Centamin (CEY) — September Retail Investor Presentation

0:00 Good morning, and welcome Sorry, Martin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the CENTAMIN Investor Presentation. Throughout this presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and where appropriate, provide responses. These will be available via your Investor Meet company

0:31 dashboard. I'd also like to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. And if you would give that your kind attention, we would be most grateful. And I'd now like to, if I may, hand over to Martin Hogan, CEO from CENTAMIN. Good morning, Martin. Good morning. Thank you very much, and apologies for my slightly anxious keen to start there. So thank you for that. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for dialing in today, and welcome to the CENTAMIN Retail Investor Presentation. As mentioned, I'm Martin Horgan, Chief Executive of CENTAMIN. I've been in the chair now since April 2020. And I'm joined today by my colleague, Ross Gerard, CFO. And in the background, driving the all important slides and Q and A is our colleague, Alexandra Bartekast, who's Head of Corporate Comms. And thank you, Alex. Next slide, please.

1:22 Obviously, disclaimer. I trust you will all take that away, and read that in your own time and comply with it. So our strategy. Look. I think, you know, we've been very clear and consistent with our strategy. We think it's a relatively sort of simple and well understood strategy, but one that's really about maximizing the value of CENTAMIN to shareholders. And we see that really in three sort of buckets. So firstly, it is to value... Maximize the value at Sukari through operating the mine in the best way possible to sort of maximize the gold that can be extracted at the lowest cost available to really generate the maximum value for that. In terms of growth and diversification, to basically identify those opportunities that will allow us to both grow the current resource and reserves that we have and also identify new potential resource and reserves and offer diversification away from the one asset company we are today.

2:13 And underpinning all that, of course, is our commitment to stakeholder returns. We talk about the dividend, the company being sacrosanct, and we certainly don't see that changing as we go forward. And if we put that vision together and if we're able to deliver into those three sort of areas of our strategy, our vision is to take CENTAMIN from being a single asset producer that it is right now into a multi asset platform producer across Africa with a number of operations delivering robust returns on behalf of our shareholders. Next slide, please, Alex. So who are we today? We are, as I say, a producer of the Sukari mine in Egypt. We're not even very familiar with that, of course. I've been in operation for ten years now, and that is operating the genuinely world class Sukari gold mine. We've also recently identified the Doropo project as development opportunity that sits in Northern Cote D'Ivoire, and that's currently underway in terms of the PFS study.

3:10 We'll take you through that later on. We've got the APC project also in Cote D'Ivoire, and that is an earlier stage exploration project, but one we believe has significant potential to deliver another potential mine development in due course. And of course, we have the hugely exciting greenfields licenses that we've recently acquired in Egypt as well. And within that, as part of our rationalization of that portfolio, ensuring with all this focus on shareholder returns, we have the Bati West project. So as you say, I like to think of this as an integrated pipeline of growth opportunities from an existing mine where we can grow the resource and reserve base and bring that to account quickly all the way through advanced projects, all the way to greenfields as well. So we really see a, you know, a wealth of opportunity in the business that we have the team and the capacity to deliver as well. So moving on to the next slide. So really that first bucket there is that, you know, valuization value maximization at Sukari.

4:00 And I think we'll start off with maybe just a little quick walk through of the the Sukari gold mine, and you may have seen this last week on the, the Geometry Day, but it gives you a really good indication of, you know, what is Sukari about in terms of this large scale open pit combined underground operation as well. So maybe if we could just start the video, we'll just run through that quickly, that'll take you through what the mine looks like today.

4:27 So, obviously, sitting in the Eastern Desert there, you can see the current pit in cross section, the Amun underground workings in Osiris, Qatar, where we'll moving to shortly, and the long term potential down in Horus Deeps. So it really gives you a sense of scale and layout for the entire operation that we have at Sukari, this combined large scale open pit underground operation. It's quite something. It it really is quite a... An impressive operation to say the least. And it's that combined open pit underground operation, you know, feeding a 12,000,000 ton per annum operate... Processing plant that really is the heart of the company at this stage. When I joined the company, back in April 2020, you know, I think the company had had a few issues previously. I had missed guidance a couple of times, and there were a number of questions around the long term viability of the asset and where that could go. Had it seen its best days? What was the future holding at

5:16 that point? And I think what we saw when we joined, and I think what we're proving and continue to prove at this stage is that Sukari is far from over. And in fact, there's a lot more to come. And really what we focused on then is that in order to sustain that long term success that we believe that Sukari can underpin is that what did we need to do in the short term to be able to reset the asset, a period of reinvestment over two to three years that would eventually see the asset stabilized and consistently producing good quality ounces at good cost as well. And last December at the Capital Markets Day, we articulated our vision for this period of reset where we'd look to reinvest in the open pit, increase the stripping, bring ourselves more flexibility in the open pit, get ourselves back into better grades as well. In terms of the underground, pushing the development harder, growing the ore body resource reserves and getting the underground again with multiple working areas to give us that operational flexibility.

6:11 Combined with that, of course, is that we also have a number of different strategies around cost reduction, and Ross will take you to those in a second there. But really, the idea was across 2021, 2022, 2023, this, if you like, period of sustained investment over this period that would end up getting ourselves basic match fit back to where we want to be. And that's that targeting four and fifty thousand to 500,000 ounces production per annum at those all in sustaining cost of 900,000. We're a good way into that. This year has been really focused around delivery. As you can see there, the first half of this year was delivered bang in line with guidance. And we hope to continue that now as we're maybe at the end of Q3 and heading into Q4 as well. Next slide, please. And really, of course, what we said last December was that this is what the next three years look like, but really what we want to be able to do is demonstrate the long term potential of Sucari. So we undertook that by the end of this year that we would develop and basically distribute and disseminate our vision for the long term vision of the Sukari mine plan itself.

7:11 And we're bang on track to do that. And the plan is to get that out to market as of the end of November, early December, and really look to basically demonstrate our faith in the asset and be

7:21 able to sort of show to the broader market that we've got this world class asset that we're now putting a world class mine around for the next decade and beyond. It's a new resource update that will drive a new reserve plan, that will drive a new production profile. It's looking to basically layer in all those productivity and efficiency gains that we think we can see, adding mining flexibility and looking at how we can improve our optimization as well. But really, think, importantly for us is that when we articulate this plan at the back end of this year, it's important to understand that, that is the first step, and that will be a very good base case for us to move forward. But we're always going be looking to improve that. We're always going be looking to try and optimize that further and try and realize more gains. So I think it's going to be hugely exciting to be able to bring that to the market later this year and really recognize that with that extended sort of life of mine plan and visibility that we can put on the table is that we can really start to optimize the asset from there. I think one of the key things that we're looking at is historically, there have been a dogmatic approach to try and produce 500,000 ounces per annum. I think now we're looking realistically is that from a bottom up approach of what we're trying to do is that what can the asset do sustainably that's appropriate for the asset that we have in terms of the open pit and the underground and the processing facility.

