Oriole Resources (LSE:ORR) — Interim Results for the 6 months to 30 June 2020

0:00 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ORIOLE RESOURCES Interim Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this presentation, investors will be on listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. There's a text box at the bottom. Simply type in your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and where appropriate responses will be published. These will be available via your Investor Meet company dashboard. I'd also like to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll.

0:47 I'd now like to hand over to Tim Livesley and Bob Smeadon, CFO of ORIOLE RESOURCES. Thank you. Thanks very much, and good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking the time to to listen in and for giving us the opportunity to introduce you to ORIOLE, update you on ORIOLE if you if you're already aware of who we are and what we're doing, and also for us to run through our latest interim financial statements. So I'm gonna kick off with a presentation, the usual disclaimer, just to give you an idea of who we are and what we do. I will just say this presentation is available on on our website. So at any time, you can after the presentation, you can always go there and and take a look.

1:33 We are a an AIM listed junior exploration company. We have been listed for about fifteen, sixteen years now, but we underwent a bit of a corporate transformation in 2018 when Oliver, myself, and the new board joined the company. We are early stage explorers in Cameroon. We believe we have a first mover advantage here. The Cameroon government is is really proactive with investment in exploration and mining. And to the extent that they've working with the World Bank and funding from the World Bank, they've recently, or in the past few years, been working on a prospectivity analysis of the entire country to attract investment into exploration and mining.

2:20 We have a a great local partner in Cameroon. We have two existing licenses, which we've been exploring now for just over two years, and we also have a package of eight licenses building portfolio in Central Cameroon. In Senegal, we are partnered with IAMGOLD. We have a a key license to us in Senegal, which IAMGOLD signed an earning agreement on in 2018. And IAMGOLD, obviously, a a large Canadian mining company with experience of exploration and mining, both construction and operation in Africa. That's in year three of its investment at the moment. I'll be talking about that later on. We're an experienced board and management team, Bob and myself joining in earlier in 2018, and then a new chairman and a new nonexec joining in September 2018.

3:15 Between us, we've got great experience in the AIM markets, company turnarounds, and also technically and financially in the development of particularly gold and base metal assets in Africa and Europe. We've got some great opportunities for growth of the company and also financial opportunities, which Bob will expand on a little bit more later on. We also have Claire Bay, our VP, exploration and business development. Claire Claire has a a longer history with the company and a key link back to some of the legacy assets where we have that knowledge base carrying on through into ORIOLE. So we'll start off with with Cameroon.

4:01 You know, Cameroon for us, back in 2018, it was it was an opportunity to get into what we consider to be a new gold frontier. It's been relatively underexplored, we we believe, we feel, in the recent past. And there were a couple of licenses available that that were I was aware of through my my previous company, RESOURCES. And there had been a a gold discovery on those licenses back in 2012. Now we knew that there's a there's a certain amount of alluvial gold mining happening in Cameroon, mainly in the East on the eastern boundary of eastern borders of Cameroon, but very little in the way of of hard rock exploration focused on these orogenic gold systems.

4:47 So we have two licenses there which are exactly that. Great locations for ORRIGENIC gold systems at Bibami and Wapuzi. I'll I'll just try to annotate this a little bit just to give you an idea where we're looking. So we're we're wrong way around that. Apologies for that. We're looking in the in the North of the country here, Ibramy and Wapuzi. And these two licenses are in partnership with a Cameroonian company, BERG three, which was the previous partner on the or the owner of those licenses, previous partner with RESOURCES PARTNEROX. We've done quite a bit of work there in the last couple of years. Initial boots on the ground geology, geological soil sampling, mapping, structural interpretation, and then we did an expanded trenching program at Bibami.

5:41 The idea being that Bibami was slightly more advanced than Wapusi. And we had some great results up to nine meters at just over three grams on one of the trenches at Bivenom. And we've confirmed and and really built our confidence in the in this large striking anomaly, this gold anomaly, over five kilometers in the central zone, and out of a package of around about 20 kilometers of of anomalous gold that was identified previously by a reservoir at Bipomine. Wapusi, we did quite a detailed soil sampling program and, again, identified some significant mineralization there during the program in 2019. Central Cameroon, we have identified an area with a great geological prospectivity.

6:33 This is a splay off the Central Cameroon shear zone. It's it's a gold area. There is existing evidence of gold from both artisanal workings and some historical mapping back in the nineteen sixties. And it's an area of between two shear zones. It's deep tapping crustal structures. These these are this Central Cameron shear zone forms mobile belt between the Congo Craton and the West African Craton, so it's it's a really geologically active area and has been over many, many, many millennia. And this near proterozoic terrain really has ticks all the boxes for gold exploration of the orogenic type. Deep seeded structures, long lived mineralization, some great hulsed rocks, and the opportunity in this area to peg brand new ground with with no competition, really.

7:32 We have we have a number of licenses under application here right now.

7:40 So if we zoom in a bit on on Bivamy, and let's talk about that that five kilometers of of anomalies and the trenching results. You know, we had a a significant success from our very early stage work at BIPOMY. We did a a first pass rock chip sampling program back in late twenty eighteen just as the dry season opened up. We And came back with some great results, you know, multiple ounces, over a 100 grams a ton. I think our highest rock chip sample was a 135 grams a ton. So we know that there's gold in the system. That that's you know, it doesn't need debating. The system is long. Again, we have a we have a long structure here that's running all the way up here. There's five over five kilometers trend with anomalous gold all the way along it.

