Mining in North America

0:08 Hello everyone, welcome to today's live panel discussion hosted by 6. I'm pleased to introduce today's speakers. We have Alan Pangborn, President and CEO of Chesapeake Gold. We have Dan Wilton, CEO of 1st Mining Gold, and Richard Williams, the Executive Chairman of Bunker Hill Mining. Gentlemen, thank you for hopping on. And just before we get started, for anyone that's unaware of the context of your projects, doesn't know who you are, it's first eyes on, I'd like to go around the room just for a couple of minutes each. Just do some brief introductions. Talk about what jurisdiction you're working in. Talk about what projects you have. Just give the bare bones elevator pitch. So maybe, Alan, if it's all right with you, let's start with Chesapeake. Sure. Chesapeake Gold's a development company. We have a very large gold silver deposit in Durango, Mexico. 18 million ounces of gold, 500 million ounces of silver.

1:00 Refractory, we have a technology that we believe will allow us to treat it using a heat bleach rather than an autoclave. So that's 90% less capital, 90% less power, 90% less water and no tainting stamp. So environmentally less impactful. And yeah, we put out proof of concept September and we're working towards a P feasibility study in 2024. Okay, great. Dale, passing this over to you. Sure. And thanks for having us and thanks everyone for joining us today. First Mining Gold advancing 2 significant Gold deposits in Canada. 1, our Springpole project, which is a 5Moz open pit project located about 100km east and a little north of Red Lake, Ontario, in northwestern Ontario. And the other, our DuParcay project, in excess of 5Moz, located smack in the heart of the Abitibi Gold Belt in Quebec.

2:10 And Richard, why don't you tell us about Bunker Hill?

2:12 Thank you. Bunker Hill is a fully financed development project that will be in production next year. We've got 14Mt of resources, 3 of which are in reserves right now. It's a Zinc-Silver lead mine. We'll run a low-cost operation feeding the trail smelter, which is a couple of hundred kilometers away. We've only just got our finance in place, it's been a little bit of a struggle, but we're in that good spot now. We've now got a lot of work to do to prove our project is exactly what we said it was. So that's us. All right. Apologies, We're in Idaho, the Silver Valley, Idaho, in the United States. Wonderful. Well, gentlemen, the topic of today's conversation is mining in North America.

3:00 And although you're all on the same continent, miners in each country have their unique challenges and opportunities. And especially with Canada, Mexico, and the United States, many would say that not even just the country, but each individual state

3:13 or province, these represent jurisdictions and they can be very different. Let's go around and let's talk about the specific province and state that you operate out of and how it's different from the rest of the country that you operate in. And Richard, maybe I'll pass it right back to you. Okay, Idaho is an area that, or a state, forgive me, that's had mining since gold was discovered in 1863. So after the California gold rush. The mines that we're operating in the Silver Valley, the mine that we're gonna be operating in the Silver Valley was part of the next rush of mining investment or discoveries that happened in the 1880s. And that focused on silvers, ink lead and various other pieces. And that particular part of Idaho, known as the Silver Valley, produced 45%

4:04 of all silver produced in the United States over its history. That includes Alaska. It was very prolific in underground silver mining. And alongside us, you've got Heckler's Lucky Friday mine, much deeper than ours, produced about 110Moz of silver and has got many years left to go. You've got USA Silver's Galena mine that produced around about 135Moz of Silver, much deeper, narrower veins, both of those than ours. And that's got many years left to go. In fact, it's got a couple of hundred million ounces of resource that Darren and the guys have managed to put together. You've got Tom Kaplan's Sunshine Mine. Again, all of these things are within 10 miles of us.

4:50 A really high-grade underground mine that is on care and maintenance at the moment. And then you have Bunker Hill, the 165Moz of Silver and its history. And really, its history produced, in terms of revenue, 50% of its production was from Silver and the rest from Zinc and Lead. As zoning you into the area of Idaho that's got the most mining history, But there are many other areas in Idaho that have got both projects and old mines that have operated. And the state of Idaho is exceedingly positive and keen on getting mining started. But one thing that characterizes our mine, that characterizes many mines in North America, and again, I saw this, is the fact that we're operating from a Superfund cleanup site, which is an important part of North American, in the United States anyway, history.

5:52 What the Superfund cleanup site program was, was to, as in response to a series of laws that were passed in the 1970s primarily, although there were evolutions of previous laws, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act. The United States government put together a fund managed by the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up mines that had left an unconscionable mess. And Bunker Hill and a number of mines in the Silver Valley had done that. So in 1980, they were shut down and the whole place was cleaned up. So our particular mine is characteristic of, in North America, be estimated over 1 million mines, closed mine sites in Canada and the United States, some of which have been subject to this type of cleanup.