8:31 So we're going to try and push ounces as hard as we can in each period to try and produce as much as we can. But the other sort of that coin is cost control because ultimately, it's all about driving cash flow. So we'll focus on driving the ounces as hard as we can, but importantly, we'll also look at making sure we're operating as far down the cost curve as possible. Next slide, please. And really, I'll hand over to Ross at this stage who will take you through some of that areas as well. As I say, we're looking to drive the long term physicals, but importantly, also looking to make sure that we operate on that cost curve. Ross, if you could just take us through that now, please. Thank you, Martin, and good morning, everyone. As Martin mentioned, core or critical element is all around maximizing margins. So last year, we launched continuous improvement program. It was a stretch program where we're targeting extracting $100,000,000 or at least $100,000,000 out of the cost base over a four year period.

9:22 This $100,000,000 wasn't a sort of general thumbs up number. It was a genuine targeted program across the business, highlighting all areas of improvement, and it's a numerous small single digit million sets of initiatives that cumulatively has added up to well over $100,000,000 And I'm really pleased to report that good progress has been made against these cost saving initiatives. This year, we actually had $16,000,000 of the 100,000,000 actually built into our budget numbers. So in order for us to hit our budget, hit our metrics and our guidance, which we have been doing this year, a number of these initiatives had to come through and actually be delivered. We're targeting sustainable cost reductions, so these are initiatives over the life of the mine that will be sustainable, and there's some big ticket projects to come. So just to highlight a few in terms of what has been delivered, there are examples of recycled grinding media where we've been able to get local service providers to recycle a lot of the grinding media and help with input costs on the processing plant.

10:34 There's a fuel transport that we've had renegotiated contracts. Fuel is a big component of our cost base, which I'll talk to shortly. There's tire workshops, for example, so we're able to reduce our reliance on imported tires, for example. And then there's some big contracts coming through, you know, we're going through all our contract base and contracts. The explosives contracts, the underground contract are two big contracts in our cost base that we're looking to reposition for the future. Importantly, the solar farm is one of our single biggest contracts, and I've got a separate slide on that, I'll talk to that shortly. But this funnel that you see on the slide is really ending up that we're quietly confident that actually this $100,000,000 is probably the minimum target or a base target that we'll be able to deliver.

11:27 And we're really confident that we're going to deliver a lot more over the future. And it really is about making sure that every ounce is produced is made is done at the best possible margin. Can you go to the next slide, please, Alex? Together with the cost savings, you know, we've really got this integrated approach with our ESG and carbon footprint. And sustainability is really put at the center of what we're doing. I think the key message here is that it's, you know, what is good for in the ESG space is actually good for business. So we've got an ever changing landscape in terms of expectations and all our various requirements, but core to our sentiment framework is this approach to replace, displace and improve.

12:20 And there are some key examples here that we just wanted to highlight in terms of what we're doing. So the solar power and being able to replace fossil fuel consumption with renewable energy solutions is core to our business. It's good for the environment. It's good for our cost base. And our solar plant is now under construction, we're really excited about that initiative coming forward. The displace in terms of fossil fuel consumption and looking at other lower carbon alternatives, we're looking at dynamic gas blending for our fleet. It's currently under review and we're doing trials. And again, that's good business sense and doing the right thing. And then what we are excited about is our improved initiatives and our high performance truck trays are central to that. By the end of the year, we are hoping that our whole fleet will be sort of converted with these lightweight truck trays and that's going to improve our operational efficiency, reduce fuel consumption and obviously increase payloads and things.

13:22 So that those are three key examples that really demonstrate what we're doing and showing that this framework is really working and the ESG approach is central to what we're doing and

13:47 Just wanted to take a little bit of a deeper dive into our key growth project this year, which is the solar plant, and that's been discussed for a while now, but we're really excited that this is off and running. We've signed up all the contracts and it has been mobilized. Commissioning is expected to be in the first half of next year. This is going to be the largest hybrid solar plant for an off grid gold mine and at a total project CapEx of about $37,000,000 it's going to save us approximately 22,000,000 liters of fuel, which means that we're going to be saving in excess of $10,000,000 per year at current fuel prices over the life of the mine. And so this is really going to leverage our cost base in terms of reduction of fuel liters. And what is most exciting is this is really just a phase one of hopefully a number of phases in terms of being able to both reduce fuel consumption, all our emissions and importantly takes a big chunk out of our cost base and lowers our exposure to that fuel price volatility.

14:52 Next slide, please.

14:56 Investing for the future is really important to us as we go through this reset phase. We're really focused on maintaining a solid treasury position. We're fortunate that we've got a strong balance sheet and cash in the bank, but we're really disciplined in terms of allocating capital. And what I wanted to highlight here is that we've got some a few key discrete capital projects that will need to be undertaken over the short term. But really after that and the spend in terms of those projects, the CapEx profile falls off. And what you don't see on this slide is 2024 and beyond, where our long term sustaining CapEx profile really drops down and is maintained down at the 80,000,000 to $100,000,000 level a year, and that's our long term run rate. So we really need to navigate this reset period, which we're well placed to do, and it's getting through the construction of both solar, concluding the waste stripping contract for the open pit.

15:57 We've well progressed on our TSF and the construction of our TSF II plant, and then it's the paste plant where we're spending money. So you will see this CapEx profile, which whilst we navigate that, we've got the balance sheet and we'll be able to navigate that. But importantly, that CapEx profile falls off and is maintained back towards the 80,000,000 to $100,000,000 level in the long term. Next slide, please. So

16:29 I'll hand back to you, Martin. Thanks very much. Much appreciated. Alex, if just step on, please, from this next slide. So really, I think the thing that sort of has come out over the last twelve months has been really satisfying is the growth embedded within the business. You know, when I joined CENTAMIN back in April 2020, people said, you know, you know, why are joining this business? And, you know, to my mind at that point, you know, at a world class ore body at Sukari, it had some some issues that we feel... We believe that we could fix, and I think we're definitely proving that now. But also, you have this FTSE two fifty company, $300,000,000 on the balance sheet, and you have this amazing platform with which to try and grow a business. And I think, to be honest with you, my first sort of vision for CENTAMIN as I joined was we would basically get CENTAMIN back to where we believed it can be as this engine of cash flow generation for that. And then using that cash flow, we'd look to try and build a business, a multi asset platform as well. And I did honestly believe at that point that we'd be looking at potential M and A as a priority to really start to leverage off Sukara as the foundation of our company. But I think as part of this life of asset review that we've done over the last twelve months, the geology input, the West African review that we've done, our success in Egypt, around the bid round is that what really brought... Come home to me now over the last twelve months is the fact that that actually there's a significant amount of embedded growth optionality already in the business, that we already have that in as part of our portfolio.

17:58 And far from needing to run out and start acquiring projects to build out our business is that we've got an awful lot that we can do with the existing portfolio. If we focus on that, we can deliver that with the team we have, the financial robustness we have, and that will really start to drive that growth potential in the company that's already there without even needing to go out and look at M and A as a potential to try and sort of deliver that diversification. And I think that's really come through strongly in the last sort of six months. And I think that's really going be a focus as we go forward. So when we look at growth, you know, one of the key drivers of growth, of course, is geology. And we did our deeper dive last year... Last week, I should say, on the geology, and that's available on the website if if anyone particularly wants to get into some more of the technical aspects of it. But the geological team took us through where we see the growth opportunity in the business and geology being a key driver from that. And as part of that sort of reappraisal and reapproach to geology and how it delivers growth, we wanted to put some hard targets around that. So in terms of Sukari, we

18:53 talk about maximization of value at Sukari, and that's about sort of making sure we drive a consistent, maximized cash flow. And as part of that, we want to get back to operational consistency. And that really means, put simply, is that when we predict what's in the ground from the resources to what actually comes out of the ground by the back end of the mill is that we have a good reconciliation between the two. What we think is gonna be there is what actually comes out from being there as well. So that's all about driving that cash flow for that long term consistency and stability, which underpins the dividend, but also underpins our growth aspirations.

