Metals Exploration (LSE:MTL) — Post AGM investor Presentation

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the METALS EXPLORATION PLC Post AGM Investor Presentation. Throughout the quarter presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. I'd now like to hand you over to CEO, Darren Bowden. Good morning to you, sir. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody, and good morning to the people in the room. I've put together just a brief presentation. I wanna give everybody a live update for the first time in a while. A lot of these slides, everybody's seen before, so I'm not gonna go through them all. I'm gonna stop at the ones that I think are important and talk to the business generally and where where we wanna take the

0:32 business and what's going on so you get a good feel for our thoughts and our future. And again, a lot of these slides are in here for people who don't know the company very well, so they're just to keep keep everybody updated as we go. I think we we all you know, METALS EXPLORATION of for the last five years have grown and grown. We've improved the business. We've increased the size of the business by buying into Nicaragua. And I think, you know, the the standard that we've achieved in The Philippines, we will be basic we'll we'll be generating that standard again in Nicaragua. And that includes ESG. That includes operations. That includes all facets of operations in the developing country. One of the key issues you've got in developing countries is relationships, and we'll see some of that. Some of that will come out in the presentation because there's some questions around regulatory authorities. And regulatory authorities are probably, especially in The Philippines, one of the biggest things, you know, we have to deal with, one of the slowest moving things that are out there as well.

1:33 A couple of highlights. I I suppose we asked we updated this this slide with a couple of guidance. So we're still looking the guidance for our ounces is still seventy, seventy five thousand. We're well within that range. We'll probably be at top end or or close to the top end top end of that. The benefit of the the gold price at the moment, we're currently looking at a we got a revenue guidance out there now of 226,000,000, so we're gonna be about versus last year of $1.91. Our overall cost structure is about the same. So you can make your own decisions around where that ends up in terms of cash generation for the year. But it should be a good year for us. And the half yearly will be out in August, I think Mike was saying.

2:19 And results are looking very good for the half year. So everything's going in the right direction for us. And sets us up well for the Leandia construction, which we'll talk through in a little more detail. I think this is a slide I put into every one of my presentations because I want everybody to know where we wanna take this company. And right now, we've got stepping stones, which are all internal to the company. That is a growth path to take us past the billion dollars. That's what we wanna do. That's where the board wants us to take it. It's about execution. It isn't about going to an m and a anymore. It isn't about dilution. It's about us executing on our plan to deliver a lot much larger company for the existing shareholders, and that's where we're headed. So, you know, the two to four year plan, within two years, construction finished, production started in Nicaragua.

3:11 There's some other opportunities we're looking at there, and we're looking at to grow the business both in The Philippines Nicaragua in the short term. The Philippines, I think, all of the all of the projects that we have on our books at the moment are the ones we wanna develop, but we're looking to grow those projects in Nicaragua as well. And we've been working with the government over the last four months, and I'll talk you through a little bit of that to what we've seen. On top of that, once we do that, our run Reno operation runs down from where it is right now. We already have Dupax. People have heard about it. They've seen it, and I'll talk you through some of the some of the mapping and some of the work that's been done there over the last four months to give you an idea, and I will talk you through where we are with the licensing because that's a critical issue. It's the licensing of the expiration permit so we can start the drilling because it is drill ready, and we are ready to start that drilling. And we will talk through that.

3:58 Three to five years because that Dupax would be online if it proves economic. It'll be online by 2028. So we'll have two operating mines in 2028, and then it's just looking at those growth targets within our existing portfolio, bringing those on five to ten years from now. And that's our target. So if we go to Nicaragua, you've all seen this slide. I won't talk to it too much. Our target is 140,000 to 150,000 ounces a year. There's 2.2 to 2,400,000 already in resource. We know that can grow, and we know there's a lot of opportunity to do more in Nicaragua. The benefit of us being at forefront of mining in both Nicaragua and The Philippines is we are the ones leading the way to growing their resource sector within those countries.

4:45 We're the ones talking to the government. We're the ones in front of the government. Majors won't come in. Majors see the geopolitical risk. We take that on. We manage it by being there with the right team delivering the right results. And we see Nicaragua as the upside there is, like The Philippines, you know, forefront of one of the gold biggest gold industries that could be in the world. I think we we very much like it. So our our plan, we're looking at I I think 2027 is gonna be a little bit more of a a slower growth year than we're showing here. The mine planning's been done now. We're probably looking at about a 100 to 110,000 ounces in 2027, and then we grow to the 140,000 ounces in 2028. That's basically the target at this stage. The numbers in The Philippines were running down. Last year is under due to head grade than this year.

5:36 We do have a bit of a tail in 2027 as we ramp up Nicaragua. Currently, looking at the 2,500 gold price, Nicaragua has an NPV sitting around $880,000,000 Okay? There is a question here. What where do you see a valuation of the stock price? The stock price based on these numbers is $20.25 p. That's where we will be. We've to build credibility. We've got to get production online. But once that production comes online, we're going from 80,000 ounces to a 140 to a 150,000 ounces at an all in sustaining cost that's less than what we're currently doing. Okay? You can do the numbers yourself, and that's where that puts us. We're really hoping the gold price stays at 3.5 or even more. But, you know, even if you look at a $2.05 gold price in the medium term, this company should still be well within the twenties as a as a p as a share price.

