Producing in Tier 1 Jurisdictions

0:08 Good evening or good morning, depending on where in the world you're signing in from today. I'm fortunate today to be joined by Rick Van Nuenhuysen, President, CEO and Director at Contango Or, and Wayne Bramwell, Managing Director and CEO at West Gold Resources. How are you both doing today? Doing good. Looking forward to the new year. Me too, me too. All right, folks, here's the format for today's event. We'll start with a set of questions that I've prepared and then we'll jump into audience questions, starting with those sent in advance via email and then the questions here in the live chat. If for whatever reason we don't get to your question today or if it's a question that would fall outside the scope of today's panel, which is producers and tier 1 jurisdictions, we'll pass it on to the respective teams and they'll get back to you as soon as possible.

0:54 Today's event is being recorded and the replay will be available later today or tomorrow. Without further ado, let's jump into the questions. This one's for both of you. The investment thesis for cold producers has evolved considerably over the past decade. How do you see your operations meeting the market's expectations for sizable returns and sustainable returns while maintaining growth potential?

1:20 You know what, I'll throw it to Rick to start this one. OK, sounds good. I was hoping you were going to direct traffic. Thanks, everybody, for joining us today. This will be our first panel for the new year here. With our DSO model,

1:40 we think we're confident in being able to continue to produce Gold. Obviously, we've had a bit of a setback last year with the 20% reduction from the bridge weight restrictions and some of the other things that affected our guidance in terms of the amount of Gold we were going to produce. But it reduced it by about 10% in the bridge rate restrictions. It did cause the costs to go up, and that's, I think, was probably the more concerning thing with investors. But we've kind of taken that hit now. You think about a 10% reduction in production, but we had basically a 50% – almost a 50% correction in the share price, depending on what time period you want to take it. But you look back at last year, gold price was doing well.

2:41 Trump wins the election, gold price gets knocked on the head by 200 bucks an ounce, US. Everybody went down. The gold price has been sort of fluttering around that $25, $2600 level, maybe now getting a little bit better. But it's kind of like it's a reset. And, but all the equities just got hammered. I mean, most everybody's down 20 to 30%. We're down more because of, I think, because of the reduced guidance and the increasing costs.

3:15 But we, I guess I would still submit that our approach, the DSO approach, I think is it fit for purpose for a junior startup company, because it reduces the amount of capital you need to get into production. Our DSO approach naturally sort of filters us to higher grade deposits, which are more robust and more less susceptible to being shut down. Now, if you're dealing with a 1 gram deposit, you don't have You have a lot less margin if you have a 10% reduction in our case in transportation. So it's just, it's a big, we think the model's still the right model. It's fit for purpose for this market.

4:01 It is still a tough market. I mean, it has not been an easy market and that's across the board and for a variety of reasons.

4:10 You know, this is where this is kind of a jurisdictional focused panel. You know, see, you can't ignore the fact that, you know, the CEO of Barrick is on a most wanted list in Mali. So I mean, in terms of my comfort level, I enjoy the privilege of working in a place like Alaska, where I don't have to worry about that for myself, but also for my employees. I don't have to worry about them being at risk and being taken captive by a junta and having to fork over $160 million to make them happy. So that's where jurisdictional risk, where the rubber meets the road on jurisdictional risk. And so like I said, I think our approach is still right. We still have inflation.

5:06 When you think about, when we did the feasibility study at Montreux, we used a $1,400 gold price. And now the price, The guidance price we're using is US$2,500. That's an US$1,100 difference. When you have that, the first thing you do is you look at your cut-off grade and you're going to go, I'm going to reduce my cut-off grade. There's a big factor in why the costs go up because now you, in our case, it's effectively a gram of gold that we produce the cutoff grade by. And this is just how you run a mine. No mine's really going to purposely not run it that way. Now, the consequence of that is I have another year of my life.

5:53 So, anyways, all those things have to be sort of considered and put into the valuation. And I don't think the market gets it right away. It always takes a while. They would look focused on the bad news and everybody sort of focus on the good news. You know, we're going to generate more gold. And so we get more exposure to that gold upside, if that's what you want to speak to. But also we're going to continue to generate strong cash flow. So does it pay me that the share price took a hard hit? Hell yeah. But I know we're still in business and we're going to generate good cash flow. Thanks, Rick. Same question to you, Wayne.