8:30 And in certain zones, we see a number of high grade hits from the trenching and some stacked vein systems in these pods of mineralization where we have where we have structural intersections. Now we have zone one and zone two. These are sub parallel structures, and the grades in here are are really quite spectacular. Some of these stacked grade stacked systems, subvertical and subhorizontal veins, we get some great results coming out of these. They they I don't know how clear they're gonna be on the screen to you all, but, again, you can look at this in more detail on the website. So some of those those stacked vein systems, you know, we're getting rock chip samples from the most recent program, 35 grams a ton, 2.6 grams a ton, 23 grams a ton, that sort of thing.

9:22 So really well mineralized. And the program at Bivamie for this year, which we would we were originally planning to do earlier this year, we were delayed, obviously, due to due to the the COVID lockdown. The plan is to to mobilize a drill rig in and to start testing some of these better targets, some of these better intersections with fences or drill holes. You can see on the image on the left here, this is just a blowup of one small area here in in the bottom end of Zone 2. What we what we have here is a a number of trench intercepts running, you know, a gram plus. And we know that this is a subvertical system with subhorizontal stacked lanes, so we need to give some vertical depth to that. So the plan is to come in and drill some holes, some scissor holes, and some step back holes to identify the vertical extension of the surface gold anomalism.

10:26 And the plan is to do that at various points along the along the strike, you know, to come in and hit these these key areas with drill program through q four this year and into q one twenty twenty one. Initially, 2,000 meters stretching to 3,000 meters. We have already pegged the collars for these holes. We identified those early this year, in December last year and January this year. And we have 17 target locations already identified and ready. It's just a matter now of mobilizing the drill rig and getting on-site, drilling a few holes. To the north of Zone one and Zone two, again, you can see the the end of of Zone one and Zone two outlined here.

11:15 To the north of these, to the northeast of these, we have a what appears to be a closure area. And part of the program this year as well is to follow-up on the work mapping that closure zone that was done in late twenty nineteen, here shown in in these yellow blocks on the image on the left, and to extend that mapping into this northern into this northern area where we basically hope to find a a a junction point of zone one and zone two. Obviously, those structural locations are critical for giving volume to your to your gold anomalies. So we know that we have significant gold here. We've got significant strike length. It's consistent. We've got subvertical and subhorizontal vein systems, grades up to, you know, a 130 grams a ton, 135 grams a ton, and significant lengths and intercepts in the trenching, it's now just a matter of mobilizing the drill rig to test this vertically and to give us to give us the first steps towards hopefully working up a resource in the Bivami area.

12:21 So that's Bivami. If we move to the Northeast of Bivami along strike, the second license, Wapusi, this is about 20 kilometers away. And Wapusi, up until now, has only had soil sampling on it. So it's a step behind in the exploration process, a step behind Bibomine. But the the soil sampling we did previously, we'd identified 13 kilometers of anomalous gold on a 400 by by 100 meter grid. We did some infill on that to a 200 by one one hundred meter grid, and we saw some really good significant areas of of anomalism cohesive across those lines.

13:07 And interestingly, in the in the certain more southern area of Wapusi, in this area here, we're seeing three parallel systems coming together as we get to the edge of the license. Now that area, the edge of the license is up against a granitic intrusive. And so, again, this is an area of structural complexity

13:30 that gives us an opportunity for higher volumes of gold. So at the moment, we've only had soil sampling here. Highest grade to date, 531 PPB gold in soils. But the plan is to obviously put in the targeted program here to prepare Uzi targets for drilling after we've completed our program in in Bibami. So it's a very progressive program for the two licenses, boots on the ground geology, very straightforward program. And on the evidence of the work we've done there in the last two, two and a half years, we're really hopeful of great success on on both of these projects. Now I mentioned expanding our footprint in Cameroon, and we've done this quite extensively in Central Cameroon.

14:16 We we identified we did a program in in 2019 to look at a geological review of the whole of Cameron to try to rank targets. As as we consider this to be a new frontier, this is the right time to pick the best areas of Cameron to focus before the rest of the of the exploration world really wakes up to it and comes comes charging it. We did that process in 2019, and we identified seven key areas in in Cameron that we would like to operate. And we ranked them, and our rank one and two areas, obviously, priority wise, we looked at those first for potential for picking up open ground. Now the mining system in in Cameroon, they've developed a new mining cadastre system online, you can interrogate this on on the website and see where licenses have been applied for or or already granted.

15:09 And we saw in this central area, Zone 1 and Zone 2, or rather target areas one and two in Central Cameroon, we saw a huge area of open ground. And so we were able to put in an application for eight individual licenses, totaling three and a half thousand square kilometers. It's a critical structural area. It's a long trend on that splay of the Central Cameron Shear Zone. So, again, deep tapping crustal structures, fantastic neoproterozoic host rocks. It's it really sits in it ticks all the boxes and and sits in a great place for exploration targeting. And in this area, again, from the sixties and seventies, evidence of gold in gold activity from artisanals in the past.

