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Bunker Hill Mining Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) Results Webcast

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Tue, April 20, 2021 at 12:00 PMendedReplay
Bunker Hill Mining Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) Results Webcast
Company
Bunker Hill Mining Corp (TSX:BNKR)
Date
Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 12:00 PM ET
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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 and welcome to Bunker Hill's live investment summit today hosted by 6. We're joined today by Richard Williams, Executive Chairman, Sam Ash, CEO of Bunker Hill, David Weins, Chief Financial Officer, and Brad Barnett, Vice President of Sustainability. The team's gonna walk us through a company presentation and after they'll be accepting questions. You can submit your questions using the Q&A panel found on the right hand side of your screen. As always, the summit is being recorded and will be available to watch afterwards on SIX.com. Now, without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Richard to kick things off.

0:39 Thanks very much, and thank you all for attending this conference following the issue of the provisional economic assessment. What I'm going to do to kick this off is to introduce you to the team and to myself. Not wanting to cover too much of me, but the references that most people refer to is I was chief operating officer at Barrick Gold for the 4 years or so before the Rangold merger, during which time 1 worked with the operating team to build a system that doubled that company's operating profit in the run-up to that merger. Now one of the key elements to that successful transformation, and it's always a key element, was the quality of the people.

1:35 And I'm very proud to say that one of the key leaders at that time, Sam Ash, who turned around our Zambian operation so effectively, joins us at Bunker a year ago to be our CEO. Now, Sam's father worked on Bunker Hill back in the 1970s. And when a year ago he agreed to join the team, he became part of the community, buying a house in Kellogg and setting himself up as the leader that would really turn this operation around from the front. He represents that youth visionary leadership, young American leadership, that is so significant in all that's happening in the mining industry today.

2:25 Brad Barnett on the right, and I'll come to David last, Brad Barnett on the right is also from Barrick. I actually met him a long time ago now Brad in Kabul in Afghanistan where he was working with the US government on development programs there. He's a development economist really based out of California and I brought him into Barrick to help rationalize the way in which that company was managing its closed site portfolio, very large portfolio given that company, and that included Pasqualama. With all the work that he did there to optimize that, He was also a key individual that we wanted to bring into the team, knowing how to deliver not just the sustainability portion of what mining has to deliver, but outside the mine site, linking with the communities, government, and all other stakeholders to look for value beyond just mining and beyond just the life of mining. So he was a really critical part of this team, and he joined around about the same time as Sam did, and you'll be hearing more from him.

3:32 Now, the third leg of this vital team, David Weins, we spent a long time searching for exactly the right chief financial officer that could be

3:45 energetic and diligent enough to deal with the many challenges that come with a turnaround project. Because turnaround is what this is really about. Because we are building a team that is capable of restarting Bunker Hill as a cornerstone asset in a new American-based mining company. And that's our core leadership team. But as all of us involved in that team know that none of this is possible, going back to that point about people, without the exceptional quality that we meet in the Silver Valley. And probably to their great embarrassment, I'm going to signal out a few of them. Firstly, our health and safety individual, Mike Kukonowicz, is remarkable, a former MSHA official who's helped us navigate all the challenges that you've got underground and above ground in a turnaround.

4:39 And then 3 remarkable Silver Valley miners, Jeff Lambert, Steve Ivey, and Josh Haines, whose skill and energy represents so much of what is great about the Silver Valley. And with that, I'll pass on to our CEO, Sam Ash, to talk through the PEA. Sam? Thank you, Richard. And it really is quite an exciting week here at Bunker Hill with the press release of the PEA and being able to talk about what we knew from when we came here, the economic potential that exists here at Bunker Hill. I'm not going to read all of the top line numbers there, you can see them for yourself. But needless to say, we are very excited about these results and really not surprised at all. And what this represents to us is exactly what we were expecting to see, which is long life, high margin, modest capex, and with incredible leverage and upside potential to both silver and to extension of the mine life. And we'll go into a little bit of detail over the next couple of slides, but we're really excited to move the project forward. And work is already in progress on the technical side and on the exploration side to improve on these already quite impressive numbers.