6:34 Bianca, just to reframe the question, it was how does the industry meet the market expectation? In some sense, I can state it in a very simple manner. We as a Gold industry have to show shareholders that we can take their capital and allocate it pragmatically such that we can generate sustainable returns. I mean, that's a really simple statement, but we are running complex businesses. We are running capital intensive businesses and we are extracting a non-renewable resource in Gold. So you've got to find, you've got this interplay between having to invest capital to extend mine lives and improve efficiency. So really, as a sector, I think why the sector is particularly in a difficult point at the moment is the Gold price in US dollars or Australian dollars is at record highs. You know, Historically, these are the times in the Gold sector where massive returns are being made by companies and those returns have been reinvested into capital

7:41 as against return to shareholders. This is where the criticism of the sector comes in some sense, that it's not been a great returner of capital with shareholders. And for Rick and I, as the leaders of these companies, we're every day, every minute trying to find the balance of, we have to spend money to make money? Are we doing it in the right places? Are we investing such that we can generate higher returns for the shareholders? When you get that right, that generates benefits for both the people that works for these companies, the communities we work in, and most importantly, the shareholders. Absolutely. Rick, back over to you. Alaska's reputation for high-grade deposit is very well established.

8:28 How does the grade-tonnage relationship at Peak Gold, combined with your partnership model, create a potential template for unlocking other Alaska deposits?

8:38 Yeah, I think it's true. We have a lot of great quality deposits here, But that's kind of driven by the lack of infrastructure. If we had more infrastructure, we could afford to mine lower-grade deposits. So I mean, there's a, I think Alaska geology is very special, but it's still geology and rocks are rocks. So those 2 things do kind of play hand in hand. And I think it's a good fit again for our business model of focusing on high quality deposits and focusing on using other people's mills to process these things. But most of that is driven by the difficulty in permitting. You know, If it were easier to permit things and you can get it done in 2 or 3 years, like in any sane jurisdiction,

9:24 you could afford to take that risk. But when it takes 10 plus years, no shareholders are going to just hang out for that long. So that's what's driven our model. Hopefully one of these days we'll have our own mill and that'll, I think the hub and spoke model still works for that. I like being in charge of our future. I like that, you know, that aspiration of being in charge of our future, but that requires we either acquire a mill or build a mill. And as I said, building one's gonna take a lot of permitting risk. So, but I, you know, I think it does, again, just reemphasizes that the model we're taking as a junior startup company, I mean, if you're a bigger company, you can take on different challenges. But given that it is still, again, a very tough market and equity valuations are not great for everybody,

10:20 including the barracks and the Newmonts of the world. By the time it trickles down to our size company, the valuations are really tough. So I think, again,

10:36 the model that we've used is the right model for us. We've got good quality assets, high grades, simple ore bodies, one's fully permitted, 1 is on its way to, you know, we're working towards getting it permitted, but again, keeping it as a simple project will help get the permitting done in a timely manner, so.

10:59 Awesome. And on your side, Wayne, Western Alaska's operational sophistication has evolved significantly. How has your background in metallurgy influenced West Gold's strategy in acquiring and developing assets that others may have overlooked? Great question, Bianca. I mean, I started life as a metallurgist and a processing plant, and I'm fortunate enough now to run a mining company where we have 5 processing plants. I mean, when we started, we had 3, now we've got 5. But My view is that, and maybe it's a bias of my technical discipline, in these companies, resources are important, but without processing plants, you can't monetise that resource. So in speaking to Rick's point, the processing plants are in some senses the cash registers. They are the things that monetise the mineral resource and without them, you've only got half the equation.

11:55 So, from Westgold's perspective, when we've been looking at acquisitions, it's always a balance of, well, we've always wanted multiple processing plants because you have multiple opportunities for free cash and revenue from each one of those plants. And then you have to match the mineral resources to those plants.

12:15 We run a hub and spoke model in our northern operations and our southern Goldfields, we do the same. And that, in some sense, adds a level of complexity, but it's complexity that we control, speaking to Rick's point. We're starting to do different commercial deals in this company and probably more so in Western Australia, whereby, again, speaking to some of the challenges of project development that Rick spoke to, small junior companies now, it's never been harder to either raise capital or debt to build processing plants. So for us with 5 processing plants, we're starting to do deals in some sense, collaborate with smaller explorers and go, hey, we can remove

12:58 the pressure and risk of project development off you and the capital cost of building plants. If you are good explorers and you have good resources, let's work together to monetise that. And we've done that with a small junior Australian company called New Murchison Gold recently, who have developed a very good looking project within 33km of one of our processing plants. And by working with them into an all-purchase agreement, we fast-tracked their transition to cash flow and removed a significant hurdle for them by being able to leverage our processing capital and their resource. So I think we have to find different ways as an industry to cooperate and get Gold out of the ground. Sometimes if there is a certain appeal of owning your own plant and in a scenario where there is no regional plants that you can leverage, your only option is to build your own.

13:58 But yeah, as an industry, I think we have to be, again, back to my point about capital allocation, let's be smart about that. Whatever gets the gold out of the ground faster and generates return for the shareholders, that's the answer. There is also on the flip side, from a management perspective, the concept of, well, we have to do everything, you know, cradle to grave. Well, that can be a really long journey in project development. And if there's a way of getting to a free cash position sooner, I think those options are becoming more and more

14:32 assessed by junior companies. And as a producer, we're happy to work with those sort of companies and be less, if it works for their shareholders and works for ours, job done. I want to add, Bianca, just another comment that, I mean, there are other games you can play or other paths you can pursue for, you know, being in the resource sector. And I sort of categorize them, you know, you either want to be a producer or you don't. And if you want to follow that path, there's certain things as Wayne just outlined that you have to figure out and have to do. And you have to do it in the context of the market that you have, not the one that you wish for.