15:58 So the reason we've got eight licenses in here in in two different groups, you'll notice the two different colors on the on the slide here, under the new mining law, which was developed with the help of the Finnish geological survey recently as part of the precasting program, you're allowed to apply for five licenses per company, so a maximum of 500 square kilometers per license. So we have three licenses, the the Western side here. These three licenses put together by a joint venture with BERG three, our partner. And then we have the the licenses in the East here under ORIOLE CAMRON, which is a subsidiary company we formed last year. These licenses are under application, and it'll be early stage here, early stage generative work.

16:47 The first pass program will be to carry out a number of stream sediment samples. This is typical regional exploration to try to to to refine the focus away from the massive three and a half thousand square k footprint, which is a district scale footprint, really, and to hone it down to some specific target areas. So this this proposed stream settlement planning has already been put together by our team out there. We've identified 1,300 target locations on these streams. This is just a topographic underlay color here. And you can see that these drainage basins are quite quite extensive. So we'll be able to work up those primary order streams to identify where the gold that's been seen by the artisanals is coming from and try to find the the core reason for that mineralization.

17:41 So subject to approval, final approval, that

17:45 remote sensing and that mapping and and package wide stream sediment sampling will be carrying on or will be starting off rather as we get into the dry season in the next month or two. So moving on from Cameroon. That's that's Cameroon's really our our primary focus of our our technical team right now, but we have a couple of other things stable, in couple of other projects that are really significantly valuable to ORIOLE. And perhaps the the the most most talked about, the most frequently discussed recently is in Senegal in the Kadugu Kaneba Inlayer, KK Inlayer. Now this area is, you know, in Eastern Senegal. It's a hugely endowed area for gold. 40, possibly even over 50,000,000 ounces of gold endowment right now. A number of existing mines, historical mines, currently operating mines, and new mine development projects.

18:41 And it's in this area, right in the center of this area, that we have our Sonarla license. Now the Sonarla license, we we entered into a joint venture with IAMGOLD back in 2018, just as I was joining the company. And the key thing to note here is that IAM Gold have what they call the Boltsoil mine development project just to the east of the project just to the east of our license, rather, down here at the south. Now that is a 2,500,000 ounce mine development project, and it was shown profitable on feasibility studies based on the $1,200 gold. We're currently close to 2,000, so we can imagine it's still profitable. And it's part of IAMGOLD's strategy of developing new targets in West Africa.

19:28 You'll notice the the the jurisdiction that we're in here, our neighborhood is quite busy with with some large names, you know, Barrick Gold, Randgold, IAMGOLD, and obviously some junior activity that's been in the news recently, Chester Resources, just to the to the east of of the northern part of our license up here at at Dianbassud. So the the the agreement with IAMGOLD, it's a it's an $8,000,000 earn in by by IAMGOLD on our license, and it was signed on in March 2018, literally the day I joined the company. It it was a deal that had been put together by the previous management

20:11 team and the previous board. And it was really focused on at the time, the license was called Dallafin. It had about two years to run, and it was an $8,000,000 earning with INGL taking the opportunity to assess the license. And the activity from our side was to be the renewal of that license, which we've successfully did last year. We actually were able to relinquish and reapply for the license to maintain the entire 472 square kilometer footprint.

20:42 And that's why the name has changed from Dalafen to to Sonalla. We had to rename the license for the new application. But that now gives us a ten year tenure on this license. Iron gold are in year three of their investment. The first two years, they focused in the South, and the third year now, they're focusing up in the North. The investment is is two phased. It's $4,000,000 to to obtain 51% over four years, and then another $4,000,000 over two years to obtain 19%, to take it up to a maximum of 70%. So it is a a very typical type of agreement that that these companies draw up. Companies such as ours draw up. And it it has meant that for the last three years, we've not had to financially contribute to any work on this license while it's progressed.

21:32 If we focus on on the north of the license, the first two years, obviously, was was IAMGOLD was looking at at the at Modena Bafay and Surudia. I'll just go back, actually, and just highlight that. The Medina Bafay and and Serudia areas are down in here. We've got five target areas through the license. And, obviously, with Bolto, the mine development project sitting just here, Medina Bafay and Serudia offered the opportunity to IAMGOLD to be satellite pits to the Bolto mine development project.

22:07 Now we're waiting for the decision on Bolto, but obviously, that's the hope is that Medina Bafay and Sarudia will be truckable ore that could feed into to Bolto at some stage once they've been worked up beyond the current status. So this year, the third year, there's been a shift by the exploration team up to the far area in the North. This is probably our best target outside of the Bolto area. And it's it's aligned with or very close to recent results from Chesa Resources up here on the down the Sud project. They're only about 12 kilometers apart, these two targets. So if we look at FARA itself, we believe this area has the potential to be a standalone open pit.

22:55 We've got, you know, a significant strike length here, over six and a half kilometers of strike length of gold anomalism in total, with a couple of key areas of higher grade in the center. You'll see that there's a there's a trend here which seems to be running you know, the main the main geological trend is is kind of a Northeast Southwest in this area, but there's a cross cutting trend which is forming this sort of pattern, x marks the spot, so to speak, in the middle. And this is an area where previously we've had some really good, really good results from drilling in 2013 and '14 prior to prior to the to the deal with with IAMGOLD. And you can see here some of those results outlined on this map and in the section.