6:09 So you can see a little bit more detail. You know, when you dive into the numbers, you know, what you see is you see an operation that is capable of generating an average free cash flow of $20 million a year, which is fantastic. It's robust and very competitive on the cost curve, which really gives us comfort that we're going to be robust and be a strong, in a strong economic position through the full commodity cycle, which is always what we were looking for. And you know, the economic numbers and the mine planning numbers, you know, those are impressive and that's certainly exactly what we're looking to achieve.

6:55 Demonstration that Bunker Hill can be the cornerstone asset of a new and modern mining company. But hand in hand with that goes the social responsibility and the ESG front, the environmental performance, the community engagement. And I want to give Brad a moment to talk about a few really exciting things that we're doing on that front. So Brad, you wanna say a few words?

7:21 Thank you, Sam. The impacts that Bunker Hill Mine will make on the local social and economic landscape are significant right out of the gate. In year 1 of development, we create 200 jobs. On average, those will come in at a little over twice the median household income for the entire county. Those jobs will then move into long-term positions that create sustainable impacts throughout the community. That in general has a potential to reduce unemployment in the county by over 10% just from Bunker Hill alone. About $15 million per year will be injected into the local economy through our local procurement initiatives.

8:14 As important as the social and the economic impacts of course is the environmental management that started about a year ago from today. As drilling was initiated we began a study at the same time of the environmental challenges that are so familiar to many people who know the Bunker Hill Superfund site. And as we began to understand the water challenges in that site, we took measures to manage the problem. And the current system now separates very bad quality water from very clean quality water. And that'll translate into much more manageable, lower cost water treatment solution in the future.

9:00 Part of the plan here at the PEA is to create a paste plant as part of the processing system that will allow us to inject low porosity paste back into these acid generating stoves. With that, you steal off the oxygen and you arrest the acid production process, which means over the long term, there's very little left to manage. And that's good news for the residents of Fulton County. Thank you, Brad. Just a little bit more about the mine plan. You know, what you see here is a pictorial of the detailed mining schedule that makes up this PEA. What's interesting to notice is that is the area, and I'll draw your attention to the area above the water level, which is currently at the 11th level in the Bunker Hill Mine. And what that means is that we have a plan that we can initiate a fairly rapid restart with significant resources that are above the water table.

10:06 And really, for the most part, readily accessible by excavations that are amenable to very modern techniques, rubber-tired access. Really, the ground conditions are in excellent condition. And I think what's also important to understand is although this is a vein mine, you know, the mining shapes here are really quite substantial in size. Our smallest mining unit is a 12 foot by 12 foot opening. And much of the resource that we're going to be mining is in excess of 20 to 50 feet in width and over a substantial vertical extent. What that allows us to do is to get into operation and then progressively bring the water table down and rehabilitate the mine and bring the full 10-year mine plan into fruition over time. You know, that has the added benefit of it, of extending the, minimizing the initial spin on rehabilitation of the mine and extending that over time in proximity with the production that it unlocks.

11:22 I think the other important thing to note on this slide is what we're doing with processing. Brad referenced that. We're going to be building a processing plant in the underground environment and really what that means is a couple of things. 1, it's really interesting to us to minimize the amount of material haulage that is required to move the ore from the mining faces to the processing plant. But perhaps most importantly

11:52 is on the environmental and social responsibility front. We're not going to be needing to construct a surface tailings facility. And in addition, the tails that we do deposit back into the mine, as Brad mentioned, are really going to mitigate a longstanding environmental challenge that we have at the mine. And then before we move on, I just want to also make the point that Bunker Hill is a relatively shallow mine in the Silver Valley. We're down around 4,000 feet at the deepest level. And the mineralization is open at depth and open along strike. And there's a tremendous amount of exciting exploration potential. And we currently have a drill rig working in the upper levels of the mine. And we'll come back and circle back to exploration in a few minutes.