15:15 You can play the, I want to acquire a big low-grade resource and play the leverage to gold game. But in my opinion, that's a fool's errand because if it's not economic at $2,600 gold price, and when I say $2,600, not today's spot price, but the price at which a bank is going to lend you money or a debt financier is going to lend you money to build your project.

15:41 If it's not economic at today's gold price, it's not going to be economic at 3000 dollar gold because because when gold 3000 dollars and I'm obviously speaking in US dollars, when gold is $3,000, it's at $3,000 because either the government's printed a bunch more money and you have inflationary effects, or global tariff wars have resulted in higher costs for everybody, or they're just plain old, they're still inflation in the system and they're higher costs. So,

16:11 this whole leverage to gold price thing, I just think is complete bunk. We're in business to make money. We're in business to make money by selling gold and getting leverage to gold. And once you're in production and you've sunk that capital, then you get the leverage to gold. Before that, it's just BS.

16:32 That was a great point. I appreciate that, Rick. I mean, I'll pass it back to you on a bit of a different line here. The integration with Fort Knox's processing facility represents an elegant solution to capital intensity. I'd love it if you could discuss how this approach might redefine the development pathway for mid-tier gold projects globally.

16:53 Well, I think, and Wayne touched on this as well, I mean, I think we have to take advantage of the infrastructure we have, whether it's it takes a long time to permit new infrastructure, or it costs a lot of money, both of those are impediments.

17:09 And there are bigger impediments for the smaller the company you are. So I think this hub-and-spoke model, which is a lot more used in Australia than it is in North America. I don't know if it's the independent American way of thinking or whatever, but the fact is that we just don't have a lot of hub and spoke type models outside of the major producers like in Nevada where you have Barrett and Newmont and now most now it's the Nevada JV but They you know, that whole thing is hub-and-spoke. I mean they have 3 or 4 processing plants each but That that's that is the essence of hub-and-spoke and you know, Should that have happened about 20 years sooner? Yes. But it didn't. And that's probably both big companies and egos and all that, all the rest of it. But that is the model that I think the mining industry globally has to sort of think about.

18:05 And I think investors have to understand that once you're established in a mining district, you have to give value for the upside that will be there.

18:16 We're restricted by JORC and 43-101 and SBA 1300 in terms of reserves and what we can talk speak to. But if you control a district, you control a huge amount of upside and with further exploration, you will be successful in that long-term value for shareholders. Hard to quantify in an NPV8 type of a world, but realistic. Awesome. Wayne, there's a question here about Westco's success in managing multiple underground operations. It clearly demonstrates a remarkable operational discipline. Curious what technological innovations have been crucial in achieving economies of scale?

19:02 Look, we do run a complicated business. I mean, all of these businesses are complicated, irrespective of the scale, because of the variables we're dealing with. Operational complexity or operational discipline is something which honestly, as mine operators, we challenge every day. I mean, every day we have to find ways to get better. We've got 6 underground mines running at the moment. I mean, there are some commonalities amongst those mines. I mean, originally they're separate. You know, we're all, the equipment we use underground is quite similar in each mine, but each one of those ore bodies is very different. So, you know, there's no 1 size fits all solution for each of these mines.

19:42 We are still in some sense as a company early in the journey of being able to optimise these mines and trying to take, and we're not at a point of using AI or generated AI for exploration. I think that's a real opportunity, but we're early in that journey. We're still, as an organisation,

20:05 transitioning to become more data-driven. I think becoming more data-driven, making decisions off good data, makes operational discipline and operational excellence far more achievable. So look, these businesses, and I think today our workforce is around 2200 across a large part of Western Australia, 5 processing plants, 6 underground mines, meaning there are a lot of moving parts within that business. So, look, I wouldn't say we are. I think we're good managers of complexity. I think we have to become better managers of complexity. And in my mind, that's about simplicity drives efficiency, drives profitability. So, you know, in the case of Westgold going through a merger with Karora 6 months ago, we doubled the scale of the business and all of a sudden we're still 6 months into trying to integrate these 2 businesses and operational discipline is something we speak to every day.

21:07 What we actually speak to is operational excellence. And this buzzword is something which I've had to now understand and define in a very simple manner. We only get to mine these ore bodies once. We need to mine them efficiently because once they're mined, that's it. The opportunity to go back is often rare. So for us, operational efficiency or excellence is really about maximising ore body extraction in an efficient manner. No one gets hurt, maximising profitability. And again, that's a complicated algorithm which every mine operator in the world struggles with every day. So, look, yes, I think we're really good operators, managers of complexity. Can we be better? Absolutely. That's the challenge to get better, to be more efficient every day, to maximise the returns and generate more free cash for our shareholders.