23:45 And, really, the the intercepts are are quite phenomenal. You know, our longest intercept to date, 96 meters at 1.51 grams a ton. Shorter intercepts typically around the sort of 10 to 50 meter lengths, you know, 56 meters at 2.2, 14 meters at 2.94, 23 meters at 1.41. These are all the the sort of results which Chessera are currently publishing on the diameter of target to the to the east. And what we believe is this forms a gold corridor across this part of Senegal. If I just flip back again, you'll see the

24:25 you'll see the the two structures running across like this, these cross cutting structures against the main regional trend, which is more like this, and you get Far A in here and Dian Basud in here. So you see exactly why we are so excited about Far A as a stand alone target and obviously why Chets are busy with their work at Dian Basud.

24:48 Now if we look at Far A in a bit more detail for what IMGOLE's current plan is, They kicked off year three investment earlier this year, as mentioned, with the announcement of a 10,000 meter aircore drill program over this area. And they're really focused on faray on tying together these currently known areas of anomalism along the six and a half kilometer trend. So there's been a hiatus in that drilling whilst the wet season's gone through and prevented access. That's just ramping up again now, and we look forward to seeing results from the the infill drilling at this aircore drilling around the area to really define these targets a little bit in a little bit more detail. So great news and great progress in in that wonderful part of Senegal.

25:37 So as a company, what are we focused on? Well, you know, we're a gold and base metals targeted company. That's where our split applies. And currently, our our existing projects are typically in the earlier stages. You know, we're looking we're looking down here at existing projects, both investments and and operations as of our own. And what we're trying to do is get in at the early stage on that value curve so that when we do get an opportunity and we have discovery and the ability to develop resources, we're on that growth curve in the early stages. So that's really where we're targeting our our time and our our technical expertise right now. Now I'm gonna hand over to Bob.

26:22 That's kind of a a summary of of key activities at both in Cameroon and with our partners, Irongold and Senegal. But I'll hand over to Bob now to talk us through some of our other assets, legacy assets and some of the underlying value in the company and potential new avenues to cash and also the interim cash statements themselves, were published this morning. Bob? Okay. Thank you. So this slide is quite quite a busy slide, but it it covers the the fifteen year legacy history of the company. The company started in Turkey, moved to East Africa, and then ended up in West Africa, which Tim's talked about with Senegal and Cameroon. But that fourteen year legacy has actually left us with with lots of pots of value that we're we're gradually realizing as as we push ahead.

27:12 We've realized £250,000 worth of value already this year from selling our stake in Tembo and and two royalty deals in Turkey. And there remains quite a lot of value still out out there for us to get at. So the the biggest, probably most important, is our 1.2% royalty on the Muradaya copper gold project in Turkey. This is a project at EIA stage with $400,000,000 net metal value. So that would be approximately 4,000,000 royalty if we if we held a royalty throughout the life of the mine.

27:54 But it's obviously, you know, a valuable and attractive asset that may or may not be dispersed over along the way. Also in Turkey, we have approximately a million dollars of payments that are due to us over the next maybe eighteen months to two years. As projects progress, as the Hasan Chalet project and the Caraj project progress, we should receive approximately $1,000,000 over from them. And then we've got $1,400,000 of debts, which we're pursuing through the Turkish courts at the moment,

28:28 you know, usually in positions against former partners who've who've reneged on deals. And, we've got a pretty strong position, I would say, in all of that. And in many ways, it's just a waiting game. Other assets worthy of note are the Egypt, the 26% holding in an Egyptian gold exploration company, which has got a a large license in Egypt with a mixture of jock and non jock resources on it, totaling 700,000 ounces of gold. We have a 26% stake in that. And then we have a 10% stake in a gold exploration operation in Djibouti, which is operating on three licenses, where there's a current aggressive well funded drill program going ahead in that country.

29:23 And we look at, you know, these assets as part of resources to sell, to use, to fund exploration. And we we currently have active conversations across most of these assets, actually. You know, they may or may not contain anything, but but we keep active conversations going all the time.

29:47 Coming to the numbers, and this slide kind of shows the three and a half year p and l of the business. And as Tim mentioned, the board all joined in 2018. So if you like, 2017 is, you know, the first comparative. And the progress we've made from a statutory 6,300,000 loss to a small profit for our interim numbers this morning is is pretty marked. It's quite unusual for a a junior explorer to post a profit, and and there's really four things that have driven that. When we went into COVID lockdown, we immediately slashed salaries. We went to part time working. We talked to our advisers, and we've got fee reductions across the board from our advisers.

30:40 The Turkish team who'd who'd set up a consultancy business in 2019 somehow managed to keep that going through a Turkish lockdown that was similar to The UK, and and actually posted a profit for the six months, which is pretty remarkable achievement given they they all had to work from home. So they made a small profit. We rushed through our R and D tax claim for 2019. We received a 165,000 cash in May of this year from from the work we did there. And then the biggest item was was a bit of an accounting anomaly, a 730,000 forex gain on our euro and dollar assets in the euro asset is Sonala. The dollar assets are the holdings in the Egyptian and Djibouti companies.