12:41 But what's exciting about this is that we're barely scratching the potential of the Bunker Hill mine. And I think we'll move forward from here and we'll get a little bit of a flavor for some of the financials and where we sit with that. And for that, Dave, our CFO will take us through that. Thanks, Sam. So I'll run through what the mine planning costs look like in the PEA, and then we'll move forward in terms of what that means for valuation. You can see on the left-hand side, really robust 10-year mine plan. This is produced, and this is expressed on the page here as zinc equivalent. That does include zinc, lead, and silver. So you can see about 90 million pounds per year of zinc equivalent that is going to be produced at roughly a all in sustaining cost of approximately 86 cents per pound. What does that mean for our competitive cost position relative to others inked mines globally you can see that on the right hand side of the page. That's about the bottom third of the cost curve which is a very competitive position to be- and 86 cents- those of you to watch the market will know compares to. The spot prices Inc right now at about a dollar thirty- so very competitive.

13:53 Position and right in line with our strategy. Of having a long life sustainable. Through the cycle mine- that we can continue to operate profitably. Next slide. This is where it really starts to get interesting in terms of what cash flow are we going to generate out of this mine. You can see the dark blue bars are free cash flow, the lighter blue bars are EBITDA. What you can see here is right out of the gate, we're going to be generating very significant cash flow. So you can see year 1 cash flow, $21 million. As Sam mentioned, the $42 million that we are initially spending to get up and running is going to be over 15 months. So what this tells you is that 15 months after getting going, we're going to

14:35 be generating $21 million approximately per year of cash flow, which is very impressive. On the right hand side of the chart is where it gets really interesting. You can see that the zinc equivalent grade, which is the gray line, goes up. And that is as a result, as you can see there, of the silver grade increasing from about 1.1 ounces a ton to 2.8 ounces per ton. Neither of those grades are particularly impressive. As we'll go through in a couple of slides, the substantial silver upside that we have at this mine is largely not even priced into this. So all these valuation numbers that you're going to see do not include the silver upside that's to come. But what this slide shows you is that even a modest increase in the silver grade results in substantially more cash flow. You can see that EBITDA rises from about 20 to 30 million a year up to 40 million a year just from a modest increase in the silver grade. So that's super exciting. So the challenge for us as we continue to optimize the mine through further studies and exploration is how can we bring that increase in the silver grade to be a little bit earlier in the mine plan. And that's certainly one of our priorities as we move forward.

15:47 What does this mean for valuation? You would have all seen in the press release the $101 million NPV and the 46% IRR, quite impressive numbers in and of themselves. This shows you a little bit of the sensitivities.

16:00 So you can see the metal prices that we used in the PEA, $1.15 zinc, $0.90 lead and $20 silver. As you can see on the right hand side, that's significantly below where the spot prices of each of those metals is right now. If you plug in the spot price of zinc, lead and silver, we're at an NPV of more like $166 million with a 73% IRR. On the left-hand side, you can see if there's a substantial drop in metal prices, how do we look then? Well, you can see we still have a 24% IRR project, even if zinc were to go down to near a dollar and silver were to be about $8 an ounce below where it is now. So we've got a very robust project here that can withstand cycles and has a lot of leverage to the upside for our investors.

16:47 Oh, this is an interesting slide, just taking a first crack at when we're in production, which we very much think could be achieved within 2 years from today, how might investors look at us in terms of relative to other mining companies? And so this is a first shot at what this perspective shows you is, let's just forget about the silver for a second and say, what's the sort of the pure set that we might be compared to before the silver upside, which we definitely will be bringing into the mine plant. And you see a few comps there. These are North American listed and operated single asset based metals producers. You can see that on an EBITDA basis, they trade at about 7.3 times. That compares to us at 3.8 times.

17:33 3, I won't go into all the details of how that 3.8 is calculated, but what I will say is that's a fully loaded number that includes all of our obligations, includes all of the expenditure to get the mine up and running. And you may be asking, well, what share price would we need to be at to be at that 7.3 times? And it's roughly about a dollar Canadian. That compares to about 33 cents today, which is, so that's just to be able to be compared to the base metals peers, we would be where we are now. I think that's a good segue

18:09 back to Sam to take you through why certainly a base metals valuation is not how we look at the mine and why investors should very much look at the silver, which would represent further upside to that chart that we just saw.