6:28 How are going with the project? We purchased a secondhand plant out of Alaska. There's currently a crew up there breaking that plant down now at summer. That plant will be on the water on the July 20. We've broken ground in Nicaragua. Bulk earthworks is 20% done. We'll be finished bulk earthworks by the end of August. Once we get the bulk earthworks finished, the foundation work will start. Batch plants on-site, fuels on-site, the mobilization of the equipment already happened. All of the major equipment items are already being purchased, including the plant in Nicaragua, the SAG mill. The only thing we're outstanding is the transformer for the the substation. And that's about a nine to twelve month delivery time frame, and that's being ordered within the next four weeks. So we're well on the way to mechanical construction.

7:16 Everything will be on-site, ready to go by the time the foundation's poured, and foundation will start pouring in q three. So, you know, the target right now is to have first pour somewhere in q four twenty twenty six. But if we can get it in the way, we will full and production ramp up last quarter twenty twenty six. That's our target. I think we're well on our well on the way to doing that, and the team is already fully invested in in in Nicaragua at Landia. We have the the project director, project manager, the ops general manager. Their teams are pretty well filled out right now, and they're ready to go. So the teams are going, and, everybody on-site who we need to be on-site is there. So things are going very well. We're seeing a lot of, you know, it's it's exciting building stuff.

8:05 It's something that I love doing. I was getting bored, so this is great for me. Keeps me it keeps me active and interested. I I really do enjoy it. My biggest project was something in Colombia. I did a $2,000,000,000 build for Glencore. And so this is something I do enjoy, and it's something I've done in South America before. And the team who were there are the ones who are with me in Colombia, so I do know that they can do that job. So we've already started groundbreaking. As I said, the bulk earthworks is well underway. The camp construction started. The laboratory's next because all the equipment coming out of Nome will go into the laboratory immediately so we can actually start doing our own analysis in country because right now, all samples are going to Canada for analysis. So we're looking forward to doing our own laboratory, setting our laboratory up, and doing our own in country so we can turn the results around quicker, and our exploration program can move forward quicker. We already have a drill rig on-site. Exploration has already started on the next phase within the land year tenements.

9:01 We are looking at expanding the business in Nicaragua. And over the last four months, we've done a lot of work on looking all historical results in the country, looking at other areas that make a lot of sense to us, and looking at things that we could work and partner with the government to grow with the government as we go forward. And building that relationship has been key for us to move all of those things forward, and we're working very hard with that relationship with the with the. We're close to we've already submitted application for new tenements there, and those tenements are actually an extension of the existing areas that we have because we see some huge potential in those areas. Some of the some of the new areas are actually ground that was held by majors who were in the country but left when they'll see instability in 2018. So we know the ground's good. We've got some results and some historical results, which once we get to ground, we'll start publishing those so you can see what what we see.

9:52 Why do we do that? We're holding already 540 square kilometers. Why do we go out and do that? Because right now, the exploration that's been done over the last twelve years has been limited to Lundia. If we go and look around the Nicaragua in general, there's more advanced programs and more advanced projects than what we have on our books there. If we pick can pick them up for nothing and we can advance exploration by three to five years, why wouldn't we? And that's our target, to make sure that that pipeline in in Nicaragua is the same type of pipeline that we have in The Philippines. So if The Philippines regulatory authority slows down, we move here. It gives us flexibility in the two countries we wanna operate. It diversifies our risk and then ensures our growth plan. So if our growth plan is slow in one country, we push it in the other.

10:39 And this type of opportunity for us makes makes it ensures that that growth plan can be met as we go forward. And that's our focus. Groundbreaking ceremony gave us a lot of credibility in the country. The government has been looking at this project thinking it's not gonna start, hearing that it was, and it never did. We have shown the government that we are going to execute on this project, and that has given us the credence and the credibility to actually start talking to them about these other areas that we see as very valuable for the country company to move forward. Real quick plant, as I said, though, we've got a full team up there right now. They're pulling that most of the plant was already a part and in in storage. We're by pulling the rest of it apart, and we're starting to move that to a a stockpile area right beside the port. The ship arrives on the July 10 and leaves on the twentieth. It'll be in country in Nicaragua around about the third week of August, and that's basically when the plant lands lands. So the SAG mill is already in country. The rest of the plant, the majority turns up in August. We've got, as I said, all the major long lead items already purchased and in place.

11:44 There's some risk around that secondhand plant, of course, especially ball mill. It's an older ball mill. It's only ever run for five years, and these things last for forty. But it's older technology, older motors, older gearboxes, so we're looking at some of the risks around that and looking at building in in risk controls to manage those risks as we go forward. I we'll have a new motor on-site. We'll have new gearboxes on-site. We'll do those things to ensure that ball mill operates at the performance we need it to operate when we start. The interesting thing is the second that that ball mill is a has a sister ball mill, and it's actually operating in The Philippines. And it's operating at Masbate, and we've got good friends at Masbate. So our maintenance team in The Philippines has been spending a lot of time in Masbate talking to those guys, understanding the risks around that mill. So that's why we know what we need to replace and what we need to put into critical spares to make sure we can actually make that work.

12:35 The plant site, the layout, everything's complete, and really now we're just down to starting the engineering in in full swing. A lot of the engineering was already complete from the Rock Creek plant, and we're just reusing that engineering. It's just the new areas of the plant, the SAG and ball mill integration, the CIL circuit. Those things are what we're upgrading with the engineering, and we're using the existing engineering from Rock Creek for for the majority of the other works. So everything's going very well there. Engineering should be in the majority done by end of August, early September, so it matches that time frame when we'll start pouring, start looking to form and pour concrete footings for the plant. Unlike the India for a simple reason, it is a significantly simple flow sheet compared to what we got now. Ranuno was a very complex and is a very complex plant because it's refractory gold ore, so it has to be oxidized before it can be leached. There's a whole range of secondary processes, which is why it was so difficult to get the for the management to get it up and running first time around.