22:04 Great. This one here is for you, Rick. The unique seasonality of Alaskan operations has historically impacted project economics. How has your team engineered the peak gold development to leverage these conditions? I think the seasonality thing is an exploration issue. It's not a mining. When you're at the mining stage, I think the only, you know, if it's minus 40, when it's the same degree Celsius as Fahrenheit, it's freaking cold and equipment and people don't work all that well. So there's, you know, there's, but we don't get like months on end of that kind of weather. You get, you know, maybe a week of that weather and it doesn't stop you. It's definitely slows you down. You just have to work. It's a safety more of a safety thing anything else on The other side in the summertime when it's 24 7 daylight You get a lot more work out of people's so, you know that sort of balances out the exploration side is definitely seasonal You don't want to be out exploring when it's dark and cold and with 5 feet of snow on the ground. So I think it's a bit of a misnomer in terms of mine production.

23:16 The infrastructure aspect of Alaska's remoteness and when you look at things like Red Dog, and the port there is only available for 4 months of the year. And so, yeah, that's a seasonality thing, and that's real. And also you have to have a huge storage facility for your lead and zinc concentrates. Yeah, that all costs money and It's not making money, but sitting in a storage shed north of God to be somewhere rather than in a warehouse in London so But in you know for gold specifically, it's not an issue. And for anything on tidewater, it's not an issue. Normal tidewater, not Red Dog tidewater. So I think largely, summary, it's a bit of a misnomer.

24:06 The seasonality doesn't really dramatically affect the mining up here. Yeah, there's a few days, maybe a week or so that you lose to weather and snow blizzards and things like that. But what you lose in the wintertime, you tend to make up in the winter, in the summertime, because it's nice and bright and daylight 24 7. So yeah, that'd be my comments on that. It's not as dramatic as I think people like to make it out to be. That's good to know. I appreciate that. All right. This one's for both of you. But why don't we, I'll tee it up by letting you know, I'll start with Wayne this time. But the question is, as ESG considerations become increasingly important, How do your jurisdictions regulatory frameworks provide competitive advantages in sustainable gold production?

24:54 Wow, that's a massive question, Bianca. Certainly, Western Australia is a tier 1 address. I mean, it's a mature mining destination. And within Australia, for those who are aware of our geography, you know, the mining codes or the regulations across the states are quite different, whether it be predominantly environmental or government approvals. Western Australia, we are somewhat blessed by being with our mineral resources. We've got a mature industry and our government is pro-development. So, I mean, that's not a code for prepared to take shortcuts with environmental or heritage issues, but as a jurisdiction, Western Australia is our home and it's a place we're really comfortable with. There's a rule of law, regulatory processes are transparent.

25:47 You know, There's always the overlay of sometimes the approval process never works as fast as a mine developer would want, but there's a process and you just have to stick to it. We do see WA as having a competitive advantage, even within Australia, as a place to invest. And, you know, this name West Gold, in some sense, was very well selected in terms of, you know, we see our future and a much larger future being in Western Australia, a jurisdiction we know really well. Also our management team and management reaches is for, we've got a reasonably small management team trying to execute projects within Australia and in Canada at the same time. We know how that ends. Some people can do it, but our management reach is short. So for us, you know, a bigger future in Western Australia is the corporate strategy. And look, maybe I'm biased because I'm born and bred in Western Australia, but this is a place we understand. And as Rick spoke to before, there are certain challenges around, say, climate we don't face here. We don't face the issues of snow.

26:57 It's not something I understand at all. And certainly there are sovereign risk issues that do not exist here, which I've worked in Africa and other places of the world, where those things have a different intonation. That doesn't exist here. And that in some sense removes 2 dials back, 2 risks, which are part of the risk metrics of becoming a mine developer. And Bianca, from my side, I'd say, first of all, I'd sort of challenge the question a little bit because I think there's been a lot of discussion on ESG and ESG reporting and the greenwashing and all that. So I think, we think it's important. I think the mining industry has always felt it's important. I mean, I'm gonna talk about at least for the last 10, 20 years that I've been sort of in senior management roles.

27:51 All the companies I've worked for has always focused on that. But it's really the reporting of what it is that you're doing that's actually real. And it's a very different thing for for coke and pepsi to have a nice ESG scores you know as everybody's stomach and teeth rot, but Then then then you know us and working in You know in Alaska like we do in remote locations. I mean, for us, it's very simply boots on the ground, working with tribes, working with Alaska native corporations. I mean, any way you wanna score that, those should be viewed as very positive. When you take our DSO model and basically take advantage of existing infrastructure that's there, we have an incredibly small footprint for developing a new mine.