18:22 Yeah, thank you, Dave. So just a couple of comments on that. When you think about this mine and the resource that is the foundation of the PEA. What's important to understand is that, you know, this was the resource that we have and the PEA that we have is based on the historic reserve and it's been advanced technically to prove that it is robust, and that's really what we're working on. And then when you couple that by looking back at the mine's operating history, over 100 years of operating life, at any given point in that period of time, there was about 7 to 10 years of reserves on the books. Now, when you think about that and you couple that with the understanding of why the mine was put into closure, and it was for environmental performance reasons, not for depletion of the mineral resource, you begin to understand that this 10-year PEA look that we're looking at is what we can identify and see at this moment. That's why the exploration side is so important. We believe that it's completely realistic to expect to see 2 incredibly valued creative

19:44 outcomes out of the ongoing exploration program. 1, certainly we expect to see, I think it's reasonable to see, extension of mine life over time. But secondly, and most importantly, is transitioning the revenue stream to be more silver dominant. Over the mine's history, the historical silver grade was higher than what we're carrying in the resource now, and that's predominantly an artifact of the operating parameters that the mine was operating in when it went into closure. Zinc was certainly the focus during that period of time. As we go forward and realizing that over the mine's operating history the silver was never a geologic or an operational focus, we believe that looking at the deposit through the lens of silver is going to allow us to significantly move that bar on the silver head grades that we're seeing. And Dave already showed you the leverage that the economics have with an increased silver presence in the mine plant. So really, the exploration at the moment is certainly focused above the 11 level. That's where we can most quickly transition exploration success into the mine plan and into monetization of that.

21:06 But in the long term, you know, the ultimate upside potential we believe still resides at depth. You know, There's indications that the silver grade was increasing at depth. And there is a lot of quite interesting exploration opportunities, both at depth and along strike length to the east towards our nearest neighbor, the Crescent mine. So we're really quite excited. We're going to advance the technical work on the PEA and move rapidly towards a position where we can

21:38 move to restart this operation, become cash flow generative, and further the development and the exploration and fund that work through cashflow and an operating line in the Silver Valley. And I think that strategy is the right one. You know, with a resource

22:00 that has the in-place infrastructure that we have, that has the understanding that we have of that geology, which is improving tremendously every day. I think it makes sense to as quickly as we can get into production, begin to make cash flow, and move the project forward.

22:23 And Cam, I think with that, we'll turn it over to you and see if we can answer a few questions. Hey, absolutely. Well, thanks Sam. And thank you everyone for the great presentation. That was awesome. Yeah, I'll remind the audience in attendance that you can use the Q&A panel on the right-hand side of your screen to ask questions to the team right now, and I'll kick us off. Howard Howey-Flinker has asked, How many shares are outstanding and how much cash is on hand? What currency? I can take that one. Thanks, Howard. So we've got about 163 million shares outstanding. In terms of cash on hand, we reported about $3.8 million at the end of December. What's important to remember is that subsequent to that, we had a financing where we raised about 8 million Canadian. So we haven't published our first quarter report.

23:10 As you'll recall, as we changed our fiscal year end, so we're now at December. Our first quarter report reporting March 31 cash will probably come out about mid-May. The way you should probably think about the cash on hand is that we have the majority of that 8 million Canadian that we raised a couple of months ago on hand still. So we're well, And the idea for that was to definitely get us through that key milestone of the PEA, allow us to continue on the technical studies to restart the mine, continue to do drilling so that we can provide silver exploration results to investors, and that's very much still the plan. Awesome, Thank you. The next question comes from Andy Reynolds. You've indicated contractor mining. With UG processing, are you also considering contract processing?

24:00 Yeah, thank you, Andy. I think that, you know, at this time, you know, our plans are to build and construct and operate the processing plant ourselves. But we are early in the process of working through the technical details. But I think fair to say at the moment, what we envisage is an underground processing facility that is operated by the company. Okay, John Burke asks, are the miners unionized?

24:35 Thank you, John. At this moment, we are essentially in a current maintenance and exploration phase. So The employees that we have working at Bunker Hill right now are a drilling company, a mining contracting company that is working on supporting and conducting care and maintenance activities, and the geology staff and the management staff. So at the moment, we don't have, that's the activity that's going on. And to answer your question directly, there's no union at the moment at Bunker Hill. Thanks Sam. Ron May asks, do you have plans for a dividend for common shareholders?

