Phase 2 Drilling Underway At Martiniere, Today We Discuss Phase 1 Results

0:04 Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from. I did see quite a few time zones on the sheet today, so thanks so much for joining us. For those of you who are new to Wallbridge, Wallbridge is a gold explorer and developer that controls an 830-kilometer square land package in Quebec's northern Abitibi region along the detour of Fenelon. The company's flagship project is Fenelon where a PEA was published in March of this year. However, today what we're here to talk about is the advanced exploration project Martin Yer and the phase 1 drill program results reported earlier this month. With me today, I've got Mark Peterson, Senior Geological Consultant and Walbridge's CEO Brian

0:35 Penny. Gentlemen, how are you today?

0:37 Good morning and thank you very much. Yeah, good morning. Great to be here with you again, Romeo. Awesome. So here's how today is going to work just for the folks that are in the room. We're going to go through a series of questions that I've got for Brian and Mark, but then this is an interactive event, so please do put any questions that you have in the chat in the bottom right hand of the screen. I'll try to get to as many as we can today. That being said, if there are some that are slightly off topic or we run out of time, et cetera. I'll make sure the Walbridge team gets it along with your email address and your phone number. So please do put it in. I'll make sure that they at least

1:08 get the question and can get back to you as quickly as possible. Last piece of housekeeping I'll do before we get into protein. Today's event is being recorded and will be available before end of day Eastern time. So you can expect it probably about 4.30. For those in the room, it'll pop up in your inbox. It'll be in the same link that you're accessing today, but it'll also be on Six's YouTube page also before 05:00 Eastern. That's enough out of me, let's get into the fun stuff. I wanna start with a question for you, Mark. The phase 1 Martin Air drill results report earlier this month, you show those, you know, sexy bonanza grades over narrow widths. Can you provide more color on the underlying controls that govern the continuity of that mineralization?

1:45 Yeah, sure. And I'll go back in time a little bit to the beginning of this year or really how we came out of 2024. For those that have followed us, they know we did a fair amount of drilling last year. And we also did a thorough update to our mineral resource estimate and geologic model. One of the outcome, the learnings that came out of that, all that work was kind of the recognition or the very strong suspicion that what we see when we look at a resource table is, is, is not all that meets the eye. The geology of the Martiniere system overall is not thoroughly fleshed out.

2:33 So what we're focused on this year is working along the known trends, bug lake corridor, you'll hear me mention that a fair amount cause that's where we are focused. But outboard of the currently defined resource with a bit more aggressive step out drilling than what we would normally do if we're, you know, specifically delineating a resource for reporting right now. To your question, you know, the continuity of gold mineralization. So that just folds right into following the known trends. And we're really focused right now on confirming the specific structural zones within the Bug Lake corridor that are hosting the gold mineralization.

3:28 And then the nuances along those zones, structures, especially in the Abitibi,

3:33 They pinch, they swell along strike, vertically up and down. And there's a lot of that goes on just within 1 structural zone, but we've got multiple ones. And so what we're seeing,

3:51 for example, at Dragonfly, we now are very, very confident that the Dragonfly zone is really a continuation of the known zones back at Martinia North and Bug Lake North. And the only way we could have gotten there was by drilling the intervening zone between those 2 areas where there was just less information and as it happens. And surprisingly to me, that's where some of our best grades in this most recent drilling came out of. I actually thought we were not gonna find so much, I thought something else was going on in the geology. But that just goes to show that one,

4:37 I'm only right half the time if that, and 2, you're only as smart as your last drill hole. Sure. I got one question. So the Bug Lake corridor now shows that mineralization across 1500 by 700 meters. And this is I always like to pick your brain, Mark, so if you don't mind, what's your vision for the ultimate mining scenario? Do you want multiple smaller operations or are we thinking of 1 huge integrated complex? I think, well, first off, 1,500 by 700 meters in the grand scheme of things.

5:11 From a mining infrastructure point of view, it really isn't that much for a multi-million ounce kind of a gold system, which is where, you know, that's where I want to get us, if the geology permits. But I would think you wouldn't do a bunch of small little things. You try to leverage, achieve an economy of scale with a common mine infrastructure. Whether it would end up being more open pit than underground or more, you know, vice versa or go all underground. That's a question for much farther down the road.