28:48 Moncho produces over 200,000oz of Gold a year. If we built a new mill and tailings facility, it would be a lot bigger footprint. To me, those are the things that, if I'm going to focus on the ESG side of things, those are the things that I want to be reporting on, because they're really the important things. And, you know, if CO2 is your thing, then again, we're really low on that score as well, because even with the truck transport, and we've done the calculation, even with the truck transport, it's far, far lower than if we built our own milling facility. So yeah, I think it's, again, I think our model is the right fit for what we're doing, especially in a place if we had more mills and infrastructure up here, I'd love it more because we'd have more choices.

29:45 Absolutely. Wayne, back over to you. Western Australia's Gold industry has demonstrated remarkable resilience through many mining cycles. How has West Gold's approach to capital allocation evolved to maintain operational flexibility while pursuing growth? WA, certainly from COVID onwards, I mean, our industry just kept going. I mean, we didn't, in some sense, didn't miss a beat. We faced the challenges of lower staff availability and people not being able to move around, like every other primary industry in Western Australia, but the business kept going. So the question really is as a company, how do we approach the cyclical nature of the business and being able to be sustainable through all price cycles. It's really about, from a business perspective, being able to make longer term decisions or better decisions.

30:40 And how does that come? That comes from having longer life ore bodies. When you've got an ore body where you can look to and go, okay, I can see a 5 or a 10-year mine life in front of us. It changes your thinking about how you allocate capital. Early in this company's journey, our mine lives on paper looked very short and that drove a very short-range approach to capital allocation and decision-making. So, what has changed within the business between the old business and the business today? Pretty much one thing. We drill. We drill these ore bodies and by drilling you improve the amount of data you have, you give yourself, you build a bigger picture of the mine or the resource, and that gives you a much longer planning horizon. And with a much longer planning horizon, you allocate capital differently.

31:31 And that capital allocation is about, okay, we can now invest X million dollars in this widget because this widget now has a, will pay itself back in 2 years, but generate free cash for 5 years. So for us, the balance in the last few years in the business is drill, continue to drill, extend our mine lives, because with that, we can take different approaches to capital. We're becoming as a business far less reactive to short-term aberrations in the market. And now having 5 processing plants, you know, even a short-term hiccup in 1 mine and 1 processing plant, it has less of a negative impact on the business. I mean, In a previous life as a single mine operator, you live with 1 reality every day.

32:22 1 minus 1 equals 0. If you have 1 mine and 1 mill and you have a problem, you are 100% exposed to it, where in some sense the business of which I run now, having 5 processing plants and 6 underground mines, yes, it's a little more complicated, but you have the ability to flex these assets inside to react to either short-term or longer-term technical impacts or longer-term market impacts. So really, it's always back to the same place. Data, data drives better decisions. How do you get the data? You drill. If you drill, you get longer mine lives, larger resources. It takes a, it brings a whole different approach to capital allocation. This next one is for both of you guys. We'll start with Rick this time around.

33:13 Looking at the next wave of Gold discoveries, What geological characteristics in your regions most excite you about the district scale exploration potential? Yeah, that's an interesting question because when I look at the industry globally, big high quality Gold deposits are getting harder and harder to find. If you're a big company, you need to produce a lot of Gold, which means you need a big deposit. When I look around, the only real deposit type that can consistently deliver a lot of Gold is actually a Copper deposit, a Porphyry. A Porphyry Copper deposit.

33:58 And that's why you see Newmont buying Newcrest, because those are where the big deposits are. Now, that's a big boy game. You cannot be a junior company and play in that field. Porphyries are big, gargantuan systems that take a lot of, Wayne said, drill, baby, drill. That's what you have to do in a porphyry just for a regular old porphyry. And it's bloody expensive. And then, whereas you may spend $10 million doing a feasibility study on a million ounce gold deposit, you're going to spend at least $100 million doing a feasibility study on an average looking porphyry. So that is where if you want big ounces, that's where you've got to go.

34:47 And then you're playing that leverage game that I spoke about earlier. Because they're not easy things to put into production. They're hugely expensive. And So I guess to get back to answering your question, I think that's where the industry has to go, the big, and I'm speaking about the big companies and the big boys, because the rest of the class of deposits, unless you want to start going into jurisdictions that are really challenging, And I'll just point to West Africa. Everybody and their brother went to West Africa, but guess what? Everybody and their brother's leaving West Africa because ISIS has taken over. So Those are all part of the dynamics of, and I think why Wayne likes working in Western Australia, a jurisdiction that he's really comfortable with, and why I like working in Alaska, because it's a jurisdiction I'm really comfortable with.

