First Mining Gold: Unpacking the Springpole EA Decision and What Comes Next

0:04 All right, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from. I've got with me today Dan Wilton, CEO of 1st Mining Gold. Here's how today is going to work for the folks here in the room. I've got some questions, but this is also an interactive event, so please do enter your questions in the chat section at the bottom of the screen. We're going to try to stick to about 45 minutes today, so if we can't get to your questions, I'll make sure the 1st Mining Team receives all the content as soon as the event is over, but we will try to get to as many as we can for today. This event is also being recorded and will be available for replay later this afternoon Eastern time. But without further ado, let's get into the meat and potatoes of today's event. Dan, everyone throws around the world milestone in this business, but the federal EA approval is a totally different animal. Can you put into context just how rare it is for a gold project of this scale in Canada to get to this point?

0:58 Yeah, first of all, thanks Bianca and thanks everyone for joining us And it's a pleasure to have Bianca here with us. As Bianca is one of the few people who do these things who's actually been up to the Spring-Pool Project. So she can attest to the fact that it exists.

1:16 The federal EA process, you know, for us was an 8 and a half year journey if you take into account the work that went into getting ready to do that, you know, it's a, it's, it's the end of a 10 plus year process.

1:33 You know, It takes a remarkable amount of determination, of resourcing, of commitment, just to be able to get through a process like this. So there's only a small handful of projects, I think, in Canada that are poised to get through this milestone over the next 4 or 5 years. I know the regulators, federally and provincially, really all across the country, are working really hard to help to shorten these timeframes down. But the reality is the regulatory piece of the environmental assessment process is really only one part of it, right? When you think about a development timeline for a project, it's everything from the initial discovery through project delineation and through, you know, all the test work that needs to happen, you know, PEAs, pre-fees, feasibility studies.

2:35 And then for us, it was, you know, a project description, terms of reference, draft environmental assessments, and environmental assessment. Like we've been through, you know, 5 or 6,000 comments and questions from regulators and communities and other individuals.

2:56 It's just an incredibly thorough process. The one thing I can say is every large mine in Canada goes through it. We're just delighted that for us, it's I think a real opportunity to reflect on just how far we've come with the project over all these years.

3:17 Totally. Totally makes sense. And hey, I'm glad you reminded me about the trip to Springfield. It was a sensational trip. That's awesome. I can confirm it's very much real. It's very much there. Speaking about the history, Dan, this person started back in 2018. Please walk us through what those 8-years actually looked like behind the scenes and what it took to get to the decision statement. Yes. I mean, you've got to take a step back before that. The main part of the deposit was really discovered in 2009 or 2010. So there were 4 years of furious work done 2010 through probably 2013-2014 by our predecessor company Gold Canyon and you know started a lot of environmental baseline study in that time frame, 2013, 2014, 2015.

4:09 And an enormous amount of that work that went into giving us the confidence to take the project through the EA process. And it's things like aquatic habitat study, fish studies, terrestrial habitat studies, caribou studies, wildlife, wolverine studies. The amount that I didn't know that I would ever actually learn about these, all these various aspects of the environmental assessment process. But that all, you know, sort of starts with a project description, which we submitted in 2018. You know, I joined in 2019, so we were kind of a year into that process. And, you know, The 1 thing that I would say is in terms of overall time frame, when I joined, we weren't set up and resourced properly to be able to really move it through. So we did bring on our current community and environmental

5:12 assessment team led by Steve Lines late in 2020. So that led to you know another year of work kind of re-establishing, really kind of solidifying the environmental baseline work. But even up to that point and finalizing the terms of reference in 2021, but even up to that point you know there had been tens of millions of dollars that had been spent on baseline studies and really understanding

5:43 the environmental context in which we're going to try and develop the project. So that then became us starting from agreement on the terms of reference to the draft environmental assessment in 2022 and shared that with regulators, federal and provincial, and with communities, got 3000 plus comments and questions that came back. And some of them really important comments and questions that led to changes in project scope and some project redesign. And ultimately that led to a final environmental assessment that was submitted in November of 2024, went through a public comment period beginning at 2025. And then, you know, more comment response, working with communities, with regulators.