6:45 And we are going to be bringing Bunker Hill back into production from within an environmental cleanup site that hasn't been without its challenges. Most particularly, and this is what at the point I was leading towards, is you can't bring a mine back into production in a superfund site, unless you have partnered with the federal agency, which is the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the state agency, which is the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, both of which we see as strategic partners. You have to have that, obviously, when you're coming forward out of an area that mining wasn't proud of in terms of the mess, very proud of in terms of its business and its history.

7:30 And we're taking this mine back into production from a point that was shut in 1980. And you'll then see us back in production during the US election year next year. So I gave us a bit of a feel for Idaho, United States touched on a few things, but use bunker as a, an example of that. There's one other thing I would say in terms of the United States, that's relevant to both bunker and, and to United States period is that, The 1872 prospecting act or mining act that was passed ensured that those people that went West to settle the West, if they could peg a piece of land that they could turn into a mine, it would be private land. And On private land, if you have such a thing, which is historical mining area, it's much easier to permit than if you're on federal land. You're having to deal with other agencies on a federal land basis than you are on private land.

8:30 And you see this patchwork throughout Idaho of old mining prospects that are on private land that are either converted back into mines or converted to things like ski resorts, leisure and other

8:43 residential or other businesses, but all on the basis that you have this patchwork of private land and federal land throughout all states in the United States of America that provide you different opportunities for mine restarts or mining based on their history. So that gives you a little bit of a feel for Idaho and also kind of what we're doing and some of the things you've got to watch out for. No, thank you. That was great. And Dan, I'll pass things over to you to talk about 1st mining. Sure. So, you know, We're actively advancing projects in 2 jurisdictions in Canada, as I said. Certainly our most advanced project, Spring Pool, is well advanced through the environmental assessment process, which is something that, you know, I think is a critical consideration when you're talking about, you know, benefits or challenges of jurisdictions.

9:38 Spring poll, we published a draft environmental assessment document last year in about a year ago, actually, in 2022. That's now been reviewed by all of the regulatory agencies that would review the final EA. We've received all those comments. We've responded to all those comments in a first pass now. And so we're in the back and forth comment response period while we start writing up the final environmental assessment document, which will get submitted next year. The one thing that I would say, in part, you know, a credit to our team who we have working with us, not just Steve Lines of VP Environment and Community Relations and the rest of Steve's team, but a number of the consulting groups that are working with us, a team from WSP that was AMIC before that.

10:32 This team has the experience of permitting pretty much every large open-pit mine in Ontario in the last 20 years. When you have advisors, including the team having worked quite closely on permitting the Hard Rock project, which is now in construction, which really was one of the last big open pit gold mines permitted. So, you know, Ontario is a jurisdiction for all that there is the occasional ringing of hands and people talk about timeframes. I don't know that you can put forward a jurisdiction that has permitted more large and significant mines in the last 20 years. When you think about going back to the generation of projects being built right now, Kote and Magino and Hard Rock, Rainy River, a bunch of the open pit mines around Timmins.

11:25 It really does have an exceptional track record in moving these projects through. And you have certainly a political will. And I would say there's nowhere that's more evidence than in the Mines Minister's office. Minister Pirie has absolutely hit the ground running. And he's established a Mines Minister's Industry Council with 20-some CEOs and senior operators of producing mines and developers like us to hear concerns and start addressing changes in regulation so that it can drive toward more efficiently permitting mines. And that's sort of what they've introduced and now passed a piece of legislation, which is the Build More Mines Act, essentially.

12:22 That's a really good perspective from a mines ministry to be working with. You know that this is a place that understands and appreciates the importance of mining to the economy in Ontario. And for us, where the Springpole project is, it would drive infrastructure into an area that really, you know, we're kind of between Red Lake and Pickle Lake, 2 historic mining camps that have been there since the 1930s, but you know, really kind of would drive infrastructure in a corridor in between, which would really broaden the capacity and opportunity for economic development for a number of Indigenous communities around the project and to the north. So yeah, I just, in the interest of time, I'll stop on Ontario and only to say that that's been great, but I would say that our experience in Quebec has been equally constructive and supportive. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, you're right to point out that not all mining jurisdictions in Canada are the same. In fact, the processes can be really quite different in between them, but you know, we're very happy in the 2 that we've been working in, for sure.

13:36 That's great to hear. Absolutely. And Alan, over to you. Well, we're down in Mexico, so I think it's quite different. I mean, just start with the language and the legal system are almost opposite to the rest of North America.