35:41 I don't have to worry about my employees getting, you know, taken by the junta, and having to worry about whether they're gonna put a bullet in their head or Asked me to write a check for a hundred million bucks because I didn't pay I didn't pay it the taxes so Yeah, I think I like high grade. I like, again, what drives our model is sort of naturally directs you towards higher grade. So again, I'd like to have my own mill someday And we'll work on that because like Wayne, I think he said a very important thing is, having control over those things gives you a lot more flexibility. And if we've got 2 or 3 projects that we can feed into a mill that we control, I'd like that situation much better than what we have. And what we have is working and it's making money. So I'm unhappy with that, but is there a better outcome here?

36:40 Yeah, and that's what we're driving towards. Over to you, Wayne. Look, Our approach to project targeting in some sense is it has changed a lot in the last 2 years. I use a case study as our Murchison operations, which is in a region which is called Meekitharra in Western Australia. Meekitharra was a really early gold field in the late 1800s and had been mined off and on consistently for decades, hundreds of years. The perception about this gold field was everything had been found because it had been drilled. So, when we first stepped into the company, we basically mapped all the drilling that had been done across our tenure. And when you looked at it, We mapped it and we depicted it side by side. We mapped every drill hole that had been drilled. And if you looked at this picture, it was just covered with drilling. And then if you sorted the drilling by all the drilling that was under, that had been done deeper than say 10 or 20 metres, this picture just broke up.

37:50 And it was this lightbulb moment for me going, wow, you know, there's a perception that everything's been found in this region because there's been a lot of drilling. Well, yeah, there had been a lot of drilling, but the drilling largely had been close to surface or 10 to 30 metres deep. In terms of the company's skill set, underground mining, you know, an open pit, a deep open pit, maybe that's 100,150m deep. When we went back and looked at the ground that we owned, and all of a sudden screened the drilling of where could the elephants be, deeper than 150m, all of a sudden new opportunities appeared. And some of those opportunities appeared underneath some of the open pits that have been historically mined.

38:37 So, single-handedly with the drill bit, the company's been starting to change this perception of this one mature gold field from being, everything's been found to, wow, what else could be found? And nothing more complicated than drilling deeper than the previous mine operators have done. So this has then started to change the thinking in the company, whereby let's talk about larger processing plants and all of a sudden some of these small regional pits and I think in Mekitharra across our tenure, we have 96 historic open pits. We've not drilled under many of these things, and some of these pits may be 30m deep, some may be 50m, some may be 100m, but all of a sudden we're taking, with a new set of fresh set of eyes, we're taking a different look. So project generation for us is don't take anything for granted, look deeper.

39:33 A good place to start is where Gold has already been found and in these mature Gold fields, whether it's old shaft mines or small surface scratchings, taking a bit more science to those things, standing back and looking at the what-ifs has started to generate positive benefits for us. So, look, it's really, don't take anything for granted. And back to Rick's point, it's drill baby drill for this company. West Gold's budget this year, this financial year is AUD$50M in drilling. Last year we drilled 25 and I think for a company of this scale now, and it's quite weird, a mining company run by a metallurgist who loves drilling. I don't know, I'm no genius, but drilling is extending our ore bodies and giving us more data. It's making us a better company.

40:29 Amazing, that's Awesome. Last question from my list, and then we'll start talking about the live chat and some of the questions submitted via email. This one again is for both of you, and not to make you work again so quickly, but I'll throw it to Wayne, or maybe I'll throw it to Rick actually, if that's cool. This one is given the evolving landscape of gold production globally, what unique advantages do your respective jurisdictions offer that you believe will become increasingly important over the next decade? Yeah, I'll start on that. I'll, you know, I mentioned permitting earlier, and that's always been the challenge in the US specifically. The state of Alaska is very pro-development, very high standards.

41:18 We recognize we work in a pristine environment in Alaska, but we have very high standards for water quality, air quality, et cetera, protection of species like caribou, loose, and bear, and what have you. So we have no problem meeting those standards. And the industry in Alaska is used to working with local communities, whether they're a landowner or not, I mean, an official landowner, whether it's a tribal organization, which traditionally doesn't own a lot of land, the exception being at Monterey, where the tribe owns all the land. But the challenge has always been the US federal government in permitting in the United States.

42:09 And obviously with the Trump administration coming in and an alignment now, even with both parties, the Democrat and Republican parties in the US, are starting to understand this, and this is coming about because of the critical metal, the focus on critical metals. They're starting to understand that if you want to have control on the production and the deliverability of metals and metal products that go into all the EVs and the battery metals and wind and solar power generation, nuclear power generation. If you wanna have control of a supply chain, you have to address permitting. And so I think that's probably the biggest single thing that'll happen in the next couple of years, is I think we will get a permitting reform bill put in place at the federal level.

43:05 And as I said, I think from the state side, it's a very reasonable place to work with. And getting to a place where we can get a significant project permitted in 2 to 3 years, that will make a lot of difference. And it would certainly make a difference in my attitude in terms of, you know, would we build our own mill versus trying to figure out how to send it somewhere else. So that's what I see on the horizon. I think, and again, it's not just because there's a Trump administration office. I think it's the realization from both political parties that if you want to address the critical metals dilemma that we have in the United States, because we offshored all that stuff. We don't have processing facilities in the United States.