6:34 In total, another couple of thousand comments and questions that we answered, responded to, and all the while moving forward with the communities who had done an enormous amount of work on understanding the project. So that's a whole kind of separate process

6:54 where, you know, we really needed to work with the communities to understand what they wanted to see out of the project, what their real concerns with the project were. And that work is continuing and is going to continue as the agreements, we'll talk a little bit, the agreements with the communities are laying out. So, you know, all told,

7:18 like I say, 8 and a half years that we have gone through it, an enormous amount of scrutiny on the project and lots of, I think, really important iterations to get to where we are today. Speaking briefly about the communities here, obviously there's been a lot of community related news over the project in the last few months. Can you comment on the communities and what these recent developments mean for the project? Yeah, so going back a few weeks, we announced

7:49 that we'd received the approval from Cat Lake and L'Axol to see the project move forward. And that was sort of enshrined in a term sheet that also laid out their consent conditions for the project and the agreement that we'd come to on important things like financial participation, employment

8:14 and contracting opportunities and things of that nature as well. So that was a really important step for the project to chart out a path forward. We're now working to turn that into a full agreement, a long-term project agreement. But I've had, I think, substantive discussions around the key issues. And then just before announcing the EA decision, we actually came to an agreement with Slate Falls Nation. Then similarly, sort of key terms outlined, sort of defining a path forward for us in the community to continue to work on the project and how we're going to work together going forward. So similarly, need to turn that into a full project agreement, but everyone's working expeditiously on that as well. So just, you know, having your social license for a project anywhere, but particularly, you know, a greenfields project in Northwestern Ontario, just so, so important, really a huge thanks to the communities for all of the time and effort and energy that they and their advisors have put into understanding the project.

9:32 We started with the communities 4 years ago now in discussions around funding their Anishinaabe-led impact assessment, which was one of the most thorough

9:45 and extensive Indigenous-led reviews of any kind of project, mining project or otherwise, ever done in Ontario, maybe in Canada. So a very thorough process of community discussion, prioritization, understanding the impacts on the communities. So, yeah, just all of the communities, you know, what a lot of people don't appreciate as they are following mining projects moving forward is just, you know, the toll that this takes and the resourcing it takes from communities that the leadership of indigenous communities always have something more urgent to be working on. I mean, they're stretched so thin

10:25 and we're just very happy that we're able to provide some of that capacity for these processes to move forward and provide some of that capacity for the communities to really understand the project. And I think we've kind of got to that point now, still some work to do to get to, you know, the full long-term project agreements, but I think delighted to have charted the path forward with the communities and we're excited to be here. Absolutely. Switching gears a bit here, the decision statement comes with conditions of approval. In plain terms, what do these conditions involve and how confident are you in the team's ability to deliver on them ultimately? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of them. So, you know, we certainly won't go through one by one, but they basically lay out some key parameters for the project development and really just enshrine conditions

11:25 that we had put forward often in terms of project environmental risk mitigation designs, if that makes any sense. So it's a lot of it is just, where we have put forward plans to mitigate risks, they then put as conditions to the approval that you do the things that you said you're going to do to mitigate those risks. That's the vast majority of them. There were a few that came about, I think, after more consultation with the communities,

11:56 addressing some specific concerns that communities would have had. But no, I think it's a normal part of the process. And there's, yeah, I think most of it is actually just enshrining in that decision, a lot of the commitments that we had already made. So, you know, similarly with the communities, there are, you know, sort of consent conditions and important conditions that communities have put in that are supplemental to these. And, you know, a lot of those are just asking us for firm commitments to deliver what we said we were going to in order to help mitigate some of the risks of the project.

12:42 Totally. We were talking about this a little earlier, Dan, but the market has clearly started to take notice of the stock this year. From your seat, what do you think investors were waiting to see before giving SpringPool credit in the share price?

12:55 Yeah, I mean, I think this has been a project by virtue of its physical location and the fact that the deposit is in the Bay of a Lake. It's a project that's always had

13:12 an element that a number of investors were quite willing to wait to see the outcome of a permitting process before they made an investment decision. Because they weren't able to themselves or were unwilling to take a look and make their own decision about the probabilities of a project getting to an EA approval. And that's fair enough. I mean, you know, there's lots of projects in the world that don't have this risk. And so, you know, I think you can you can understand why there are a number of investors who had said, well, these things always take longer, cost more, are harder to achieve, so I'll just wait to the end. So I think that's a part of it, is that we're now starting to see a lot of investors who've been on the sidelines waiting to see, are you going to get your social license? Are you going to get your environmental assessment approvals?

14:07 You know, we're tracking in the right direction now. I think in the last couple of weeks, we've just had some very concrete steps demonstrating that we're tracking in the right direction. And then in the end, I think what it comes down to is when you put all of that aside and you judge the Spring Pool project on its metrics and on the fundamentals of the risk and reward of the project development.