13:54 But, you know, I think as with any country, they have their processes and their systems, and you need a team and the capabilities to understand those processes and follow them and get them through. You know, we are quite a bit further behind the other 2 projects that have been talked about. You know, we only recently produced a PEA and we're doing all the background work to get into a PFS and then with the PFS start the permitting process. But you know it's the second time I've been back to Mexico so it's not new for me and several of our team and and the contacts we have in Durango. As Dan has said, provinces are different, states in Mexico are different. Some states have got a long mining history like Durango, lots of mines up in the Sierra Madre.

14:47 They understand the industry. They're quite supportive of the industry in Durango. The Feds depend on who's in power and it can swing from one end to the other, depending on which government's in charge at the time. But overall, again, Mexico has a long history of mining copper, silver, lead, zinc, you name it. So, it's not a new thing to the country. And that's important when you're looking for teams, because if there is a history of mining, there's a history of mining expertise, technical people,

15:27 workers, the whole gamut of what you need to be able to build a mine, unlike going into a new country that has no mining history, or even some that have got maybe 1 generation of mining history. So, that makes Mexico a much more attractive place. Several other foreign companies have been operating there for a long, long time. The permitting process is quite clear. There's very specific requirements. Got to have an agreement with the local community. That drives your local, your community relations program to start at the core and work your way out not go to the feds and work on the trickle-down principle which in my experience doesn't work anyway and so you know it's it's it's quite an easy place to operate in, given that history, local support.

16:28 But, you know, you have the language issues, and language occasionally can lead to some confusion and some problems and misunderstandings. Fortunately, I'm fluent in Spanish as well, so I can sit and talk to anybody, which is nice. And many of our team are bilingual as well. So that overcomes that issue generally. Absolutely. Well, gentlemen, I think we've done a pretty good job of drilling down into some specific jurisdictions in North America. I'd like to circle back around to the main topic, which of course is mining in North America, a bit more general. What are the main challenges, if there are any common threads, that are faced by precious metals mining companies in North America? And how can these challenges be addressed to improve the overall competitiveness of the industry?

17:20 And I'll free that up to anyone that wants to make a comment. I would start with permitting and social acceptance. Whether it's the government processes and systems that can be anywhere from quite reasonable to slow to almost impossible.

17:43 Or social acceptance and then the activities of the NGOs at various stages during the process and how do you Get them on side You know, obviously a clear process that the government Supports and ensures is followed makes life a little easier because you know What you need to do when you need to do it now to get to the end I think there's a Lack of understanding Certainly when you get out of the Anglo-Saxon countries, if you get out of Canada and the US, when you start getting into Latin countries and South America, It can get quite complicated because the governments have signed on to things Like ILO 169 and don't understand the implications So they've signed these international agreements. We're going to do it under equator principles, United Nations principles or whatever, but they don't actually understand what all that means.

18:53 And that can create ambiguity as you're going through the process. Fair enough. Richard, Dan?

19:07 I mean, again, I think I can only really double down on what Alan said with respect to permitting. Anyone who thinks about North America or developed market mining projects, the time taken to permit a mine is very challenging when you're trying to preserve interest in the capital markets over the life of that particular phase of the project, is exceedingly hard. And there isn't any, in my view, anything being done to shorten that in real terms. However, again, I caveat that slightly because there has been quite a lot of talk about this. I'm interested in Dan's experience in Ontario because Ontario has actually permitted a hell of a lot more than the area that we're in at the moment.

19:57 I'm not saying it to disadvantage us because the reason we went to Bunker Hill is this mine was permitted. So the reason we were able to move quickly is because there was metal in the ground and we had a permit. We just had to deal with a number of other legacy issues that once they were done, we could get moving. I think if we had a 2, three-year timeframe to get the thing permit, our financing would have been a pipe dream, to be honest with you,

20:21 in this very competitive market. So I'll say permitting is really interesting. And Dan's perspective in Ontario is going to add a lot more than mine, because we actually haven't engaged in that. I have some history of it. The second thing I'd say is not just pertaining to the United States or North America is the availability of capital for mining is crushed since the global financial crisis that we all know took 50% out of the capital markets, particularly the debt markets for mining. And then since then, a series of other influences, competitive influences in terms of asset classes like crypto and weed and tech and other things have taken money off the table. And when I chat to people here in Toronto about what it was like to raise money prior to say 2008, certainly, compared to what it is now and what the cost of that capital is, it's a completely other planet.