43:56 It takes 15 years to permit a new mining operation. You're not going to have security of supply chain with that kind of approach. So I do think that's going to change. And I think that's going to be very, very positive for the mining industry at large. Bianca, I might talk about the 2 positives I see on a different tack in terms of Western Australia and Australia. The 2 real positives we've got here for the industry, the Gold sector and the mining sector full stop, is people. We're not blessed with a large population in Australia, but we've got some really smart people here. West Gold is based in Perth. I think about Perth as the Silicon Valley of the mining sector. There are some really smart suppliers here, whether it's technical people, non-technical people, but the population base may be small, but we have got some really skilled people here and whether it's mine technology, processing technology, that expertise sits here. The other positive for the sector and the country really has been the equity markets. And this is where now West Gold is TSX listed and ASX listed.

45:08 I'm starting to understand how the journey of both of those 2 markets post-COVID. And, You know, our equity markets have been really supportive of the sector, whether it be producers or explorers during this whole period. And that support can often be commodity specific. And speaking to Rick's point, you know, the fervour around battery minerals was really strong in Australia. You know, Lithium explorers had their moment in the sunlight whereby they could raise as much money and rare earths were there. The gold guys are starting to get a little bit of love in the last 12 months. But, you know, our equity markets has been still quite supportive of the resource sector. And, you know, that's been a blessing, certainly during the hard times. But 2 positives, the people and the equity. If you've got the missing ingredient, you've got equity and got the right people, then all you need is good resources.

46:07 So that's about exploration and drilling. Amazing. Well, folks, let's open up the questions to the audience here. We have a few questions from email, from the live chat. I'm gonna jump to the one that's specifically on theme for today's panel, which is, you know, tier 1 jurisdictions producers. They're asking the question, you know, what do you mean when you say tier 1 jurisdiction for gold production? Which maybe was where we should have started in the first place. And I know both of you have kind of alluded to some of the qualities that make up the tier 1 jurisdictions you're both in, but just the phrase tier 1 jurisdiction for a gold producer, what does that mean to you folks? What are some of the qualities? I'll throw it over to Rick to kick things off. Yeah, I think it's rule of law. I think that's the number 1 and probably the most important aspect of a tier 1 jurisdiction. I think that combined with rule of law as it affects mining.

47:06 So having a great jurisdiction but that doesn't understand mining, you need both of those. And certainly Alaska qualifies for that. Obviously Western Australia, all of Australia probably qualifies. But I think those are the 2 main things you have to have. When it's familiarity with mining, it's the whole gamut. How do you permit a mine? Do the regulators really understand what it is you're doing? And so I think those are the 2, for me, those are the 2 main important factors of what we mean by a tier 1 mining jurisdiction. So those are the things that I focus on. And the rule of law, you know, like you talked about Mali and West Africa, you know, it had it for a while, but it's losing it big time.

48:00 What do you say Wayne? 100%, I think rule of law, a clear regulatory framework. I'd say coffee's important as a tier 1 morning brew. But that's more about me, Bianca. Infrastructure, which is something Rick's spoken to. I mean, a tier 1 destination for when I think about it is really rule of law, clear regulatory framework, you know, well, well resourced in terms of infrastructure and certainly a population base. I mean, those 4 things, to me, that would be a good place to start, maybe with coffee being really important too. I'll just follow up on what Wayne mentioned about infrastructure, because it's obviously a clear advantage.

48:47 And in Alaska, we always say, hey, we've got the ability to build infrastructure, but we need a permitting regime to be able to do it. And that, hopefully, again, this whole critical metals discussion gets people's mind focused on the fact that we can't have a green, non-carbon energy and transportation future without a lot of mining. And when you add AI to the mix, it means it's even it just, it just increased it another, you know, big swatch. So yeah, I, we'd love to have more infrastructure up here, we'd love to have, you know, let's build a few hydromet facilities up here. So we can actually produce actual metal, not just metal concentrates, things like that. So those are the discussions that we're starting to have with a broader group of both at the capital end of the spectrum, but also at the political end of the spectrum.

49:45 And the political end of the spectrum, that's where the mind shift has to take place because the capital will follow. Because you've got a tier, the rest of it is tier 1. You just don't, what we need in Alaska is more infrastructure. So in order to get more infrastructure, we need to be able to convince people that we can permit it. Fair enough, fair enough. All right folks, I can already tell we're running short on time and probably won't get through all the questions in the live chat. Everything that's left is a little bit less focused on our topic of today's panel and more company specific. So I think we have enough time for 1 a piece and then I'll throw it to each of you for final remarks. We'll start, I'll start with you, Wayne. I got 2 questions here. So I'm going to try to do my best to combine them.