25:25 Thanks Ron. So I think the short answer is no. And the reason for that is the number that you see on the screen. So that 46% after tax IRR there is the level of return that we think this project at a minimum, we can provide to our investors. And we think that is a much better sort of use of the cash that we'll generate through Bunker Hill, at least for the interim, before we even think about dividends. So for those that are sort of not financial experts, what that 46% after a tax IRR is effectively a compound annual rate of return. What we're effectively saying in the PEA is that if you invest $42 million with us today, that's going to be compounded at 46% per year and you're going to get $240 million back at the end of 10 years, over the course of that 10 years. So we're pretty excited about that rate of return. And certainly as we grow the company, which we plan to do, and eventually as Richard outlined, you know, is to be a, you know, a multi-asset mining company, because we think we have the team to build that, we will think over the long term about dividends, but certainly not at the moment.

26:38 Thanks, David. Karim Usunmez asks if there are any issues with metallurgy in regards to penalties or milling problems. None that we see at this time, Karim, is the direct answer. And there's 2 things that are supporting that. We have done some MAT test work and the preliminary results indicate metallurgical performance much in line with the metallurgical performance over 100 years of operating life. And in that period of time, there were no metallurgical challenges that were not able to be addressed. The recoveries are high, the concentrate is relatively clean, and we don't see any problems in that area. Great. Michael Hebner asks, I see HECLA had a problem with a judge. How are we doing with community and legal?

27:33 I'll turn it over to Brad for a moment to answer this and give a little bit more flavor on what we're doing with the community. But what I would say is I just want to speak to the company that we're building and our approach to stakeholder engagement. And that's really one of radical transparency. What we espouse as a company is that we're going to perform at a very high level and we're going to share that performance openly. And then we'll have an open conversation and a dialogue about how we're doing. And, you know, with that context, Brad, is there anything else you want to add on our relationship and ongoing community discussions?

28:21 Yeah, I think, thanks Sam. Number 1, I think that Bunker Hill as a mine and as a business entity means a lot more to the Silver Valley community than just a mine that produces lead, silver, and zinc. And you couldn't ask for a more supportive community to try and restart a mine in. The amount of support and enthusiasm that we felt from the day that, you know, and Sam and I both live and work in Kellogg. We know that community, we interact with them every day. And there is not 1 doubt about whether the communities of Kellogg, Wardner and broader Shoshone County want this mine back in production. We know they do and we're doing everything we can to meet that objective.

29:20 Thanks, Brad. Thanks, Sam. Mark Lodak asks, what your plans are for capital raising to fund the $42 million? Thanks, Mark. So now that we've got the PEA behind us, we're squarely focused on exactly that question. And so we definitely have plans that we are kicking off here. You know, the good news is that we've got quite a bit of demand from different ends of the market. There's equity investors who are looking, you know, eager to invest, traditional debt providers, offtakers, royalties and streamers. Those guys certainly won't be our first part of call, but they need to be part of the conversation. And so the good news is we've got some pretty robust numbers here that's attracting, you know, that lender appetite. So we'll be embarking on that concurrent with progressing further technical studies to continue to de-risk the project.

30:13 And we think this thing is going to be very financeable. So stay tuned over the coming months. Great, thanks Dave. Tyler Hillegoss asks, could you discuss the processing component of the mine? How or better yet, where do you intend to process your ore? Yeah, thank you Tyler. So the processing of the ore, what we will be doing is we will be crushing, grinding, and then running that material through a differential flotation plant, where 2 concentrates will be generated, a zinc concentrate and a silver enriched lead concentrate which will then be moved to market and sold. Where we will do the processing is where we are going to have quite an innovative solution. We're going to build and operate the processing plant in the underground.

31:06 That's going to reduce the amount of effort required for material haulage of the ore. And in addition, we will be then well-placed to refill the mine with a paste fill, for geotechnical fill to support the mining, but also thickened paste tails deposition, which is going to be deposited in a lot of the old workings, which is the genesis point for acid mine drainage generation, which will then mitigate that in the long term over time. Awesome. Mark has another question. Mark Blodek. Any plans to try and combine the bunker with the nearby Crescent mine that is currently closed? Sam, I'll take this one. Thank you.