21:19 And that, you know, that's challenging. However, money is probably more available for North American projects of our size than it would be if we were in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So I'm trying to sort of be balanced here in one's view, but I think the permitting thing is really important. Stakeholder thing is really important. If you do the right job, you can get through those things, but it takes a long time. But preserving your ability to raise capital through that time period, I mean, it's a tough, tough experience, I've got to say, across the industry. And again, I'm not sure if that's a North American point, but it's a point I certainly wanted to raise on this call.

22:05 Dan will probably be able to tell me that Ontario is a lot easier than I am, but he's got more experience with that than me. Yeah, Richard, thanks.

22:15 Nothing is easy, right? And I think that's the real takeaway, is that you have different challenges in different jurisdictions. But the permitting time frames in North America, particularly, have stretched out over the last 15 or 20 years. I mean, there was a time when it was a pretty reliable couple of year process to get approvals for major mines once you had all of your work done. In many cases, for good reasons and the thoroughness of the work that needs to be done and the thoroughness that the government ministries need to have in making sure they're protecting the environment. There are some good reasons why some of these time frames have pushed out, but that permitting time frame, as Richard very eloquently pointed to, just puts project developers

23:18 in a really challenging position to continue to attract capital as you go through these processes. For us, we've addressed it in a slightly unconventional way, which is you have more than 1 project. And we started life with kind of a portfolio of projects. That's given us some financial flexibility to kind of keep going full speed at some of the work that, and very expensive work that we've been doing on the permitting and environmental side. But it also gives us, particularly with our DuParquet project in Quebec, it gives us another source of being able to continue to try and generate news and have other technical and exploration and market milestones that keep people, you know, keep you relevant for investors.

24:12 But the biggest challenge, particularly for developers, and put us all in that developer bucket with Richard at the head of the very exciting part of getting ready to break ground and start the actual process of mining. And Alan in a very exciting part of project definition. We're at a very exciting part of the process, too. We are, call it, 3 a quarter of the way through environmental assessment and most of the way through a feasibility at that point where you're actually making the project. And as everyone here, I think, can probably attest, there are far more mines in the world that are made rather than found, right? Like resources are resources, and if you're lucky you find some exceptional resources that make the business of

25:03 making it a mine easier because of grade or location or infrastructure or whatever. But from our standpoint, most projects, like our projects, have challenges that need to be overcome. And the real jurisdictional question is, are you in a place where if you find a path to overcome some of those challenges, you have regulators who will move forward and advance the projects? But there's the one other kind of jurisdictional thing that I would point to, and Ontario does it well, Quebec does it even better, is just the availability of funding that's helped out through the flow-through-share structure. So it means that as a Canadian developer and explorer,

25:52 explorer primarily, you can use that as a way to raise capital and not just increase your access to capital because it does, but also raise that capital at a more attractive rate by being able to flow through the tax benefits to underlying investors. And so that flow-through market, again, has been very important for us to be able to give us the opportunity to flesh out everything that's kind of outside of the project. So it's putting together district scale exploration packages, which we've done both at Springpole and DuParquet. At Springpole, it's now like 70,000 hectares of basically almost unexplored greenstone belt. So

26:35 that access, again, the jurisdictionally, the access to the flow through structures and the ability to have access to a broader pool of capital and raise that capital at more attractive rates to continue to encourage that exploration helps us with news flow and it helps us keep investors attention. But fundamentally what we all need is more investor interest, more broadly, coming back into the sector, as Richard pointed out. I was a corporate finance professional for about 20 years. And I can't remember it ever being this hard as it is now for development capital. You go back to 2006 to 2011, and the access to capital was usually a couple of phone calls.

27:33 So anyway, we'll move on to the next topics. But the one thing that I absolutely agree with Richard is that the benefit of being in a North American jurisdiction is that when there is capital available, you are usually in a better position to access it than someone in jurisdictions that people aren't as familiar with or have histories of longer histories of challenges with the mining industry. Absolutely. I mean, that's all really, really great context, guys. And just sort of diving in on the idea about regulation. A very important element of regulation is the emphasis and the real focus that exists on carbon emissions. I'd love to know how that focus plays into your company's own story.

28:20 And I'm also wondering your take on given that we're all in North America and as both as we've all sort of mentioned, you know, North America is very developed in the world. Is the world's attention more narrowly focused on North American jurisdictions because of our development? And how does that impact your story along with sort of that play into the carbon emission effect? So I kick off on that, it's carbon emission things interesting to me because I could get to net 0, if we call it that, emission status relatively quickly, given the fact that we get our power off the Pacific Northwest grid, which is green power at 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour. One of the great advantages of being North America is these huge hydro investments that happened in the 1930s and 40s.

