Highland Copper Provides Project Update

0:04 I'll say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from today. I noticed quite a few Europeans, even a couple of folks joining from Asia. So really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today. But I am joined by Highland Copper CEO Barry O'Shea and project director Dr. Vyden Van Dyke. Gentlemen, good to see you both today. Nice to see you, Romeo. Nice seeing you, Romeo. Awesome. Now here's the format for today's events. Just so everybody in the room, there's no surprises. Barry and Vyden are gonna run us through a brief presentation outlining progress at Highland Copper's project portfolio and looking towards 2025. Then after that brief presentation, I'm gonna pop back in for a few questions that I've got, but then finally we'll be taking questions from the live audience,

0:41 starting with some that might've been sent over in email in advance. Speaking of, I'll say today's event is interactive. So the chat button in the bottom right of your screen is available throughout the whole presentation today. So ask questions at your leisure, even when they're presenting. We'll try to get to as many as we can during today's presentation, but if for whatever reason we don't get to them, I will make sure that Barry and the Highland team receive them so that they can answer them separately.

1:02 Last kind of piece of housekeeping before we jump into the protein and today's event will be recorded and will be available this afternoon for review, possibly early afternoon. So it'll come right in your inbox. But with that, I'll pass along to Baron Vynin to go ahead and get started.

1:18 Well, thank you, Romeo. Really, it's a pleasure to be discussing Highland Copper today. Just as a quick refresher, obviously, Highland Copper owns 100% of the Copperwood project. We have a joint venture interest in the past producing white pine project, which is only about 45 minutes away from Copwood, so a really nice region. The goal today, of course, is just to recap quite quickly on our accomplishments in 2024, which I think were many, but more specifically look at 2025 and the catalyst that will move the project towards a construction decision.

1:49 And I think it's really important context to look at the national conversation in the US right now, specifically around resource independence, energy independence. And what's becoming important for all projects is capacity to step into production and support that supply demand issue that we're seeing specifically domestic in the US. I think that's really where Copperwood as an asset stands out. So just as a quick refresher, Copperwood is one of the only fully permitted projects in its immediate care group. I would also say in its immediate care group, it is one of the most highly levered S copper price and we'll look at that in a little more detail. And I think another really important point is that we operate in Michigan and the US, looking at that background and context of what's happening in the US right now, but specifically looking at our regional wealth in Michigan. I think this is an area that's really going to bring itself back into life. So broadly as an investment option, Highland presents significant optionality to copper price, not only from a net asset value perspective, but really in terms of our capacity to build.

2:50 And looking at the next slide, you know, one of the first things I think I want to acknowledge is and you can move on to the next one, please, Romeo, acknowledge is that The copper developer asset class has been somewhat challenged over the last period of time. I don't think the long-term copper fundamentals have changed in any way. I think it's understood and clear that there's a long-term path to price growth and certainly the need for the metal. But there's been some intervening resistance, let's say, to real copper price movements and it's faded somewhat sideways. So certainly acknowledging that as an asset class, it has been muted to some degree. And I think when you sit through a period like that, what becomes increasingly important is that you take a look and refresh yourself on the true fundamental building blocks of the company so that when the cycle does take more full hold, do you have a project in the company that

3:41 the investment thesis really remains intact. And I think that's very much the case for us. Based in the US, permits in hand, and really an incredible resource scale which I'll just refresh you on momentarily. So really what it gives rise to are long live assets at near term from a construction and production perspective, understanding again that the long term paths for projects that are stepping into early discovery is certainly at 15 to 20 year range. And so on the next slide, just again, a quick refresher on the assets before we get into the more current updates. But I think it surprises investors sometimes, the share scale of the projects. Copperwood is not sometimes for its scale, but I think that's a bit of something that needs arguably to be looked at. If there's 3.7 billion pounds of copper defined, gives rise to an initial 11-year mine life.

4:32 But you can see that's based on the 54 million tons of measurement indicated at a nice grade of 1.5%. But what's really important is to take a look at the 79 million tons of inferred. So we really see this as a nice 15 to 20-year mine life. And really well sequenced then with white pine. White pine is bigger again 5.4 billion pounds of copper giving rise to a 22-plus year mine life. But given the scale you'll also understand why we brought in a partner on that project, thinking both about division of capital, but also division of labour. So we've really divided and conquered where Highland is really heavily focused on copperwood and Kintera is more so focused on white pine as we build out the overall regional play. And a last slide before we get into some of the details on the projects themselves.