31:54 Thank you very much, Mark. It's an interesting question. If we look at the 2 mines, which are, as you know, very close to each other. In fact, they're joined underground at the 23rd level by an underground crosscut. They share 1 mine tool. The water that is treated for both mines comes out of the Bunker Hill Kellogg Tunnel and is treated in the water treatment plant. Crescent produced it's a different concentrate copper silver concentrate from what Bunker produced and as you said it's in care and maintenance at the moment and we obviously have a team that is very focused on the delivery of value at Bunker Hill right now but it's selected for their ability to grow the company through bunkers, the development of bunkers, resources and blue sky, but also to grow the company through inorganic growth acquisitions.

33:01 And it makes a lot of sense to have bunker and crescent operating as a single entity So all I'd say in answer to your question is Do we think about it? I think anybody who looks at the Silver Valley and looks at these 2 properties, we'll be thinking about it in the same way. And we'll see whether that logic leads to a change in that direction. But at the moment, we're very focused, as you can see from the presentation and the team here, on generating value at bunker. But thank you very much for that very interesting question. Thank you, Richard. Richard Vigil asks, what percentage of mine production is or will be overhead cut and fill, and what percentage is or will be long hold and stopping over the life of the mine?

33:55 Now, thank you, Richard. So in the PEA, one of the things that, one of our approaches in the PEA was to make sure that we were relatively conservative in our technical assumptions and approaches. So what that means is that the ratio and the focus of mining method in the PEA for the PEA was more heavily weighted towards cut and fill. You know, that weighting is right around 75% cut and fill, 25% long hole stoping. Certainly as we move forward and advance the engineering, you know, we'll be looking to take opportunities to move to a more, a higher proportion of long-hole stoping. I think that we will be able to do that.

34:43 Certainly the ore body geometries and the resource geometries indicate that that is possible and we'll be moving that direction. Ideally you know I would like to get a majority of the mining taking place through the long hole stoping method. Obviously that comes with an increase in productivity and a reduction of cost, which is absolutely the way that we want to move the mine plan, but that will be on the back of technical work that supports that. Great, thank you. Tim Olson asks, where do you anticipate the cons would be processed, in US or foreign? That's a good question. The good news is that we've got multiple options on that.

35:29 So there's smelters, certainly in North America, one of them being the trail smelter that's owned by Tech Resources, that's not too far away from us. But certainly as part of the PEA, we examined and factored in the ability to ship the concentrate anywhere worldwide really, and that includes overseas, across the Pacific Ocean. Certainly, you know, one of our priorities, as Brad can speak to, is to try to achieve that sort of 0 footprint and carbon neutrality that we keep talking about in this quarter of our thesis. And certainly that will come into the equation in reality as we think about marketing the concentrates. The good news also on our concentrates is they're quite clean. We don't think that it will attract any substantial or any penalties really at all.

36:17 And there'll be a lot of demands from smelters. So that's certainly something that we'll be evaluating as we move forward here to factor in both the environmental footprint as well as obviously the economic one. Thanks Dave. Matthew Huff has submitted this question. Good morning, guys. You mentioned in a prior call plans to purchase the water processing plant and to be able to use that asset to generate revenue for other mines. Is that CapEx included with the $42 million? And what is the outstanding EPA past and future liability? That's an excellent question. And Brad, I think you're probably best placed to answer that. Well, the potential for the purchase of the water treatment plant is an ongoing discussion.

37:03 That'll be dynamic. What we are doing is conducting a range of different studies that determine the best way in which to treat that water, which may or may not include the central treatment plant. If we were to acquire the plant, of course the terms of that discussion have yet to be determined, but they are not included in the 42 million dollar capex that was published in the PEA. Thanks Brad. John LK Allen asks, metallurgical testing performed by what organization? General description of the processing operation would be informative. What about plant recoveries? Smelter acceptance of the anticipated processing products? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, John.