31:30 So so we are this, you know, quite quite strange accounting anomaly of a huge forex game. But it is it just kind of serves as a reminder that we're very much an international business. You know, we've got exposure to the the gold price, which is very robust at the moment in the current global crisis. And we don't have any Brexit exposure at all. You know, all of our operations are overseas. So very much an international business. Quite a complicated p and l. If you look if you look at it, there's an awful lot of items on there which are sort of one off items over the the last few years or things that, you know, we just have very little control over, such as what our associates and investment companies are doing and what the exchange rate does. So in order to to keep track of that a little better, I I I normalize the p and l and and basically strip out everything that we can't influence or we can't influence much.

32:24 So this is very much the ORIOLE as we run it. And again, you can see the progress we've made from a 2,400,000 loss in 2017 to a small loss in the first half of this year. And we've done it, you know, as mentioned before, through very, very hard decisions on costs, driving costs down, the Turkish consultancy business. We basically managed to reduce our our net cost of running the business by 48% between 2017 and 2019. And then when I annualize what I expect for 2020, we were looking at a further 45% reduction.

33:10 So we've, you know, done our done as much as we can to focus cash on exploration, basically. And this is probably easier to illustrate in a graph. This is six categories of expenditure from the Turkish costs to The UK directors, UK employers, the African costs, and the legal and compliance, which is the yeah, it's the darker blue color. So as you can see, we've driven pretty much every cost category down over the last three and a half years to the extent that Turkey and other costs, which includes R and D, actually made a profit for the six months. So, a lot of progress in in in in the company down, but at the same time, our exploration spend has gone from virtually nothing in 2017 to to spending $1,500,000 in Cameroon since the middle of two thousand and eighteen.

34:18 So we've kind of got leaner and busier at the same time, which is pretty pleasing. And then this is just a representation of our shareholder base and our market cap of, you know, is under 4,000,000 at the moment, you know, despite all the things we've talked about with Senegal and Cameroon and all the legacy assets. We've got cash at the end of August of 500,000. We updated that from the interims due to recent fundraise. And the shareholder base, that's actually that shows the current shareholder base. The important point to know is on a fully diluted basis, the directors actually took a salary sacrifice scheme for the four months from November 19, and have have recently had that converted to options. So we've effectively invested a $125,120,000 pounds into the stock of the company on a fully diluted basis, which brings us to a 7% holding.

35:20 And on that, I'm back to Tim to finish off. Thanks very much, Bob. Yeah. So, you know, we as Bob says, I think the key thing thing to remember here is we've had a focus on reducing our costs, reducing our g and a, but at the same time, expanding our exploration, you know, taking that position in Cameroon, the partnership in Cameroon, the investment, the exploration, the trenching program, the sampling programs, and the new license position as well. So what can we look forward to in the next six to twelve months? Well, we're at the stage now of mobilization of drilling onto the Bivenby license. There'll be an announcement on that, I'm sure, coming up quite soon. Results, obviously, coming from that program over towards the end of the year and early into 2021.

36:13 And perhaps sooner than that, some results from the the mapping and sampling in that Northern Zone 1 and Zone 2 confluence, the Northern Bokassi zone where we believe those two structures come together. The grant of the new licenses in Central Cameroon is eagerly awaited. Obviously, the Cameroonian system has been hit by the COVID delays as the rest of the world has. We're expecting to see some some positive news on those in the coming weeks and months, and that'll trigger the ability for us to do some remote sensing work on that and to kick off our stream regional stream sediment sampling to start identifying individual targets in that district scale new frontier gold package in Central Cameroon. So lots of news to come out of Cameroon over the next six months or so.

37:00 In Senegal, the initial results from from IAMGOLE's aircore program at Fare are obviously eagerly awaited as well. These are primarily, obviously, just to to try and tie together the existing known mineralization. We already have drilling there. We have diamond drilling. We have RC drilling there. We know that there's a great potential there. So more progress at Far A would be great. And also in Senegal, obviously, at some stage, I'm going to have to make a decision on the Bolto mine development project. This is a this is a project. They've completed the feasibility. The mine has been permitted. The environmental permits have been issued, etcetera. It's literally just a matter of strategic timing for IAMGOLD as to when they when and how they they look to to access photo and develop it.

37:49 On the cash generation front, to offset and pay for some of this exploration and activity in Cameroon, a continuation of the asset sales and realization of value from some of those legacy projects that Bob was talking about, These are non core to the business, and it's it's if anything, it's an administrative burden to maintain oversight on them. So the best thing we can do is realize cash back from them and to put that cash to use in Cameroon and on other projects. And speaking of other projects, obviously, throughout this this lockdown period and ever since we we joined the company back in 2018, we're always on the lookout for new opportunities in the African and European time zone. We've reviewed reviewed a number of projects in the recent past, and we've had some discussions with with you know, narrowing down discussions with a few potential opportunities there.