5:22 Just a refresher on the copper price leverage and what we're showing here is that, you know, at $4, copperwood is a very good project, 170 million NPV at 18%. But you really see the significant leverage of $5 copper price, so a 25% increase in copper price gives rise to a 300% increase in net asset value. And looking over to White Pine, a similar story and acknowledging that we own 1 third of that project, you know, at $5 copper price, it's also a $500 million net asset value. So some real great targets to look at from an asset value appreciation perspective. And as we step into a cycle where we think, you know, certainly domestic production is going to be increasingly a focus in the US, I think we're very well placed.

6:09 So with that, let's get into really the intent of the presentation, really take a look at what we've accomplished this past year, but more so take a good look at what our plans are for 2025. And with that, I'll hand over to our project director, if I can turn to you. Yeah, thanks Barry, appreciate it. Robio, if you can flick the slide. As Barry said, 2024 for us, a really good year that's passed. We managed to get all of our initial site impacts to the wetlands and streams pretty much behind us, as well as the associated mitigation actions. So we're happy to report that we've substantially completed the 18-acre on-site wetland mitigation project that we've done.

6:58 Pretty much most of the yellow metal is off-site for work on the stream diversions. We still got some bare rootstock trees to plant, but the majority of that work is done. And we are in the process of establishing a 700 plus acre wetland preservation area offsite. And that'll give us kind of the 12 to 1 offset that we are aiming for.

7:22 Next slide please, Romeo. Other accomplishments for us on the state grant, just a brief reminder, you know, it's gone through approval from the Michigan Strategic Fund. Certainly, the Michigan House has approved it twice, and it's currently sitting pending approval from the Michigan Senate. And we continue to work on that. In terms of union engagement, Really happy to report that last year was a good year for us. We've signed our letter of intent with the Michigan Building Construction Trades Council, with the labor unions. Our intent is to have a project labor agreement.

8:00 And we've certainly received formal letters of support from the unions. And then lastly, we managed to put a key team in place. Obviously, I joined the team in September, but we've got Mike, who's a very seasoned site manager and also somebody from the Upper Peninsula. And Andrea is the environmental director.

8:20 Other supporting members of the team is now in place, our engineers are in place, as well as our environmental scientists. So happy to say that that's been Good for us in forming that. If we look forward to 2025, on the next slide, Romeo. In early January, we reported that or announced that the detail engineering packages both for the mine and the process plant has been awarded to DRA Global. I'm very happy that they've joined the team and supporting us in our engineering initiatives going forward. We've now stepped into phase 1 of our stage gate process. Phase 1 is all about, let's just finalize the design criteria for the project. So it's all about de-risking and optimizing copperwood.

9:10 We're expecting that to wrap up, you know, back in Q1, Q2 and then we'll be moving into the second stage which is the front end engineering and design of the project with the objective by the the back end of H2 this year we'll we should be ready to make a construction decision for the project. Part of that process is we actually announced, I think it was last week, that we have commenced the metallurgical drilling program. We currently have 2 rigs turning on site. The whole idea behind this is we're extracting about 450 odd kilos of the copper bearing sequence and specifically we want to use that material to test ultra-fine flotation technology in Q1 and Q2 with the aim of optimizing the grade recovery curve for the project.

10:09 And then the last piece of work, and this is an ongoing piece, is just continually working on our community engagement. We got really strong support from all constituents in the Upper Peninsula, and we're solidifying that support, have a continuous program of outreach, educating people on the project and on the grant. And as we move along this year, literally preparing for construction hiring, I'm starting to understand what's the capabilities of companies from a construction perspective in the region and building that into a database that when the decision is made, it becomes a lot easier to move forward. So 2025 for us, all about driving the construction decision on an optimized project design.

11:00 If we flip forward to White Pine on the next slide, just briefly, 2025 for us on White Pine is driving to the permitting and stepping into the pre-feasibility study. 2024, as we've previously reported, has been a good year for the project. The Kintero team has really driven the project hard. We've completed more than 20,000 meters of drilling, extracted all the metallurgical and geotechnical samples, and we're expecting all of that to go into a resource update somewhere in H1 this year. At the same time and in parallel, the team has completed multiple environmental baselining studies in 2024. We're doing additional studies in 2025. And the whole idea behind that is preparing for our key permit submissions on White Pine North.