14:36 It stacks up really well against most other big gold projects in Canada and in the world for that matter. In terms of the jurisdiction where you'd be developing it, in terms of the proximity to infrastructure, in terms of the grade of the deposit, in terms of the recoveries, the relative simplicity, lower operating costs. I think on a number of fronts, if you take away all the rest of the noise and say I've got a 1g Gold and 5g Silver open pit at a 3-to-1 strip, 30km from grid power in Ontario, that's a project that people will be interested in. And so, but we always knew that.

15:21 And we always knew we were gonna have to get well down the track of the environmental assessment

15:28 to be at the point where, you know, investors had the confidence that this was going to be something that was going to be able to be moved forward. But I think that's part of where we see the real opportunity now. It comes back a little bit to our shareholder base. We're sitting at, it's maybe 20% institutional shareholding, significant insider and

15:56 call it friendly strategic ownership with our friends at 1st Majestic. But mostly our shareholder base has continued to be, you know, high net worth, family office, you know, and individual investors who've been following us and following our chairman and founder Keith Neumeyer for years and years.

16:21 And so we're starting to see the transition of that investor base a little bit to become more institutional. You have some of these much larger funds that are now coming to realize that this is something that's still, you know, a federally approved project in Canada that you can still buy for less than $60 an ounce. Like, you don't find value like that in this industry all that often. So yeah, it's going to take some time, but I think it's that natural sort of rotation in the shareholder base that's going to really help us advance

16:59 the project and kind of start closing the gap in valuation to some of our peers who are trading at, you know, 250 to $350 an ounce. Completely. Switching gears to the gold price here, we're in a gold price environment that nobody would have dared to model a few years ago. How does that backdrop change the economic story you're telling the market, especially with the PFS numbers already showing serious leverage to higher prices? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, the short answer is,

17:33 on Spring Pool, every $100 is about $130M of after-tax NPV. So our base case run at $3,100 an ounce, which was the analyst consensus long term in November of last year, like 6 or 7 months ago. This isn't ancient history.

17:54 But yet we're looking, you know, today I think that consensus number would be $500 an ounce higher and the spots obviously, you know, holding in above $4,000. These big projects have massive leverage to the gold price. And it's one of the things that is, I think, a really attractive kind of extra benefit to a portfolio of projects like the one that we have is that if you are a Gold Bull and you do believe in a higher Gold price coming, you have that real net asset value leverage with these big projects. So, when we talk about SpringPool, one of the things that we need to remind people is we also ran our base case economics at a $35 Silver price.

18:43 A significant amount

18:46 of the revenue, It's like 5% of the revenue is Silver. But we were taking that as a by-product credit. Well, you run that at $60, $70, $80 an ounce Silver, let alone $100 plus, which I think many of us think we're going to see in the not too distant future. It has a really big impact in basically on a byproduct basis, dropping your all in sustaining costs, you know, well below $1,000 an ounce, which again, just kind of speaks to the robustness of the project. So

19:19 I think it's a great investment to hold if you are a believer in a higher gold price, because you do have that leverage. And the other thing, Bianca, we'll get to it, I think a little bit, This is mostly to talk about Springpole, but let us not forget that we've got a larger project at Duparcay in Quebec, you know, which is not quite as far advanced, but with a project that was at a pre-feasibility study stage in 2014. And we're doing some really important work at DuParquet this year to start closing that gap on timing so that we can be ready to take that project through an EA process, you know, certainly before the end of the decade. So lots of important work that's happening there. But DuParcay gives you, you know, similar, very, very strong leverage to the gold price.

20:17 I think it's a US$100M

20:20 after-tax NPV for every $100. And our upside case in our 2023 study was $2,200 an ounce that showed a billion-dollar NPV. So they kind of do that quick math of what another $2,000 an ounce times a $100M USD

20:39 would give you in terms of project NPV. And it just really, really accelerates that upside scenario if you believe in a stronger Gold price, which I think we do. I think so. Absolutely. With the Federal EA in hand and the Feasibility Study now underway, what's the realistic sequence of catalysts between now and a construction decision? That's a great question. So we still have some important things we got to get done this summer, right? And so that's getting to our project agreements with the communities. That's getting the provincial environmental assessment process finished. So the provincial EA is, the provincial EA decision document from Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks in Ontario is published right now for public comment. So that public comment period is ongoing, will last to the end of the month, and then they'll go through their own process of consolidating, you know, comments and ultimately sending a decision package to the ministers. So we're optimistic we could see that kind of by the end of the summer as well.