38:43 So, you know, watch this space for both the continuation and expansion of our new frontier in Cameroon and potential for new activities in that in the gold and base metal space in Africa and Europe. And I think that just about wraps it up. That's brilliant. Thank you very much, Tim, and thank you very much, Bob. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just ahead of going into both the pre submitted questions and those have obviously come in, in the live event, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard on the Investor Me company platform. I'd also like to remind you that your feedback is important to the company and that immediately after the presentation has ended, you'll be redirected for the opportunity to provide feedback in order the company can understand your views and expectations. And we would very much encourage you to do that.

39:42 Tim, Bob, I guess before we I direct you to the q and a tab for those questions that have come in the live event, we had around nine questions, seven or eight, nine questions that were submitted pre event. What I propose to do is just if I can start and address those because other investors would not be aware of the questions that have come in And then you can take them as appropriate. Would that be okay? Yes, sure. Sure. Lovely. Okay. So the first question is, could you provide and again, I think there are elements that you've touched upon this within the presentation, but just for the avoidance of doubt, could you update with the progress on the disposal of the noncore assets? And were the disposal values in line with your expectations? I'll probably all see it pop here. Yes, sure. As we've said previously, as we went into lockdown, we were working on a multi royalty kind of portfolio deal with a potential acquirer of our Turkish royalty packages.

40:40 Each of those royalty packages, the partner had a a right of first refusal, which made it a very prolonged process. And ultimately, two of those royalty partners exercised their offer and bought the royalty. You know, we we were happy with the value achieved at a pretty early stage. It's very good to get any money out of a Turkish company, so we're quite pleased with that. Unfortunately, the exercise of the two ROFR's, it did kill the portfolio deal and that dropped away. I know one of live questions is about the value in terms of that and, you know, we wouldn't want to say that in public forum because obviously Muradaya, which is the subject of it, is very much still on the an available for sale asset, and we wouldn't wanna set a price expectation online. So I can't really answer that.

41:37 But Muradaya itself, you know, we we went we'd agreed the deal before lockdown. During lockdown, the copper price has gone up 10% and the project is edged towards EIA passing it to EIA, which both increased the value of of that asset. So in in many ways, while the deal went away, it wasn't a bad thing it went away where, you know, we think we'll get more money for it somewhere down the line. So we we, you know, continue to talk to people about it and all the other assets in the portfolio. But, yeah, we're pretty satisfied with where we ended up on that. Thank you very much. Follow on question here. What is the status of the repayment of an outstanding liability from your former Turkish partner?

42:25 Yes. I'll take that as well. And actually, there was a live question as well about this very subject, so I'll answer both things at the same time. So I'm do an export, our partner in Carriage, which I think the question the original question was about, owes $425,000 from a success based payment that was triggered at the start of 2019. And then, you know, as luck would have it, when we did the royalty disposal, we also, they also acquired the royalty under the right of first refusal. And, you know, there is an eyebrow at the time, but it was a right of first refusal. It wasn't linked to any repayment. They they had the right to do it. So we're now in a position where they owe us 425,000 and 250,000 as deferred consideration.

43:16 And and where we're going to go with it, we've actually started now that we're already finished out of the way, we've actually started mediation proceedings in Turkey, which will either lead to an early resolution or will lead to a long drawn out court case. But we're supremely confident we'll win this and pay, because let's face it, it was $500,000 success based payment. They acknowledged it was payable, they made some payments against it and then they stopped. So it's a pretty watertight case. And I actually think once they get past the EIA, they'll probably just pay anyway, because I think that for them is where they wish it was rather than where it contractually is.

44:02 And in terms of getting the money on the royalty payment, this 250,000 is triggered once they move into mine construction. And the contract's drafted in such a way that if they fail to meet that obligation, we get the royalty back. So, I'm pretty confident that with some patience and some pressure from the legal courts, we'll get all of that money. Thanks very much. I know you touched on the fact of share holdings and everything else, but one of the questions came through is why would why should anyone buy ORIOLE when the share price has been in persistent decline over the last five years from 2.3p in mid-twenty fifteen to 0.40 now.

44:48 Anyone holding over this time at down 80% on their investment? I'll I'll take that one. From 2015 well, that's three years before Bob and I joined the company. So it it it's really not something that we can talk about or would would wish to. It's it's pretty irrelevant to do that comparison. When we joined in 2018, we joined with a specific mandate given by primarily by the shareholders at the request of the shareholders to reinvigorate the company. That's exactly what we've done. Brand new management team, brand new board, brand new projects, brand new funding. And during our tenure, we've we've done pretty well, we think, considering the status of the company when we first came in.

45:39 So I think, actually, what what this does flag is the opportunity, if anything, of ORIOLE. You know, we you've seen from the presentation the the value that we have tied up in Senegal in the Sonala license and the value potential we have in Cameroon on those great licenses where we have existing gold anomalism that's been identified and trenched and sampled up in the North and the potential in Central Cameroon, plus all of these other assets, these legacy assets in Turkey and so on and East Africa where there's value to be seen to be had. So I think think if anything, it's a massive value proposition. But I think it's a bit irrelevant to to try to compare what we're doing today moving forward with what the previous management and board did five years ago.