11:52 And then lastly, the team is taking all of that information, drilling metallurgical test work. They've done quite a good trade-off study on the mine plan, mining methods, a big piece of work on the metallurgical trade-offs. And all of that will be dropped and folded into a pre-feasibility study that we're expecting the project to step into somewhere in 2025. So it's been a good year for both the projects and certainly looking forward to 2025. And Robio, just on this last slide here, you know, just want to demonstrate there's just a much bigger picture at play here. You know, we're trying to build a mining company, a producer in a region that obviously has a rich history of mining at a time when domestic production

12:43 is critically needed. And both of our paths, both our projects in a nicely sequenced manner really represent a pathway to being that regional producer. I say bigger picture because of course, Copperwood is the first step, White Pine alongside Kintera is the second step. And you may have seen also in the region, there are others, explorers and developers that are now active. In particular, when you look at a region that is respectful of mining, and that understands the mining history, and really a region that is both permitting and considering incentivizing. You know, When you put that in combination with the fact that moving to being a producer gives you an element of re-rate at a time when we believe copper price was moving in the right direction. Also acknowledging a significant alignment to critical mineral strategy in the US. There's really a macro play here that we look forward to advancing. And really, as we said, it's all about taking this project, both of them, from study phase really into execution phase.

13:45 And so with that, Romeo, happy to take any questions you and the audience may have. Awesome. So I did have a short list, actually, if you don't mind. Just questions that I'll throw at you. I wanted to start pretty much right away with politics, if you don't mind, Barry. But I would like to ask how you think the Trump presidency or any changes in the American administration will impact both mining but also copper specifically?

14:08 So I mean I think on balance a Trump presidency will be positive. You know naturally there will be some things that are not so ideal from a copper perspective. I think a Trump presidency might arguably a little less focus on electrification, certainly with respect to electric vehicles. And that naturally is an element of demand that I think will be seen. Now, whether that takes a blip in the short term, I don't think it's the end of the electrification and EV story, but certainly not prominent in his presidency.

14:37 You know, looking at other things, and I think resource independence in particular, and certainly energy independence, you know, having declared a national energy emergency, there's going to be a considerable focus on the metals needed for energy, but also the production capacity. You've seen other announcements around AI and data centers in terms of significant amounts of expenditure. That's, I would argue, is a whole new demand category in and of itself. So there's really this broad mandate to take care of the US from a resource perspective, which means production domestically in the US. So when an investor looks at a project like ours, they think about somewhat from a binary perspective, can the project get built?

15:22 So with that national conversation with permits in hand, I think that is very positive for us overall. One other thing I've mentioned really too is just in terms of the investability of the mining and natural resources sector generally, I think it's going to become increasingly investable in the US, where there are a host of asset categories that are arguably overvalued at this point. I think mining and natural resources, certainly our end of the scale are not. And with an administration that really values mining and natural resources, that we can be very positive in terms of floor funds into mining. Awesome, Appreciate it. One other question for you, Barry, while we're on politics, I guess. The grant seems to have been at the Senate approval level for a while now. So I'm just curious what you see as the next steps there.

16:13 Yeah, I certainly will acknowledge it's taking a lot of patience from our perspective. And we've taken this grant, as Vianna had mentioned, through a few steps of approval, and it's just been different levels of education it needs to be taken. So we're now just busy continuing to remind the Senate of the merits of the project, and there really are many. And I guess as a starting point this grant truly is for regional infrastructure. Naturally that benefits us as we're in a moderately remote location and bringing infrastructure is important. But it's also a grant that really embeds that roads and rail, excuse me, road power and telecommunication into the region.

16:52 It's also a massive economic boost for the region. And I want to remind you, the West WP, as is the case with many historic mining districts, is really a needed investment. With lack of mining over the last 2 decades, it's naturally suffered. So we think that there's a wonderful opportunity there. But very importantly, any economic boost alongside domestic supply of copper doesn't need to be at the expense of the environment. We have designed the project in a very environmentally sustainable and friendly way in terms of mitigating and minimizing impact, not to mention our obligation from a closure perspective. So we'll continue to be patient. This is $50 million. It's a wonderful opportunity to be considered for and we think we'll have success in 2025.