13:33 You know, we did that over time, and we made it work. We don't have that issue here. If we basically crush it, we grind it, and we put it in a leach tank, and you're 92% recovery before you start. So this is a very simple plan. It's a very simple ore. The flow sheet's very simple. It's things that everybody can work with, and, you know, this works around the world. So we're very lucky that the ore there is something that doesn't have much complexity about it. Runruna turnaround, I won't go through this in too much detail. As I've said, 2025 is going to be another good year for us. That's been supported by the gold price. Thank you. We do have hedges after September. It's about 1,300 ounces a month, so it's not significant. And that hedge is at about 2,200, so we are losing a little bit on the hedge, but the majority of our gold's still being sold into the open market, so we're still doing very well. And you'll see that from the free cash that's been generated and shown in the the quarterly.

14:32 And just to give you a look at the the numbers, the growth profiles, the all in sustaining cost, the only reason it's going up is is not because our costs are going up. It's because our gold production's down a little bit, and that's where that's moving. Our absolute costs are basically have been the for nearly five years, and we're moving 1% to 2% a year rather than the 10 or 15% you were seeing growth in costs in other operations. We aren't seeing that. We've been able to manage that to a straight flat line for the last five years pretty much. And as I said, the the revenue is just climbing on the back of keeping the cost where they should be and that that gold price story, which I think in the medium term, everybody's seeing it's not going down. I think with the instability in the geopolitical situation we all see in the world, there's not an analyst calling for gold going below, you know, $33,000.

15:23 They're all calling $3.05 to four now. I think we'll see it above that. I'm sitting in the room over here, so you could probably we attribute to that. So I I I'm very bullish around gold, especially in the medium term, and I'm bullish around the the projects that we've got going into going into that. We are the best operator in Philippines. We've been requested again by the Philippine government to represent them at the Asian Awards. Last year in the Asian Awards, we got a second and a third in the two categories we represented them in, and we've been asked to do that. Again, we've run President's Award three years in a row. We have people when ambassadors come into the country or, you know, they're they're looking to show they send them to our mine. You know? If they wanna promote mining industry, we get visitors.

16:08 And this helps us. Why does it help us? Because we take the communities we're going to go into to our mind. So we talk about ABRA. On the twenty third of this month, we got our we're we're finally gonna start generating community engagement again. There's been a big delay due to the the political situation and the elections that happened in May, and all the political people who reelected are starting up again. So we're basically back up in ABRA the minute that starts. The NCIP are now with us, and they'll be starting that meetings on the July 23 in ABRA. July 24 sorry, of June this month. June 24, we've got two busloads of the of the community coming down to the mine to see it so that when they have the meeting, they see the mine, they see the potential, and they see the opportunity that they have. And they're the things that generate that momentum for us to move forward in Abra.

17:00 Just to give you an idea of the political situation that we were dealing with, for the election period, the most dangerous province in The Philippines for that election period was Abra. 38 people lost their lives during elections in Abra alone. Okay? There was a hiatus. We had no choice, and we did not wanna put our people or the community who might have been supporting us at risk in any way, shape, or form. So us moving out of ABBA being requested by the mayors, them asking us, us listening, us moving out, waiting for the elections to finish was the right thing to do, and now we can go back. And once we're there and we have the impetus and we have our people on the ground and we're generating that economy and that wealth, things will change.

17:45 But right now, we're working with the community to try and build that that relationship and build that trust. And once we've got that, we can move forward there. Yes. We did have a license to drill. We weren't able to act on that. We'll work through those community issues, and we'll be able to deal with that on the back end. It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when, and it's just time. And we've all got to be understand that the political situation and the community situations in these developing countries is not the same as what you see in Australia or Canada, where those situations are sorted out and they're regulated with an authority that has the control and the opportunity to manage it. We don't have that. We work with the people on the ground every day to make those things happen, and it is happening.

18:33 Our exploration targets. We know about the average tenements. We've got three key targets up there. My favorite, I you know, think this is one of the best copper deposits I've ever seen. I'm really looking forward to drilling more of it. We've got Douminglay. There's two key targets in Douminglay already. One is a caldera with a a mag high that has an arsenic profile on surface. Arsenic is one of the layers that sits above a porphyry. So if you look at a porphyry, the the layers within porphyry, you've got a a litho cap. You've got arthic bignan, arthnic all the way down to copper. We're basically in that sequence. It's 10 times the normal anomaly that you'll see on surface. It's a it's a very high arsenic anomaly, and it sits right on top of a mag high. We really like that target as well. And Bolognese, something we've picked up recently. We're going through the process of getting the EP issued there. That's an old tenement that has some drilling on it, so it's it's moved forward.

19:30 It was drilled by a Canadian company and also has a very, very strong copper gold signature. So three very nice tenements there. But the one everybody wants to talk about, the one I will go into a little bit more detail is duplex. We've done a lot more sampling across duplex. And just to give you an idea, the little box down the bottom here, that's about a kilometer long. Okay? So that's if you can see my pointer. Can everybody see my pointer behind me? Not showing the meat. You're talking about the blue box. Yeah. The the little blue box down on the the bottom I'm gonna say bottom right where all the you can see all the analysis has been done down there. We've been mapping a lot of work down there. I don't know if you can see the numbers on that chart, but just to give you an idea, the copper numbers are between three, seven, 8%. The zinc numbers are between 1550%.