50:31 The question really boils down to, you know, what do you think is the largest contributing factor for the current share price performance? And just anything you can, any context you can provide, I think would be helpful about how you sit on the stage with other Gold producers as well. Yeah. The biggest factor that's impacting share price at the moment, in a word, impatience. And look, I don't say that flippantly, but the reality is where we are on our corporate journey, 2 companies come together of the same size, West Gold, Karora, put these things together. On day 2, these things, it's not 1 plus 1 equals 3 on day 2. We're 6 months into the integration of these 2 businesses.

51:19 We've doubled the size of the business. And I understand this. This is fact. I can't change it. But the market is impatient for immediate results. I mean, it takes time. It's no different than trying to develop a project whereby you just don't press 2 buttons and the lights come on. It takes time. So we're grinding our way through the process of growing our production base. And even our last quarterly result was a record for West Gold as a brand. But you know, in some sense, we would have, we were disappointed, we would have liked a lot more. The shareholders would have liked a lot more. But what we're trying to do, set this business up for long term success. That takes a little bit of time. That's not an overnight thing. And that's probably the thing which is most impacting where we are on the journey. Peashoes, the market's impatient for immediate returns.

52:13 Look, immediate returns in some sense are really easy to do, but that's not sustainable. That is a lightning strike, which is not what we're about. We're trying to build a long-term sustainable business that can generate consistent returns every year to the shareholders. And what we've done, we've now got a much bigger machine which we're optimising to do so. It takes time. And I know time's not no one's friend, but that's one thing which we're conscious of where we're doing it as fast as we can. And if we get it right, well then the benefits come. Thanks Wayne. Well said. This one is for you, Rick. Are you making any progress on reversing the all in sustaining cost headwinds you recently faced? Yeah, it's a bit like Wayne's answer. It's these things aren't immediate.

53:01 And look, it's a plan and it's a plan from Ken Ross that reduced the level of production and increased the cost. And it's all about transportation. Those costs don't change. If you transport less ore, they don't go down. Those costs are what a truck's going to hold. The short answer is we're working with our bankers to fit the hedge delivery schedule and the debt schedule to the new mine plan. And I'm not concerned about it. It's just a process you have to work through. And we also had the holidays, so not much happens for almost a month there. So we'll get that squared away. And then meanwhile, the federal government now has approved the funds for the Chena floodplain bridge upgrade. So that at the federal level, that's happened.

54:03 So, but it'll be a process for the state then to go back through and reassess the bridge weights to see, okay, now that we have, now we know we can get the bridges fixed in, whatever it is, 2 or 3 years, does that, do we redo the algorithm that generates, you know, what the bridge weight should be? So I know all that work is going on and we're also working on How do we reduce moisture content of the ore? And then how do we reduce the amount of snow and ice in the wintertime and the mud in the summertime? So yeah, all those things are going on. But Wayne's answer was kind of a perfect answer for me to say, yes, they're not immediate. It does take time.

54:52 Bottom line, we're going to produce the same amount of Gold. In fact, we're going to produce more Gold because I mentioned we've lowered the cut-off grade by a gram. Most Gold deposits are a gram of Gold. We lowered our cut-off grade by a gram. We've got more ounces. It will be over a longer period of time. Yes, lots of work going on to address, to get, see the net transport of ore to the mill backup. But, you know, give us some time and we'll continue to report on that as we get more information coming in. We'll have our first GoldPoor for 2025 here in February, but basically it's the month of February. So, yeah, we'll be reporting on that as that happens.

55:47 Amazing. All right, folks, I'll say right now, to those folks who submitted questions that we didn't get a chance to get to, very sorry, but we will submit that to the respective teams, like I mentioned at the beginning, and they will get back to you. Big thank you to everyone who joined us today and a huge thank you to Wayne and Rick. Thank you so much for answering all of my questions, all the audience questions and for sharing all of your powerful insights. I want to close off today with your final remarks. Why don't we get started with Wayne? Thanks Bianca and thanks Rick. Thanks for everyone who patched in today. Probably a parting shot would be really a story. I met the Premier of Western Australia recently and I introduced myself and he said, oh, gold's back.

56:37 And I went, no mate, it's never been. It's always been here. So I think that as an investment philosophy, I think Everyone needs some gold, whether it's physical and it's people I reckon I who produce it. So if you want to buy physical gold, you better back the people who are looking for it or producing it. Anyway, I'll leave that wisdom with the audience today, Bianca. Now, thanks Bianca and 6 for hosting this. Wayne, great to meet you. Heard a lot about your company, but it's good to meet you in person here. Yeah, we've obviously took a big hit at the end of last year. We're going to dig ourselves back and keep executing on our plan. And we think it's the right fit plan for our size company and for the assets we have as we advance Johnson track and lucky shot with the cashflow that we're gonna be generating here. So look forward to updating people and it's a new year. So let's get on with it.

57:40 Amazing. Again, thank you both and thank you to everyone who attended. Have a lovely rest of your day.