17:41 Awesome, I appreciate it. Vayan, I'm gonna get you in here if you don't mind. If you could, just give us some more background on the kind of technical aspects of the Ultrafine Flotation Technology Testing Program and crucially kind of how it ties into the feed work being conducted by DRA. Yeah look we only have a limited time here. I can go really deep, but let's try and keep this simple. If you plot recovery versus particle size, you get this like an inverted 2 bowl. So, there's a size range where flotation processes does really well. But if you go too coarse, let's say plus 100 microns, your recovery starts falling off. And in our case, if you go kind of minus 30 microns, your recovery starts falling off as well.

18:27 And there's several reasons for that. So technology providers have worked really hard on both coarse and fine particle flotation. What's critical for us is the fine piece. Our grind is, our primary grind is about 80% passing 45 micron. Our regrind is around the P80 of 20 to 15 micron. So it is very, very fine. And in those fine ranges, you really struggle potentially to get good recoveries. So for us, it's all about getting or using or evaluating ultra-fine flotation technology for a specific ore body. This is not something new. The specific vendors we're looking at have been, they've got an install base of 400 plus of these flotation cells, specifically in chalcocytes, which is our mineral type. So we are fairly confident that that's going to be successful.

19:25 So the whole idea is getting really fine bubbles, lots of energy so you can get these fine particles attached to the bubbles and a lot of wash water so you can get the grade up. And if you get the technology right and that kind of magic mix right,

19:41 the hope is that you start shifting the grade recovery curve, which from an economic perspective really makes sense for us in the project. Great. And if you could just elaborate on how those developments impact the project's overall environmental footprint, particularly regarding the process and plant design. Yeah, look,

20:03 these float cells have got a much smaller footprint than call it a conventional flotation circuit. So even if we get to a scenario where we have a, you know, we don't shift the grade recovery curve, so it falls under the performance of a conventional cell. Using these specific ultrafine flotation cells will give us a plant that's got a substantially smaller footprint. Smaller footprint means less concrete, less steel, less cable. It's certainly a much smaller building that we've got to heat. So from that perspective, it does help us tremendously from environmental footprints, and specifically at the end of life, where all of these buildings, everything gets removed and we get it back to the original state of what it was.

20:56 Awesome, appreciate that. Barry, I'm gonna jump back to you. For one question, there's also echoed by a question that came in over email. And that's, I understand there's some opposition to the project in the state. I'm curious if you could just give us an update and some background on that. The question that came in over email is, do you have any concerns that there'll be a barrier to moving to production. So I'm just looking for your take on that situation. So in terms of barriers to production, you know, I mean, we've obviously been through the permit process, which is a multi-year process. And I'll walk you through that to some degree, not to mention the regulation. So I think we're well set from that perspective. But yeah, listen, naturally there is some opposition to the project. I would acknowledge as a start-up, this is a pretty beautiful region that we operate in, although that being the case, also an industrial region, both from a mining and forestry perspective. But we need to be very respectful and responsible in terms of how we operate.

21:52 And I'd also acknowledge that opposition, I think, is positive. It has a role to play, both from a legislation perspective and in terms of how a corporate behaves and, of course, maintains their social license to operate. But I want to talk about the regulation first. So if you go back, you know, Michigan's mining regulation is actually quite modern. It was passed in 2004.

22:14 It was passed unanimously on a bipartisan basis at both the House and the Senate. And it was done so with support of some of the national environmental groups. And I think it passed with such support in part because it is extremely stringent regulation, particularly from an environmental perspective, acknowledging of course a significant amount of the mining in Michigan that occurs in the UB, which is, as I mentioned, a pretty wonderful area.

22:41 But it is significant to understand that because when you go through the permitting process and acknowledging that it was a multi-year process around environmental baselining, preparation, submission of permit applications, and well over a year of review by the Michigan legal authority, that if you can prove that you have a set of design that is respectful of the region and that it's safe, indeed getting that verification from the permitting authorities reflects that you have done so. And so while we do have some opposition, I think you'll see a notable absence of some major players from an environmental perspective because they have a trust in the laws that they assisted in putting together that they supported those. And they understand that if we've gone through that process and received our permits, that the project is indeed designed safely and well.