21:49 And then you've got provincial and federal EA decisions and and hopefully long term project agreements with all the communities you've kind of locked down your path forward with social license. You're into more detailed engineering, not very exciting, not the kind of stuff that gets stock prices moving, but really important. Detailed engineering and furtherance of your ongoing permit applications. And finalizing a lot of the field work for the feasibility study, which I think we're targeting that feasibility study kind of middle of next year with that bankable feasibility study, which is an important step in the project financing process as well. So we also kick off a project financing process, likely the beginning of 2027.

22:42 And that allows independent engineers to work with our team as we finalize the feasibility study and we're working with potential project finance providers to look at finance ability of the project and how that's gonna be structured, get to financing commitments in the back half of next year and drive on towards that construction decision in 2028. And then there's a number of other things we can be doing in 2027. In furtherance of that, call them early works where the capital is available and you want to build a road, start with the access road that goes into the site, start on the power line coming into site, and ultimately the construction and operations camp infrastructure, which you'd want to get established and just gets you set up ready to really be able to go in 2028 when you have your feasibility study, you'll have a construction management partner picked out at that point, and you'll have your project financing all lined up to drive on. So lots of catalysts coming through all that process.

23:59 But yeah, like I say, It's not all going to be headline newsworthy stuff, but it's all tracking toward ultimately that final investment decision, which we think is early 2028. Very good. I know we have some more questions in the chat about catalysts. We'll jump back there in just a moment. I'm Almost through my questions before we start jumping into audience questions, but talking a little bit about jurisdictions. So, permanent ounces and surf jurisdictions are becoming scarce. And M&A in the Gold space has been heating up. Where do you see 1st mining fitting into that landscape now with this approval in hand? I think that's a really good question. I haven't been shy about talking about the fact that one of the paths we'd like to understand better is, is there a partner that wants to work with us on SpringPool?

24:50 I think this really, the EA approvals really opens SpringPool up as what is a scarce opportunity in this industry right now. Something that would have its main permit approvals, environmental regulatory approvals, still a permitting work that we need to do for sure. But the EA is such a such a major stamp of approval that I think really from a risk perspective is the main thing that addresses the permitting risk of the project. And that I think makes this a really, really rare opportunity. I mean, there's only likely going to be, you know, there's 1 that's in, well, a couple, I guess, in construction or getting ready to go into construction. We think about projects that can produce 300,000 ounces a year.

25:44 There's really just not many of those in the world that would be at an advanced stage that we're at now. So yeah, I think we will always remain open to it. We've been talking with the industry for a long time about, you know, potentially how is there is there interest in a partner that may want to come in and work with us on the project as well. But, you know, I think the scarcity of projects like this is going to start to be pretty well understood. When you look at a couple of other jurisdictions and projects that made good logical sense for people to be buying, I kind of think of the process that Rupert has gone through with Agnico. Like Some of those projects earlier this year were being bought for $400-$500 an ounce.

26:38 Not all of them were as far advanced in permitting processes as we are. It opens up that understanding of that scarcity value. And we can see that these, you know, not just Springpole, but DuParquet as well, are globally significant projects that I think are going to attract that real industry interest because the shortage of projects that you're able to move forward in a reasonable time frame, I think is about to become acute. So you know We said going back to 2019, like when I joined at the beginning of 2019, the strategy really was we wanna have these projects ready for that time that the industry needs them the most.

27:27 And I think that time is here. And so It's nice that we're getting these things over the next 18 months to that real shovel in the ground position where the rest of it will take care of itself. Absolutely. Speaking about the whole portfolio here, With DuParcay drilling, delivering high-grade hits and Pickle Crow advancing alongside SpringPool, where do you want this company to be a year from now? That's a good question. I think A year from now, we'd like to have that definitive feasibility study out on Springpole and have a very clear path on project financing. I think with DuParcay, by the end of this year, we're going to have an environmental baseline data set that will allow us to start writing up an EA for DuParcay, which we're very excited about.

28:21 Ongoing environmental work also in managing the historical environmental legacy at DuParcay. We're making very important strides there this year as well. And ultimately moving DuParc towards some real visibility on what that project really looks like at a $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 gold price. Because it's very different than people's perception right now. You know, Massively scalable project that still has huge exploration upside. So I'd love to be in a position where first the market kind of recognizes and investors recognize some value for SpringPool. And then I'd like that we could have DuParcay recognised for where it is, which is basically a PFS stage project in the middle of the Abitibi that could be a top-five Gold mine in Quebec at the beginning of the next decade.