29:11 But in order to fully electrify the mine on GitGo, remember, we're restarting an old mine. I would need additional capital beyond what I've got at the moment. And that capital isn't available. If I went to the market and said, look, I've got a project here at 30% IRR, but if you give me another amount of capital, the IRR will drop slightly, but I'll get to net carbon quicker, I would have shot myself in the foot. There's no more money available for me just because I have a net 0 plan. And I went and marketed this to all the impact funds I could find and the private equity groups that are interested in this and so on, it made no difference. Fundamentally, it's about whether the mine economics works and maximize that because people are really worried about when you go into production, which incidentally we all are worried about, is your plan gonna work? So you're wanting to make sure that the fundamentals of the plan, the metal and the costs and everything else work first.

30:11 When we got into that place, then we'll reinvest some of the money we're making into a much more carbon neutral future, but we're not gonna do that on day 1. Believe me, if money had been available for it, I'd have loved to have done it on day 1, but money wasn't available. So I'm really keen on it. Everybody's keen on it, but I just can't afford it on day 1. It doesn't mean we're starting a dirty mine. It means that it's not as clean as it could have been if the money was available. And so that's where the market price for carbon neutrality is in the mining industry right now, I would suggest. It's what we aspire to, rather than what there's money available for. That's really interesting you say that, Richard, because I think the other issue is Everybody's looking at measuring reductions too. Yeah.

31:05 Right? So if you're the filthiest miner on the planet and you reduce to 0, you probably can get money to do it. 1, because you're already operating and you've got proven cash flow and all the rest of it. But if you walk out there and say, my project is greener than the alternative, it gets no traction. And that's what we're doing. We've got a process that uses 90% less power, 90% less water, yet nobody is interested on those particular points. It's, oh, yeah, that's really nice, it's greener. But when the rubber hits the road and you sit there and say, well, I want the money to pay for it to be able to do that.

31:52 It's not there. And the society is driving us towards reduce your carbon emissions. Well, I can reduce them by not even doing it at the beginning, right? It's like the argument about ride your bike or drive the car, right? If I buy a bike, I get no carbon credit for it. If I buy a car and then change it for an electric car, I'm doing the right thing. It's a perverse view of the world at the moment that unless there is an economic driver, which in our case there's a huge economic driver because I only need 400 million instead of billions, It's a fallacy that funds and people are prepared to fund the green, the new green dream or whatever it's called.

32:55 Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's interesting. And we, you know, in this place that we're in, in scoping projects, I think you have to look at all of these opportunities as I'm sure Richard did when you were looking at it. And there are, sometimes the technology actually enables cost reduction, right? And in the case of an underground mine, an electric fleet means less ventilation, for example. So there are some of those logical business cases where we're dealing with where we have 2 big open pit mines that we're moving forward. You get very, very focused on what's the cost of diesel? And ultimately, what's the cost of those carbon emissions going to be in 2030 or 2035 when you're in the middle of moving 300 or 400 million tons of rock.

33:51 I think it opens up for us 2 different angles on that. One is, what are the big equipment suppliers and the makers of large trucks and other mining equipment, what's their electrification strategy? Because the reality is they know that in grid-connected mines, they need to be driving towards something that is going to satisfy just the sort of general societal drive to reducing carbon emissions. But more importantly, they know that if you're in a place that you have, a place like Quebec with industrial power at very attractive rates. Somewhere there, there's a trade-off that really works when you don't have to buy diesel, right?

34:40 You're just talking about electrons, and the reality is a lot of those diesel trucks are powering electric motors anyway. Then it's how does all of that infrastructure and that whole ecosystem change to enable it? But we're kind of stuck at this point right now where to Richard's point and to Alan's point as well, we're scoping these projects and we need the IRR to be better than 20 or 25% and you need the NPV to be equal to or greater than your CapEx to have the public perception of a financeable project. And right now you can't make those assumptions in your studies even because it's the difference between you being able to move your project to the next stage and not. So it is an interesting conundrum, but one of the things that I'm very proud of of our team is that we do keep asking those questions, right? And I think the one thing that we can say, having looked at this for 2 or 3 years, is that the industry is getting better at thinking laterally about some of these solutions and asking the question, why are we not doing in-pit conveying for these things? Like, why do we have trucks hauling out of a pit as opposed to having conveyors? You know, like, it all comes down to the, you know, there's usually really good reasons when you ask as to why these things don't happen, but you have a bit of the luxury

36:11 of asking the questions. Right. And so, yeah, we, we need to keep, As an industry, we need to keep asking those questions and driving for those solutions, because at some point they're gonna make a big difference and it is gonna be important. It is gonna be important to investors. So it is gonna be important to our local communities. And as I said before, one of the things that we're really focused on is what the infrastructure build up into a remote area kind of enables in terms of other economic development. And that might be renewable power generation or other things. I mean, do you mind if I just follow up 1 point on that? Because it's a really key one. Dan's made it really well in terms of the trade-offs. No surprise given your CFO, by the way, who was capital project when I was gooning about it, Barrett, looking at all of this.

