's just got it right there. I have a little anecdote that really illustrates that. We just recently, Kodiak, strengthened its board with a lady, Dana Eagle, who has strong expertise in First Nations and indigenous relations.

34:01 And when we announced that appointment, our phone absolutely ran off the hook. We had more people call, like, we had our phone didn't stop ringing with people congratulating us on the appointment. And that just shows to me that shareholders, investors, corporates care. And that bodes well for BC because really BC is a leader in the ESG arena. Great. That's wonderful. Well, speaking of First Nations, what First Nations are each of your companies engaging with and what is that relationship like? And I'll throw it to you, Claudia. We engage with 21 First Nations all together, some of them individuals, Some of them are represented by umbrella organizations.

34:51 And of those 21, some we just keep informed. We send them our plans. We then send them several times a year what we then did. And some of the First Nations, maybe 5 or 6 of the closest ones, we engage with in more detail. We meet. We meet with the chiefs. We meet with the chief. Present at the chief and council meetings. They give us their input. And they also provide services to us. We contract with them. We actually hired some First Nations employees. So, there's a degree of different levels of engagement.

35:39 Some more intensively, some less. But, yeah, we engage frequently and with a large number of First Nations groups. Thank you. Peter? Yeah, just a point that Claudia brought up that is, I think, really important for mining companies in British Columbia is that we need to embrace ESG and that's just a reality of not just a business reality but a moral reality. And so we've also hired, We have Vesta Filipchuk who was Indigenous Relations Head for Tech Resources who works with us.

36:24 We recently hired a full-time ESG member and one of her roles is to communicate as well, to make sure that communication with the First Nation stakeholders and parties of interest are given high priority. So we deal with, so we have 2 assets, so the main 2 assets. So we have the Craigmont site, and then we have Treasure Mountain. So if you combine the 2, we deal with 31 bands. And they're similar to Kodiak, we deal with them both on a band level, we deal with them on a council level, and then association level and also tribal council level. And, but they're the, the expectations or the, the communications are quite consistent.

37:18 And so it makes it easier for us. And we continue to embrace that and to keep those relationships and to build on them. Okay, thank you. Mark? We primarily deal with the Talltan and the Kaskadena. They've got overlapping claims right where we are. And the Talltan, no doubt, have control of the access to our property and the Cascadena are downstream. The Turnagain River flows north to the Arctic. And so both are certainly legitimate players. There is some question about Treaty 8.

38:08 We keep Treaty 8 informed. I think it's still sort of tied up in courts whether they've got any say in what happens in our area. But really primarily we're dealing with the people that live there. And Both the Tall Town and the Cascadena, I mean the Tall Town are getting rich off of mining. They understand the business. They've got a lot of very skilled people that can do everything from building roads to drilling to metallurgy and so forth. The Kaskadena are coming along very rapidly.

38:55 They can see what's happening. They can see the money to be made. And I'm reminded, I recall a community meeting probably 10 years ago at Telegraph Creek, which is Telegraph Creek is kind of the mothership for the Talltown. And talking with a lot of elders there in a community meeting, you know, there's always a couple of elders that are against mining. But in this case, they were by far in the minority. Most of the elders were very interested in economic development in their territories because they wanted young people to be able to stay in the territories and raise families in the territories without having to go somewhere else to get a job.

39:41 So, you know, and in the 10 years since then, that philosophy has certainly paid off for them. Yeah in general I feel very lucky. Where we are, the people that we're dealing with there, you know, they want to be treated fairly and I think that that's always a good thing if you treat people fairly and Deal with them respectfully It just makes life better for everybody including us so Absolutely and Fletcher what about with TDG Gold? So working in partnership with First Nations has been something we've done from the outset.

40:28 We deal with 4 First Nations, the Tolten, the Seke Dene, the Kwadatja and the Takla. 3 of those, the Séké Déné, the Takla and the Kodatcha, historically form a group called the Séké Né. So effectively we're dealing with 2 key groups. We have opportunity sharing agreements in place with them and also communications agreements. Those agreements mean that not only do we have to maintain regular contact, which we do, but we also have to prioritise our commitments, prioritise them for business opportunities and work opportunities. We brought on board in June this year, a lady called Kristy Smith, who is an MBA and herself of Comox First Nation Heritage.

41:14 She's our VP, sustainability, and she's helped ingrain and embed that vision for working in partnership within TDG. And I'm pleased to say that the First Nations businesses that we've been working with this season have done everything for us from camp management to restructuring our camp, through to all of our logistics. They're working in partnership with our drilling companies and they are undertaking increasing numbers of services. So our environmental monitoring, and We're operating a permitted mine area. We have 3 mining leases and those were recently extended with First Nations support, 2 of them to 2050, so 30 years with First Nations support. So that commitment goes 2 ways with TDG and the groups we're working with.