46:27 Thank you very much. Three questions remaining, two regarding Cameroon. The first of which is the existing the two existing licenses in Cameroon have expired and have not been renewed by the authorities so far. How can a new drill program commence until this happens? Well, actually quite typical in a lot of Africa, sadly. The concept of deemed tenure is quite a strong one, and in fact, it's written into a lot of the mining codes where if you don't have a a negative pushback when you put your renewal or your application in or rather your renewal in, then it's assumed that you have deemed tenure. So we're working under that assumption at the moment. Obviously, there has been a delay with two things. First of all, there's a brand new licensing system put in place in Cameroon.

47:15 So there's obviously the ministry ministry is getting its head around that, and the COVID delays have have just prevented basic administration going forward. But we've had no negative feedback from any of the ministries associated with the renewal of the licenses at Bibami and Wapuzi. Our new license applications are all lodged. Taxes are being paid. They are showing up on the mining cadastre system, which is available for anybody to to view online. So we are very confident that we are literally just in an administrative holding pattern waiting for the final aretes to be issued. And on that basis, we are very confident to to move forward to capture the dry season. We, you know, we want to move forward so that when we're we're not waiting when the when the dry season starts and we can access the ground.

48:09 Thank you, Tim. I mean, I think you've touched on a little bit of this next question, but the company stated that the Cameroon project cannot progress because of COVID. This is the only project the company has and what happens if COVID lingers for two, three years. There appears to be no strategy for this scenario. And at the same time, shareholder cash is burning on g and a, whilst no operation progress is being made. Could you just perhaps give a comment around that? Sure. Well, on the cash burn, I think investors should be supremely confident that we've got that under control. If you look at look back to the the slides that Bob showed and the description that Bob showed of the reduction in costs, 48% reduction and a further 45% this year to date. So I think I think everybody would be would be correct in saying we've been very wise in our use of funds over the last two or three years as we've as we've changed the direction of the company.

49:09 As far as Cameron goes, yes, obviously, there there has been a slight delay at the beginning. The country is now open again. Our teams are planning and preparing to mobilize in in late September, early October to progress exploration there. We are looking at other opportunities as well in parallel to Cameroon, and we'll continue to review those. As as I mentioned before, you know, we're looking at opportunities in the African and European time zone. But there's a lot of value tied up outside of just Cameroon, but, obviously, Cameroon can go forward and is going forward. That's great. Thank you. I think we've touched on disposal of noncore assets in the first question, but there was a question, asset sales have been disappointing since the announcement last November.

49:55 Very little cash has been brought in, there have also been a number of defaults. What is the current situation? Shall I take that, Tim? Yeah. Yeah. I'll go for that, Paul. I mean, as I mentioned, we in asset sales in 2020, we've gotten quite a million pounds from Tenbo and the two royalty sales. You know, Muradaya was was the the the big prize I think we were trying to sell out. That's probably the jewel in the crown of the Turkish assets. And and because it became a very binary deal, once the two roofers were exercised, it it didn't go ahead. But I think in the long run, we'll look back at that and think it's probably a good thing. So, you know, I'm not I'm quite pleased with where we've got to on the asset sales.

50:42 And certainly, tidying up the Turkish portfolio, you know, it's now just a very manageable list of, largely speaking, cash we can expect to get at some point in the future. I think perhaps just to add to that, Bob Bob is is very understated, but one of the things he hasn't really stressed is, you know, we've got over £300,000 back from the government in r and d credits in the last couple of years. Thanks to to Bob's auspices and and his work with Claire on developing that those proposals for for HMRC. And that's an ongoing thing. So, you know, there is money coming in from money has come in from various places, not just asset sales. And combine that with the extra sharp pencil that Bob brings to our accounting and to our our management and and the costs of of our suppliers and supportive consultants and so on. And I think we're in a really strong place that even a small amount of money coming in from asset sales goes a long, long way.

51:48 Thank you. And and finally, there have been very few updates concerning Senegal, where Lamgold are the JV partner. Other companies are able to deliver ongoing news flow, for example, CHESTER RESOURCES, CORAGOLD. The excuse is that Lamgold are in control, but surely this is detrimental to ORIOLE Management suggests that they are in contact with Lamgold monthly, so why not update progress stroke activity on a more regular basis? Well, again, you know, I've spoken to this before. The deal, which, again, as a reminder, the deal which was signed prior to the new management and board taking over the company in 2018, the deal at the time was a great deal. The money the company was in a was in a tough place.

52:36 There wasn't a great deal of money around. There wasn't a great deal of activity of this type in the KKN line. So an $8,000,000 earning on the Sonata license or DELEFIN as it was then was a very strong deal to do. But, ultimately, IAMGOLD are funding the entire program. And although we have a technical committee, which consists of representatives of both companies, ultimately, the decisions on the progress on on the programs themselves, whilst IAMGOLE are quite happy to take our advice, they choose where they will spend that earning money and how they will spend it. You you mentioned Chesa Resources. You know, Chesa have essentially one license.