36:59 And she's superb. She is. But is that trade-off on the cost thing is really what drives you. So we're in an industrial area, as Dan pointed out. We can sort of roll out of the mine and go straight to the supply chain and the power and the people and everything, it's just there. If you're sitting in the Northwest Territories or the Yukon or elsewhere, and one of your biggest challenges, and we looked at loads of projects up there and we still do and around, is that cost of power as well as the cost of logistics. And when someone's able to produce these modular nukes that can go in and then provide you green, low cost power out there, a whole bunch of that stuff is going to suddenly become economic, where it's challenging now.

37:45 And so the really interesting thing in Canada 1 finds, I mean, Ontario, most of the power comes from nuclear supply, courtesy of investment in the 1970s and earlier, is if they manage to get modular nukes that can be permitted in terms of deploying, you're gonna find a whole part of remote sites in Canada, but I guess the same would apply to Mexico and elsewhere, are suddenly gonna become economic. But what's driving it is the economics, not the environmental benefit, which is a really good benefit to have, but it's the economics in my view. Again, sorry to take so much of the floor, but I think it's a really good point that everyone's made there. 1, I think if you distill it down even further, The real fundamental is it doesn't matter how you get the electrons.

38:36 You need the electrons. If you can use less electrons, it will be more economic because electrons have a cost. So it all comes down to can I use less energy to produce the same product? Yeah, and how is my project country wise logistics wise Better than the alternative that's near me. Yeah, And it all comes back to energy consumption to produce a product. Economics 101. And what is the price of that energy? And once you get to whether it's through carbon pricing or however you want to get there. I've seen that conveyor crushing input trade-off probably as many times as I've been in the industry in years.

39:29 And the answer has never changed. And so until something fundamental changes that answer and that's maybe it is the cost of carbon versus the cost of electricity from green sources that changes that equation. The answer isn't going to change. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I mean, really, really interesting stuff, guys. I'd love to now take a step further out, continue our zoom out and go towards the international scope of things. I'd love to hear each of your takes on if you're at all concerned about the BRICS nations and their concerted efforts to have more pull in geopolitics, which is seemingly manifesting itself with mining as a focus. So please, the floor is open for any any takes. Any conversation you guys want to dive in on that?

40:24 I'll kick off. I think the BRICS as an acronym is a misnomer because the commonality between Brazil, Russia, India and China is almost 0. Politically, socially, economically, how they operate. So, you know, I think they're becoming, as a group, when you look at them as a group, as a more significant economic power in the world. But the day I see those 4 leaders sitting in a room and actually smiling hugging and kissing each other. I Suspect I'll be dead 1st Yeah, they're just so diverse It's such a foot so diverse group Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's that's true Alan and I think in the Bricks normal, which it doesn't Forgive me doesn't sit down and double down Alice point, doesn't sort of necessarily ask the right question, I don't think, which is that, you know, the G7, such as it was, you know, when it was formed back in the day, was 70% of the world economy, and it's now 40%.

41:38 So what you've seen is so-called developing and developed world, and some of them is the BRICS countries, have become much more significant economically. And that's 1 point. The second point is, there's this talk about competition for medals in terms of securing global supply chains for either the electrification of your economy or for defense or other industrial reasons. That's a new thing, didn't exist a few years ago. And people are still wrestling with whether that is the objective they want to go to and whether it's an affordable objective. You got Dan Sullivan recently, the National Security Advisor of the United States talking about going from previously calling about decoupling from a Chinese dominated supply chain to de-risking the supply chain. So they're sort of working out that actually the idea of a totally separate supply chain would just create all sorts of economic and social pressures that they couldn't afford. So let's reduce dependency rather than totally decouple.

42:43 That seems to be an interpretation, but every person you meet in a bar or in a restaurant or on a subway will have a different view of this. But what is happening is the world is wrestling, the bits of the world are wrestling with what it needs in terms of metal. And a very ironic time, We're sitting here right now when we're worried about global recession and inflation and so on. And at the same time, we're essentially saying my economy is prepared through decoupling to buy more expensive metal, buy more expensive inputs to their economic system. It doesn't actually make any sense. But it doesn't mean that these points that are being made, these strategic discussions aren't gonna have an impact on mining or even our little mines, in my case, little mine, and your case is bigger mines, on what we're doing.