42:03 And we're seeing them through this year start to invest in their own capacity building. It's not just First Nation local community members that have come to work at TDG's facilities. It's also they're bringing in talented young people who are thoughtful and socially conscious and looking to help grow and build businesses. So that entrepreneurial spirit we're seeing I think in total we will have invested over 2 million dollars into a combination of services that First Nations owned and operating businesses have provided to us. And next year, we're looking forward to streamlining those services, working even more closely with them, and handing, you know, and obviously devolving even more responsibility for the aspects of the day-to-day operations over to those businesses because they've done an incredible job this year.

42:55 We've been so impressed and it made it very easy to work in the Tudor in that part of North Central BC. So fantastic group of people and really, really forward looking. And I've learned I personally have learned an awful lot this year. Wonderful. Thank you. I'm just going to go around and ask what are the upcoming milestones that you're looking forward to this year that you'd like to share with investors before we move on and open the floor up to the attendee questions here. And I'll start with you, Peter. Yeah, so when you say milestone 2022, what we expect or hope to accomplish. Anything upcoming? Yeah so we've started to so our mill site is generating revenues right now which we're very excited about and you know it's been it you know projects get delayed so we finally gotten to the point where we're sustainable with our revenues and I think that we would let you know having those revenues and not having to go to the to capital markets to to you know drive exploration is is a blessing and we plan to utilize that in our 2022 program, which is going to be a larger program that we've had up recently. And so we're waiting, we expect to do a Z-TEMP survey in May and then after that we'll commence exploration diamond drilling at

44:26 the Craigmont site and then we'll review, We hope to in 2022 also have bring the Dominion property into their bulk sample permit, which we will then process at our mill site as well. Great, thank you so much, Claudia. Well, for Kodiak, it's easy. What's coming up are drill results, lots of them. We're drilling with 2 rigs around 20,000 meters and have less than half of the results so far of what we've drilled so far. And of course, drill rigs are still turning, so until late in the year, so more to come. So we've so far expanded our discovery at the Gate loan to just under a kilometre in length, and still drilling, so lots more to come.

45:15 And then for next year, we have a similarly sized program planned that we did this year. So we'll be motoring full steam ahead. Wonderful, thank you. And Fletcher. Well, Gasha, it's been a big year for TDG this year. And I think it's gonna be a bigger year for TDG next year and it kicks off in BC with our drill results. We will have completed 8,000 to 10,000 meters of oriented core focused on our Shasta mining lease. We expect to publish that over the coming months. We've had no drill results, despite the fact that we've had the drills turning since August. And that effort then culminates in what we expect will be the publication of our initial mineral resource estimate for Shasta by the end of Q1 in 2022.

46:04 And then we use that as a springboard into our 2022 BC program, which we expect to be bigger at Shasta, but also then to start to include work on our other mining leases, that's Baker and our Metz mining lease. And then further afield, we've also announced our intention to acquire an advanced exploration silver-gold project in Chile. And if we're successful with that, it will mean that we will become an all-year-round explorer. That project that we're hoping to acquire should be through its PEA by the end of Q1 2022 and then on to feasibility. So, TDG is looking to grow not just in terms of its operating footprint in the Tudor gone region of BC, but also now down into South America and position ourselves as a silver focus developer of precious metals assets, pure play precious metals, silver, gold. So it's going to be exciting.

47:05 I can't wait. Great. And Mark? Well, we've just finished a work program up at our property this year that's designed to gather all the data we need to advance our property to the pre-feasibility level. And so infill drilling, geotechnical drilling, and lots and lots of other types of work. So we'll be getting drill results. I don't know when, because as we've talked about, the assay labs are backed up. I'm not expecting too many results because it is in filter or too many surprises because it's in filter only. But it's all going to fold into, you know, pre feasibility study that we're expecting in the third quarter of next year.

47:53 But it brings up something else that's a potential milestone is that when you're a small company and you've got a monstrously big deposit such as this, every step of development is extremely expensive. And just the sheer amount of drilling being done, you know, the sheer volume of metallurgical test work and so forth. And you know, at some point you need a partner. And we are in active discussions with end users, not necessarily mining companies, but battery companies, trading companies that deal with battery companies, even car companies are starting to look. It's quite interesting. The Chinese right now dominate the battery business, and they're building mines to supply themselves with all of the critical battery metals and that gives them a competitive advantage. They're building mines that are uneconomic in Western terms, but it captures a long-term supply at the cost of production.

49:03 And the Western battery makers are starting to wake up that they need to do something similar. Anyways, we're looking to attract a partner at the project level, rather than at the equity stock level. And I can tell you that we've got many discussions underway. I'm not saying that anything's gonna happen tomorrow, but that is a milestone that will, will I believe happen sometime in the not too distant future. And I just want to mention one other milestone. And I don't have the time frame on it, but it gets right back to what Peter was saying at the beginning of this discussion, where being in British Columbia, we've got access to so many professionals.