23:31 No, I Appreciate that background. I think that's very helpful. Vaynand, 1 for you. Are there any other opportunities at this point to optimize the project design as you progress through engineering? Yeah, great question. Look, the project has been through a feasibility study and an update to that feasibility study. So we did evaluate quite a lot of options. But things change. So economic conditions change. So we would, as with the copper price being updated, we do want to evaluate just what's the optimal cut of grade, look at options regarding how do we get the ore out from underground, are we going to truck it out or are we bringing it out with conveyors, and then obviously the fine particle flotation. Fortunately, most of the other optionality work has been done.

24:20 So this is all about just take the existing, call it economic conditions and indicators, and then say, How do we optimize the project from that perspective? So not a lot out there for us. Appreciate that. Barry, throwing it back to you, and I'm going to ask you to look in a crystal ball here for a second. But looking back, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm curious if White Pine is progressing in the manner you would have hoped when you did the JV transaction with Kintera? Sure. Yeah, listen, it was about a year and a half ago that we did that transaction. And if you think about our company at that point in time, you know, we were modestly capitalized and had a relatively small team. So from a corporate development perspective, the hope was to divide it up, as I mentioned earlier, where we as a team have the capacity and financial strength to move Copper forward.

25:09 But looking at White Pine as a larger asset, bringing a partner in, and it's really worked as designed. Kinterra has technical strength in this particular area of the mining cycle, meaning drilling through to permitting through to engineering studies. And they put that significant weight of their technical capacity and their balance sheet into the project. Vinem talked about the scale of drilling, as he did last year, environmental baselining, and as well, we've been pleased to see it's just the team that they've put in place to support the project. So what it's meant is that both projects are quite aggressively moving forward. Naturally, Copley is a little ahead on that curve, thinking about construction in the near term. But White Pine, given the pace that it's moving at, is arguably only 2 to 3 years behind. So I would have to say from a corporate development perspective, it was very valuable to our company. And I trust that the 1 third, you know, ownership that we remain having in White Pine will be extremely valuable to our shareholders as Conterra, as operators continue to advance it.

26:16 Awesome. I appreciate that. Now, There's a number of great questions from the chat. I'm not going to tackle them in order. I'll shoot to those first. Jay asked from the chat, this is also reflected in the question that came in over email. What's the plan if the state of Michigan, worst case scenario, does not appropriate the funds? Yeah, listen, obviously we remain quite hopeful that they will. But at the end of the day, it's not a do or die from our perspective. You'll probably know the total capital for the project is about 400 million. Obviously, having an order of some sort from the state would be very helpful. But when you think about the project over its life cycle, you know, obviously an initial 11 year mind life, but we think into 15 or 20, that 50 million dollars begins to pale in terms of its overall impact. So, you know, from our perspective, it would be highly welcome. It would be very positive from our company perspective.

27:10 But we'll press forward one way or the other. And I think, you know, as we stepped into 2025, I trust you've demonstrated that a couple of years, at least in the past, stepping into engineering with DRA. We're spending capital there, obviously looking to optimize the project through network. And generally, we're focused on moving this project forward one way or the other. Awesome, appreciate that. Dan from the chat asks, are there housing development plans and who's going to be coordinating that? Vani, maybe I'll let you think to kind of, you know, the broader piece around the region and how we look at both housing and I guess staffing from that perspective as well. Yeah, look, that is really important because you need to have place for our permanent staff to stay. It's early days for the project yet. We are at this stage focused on the engineering side, but Certainly from a housing perspective, we're starting to look at what is available in the area.

28:04 If there is not available, then that will be something that we look at how do we expand from a housing perspective. It's interesting, we work together quite closely with Invest UP and they've got some housing plans or programs that they are supporting and certainly that'll be part of the strategy is actually taking hands with those groups if housing development is needed to actually do it through that. And maybe one thing I'd add to that, Romano, is we have to some degree, some time obviously, the first call it 3 years are pure construction that will largely be unionized led construction. Naturally we will begin to form our broader operating team and bring people in. But a lot of the construction work is more on an interim basis. That's not necessarily people looking for long-term homes. We have done more considerable work around the interim housing availability to make sure that through the construction phase we're ready.

