Transcript
Automated transcript · Written by software from the replay's audio. It can mishear names and figures; the replay is the record.
0:08 Hello everyone, welcome to today's live summit with Bunker Hill. I'm pleased to introduce their CEO, Sam Ash, as well as their CFO, David Weins. The team's going to be reviewing some of the latest news from Bunker Hill and afterwards take some of your questions live if you have any, in which case you can submit using the Q&A chat on the right-hand side of your screen at any time today. And as always, this event is being recorded, of course, so if you want to take a look at this later, you can go on six.com and find it. Without further ado, Sam, David, I wanna hand things over to you to get us started.
0:37 Thanks a lot, Cam. And we've been doing these kind of monthly updates and project updates here at Bunker Hill, But we thought it would be a good idea just before Christmas to share really quite a significant milestone with everybody. And that's the breakthrough of our 1800 foot decline between the 5 and 6 levels. And you can see on the slide here why that's so important to us because with that breakthrough we now have rubber-tired mining access to the first 3 years of mineralization in our pre-feasibility study. So really you know this marks a key milestone which demonstrates that really from a mining perspective and a preparation for delivering or at a sustainable rate to the processing facility, you know, we are well on track and ahead of schedule to be able to support that successful restart at Bunker Hill. So, can't say how important this milestone is for us. The teams here at Bunker Hill have been working for a long time, most of this year, on achieving this milestone, And I can't be happier with this breakthrough and what it represents for us, both from a project timeline perspective, but also for an opportunity to begin the process of resource conversion and operational readiness in the underground environment.
2:11 The demolition of the processing plant is really kind of wrapping up this week. The building is down and the materials are being moved off site. And that's going to pave the way for the initiation of civil work early in the new year. We've also finalized the design for the pre-engineered mill building, and we'll be going out and securing a build slot for that over the next couple of weeks. Process plant engineering is really nearing completion very, very quickly. You can see here some of the final GNA drawings and detailed drawings associated with that processing plant and couldn't be happier with the technical progress of the engineering associated with the processing plant. That's going very, very well.
3:11 As always, we are on track and all things go for an operational restart in late Q3, early Q4 next year. So really just wanted to take this opportunity
3:25 before everybody breaks away and enjoys the holiday season to let everyone know that here at Bunker Hill, we're going into the Christmas season, having achieved a milestone that we've been working very hard at for quite some time and are very excited about the opportunities that that presents, and the milestone it represents along the way towards the operational restart. Thank you very much and we'll take any questions. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys for the great presentation, short and sweet. But yeah, if anyone in the audience has any questions, please submit them now in the Q&A chat. You know, Sam, David, it's coming into the new year. You know, what would you guys identify as being the most exciting element of this news though? The thing to walk away from if you're an attendee or a shareholder?
4:13 Well, I think, I think for me, what this represents is, you know, demonstration of yet another key milestone, that this team has achieved on the pathway towards a successful restart of the Bunker Hill mine. This demonstrates that We have the team in place that can deliver on the milestones and the timeline that we put out to deliver. Going back to earlier this year with the demobilization and relocation of the processing plant ahead of schedule under budget. Now the successful breakthrough and access to the first 3 years of mineralization in the mine plan, carrying on with the progress that's being made on the mill building demolition and moving into the construction phase.
5:04 I think you're looking at a project that has momentum, has an increasing amount of momentum and a clear path forward to bring this mine into production. All right, well, fair enough, absolutely. Listen, gentlemen, doesn't look like there's a, oh well actually, Michael is wondering if you could give more details about a $5 million loan facility with Sprott Royalty. I'm happy to take that one, Cam. So the $5 million loan has closed. We news released that about a week or 2 ago and use of proceeds as per the news release were to really settle the final outstanding balance with the EPA, which is, we haven't talked about on this call but which is a huge milestone and means a lot to to us to be you know finally have that off our balance sheet and and you know the partnership with the EPA is extremely important to us so big milestone on the financial side there. That is closed
6:06 as per the news release in which we originally announced it. That is envisaged to be paid back from the stream which we're continuing to work towards in the first quarter of 2023. And it really is just yet another show of support from our partners at Sprott, which we're very grateful for. The total financing package with Sprott is 66 million. And with this 5 million that's been advanced that makes 34 million of the 66 having been advanced so which is worked very well for both sides so continuing to work forward with them and and making sure that we've got enough financing to continue to meet the timeline you see on the screen there.
6:52 Absolutely. Joshua wants to know what are the hiring timelines for mine workers along with numbers? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the process of building our staff and building the employees and team members is underway. We certainly, as you would expect, have a roadmap to building additional manpower and capability as we move forward through the next year.
7:21 And that will begin to ramp up as we move through Q1 into Q2. Obviously, we'll see quite an uptick of construction personnel as we're building the processing plant and then all through 2023 there will be a relatively steady ramp up of underground mining capability as we gear up to deliver sustainable ore to the processing plant in that early Q3 time frame. Absolutely, You may have answered it with that answer, but Christopher was just wondering if you could elaborate any more on the 3 month build. On the 3 month, I'm not sure I understand the 3 month build. Christopher, if in the chat you want to elaborate, that'd be wonderful then, but otherwise that looks like all the questions you've received currently.
8:12 I believe that may be referring to the 3 months or so of the process plant construction, it would be my. Oh, okay. So, you know, the processing plant, you know, essentially the, you know, there is the construction part of that, but in taken into conjunction with the site preparation, which includes the foundation work,
8:47 you know the you know that construction phase really kind of indicates when key components will be set in place, piping will be put together, things of that nature. But certainly you know the civil portion of that construction starting with the demolition is really underway. All right fair enough. Well John that looks like all the questions we've received for today. So I want to thank you for coming on and providing a quick update and also handling some of these questions. I'd like to pass things back to you before we wrap up today for any closing remarks that you have though. Yeah, from my perspective, I'd say, thank you very much everyone for tuning in. It's been a pleasure updating everyone on our progress. You know, here at Bunker Hill, We're having a very productive end to the year as we move into the holiday season and gearing ourselves up to hit the ground running in 2023.
9:39 So, look forward to speaking to everyone again soon. Thank you. Bye.