53:22 They have the the license that they've been drilling down the Sudan. They control the exploration there. They have no underlying value like we have on legacy assets. They have no other exploration targets like we have in Cameroon, and yet their market cap is very, very high. So I can see how it frustrates some of the investors of ORIOLE. But but, again, it just reinforces the position the undervalued position that ORIOLE in and the opportunity that exists at ORIOLE. It it's pointless as having a meeting with IAMGOLD and to discuss the progress on an aircore program that's awaiting the dry season. What you know, that doesn't informing the shareholders of that really brings no value. You know, we wait and see as and when IAMGOLE progress the drilling, we get the results, we publish the results, we comment on them.

54:15 But we can only do that when activities are happening. So I think I think it's a it's a kind of a combination of, yes, this deal was done out of our hands. It wasn't necessarily a bad deal. But with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps we would have done it. The new team would have done it slightly differently. But that's the benefit of hindsight. Nobody foresaw COVID, for example. Nobody foresaw the the the gold price kicking up to 2,000. So I think it's a good deal. I still believe it's a good deal. I'm Gold are a great partner. The fact that they have BOTO development mine development project contiguous with our license now, they've they've closed the gap to make sure that license is contiguous. So all the indications are there that BOTO is going ahead. They've committed nearly $30,000,000 recently to to the predevelopment of BOTO despite having approved the development of the coke project in Canada, we know that IAMGOLD are primarily so they got a foot in two camps.

55:19 So, you know, half of the of the the focus is Africa, half of the focus is back in the in The Americas. They they are still very much across both both areas. Yes. Coat, obviously, has has been approved. That's a more expensive CapEx, potentially a higher all in sustaining cost operation as well, but perception is it's a more stable jurisdiction. BOTO is a much, much lower CapEx. I think I'm going to probably just considering their opportunities in the in the district to make a or to to look at the potential for using BOTO as a as a link to several other targets around. And, of course, if you look at Medina Bafay in in the South of our license potential satellites, you look at Faray as another potential open pit, stand alone mine in the North.

56:16 They need to understand better the bigger picture before they they commit, and I understand that. You know, we understand how how the larger companies operate like this. You know? It's it's it's not unusual to us. Perfect. Thank you very much indeed. That that concludes, and thank you for taking all those questions on for for investors today. There is awful an awful lot of commonality, I guess, between the questions that were presubmitted and those that have come in during the meeting itself. And I know you guys have taken a couple of those already. Just mindful of time because I'm also aware that you do want investors to provide feedback, and we want to be able to direct them. So could I ask you just to pick up any questions where you feel it's appropriate to give a response now? And just to remind all investors that all questions can be reviewed post the presentation by the company and where appropriate responses will be given. So if I could just hand back to you guys, that would be great. And then I'll take the floor back after that.

57:15 Sure. Tim, I know you were doing most of the talking, so I was keeping track of the questions that came in. And I think we've answered most of them other than a good question about will all existing shareholders be invited to participate in any future equity fundraise, which I think what we would say is, you know, doing a rights issue is incredibly expensive and not the best way to do things. But we've opened up this relationship with the Monexia platform, which will enable shareholders to get involved in any future raise as we do because we will, you know, there's a chance for them to participate in the raise as it goes live effectively.

58:00 So you probably if you're interested in doing that, you probably should check out the Monexia platform and and register. Yeah. The the NR private markets platform, we are currently in the investor lounge there with a number of other companies. And just for full disclosure, I'm I'm chairman at the Nexia. So I would and Bob is is involved there on the as a CFO. So sorry. He's the company secretary. So just to to put that disclaimer out there, but we are we are involved, as Bob says, with in our private markets with Monexia. And as and when we go forward with a with a raise, obviously, there'll be the opportunity to to join that raise at the the at the raise price through the next year, as well as other other opportunities.

58:50 What's the phrase they use on radio? Other other companies do exist or something. But No problem at all. Just as I say, we're coming up to the hour. Perhaps, Tim, I I could just ask you to wrap up. And then, as I said, I will redirect investors to to give you feedback. Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks very much to IMC for hosting us. I think it's a great opportunity for us to to put our cards out and show our wares. I think that we have a great opportunity in the new frontier in Cameroon. And, obviously, we have a huge underlying value that's that's currently kind of under the radar screen, I think, for a lot of investors with our projects in in Sonala and Senegal and with the opportunities for for cash inflow to to reduce the amount of potential dilution in the future through our Turkish asset realization and so on. So I I personally think this is a a under border. I now agree with me. It's a great opportunity at ORIOLE. We've all increased our position through salary sacrifice and so on to expand our position in the company.

1:00:00 And we believe we are doing the best for the investors with with good support from Bob on the financial side, some new new avenues to cash, and also a real sense of fiscal discipline. We're at the early stage, high risk end of the market. We we accept that. We acknowledge that. But we are actively moving forward to to try to create as much opportunity for success as possible whilst spending the investors' money wisely. So thank you very much, and please do follow follow sign up on the website to follow-up for our news and at NR Markets and Manexia for for any news of future raises. That's brilliant. Tim, Bob, thank you once again very much for updating investors live today.

1:00:48 Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide feedback? If you access this meeting from our website, the feedback page will appear. If you access this via the link sent to you by email, you'll be asked to log back in to submit your feedback. But we do very much encourage you to do that if it is possible. On behalf of the management team at ORIOLE RESOURCES, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes the session, and good afternoon to everyone.