19:24 The other thing we want to do is look at the underground at Sukari. The open pit is relatively stable. I don't think we're likely to see the open pit double in terms of reserve base. But what we clearly could see was the potential in the underground. We've said numerous times over the last twelve, eighteen months that the underground potential was drill constrained. It wasn't geologic constrained. And that's to say that we haven't done enough work on the underground to fully explore its full potential. And one of the things that we want to do is grow that underground resource at Sukari. And if we do that, then extend the mine life in the current sort of rolling three to four year mine life underground where we've historically, we've looked to do that and actually have a ten year life of mine. And if we can do that and if we can deliver West Africa, as we talked earlier around the Robo project, then over the next two years, we believe that we can actually grow group resources by 3,000,000 ounces.

20:11 So that's some ambitious targets, but I believe that there are targets that are based in reality and that we have both the team and the financial wherewithal to deliver them as well. So move on to next slide, please. So I talked, you know, a lot about the underground potential. As I say, I think the open pit is relatively well, understood. And even with sort of significant changes in gold price or reasonable changes in gold prices, ultimate size of the pit isn't going to change dramatically. But as I said, what is what can change and what is changing is that underground growth potential. Historically, we focused on the Imam area of the ore body, which sits just below the current work open working, and we recognized that we're transitioning to Ptah. And historically, the idea was that the geological team would effectively each year, if we mine the year, try and replace a year's worth of gold production. And hence, we had this rolling three or four year reserve life for the underground.

21:00 What we're seeing, of course, though, that there's significant more potential there. And actually, if we start to explore that potential for the medium to longer terms, it actually we can get ourselves... Instead of having a three to four year life, we could have a targeted ten year life and that rolls forward. And once you have a ten year life in the underground, we could start making further optimization and decisions around how to really, really maximize the benefit of that underground. This is a long section that we put up each quarter. And I think what's really exciting here is that what we like to show each quarter of our production report is those neutral intercepts that are outside the current resources. So that's not to say that we have a drill hole here, a drill hole here, we've drilled in the middle, there's more gold. Great, that gives us increased geological confidence. But if the ore body ends here and we're able to drill over here and extends the ore body, that's what really drives the excitement. And this is a

21:48 slide we put up last week at the Geology Day. It's when we put up on a regular basis. And that really starts to highlight the potential of the ore body at Sukari beyond the known limits of it. One of the holes there in Horus Deeps, we basically have 12 meters at over 30 grams a ton. So that just gives you some indication that Horus Deeps is our sort of target for underground mining sort of five years out and beyond. And when you're sort of hitting those widths and grades from there, it really just start to pin the sort of the longer term potential of an underground. And as I say, we see that the ore body is open to debt, the ore body is open along strike, and we really think there's a lot more to come for that now. So that's going be a key focus for us to really focus the drilling that we do in the underground with that new geological model that we've put together with our new approach to geology to really develop that underground to its fullest extent and then put the mine plan around that from there as well. So we think there's lots more to come from the underground yet, and we're quite excited about where that can go.

22:40 Next slide, please, Alex.

22:45 The other thing we didn't do over the last ten years as a company is is is explore the concession area. So we have this 160 kilometer, square kilometer concession. Obviously, sits there in the middle of the Eastern Desert, and the Sukari, ore body was the main focus. And when you've got the ore body like Sukari, one can understand how the focus became around the open pit and the underground. But what we didn't do was explore the fuller concession. And starting earlier this year, we started a reappraisal of that surface concession area. Now I think it's unlikely we're going to find another Sukari. I mean, that would be absolutely wonderful. But the reality is that we do think there's good potential for further discovery to be made within that concession area. It's likely to be fairly shallow at surface. It's likely to be fairly small in terms of individual deposits. But we believe that we've identified a number of areas, six targets in total, that we believe have the potential to host economic mineralization.

23:35 We've identified those six areas. We've done this preparatory work. And we're actually going to start drilling those targets starting in the fourth quarter this year we have to deliver results on this in the first half of next year. Our vision, if you like, at that point is a series of smaller pits that could potentially sort of add another year's worth of open pit production cumulatively between them. We think we can do that because they're shallow, because they like to be a better grade, will be obviously NPV accretive for us, but also will give us some optionality away from the main pit, other sources of ore that if we're looking to basically do some further rehabilitation work in the open pit, and continue to basically sort of push that as hard as we can, is that we also have some operational flexibility in and around those new targets as well. So I think there's some interesting news to come from there as well. I do caution about sort of where it can go. I do believe it's we're going to be in the order of adding 203,000,400,000 ounces collectively between these individual deposits. But certainly, another year of open pit production is not something to be sniffed out as well. And because it's shallow and likely to be higher grade material sort of one, two gram type material, then I think that's going to be quite appealing to us as well. But the point is, is that this is further growth that was in the portfolio that hadn't been fully realized, and we're looking to do that now. Next slide, please, Alex.

24:52 But, of course, the thing that's really excited us, from an exploration perspective is, is our recent awards for the year in the bid round in Egypt. You know, I've worked across Africa extensively the last twenty five years in my professional career. So I had lots of experience around different places, and, you know, this is my first time working in Egypt. But if I look at how companies and investors choose company... Countries to work in is that, you know, there's got to be good geological potential. Is there potential to find gold or other metals in these rocks? So clearly, Egypt, the Arabian Nubian shield, mining all the way back to the pharaonic times, the recent colonial times and as we've proved with Sukari, huge amounts of geological potential within Egypt itself as well. And that's never been explored using modern techniques.

25:37 Yeah. When you look at that then, it's in a country that's politically stable, it's geographically well located, good port and road infrastructure and a highly educated workforce. It's got a domestic oil and gas sector that is pretty much entirely indigenized. So when you look at that is that Egypt as a package should be the place to explore for gold. And we certainly believe that as well. And the question is, why wasn't that done previously? Or why hasn't there been the success that you'd expect to see elsewhere from West Africa, for example? And I think a lot to do with that was around the fiscal and regulatory regime. And the current, minister of petroleum, who obviously is our Minister of Mining sits under his portfolio, is that he identified a couple, three years ago that the regulatory and fiscal regime around the exploration and mining terms were more aligned with oil and gas, and that was a bit of a barrier to foreign direct investment in the mining space.

26:28 He's agreed to... Well, he agreed with parliament to change the code. We've now moved to a more royalty free carry taxation model that you'd expect to see most of the jurisdictions. And with that change in code, they then basically put a... An expiration bid round together for the, Eastern Desert. We, of course, apply it as you'd expect. We've got first mover advantage. We've got the only gold mine there, the mill, the human resource and human capital and so on. So, of course. But what was really sort of exciting for us that we noticed that both Barrick and B2, two large Canadian gold producers also made successful applications and are coming into Egypt as well. We think that's a great endorsement of of CENTAMIN through the geology of Egypt, the ability to work there, and they also recognize our potential... The potential of Egypt as well. And I think that's a great move for Egypt and by extension for CENTAMIN.