43:40 But I do think that what we've really got to sort of watch as a company in my case, but as an industry wider, is not necessarily expecting a huge surge of money and support for this rearrangement of the supply chain. It's going to be a little more nuanced than that. And if I might just, if my colleagues here can just tolerate, I actually did a visit with a US government colleague to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the last few weeks to Lumbabashi. A little bit of a distraction from Bunker Hill, but not really, because I was there working out US strategy. And what you saw there was a real interest in securing metal, cobalt, and copper through the DRC to the United States, real interest in doing that, and doing it in competition with Chinese buyers of the assets and the developers.

44:37 Now, Chinese buyers and asset developers move a lot quicker than Western buyers and developers. Access to capital in China is virtually at 0% cost of capital, whereas access to capital in the West for a project in the DIC is challenging and difficult and hard to get hold of. So if you're the asset owner in the DIC saying, yeah, I'd love to partner with the United States, the United States takes its time to deliver the money and to deliver the projects. And that time creates vacuum, which a competitor, call them commercial competitor, a Chinese company can move quicker on. And So people are wrestling with what this actually means. And so we hear a lot of rhetoric out there and a lot of talk about it. But my sharing with here on the call, but with everybody in the group, is that there's a lot of difference between what's being said in capitals and what's actually practical on the ground, but it isn't that often the way.

45:38 So I'm sorry to take so much of it, but I think your question is really good one. I think the point Alan made about the bricks being, you know, not a particularly relevant way of looking at this is a good one. I think we all still need to be conscious of this emergence of a new, potentially new economic order. That new economic order has more global economic heft, as you pointed out, Richard, than it has at any time in the past. So it can have some pretty important implications in our lives. And I think one of the biggest ones is the countries that are at the forefront of discussions of de-dollarization of the global economy, now, as you point out, happen to control 30% or 40% of that trade. And so it is in their interest to be actively seeking ways to de-dollarize and finding other means of trade settlement, essentially?

46:51 And if there's going to be one thing that should be a major beneficiary to that, it's gold and the gold price. Because for all that they're going to try and develop their own currencies, this disparate group with different interests is likely never going to agree on some basket of their own currencies as a cartel where they're going to trust each other to, you know, not print it. They're going to need something objective. They're talking about a basket of commodities, but even in that, some are long oil, some are short oil. That's particularly important when you look at Russia and China and India, essentially, as being in very different sort of energy usage versus energy production areas. So yeah, I think while it is going to be an important part of global geopolitics.

47:49 I do think the other thing is, and you would have seen this playing out in Africa, the world benefits from or has benefited from globalization in the proliferation of predominantly, call it G7, ethos and values around development and around environment, right? And I think that's indisputable that When you look at levels of whether it's corruption or other things that go on in some developing countries that some companies from places other than, let's say, North America may not have the same standards they need to adhere to. So yeah, it is, Without question, I think going to be an interesting time over the next 10 or 15 years to see how that evolves But my the optimist in me says as we we all here have exposure to precious metals It's going to be good for precious metals. That's true Yeah, I think you have to remember how we got where we are. I mean, we've got to the point where the Chinese either mine and or import and process 70, 80, 90% of a gamut of materials.

49:16 We did that to ourselves. We exported all of those jobs, all of those resources, all of that processing capability to China. And now we're complaining that they've got their hands firmly around our throat. We put them there. But the interesting thing is, and I think Richard was mentioning, the speed at which the Chinese can move, but also the speed at which the market, when it is incentivized correctly, can move. And at one stage in my career, I was in the nickel industry, when nickel went to $20 a pound, and I was in Colombia, And we were making money hand over fist our Technical guys sat there and the Chinese started building these nickel pig iron blast furnaces and everybody was saying It's a crazy idea.

50:14 The margins are terrible. It doesn't work. It's not the most efficient way to do it. They put 10, was it 10? It was 15 to 20% of the world's nickel supply online every year for 3 years in a row. Today, I had the opportunity a few years back to go to Indonesia to to Hanahela Island. The Chinese have an installation there that is 10 times the size of Cerro Matoso in Colombia, which at the time was a significant nickel producer in the world, 10 times the size that they built for about a quarter of what BHP estimated it can build the same facilities for, from ore to hot-rolled stainless coil.

51:11 And they've done it in under a decade. And it is unbelievable to see. So when the market wants to, or when a country wants to, or the incentives are there, the industry can move. Look back to the Cold War and all of the copper mines that were built in Arizona and New Mexico. And they're all identical copies of each other. They just went clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk through that porphyry zone. So when the industry wants to, when the governments want to, we can do it. You just got to incentivize things properly. And as you've said, capital markets have to be there one way or the other. But that's, I mean, so Rick, again, another great point, Alan, on terms of, you know, if capital can flow to something, the expertise and the will is there.