20:20 The gold numbers are around three grams a tonne. That's on all the veins that we're seeing within the the alteration. The alteration is about 100 to 200 meters wide, and we've mapped it up for about a kilometer long. It used to be an old mine. It was a zinc mine. Why? Because it was DSO. That's direct ship ore. They direct shipped zinc from that that property without processing. And zinc at that grade is pretty crazy, and that's what they were doing. So it's a it's a very nice target to have. It's about 20 k's from the run run of plant. We'd have to repurpose the plant to be a concentrate plant. So we'd produce copper concentrate. We'd produce a zinc concentrate, and then we'd float off the pyrite and put it through the leach circuit, which we already have, to produce a gold dore as well.

21:06 We we're seeing crazy grades within in the vein systems within the alteration. We still have to drill the alteration. We need volume. We don't need veins, and we need to be able to do two to two and a half million tons a year. So we need volume, and that alteration's large. It has size. We've got a determinative economic on grade over that the complete width. It is at surface. It is you can view it the whole way across the top of the surface. It it's over a ridge line. So it's just work that's gotta be done. That whole ore body is seen nine kilometers away. This is a 10 kilometer lease, nine kilometers further away. We see it again at surface. And in between, there's an andesite, which there's basically a cap over the the VMS. It's a VMS ore body. So we're we're expecting to see this all the way through.

21:51 We do see signatures of zinc all the way through. It's at surface here. It's at surface nine kilometers away. It could be big. We only need it to be 10,000,000 tons before it's going to we'll repurpose the plant. Actually, if I get three years out of I'd repurpose the plant. We're looking at about a twenty depending on whether we have to build a filter plant as well, $20,000,000 without a filter plant, 40 to $50,000,000 with a filter plant to filter the tails so we can dry stack tails. We could we can use the existing tailings facility for about a year to a year and a half so we can push that filter plant out a little bit. But just really, it's just flotation lines with the concentrate filters, and that's it. Very cheap start up. The capital is cheap. The time frame to purchase and deliver is also quick because it's only float cells.

22:42 And we already have the the bonding and everything in place. We pull down the the BIOX tanks and basically just reuse that area for flotation. So simple system, a simple upgrade. We're thinking six months to a year to do that upgrade, and then we're online with two operations running in 2028. I can't give you any idea around the economics of that until we've done the drilling. We're hoping to come out with at least a statement. We'll do all the work internally, which we always do. We have the team to do it internally, and we'll come out with some statements around that closer to the end of the year once we've done the initial drilling. Hopefully, drilling will start in July. We are at the point the cusp of having that issued. The the issuance of the clearance, which we're waiting for for the forestry clearance for the area, is sitting now on the undersecretary's desk. His signature is the last signature we need. It's already been recommended. It's been approved. He's just requested that the issuance document rather than a recommendation for issuance is given to him so he can sign it.

23:41 So that's where we're at. It is happening. It is going to happen, and it is very, very soon. I was extremely hoping I could say it was done, but, yeah, we're probably days away, and, it will be issued in the RNS once it comes out so everybody will know. So if we say in the next week, we're looking to be drilling there by July, and that's our target. Okay? So very soon, we should have some results there. The guys right now are mapping the alterations. We know the full width, and we can make sure we cover the full width of that alteration when we're drilling. So that's Dupax. This presentation's on the website. So when you want to see more detail, just go and have a look. You you'll be, you know, surprised at some of the stuff that's there. So we're talking about all of these projects we're working on. I think we drilling in Abra, I don't see it this year. I think q '1, q '2 next year, if we're doing well with the community liaison, the community work, the community engagement, we might be lucky to get in earlier than that. But if I can give everybody a heads up, I think it's somewhere around there. It is in our five to ten year plan anyway. It's not in our two to three year plan, so it's not as big a deal. It would be nice to see if those targets are tier one. It would be nice to know what they really look like. We also, as I said, we're working on new tenements in in Nicaragua.

24:57 And if they come up, we'll be drilling those immediately because there's drill ready targets on those tenements. And once we have those tenements, we'll be able to publish some of that information, so you'll see that as well. The company has everything in house. We just need to execute, and that execution is around the relationships we build in country with the government and the community that we work with. And that's our that's our target, and that's our aim. So those community relations are as critical as our government relations as we go forward. So, really, the only other thing I do wanna talk about is our ESG programs in both countries. The, you know, the one thing I've gotta say is that the previous management in in Nicaragua did do a very good job with their community relations. We're growing that. One of the things we are focused on is how to manage small scale miners. So we probably will be looking at generating a small scale plant for the small scale miners while we're there. I was over there, let's say, two months ago now, and I drove up along where the small scale miners are. And for 10 kilometers, every house has a little ball mill in it. And all they're doing is throwing all the waste into their own backyard.