27:18 But when we look at the areas that we selected, pretty straightforward, to be honest with you. The red block that you can see there is our existing Sukari concession. So we looked at a number of applications where we could potentially find a satellite feed that would extend the life of the Sukari mine. So within a sort of 60 kilometer radius, subject to availability of blocks, you know, what blocks could we basically bring in that that might basically allow us to to identify gold that could be brought to account very, very quickly because we've got an existing mine as well. So the Nagaras block, named after the Wadi system that runs through it, was asked for a priority target. And then we've also identified other areas where we believe there's good geological potential, but these would naturally, of course, be stand alone operations progress in past, And a seen lot of in preselection of targets, the and satellite we've imageries, we've used some machine learning, some field operations as well. So we've already done a lot of preparatory work and that once we hit the ground there, we've got some very targeted areas that we'll go and prioritize for for first class exploration as well. But but, you know, the way I see ourselves right now is that we have a dominant land position with our existing mining infrastructure in, with a large exploration portfolio and one of the most exciting geological exploration terrains out there right now as well. So I think we're really well placed to be part of this, uptick in Egypt. So hugely excited about that. Next slide, please, Alex.

28:52 So the other thing that we looked at late last year was was West Africa. And, you know, we had a sort of, you know, pretty substantial mineral endowment in West Africa as I joined, in excess of sort of five, 6,000,000 ounces of of group resources, across three projects at that point, the Baty West project in Burkina, Doropo in... And ABC in Cote D'Ivoire. And I think the work has done as a bit well. We know the work done was of a high quality and and, you know, the guys... The teams delivered a, you know, substantial resource growth over the years. But I think for us, the important thing that we want to look at is that resources are fine, but it's ultimately reserves and the mining of those reserves that generate cash flow. And really what we wanted to do was basically continue to see if we could find a route to value creation from that portfolio.

29:39 I joined CENTAMIN from a company called TORO Gold, small private company. We we did actually found and then developed a gold mine in Senegal, and that was acquired by Resolute in q three. But the point to mention that is that a number of those people that were TORO with me joined CENTAMIN over the last twelve months. So what we have in CENTAMIN now is to complement the existing team, there's a significant amount of embedded sort of experience around developing gold projects in Francophone West Africa. So with that team, with the experience and complementing the existing CENTAMIN team over the last sort of twelve months, we've looked at the West African portfolio really with a focus on trying to understand, can we find a project that we believe has the potential to be economic and therefore constructive? And is it a project that's the requisite scale and quality that makes sense for CENTAMIN?

30:26 And so I'm delighted that we committed to that work. We announced the results in May of this year. And out of that review, Doropo came up really nicely. So Doropo sits at the Northern end of Cote D'Ivoire, the Northeast side of the country. And we believe that there's a mine there. And we believe there's a mine there that actually makes a lot of sense for CENTAMIN. We had a number of sort of gates, if you like, or toll gates around what constitutes a CENTAMIN project. Sort of eight to ten year minimum mine life. We'd like to see 200,000 ounces of annualized production, that's certainly no less than 150,000 ounces. We'd like to see conventional mining techniques and processing techniques, open pit underground, CIL. We don't want to be getting into biotics and refractory ore bodies. We'd like to keep things vanilla operationally. We wanted to work in a country there where we feel safe, both from a security and politically. And of course, we wanted to look at a project that we believe that we could deliver, both technically but also financially as well. I'm delighted that the robo scored really nicely across all those metrics. And we really believe there's a project there. I would say that we were slightly heavy handed around some of those sort of CapEx and OpEx numbers. We wanted to make ourselves sure that if this thing goes forward, that it's got the best chance as possible.

31:35 And out of that scoping study that we did, we see a mine at the ROPA that really going to complement the CENTAMIN portfolio. So we moved directly to a prefeasibility study. That kicked off earlier this year, in July, and we're pushing on with that now. And we anticipate that that prefeasibility study will be delivered middle of next year. And of course, we'd love to update the market on that basis as well. So look, we're super excited about Doropo, and we think it's got the scale and quality and further growth potential that will really make sure it's a nice addition to the CENTAMIN portfolio. And I think importantly now as well is that we've had additional operational experience we have in the business now, backed by our robust financial position is that we can deliver Doropo for shareholders as well. Moving on, please, Alex. The other thing that came out of it, of course, was the ABC project, the Archean Brumian contact project, Bit of a mouthful, so, of course, we've shortened that to ABC.

32:29 The team previously had picked up a known gold occurrence by some work, and they'd diverted and done some excellent work and proved up what is now a 2,000,000 ounce inferred resource at about a gram a ton. And that's a great starting position, 2,000,000 ounces at a gram. Certainly, lots of potential there, but really, we feel that's not at this stage going to

32:49 sort of justify a mining decision. But what, of course, we realized over the last sort of six to twelve months is that the team have focused on a very, very small area of an overall extensive sort of, you know, package of land. We have the, the Luso Gold Corridor. It's up to 20 kilometers wide in places and and over 90 kilometers, in strike extent, and we've secured a significant sort of part of the structure now in terms of the permits. And those 2,000,000 ounces that we have identified at Kona South and Kona Central only cover about 6% of that overall strike package as well. So the work this year has been focused on actually that we've got a great start with the 2,000,000 ounces at around about a gram at Kona South and Kona Central. But actually, what's the real potential of this entire package as well? We've also picked up the Windu project to the south, and we're busy now with that. So effectively, we've kind of gone step back a little bit and look at the regional potential.

33:41 We've generated seven new targets out of the work we've done so far, on different targets... Sorry, different permits in addition to that 2,000,000 ounces as well. And we think we've got a this project has got a real opportunity now to develop quite a substantial minimum inventory over its entire strike package over the coming years. It's probably two to three years behind Derovo in terms of its sort of development sort of process. But we believe that, you know, it's a it's a district scale project with significant potential, and it's now about delivering that full scale potential before making a decision to screen that from a scoping study to see if it's going on the legs to be an economic development as well. But, no, we we really like what we see there. We'll... It's got scale. It's got width, and it's in the right address as well. So we really like the potential of ABC.

34:27 Next slide, please, Alex. And, of course, committed to stakeholder returns. I use the word sacrosanct in most meetings. It is important for us. It's a key thesis of the CENTAMIN story, has been for a long time now. And despite the sort of growth optionality we have in the business, I think it remains a key aspect of CENTAMIN story. And I'll hand you back to Ross now to take you through the stakeholder two aspects.

34:55 Maintaining a sustainable dividend policy is central to our strategy, and we're really proud of our track record of delivering sector leading dividend returns, and we want to continue to build on that. This year, as we navigated the reset, we announced our intention for our financial year 2021 to distribute a minimum of $105,000,000 to shareholders. And I think that's an important fact as we go through and we talk about our CapEx profile and our commitment in terms of our commitments and assessment against our balance sheet strength. So we've done our interim dividend that was previously announced, and it basically means that an implied final dividend of $05 will be made subject to Board approval at the end of this year.