37:50 Our metallurgical work is being conducted by RDI and our QP on the metallurgy is Deepak Mahotra. The general description of the processing operation, It is really a pretty standard, you know, base metal flotation flow sheet, you know, so crush, grind, regrind and, you know, differential flotation for making a zinc concentrate and a silver enriched lead concentrate. Plant recoveries, 92% on zinc, 91% on silver, 91% on lead. Almost all of the lead reports or almost all of the silver reports to the lead concentrate, right around an ounce per ton of concentrate reports to the zinc concentrate.

38:49 And as Dave said, you know, we don't see any penalties or problems. All indications are we're going to have a very marketable product. Great, thanks Sam. We also have had some questions come in ahead of the summit, so I'll get into those now. The first question essentially goes along the lines of Should the audience be thinking about Bunker Hill as more of a base metals mine or a silver mine? I'll take that question. Thank you. So historically, over its 100 year operating life, there is no doubt that Bunker Hill was a base metal mine. It was fundamental and a key supplier to the Industrial Revolution, to World Wars. It was a cornerstone asset of America's rise to its place in the world today as a base metal producer.

39:48 Our resource at the moment would quite clearly be considered a base metal resource. What we are doing and what our strategy is, is with the understanding of the potential for silver to exist in much larger quantities at Bunker Hill than is reflected in our resource, we're focusing our exploration effort in that space to, over time, move the revenue stream to be a more balanced position between base metals and silver with the ultimate intent of having over 50% of our revenue generated from silver. Great, thanks Sam. Another question that's come in is what are you planning to do to improve your liquidity?

40:37 I'll take that one. So quite a bit. As our investors will know, one of the processes that we still have ongoing here and we think will be successful here in the coming weeks is the TSX Venture migration. So we're currently, our primary listing is on the Canadian Securities Exchange. We're still in the process with the TSX fee to move on to that exchange and you know we're quite optimistic that will be resolved over the coming weeks here and perhaps even more importantly on the US side as our US investors know much to their frustration and ours is that it's it's currently not the easiest to trade our stock in the US, given that we are on the grey market there. So we are in discussions with FINRA right now, we are working with a broker to remove that caveat emptor, so that our investors can actually properly trade our symbol in the US, which is going to be quite exciting and we think is going to have a very dramatic impact on our liquidity.

41:43 And that in turn will have all sorts of knock-on, positive knock-on effects to our valuation, to research coverage, etc. So certainly stay tuned for news items on both of those fronts. Thanks, Dave. Another question that's come in is what kind of restart financing options are you looking at? Yeah, thank you. So I think, you know, somewhat similar to the live question that came in earlier and I think we'll look across a range of products. We'll look at sort of straight debt options. We will look at, you know, offtake options, stream and royalties and obviously equity. So we've got a very supportive shareholder base, consisting of a number of longholders that would be very happy to help us move the project forward and we'll be certainly working with them as well as traditional lenders to come up with the best solution that's the least dilutive and the best cost of capital to get this mine back into production.

42:45 Thank you again. Another question that's come in ahead of time is when do you realistically think you can be in production? I'll take that. You know, to a certain extent, let's talk about the critical path to restart this mine. So we certainly have additional technical work that's required to advance, in particular, the processing to a construction-ready state. That's ongoing. Dave has spoken a couple of times about the need for financing. We will need to be able to finance this restart. And I think that what I would say is when I look at it, and we talk about this often, is that post-restart financing, the plan is indicating that in that 15-month time frame, you know, we will be up and in production. So, to a certain extent, it depends on the completion of the financing, the advancement of some aspects of the technical work beyond the PEA status.

43:54 And that's all work that we are currently engaged with and that we expect to have completed later this year. Great, thank you, Sam. That's all the questions we have for today at this point. I'd like to thank everyone who submitted questions as well as I'd like to thank... Oh, go ahead, Richard. That's okay, Cam. I just wanted to make a couple of other follow-on points, if I may. I know that with no questions, that's slightly shooting in the dark, and if everyone will bear with us. I just want to emphasize a couple of things. When you look at this restart, this is just taking hold of the resources that in so many respects were gifted to us by those that were mining in 1980.