29:17 Because we're not getting really any value for that. And then with the other projects, a year from now our friends at Bella Vista are starting drilling at Pickle Crow. Lots of great work that's going to keep coming there. I think having some view on the growth that's coming there. And then our ownership in Seva Mining as well, the Cameron project. Seva is just getting going on its work programs and making very good progress in solidifying its social license in the area in Northwestern Ontario with new neighbours now with Coor having bought Rainy River and bought New Gold. So exciting things happening there as well. So we still have some big, big value levers, even significant value levers beyond Spring Pole here. So hopefully for the next year, we've got to stick to our knitting. Lots of hard work to do at SpringPool, lots of work to get done.

30:09 But I think if we're able to demonstrate that, you know, investors can understand that value, then start really surfacing the value of the other assets in the portfolio as well. That's where, you know, I think we can see a share price that is multiples of where we are now. So one of the things we've always said here, like, we've been deep value investors fundamentally, You know, it's kind of my fundamental approach has always been one of value and understanding deep value. At 1st Mining, we've never really had to search for the value of the assets that we have. For a lot of years, we were trading sub $10 an ounce. So there's no question that like, you were getting a good deal when you were investing there. I think the important thing for investors to know now is, you know, we're still trading sub $60 an ounce with 2 very advanced stage projects where peers are trading in multiples of that right now. So yeah, still lots of room to see just in reversion to the mean in surfacing value from the assets that we have.

31:16 Totally makes sense. Okay guys we have so many questions. Questions that came in the live chat, some questions that came in ahead of time via registration. So for those in the room here do bear with me. I'm going to jump around a little bit and like I said at the very beginning If for whatever reason I don't get to your question, we will make sure that the 1st mining team receives it. But let's start here. There's a question here about the being added to the GDXJ in August. What's your confidence level in terms of that being the case in that timeline? Well, our understanding of the inclusion criteria would say that we've hit that criteria. So 2 inclusion criteria, 1 is valuation and float, and the other is trading volume.

32:05 And it's the trading volume that's usually been the constraint of development companies being included in the index. That trading volume is an average of $1 million US a day on your primary exchange. We've certainly hit that on average over the last 3 quarters and expect that trend is going to continue. So we're optimistic. I would just say there's a little bit of black box when it comes to all of this, you know, dark arts of ETFs and index inclusion. But no, we're confident that we qualify anyway, and whether that translates into us being included will remain optimistic. Awesome.

32:51 I know we've already talked about the catalyst timeline post EA approval, but I really like how this question is phrased here. What do you think is the single biggest catalyst that would unlock shareholder value over the next 6 to 12 months? Single biggest catalyst. Well, you know, I think at the risk of grouping 3 catalysts into one, I think getting to the long-term project agreements with the communities and receiving the provincial EA, like I think when you can demonstrate that, yes, you have checked all of those boxes, and you're demonstrating your path forward with, you know, both social license and regulatory license.

33:44 That, I think, is the biggest catalyst here. The next one after that, I think it is a feasibility study when you've done more engineering, you're able to demonstrate projects ready to build. You've done a lot of work on contracting with current costs, current prices, when you can sort of see the robustness of the project at wherever the gold price is going to be at that point. That I think is another one. And then I think the third, so this is now what? Catalyst number 5. So you never have to be, never searched that hard for the things that are going to make make the stock move. But I think it is an update of the economics at DuParcay.

34:32 Because I think when you look at that project in the light of a gold price environment, anything like we're in now, it's billions of dollars of net present value that people just don't understand. And so I think that's a real, a real catalyst there as well. Totally makes sense. A few questions here about DuParquet versus Springpole. I'm going to try to combine 2 questions into one, so bear with me. First part of the question is, is the strategy to keep DuParquet separate from any investment in Springpole? And can you explain to folks maybe who missed a little bit of our conversation earlier, why these having 2 assets here as a significant part of the 1st mining story.

35:19 Yeah. I mean, in terms of having a partner potentially come in with SpringPool, Yeah, we would like to see that on the project level. I think there's a lot of opportunity to address with a partner, both the construction operating risk, if you have an experienced mine building and operating partner, and the financial risk at the same time. But that's an outcome. It's one of those things that obviously we need to be able to chart our own path and continue down a path to see where we end up with that. But ultimately, that investment we'd like to see go in at the project level at Springpole because it then doesn't dilute our company interest in Duque RK.