35:48 Importantly, I did want to highlight that our dividend policy is a function of free cash flow and is two pronged in terms of approach. So our first 30% of any free cash flow that is generated for the period is ring fenced and allocated to a dividend distribution. And then we assess our position in terms of looking at our balance sheet and maintaining that balance sheet strength and also looking at our medium term growth and capital requirements. For the next two to three years, we're going through quite a high intensive CapEx profile in terms of spend rates. And as Martin has spoken to, we've also got some development on the horizon in West Africa. So whilst we assess our free cash flow, our treasury function and also what's on the horizon, we then allocate the residual back into a dividend part and that surplus cash is returned to shareholders.

36:48 We're really proud of our dividend policy. I think it's been working very well. As I've mentioned, we want to continue to build on that. But probably a few key points to come out of it in terms of our balance sheet strength. We've always targeted maintaining $250,000,000 to $300,000,000 on the balance sheet in terms of cash and treasury. We have no debt, we have no hedging, and that's an important strength for us. Whilst we assess that quantum of balance, basically, 100,000,000 is allocated to a rainy day or a war chest in terms of funding if something happened. And then anything over $100,000,000 is allocated into that growth part for assessment. We've got this intensive CapEx profile, so we are drawing down on that treasury balance. And that $250,000,000 to $300,000,000 balance will come down to $200,000,000 sub $200,000,000 as we navigate this reset period.

37:49 And we want to maintain our free cash flow generation and also have treasury funds available to kick start any development project in West Africa. So this year, whilst it is a quantum that we've identified in terms of that dividend distribution, we will be going back and aligning our policy with this free cash flow generation, which we believe is sustainable as we navigate this reset period.

38:18 But the important point is I don't think it's growth or dividends. I think as we navigate this, it's a combination of dividend and stakeholder returns as well as being able to navigate our investment going forward with our growth projects. I'll hand back to you, Martin.

38:38 Thanks very much, Ross. Look, I think the other word for us this year was around delivery. I think in the past, I mentioned, as I say, I think there was a little bit of knocking confidence from the market around missing guidance and so on and so forth. And I think one of the things that we looked at last year was that, selling out some clear plans, articulating those to market and then making sure we deliver it into them. And whether that's in terms of guidance at Sukari in terms of ounces producing cash costs, whether that's in terms of how we're going to address geology, how we're undertaking the West African review, securing those bid rounds as well is that really the focus for management is to win back that trust, to demonstrate our capability through delivery and our commitments. I'm really happy that in the first half of the year between production, bang where we said it would be, costs in line with guidance, and it all remains on track. Mining some of those efficiency operations that Ross talked to coming through, they're now helping to drive the future of the business.

39:32 That mineral resource management, delivering that growth in the underground, delivering a positive outcome on Doropo and securing that round in a bid round ground in Egypt as well, all important processes for us and ones that we believe that, will grow the business going forward, but important that we deliver into on behalf of all stakeholders as well. Next slide, please, Alex. And, of course, within that is our ESG scorecard. You know, everyone gets to go home safely, is our mantra. That's a key focus for management and always will be. And there's also, as as Ross mentioned as well, I think it's really important for us, around our ESG credentials. And I think historically, there's been a view that ESG was an additive cost to the business. But what we're increasingly demonstrating, we believe in it personally, but we're also able to demonstrate now is that actually good ESG practice is good business practice and makes a direct contribution to the bottom line as well. So that remains as core part of our business. We brought in a group ESG manager.

40:28 He's been on board now for just about twelve months and really doubling down our focus in terms of what we do inside the mind gate, but also importantly, what we do outside the mind gate as well for local community and stakeholders as well. And that remains a key focus for our business, as I say, because good ESG practice is good business practice as well. Next slide, please, Alex. And really, in summary, where does that leave us? I think it's been quite the journey over the last twelve months. And I think it's really only when you sort of stop to pause with the Geology Day last week or this presentation now is that you realize how far we've come. And I think as part of that process of effectively stripping the constituent parts of the business back down to their chassis and then rebuilding them as part of this reset plan is that, you know, what's emerged out of that is this this growth elements of the business. I think that's been hugely satisfying for us. And I think, you know, historically, the model at CENTAMIN was to mine CENTAMIN efficiently as possible, generate cash flow, and return that to shareholders.

41:21 So that's great. That doesn't change, and that remains our commitment. But I think what's emerged out of that now is the potential growth within the business as well. We talked about the growth of Sukari in terms of the underground, the concession area. We talked about the potential in the bid round in Egypt as well. We can talk about sort of the growth potential in West Africa with identified projects, the rope on a path now to take us to our second mine potentially from an organic growth opportunity and that larger scale potential growth at ABC as well. And I think in terms of... Ross just touched on there as well, it's around that stakeholder returns. It's not about now abandoning the yield model, getting rid the dividend to focus on growth. We can do both. We've got the teams. We've got the financial robustness to be able to do that. And I believe now CENTAMIN has been reset as both a growth and yield story.

42:07 That balance sheet remains fantastic, 300,000,000 at this stage. And as Ross mentioned, even despite the resets, even despite these growth aspirations that we have, we'll retain significant financial flexibility with that as well. And as you touched on as well, that commitment to stakeholder returns entering final $05 dividend as well. We've got some great news coming up. I'm very conscious that it's been a period of waiting while we've got on putting our plans together. I think investors have been very patient around us. We've done the West African review as we've pushed on with the life of acid as we secure these blocks in in Egypt as well. What I'm really looking forward to now is that starting in q four this year, being able to start to demonstrate the fruits of that labor,

42:46 start to be able to communicate the outcomes we've got and the exciting direction that that's taken the company as well. Life of asset update later this year. Obviously, our full year report next year, Q1, and moving through to commissioning of some of those important studies sorry, projects in Kusukari, but important PFS study. And then obviously looking further down the track where ABC can take us as well. So I think we've come a hell of a long way. I'm I'm delighted with what we found. There's a lot more here than we believe there would be, which is great. And I say we've got the team and the financial ability to deliver that now. I'm really looking forward to getting out and communicating that over the coming months as we really start to deliver world class sort of potential that we have within CENTAMIN. So thank you for that. What we'd like to do now is open up to Q and A, and Ross and I are happy to take those questions from there. That's great.

43:32 Martin, Ross, thank you so much for updating investors this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the company take a few moments to review those investor questions submitted already, I'd like to remind you that recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via your Investor Day Company dashboard. I'd also like to remind you that your feedback is important to the company. And immediately after this presentation has ended, we will redirect you for the opportunity to provide feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations. I'd like now to hand back to Alex, if I may, to manage the Q and A. Obviously, Alex, you had a number of questions that were pre submitted ahead of today's event along with a number of questions throughout today's live meeting. So perhaps, Alex, if I could ask you just to read out the questions and give a response where it's appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you.

44:22 Thank you, Mark. And thank you both Martin and Ross for that presentation. I'm conscious of time. So as Mark mentioned, we'll go through some of the pre submitted ones and then turn to the live questions. So starting with the open pit, what does the full year waste stripping program deliver for the company?