5:57 And that's really a question for engineers and what's the best way to, you know, come up with an economically viable project. Right now,

6:09 you have multiple centres of mineralisation, so each of those would be its own little ore body, and they will link up in places, and other places they'll be more discreet. But you would try to connect all of that again with a common mine infrastructure. And because the system does continue considerably deeper than what we've drilled so far,

6:30 you know, I think, you know, a strong underground component and perhaps, you know, you do the whole thing by underground, but again, way premature to really put a pin in that. No, no, fair, fair, for sure. I'm talking about phase 1 to phase 2. So phase 1 delivered 7,225 meters across those 18 holes. How are you optimizing your drilling strategy for phase 2 so that you get kind of the most resource definition per dollar spent? And are you seeing patterns that might allow for that targeted surgical drilling? Yeah, well all of our drilling, everything we do in the exploration space, when we're drilling, you know, just doing exploration drilling as opposed to resource delineation and infill.

7:17 It's all results driven. So wherever we drill our next hole or our next couple of holes is gonna leverage off the information we just got from the last few plus the ongoing updates to our geologic model and targeting model that we're constantly updating as we go and as close to real time as we can get.

7:42 So I guess that's the best way to say, how do you optimize when you're kind of working in exploration space and, you know, right now nominally we're drilling holes at a fairly, I would say moderately aggressive spacing of about 150 meters at a minimum and in some instances, you know, a few hundred meters or depending on how confident we are, if we're going to take that bigger step out.

8:15 The other aspect is that phase 1, we were primarily focused on trying to push out the lateral limits to what we know in the geology, both in between the known zones, as I mentioned before, but also outboard along strike in both directions along Bug Lake corridor and even farther to the north where the new Martinier Northeast area, where we've gotten some good results. There's never been any drilling up north of an East-West fault that just sits north of Martinier deposit on the map. So for phase 2, we're going to continue

9:03 stepping out kind of laterally, but we're going to really shift our focus a bit and start taking, you know, systematic step outs going deeper than we've done. And they will be lateral to some of the already,

9:21 good results we have down at those levels. I'm not ready to go throw a 1 or a 2 kilometer hole down there, that makes no sense. But within the realm of working between say 400 and 800 meters vertically, we have a lot less information there in terms of real drilling, But we're a lot more confident in what the geology is doing to be able to start moving in that direction. Great. And I know we talked about Martinian Northeast. I see that that shows kind of lower grades with multiple structures. So I'm trying to get in your head for strategy here. How do you evaluate the risk-reward of continued exploration there versus focusing resources on those higher grade dragonfly and horsefly zones? Yeah well it's yeah it is a it is a risk reward kind of a thing but you know we've still got a lot of work to do on fleshing out what we see in Bug Lake Corridor.

10:21 So that's going to continue to be the focus.

10:25 And we've got to, as we just launched our phase 2 program with the drills, the drill turning yesterday. We've got a pretty good plan mapped out for where we want to drill, but again, it's like when you're going into a football game with 4 quarters, whatever plan you have in the first quarter may change by halftime.

10:51 And that's how we roll. That said, we have in Martinier Northeast, we have the first really good exciting intercept up there. And then 2 more widely spaced step out holes, which I just want to mention,

11:10 although we didn't get ore grade intercepts returned from those, Those holes did intercept multiple structures hosting mineralization. And one thing we know in this system and gold systems in general is you can hit good mineralization and maybe the grade isn't too exciting right where you hit it, but you may only need to go 50,100m away, up, down, laterally, whatever, and all of a sudden you're in the money. And some of the major mines and districts in the Southern Abitibi, a couple come to mind. When you look at what's exposed on the surface above these multi-million ounce, decades long producers, It doesn't look like much.