36:15 We think it's important. Keith's always been a big, big proponent of having more than 1 asset in the company, in large part because it's the mining sector and things happen at projects. And this is a guy who's lived through a lot of ups and downs in operating mines and permitting mines and building mines and buying mines in Mexico specifically. And I think he's learned the hard way that all of one's eggs in 1 basket can be risky. And so certainly our boards always had a view that it's very important to have more than 1 shot on that in the company. But I think for us, the other part of it is, if we were to go down a path with a partner at Springpole, we have a team that is ready to basically take Duparcay from where it is through to the point where we know we're going to get Springpole to in the next year.

37:16 You know, We've just gone through an environmental assessment combined federal, provincial environmental assessment process. I think our team is very excited to roll sleeves up and start down that same process of surfacing value at DuParcay by getting it to that same point. So, yeah, I think we've got a good skill set to be able to do both. I think 1 is, you know, the same team and extension. We're needing some additions, obviously, to to work on both projects when, you know, you're moving full steam on 2 5 million ounce plus gold projects. Like It does take a certain level of commitment and resourcing for sure. But I think we have an ability to do it. And so, yeah, for us now, at this point, like we don't think we get anywhere near the real fundamental value that we see at DuParcay. And so we need to do more work to surface that value there for sure.

38:16 I know you've spoken to this previously and a little bit earlier in this call. Could you speak to the environmental conditions unique to Springpole and how they'll be managed moving forward? Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say unique to Springpole. You know, there's a water management plan that we will have, including, you know, building the dikes and dewatering the open pit basin. I think the perceived risk on that, as evidenced by the federal EA decision, the perceived risk on that was, I think, larger than the actual risk in that this has been done a number of times in other projects in other parts of Canada.

39:01 And our teams worked on permitting, you know, significant projects that, you know, have dikes and dewatering, and, you know, it's kind of nothing new, particularly from a federal regulatory perspective. But there was that, you know, certainly the perception issues. So, yeah, it's a little bit unique in terms, not unique, but more significant in terms of its size and scale. But it's, you know, building a couple of dikes and de-watering that basin of Spring Pole Lake to get into the open pit. And then using that as the opportunity and how you are, where you're getting material from, and actually importantly, creating a bunch of fish habitat through the excavation of the material you need to build the dikes. And so we actually end up with that north basin of Spring Pool Lake enclosure with significantly more fish habitat there.

40:00 And sculpted and curated fish habitat, if you will. Like you're creating sort of optimal situations for, you know, spawning grounds and particularly for the species that you're looking to augment. So yeah, that to us is I think the part that people always sort of struggled with when they looked at it. I think we always had engineering and environmental path forward to be able to manage that. But yeah, There's nothing particularly unique about it. And I think we've now are getting to the point where, you know, again, you get past the perception into the reality of it. And it's not really much more complicated than many other parts of building a mind. So yeah, we're looking forward to the day when, you know, that's something that we have to, you know, talk less about the risk of.

40:57 Absolutely. And I think it really sounds like that's the path you guys are on. Folks, I know there's so many questions and I see some questions that we've covered and some that we that maybe if you tuned in just at the end here you might have missed at the beginning of. So I think for now what I'll do is I'll put a pause on the investor questions coming in live but please do if you think of something do send it in and we'll make sure it gets to Dan. Dan, I want to just pose one final question for you, which is, in terms of everything going on in the EA, what's the number 1 thing that you want investors to know if they let's say they're only tuning in for this little blurb here what do you want to leave them with? I think you know us getting to the really important part of demonstrating a path forward for our social license and agreements with the communities and getting to this federal EA decision.

41:56 I think it is only going to solidify the view in the Gold industry that these big projects like SpringPool that have achieved this level of de-risking from a community relations, social license and regulatory license standpoint, they're very rare, they're very scarce, and they're very valuable. And I think we are now only just at the dawn of the day of seeing really the fruits of what has been 8.5 years. It's been 16 years of really hard work to delineate this deposit, to understand the environmental context, to understand an engineering path forward for development of the project, and to understand a really, really critical path forward of how we're going to continue to work with and learn from and listen to the Indigenous communities that we're working with. So, yeah, it's a big milestone, lots of work left to do, but I think, you know, this is the beginning of what I think is a real recognition of the value of us being able to advance what is a very sought after and scarce asset in the industry.

43:25 Fantastic. Dan, thank you so much for your time today and congratulations. It was huge. Thanks, Bianca. A real Pleasure to see you. Awesome. Have a great day, everyone. Thank you so much for attending, and stay tuned for the replay. Take care. ♪♪