44:41 So I think what we really want to have in the open pit is an operation with operational flexibility and an ability for us to manage that pit at a consistent basis. And what does that mean? I guess in terms of the strip ratio is that, you know, subject to sort of design around sort of cutbacks when you push back there is that we'd like to see a more consistent approach to stripping in the open pit. So if our life of mine average is around about six to one tons of of waste to all is that rather managing it to the three to one strip ratio in some years, eight times the next year as well as that, we would like to see a more consistent delivery of that stripping, which will underpin that more consistent delivery of cash flow as well. So in one sense, it's that. I think more importantly for us as well, it's about bringing operational flexibility into the open pit.

45:30 And when I look at that is that most open pits have multiple working areas available to them at any one point in terms of ore generation. And that depending on the ore body may also also have differential grade variations as well, higher grade areas, medium, and lower grade areas. And I think what's important for for every mine and for everyone to recognize, of course, is that, you know, mines aren't rigid factories in in in the EU. They don't, you know, consistently spit out 10,000 units a week every week, fifty two weeks a year, ten week, ten years on top, is that you will naturally go through periods of ore body variation in terms of its dimensions, in terms of its grade. You'll naturally occasionally come across areas of ground where there might be some additional falsing that slows operation down. You may occasionally come through areas where you have a bit of a a bit of a minor surprise of something that occurs from time to time. It's mining.

46:16 It happens. And I think what we have to have then is that inbuilt flexibility that as we progress the open pit in line with good practice, working to good international standards as we are doing, is that have that flexibility that we have an issue from time to time is that we can continue operating in from other areas of the pit and continue sort of meeting that guidance. And if we have an operational issue, that operational issue doesn't become a guidance issue, it doesn't become a share price issue as well. So when I think about that waste program, it's about catching up, but not just catching up by getting ahead of the strip ratio, opening that pit up, give us that more consistent long term strip ratio, but then importantly for us as well, then have that operational flexibility such that we can sort of roll with the budgets that occur from time to time and continue to be kind on a consistent basis as well.

47:01 So that really be like is the strategic outcome of where we'd like to get the stripping done, what that will give us for the next decade beyond. Thank you. And then just stepping one step further on Stage four West, there seems to be some misconceptions that we'd experienced at collapsed wall. Perhaps you could clarify what happened last October and whether this has been resolved. Absolutely. So last

47:28 in terms of the time. So we identified a small amount of movement in one particular area of the pit. You know, this is a pretty pretty regular occurrence in both open pits. You have small localized movements of ground, a small stack failure where two or three benches might move slightly. But, you know, certainly not not an unusual, and I would say, actually quite common part of open pit mining. And I think that, you know, at the time, the team identified the issue of this potentially moving area. They were able to identify it before it became an issue, let's put it that way. And actually, we took the decision on safety basis to stop working below this particular area subject to us rehabilitating it, making sure it was definitely safe, putting our people and second, because the ratio of equipment at risk is not something we have any appetite to do. So this was entirely sort of preventative of a... I would sort of say, kind of run of the mill common garden sort of incident there or or issue where we have... We identified a potential issue, and we put a mitigation plan in place to to rehabilitate that as both secure safety of our people and equipment and also carry on. The

48:31 issue last year, that particular point though is that that particular area of instability or potential stability didn't actually move at the end, was above a high grade zone of of material. So find out that we could work in that high grade zone while we basically rehabilitated this area to make it safe. And because that lack of flexibility I just touched on now within the open pit is that we couldn't go anywhere else. We couldn't go to another part of the pit and continue to mine high grade material, and that led to that production downgrade. So if you like, the geotechnical issue was a nonissue. It was something that we deal with day to day in the pit. The issue was the fact that once we made a geotechnical safety, you see, is that the lack of operational flexibility in the pit didn't allow us to move elsewhere. And that's what led to that guidance issue. And in part, to answer sort of back to previous question is that by opening that pit up, by having multiple working areas available to us, we will in the future encounter issues like this again. But having that operational flexibility means that the equipment will move to a different area of the open pit, continue operating, and it will have that operational flexibility to deal with it, and it won't become a guidance issue and therefore, big share decision.

49:38 Thank you. Is there scope to expand the Sukari operations? For example, if you were to expand the underground or found additional deposits within the Sukari mining concession? Absolutely. So first and foremost, your major joint any mine is the billing capacity. You could we have a twelve twelve point five million tonne processing facility, which is a large mill. It's pretty significant for the gold operation to say the least. So so really, the... You know, at this stage, that is, you know, one of our constraints. So from an open pit perspective, if we were to find, you know, significant more material of the similar grades to the open pit, either in the open pit or satellites, is that we can only get that through the mill at certain given rates. So one might argue that that would have been more material open pit surface, there's a similar base to the open pit, but extend mine life. If the underground, for example, with this increased resource reserve base that we're targeting, we could increase the underground production rate by mining more tons from the underground because that's higher grade. Of course, we would displace some of the open pit material with that higher grade.

50:43 And similarly, if the satellite open pit material, we were successful in finding that, that was higher grade, we would supplement that as well

50:50 from there. So I think really depending on whether the growth came from the underground or open pit, the grades thereof is that we would obviously look to blend the best grade material we have through that 12,000,000, 12,500,000 ton processing capacity that we have. And of course, we had an absolute screening discovery of real scale, we found as part of the new exploration big round of the Nubris block, we found a really exciting opportunity. One of the things you can do, of course, is spend some additional capital and expand your milling capacity and do it on that

51:21 basis as well. So I think the geological potential is there. I think then the ability to deliver that will certainly track that down and fully evaluate that. And then depending on the nature of the target that we find, it would either potentially extend the mine life by adding in there or replace current sort of resources with higher grade resources to bring them forward in the schedule, like a scheduling issue. I think we were really looking to found something really substantial that is all that ability to try and expand the processing facility to increase the enterprise production rate as well. So we've got the geology. We've got the potential. Let's deliver that geology. And then depending on that geology, we'll then make the decisions about whether it extends mine life or we can potentially bring some of that forward and increase our price production as well. But we'll only make that decision once we don't have the job Is there scope for improvements on the processing side by way of costs and or productivities?

52:15 Yeah. Look, I think, you know, we focused heavily, you know, job g first, mining that Ross touched on some of the initiatives there. We're looking at around the mining side as well, the lightweight truck trays, dynamic gas blending, fleet dispatch as

52:27 well. So we're always looking, you know, we've got this culture now of continuous improvement. Can we do things better? And I do think the processing area is one of those areas where I believe there's further scope of things that we can do, whether that's inside the existing processing plant around power use, reagent use, improved productivity, improved recoveries. Certainly within the existing processing plant, we're chasing down a number of opportunities there. To give you an example, we've been pre optimizing one of the tanks ahead of the leach circuit, and that's actually given us a nice pickup on both reduction cyanide use and that metal goes with recoveries as well. So certainly, we're looking at that as we go forward. I think there's opportunity outside the processing plant. We're running some heap leach trials now for the low grade material that can bring that coal forward on that basis as well. So certainly, it's a key area. I think geology first, mining there as well and a real focus on processing as we go forward as well as well. Can we can we get those marginal gains that help to drive in their own right, you know, good, but not to be spectacular. But if you accumulate four, five, six, seven of these individual gains, they start making quite a significant impact on clients.