12:02 So, that's the space we work in as explorationists. So we're working off of pretty, relatively thin information compared to where we have all our drilling in the main area

12:16 with 3 new drill holes and what we see in those. And we've got some geophysics to work off of. So yeah, we haven't picked a couple of hard dots on the map of where we're gonna go drill next up there, but we're working through it. But again, we're staying on where we're getting the best results right now on Bug Lake Corridor. Okay, appreciate that, Mark. Brian, I'm gonna get you in, if you don't mind, for a couple of questions. I know, given Phenolon is at PA stage, while Martin Air is earlier stage, What's the company's strategy for balancing capital allocation between advancing Phenolon towards feasibility versus

12:54 expanding that Martin Air resource base and what's driving that strategic decision making for you? Well we have 2 excellent opportunities. Phenolon is advanced. Logic Next Step for Fenelon is a pre-feasibility study. The team right now is doing an analysis of what do we need to do to get us to a pre-feasibility, how many holes of infill drilling, what's it going to cost us, how many studies to advance us to the next step. You know, it is conditional on financing and we will know more in the fall of this year of the size of that. But in the interim, we have this opportunity at Fenelon that we're drilling this year. Capital markets are tight for small juniors like ourselves and we may not be able to raise the money to do a complete

13:43 pre-fees. But we need to understand what we need and the timing involved so we can plan for it. In the interim, you know, we need to raise some money to do a similar program at Martini as a fallback. Then if we can raise more money, then, you know, we could advance Fenelon to a pre-fees.

14:02 In the business, you know, as you continue to reduce risks, you will get, you should get paid for in your equity. And the good news is we've got 2 different opportunities on how we go forward. And between now and once we put together our plans for next year in September, October, November, we'll have more news on this. Great. No, appreciate that very much. One thing I love to ask is, what do you think Walbridge's competitive advantages in the district that you're working?

14:33 Well, our competitive advantage is, we're on the same deformation zone that the Detour Lake mine is on. Detour Lake is Canada's largest gold mine. It's on the Ontario side, but on strike. We're a hundred kilometers on strike from it, which flows to Martinier and Fenelon.

14:53 A lot of the mines that were developed 100 years ago in the southern Adipotibe, there was lots of bedrock exposed, and you know, the discoveries came much quicker than they do where we are. We've done an excellent job in exploring, but probably 80-90% of our property is covered by glacial overburden, so it's a little harder to find. We've been successful, we've developed a great team and a great knowledge set and if you look at the history of the

15:24 Abitibi, a lot of these mines started off as smaller producers. We put out a PEA on phenol that focuses on the highest margin ounces, the most logical way to take it to the next step. And you could expand it in the future because the PEA mine plan mines out about half of the resource of life of mine. So there's lots of room for expansion. So we think that that's a logical way to go forward and, you know,

15:51 we'll have more news on that as we go forward. Oh, makes sense. I just want to recap before we get in. I know there's a bunch of audience questions. There's 1 that came in on email as well. I just wanted to recap. So this morning, you announced that phase 2 drilling has commenced at Martin Yaron. I know we touched on it already, but I'm curious if either or both of you wanted to add any final thoughts to your plans for phase 2. Just for folks, some people in the room probably haven't seen today's news release. I'm also curious, When are you

16:15 anticipating the first results of the Phase 2 program?

16:18 Well, I'll answer the first part of that, Mark, from, you know, I'm not a geologist, I'm a CPA, but right now we're trying to figure out the size of the prize at Martini. So that's why we're doing this step out drilling to see how far it extends in whatever directions and then, you know, once that's completed, then you do your, you know, your closer space drilling to hopefully update your resources at that point in time. So, we're just trying to figure out how big is this thing and how do we go forward? Then mark you can answer the second part of that question Yeah Well, I'm pretty excited. You know, I'm really tickled with with how our how our drilling came out in phase 1.

17:06 Actually quite a high success ratio in terms of all of our holes along the Bug Lake corridor hit significant grades or significant structure with mineralization where it was targeted. And that doesn't happen every day. So I'm quite happy about that.

17:31 Also, we continue to learn as we move along. And as an example of that, when I joined Walbridge a year and a half ago and was getting up the learning curve, knowledge curve on Martinier geology, one of the kind of perceptions was that the mineralization was following

17:54 porphyry dikes. And there's a bunch of them. There's a bunch of porphyry intrusive dikes that cut through the volcanic coast rock package. And so Most of the focus of drilling and targeting and everything was on where follow the Porphyry dikes. We came to realize through last year and really confirmed it this year that that's a great place to target mineralization, but it's not the only place. Those same structures, the porphyries are really occupying the same structural corridors as the gold mineralization.