52:01 Permitting is an issue. I mean, Bunker Hill itself benefited from the Defense Production Act and various other things because it was a significant producer of lead during World War II and World War I, the previous acts of the 1950 Act. And it got government money and it got all the support and off it went, because it was like that. We have got talk in the United States, well, more than talk, you know, acts were enabled in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act and then the Chips and Science Act, and then put mining again in the Defense Production Act, that's about $1.5 trillion of money. Not much of it's going into mining right now. But if there was the will to do that, notwithstanding the permitting piece, if there was the will to do that, you could see significant steps forward. And they have put that in the language that they are interested in supporting mining for feasibility studies and so on and so forth.

53:02 They don't want to truncate or jump over environmental permitting requirements or regulations, but if they're able to do that, and there is some of that's going on. We're not beneficiaries at the moment, but for those who have, good on them. There is work that could be done. So yeah, it's not a... Again, I wanted to make sure I wasn't coming across as too negative. I'm just reinforcing your point. Look at Thacker Hill. How quickly did they get their permits? Right. The DoD came in behind it. Yeah. You know, there's been stories of the DOD telling lithium producer than others in Canada. Don't worry about that. We'll get it sorted for you Yeah Interesting, isn't it? I don't know. It's in dynamic. I can't say here.

53:50 So let them decide they want gold. Yeah. Or need it. Better than want it, Alan. They need to recognize that they need it. Yeah. Yeah, Exactly. Gentlemen, it's been a bit of a double-edged sword here. I think the conversation has been great, but there's more I want to talk about, but unfortunately we're coming up on time. So I do want to offer each of you the opportunity to kind of go back around again, get on your soapbox, talk about what the catalysts that you're each looking forward to are upcoming before we wrap up for the day. So I think I'll pass things over to Richard to start us off in our wrap up. Thanks. We put an announcement out the other day about our financing package. All those terms are being tied down right now. And by the end of this month, all of that will be good to go.

54:41 That's confident, isn't it, everybody, gentlemen? But That's what you're looking at in the very short term. But what you should see us do, we'll be in production the second half of next year, is you'll see us improve on the economics of the project as we go forward. We've got the opportunity, and you'll see us release that, to move our starting throughput from 1,800 tons a day to 2,500 tons a day. We'll be working on recoveries and various other things to evolve from where we are now on a go-forward basis. So in terms of catalysts and news feeds, in addition to just getting you the project updates, how we're doing on the plan, on budget, and so on and so forth, what you should expect to see is news associated with the optimization of the project, which is, as with all projects, totally normal. So watch this space.

55:33 Great. Dan, over to you. Lots going on over the course of the next 12 to 18-months, including, we are exploring both around Springpole and regionally in the Bertucci Greenstone belt, so should have some results coming from there. We, until very recently, had drills turning in DuParcay, so really the first drilling we've done, and very optimistic about demonstrating growth potential in that already greater than 5Moz resource sitting in the middle of the Abitibi Gold Belt. And then an updated, or a PEA coming out on DuParcay targeting the end of the summer, early fall, and continue advancing SpringPool through the environmental assessment process and hopefully lots of milestones along the way there in terms of submitting, targeting ultimately submitting that final environmental assessment document in about a year's time, but lots of ongoing discussions and hopefully moving towards agreements with the Indigenous communities around the projects.

56:38 And lots to keep going on, how we're managing and working our way through the rest of the portfolio that we have to free up some capital to allow us to do all this. Great. And Alan, I'll hand things over to you to wrap us up. Thank you. So Chesapeake, as I mentioned earlier, we've got this massive deposit. We don't have to find it. We don't have to do any drilling. We know exactly where it is. We believe we've got a solution to fix the metallurgical issues that previous projects had. And we're working through that. Proof of concept went out, showed that we could get to 60% gold, 50% silver recovery with the oxidation process instead of 30 and 20. So significant improvements. We're aiming to get 70, 75.

57:26 We're doing that work now. I've got over 35 columns running in the lab here, various shades of grey and brown. And we hope to get those results out towards the end of the year, and that will support a pre-feasibility in early 2024. And then just keep moving forward. Got $25 million in the bank, so I don't need to find money, which is a great position to be in and should never be underestimated that what that cash is actually worth in the bank. So Indurango, great place to be, got good relationships and continue to de-risk the project and move it forward on what is a massive undeveloped gold and silver deposit.

58:15 You