53:34 Cost... Question on margins. So with inflationary pressures building with fuel, labor, combined with a lower gold price, how are we modeling this and how are we trying to maintain margins and therefore underpin the dividend? Think I'll probably get it, Ross. Yes. So yes, we are experiencing inflationary pressures. We had built in our budget metrics for this year that we had a 5% inflationary buffer our budgets. That said, in terms of the cost reduction and our strategy in terms of reducing costs, I think that outweighs the pressures that we're seeing at the moment.

54:22 I have mentioned, we're very reliant on fuel and diesel fuel in particular. That's one area that we aren't able to influence the price. That's a dictated price to us by government. And that's why solar is so important for us, both in the short term and in the longer term to look at alternative measures. We are well placed though on our cost base. I think we traditionally,

54:48 we've done very well with it. We're targeting. We want to be in that lower quartile area. And we've been very excited about this stretch program and the continuous improvement, whilst it was launched and we thought there was traction or opportunity there. I think the traction that the teams have got have really given us confidence that we can deliver on those metrics and continue to drive that lower down that cost curve.

55:14 Great. And just staying with you, Ross. Given the market's under appreciation of CENTAMIN and hearing how much you both believe in the value of the potential within CENTAMIN above where it's trading today, has the Board considered a share buyback as being good utilization of capital? Thanks, Alex. Yes, share buybacks, it's certainly part of our regular Board discussions and discussion around capital allocation. I think and certainly at the prices that we see today, we're all disappointed in terms of where we currently sit. But it's important in terms of as we go through that capital allocation and looking at our balance sheet, looking at those growth projects, we are going through a significant reset in the capital spend over the short term, and we're allocating our funds to those projects that

56:05 we believe will deliver the best return over the longer term. And then as I've mentioned, dividend distribution is also sacrosanct in terms of what we're wanting to do. But that share by consideration or debate is certainly on the table has been. We've decided to go with

56:25 these growth projects and allocation of capital. We will be utilizing our treasury function. Those funds, although we might have been accused in the past that we had a somewhat lazy balance sheet, we are utilizing that those treasury funds for specific projects that we believe will deliver value over the future. But share buybacks are on the discussion list, on the agenda. We are discussing it and are considered that we need to allocate our capital, and we believe we've done that appropriately, particularly in the over this year and then suing two years where we see that big CapEx profile before it tails off. Thank you. And on the M and A side, is the company worried about an approach?

57:15 Alex, the reality is is that, you know, if we work every morning worrying about about that, obviously, we're doing our job. Look, I think our job as as management of the board is to basically run the assets to the best of our ability to maximize the, you know, the the the the, you know, the most of their potential. I think that's what we've got to be focused on. Look, I think the share price is is, you know, I said I I used the word patience before while we've been doing this work. We're just getting to the point now where we can start to to disseminate the outcomes of this work and start to basically underpin and demonstrate our faith and confidence to the broader market. You know, we... You're always battling these things like, you know, headwinds like gold price, for example, has been having a a tricky time over the last few weeks as well. But, look, we honestly believe that the the, you know, the the true value will out, you know, once we're able to demonstrate that to shareholders. And that demonstration is the sort of, you know, the growth potential in the ore bodies as well, but also consistent delivery from CENTAMIN to be able to sort of meet those guidance and demonstrate that we're sort of on top of the asset and operating it properly as well.

58:13 So I think that that, you know, that's our job. That's gonna be our focus. We're not blind to the... Where the share price is. We're not blind to the fact that someone else might also recognize the, you know, the embedded sort of, you know, sort of opportunities that we see in the company as well. And what we can do is run that asset as best we can. We can basically look to maximize the benefit for shareholders, keep the shareholders fully informed as to how we see the business. And if somebody knocks on the door at that point, it's up to a shareholder to make a decision that, you know, they're fully informed as to our view of the company. They're fully informed as to when they think the potential can go. And is the share price today and the...

58:48 And a backing of management versus an offer on the table? That's up to the individual shareholder to decide. But our job is not worry about that. Our job is to basically make sure that we're running out as best we can, keeping the shareholders fully informed and demonstrating that where we can take this business. And ultimately, that'll be our decision from there.

59:06 Thank you. Slightly more specific ones. So, Martin, given your background at Toro, would you consider taking a look at Senegal? And second question is, would the company consider expanding into other metals and materials? Senegal, yes. I I... I'm a great professional in Senegal. West Africa, generally, you know, the Permian, you know, geological belts in in West Africa are prolific. You know, they're they're substantial. Places like Cote D'Ivoire are still relatively underexplored. Think there's more to come from Cote D'Ivoire. And Senegal has a, you know, not a huge amount of Brummian, but certainly on that eastern border there, saw quite a bit as well. I think I think Senegal is a great place. So, no, I would say that more broadly, Senegal, yes, but certainly within aspects of West Africa for sure. I think we'd be happy to go and continue to operate there as well.

59:54 In terms of metals, look, we're a gold company. I don't think we're actually going to start mining lithium or diamonds. But look, as we're exploring, you know, gold is quite often found associated with their copper, you know, copper gold projects are are not uncommon. So if as part of our Egyptian bid round, for example, we identified a, you know, a copper gold project within our concession area, that was the way you treat the copper as a byproduct, then then absolutely, we might end up sort of co mining sort of other metals as part of our sort of the ability to deliver gold projects. But look, I don't think we're gonna diversify into base metals, battery metals sort of, you know, and that type of stuff as well. I think we are a gold company. But we'll just recognize geologically, it may pop up if we even make a discovery that has some some co products with it. Great. The company has stated its vision to be... To want to be a multi asset gold producer.

1:00:44 Is that how the board expects to deliver value to shareholders over the next five years? I think value is is, you know, it's such a a nuanced word and it's got... Depending on who you talk it's got many different meanings. I think in terms of value, we see that as part of that strategy slide is that it's about maximizing the returns from Sukari. That's about fully exploring the ore body to its greatest extent and making sure that we bring that to all to account and drive that cash flow. And then that's one aspect of value, right, value maximization and delivery. And then so that's one aspect. Secondly, you know, we bought... Pay for these projects in West Africa. Let's bring those projects to account as well. Let's deliver those. And if we can deliver the ROPO, you know, using a combination of maybe some debt and a bit of our balance sheet strength, so it doesn't impact on the yield that being paid by CENKARI.

1:01:38 You're now producing more gold. You've got some diversification of risk both in terms of asset and country, more cash flow coming in, and that could pay a further dividend, for example, as well. So I think, you know, value, you know, delivering value for the the Shell is about delivering that that vision and then using Sukari in its own right to continue to develop itself and underpin that dividend and then also allow us to deliver those embedded opportunities within the business and deliver those, which should give both potential yield down the track and in share price growth. And also be aware of our position in terms of the FTSE two fifty company with a strong position is that if opportunity... Come along for M and A that makes sense when our share prices are going to be spot options as well from there. So so I think that, you know, our job is to is to basically, as I say, stewardship of of the ore bodies of our management and bring those to account. And it's not just for shareholders. Right? It's for for our stakeholders.