49:50 I mean, this is like the Silicon Valley of mining in British Columbia and in Vancouver. Part of that is the University of British Columbia. We're dealing with someone named Dr. Greg Dippel there, who has been studying CO2 sequestration and silicate tailings for about 16 years. And we and other companies are helping to fund his research and he's been doing test work on Turnagain material to measure the rates of CO2 uptake and all sorts of elements of that. So we're able to have actual hard data when we look into designing our K-Links facility and how much CO2 we could sequester, whether we could possibly at some time get that certified so that we could claim carbon credits for it. So having access to people like Dr. Dippel is just a treat.

50:56 He's a world leader in this kind of research. And so I don't know the timing, but we've done some test work. We've announced the results. We'll continue to work with Dr. Dippel, continue to help to fund his research. And we'll just see where that all leads. All right, Thank you all so much. We're going to open the floor to these attendee questions here because a few have come in. We have a question from Simon asking which company is planning for excavation mining? Approximately how much extraction, please? And for this it's just open forum. Whoever wants to answer, feel free. So look, let me just tell you what our kind of vision is for our Shasta project. We'd like to drive it through to a production decision around the 2024, 2025 kind of time frame. It is in a permitted mine area. It's currently permitted reclamation enclosure.

51:50 We're doing everything we can right now, not just to advance, obviously, on the technical side, the geological side, but also to make sure that we're doing all the environmental monitoring so that we can, at the point that we understand the economics and potential of the opportunity to then start having detailed dialogues about upgrading that permit to active mine status. We are thinking of it currently as an open pit operation. That's very much in line with the revisioning of what you're seeing in our area. Benchmark Metals is next door to us. There was a historical mine there operating for the lawyers mine. And they've revisioned it. Benchmark has revisioned it now as a large open pit style operation where they've characterized 2.9 million ounces gold equivalent and expected to go to 4 million ounces over from the drill program they've run this season.

52:44 We're doing something similar. We put out a geological resource target resource of 1 to 1.5 million ounces earlier this year. And we're looking to try and achieve something similar in terms of an open pit style operation. So in terms of tonnage, Anything from 5,000 to 10,000 tons a day would be something that we'd be looking to ultimately get to. That may not just be Shasta. As I've mentioned, we've got a couple of other mining leases. Metz Mining Lease, which is embedded within the area of Thesis Gold that's drilling its ranch property. We've got a mining lease right in the middle, and it has an historical resource slash reserve of just under half a million tons at 11.3 grams a ton open pittable. So we're looking to try and bring these things together and we believe that that area will be consolidated.

53:36 It lends itself to having some kind of centralized milling complex and under those circumstances you know you could be looking at something from 4 to 5 million tons per annum running through a centralized mill. Does that give a sense of what we're trying to achieve? Yeah, absolutely. I hope that answers the question. If not, feel free to follow up. We have a question here from it's for it's from Kate. It's for Peter, but I'm going to open up to all of the panelists Do you have any thoughts on how to advance the capacity of First Nations and other areas that might not? Be as advanced with their knowledge of mining and concerns related to the development in their territories? Yeah, I mean, so just to add something that Dr. Fletcher mentioned, so like, this is, Nicola has the following plans when it comes to production.

54:32 So we have our mill, which is permitted and is currently finishing up operations for 2021. That is permitted to do 60,000 tons of production a year. And we have entered into milling and partnership agreements with third parties to bring the material to our site and process. When it comes to our Treasure Mountain mine, there's 1 stope that we are looking at exploring the option of whether of when to reopen the mine and extract the stone. Now when it comes though to the Craigmont mine itself, it's still in exploration so that's it's going to be a while from there. So now getting to the question on what NICLA is doing or what we with the First Nations and especially specifically with groups that don't have the infrastructure to really analyze data or concerns or the permitting process.

55:38 That's something that, and that's why we've recently hired staff for this specific purpose, is because the, you know, transparency has, I mentioned transparency, transparency has 2 meanings. So one is you're transparent on information, but 2 is they have to understand what the information means. So we need to make sure that it's put in a way and have the communication there so that the information that we're providing transparency about and it's not just it's not just the having groups like tribal councils or First Nations try to understand what is incorporated into our permit applications. It's actually about the whole site.

56:29 They should understand exactly whether it's our reclamation policies, whether it's our water testing or dust testing, we need to have transparency for everyone. And so we do send the information to, we reached out to all 31 groups. We will continue to hold in great importance the giving the information to the tribal councils and the associations and again, continue to learn because there is always room for improvement and we continue to do that. Okay, thank you. Does anyone have anything to add to that? No, and in fact, I have to apologize. I've got quite a tight schedule today. I've got a board meeting starting right now. So I'm going to have to sign off and thank you for the opportunity, Dasha, to talk to everybody and very nice being on this panel with all of you.

57:28 I've learned quite a lot. Nice to see you. I was wondering if you were working before. All right, well, Thank you. And I guess with that I will close things up because we are just 2 minutes out. I know I didn't get a chance to ask all of the questions, but I'll make sure that your questions are directed to the appropriate, or to all the panelists, and hopefully they'll be able to follow up and answer them directly. But I just want to thank all our panelists today for the great discussion and of course thank you to everyone who attended and asked great questions and I hope everyone has a great rest of their day.