18:28 And we're seeing the gold mineralization follow those structures away from, you know, or outward of where these porphyries are, you know, just along the structures themselves, just within the volcanic package, which to my mind really opens up the possibilities for what can be going on. Also,

18:52 you know, we really haven't defined the lateral limits, either the lateral or the vertical, but, you know, what is the overall geologic footprint of the Martinique Gold system? Like I said at the beginning, we're exploring undercover,

19:08 but I've worked on a lot of gold systems and other types of systems over the years. And this one just, I look at that mineral resource statement, and I look at what we know about the geology, and we're not there yet in having everything fleshed out. So as an explorationist,

19:29 this is about as happy a place as we could be right now. Awesome. No, appreciate that. Now, I am going to go to questions that have come in from the audience. There was 1, Brian, I'll throw to you first that came in over email. And then I'll jump to the ones in the chat. And I'll note, just I know there was a large group that came in a bit late. The chat button your bottom right is where you ask questions. We'll try to get as many as we can in today's session. But Brian, somebody asked on email, can NSR on just a portion of the company's land package potentially raise the share price to facilitate additional financing of the solution? And you already talked about it, just asked, when is the next financing expected?

20:03 Well, when you say an additional NSR, is that a source of, I assume the question is, is it a source of capital for us? You know, the current St. Alon property, which goes back to when we acquired the 10.5 square kilometer position in the center of it, is where all the resources are. It carries a 4% NSR. For us to put additional NSRs on it, would be punitive to the economics, particularly if gold prices go lower. So, additional streams or royalties is not an option. We have to look at our current property we have and are there some outside properties that we could divest of to raise some money and then also look at the opportunity of some equity in the future.

20:55 But first of all, we need to figure out how much money, as I said earlier, we need to take Fenelon to the next step and weigh that in again how much money do we need to develop a program for Fenelon

21:11 for 12 months and weigh the costs and benefits and the opportunities behind the 2 of them, between the 2 of them. Great. No, appreciate that. One question from the chat, Matt asks, he notes Innova Explore recommended a 40,000 meter program to continue to advance Martin Yer. He's curious, is a program of this size being considered for 26, 27 as a phased approach? And could we see an increased size of this year's program generally? Well, for this year's program, we're financed until early next year. So this year's program is this year's program. We're focusing on Martigny. We've got a lot of good work to follow up on. That was the lead QP's estimate. And that's why we're bifurcating it, looking at how the mine plans develop, looking at where we need the infill drilling to determine if that is a reasonable estimate.

22:01 So, you know, the work we're doing between now and US Thanksgiving is to confirm that. Great. Steve from the chat asks, this is one of those tough questions, answer the best of your ability. What's your relationship like with local groups at the project? We have excellent relationships with all our partners. We have pre-development agreements with our 2 Cree partners and there's contracting employment opportunities. And about 25% of our workforce comes from our 3 First Nations partners, which includes the Algonquin partner. We run as if we have 3 pre-development agreements with the groups. You know, at the end of the month I'm on a whirlwind tour to go up to see our First Nations partners as well drop by the town of Matogami to see town's council.

22:53 We do consult our partners when we develop exploration plans and stuff like that. And I'd say our relationships are very, very strong. Perfect. Thank you. Matt from the chat asks, when would you like to see an updated MRE at Martin Year? You wanna take that, Brian, or would you like me to? Go ahead. That's a tough question to pin down simply because we have shifted more back into exploration mode to find the broader geologic limits of the Gold system.

23:38 Once we've done that, and whether we get that fully done this year or we need another 6-12 months to really get to that point, then I think we'll have a better idea of what additional work would be required, what additional drilling and work would be required to really have a new robust dataset that would really justify putting out a new mineral resource estimate. Great. Julio from the chat asked a question about the beautiful Quebec exploration rebates. Everybody loves those. He wants to know what is the Walbridge exploration rebate this year and curious when those typically come in.

24:24 That's an excellent question and yes the refundable tax credit regime in Quebec is second to none. I've experienced something similar in BC but not as robust as in Quebec. Even with the change in the budget, we still, you know, the rate of refund goes down to 20% from 28%, but it's still the best in the country. We claim the refunds when we file our tax returns. So tax returns are due June 30th, we filed them on April 15th. So to get to the, use a mining expression, the top of the muck pile. That's right. So we get them in, it's subject to a mandatory audit, the auditor comes in and asks questions and reviews documents and stuff like that. And we should get the money later on this summer, early in the fall.