44:43 It's like a bite-sized chunk into the mine so that we can generate with the lowest capital injection, leveraging the expertise of the team on all of the historical infrastructure, which includes those resources, in ways that maximizes short-term cashflow. This allows us to unlock all of that potential that our predecessors back in 1980 knew existed, as well as settle a number of commitments locally with the EPA and others. And it also absolutely affirms this team's status as an operator within the Silver Valley with the Silver Valley community.

45:30 And again, my point earlier in emphasizing Jeff, Steve, Josh, and Mike, and the questions that you brought up some of you about the workers in the Silver Valley is I just want to make this very important point. It's in my experience in life, as well as in mining, the best ideas come from those who are actually moving the rock and moving the earth. And that's exactly what we found here. So what we've got is we're building a team that extends beyond just the executive team that you sit in front here but incorporates all of that human talent so that all of us Can actually deliver upon the promise that's in front of you at the moment.

46:18 And then one other piece to this very fascinating and exciting puzzle is our partnership with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and their equivalent regionally the IDEQ and all parties involved there. We see ourselves partnering with those agencies in this Bunker Hill restart, because of course the work that they have done, contentious to some as it has been, has been so important in transforming the environment within which we operate to the remarkable standard that it is today. And we wish to work with those parties, and Brad's doing a wonderful job, along with the rest of the team, to unlock this remarkable potential for all of those that are involved here.

47:07 The financial investors, the workers, the community stakeholders, those who are interested in the downstream and the Coeur d'Alene Lake, the governor, et cetera, to really ensure that this team and this asset delivers on all that we know that it can. So, Cam, I just wanted to make those points at the end there and ensure that all those on the call realise that all of us who happen to be sitting here speaking for Bunker Hill, represent a far larger group of stakeholders, all of whom are now moving in the same direction, which will deliver these numbers that you see on the screen as a minimum. So thank you very much for your time, and I'll hand it back to you, Cam. Thanks, Richard. That was awesome.

47:53 Thank you, everyone. Amazing presentation, some amazing questions from the audience, very insightful answers. I'll remind the audience that if you didn't get a chance to get your questions answered, or if you think of 1 after the summit, we're gonna be sending out a short survey where you can leave your contact information and the Bunker Hill team can reach out to you directly. You can also find more information, of course, at bunkerhillmining.com. I'll hand it back to the team at this point for any final words that they want to say. But thank you again. Said it all. Thank you, Cam. Thank you, everybody. Awesome. Well, thank you, guys. Everyone stay safe. Have a great day. And That's a wrap then. Thank you. Cheers, Jeff. Bye.

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Speaker profile Richard Williams

Richard Williams

Executive Chairman at Bunker Hill Mining

A former COO of Barrick Gold Corporation from 2015-2018, Mr. Williams is a global executive with an established track-record of value creation, pioneering and transformational leadership within the Mining Industry and other demanding assignments. Amongst other notable achievements, this helped Barrick deliver an 80% improvement in the company’s operating profit over his three years, and the total overhaul of the Company’s relationship with the Tanzanian Government following a breakdown of relations between a Barrick subsidiary and that government. Formerly, the CEO of an African and Central Asian focused exploration business, and Non-Executive Director of Gem Diamonds PLC, he was also the Commanding Officer of the British Special Forces Regiment – the SAS. He is currently a Non-Executive Director of Trevali Mining Corporation, Chair of Trevali’s HSEC Committee and an advisor to mining companies facing complex operational, political or ESG challenges. BSc Economics, University College London; MA Security Studies, Kings College London; MBA Cranfield University.

Speaker profile Sam Ash

Sam Ash

CEO at Bunker Hill Mining

A former Executive General Manager of Barrick Gold’s Lumwana Copper Mine in Zambia, Mr Ash is an experienced American Mining Engineer and modernizing leader, with a proven track record of building and leading teams capable of optimizing and enhancing the operating efficiency, profitability and sustainability of mining operations in complex and challenging environments. During his tenure at Lumwana Mr. Ash Delivered over $100M in sustainable free cash flow improvements, achieved 50% improvement in safety performance, executed a training and development program achieving 96% local workforce, and progressed expansion plans that doubled the value of mine. BEng Mining Engineering from University of Missouri Rolla; MA in Strategic Leadership, London Business School.

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