1:02:32 You know, host governments, local communities. They all have state they all have states in these these various assets. So we've got to look after that at, you know, those assets for the long term on behalf of them. Great. We only have a a few left. So I... Apologies those on the line that we've gone past 10:00, but I think it's worth getting through them. So, I mean, you you touched on on one just there as... A question is, you know, how do we assess m and a opportunities and and where does this sit on our agenda at the minute? So as it sits, look, we keep watching brief. Right? We're always actively looking at opportunities, everything from sort of exploration scale opportunities with joint venture earnings with local, you know, junior partners all the way through to watching the news yesterday, for example, in Canada. So we're always aware of the market. We're always aware of what's happening.

1:03:21 I think that we've gone through a period now where realistically, certainly, bigger end of M and A to the market is that until we were able to reset Sukari and articulate that vision internally and externally, until we're able to demonstrate a period of consistent delivery at Sukari through meeting both production and cost guidance as well is that I think it would have been difficult to try and execute something on that basis. You know, we we we may have laid ourselves over to criticism that, well, you can't manage what you've got in your own portfolio. Why do wanna go and have something else to do as well? But I do think that we're at the point now where we we... You know, we've got a clearly articulated West African strategy. We're about to articulate the the Sukari story, and I think we're able to sort of do that. Hopefully, we know we continue sort of with our guidance in terms of delivery into q three and into q four to demonstrate our ability to, you know, to to manage Sukari.

1:04:11 And I think with those sort of toll gates reached, I think that would then give us the, if you like, the the the the sort of the credibility if you like to start looking at things seriously. So so look, I think to answer that question, we keep a watching brief. We're always looking for for opportunity just the way we are. We're a bit like magpies, really. We're always looking for the shiny thing that we'd like to keep abreast of what's happening in the market. I think that we've been sort of internally focused. And as I say, the the thing that's excited me over this last twelve months is that far from having to go out and rush out to buy something, there's a huge amount of optionality in the business that we can now deliver into. But I think that, you know, starting next year, you know, we can... We'll be in a position where we could consider. Having said all that, trying to find things of the requisite quality in a place that you're you're happy to go work in and that makes sense from a price perspective, that's a different story again. You know, I I think, you know, in terms of trying to do things that make sense for us that that we believe will be value accretive even if we're allowed to go and try and do things as well, I think that would be a bit of a challenge. It's relatively slim pickings out there right now for things that make sense.

1:05:18 Thank you. And then with regards to our presence in Cote D'Ivoire, how do we view and assess the geopolitical risks and operating risks? Look. We we we... In terms of a... From a political perspective, see, West Africa is a is a ever changing sort of environment. You know? If I think back to ten years ago when we were sort of early days in Toro, we were at Senegal and Mali, Guinea Conakry, and a few other places. You know? So... And I I think now, fast forward ten years, and there's some jurisdictions that very recently changed very rapidly in our places where you would sort of, you know, be concerned to operate. So look. We're... I think we're very attuned and very aware of of sort of, you know, changing both political

1:05:59 and security landscapes. We only really wanna operate places where we feel confident that one rule of law, you know, security of ten years in place and also personal safety is important to us as well. I don't think, you know, we want to be sending people to places where I personally go, for example. So we're always looking at that around that. In terms of Cote D'Ivoire, I think we are we are comfortable with Cote D'Ivoire politically on a security basis. We are aware, of course, that there's always the opportunity for contamination from neighboring countries of things to sort of occur. We've seen that sort of... Bali, for example, is a good example where what's happened in Libya has spilled across into Bali. But... So look, we're aware of that. We're not blind to that. We operate strict sort of operational controls. We have a security group there... Actually, consultant... Sorry. It's on board now.

1:06:47 A security manager in who helps to to to sort of monitor these things as well. So look. We we we wanna we wanna operate where we want to operate. We feel comfortable and safe to do so. We take our responsibilities to our staff very carefully, and we're constantly going to watch and brief on on what is a fairly liquid and evolving situation right across West Africa. Wonderful. So only two more questions. One is there an ups... Is there any update on the outstanding legal cases? And should shareholders be concerned? Alex, I'll take that, Brendan. There is no update on the legal cases. This is one that's been around for a long time, and I know it's been raised every time both Martin we and I are in Cairo, we we follow it up. We have both our in house legal teams and external lawyers working working on on the files.

1:07:43 Unfortunately, it is a sport up in the in the legal system in Egypt, which many files are through the process and take ten years to get dealt with. It's not something that we are concerned with at the moment. You know, we'd love it to just fall back on the merits of our own case, but it's caught up in the legal framework. So we do everything from our perspective in terms of making sure that we're pushing both both in terms of the files and the legal teams and, you know, at more senior levels when we meet with both our partners, EMRA, government, and the like, you know, we are in dialogue on that. But, unfortunately,

1:08:22 you know, it is it is what it is from a from a legal system and working the the system in country. Right. It's not something that we are concerned with in terms of operating them on or or our relationship with government and and key partners. And the last one which you did already touch on in the presentation, but I don't think there's any harm in reiterating it again is, is the company on track to make guidance? It remains unchanged at this time. Q3 is coming out middle of October. We will update everybody there. Not anticipating any surprises. I like boring when it comes to things like this. Nice consistent delivery, no surprises, no shocks. Boring is good in terms of delivery around that as well.

1:09:09 So look, at this stage, just the guidance remains unchanged. We will reiterate that point in Q3.

1:09:20 That's all from the questions. Back over to you, Mark. That's great. Alex, Ross, Martin, thank you so much, and thank you to all those investors that have taken time to submit questions this morning. I know, guys, investor feedback is particularly important to you and to the company, and I'll shortly redirect investors to provide you with their thoughts and expectations. But I guess before doing so, Martin, perhaps I could just ask for a few comments just to wrap up with, and then I'll divert investors. Thank you very much. Look, I'll be brief. Our contracts have run over time. Look, thank you for taking the time to join us today. Hopefully, this will be one of sort of a more regularized approach to sort of engaging the retail investor base. Certainly happy to make ourselves available to do that and to listen to those questions that we sometimes don't cover from the more technical sort of sessions that we do maybe some of the large institution investors.

1:10:09 We're very cognizant that our duty to sort of engage with you as well, and we'll look to do that rolling forward. But I hope what you can see as well is that there's been a huge amount of work done over the last twelve months.

1:10:21 We really are sort of put a lot of work in and there's been a bit of patience around that as we've been sort of busy getting on with I think where it's taking to somewhere quite exciting. That yield play remains a key part of the business, but I think that embedded growth is really what's shining through now. And I think we've got both the team now, we've got the financial wherewithal to be able to deliver both growth and the models. That's an important step change for CENTAMIN story. And we've got some near term marketing sort of events coming up around the life of passive two and so on. We believe those will be catalysts that will help to be able to re understand and get a better vision of where Sukara is going and share that enthusiasm for us. So thank you very much to everybody for taking your time. As ever, if you'd like to get in touch with further questions, follow-up, the usual channels are open. I'm more than happy to do that as well. So say thank you to everybody. Please stay safe, and we look forward to speaking soon again. Take care.

1:11:26 Expectations. This This will will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of CENTAMIN, we'd like to thank you very much for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. Good morning to you all.