25:12 Last year we were very fortunate, things proceeded very quickly and we actually got the money in June. But and the refund based on our filings is $4.8 million, which will go back into the coffers, which will be used to, you know, fund further exploration. And then based on our plans for this year, we can probably expect a refund for this year's spending in 2026 of somewhere between 3 and $4 million. Great, gotta love Quebec. Like I said, still best in the country. So there you go. Well, what it does, it allows you to plan, you know, a little bit ahead and get ahead of the curve. So if you've got to sign a contract for assaying or something, you have something to rely on. So it gives you a little bit more flexibility in your planning.

26:01 And it's very supportive. It's designed to create employment in Northern Quebec and that's what it's doing. Great. Matt asked from the chat, are there any mills than a hundred kilometers or so that are under control by another junior that could allow a toll milling situation or a possible entity combination in order to help you fund that bigger picture? You know that's an excellent question and we've looked and they're all too small. Sure. There's a few small 500 or a thousand ton a day mills the last PEA in Fenelon is a 3,000 ton a day and the grade doesn't allow you to ship it that far. It has to be something next to the ore body to make the best economics out of it. Great. One question from Zoot in the chat asks, He recognizes that Eric Sprott's a major shareholder of the company. Just wants to know if there's any dialogue or feedback recently on what the company is up to.

26:53 I talked to his business partner, Connor, quite a bit, and I give him updates and his comment is steady as she goes you know don't get too far ahead of yourself these are challenging markets and you know the market is starting to turn we're seeing some support in the stock you know saying it's at 7 cents you know every half a cent it represents an 8% gain so you know it's moving in the right direction And I'm cautiously optimistic about the opportunities going forward. Awesome. Now, I recognize we're getting towards the end of the half hour here. One thing I love to ask as we close off these conversations, especially in light of starting phase 2. Curious, what are you most excited about for the second half of 2025? And I'll throw it to each of you. Brian, I'll start with you and then we'll close with Mark. Well, I'm excited on figuring out how much we need to spend to get us to pre-fees on Fenelon.

27:48 Figuring out, you know, seeing the results of the drilling program from Martinier and figuring out how to prioritize where we go next year, which will lead into, you know, how much money we need to raise and, you know, and taking the company from there. This is an excellent opportunity. We're valued at about $10 per ounce of resources. We should be able to improve on that. And we're not sitting on our hands. We are working the ground as best as we can in a responsible way to minimize dilution to our shareholders. Great. And Mark, I'll throw it to you. What's keeping you up with excitement for the second half of this year? I'm really excited to just start getting a fleshing out more.

28:36 What is waiting for us down below our current drill, drill pattern along Bug Lake corridors, outboard as well. But just when I look at a long section and anyone that's interested can go see on our news releases on our website, some graphics. But when I look at our long section, you know, most of our drilling information, it supports the resources and our thinking is really limited to the upper 300,400 meters from surface. But with these latest results out of phase 1, some of them are, you know, some of the best results are going below that.

29:22 So when I look at the, you know, when I look at the long section, yeah, it's riskier to go deeper, but not as, we have a lot more confidence now because really, we're just stepping out laterally and a bit more vertically down below where some of the shallower drilling is. But the geology continues. It doesn't just all stop where the drilling stops. So I think we've got a great opportunity to really, you know, come to the end of this year with a much better, better idea of, you know, what is the, what is the side, the overall size of the prize potential here at Martin year? Because again, what we see today, I don't think is everything that meets the eye or what I think, you know what I mean? Sure. Well, That is exciting. I certainly look forward to talking to you both again when we see new results.

30:19 Thank everybody who joined today. I know there's quite a few of you in the room. For those who came late and you missed the beginning part, all good. The replay is going to be in your inbox shortly after this event, probably within 90 minutes. So be able to watch that first piece where Mark does get into some of the details. So I encourage you to watch it. But Mark and Brian, thanks so much for giving some extra context and running through. I know our audience appreciates it. I like learning about the projects. I think it was fun, but appreciate it very much guys. Well, thank you, Romeo, and keep the good work. Awesome, And thanks everybody in the room. Have a great afternoon, everyone. Thanks for having me on.