26:02 It it's you know, you look at it and you think, we can do better, and that's where we should do better. One, manage it for the government. Sure. The government gets taxes out of it. The government gets royalties. Governments get its revenue. But the environmental damage and the the issues you see when people are using mercury and cyanide in their own backyard with families, with children is something we need to be focused on to fix, and we are. We're working with the government for that. So we build that plant. We allocate areas within our tenement for those people to operate because they wanna still operate as artisanal miners. The government will help us do that, and that's our focus. It doesn't cost a lot of money, but it is money we will spend over the next eighteen months to ensure that we can start funneling those people into areas outside of where we wanna work, so it helps us as well, and then being able to clean up those those areas over the next few years with the revenue generated by the plant that we build for them. That revenue will go back into the community to fix those areas.

27:01 I want those areas to look you you drive further up another, you know, 20 or 30 kilometers when you come into a farming area, and, you know, the towns are completely different. You know, you don't see that type of environmental issues within the the farming communities. We need to make sure that people don't see mining as a historical issue within countries like this that we're working with. Let's be at the forefront of doing this thing these things right. Let's prove we can. I won't talk about an investment case. I think I've done enough of that, and, I I just look forward to the next few years. It's gonna be an exciting few years for the company. You know, I think everybody's happy with where they've seen the share price go over the the the recent time. I think that's our stepping stone. I I really do. You know? And the you know, we we've had some large shareholders sell down recently, and the share price went up when they did. Why? Because there's so much retail out there waiting for a larger bunch of liquidity to be on the market. The share price actually went up, And that just speaks volumes to where I think our share price is going and where I think our company's going. So that's been all I had to say, gentlemen.

28:11 Ladies and gentlemen, is there any questions? If there's not, I've got a couple here I can go through while we're going in. There was a delay to Dupac, so I think I've explained where we're at. I think you'll see very soon that that's that's done. I'll go through these questions first. So if there's anything on top of that that you wanna ask, we can. What is the situation regarding ABRA? Well, as I said, you know, because of that political situation, because the political risk to our people and, you know, the danger that created, we're back in there now. We haven't been in there for five or six months, and we're back in there now. We're starting to do that community engagement piece all over again. So I do see, as I said, q one, q '2, I think that's when we'd be doing. Hopefully, we're back in working before then, but that's why I think we'll be drilling there.

28:58 Do you see the chances of a bid for MTL in the near term? No, I don't. And even if I did, I don't see anyone or all the major shareholders within this business now even contemplating selling. Mine me, myself. There's no way. Our business has got so much upside, and we've got all the steps to generate that upside. In three to five years, absolutely. Can I can I just just say that that question may be not what you think it is like? Help me. There are many people like me who had another who had other shareholder. Was one particular one. May not be aware of it, but I think those shareholders. So I think that question is more about please please don't don't take take the the share. Share. Oh, yeah. Shanta was a take private by the Major. Effectively.

29:45 It's a long and involved story. Involved a multitude of captains. Used to own it. Yeah. I don't know. He was a major shareholder. They took advantage of the hiatus that he had. Okay. They they took took it it from from faction. Faction. People I suspect I can't speak for that question. But even In fact, it's it's more More that case. So the answer is no. We're not selling, and no. We're not looking to take it private. And, yes, we're looking to generate value for everyone before any of that could ever be contemplated. So I I suppose I see this as a multibillion dollar company before we so if you wanna see where my goal is, that's where I wanna be. And before we get there, I'm not looking to do anything with my shareholding, and I'll vote against anyone who tries to. So let's be very clear. That's how I feel about this as well.

30:33 So the question over everyone's mind, Dupax, I think I've answered that one. Where do you feel we should be valued at? So right now, with if we just went forward with and the the gold price stays where it was or even drops down to 2.5, we should be at 25 p share. You can do the numbers yourself. They that's where they come out, and that's very clear. Once we prove the credibility that we can run that plant, it is operating, it's generating what we say, that's exactly where we'll be. That's without looking at duplex. That's without looking at the other project potential we have in our portfolio. That's without any drilling anywhere else. We should be at twenty twenty five p share. Where do I think we are with duplex? I think you can double that easy.

31:20 Where do I wanna be? I wanna be well past that. Can I ask you a question about JUPACS itself? I believe a very large something something something. Basically, it came out of hydrothermal vaxx. Is that correct? VMS. Tim, would you like to help? It's a volcanic massive sulfide, which is what VMS stands for. Came out of the hydrothermal vents. Google. Yeah. No. It it is typical VMS. They they typically occur in clusters along the the track. Yeah. And the last thing about new packs is often it's covered with more recent Amazon, so it's preserved. So we believe it continues on the back. We see it on either end. So I think whether it's connected. It's subject to whether it is exposed. Right. So the the capping, the anesthetic capping gives us first of all, it removes the the receipt for three weapons. So it's not but also it removes the the fact that it obvious minded yet. Right. So is it if potentially, they did extend some of that. Yeah.

32:20 If it does Yeah. And it's as consistent as we hope it to be Yeah. Then it it's a big system. And these things are are common around the world. Yeah. So in terms of depth, you've got the depth of the cap and then the depth is the positive self. Any idea for both those arriving? Not that we drill it. Not that. Yeah. No. That's why we you know? Yeah. The previous mine didn't need to do anything. No. Because they're very small. They're very small scale. Yeah. They well, trucks and shovels, but they weren't large in terms of the size we want to go. I they're mining the high grade veins within the within the overall alteration, not the total disseminated alteration. Why? They're chasing 40% zinc, and it's there. They're throwing away three three percent copper and 3% three grams gold to do it, but that's what they were chasing.