29:01 But it gives us also some runway as we think about the operating phase and ensuring that we have appropriate housing. Great. There's one question from the chat that's looking for a bit of a macro view. Barry, I'll throw this one to you. That's given the difference in NAV of the mine with copper at $4 versus $5. I'm curious what sort of dynamics you're looking at regarding copper itself when it comes to the path to a construction decision? Yeah, listen, actually, I don't think we distinguish ourselves relative to other companies. I would say even some of the very large base level producers worldwide say that really they're only looking at projects at $4.50 plus. And certainly that would arguably be the case for us as well. At $4 copper, while the project is economic and strong, I think it would be challenging in today's environment to raise capital. That being said, certainly through 2025, we've seen nice movement up to 425,430.

29:53 You know, what's interesting is that in the last number of years, while there's been an acknowledgement that there's a supply demand imbalance, the supply side hasn't reacted very quickly. So this gap that we're seeing arguably is only increasing as supply isn't coming online. So this copper price cycle I believe will play out. Whether it plays out in the immediate near term, meaning the next months, I don't know. But we have some patience as we work through the engineering cycle, as we work through construction funding over the next certainly 6 to 12 months and have firm belief in the broader fundamentals around Copper. So I continue to believe, acknowledging we've been waiting for it some time, that the investment pieces remains very much intact from a Copper price perspective.

30:41 Great, thanks. Somebody from the chat asks, and just obviously answer to the best of your ability. But curious how you plan to incorporate lessons learned from the neighboring UP project of Back40 and not fall into some of the same pitfalls they did. The commenter does note that they understand your operations are underground planned and not open pit underground. But just curious for your perspective on that project, and how, you know, there's some lessons learned there. Yeah, I know that, listen, there's always lessons learned. The pluses and the minuses. Yeah, as you mentioned, back 40 has had some issues. You know, it starts with community engagement, and maybe just as a quick refresher, we remain, you know, very active on the ground, educating around the project and the design of the project. You know, we will, it's an underground mine, so naturally that minimizes surface impact, looking at the mitigation that we're doing from a wetland perspective. Educating also on the closure, you know, safety of course from the trailing perspective but acknowledging that it does get closed responsibly and re-vegetated. So there's a whole host of design features that we educate the local groups on and I think that's been reflected in the support.

31:50 You might recall that when we submit our application for the state grant it was accompanied by 22 formal resolutions of support essentially from all local units of government from Wakefield to Bessemer to Ironwood to Golbebuk County, the road commission you know through and through. So you know starting with design, getting it right, educating people and making sure that you maintain that license to operate, That is of critical importance. Now, I would say also that we have the benefit of having been through the permitting process. That's in fact the work that we did this past summer in the interval of clemency and good standing. So we certainly don't take any of it for granted. We know how well we need to operate in the region. And maybe the last thing I'd point to is, you know, while we certainly take lessons from that side, there's also, you know, more positive and proactive lessons to take from the Eagle Mine in Marquette County. That's a 2 to 3 hour driveway from us.

32:45 And, you know, it had a lot of similar issues when it went about permitting in terms of opposition claims and so on and so forth. But, you know, they have operated incredibly well from an environmental perspective, certainly in terms of the impact that it's had, you know, from an economic perspective in the region. And of course, they're producing both copper and nickel, which are critical. So they did a whole host of things looking at community environmental groups to make sure that there's monitoring, setting up structures where they invest back into the community, not just in mining, but for instance, an entrepreneurship program that they put in place. So we'll be equally learning from the positive messages that they've had. Great, appreciate that. Analyst Paul Rankin asks in the chat, What's Highland's modus operandi around diversity, equity and inclusion as you proceed toward finance and development of White Pine locally? Curious if you plan to meet or exceed national standards at this stage, or if that's a part of your thinking at this juncture.

33:45 So, I'd like you to speak to that. You've obviously developed a whole host of mines in various regions. Just think how we look to build out the overall staffing policy. Yeah, look, I think first of all, equity, diversion, inclusion programs is part of our ESG plan. We have started developing that ESG plan, which is in its early days for that. It only goes into full execution when we go into the full execution of the project naturally. So we will have our own set of internal targets regarding that and then we will monitor against those targets as we go along. In my experience, certainly from a diversity perspective, it just creates a richness in the team and it creates certain alternative views that's always handy when you're developing and operating a mine. So that's where it stands for us at this point in time. And we continue working on that as we go on. Thanks, Vaughn, I appreciate that.