33:12 You know, which I if we can get and the job is to talk around numbers. I I won't give it to you until we, you know, we've drilled it. But it seems like and and what Tim is saying is where the cap is, it's probably preserved. Where it's showing on surface, it's a kilometer long. So we've got a large area to mine at surface before we even start to think about what's beyond that. So so typical BMS systems, things like Bisha in AeroTrack, But these are these are systems that have made the companies involved in them all of them all the time. But they can be. They can. They they're normally one or the other. They're normally not in between. They're either small or very, very large. We we won't know till we drill it, so that's the No.

34:04 No. No. No. Yeah. Did. But, actually, where where they threw the waste, that's we're we're measuring that as well because that's all all for us. So, you know, what they saw is waste. See it's all. That's basically what we're we're seeing. It is it is it is literally a sort of spinning the dice. We know some things. We know how wide it is. We know how long it is. Yeah. Given that, we know it will have enough size as long as it carries grade. So if it carries grade, it's definitely big enough to start the plant up again. So it's just drilling to verify it carries grade because something that's, you know, a hundred, two hundred meters wide in a kilometer long, and we know it's being tilted up, so it's dipping down into down the ridgeline, That's that width has you know, that has volume. There's no doubt.

34:53 Even if it's shallow, it's still It it still got volume. It's just does that whole alteration carry the grade you need to make it economic? And that's that's the target, and that's the risk. Yeah. Then I'll I'll I'll Yeah. How much do we need to have to do in order to Not a lot. Our first program's only 10 holes. Okay. We'll drill 10 holes, and we'll know. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That'll give us a good idea of that disseminated grade through that that alteration. Of course, we'll need a lot more than that to get to a resource stage, but we'll know whether it's going to get there very quickly. And are those shadow there's a shadow ones we've got. Absolutely. Yep. Which is why I've got the guys mapping the back end of the alteration because we know it dips like this. Yeah. We don't wanna start the hole here when the alteration's there. We wanna start on this side, so we drill the whole alteration and figure out the full width of that alteration and the full grade across it. But, yes, they're very shallow holes.

35:45 So No. No. You're right. Questions. I'm gonna get chucked out at some point. Don't dominate the whole thing. That's okay. How wait. I'm just there's more questions coming in as we speak. Everybody's liking your questions by the look of it. For future potential acquisitions, are you concerned about major mining companies not willing to take the risk on METALS EXPLORATION? No. They may not, but that doesn't mean I won't pay dividends to my shareholders if I'm generating 500,000,000 free cash a year. I really you know, whether we do it ourselves or whether a major comes in and takes us over. Nicaragua used to have majors. Philippines used to have majors. They were there. They've all left. We've gotta come back. The reason the majors aren't in The Philippines right now, and I know for a fact that Rio Tinto have been back in looking, is the jurisdiction's so difficult to get licensing.

36:39 Takes too long. So majors are gonna wait for people to do the licensing process, get the deposit ready, and then they'll come back into The Philippines guaranteed. They just gotta find the right target. Question. It starts on Newfoundland. There's a lot better place to get licenses. So much easier. Well, you're dealing with a a lot less layers of government. So the bureaucracy in The Philippines is built on the back of a a Spanish bureaucracy and then an American or an English bureaucracy. So you got two layer two different types, and that takes time, the wheels to turn there. Whereas in Nicaragua, with the relationships with the the the government, the way it's operating, you talk to the minister. If the minister thinks you've got credibility, we'll do what you say you're gonna do. He talks to the next guy up. He says yes. He says yes. You get your license.

37:25 You know, you you're not waiting for these layers and layers and layers of bureaucracy to all go through it and have their own say on it. So it does make it easier. Build that relationship, be the partner in country that they wanna work with, and things will open doors will open for you. I think you mentioned other targets. In Trinidad, you said there are other targets that have been stored, have been abandoned or or let go, and you might go for them before you stop doing in La India. Not in Lanier. Not in Lanier. So the existing Correct. You might prioritize those Yep. Other than widening your scope into the system. I mean, could you give us an example of how that I I so I can't give you details, but the fact of the matter is if you're on an exploration. We've got 500 square kilometers of tenement.

38:11 We don't have much geophysics. We don't have geochemistry. We're starting from scratch. I go 20 kilometers away. There's geophysics. There's geochemistry. There's mapping. There's everything, and I know it's there. Why would I go and walk 500 square kilometers of my ground where I don't know what's there? And even we've got ideas, you're starting from scratch. If I can move up that value tree you know, if I can take three years out of my process by picking something up that the government feels I'm credible enough to take over for nothing And those those would be close enough to be done by They'll just come back into the existing plan. And when I say for nothing, no. I've gotta make commitments to that government. I've gotta do the right thing by the government. I've got to generate results for the government before they're willing to take those type of threats. We're already showing that we can do that. So I think there's there's credibility being built on both sides, and we're hoping to move that forward. Now I very much I I like the opportunity there. It's more gold rich versus The Philippines, which is gold but more copper rich. The Philippines is more copper gold. Large there's what some of the largest copper ore bodies in the world undeveloped right now sit in The Philippines. Tampakin, for example.

39:24 You know copper plays in The Philippines. Nicaragua is more gold.