34:59 Eric Sparron in the chat from First Foundation asks, you mentioned that there are other resources in the area. So I was curious why you don't do more resource drilling to increase the scale of the project and the proved portion? So candidly, the 2 projects are at a pretty significant scale, multi-billion pounds for both of them, massive inferred resources again on both sides. I think bearing in mind, once you've drilled these particular resources to inferred, your capacity to convert is actually quite high. You might see if you've proven it on an inferred basis, the likelihood of conversion to MMI is in that 90% range. So that's not to indicate that exploration isn't important. But as you think about our focus right now, which is to step into development and production, We need to think about where we put our capital and what is perhaps less useful as we think about that goal is adding year 15 or 20 or 25 to a particular mine life. We know the resources there.

35:59 And as you'll know with most mining companies, certainly on the gold and base metal side, you establish an initial mine life, you make sure you understand your inferred side and then you convert as you step through to development. So we think we have long-lived mature resources developed. Naturally, as you say, there is a broader play here, and I think that there are others that are exploring and developing engagement, and there can arguably be teamwork done on that in the future as well. Great, thank you. Shai, That question was actually one of the first ones Barry answered, the one you just shot in the chat. So it'll be in the replay, it'll get in your inbox in just an hour or 2. A couple of quick questions that I jumped over in the chat. One is, what's Copperwood's timeline to production? Just I know we went over it briefly, but just to reiterate.

36:45 Yes, I'll give you a timeline to production, but I will also acknowledge that at the end of the day, it's always financing. And you'll understand we're a single asset developer, so we're at the mercy to some degree of the market. What we can do, of course, is design a project that is highly financeable. So that's what we're doing at the moment, obviously. Phase 1, as Vianan mentioned, which is, call it Q1, Q2 of this year, is to get through our final design of the project, ideally optimize it particularly on the process flow sheet. But set ourselves on a path to the phase 2 engineering, which would be, call it, from Q2 through to Q4 of this year, where we get ourselves up to that 40% to 50% engineered and really in a position to defend ourselves in energy diligence from a financing perspective. And it's at that point in time called the tail end of this year into early 2026, where we really go about raising the capital.

37:36 Naturally, if copper happens to be at $4 or something $4 at that point in time, arguably not the right time to think about a financing. But even where it's at today, certainly at $4.50 plus, with the project de-risked and optimized, we think that there's a really solid path, certainly in the context of US production to a financing. And that would naturally put us on a construction path for 2026. And as you know, it's about a 2 and a half year construction window. So that's how we look at timelines now. Appreciate that. One last question from the chat, I think, unless somebody sneaks 1 in. And that's Barry looking for you to speak on the company's current cash position. Yeah, so I think obviously we haven't yet reported our December 31st capital. I think last reported we were in the $16 to $18 million range.

38:26 So, you know, as I think about what is my responsibility and our responsibility as a company, obviously we want to progress the company at speed and that's why we're putting that capital to work both in terms of site work that we're doing, engineering, drilling. At the same time, we need to be mindful of it. You know, to the extent that we are considered an option on a proper price, we need to have enough capital to give us runway to allow that optionality to play out. And we're trying to balance that to make sure that obviously we advance quickly. I think that was assisted, of course, by joint venturing White Pine and allowing the 2 projects to move in unison. But we'll also protect that runway and ensure that we don't put ourselves in any financial difficulty. Great. Well, that looks like it. I mean, thanks, everybody, in the chat for those pretty significant questions. And Barry and Dr. Viner, thank you so much. Barry, I'll throw it to you for any last words you've got before we jump today. Yeah, thanks, Romeo. And we appreciate the opportunity today. Listen, I think there's a lot to look forward to in 2025 at Copwood. We're going to see some drill results in the coming months. That moves us obviously into that network and ideally optimizing the overall project design. We'd like to issue technical news in and around that, but it's all around optimizing and advancing the project design so that we are on a path to financing the construction decision later this year. And I think that really nicely coincides with the macro view from a copper perspective.

39:48 At White Pine, I think we have news as well in and around Zillow Results as they've completed their programs through 2024, a resource update that largely will be around defining the next phase of the path and getting into the next steps of engineering and permitting. So really, there's this broad setting where Highland is set up in a sequence development manner to build out the region at a time when the US needs to cooperate. Awesome. Well, Barry, Dr. Vynon, thank you so much for joining us today. I know there were 2 questions that didn't quite make it under the wire, but I'll make sure that the team gets them so that they can respond to you