39:33 Would So we trim the stake down? There's no any further dilution in the next couple of years? There won't be. Absolutely. We're we've got zero debt. If we ever had to do anything, our first protocol would be looking at debt. And we may even start thinking about a a standby facility next year. I duplex is exactly what we want it to be. We want to go and make the procurement of the equipment before we finish operations. So we're constructing over here. We're procuring over here. We may need a standby facility to fund to to fund some of that type of growth, and we would just go to the banks and look for that standby facility. We won't go back to the market. You know, we've got enough cash to do everything. Policy. Sorry? I don't think and this is just my personal opinion. Until we get through 2027 and ensure that the projects are operating and generating cash, I think we'll be looking at 2028 for first dividend. Okay? That's that's my projection right now. That's my thought process.

40:33 Wait for the rest of the board to you know, we'll we'll verify that, and we'll analyze it as we go, but that's what I see right now. If we finish Nicaragua and we have to build upgrade The Philippines, money from there will go to there. Will there be excess cash? Absolutely. Might the board put it back into the shareholders? Absolutely. Might they wait for 2028? It's that'll be questions that'll be asked when we're there. Look. And I think it's just important. Obviously, Jason, the lawyers in the room would want me to say this, that, know, you can never say never, so, obviously, circumstances change. You know? We may have to review that. Thank you. Thank you for my lawyer on the board. Is it easy to get money out? Very. So there's three international companies operating in Nicaragua right now.

41:20 Calibre, who did but didn't make a bid for for Condor as well. And two others, their money's coming in and out without a problem. They've never had an issue. And, actually, the government actually functions very well. They want foreign direct investment. They are looking to grow their their industry, especially the gold industry, and and that's why I think trying to partner with them as one of those growth vehicles for it is is a good thing. So, no, no one's seen any problems with it. The tax regime is very stable so far. No one's seen many changes. I think the government's going to be stable in the near to medium term as well. We're seeing that, you know, the the way that the government structured itself, it's going to be there for a while. And I think that, to an extent, helps. So I think there's a lot of positive positive things coming out of Nicaragua right now for all of us.

42:12 Looking at your accounts, there's clearly some frustration about the fact we can't write that $50,000,000 on the plant. Wrote a think $130,000,000. I think it was a it was effectively and it there was a there was a provision on a write back, but I think it was $50,000,000 that that you weren't able to. And I just looked at ISF 36. I couldn't see an obvious thing for that, but clearly, it's a frustration. You know, you're saying it's artificially depressing the balance sheet. So I wonder if you might just expand on that there. So I just got a question no. For No. You're right. I just got a note from someone here that they can't hear you guys speak. So I'll just kind of try and give a little bit of color to them on what you've just asked, and Mike will answer the question.

43:02 It it's about the the changes in the the write back of the the depreciated asset and how that's coming in off the balance sheet is the the question. Mike? Okay. So the accounting issue was resolved and the timing it's around timing of the $50,000,000 that's being written back to the balance sheet.

44:06 I've got a question a couple of questions here. What will be your top three priorities with free cash growth? I think we've talked through those. It's finalization of the construction in Nicaragua. It's the repurposing of the plant in The Philippines, and it's exploration and growth targets within the business. Do you do you have an estimated dates for when the two events needed to trigger the Condor CVRs might happen? Q three twenty twenty six for the first one, which is First Gold. It's a six month delay. We've got about a six month period to generate cash to pay that down, but it is q three when the first trigger will happen. And the second trigger is four to five years from now because the second trigger is based on the exploration potential within the existing tenements.

44:53 Given I mean, it's important to just cross my mind. Given that you've you've just discussed other tenements that may be more, will that affect the original agreement? Nope. We will absolutely stand by our commitments within within the original agreement. Anything outside of that is upside for everybody, not the CVR holders. So we will be drilling the best targets we have within the existing tenements. That drill program's already been passed on. It's already been signed off. We know what it is, and we're drilling to it. And then outside of that not be devoted. Yeah. No. But we will be putting money elsewhere to grow the business. So yeah. So we'll do It's not it's not it's not sacrificing One for the other. Not. We're growing both. Very good.

45:39 Any other oh, there was a question on any updates on health and safety. Yeah. There is. So we had our first accident in eight years about four months ago. It was a an oxygen bottle that was in the oxygen rack. We've actually built the oxygen rack the way it was supposed to for the insurers, but a manifold line to one of the oxygens broke. There was a a fire on the back of that, and someone got burned. And that's our first our first LTI in eight years. So we have to start again. We're up to nearly 24,000,000 man hours LTI free, and now we've had one LTI. The gentleman's fine. He'll be back at work soon. Everything's okay there, but we have had a single accident.

46:27 And since then, nothing. So, yes, that's a good question. It's something I had to answer. Yep. So the question was the tailings plant has been moved, there was land needed to be purchased. It's all been purchased. We're still our program is about there's about a $9,000,000 spend, 8.6 right now is the the target within the capital budget for all the land, not just for that, but we feel that the northern extension to the mine should have already been in there. So we're buying that land as well, and we're buying the northern dump. So we've rejigged the schedule to reduce the whole profiles of the trucks, and we're basically gonna sequence mine north to south. And that gives us a chance to put waste back in pit so we don't have to haul so much out of pit. But that means we have to start at the northern end, and we're purchasing land for the northern dump as we speak. So, yes, tailing sand's done. The northern dump, basically, we're we're signing documents for that as we speak. And then the the final stuff is the northern area of the pit. Where there's a lot of illegal miners should have been in the pit, and that's what we buy. We'll be able to move hopefully, do the drilling there, and that's one of our drill targets that we've got on our in our plan as well. The tailings are much better. Yeah.

47:45 The tailings now is the first tailings location was only three years. So the tailings location is now forever. It it now meets guidelines, the churchmen guidelines for tailings, I e, the previous tailings dam was failing into a town. There's now we bought all the land behind the tailings. So if it did ever fail, it's just going to be on to open a vacant paddock. We're meeting all the design criteria as we speak, and we actually reject that more from a safety environmental point of view just as much as longevity. Could you we you're talking about, you know, obviously, all the options and minor is that were important when minor part in the back up. It was intriguing when you're obviously offering them offering them their own small facility. What's and then you also mentioned that the profits from that will then go to restoration.

48:33 So as a I'm putting myself in the shoes of an artisanal miner. What what's the deal I get? So if you look at how these artisanal miners work, they have they basically, they have a and it's really interesting. They have a big flat pad, and in the middle, they have a post. And they have two arms coming off this post, and they have big rocks hanging from chains. And that goes round and round, and it crushes the ore. And then they put it in a pot somewhere beside there, and they they leach it. Okay? Their recoveries are probably 30 or 40%. So we'll pay them more than they're recovering now. They'll get paid quicker. They'll get paid at nearly full value of the current gold price, not at half price because they're selling it illegally on the market.

49:21 They're going to make twice as much money as they do now, And they'll have a registered formal area that they're able to mine, which we will guarantee has the grades that they need to to mine. So there's only upside. Now we've gotta convince some of that, but the structure is one where they will be better off. And then the mill itself makes some profit, which is Exactly. Exactly. So, basically, we're the the you normally end up paying, you know, 60%, anywhere between 4060%, call it, of the recovered ore. What's in the ore, you pay about 40 to 50% of that to the miners. Yep. The other pays for the plant and pays for the and and generates a little bit of profit. Up to 25, 36, 56 then.

50:08 Yep. And then you there is a recovery of 90, so the other 30 goes into the community. Correct. But it sounds good, but, obviously, it's slow work to get into the next It's it's the slow work's not building the plant. It's getting all the miners to engage and move to that single area. That's where the government becomes very, very important, and the government outcomes wanting this to happen also become very important. So, yeah, working and assistance from the government is critical to make any of that work. Okay. I have a couple more questions on this. But, again, I don't want to. Yep. You're probably better off just asking Mike in afterwards. Yeah. We're we're considering that. Yes. Is there any scope to use the pit for tailings?

51:04 Absolutely. But for the filtered tailings. So we could turn it into a dump. Oh, yeah. Sorry. There's a a question regarding the tailings at Runruno and how we could reuse those tailings or the old pit area as a tailings facility for the Dupax. And the answer is it could be filtered tails in the old mine, and that's exactly where we so first, all we we use what's existing in the tailings facility. Build a filter plant, fill the old pit with filtered tailings, so it's a dump, And then what's left, we haul back to the dump in. So we basically backhaul. We haul all one way, tailings back, and they go into the dump in in DuPage. So you'll have a waste dump there. You commingle tails. It's it's, you know, really, it's the forefront of technology of tails right now is being able to do exactly that. The commingle of dry tails versus wet tails is where, one, you get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of area.

52:00 It does cost more, but you commingle it, you stabilize it. It is actually the the best solution for tails. So that is at the forefront of tailings. And if do you access those drill under the cap Okay. So that's very much area. What points do you consider moving apart? That's a good question. I don't think we ever would, but we'd have to look at it. I I really can't answer that question fully. I you know, a 20 kilometer haul cost you, you know, 3 to $5 a ton. 3 to $5 a ton when we're actually gonna save that on the processing because the plant costs are gonna go down. You're basically at the same cost you are now. You know? Do we do we move a plant for $200,000,000 and lose a year? We should probably all buy a new plant and build a new plant, or do we just do 3 to $5? One of my investors is another company, and they were hoping to build another in Brazil. And they were hoping to build another mine at another tenement, but they've had all sorts of issues with licenses. They have an exploration license.

53:02 And what they do, and thanks to, I think, there's some Brazil subsidizing fuel, is that they're able to take advantage of a trade where the the big agave agave businesses push Yeah. And And in Nicaragua, the Caliber mines are doing exactly the same thing. They're hauling back a 150 kilometers. You know, if for the areas we're talking about coming to fruition, we're talking about a 30 kilometer haul. Dupax is 25 kilometers, and we've got about five kilometer road to upgrade. So, you know, five five to eight. I didn't get an exact distance. I drove it the other day, but the rest of the road's in perfect condition. So, yeah, I I don't see the point or the need to do so, but, you know, we there's nothing's ever off the table, is it? If it makes sense, you do it.

53:59 I don't know the geology of the existing line, but with gold prices sky high, it I I don't know. Does the old gold run out completely, or does it fade away? Because if the gold price is sky high, there's a thought, well, what we're make it to $2,000? Might be gonna make it for a little bit longer. You you talk about RunRunner? I know nothing about RunRunner. Yes. The condos shareholders. I I don't I don't know the original drop. Yeah. Okay. No. It's they all runs out. Okay. Yeah. Pretty well mining every every drop of ore there. There's a question here. When do you know if DuPage is commercial? I'm I'm gonna give you an answer six months, but I think we'll know before that. But I'm gonna say we'll hopefully be putting out statements around commerciality within the first quarter next year, okay, to answer that question. I think that's about it, though. I I thank you everybody online for your time and everybody in the room. Lots of questions this time around. So it's all good.

54:55 Well, Darren, thank you very much for updating investors today. On behalf of the management team of METALS EXPLORATION PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.